Chapter Twenty-Six - Doing Something

Emily had two days. Two blissful, quiet days, where nothing exploded, no one ran away to get ice cream or cause villainy, and in general, life was more or less normal and quiet.

“Big siiiiiiis,” Athena said, stretching the last syllable out into incoherency. “We’re bored.”

“Yes, I noticed,” Emily said. “I especially noticed the last dozen times you told me.”

“So, you gonna do something about it, Boss?” Teddy asked. She was currently upside-down on Emily’s bed, head tilted off the side so that she could see the screen of Emily’s laptop. The laptop was sitting on an empty pizza box, and the low murmur of the narrator of a nature documentary was coming from the computer’s speakers.

The other sisters were on the bed too. Athena with her back to the wall, and Trinity both on the floor and on the foot and head of the bed. Somehow, one of her bodies was sleeping while the other two were awake. Awake and groggy.

“I’m sorry you find this all boring,” Emily said. “But I happen to really enjoy a bit of peace and quiet. Besides, you had fun at Miss Headerson’s place, right? With Steffie?”

“Yeah, but that was ages ago,” Athena whined.

It had been less than an hour since they returned.

“There’s no boring school stuff tomorrow,” Teddy said. “It’s the weekend, and you know what those are good for. Villainy!”

Trinity perked up. “We’re doing villain stuff?”

“No,” Emily said, "we’re not. We’re staying at home and being nice and peaceful and quiet.”

Her phone chose that moment to start ringing, and Emily cursed her ill luck. It was an unknown number, but she had a feeling that if she didn’t answer, she would just receive another call.

“Hello?” she asked as she pressed the call answer button.

There was a slight whimper on the other end. “Hey there, Boss,” Alea Iacta said.

Emily sat up. “What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t say that anything was wrong. I barely said anything, actually,” he said.

“You wouldn’t be calling if everything was fine,” Emily said. She was actually impressed with herself. There was an unforeseen amount of bite in her tone.

She heard Alea Iacta swallowing on the other end. “Well, you see, I think I’ve been had.”

“Pardon?” Emily asked.

“The safehouse you sent me to? Yeah, that’s really cool and all, but, uh, it’s not so safe no more. Look, I ordered delivery, and I got to talking to the delivery girl. She was kinda cute, you know? A-anyway, she mentioned that she’d been delivering to the neighbourhood a lot. Even to this one van a couple of times. Thought it was weird.”

Emily pinched the bridge of her nose. That had to be his luck powers kicking in to warn him. Or just plain actual luck. Or maybe it was paranoia and he had misunderstood and everything was actually okay.

She had the feeling that the last option was just her wishful thinking working overtime.

“Do you think you’re safe for now? And how are you calling me?”

“I got lucky, and this guy dropped his phone, unlocked, right in front of me. Just happened to pick it up, you know? I’m at a coffee place with just about everything I care to keep in a backpack. Thought it was wise not to stick around. Uh, you wouldn’t happen to have a second safehouse? A saferhouse?”

“No, I don’t,” Emily snapped.

She calmed herself down with a couple of deep breaths. “Okay, hang tight, and give me the address of your place.”

Alea Iacta muttered an address and some rough directions, and Emily nodded along as she took note of them.

Once she hung up, she leaned back and considered all the terrible things she’d done to deserve such an eventful life.

Then, once she’d moped for long enough, she stood and gestured to her sisters. “Get your costumes and your bags, we might be heading out.”

There was a rush as her sisters ran around the room and packed up. They took their costumes out from their hiding place (under the bed) then shoved them into the tiny backpacks that Miss Headerson had given them for their school things.

A few girls walking around with schoolbags wasn’t that suspicious at this time of day, Emily figured as she searched through her contacts and found Sam’s number.

The girl answered on the second ring. “Heya?”

“Hey Sam,” Emily said. “Is this a, ah, bad time?”

“It’s a good time if you have a distraction for me. What’s up?”

“I have a little situation.”

Sam laughed. “I’ll be at your door in two whole minutes. Let me put some runners on.”

Sam was as good as her word, knocking on Emily’s door within two minutes and slipping in when Athena opened the door for her.

“Hi,” Emily said. “So, you know Alea Iacta?”

“The other minion?” Sam asked.

Emily reluctantly nodded. “Yes, him.”

“He hasn’t actually done much to earn the title,” Teddy said. She patted Sam on the side. “You’re the best minion, at least according to me.”

Sam grinned. “Why thank you. Think I could manage to reach henchwoman status one of these days?”

Teddy gave her a thumb’s up. “Keep working hard. The proletariat always promotes good labour.”

“Alea Iacta needs our help,” Emily said, ignoring the bantering for the moment. “He’s at a cafe downtown. He thinks that his safehouse has been discovered, maybe.”

“That’s rough,” Sam said. “What’re we going to do about it?”

“I... think we might be able to pick him up, and then... I don’t know, we need another place for him.”

Sam smiled, and it was a dangerous smile. “I think I know one.”

“Tell me, please,” Emily said. “I’d rather not wait and have you spring something on me.”

“That’s not my style,” Sam said. “Sewer access room, near the edge of the campus. You know, next to that bus stop, the blue building.”

“You want him to stay in the sewers?” Emily asked.

“Sounds nice,” Trinity said.

Sam shook her head. “Nope. See, I’ve been busy, and that access way also accesses one of the only metro lines to actually be completed. Now they mostly use it to pass wires and stuff, but it’s there.”

“You can get to the metro base from there?” Emily asked.

“And all sorts of places, yeah. But, here’s the big idea. You can get the base to be here,” Sam said.

“What?” Emily asked. “I don’t understand.”

Sam gestured towards the centre of the city. “The base is over that way, yeah? But it’s a mobile base. Get it moving, and it can be over here. Bam, easy access to your minion, and to your base at the same time. He can clean up and stuff while he stays there.”

Emily milled over the idea for a bit. It wasn’t the worst idea she had ever heard. It was pretty high up on the list though. “Too risky,” she said.

“Ah, come on, the base is ready, by the looks of it,” Sam said. “Besides, he’s a luck manipulator, right?”

“Yes, he is. He needs to charge it though. Or steal it, rather. I’m not sure if he’s full-up on luck right now.”

“Then maybe he'll help us get lucky. With the base, I mean. All it needs is a bit of attention.”

Emily blinked. “Maybe. I mean, it’s possible he can help... fine, we’ll see. It’s not like we’re risking much. The base isn’t useful to us, really. He might have a few ideas of his own, and this entire thing might be a trap to get us out in the open.”

“Oh, I’m good for those,” Trinity said.

“We’ll see,” Emily said, which of course got Trinity excited and she started bragging about how she was the best at being expendable. That somehow got the other two bragging about how they, too, were entirely expendable.

Emily was quite certain none of them knew what the word actually meant.

“Alright, come along, brats and Boss, we’ve got a... is he a villain?”

Emily shook her head. “No, not really. He’s on that end of the spectrum, but he’s more of a mischief-maker that got in over his head than anything else. He’s not a bad guy, just, he’s a bit flakey?”

“Oh, one of those sorts,” Sam said. “Well, I’ll be able to judge him poorly to his face soon enough. Shall we?”

Emily and her troupe of sisters filed out of the room, costumes tucked away, and moods suddenly much higher than they had been a few minutes ago. Emily made sure to reiterate, multiple times, that they weren’t going out to do villain stuff, but were going to help a friend who needed help, and who she happened to have scared into subservience, by accident.

***