Chapter Thirty-Three - Cement's Legacy

“Okay,” Alea Iacta said. He moved ahead of the group, a bit of a skip to his steps. He seemed to be in a good mood, Emily noted idly. “This is it,” he said with a grandiose gesture to a graffiti-covered wall.

“That’s one of the words that Big Sister gets mad when we say,” Athena pointed out.

It was, in fact, a swear-word, though one that was stylized enough that it was hard to read it. “Why are you showing this to us?” Emily asked.

“Oh, not the painting, this.” He reached to the wall and pressed his hand against it. There was a small panel there, just a metal box with some wires running down it. It was probably some sort of maintenance panel of some sort. She wasn’t an expert on city infrastructure. Alea Iacta popped the box open and then twisted a handle within it. “See, it’s locked.”

“Okay?” Emily asked.

“You’re wasting the Boss’ time,” Teddy said.

He rolled his eyes, then fished out a key from his pocket. “You slip this in here, and then... pop.” The handle turned completely, then a section of the wall slid in. A doorway. Emily hadn’t noticed the edges until the door was pushed in. “Come on!”

Emily hesitated, then gestured Trinity ahead. Her other sisters, not wanting to be last, jammed themselves through next, then Emily and Sam followed.

Alea Iacta stood pressed up against the wall to let them in, then he pulled the key out of the box and pressed the door close.

The hallway was lit by some neon tubes above. “It’s not much to see, to be honest.”

“What is it?” Emily asked. The corridor was clean. A bit dusty, but there was no detritus or trash laying around. The corridor forked at the end.

“A base!” Alea Iacta said. “So, I was on the train, right? And I got to thinking, ‘why is this here?’ It would make a lot more sense to park it in front of that little station, or if not then deeper into the tunnels so it would be harder to reach. But no, it was just kind of close but not too close to the station. Weird spot, right? Started looking around, and bam! Found a hidden doorway with one of these.”

He squeezed past the group so that he was at the front, then he jogged over to a plain metal door. Opening it revealed a staircase. Cement steps leading down, with a light at every landing.

“Just like this,” he said. “All the way from the ground, and out above. The other one, near the mobile base, opens up into an alleyway next to an off-ramp. I got a map of the metro tunnels and a map of the city, then matched any places where there were lots of big city-built things that intersect with the tunnels. This is the only other spot I’ve found though.”

“That’s incredible,” Sam said. “A whole network of secret entrances.”

“Well, two of them,” Alea Iacta said.

Emily nodded. “She’s right. This is incredible. It might make travelling to the base a lot easier. This one is even close to the campus.”

“And it’s not in a busy spot,” Sam said. “Barely any traffic at all. Yeah, this is pretty nice.”

Alea Iacta grinned like a kid about to pull off some prank they thought was immensely clever. Emily knew the look well. “It gets better,” he said.

They followed him down the other end of the corridor, to a dead end. It had another panel on it, which when opened, revealed a handle just like the one on the door leading into the small base.

On the other side was an open space, with pillars reaching to the ceiling and rooms tucked into the sides. “I think it’s supposed to be a dormitory,” Alea Iacta said. A faint rumble made the lights hanging from the ceiling shake a little. “We’re right under the highway here.”

Everything was cement. The walls, doors, even the two long tables and benches in the centre of the room. A wrap-around sofa was in the middle of the room, facing a pillar that looked like it had attachments for a TV. The wires for it dangled out of the wall.

“What are all the doors to the side?” Emily asked.

“Bedrooms,” Alea Iacta said. “And two of them lead into bathrooms.” He had the group follow him around. Each bedroom had a pair of beds in holes bored out of the cement wall. A small desk was tucked in next to the door and a cheap chair was slid into place under the desk.

“Five rooms to a side, two bunks per room, that’s enough sleeping space for twenty,” Sam said.

“Cement could have built this,” Emily said. “That was his power, to manipulate concrete. I don’t know how much work it would have been for him to make this, but with a power...”

“So he built a bunch of bases across the city,” Sam said. “Did the papers you got from him talk about this at all?”

Emily shook her head. “No. Not at all.”

“Hey! There’s a kitchen back here!” Trinity said from the end of the room opposite where they’d come in. Emily frowned. She’d lost track of one of Trinity. Her other sisters were poking around too, but were staying closer.

The kitchen was long and narrow, with a couple of fridges and some stoves. They were entirely empty. The cupboards too, except for some paper plates and past-date granola bars in a box that Emily swiped out of Trinity’s hands.

“Why would he need a place like this?” she asked.

“Isn’t that obvious?” Sam asked. “If you’re going to take over the city, you need troops. And if you have troops, they need to sleep somewhere.”

“If he was planning on being subtle about it, then having a bunch of bases that are hard to spot just makes sense,” Alea Iacta said. “This one’s right next to the school. I bet if anyone was going to resist a villain taking over the city, then a bunch of students would be the first in line to protest.”

“Unless it was a popular villain,” Sam said. She glanced at Emily meaningfully, but Emily chose to pretend she had no idea what the woman meant with that look. “So, Boss, we going to use this place?”

“What for?” Emily asked.

“You were looking for a spot to stay other than the dorms, right? This is close to the school, has access to the underground, and there’s plenty of room for the brats.”

“Hey! We’re not brats,” Teddy said. “I looked up what that word means and I think it’s not nice of you to use it for us.”

Sam snorted, then tussled Teddy’s hair. “Sorry, bear brat.”

Teddy pouted up at Sam.

“I guess,” Emily said. “It’s not a terrible idea. Though this place isn’t exactly, ah, homey.”

“It’s got a bathroom and bedrooms, a roof above and power. A bit humid, but a couple of electric heaters and you’ll be able to burn off the worst of that.” Sam nodded as she inspected the room. “It’s going to be garage-sale season soon. We can pick a few things up while doing more extortion-racket runs.”

“We’re not going to do more of those,” Emily said.

“Come on, Boss. Think of your reputation!” Sam said.

“Yeah, Boss,” Teddy said. “Just got to go around and teach people how to share... from their pockets to ours. We’ve been learning numbers in school with Steffie, bet we’re great at counting money now.”

“I can count the best,” Trinity said. That was true, while Athena was the most gifted academically, Trinity had mastered her multiplication and division tables with ease.

Emily shook her head. “We’re not going to rob people,” she said.

“Okay,” Sam agreed far too easily.

Emily turned to Sam, but the words froze in her throat before she could ask them. Sam was definitely planning something, but maybe it wouldn’t be that bad? She hoped it wouldn’t, at least.

“This isn’t a terrible place to stay in, I guess,” Emily said. Her sisters cheered and started running around. Fortunately it was empty enough that they couldn’t really make a mess of the place. “We can bring in blankets and pillows and maybe fill the fridges a little.”

“We were planning on bringing the train base closer anyway,” Sam said.

“That’s true,” Emily said. “But we don’t know how to move the base yet. Besides, it might be expensive. I don’t know what you need to run a train, but I’m sure it doesn’t use the same kind of gas your car does.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Sam said. “We’ll figure it out, no worries Boss. The only sad part in all of this is with Cement’s network still intact you won’t get to build your own supervillain base under the city. It’s not as cool to take over another villain’s base.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, I’m sure the coolness of it is a big and important factor,” she said.

Both Sam and Alea Iacta stiffened and Emily realized she’d said that aloud.

“A-anyway,” she continued, cheeks warming up. “Thanks for showing this to us Alea, it’s pretty wonderful.”

“I was just lucky,” he said. “After my good looks, it’s my best asset you know?”

***