Lots of Storage

“Everyone focuses on Heroic basis and Villainous lairs, but the truth is its Tailors that have the hardest time setting up their facilities. And yeah, that’s what we call our versions of the same basic concept. However, where a Hero is focused on being in the best position to serve their community, and Villains are all about the vibe, it’s different for us.

“I’m talking about storage. Closets, garages, and the freaking cabinets. You wouldn’t believe the amount of space my Yarn takes. That said, could you imagine how hard ammunition storage is?”

Cassidy Maynard, Idiots Guide to Being a Tailor

“The term is Architect, rather they’re building bespoke or just locating sites. Kind of like how not all Tailor do the sewing.” Carl said. "And not many are, actually, not until they do it for a while. Cassidy must do the occasional work with someone looking for a place, a base or what she calls a Boutique, which I think is her way of saying the bases is pretty much for show more than anything else.

“Even though she's a more public persona, it’s still a pain in her ass to track things down. She has trouble getting realtors to show her business or home locations to clients. She got her real estate license in spite of having zero interest in the job. She'll be thrilled to make a relationship with someone qualified, and interested, in that sort of crap."

Lisa sighed. “Okay, fine, next time you have a class for not dying in a lair, call me. I am going to need it. I am seeing where this is going.” She stroked Davy's back, sighing as she felt the weight of her soon to be inevitable reputation as the seller of villain homes.

“To be fair, this trip is probably better than the classes. It’s hard to build the more visceral elements into a simulation. That, and you know you’re safe in training. You know more about how you’ll react after something real.” Emilia admitted.

“She’s not wrong.” Ryan chuckled, shaking his head. "The trick may also be, to also get into bases, get the good guy market too. We have a couple we've been researching. That'd at least get you visible on both sides of the cape divide, real estate wise."

“Yeah, that just sounds weird." Carl said.

"I'm going to kill Hannah. I already was annoyed with how many of her high maintenance clients she sticks me with.” Lisa muttered. “Yeah, let’s set that up. Super relator is a real niche market, I only know a couple by reputation, and they are in the big cities, New York, LA and Chicago. They do make a mint, though.”

"We travel all over the country. It's why we have the Bus. That opens lots of possibilities, because if we can drive there, we can shoot there with less overhead. Travel would be a gatekeeper for anything that isn’t high end I would imagine." Emilia said.

"And we're all talking about this instead of going into the jungle.” Lisa said. “So, here's the question, do we want to rest for a bit first, then start that trek? Or are we going right back out again?"

"It probably would be wise to be fresh, but my concern is we have half a loaf of bread and a jar of Nutella for food. None of us are in danger of starving but hunger is going to set in and that can be distracting." Emilia said. She was more concerned about Lisa and Carl on that front, but the trek through the jungle was going to be intense even if they didn't get jumped by anything.

"Yeah, true." Ryan sighed. "Okay, let's head to the jungle. I mean, it's big but not that big. We can handle this."

"Are you trying to convince us or yourself?" Lisa asked wryly.

"Why not both?"

Emilia chuckled. “The other option is you and I do some couple bonding and try and get one or two of those Rhea for Lisa to cook up for us.” She looked at the sleeping splicer beast on Lisa's lap. "That might be a good idea for a couple of reasons, since I am not sure I trust forty-year-old dog food not to make Davy sick, and whatever he is, he's a baby, so he's going to want to eat."

"That's true." He frowned, thinking. "Okay, yeah. Let's do that. Carl, you hang out with Lisa, just in case there's something that needs a shotgun to the face. We'll go hunt down a bird or two. If nothing else, our background means we know how to deal with livestock. God, I hated the compound in Wyoming."

"Yeah, I now take even greater pleasure in eating cows." Emilia said with a grin. "Nice thing is we can go into the habitat from the bedroom observatory. we don’t have to go all the way across the compound."

"Sounds good. Carl and I will make our way back to the living room. Please clean and pluck the bird before you bring it. I am a city girl, and while I am sure I can cook the bird I’m used to getting my meat from a supermarket."

"What do you mean? This is way better than the supermarket. Less annoying Muzak from the speakers, and you know the meat is fresh." Ryan joked, opening the patio space door for Emilia. "We'll be back soon."

The redhead smiled, down the small stairs into the hot humid forest before Ryan. "There might be other edible things here too. Fruit or something. Worth keeping an eye out for."

"Yeah, though I'm not sure what we'd be looking for. Would he include toxic plants?"

“Probably, they are needed for some species.” Emilia pondered. “But there might be something we recognize and will know is edible.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Here's to hoping. Remind me to add a backpack rifle to my kit.” Ryan frowned, thinking. “In retrospect hunting is something we might want to be able to do in the future."

"This is the first Lair we've been in with its own ecosystem. Villains seem to like urban living. Oh, don't forget to turn your helmet cam on or Carl will kill us."

"It’s on, don't worry. I even changed the battery. Don’t tell him, but I’m down to one." He chuckled. "And some of the bigger lairs are on big plots of land, but you know that. Wyoming, after all."

“Oh god, the Wyoming compound. Don’t remind me, your dad went on a massive running kick, and thought all the ‘special class kids’ should be able to run marathons!”

“I forgot about that.” Ryan admitted. “I was only with you guys for the afternoons, you did the runs in the mornings if I remember right.”

Emilia decided to change the topic. "I hope we can find a few of those birds. It's terrible but was wondering what they'd taste like.” They walked quietly, scanning the brush for birds.

"I mean, they're just eating whatever, so I imagine like free range chicken." Ryan guessed. “I mean, free range means their just eating bugs and whatever is laying around, right?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea.” Emilia paused, her eyes looking up into a tree. “Well, I recognize that.”

