Chapter Fifty-Eight - I'm Not Locked In Here With You

“Oh-oh,” Trinity said. She said it from every available body, which was just two of them at the moment. The third was currently sleeping, which was a very strange feeling to be feeling.

It was like having an arm be asleep, but it was the entire body, and it was only one third asleep.Trinity had to suppress a yawn to fight off the strange feeling.

Big Sister Emily looked up from her laptop where she was trying to do homework. “What is it?” she asked.

“There’s a problem,” Trinity said.

Big Sister sighed. “What happened?” she asked. “Did you go over budget? Were you caught stealing? I told you not to.”

Trinity shook her head. “No no, nothing like that.”

“Well, then it can’t be that bad,” Emily said. “What happened? Will I have to call Alea?”

Trinity considered it for a moment. What had happened before that guy in the black jumpsuit grabbed her and made her smell that stinky rag? She recalled seeing Maple go to sleep too, and... yeah, Alea Iacta was definitely grabbed too. He’d made a groaning sound and was pretty sure someone had punched him in the kidney. “I don’t think he could answer.”

Emily shook her head, her attention straying back to her laptop.

“I don’t think the kidnappers would let him use his phone.”

Big sister’s head whipped around so hard Trinity was worried she might hurt herself. “The what?”

“Oh, I guess they’re not kidnappers if they took Alea Iacta because he’s not a kid, right?” Trinity asked. She looked to her other sisters for confirmation.

Teddy tapped her chin, then nodded. “Adultnappers,” she suggested.

“I’m pretty sure it’s still kidnapping even if you’re an adult,” Athena said.

“That’s stupid,” Teddy said, and Trinity couldn’t help but agree.

“Can we please go back to the part where Alea Iacta was kidnapped?” Emily asked. Her volume had risen a lot, it was almost at ‘outdoor’ voice levels. Trinity wondered if big sister would have to punish herself with no pre-bedtime-candy if she raised her own voice?

“Okay, so Maple and Alea Iacta and one of me were doing shopping stuff for Maple,” Trinity said. “Then we left a shop and a few guys in these black suits grabbed us and made us sniff these bits of cloth, and then Maple and I fell asleep,” Trinity said.

Emily bounced to her feet. “No,” she said.

“Uh,” Trinity said. She didn’t want to contradict big sister, but that was pretty much what happened.

“Sounds like a normal kidnapping to me,” Teddy said. “Can we eat them? We’re the villains here, we’re the ones who kidnap.”

“Where are they bringing you?” Emily asked.

“I don’t know, I’m asleep,” Trinity said.

Emily cursed, then she brushed her hair back. “Cabal, or HRT. HRT are more official, they’d arrest Alea first. No, this has to be the Cabal, or someone else.” She started pacing. “I can... I can teleport one of you back here. Not Alea Iacta though.”

“Oh, leave me,” Trinity said. “I can just bash my head open or something and then revive here. Maybe they’ll have toasters and bathtubs in whatever villain prison they have.”

Emily hesitated, then nodded. “Athena, go get Sam, tell her it's an emergency. Teddy, Trinity, get dressed, we’re going to the base, in case they’ve tagged Maple with a tracker or something. I swear if they hurt a hair on one of my sister’s heads I will burn them,” Big Sister growled.

Trinity felt a cold shiver run down her spine. A cool one because big sister sounded awesome. “What about me?” Trinity asked.

“We’ll teleport you out as soon as the skill has finished its cooldown,” Emily said.

Trinity nodded. She wasn’t in any sort of danger. Or only a third of her was, which was an acceptable risk as far as she was concerned.

They grabbed their things. Villain costumes and some gear and of course snacks for the road and warmer coats, then they tumbled out of their rooms to find Sam waiting for them. “What’s going on?” Sam asked .

“Maple, Alea and Trinity were kidnapped,” Emily explained.

“Oh,” Sam said. “Let me get my minion gear then.”

It only took a few minutes for them to leave the dorms and head out towards the nearest entrance into the metro system. Trinity knew that everyone was taking things seriously because no one had asked for a pee break halfway out of the house and the mood had changed. Usually there was lots of bouncing around and fun and Teddy would argue with Athena while Sam chatted. Now they were all quiet and very focused; angry, almost.

