Chapter Eighteen - Metro

Emily jogged up to the side of the station and poked her head around the corner. She hoped she was being fast enough that anyone looking her way wouldn’t have time to spot her before she pulled back.

“Is it clear?” Sam whispered from behind her.

“Why are you two being all sneaky-like?” Teddy asked at a volume that was very much not a whisper.

Emily spun towards the bear-girl. “We’re trying not to be noticed,” she said.

Teddy just stared at her for a moment before looking up and down the street. “Yeah, there’s only a few people here, Boss. No one cares. If you’re gonna be sneaky out in the open, the best way to do that’s not to be sneaky at all.”

“Teddy’s right,” Athena said. “Trying to sneak while you’re in public’s mostly about looking as normal as possible. Just look at how good we are at looking normal.” Athena gestured to herself, then to Trinity who was picking all three of her noses and Teddy who had her hands stuffed in her pockets and who was yawning as if it was well past her bedtime.

“I suppose,” Emily said.

“Yeah, I’d heard that kind of thing before,” Sam said. “Feels weird though.”

Athena shrugged. “Looking sneaky looks suspicious. You only wanna look sneaky when no one can see you looking sneaky.”

“Yeah,” Teddy said. “Come on, Boss, just follow me, alright?” She stomped off past Emily and around the corner.

Emily had decided that breaking in through the front of the building would be a terrible idea. It was out along the roadside, and in the open as well. Anyone would be able to see them from the street. So she decided to go around and see if there was a way in from another angle.

It turned out that there was. “That’s a door,” Sam said. “But, uh, I don’t know if we’ll be able to break into that one.”

The side-entrance was a flat steel door with a grated platform next to it. Just two loud metal steps leading up to the door whose only real feature was a rusting plaque that read ‘Employees Only’ in block black letters.

Sam grabbed the handle and tugged on it. It didn’t do anything.

“Do you think you can pick the lock?” Emily asked.

“I mean, I can try,” Sam said. “Going to need a minute or two, I think.”

Emily hesitated. She could call the whole thing off. She didn’t even know what she expected to find in the old metro station. Then again, they were there already, and she didn’t know how busy the coming weeks and months might become. Finding another safehouse now could be a lifesaver later. “Do what you can. Trinity, can you go on either end of the alley, check to see if anyone’s coming by. Athena, Teddy, stand around Sam. We don’t want anyone seeing her work.”

She received a chorus of “Yes Boss,” and “Okay Big Sis,” before her sisters moved into place.

Sam opened her little lockpicking set on the ground, then pulled out her phone and looked at the lock. “What are you doing?” Emily asked.

“Looking up the lock online. There’s sites that explain this kind of thing, you know?”

“Oh,” Emily said. She felt a little silly for asking. Still, she installed herself behind Sam, leaning against a railing where she could see the girl at work.

It took Sam a good five minutes of fiddling and muttering the sorts of words that Emily was dearly hoping her sisters didn’t pick up, but in the end, she cheered as the lock clicked and the door opened a crack. “Got it!”

“Good work,” Emily said. “Really, I’m impressed.” She reached out and held the door open, the last thing they needed was for it to close and lock itself up again. “Come on girls, gather up.”

Teddy peeked into the room beyond the door, then came back frowning. “Dark in there.”

“I can see in the dark well,” Athena said. “I’ll take the lead if you want.”

Emily nodded. “You first, then Trinity, me, Trinity, Sam, Teddy, and Trinity at the rear.” Emily pulled out her phone and turned on its flashlight mode. “Sam, do you have a light?”

“I have a keychain light and my phone,” Sam said.

That was one more light than Emily had.

They slipped into the metro station, into what was obviously some sort of office and maintenance area away from the public-facing sections of the building. The corridor, lit only by their swaying lights, was long and narrow, with doors on either side that lead into even darker rooms.

“Menagerie Family: Athena,” Emily muttered.

Her eyes and head tingled, but when she blinked again the shadows had changed. They didn’t quite recede, but the fuzzy shapes in the dark were in much starker contrast. It was easier to tell what she was looking at, even without her light shining on it.

Menagerie Family

You have obtained the traits of the Owl!

Your perception has been sharpened!

“What was that?” Sam asked.

“That,” Athena said with dripping smugness. “Was Big Sister’s newest and best skill. She can borrow our animal traits, and of course mine are the best.”

Emily decided not to step into that particular puddle and delivered her own, less-biassed explanation. “I can take on animal traits from my sisters,” she said. “Athena’s are owl-based, so better eyesight and hearing, mostly.”

“Oh, that’s neat,” Sam said. “Doesn’t sound like a super strong power on its own.”

“I don’t think it’s meant to be? It’s more that I get a bit more versatility. My sisters are still my main power, I guess.”

“Cool,” Sam said.

They poked their heads into the rooms they were crossing. Mostly they were unfinished office spaces, with desks but little else. Even the lightbulbs were missing from the ceilings and some rooms were left unpainted and with bare cement floors.

“This place really was never used,” Emily said as she stepped out of another empty room.

“Yeah, a bunch of lost taxpayer money here,” Sam said.

“We could turn this place into a lair,” Athena suggested.

Emily considered it. “It’s a bit too out in the open, I think. There are still windows and things, and someone might think it’s suspicious if we continue to come here. Besides, I don’t think there’s power, and there’s probably no running water.”

“Right,” Sam said. “That would be nice.”

They continued to the end of the corridor, then down a set of stairs and through another plain metal door. This one opened onto the side of the main lobby at the front of the building. There was a large staircase going deeper down, made of plain tiles and with boards on the sides for ads that had never been placed.

The girls fanned out a little as they headed down and deeper in. A row of turnstiles greeted them, rusting and unused and covered in dust. Emily could imagine people slipping through them on the way to the next train out to... wherever the station connected to.

The boarding area itself wasn’t anything impressive. Just a spot with a few benches next to the trench where the train tracks were.

“It looks like it was almost ready,” Emily said as she looked around. There was a stack of benches up against one wall, and a few piles of materials on wooden pallets.

“I guess they cancelled it at the last minute,” Sam said. “I don’t remember much about it, really. Maybe they were a few weeks away from opening.”

“That’s a bit sad, actually,” Emily said. She gravitated over to a wall that had a map on it. It was Eauclaire, though a smaller, older Eauclaire. The metro line stretched out and around the city, with two existing stops--one where she was, and one near her school. Three more stops were marked as ‘coming soon!’ including one outside of the city.

“Hey, Boss!” Teddy called. Her voice bounced around the empty room.

“Yes?” Emily asked.

She found Teddy on the edge of the tracks, squinting into the dark. “I think there’s something that way,” she said while pointing into the dark tunnel.

“Uh,” Emily said. “I don’t think we’re supposed to go down there.”

“We’re not supposed to be here either,” Sam said. She sat on the edge of the trench, then dropped down to the bottom. “Come on! Let’s go check it out. It’s not like there’s a train that can hit us here.”

Emily chewed on her lip, and then winced as Trinity stepped off the edge and crashed at the bottom. “I’m good!” Trinity said.

“Fine, let’s go check out... whatever’s lurking in the dark. I’m sure this is a wonderful idea.”

***