Chapter Fifty-Six - Unflippable, Unflappable

“It’s a stupid idea, Boss,” Teddy said.

Emily stared across the desk at her first little sister. The bear girl was sitting, but was leaning forwards with her arms crossed and her face set in a big pout.

“There’s some risk,” Emily admitted. “But I don’t think it’s dangerous enough to call it stupid.”

“That’s because that stupid hero caught you with her stupid evil ways,” Teddy said. “Did she try to entice you with capitalism while I wasn’t paying attention? Maybe she offered insurance, or private healthcare?”

“No,” Emily said. “She only offered to work with us for a day. Not much more than a patrol really. I don’t think it’s a terrible idea.”

Emily, her sisters, Sam and Alea Iacta were all gathered in the planning room segment of the train. Emily was in her place at the head of the table while the other seats were occupied by her sisters and minions.

She realized that maybe the whole villain thing was getting ahead of her and she had no idea how to stop it. Working with Glamazon wasn’t going to help with that, but it might help provide some form of basic cover. And an alibi of sorts, if only a relatively weak one.

“Did you give Sparkles a hard yes?” Sam asked. She had been a little ways back when that part of the conversation had gone down. Not so far that she didn’t hear the sister’s nickname for Glamazon.

“I didn’t,” Emily said. “But we did trade numbers.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “Alright. That’s a bold move.”

“Yeah, I never get digits and I’m unnaturally lucky,” Alea Iacta said.

“It’s not like that,” Emily said.

Sam grinned at her. “Oh, don’t worry, I know you’re not like that.”

Emily had no idea what that was supposed to mean and she was certain she didn’t want to find out. “Anyway,” she pressed on. “I gave Glamazon the number for this phone.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a flip phone, one that had clearly seen better days a decade ago.

“That’s not your normal phone,” Sam noted.

“Um.”

Everyone paused and looked to Maple, who sank into her seat at the sudden attention. “It’s alright,” Emily said. “Did you have a question?”

Maple nodded, then took a moment to muster up her bravery. “Is that a special villain phone?”

Emily smiled. “No. It’s a cheap old thing with a prepaid card in it. Just something to use if I don’t want my real number to be out there.”

“I hear the HRT give out special phones to heroes that ask for them. Even if you’re not a member of the organisation. You know, for emergencies,” Sam said. “They claim that they’re untrackable. You know, so that heroess can keep their IDs separate.”

“I’m certain that they wouldn’t extend that courtesy to a villain though. This is easier,” Emily said while wiggling the phone around.

“I could make the phone better, if you want,” Maple said.

“Oh?”

Maple nodded slowly, but she seemed a little more confident. “I could turn it into a taser, or a mini-flame thrower. Or I could make it really, really loud. Oh! I can make it unflippable.”

“Unflippable?” Sam asked.

Maple nodded. “You wouldn’t be able to flip it any more.”

Emily blinked at the phone, then slid it back into her pocket. “I’ll keep those options in mind,” she said. She made a mental note to find some things for Maple to use her powers on. She didn’t want her newest little sister to feel unwanted, and it seemed important to Maple that she could make things to help them.

“I got some stuff for Maple,” Trinity said just as Emily was thinking on it. The girl tipped her bag up onto the table and a bunch of junk spilled out of it. There were a few empty cans, a hair-straightener, some candy wrappers, some actual candy--though less than Trinity had earlier, Emily noted--a few pebbles, some cut tie-wraps and some ear-buds with a heavily frayed wire.

It was all trash, and Emily wasn’t sure she wanted it on her table. That is, until Maple let out a heartfelt gasp that had Emily’s heart squeezing tight. “For me?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Trinity said. She was obviously quite proud of her hard work. “Make me a gun so that I can rob people with it.”

“No,” Emily jumped in.

Maple shook her head. “Big sister said no weapons. But, um, I’m sure I can make other stuff with all of this.” She carefully pawed through the junk, as if looking for something she could do with it.

Emily rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “Okay. Maple, we’re going to go to a pawn shop. I’m sure we can pick up a few things you can use there. We don’t need anything specific right now, so... we’ll just get you some things for you to play with, alright?”

Maple turned to her, wide-eyed. “Oh, really? Yes, okay, thank you.” It looked like she couldn’t decide between being excited and being quiet, so everything came out as a suppressed squeak.

“Sam, how are our financials?” Emily asked. Half the goal of the meeting was to make sure everything was in order.

“Not bad,” Sam said. “Actually, pretty good. Here.” Sam reached into her purse and pulled out a crumpled envelope which she tossed onto the table. It was stuffed full of cash.

“H-how much is that?” Emily asked.

“Oh, less than it looks. That’s mostly fives and tens. At least a grand?”

Alea Iacta hummed as he nodded. “I mean, for one day’s work, that’s not bad.”

“And we were promised monthly payments too,” Sam said. She started rooting around in her purse again and came out with a piece of paper she unfolded. “More for all the advertising stuff. I’ve drawn up a schedule. Can you confirm the free days the brats have? I don’t want to promise they’ll show up on a day they can’t.”

Emily took the paper and discovered a very orderly calendar, with each day split into thirds for morning, afternoon, and evening shifts. A few spots were pencilled in already, mostly for the bakery they’d visited. “Well, the kids have school,” Emily started.

“None of us mind missing school for doing villain stuff,” Teddy said.

“I don’t wanna miss math, but the rest is boring,” Trinity said.

Emily shook her head. She wasn’t going to allow the kids to let their education fall behind too much. She might exploit them for work, but she wasn’t entirely evil. “No, we’ll keep the time you spend in school marked. It’s important. Um. We also need to make sure you have regular breaks.”

“Yeah, don’t want this to be one of those capitalist things where you end up spending every waking moment working,” Teddy said. She made a disgusted face. “Overtime. Ew.”

“Don’t worry,” Emily said. “No overtime, not unless there’s a serious emergency.” Mostly that was because she could barely handle her sisters as it was. Overtime would lead to her early demise. “How about we rotate days off? You don’t have school on Saturday and Sunday, so we can switch between those as break days.”

“Might want more than just one a week,” Sam said. “Kids need play time and such.”

“We really do,” Teddy agreed.

“Yeah, lots of that.” Trinity bounced in her seat.

Athena made an affirmative sound. “I agree.”

Emily refrained from rolling her eyes. “Fine, let’s mark out... Tuesday and Thursday, maybe, as days where there’s only school and nothing else. I need time to catch up on my homework too, so it makes sense.”

“Gotta keep those grades up, huh?” Sam asked.

“I don’t want to fail out of my classes,” Emily replied. “Alright, other than that... Alea, how’s Fabien doing?”

“Huh? Oh, he’s alright. Mostly laying low, I think. We’ve been playing a lot of... anyway, nevermind that. Did you have a job for him or anything?”

“No, but when Glamazon and I go out on that joint patrol, I think he might want to stay home that day,” Emily said.

“Yeah. We need him to act as a sort of decoy. Attack a business the kids are protecting to make a big show of how much our protection racket is worth,” Sam said.

Emily shifted in her seat. Sometimes it just hit her how much she’d spiralled into villainy without really thinking about it. Then again, no one would be hurt by that kind of thing. It was all a show. She wondered if the Cabal thought the same way.

“So, the only other worry we have is the Cabal. If they’re actually a worry at all.” Emily hadn’t had any run-ins with any of them in a while. Maybe their interests wouldn’t interfere with each other and they could happily co-exist?

She doubted it.

***