Chapter Forty-Seven - Payphone

“So, how’d it go? Whatever it was?”

Emily glanced over to Alea Iacta. The young man had retaken his place on one of the couches stuffed into the living space aboard the train-base. He had a controller in hand and the game on the TV was unpaused. At least he’d had the decency to lower the volume before he resumed trouncing Teddy at the fighting game they were playing.

“It,” Emily began. “Was a trio of nosey girls who showed up at the dorms and refused to leave until I talked to them.”

The entire experience had been bizarre, but, perhaps not so bizarre that she would have found it suspicious.

A few weeks ago, before she gained her powers and her gaggle of sisters, having a few women her age show up at her dorms would have turned her into an anxious mess.

Now the entire thing had just felt surreal. The three girls--whose names she instantly forgot--were apparently in her class, and they wanted to form a study-group. They were friendly and chatty and perfectly nice.

Exactly the wrong kind of person to send towards Emily.

She didn’t recognize any of them. Usually she’d have dismissed that since her classes were quite full and she hardly made a point of memorising every face, but... no, these three were definitely not normal students.

They were about the right age though, and they were probably local students.

Emily had talked to them for a little bit while doing her best to act nothing like the Boss--some advice given to her by Sam.

The idea was that she could dissuade any suspicions that she had a heroic (or villainous) persona.

The problem was that Emily didn’t know if she really acted differently as the Boss than she did normally. She supposed that maybe she was growing a little more confident? So she did the opposite, stuttering and acting like a socially-anxious mess, which came quite naturally to her.

“I’m guessing that’s not normal girl stuff?” Alea Iacta asked. The character he was controlling on screen blocked a powerful move from Teddy’s character. Teddy only used power moves. Alea Iacta’s character grappled Teddy’s, then flung them off the edge of the stage.

Teddy started to mutter a string of bad words until she caught Emily looking, then the bear-girl meekly handed the controller over to Athena.

“No,” Emily said. “It wasn’t normal girl stuff. Or... okay, yes, it looked a bit like a normal thing. I guess study groups aren’t too uncommon, but no one would invite someone like me to one of those.” You needed a modicum of socialising skill to join that kind of group.

“Why not? You get bad grades?” Alea Iacta asked.

Emily crossed her arms. Her grades were fine. She had a lot on her plate, but she still made sure to get all of her assignments done and handed in on time. She was cramming hard in whatever spare moments she had.

She didn’t have a choice. Some of her classes had presentations near the end of the year that she knew she was going to flub. She had to have good grades before those came around otherwise her year-end average was going to be awful.

“My grades are fine,” Emily said. She watched for a moment as Athena and Alea Iacta picked a pair of heroes. There were heroes from all over the world to pick from, mostly big name, popular ones. She noted Quantum Mothman in a corner as an option, though he wasn’t picked. The game looked to be about five years out of date.

The two started to fight, Alea Iacta going on the offensive while Athena backed off and tried to tag him with ranged abilities. It wasn’t working out for her.

“Yeah, that’s a little suspicious,” Alea Iacta said. “You think it’s the Cabal?”

“Or something else,” Emily said. “I don’t know. I’m not sure those girls knew either.”

The door at the back of the train opened and Sam stepped in. She had Maple’s toaster slung under one arm, and a pair of Trinity right behind her. “We’re back,” she said before she dumped the toaster-gun onto a table. “We found the toast too.”

Trinity raised a piece of bread up. It was a black square, almost shiny. “This one’s still in one piece. The other exploded. Maple, your toaster’s no good.”

Emily glanced over to Maple, who was sitting on one of the bunk beds next to another Trinity. The girl blinked. “It isn’t?” she asked worriedly.

“Nope. Burnt the toast too much. I like them kinda brown, not all burnt like this,” Trinity said.

“Oh. But if they’re not cooked well enough, they won’t fly well,” Maple said.

“Yeah, but then you can’t eat them,” Trinity rebutted.

Maple considered it for a moment. “I can fix that. Maybe I can project a containment shield around the toast as it flies... we can even make it aerodynamic so that it flies faster.”

“Let’s not make the toaster any more lethal than it is,” Emily said. “In fact... Maple, I think your power might well be incredible, but please try to tell me if you’re going to use it. I’m worried that you might make something too dangerous, okay?”

“Okay, Big Sister,” Maple said. “Um... what’s too dangerous, though?”

Emily closed her eyes to ward off a headache. “We’ll come up with some rules later,” she said.

“Don’t stifle Maple too much,” Sam said. “She needs to be able to create some stuff. Powers need to be used, right?”

“Giving her limitations won’t stifle her, I don’t think,” Emily said. “And it will prevent her from making a nuke and giving it to Trinity to play with.”

“Are nukes fun?” Trinity asked.

Emily gestured, her point clearly made. “Today’s been a bit of a roller-coaster. I wish I could get some more time off from the whole heroing thing, but I feel like our time’s running short.”

Not just her time, she knew, her funds too.

“So, you want to get more serious?” Sam asked, perking up at the idea.

“A little,” Emily admitted. “We’re running out of time if we want to use the good press from the other day to get that protection racket started. And now the three girls today. If we don’t act, someone else will, and I’d rather not be forced to act. Any news from Fabien, by the way?”

“Nope,” Alea Iacta said.

“You’ve been talking to him again?” Emily asked. She had been asking Sam about Fabien, not Alea Iatca, but he was too busy focusing on his beat-down of Trinity on the TV to notice.

“Huh? Oh yeah, we text. We tried to do a poker night, but... yeah, it kinda blows but my powers make that a no-go, but skill-based games are more fair. Fabien cheats with his power, I cheat with mine, it all works out.”

Emily nodded slowly. One of her minions was having guy-time with a local villain. Sure, why not? “Well, tell us if he plans on doing something like last time again.”

“Will do, Boss,” he said.

“I can start the protection racket whenever,” Sam said.

“We’ll start soon,” Emily said. “Before that, I want to talk to Handshake.”

“The information broker?” Sam asked.

Emily nodded. “Yes. He might know something about the cabal. And connected as he is, knowing what others want to know might be helpful too.”

“Then call him up,” Sam said.

Emily didn’t want to admit that the reason she hadn’t called him yet was because she was still working up the courage to do so. She really didn’t like calling people she didn’t know. She didn’t like calling people she did know either. “Fine,” she said, giving up on holding back. “I can’t use my normal phone though.”

“There’s a phone booth in the metro,” Alea Iacta said. “It’s plugged in and everything.”

“You mean in the station?” Emily asked.

“Yeah. You need quarters for it.”

“Who carries quarters with them?” Sam asked.

Alea Iacta shrugged. “I tend to find a few whenever I’m going to go use it.”

“Why are you using the phone booth, exactly?” Emily asked.

“To order food. Reception down here is trash.”

“What’s a reception?” Trinity asked.

Emily opted not to explain that. “I guess it’s not a terrible idea. Anyone that traces the call will probably assume that we’re not actually using the station’s phone booth.” She nodded. “Anyone want to come with me?”

She got a pile of volunteers.

“We won’t actually be doing anything fun,” she said. “Although... Athena, could you come with me? I think you’re going to be instrumental in dealing with Handshake.”

Athena’s chest puffed out. “Sure thing, Big Sis,” she said.

Emily almost felt bad for Handshake, but then, if he had a mind-reading minion she bet he’d use them on her.

***