Chapter Forty-Two - Buckle Up

Emily pulled out her phone while the elevator hummed its way down to the first floor. It stopped on the third floor and a pair of young men stepped in, but other than eyeing her for a bit, they never spoke directly to her or Teddy, so she happily ignored them in favour of checking her texts.

There was one from Melanie, telling her to meet up by the parking lot next to the park on campus.

They reached the first floor, and were out of the dormitory a moment later. “I’m going to end up being really fit if I keep having to walk so much,” Emily said.

Teddy looked her up and down in much the same way the boys in the elevator did. “That’s not so good,” she said. “If you want to find a good mate, you need to have healthy fur, and a nice big store of fat.” She patted her tummy. “Like this.”

Emily didn’t trip over her own feet, but it was a near thing. “T-Teddy, you’re not, um, looking for a boyfriend, right?” Emily asked.

There was a world of questions that followed that. Emily had kind of let Teddy, and now Athena, to their own devices, but she had never wondered how much either of them knew about how... things... worked.

She could vividly remember the horror of her mom explaining that kind of stuff, and could only imagine the nightmare of explaining it all herself.

“What? Nah. Boys are yucky.”

“Yes,” Emily agreed right away. “Yes. Boys are real yuck and you should never let any of them so much as touch you, okay?”

Saved!

More or less.

“Alright Boss,” Teddy agreed.

Emily felt a little cheap. She’d caught herself admiring some of the guys in her classes already, and she could imagine a more charismatic, less awkward, and less socially idiotic version of herself maybe, sorta, flirting with some of them. But her little sisters could wait until they were in their thirties before worrying about that as far as she was concerned.

They arrived at the park in due time. Emily’s preoccupied mind making the trip feel rather short.

She only had to look around the parking lot for a minute or so before she spotted Melanie off to one side where she was leaning against the side of a little red sports car. She was in costume already, and if it wasn’t for the way the park was deserted despite it being a weekend, Emily imagined that there would be plenty of people gawking already.

Emily pulled Teddy a ways away and towards a little restroom building. “Let’s get changed real quick,” she said.

Teddy had it easy when it came to changing. She took her mask out of her hoodie pocket, then slid the hoodie off, and she was done.

Emily had to practice her dexterity in a little stall while doing her very best not to touch anything. Sliding into a pair of tight pants while hopping on one leg and avoiding mysterious stains kind of left her jealous of her bear summon.

They stuffed everything into Emily’s backpack, then, because they couldn’t leave that behind, put the bag onto Teddy’s back before heading out.

Melanie looked up when they came close. “About time,” she said.

Emily knew that they were at least ten minutes early, but that was cutting it pretty close. “Sorry,” she said. “We had to get changed.”

“Mostly the Boss,” Teddy said. “I could just go around as a bear, but that would intimidate too many people, and the Boss wants us to be all hero-like.”

“Uh-huh,” Melaton said. She flicked a thumb over to the car. “Get in.”

Teddy hoped over into the back without argument and bounced around on the backseat a bit while Emily climbed into the passenger seat and buckled up. ‘Teddy, can you manage your seatbelt?”

“I don’t think I want to,” Teddy said.

“You’d better listen to your Boss,” Melaton said. “Cops can be jerks about that kind of thing. It doesn’t matter if you can take a tank shell to the face and come out of it looking just a bit windswept, they’ll still fine you for not having your belt.”

Teddy frowned. “Fine you what? Money?”

“Yeah, obviously.”

“I bet these buckles are a capitalist ploy,” Teddy said.

Melaton turned over to stare back at Teddy, her elbow over her seat. “Buckle up, or I’ll put you into naptime and then your Boss can buckle you herself.”

Teddy pouted, but did as she was asked. She complained about the oppression of the proletariat the entire time, but she did it.

“So, um, where exactly are we going?” Emily asked. A cursory bit of research the night before on Writeit had revealed that a lot of people knew about the event, but there wasn’t any concrete information about where it would take place, or who would participate, exactly.

“First, we’re stopping by the HRF’s headquarters. Eauclaire’s is one of the smallest around, but they still have a few hidden access points, because they need to justify their budget somehow.”

“Okay?” Emily tried.

“That means you’ll be meeting everyone else in some boring meeting room somewhere, you’ll be given the run down of the rules and such, then one or two of them, whomever the government got their hands on, will lead the lot of you out and about on a big tour of the city. There might even be some vans to shuttle you around for maximum coverage.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Emily said.

Just a simple stroll through the city. She could do that.

No problem.

It would all be fine.

She wanted to go back home.

“You alright Boss?” Teddy asked.

Emily swallowed, reminded herself that she wasn’t alone, and nodded. “I’m fine,” she said. Having Teddy with her was... not quite like having her mom along, but it was similar. Someone she could rely on.

The fact that she was relying on a preteen communist werebear didn’t go amiss, but she pushed that aside.

“You’re going to be meeting a whole bunch of real interesting folk. Most will probably be around your age. Power Day tends to aim for younger folk. Your sister back there is probably about as young as they come. Some might be older,” Melanie said as she passed a car at a speed that was probably unsafe.

“Oh, okay,” Emily said. She wondered if it was too late to return.

“The government types won’t stop trying to recruit you. Hell, the corporate ones might push you towards them.”

“Huh?” Emily asked.

“Yeah, because the HRF heroes don’t do nearly as much public relations stuff. They have paychecks as long as they serve and a nice retirement package. Corporate masks need to show off to the public. So if you’re with the government, you’re no longer competing for attention.”

“Oh,” Emily said. That was more cut-throat than she imagined. “Alright. And the others?”

“Don’t know if there will be any independents other than you, actually. I got you in as a bit of a favour. Well, a favour that pays me real well.”

“I... don’t understand?” Emily said.

Melaton smiled over at her. “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.”

***