She pointed to what looked like a weird hybrid of a tree and cactus, with what looked like succulent branches arching downwards, covered in hot pink fruit. "Dragon fruit. not a lot of flavor, but it is safe to eat."

"Well, let's grab some then." He said, walking towards the tree, scanning the brush and surrounding branches for anything that might be a threat. "I admit, this is a scenario I never saw coming. At least it's not like, completely Bioshock down here or anything." He pulled a lock blade out of his pocket, and began cutting the fruit loose, another couple nearby following the first. "This will help with keeping us hydrated, too.'

“Yeah. I bet Lisa will recognize more edible fruit too, since she cooks more. She also strikes me as being the weirdly prepared sort." she stopped at a rustle in the bush. She nodded as one of the big birds stepped out to peck at a low hanging fruit. It had never seen a human, so it had no fear of them.

"Almost feel bad about this." Ryan commented, as he brought up one of his pistols, aiming carefully, not wanting to make the animal suffer. One shot, to the head, and the animal went down instantly, not enough time for it to suffer. "I'll grab it, let's dress it in the foyer, so we don't draw other critters."

“Makes sense. Man, these are heavier than I thought.” She lifted the bird jostling it a bit. “I'd say...Maybe fifty or sixty pounds. Probably half of that edible meat? Dang. We may only need one of these. My, guess is this is about twenty-five pounds of meat.” She paused, shaking her head. “I keep forgetting the little guy, I have no idea how much or how often he needs to eat so we should get a second bird, one is plenty for all of us and one for Davy, what do you think?"

"Sounds about right to me. Let's dress it, take it in, then come back out. I'd rather that than get jumped by something that steals our kill and there’s no reason to risk running out of food if we take longer getting out than I hope."

“Sounds good.” They pulled the big bird up the stairs to the observatory and began dressing the bird, using half remembered skills from their past. Juicy snorted, then sneezed as a feather got in her nose.

They quickly skinned and broke down the bird, deciding to just abandon the skin instead of trying to pluck it all. Then they cut off the easiest to remove portions of meat, and the giant drumsticks wrapping them in an emergency blanket for lack of a better idea.

After quickly running the first bird to the pair in the kitchen, they returned to hunting and chatting. "So, if we can't get to the car, or the car won't work, we're going to have to come up with a new plan. Currently the best plan I've got is going out the moon pool, assuming the Dragon isn't still there when we go back."

"Well, we do have Davy to keep us safe, even though I was certain the dragon was going to eat him." Emilia said wryly. "It occurs to me, is it possible Davy is the Dragon’s hatchling? I mean it left way easier than I thought it would."

"I mean, maybe, but Davy's personality doesn't make me think 'stomp on a city'. Maybe they’re siblings on some strange level." Ryan suggested. “Or they’re both results from the same project but came out really different. Lord knows Carl and Cassie produce weird secondary projects when they work on something big and they’re not even playing with the vagaries of a living thing.”

"Makes sense, possible they're related, or from related projects. Mister Lizard had unusual amounts of control over the big one according to accounts I read on the way here."

“I just hope the garage works. If it doesn’t, we might be able to climb up and force the door open from beneath. We won’t know till we get there.” she sighed “I would just rather not have the Dragon think we are kidnapping her baby."

"Valid point." He agreed. "I just hope the little guy doesn't get that big. I mean, how big of a yard would you need for a Kaiju puppy?"

"I think some kid in Texas had that issue a few years ago. Something about their father genetically crossing a dog with something and her ending up with a horse sized golden retriever."

Juicy's tongue flicked out and she jumped off Ryan's shoulder f and began running the pair followed as she headed up a tree with an excited croak. Tearing into a brownish purple fruit to eat the white creamy inside. Remembering her manners she paused then tore another one free, letting it fall by the couple.

Ryan caught the falling fruit looking it over. "Well Juicy can eat it. Any idea what it is?" Ryan asked, looking it over, even giving the fruit a sniff. "Seems he may have stocked this place with food in mind, as well as self-supporting, that is assuming this isn’t something geckos can eat but will kill a man."

"I thought he might have, when you think about it , it makes sense. If I was building a biodome this big, in this hidden location, I’d load it with yummy stuff. I could go of the grid at any time and wait out the heat for my latest ‘evil act.’” Emilia said. “Go ahead, try it and see, with your adaptability, if it's not killing Juicy it won’t kill you before you adapt to it. It looks like she's just eating the inside of it. She used her knife to open it, looking at the white almost orange section looking fruit. "I don't know what this is...but it looks familiar."

"My adaptability is not a reason to say, 'eat it, tell me if its gross.'" Ryan did, however, nibble the fruit, considering its flavor. "Not sure what the flavor reminds me of, but it's a bit tangy. I think it’s good, and its likely safe to eat."

Emilia laughed as she took a bite. “Oh, this is good. And Juicy definitely approves.” The lizard was working on devouring a second one, in spite of being obviously over full from the first. Emilia put a lot of the fruit in her pack. I wish we knew what would bait the birds in."

"No idea." Ryan shrugged, as he separated Juicy from potential fruit-based suicide. "I'm not sure what they eat, though they were hanging around the stuff we ground and dumped earlier. There's also the egg area, there were plenty hanging around there."

“Yeah, but that means crossing one of the largest sections of forest. and I'd rather not get lost, with no sun if we get away from the tubes it could be easy to get turned around in, he… Ah!”.

Emilia screamed as the ground vanished from under her foot, a trap door dropping her towards oblivion.