En-Suite

“With lairs, there’s three selling points. Bathrooms, kitchens, and weapon port options.”

Phantastique, Secrets of the Super Tailors.

Carl opened another door. “Okay we cannot let Cassidy down here. She will never leave. The bathroom was huge bigger than the bedroom, a white marble pool sat with warm crystal-clear water, it was surrounded by white Grecian pillars and the glass ceiling looked up into the lake. A small white and gold clawed foot tub sat on a Dias. A glassed in rain shower led to a hot rock sauna, and a hot tub and cool pool curled like a yin Yang. “It’s bathtopia in here!”

"This is fantastic. This guy had taste, considering his era, at least." Lisa said, taking a picture with her phone. She was curious, and turned the water tap, and got both hot and cold water. "And somewhere a water heater is still working. The equipment in here is shockingly robust."

"Not that shocking. You could always get something over engineered, just most people wouldn't waste the resources. For something like this, you invest. I'm shocked it hasn't leaked, though. How is this place not flooded?”

“I am willing to bet there's at least one, if not two more layers of sandwiching the outer dome we can see from here.” Carl said. “Probably sharing a lot of the same supports, so if one flooded the others could still be holding."

“God, I’m going to have to find a plumber to go through all of this, though. Though this room…It is a bath utopia. I don’t think there is anything I need to change here. We know what Mister Lizard did to relax; this is almost as big as the living room dome!

“Well, even villains like a therapeutic hot bath.”

Emilia nodded. “We still have two doors to look at.”

"Yeah, let's see what they lead to." Ryan said.

The first door, as it turned out, was a kind of enclosed patio, not access to the jungle like they thought, at least not directly. It was square, with the same ceramic tile as the first dome and a comfortable swinging bench, with windows showing the jungle around them. There was also a door that could open and allow one to descend stairs into the biosphere itself.

"Found the entrance to Villain-Narnia." Carl commented.

“Wow. It is a heck of a view.” Lisa gasped as it began to rain. Water fell gently on the forest, mist rising from the soils, making it look even more magical “wow…” she repeated

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"Okay, that's a good reason to not destroy this place. That's honestly just beautiful." Emilia admitted, just as awed. “Though what are the zoning laws on this?”

“No idea.” Lisa admitted.

They watched small birds settling into the trees, and saw animals run by, though none were very large. The tube to the backup elevator ran past the small enclosure, into the far hull of the dome. “I think that’s the small island you mentioned.

“Looks like he set this between the island and the mainland. Explains why no one stumbled across the domes. He’d functionally own the water rights between the two.”

Carl considered how small the animals were, and how big the space was. "I think he planned for this thing to work long term as a kind of active micro-ecosystem. With the rain, and I know I see a stream over there. I'll bet there’s small ponds too. If he selected the tree and plant species carefully, none of them would necessarily get that big, especially since the lights aren't as powerful as true outdoor sunlight."

“It’s incredible that it’s lasted almost fifty years with no one taking care of it.” Lisa shook her head. “This is beyond over engineered.” A tiny monkey took shelter by the patio. And a small herd of tiny lizards attached to the glass licking the raindrops. A few minutes later the rain stopped.

“I think we know why he and Miss Manors had beef.” Emilia said wryly.

“We do?”

“Manors was a kind of Dark Side tailor. She collaborated with villains almost exclusively, partially because it was suspected she pulled the occasional heist herself. She was known to also be one hell of an Architect, as well as a Tailor. I’d bet you she took part in building this place. Afterwards there must have been a falling out.”

“Super-tech would explain a lot.” Ryan admitted.

Emilia nodded. “Based on my research, his rivalry with Miss Manors now makes more sense. She was totally thirsty for him in a really unhealthy way, but I never figured out how they originally met.”

"Well, the view is calming. Not a lot of villains worry about their emotional health this much. Maybe more should? My research suggested that other than Empire Statesman, this guy wasn't a hard-core loon. More an early eco-terrorist, and he never crossed into Red Cape territory.”

“I wonder what spawned his rivalry with Empire Statesman. I mean, Senator Wright is pretty liberal even now, politically speaking. Big on environmental concerns, especially. Back in the seventies he wasn’t even in politics, so I don’t feel like he and Mister Lizard would have bumped into each other all that much.”

“That one I have hints on.” Emilia replied. "Something to do with Statesman working with the DEA. It’s not totally clear why that was an issue, especially since Mister Lizard also had some sort of running grudge with Pablo Escobar."

“Which is also weird.” Ryan pointed out.

"Yeah, rumor has it Escobar was gunning for him in Seventy-Eight when he died, thus people saying he had Lizard killed, though the death was also allegedly due to him losing control of his monster during a rampage." She smirked. “A DEA agent was killed in that attack.”

“Why are you smirking about that?” Lisa asked, a bit shocked.

“According to Empire Statesman, the agent’s death was, amid everything that happened, a ‘crying shame.’

“Oh! Ouch!” Carl said, Ryan wincing.

“Huh?”