Emily stomped forwards. The few times they encountered people they scampered away at a single glance from her big sister who was clearly channelling all of her villainy and scariness to be as intimidating as possible.

They slid into one of the entrances to the underground under an overpass and Emily immediately went to one of the rooms with a cot in it. She raised her hands over the bed and muttered something.

A blink later, Maple appeared then came bouncing down onto the little bed. Emily was on her almost immediately, checking her for wounds while patting her head. Maple had come with one of her bags from the dollar store. Her mouth was taped shut, and she had a sort of balaclava on her face, but without holes for the eyes.

“Sam, can you check online for what to do if someone breathes in too much chloroform?” Emily asked.

“Not even the weirdest search on my history this week,” Sam muttered as she took out her phone.

Emily sent Teddy to get some scissors--without running--then laid Maple down so that the gadgeteer was more comfortable on the bed. “Come on, wake up, sweetie.” She carefully peeled the tape off of Maple’s face.

Athena came in the room with a small bucket with a rag and some soap, which earned her some thanks from Big Sister Emily who used it to wash some of the tape residue away.

Maple groaned and turned away from the ministrations,then she blinked and looked around, obviously confused. “Huh?” she asked.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Emily said. She pulled Maple up into a big, tight-tight hug. “You’re okay, you’re okay, right?”

“Uh? Wait, Big Sister? Where am I? My head hurts.” That got her some more healpats, then more hugs as everyone joined in. No one was going to say no to group hugs. They were hardened villains, not morons.

“This is touching and all,” Sam said. “But we need to ask Maple what she knows, then we need to figure out what to do from here.”

“Right,” Emily said. “They still have one of Trinity, and Alea Iacta too.”

“I can save myself,” Trinity said.

Emily nodded. “And you’ll do just that. If they start to hurt you, you tell me right away and we’ll get you out of there.”

“In the meantime, though,” Sam said. “Can’t Trinity teleport stuff between herself?”

“I can!” Trinity said.

“Cool. So if we give her a tracking device of some sort, and she gives it to her... other self, then we’ll know where they’re bringing her, right?”

“I don’t exactly have that kind of thing laying around,” Emily said.

Maple squirmed. “Oh, uh, I can make something like that.”

Everyone glanced at her, then back to each other. “Okay, that’s a plan,” Emily said. “Maple, are you sure? You’ve been through a lot.”

Maple nodded. “Yes. I want to help... please?”

That cinched it, and soon they brought Maple to the mini-bases dining room where Maple got to work. The tracker needed to be small enough to fit into one of Trinity’s pockets, or maybe her mouth, so Maple looked for small stuff to work with. “I need an old phone, one of those with a little antenna, oh, maybe a flippy one, and I need a garage door remote, or a tv remote. I also need some blinky lights, and some socks.”

“I’ve got socks!” Teddy said as she undid her boots.

“I’ll go to the corner store,” Sam said. “They sell prepaid phones, I’ll grab a couple.”

“Oh, um, if you see a map, that would be nice too,” Maple said.

Sam nodded, then ran off. In the meantime, Maple started to take apart an alarm clock and some pens and other stuff that they’d found around the base.

When Sam returned, Maple got to work right away. Within a few minutes, with her hands moving so smoothly it was hard to keep track of what she was doing, Maple created a trio of small devices. One had a rubber keypad over glowy numbers next to a ring that she placed on a map of the city, and the other two were smaller gizmos with batteries and antenna and some blinky lights.

“This one is for you,” Maple said.

Trinity took it, then put it into her pocket. A moment later, it was in her other pocket, on her other body, the one that was still sleeping.

“Got it!” Maple cheered. She placed the ring atop the map, and the glowing numbers glowed more towards one side than the other. They continued to blink on one side until the circle was atop a specific street, but Maple had to keep moving the circle along the road. “So, um, that’s where the tracker is,” she said.

“Well then,” Sam said. “That’s a location. Now what?”

***