Chapter Twenty-One - Busy City

“Hey mom,” Emily said. She couldn’t help but sound a little sheepish as she replied. Being underground had probably cut off any phone signal she had. She had heard that in some stations and underground places there were these signal repeater things that would allow a phone to work despite the location, but she imagined that those had never been installed in the Eauclair metro system.

“Emily,” her mom said with obvious relief. “Are you okay?”

Emily glanced around. They were heading back to Sam’s car, her sisters trailing out ahead except for one Trinity who was gripping onto Emily’s free hand. “We’re fine,” she said. “We were about to head back home. A... well, a lot has happened, I guess.”

“Okay, good, good. Did you eat yet?”

She couldn’t help the smile. “No, not yet.”

“Then I'll pick something up and meet you at your dorm, okay?”

“That would be nice, mom,” Emily said. “I’ll talk to you in-person, then?”

It took a bit of back and forth to convince her mom to hang up, and a few embarrassing moments where Emily had to tell her mom that she loved her--with Sam giggling in the background to make everything worse--but eventually she hung up and was able to slip her phone away.

“Looks like we’ll be eating back in the dorm,” Emily said. “You’re, um, welcome to come too, Sam.”

Sam grinned. “Making sure to feed your minions, huh? Just remember that gas isn’t free too, because I can’t afford to drive you all over the place all the time.”

“Right,” Emily said. “I’ll be sure to pay you back as soon as I can.”

Sam bumped her shoulder against Emily, and she almost tripped over nothing from the contact. “Hey, don’t worry about it, Boss.”

Everyone piled into the car, and Emily had to tell Trinity that no, she couldn’t have one of her bodies sit on Emily’s lap in front, no matter how small she was. Once everyone was about as safe as they could be, they took off back towards the school and home.

“So, what’s the next step in your masterplan?” Sam asked. “Anything I can help with?”

“I don’t know,” Emily said. “I think... I think I’m going to call Alea Iacta. See how he’s doing. Then maybe we can continue to investigate Cement’s organization? I don’t like the risk we’re taking with that, but it feels like the only way we can earn any money quickly. I’ll see. I need some time to think.”

“Alright,” Sam said. “Might want to hit while the iron’s hot though.”

“What’s the iron in this analogy?” Emily asked. It was a little strange how quickly she got used to talking to Sam. Maybe being in a position of relative power was making it easier to just... talk to someone. It was something to think about later.

Sam hummed. “I think in this case the iron is your reputation and power. You’re... no, we’re, probably the coolest new heroes in the city.”

“Oh, eww,” Athena said. “I know we’re doing it ‘cause the Boss said so, but that’s still nasty.”

“Yeah,” Teddy said. “Don’t say that kind of thing about us out loud, it’s rude. We’re villains pretending to be heroes. We’re just real good at it.”

Sam rolled her eyes. Fortunately, they were at a red light, so it wasn’t a big distraction from the road. “You know what I meant. The media’s gonna love you. The brats back there are like... a PR goldmine.”

Emily half-turned to see her sisters. She guessed they were kind of cute... maybe? Teddy and Athena were roughhousing, Trinity was picking two of her noses and licking the inside of a chocolate wrapper she’d found... somewhere. She reached back and snapped that out of Trinity’s hands and shoved the wrapper into one of the cup holders in the front. “I guess they’re a little cute.”

“Come on, they’re like, perfect for marketing,” Sam said. “Just saying, there’s a lot of money to be made in exploiting children.”

Emily blinked. “That doesn’t sound very, uh, good?”

“Yeah, I’m not liking this whole idea,” Teddy said. “It’s sounding awfully capitalistic of you, minion.”

Sam raised her hands in surrender. “Alright, alright,” she said. The conversation turned to other things, mostly school stuff. It reminded Emily that she needed to find a way to get her sisters an education. The comment about child exploitation was hitting a little close to home.

They slid into the parking garage, found a spot on one of the lower floors, then they all exited, the sisters stumbling over each other to get out of the car first. They streamed back up and out of the parking garage, then over to the dorms. Emily couldn’t help but notice that a lot of people were stopping and staring. Her sisters were way too young to fit in around the campus.

It was going to be a problem eventually, especially if they became even mildly popular. Someone would look at the Boss and her five heroic companions, then spot Emily and her five sisters and put two and two together.

Emily unlocked the doors for everyone, some of the pressure leaking off her back as they finally returned to her rooms. “Home at least,” she muttered.

“Yeah!” Teddy agreed. “I missed my bed.”

“That’s not your bed,” Athena said. “It’s the boss’s bed.”

“Well, she ain’t using it now,” Teddy said as she started to climb on.

“Hey, hey,” Emily said. “Go wash up first. Please. We’re all dusty. We don’t want to dirty the bed. Please.”

She herded her sisters into the washroom, then started going through the clothes she had and looked for things for them to change into.

Another visit to the thrift shop was in her near future.

“Man, being a villain-slash-single mom is complicated, isn’t it?” Sam asked as she returned from her own room.

“Tell me about it,” Emily muttered.

A knock at the door followed by a familiar voice calling out her name had Emily rushing over to the entrance.

Her mother was on the other side, her hands gripping around cheap plastic bags. She smelled wonderful, like fried food and spices. “Sweetie,” her mother said. She raised her arms a little. “I brought lunch.”

“You’re going to be really popular here,” Emily said as she let her mom in.

“Step-boss!” came the immediate cheer from her sisters before they swarmed around her mom. The looks in their eyes as her mom started placing paper boxes of thai food on Emily’s desk was just short of worshipful.

Her mom cracked the whip though, and with a snap the sisters were off washing their hands and behaving like the most angelic little creatures ever.

“Your mom’s scary,” Sam muttered as she watched Emily’s mom portion out some of everything into paper plates while admonishing the girls to be careful as they ate.

“I am very scary,” Emily’s mom said with a nod and a knowing smile. “Now, who are you, dear?”

Sam grinned. “I’m Sam, ma’am. Pleased to meet you! I’m Emily's front-door neighbour, and I guess I’m her minion too.”

“Oh, my little Emily is making friends, that’s wonderful.”

“Mom,” Emily said as she tried to keep the mortification down.

“Call me Claire, Sam. I’m glad Emily has friends that are closer to her own age. Though I wonder if you’re a good influence if you’re so quick to jump into this whole heroing business.”

“No worries ma’am, so far we’ve been perfectly safe,” Sam lied.

Emily’s mom glanced at her, one eyebrow perked. “I do listen to the news, you know. I saw you girls stopping that villain yesterday. Iron Chains, was it?”

“That was a bit unexpected,” Emily said.

“I’m sure. Did you hear about the bank robbery this morning? Some young wanna-be villain held up the entire place and made out with several thousand dollars long before the heroes could show up. It’s normal that these kinds of things happen so soon after Power Day, but this is a lot more excitement than we usually see in Eauclair.”

“I hadn’t heard of that, no,” Emily said. She shifted over to the food and started grabbing some for herself. The room was hardly big enough that she couldn’t continue the conversation. Plus, she was starving. “Did anyone get injured?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Claire said. “A clean robbery. But that does mean that the heroes will be on their guard in the coming weeks until this villain is caught. Eauclaire has never had this much villainous activity all at once before.”

“That... is actually kind of worrying,” Emily said.

Could she end up having some competition? Not that she should care. More villains just gave her more opportunities to act the part of the hero. It was a good thing.

At least, that’s what she told herself while fiddling with some chopsticks over a plateful of pho.

***