Chapter Forty-Three – The Search, The One in Black

So far, nothing.

That was the result of nearly three hours of surprisingly tense searching. For some reason, she had thought that looking around would be relatively easy. It was literally just walking around and trying not to be spotted.

It was the latter part that was stressing her right out. She had to wrangle her sisters to convince them not to forget that they were supposed to be sneaking all the time, and yet, on the flip side of that metaphorical coin, some of her little sisters were so good at sneaking that she kept losing track of them.

Maple was surprisingly adept at fading into the background. Emily would sometimes suddenly remember her, find her heart in her throat, and spin around only to discover Maple a couple of steps behind.

The fact that they all had Minor Shadow Blend and ponchos of invisibility truly helped make it hard to track anyone.

There had been a few particularly tense moments as well. Twice they had to hide as a HRF patrol rumbled past. They were obviously searching the outer edges of the city as well. The HRF were moving in three-vehicle patrols. A sort of armoured tank-car thing at the front, with six big wheels and a turret, then two transports behind that, usually vans, but sometimes there were Eep-like cars.

In any case, she didn’t want to be seen, so whenever one of her sisters reported hearing one of them, they’d all dive to cover. That sometimes involved running into an alleyway nearby, but once they were out of options and had to smash a window to dive into a random home.

The stress was… intense. Not impossible, by any means, but it was still a lot.

“I’m getting hungry,” Teddy mumbled.

Emily looked up from the map of Saint Arie she was holding. It was a little crumpled up, and rough, covered in marker scribbles that more or less tracked their progress through this ‘quadrant’ of the city.

There were still some large gaps. She’d avoided the more open parks and some of the spaces that the HRF seemed to be patrolling more often. There were some added notes as well. There was a parking lot next to a grocers, just two blocks over from the HRF base that was being used as a depot for HRF vehicles. They had set up tents and such and were doing… maintenance things, she supposed. In any case, she didn’t see a reason to go poking too close to that.

“That’s a fair,” she said as she looked up. “We only have… three, four, five more blocks to canvas.”

“That’ll take a while,” Teddy said. It wasn’t quite a complaint. At least, her voice wasn’t whiney, but the idea was there.

“Alright. How about we find a place to eat, then,” Emily suggested. She was a little hungry herself. She wasn’t sure how many steps they’d done today–any sort of smartwatch was left at home, for obvious reasons–but from the slight ache in her feet she figured they’d done at least ten thousand steps already, and it was a little past noon, so they deserved a sit down. Her sisters and her feet, that was.

“Alright!” Trinity cheered. “Where are we gonna go? I’ll eat anything.”

“I know,” Emily replied flatly. “How about we head over to the next road to clear and start looking for something around there?” That was only one block over from where they were, and where they were was a simple little street with a few apartments and a small fire department. The next road over should have shops and restaurants, so it was a better bet when it came to finding something to eat.

They did just that. So far, they’d come together with a sort of system for traveling around the busier, more building-filled sections of the city. They’d find a quieter, more narrow street to cross over into the next block, or ideally an alleyway. Then Maple would step ahead. She had assembled a small device in the field for looking around corners. It wasn’t even a proper gadget, just a mirror on the end of a stick. Maple would use it to look around the bend without sticking her entire head out, then they’d step out.

“It’s, ah, clear,” Maple muttered.

“Okay,” Emily replied. She let Teddy go up and take the lead. Aurora was staying close to her side, and Athena and Maple would take up the rear. Trinity, as the sneakiest of her sisters, would often just up and disappear for a while.

She didn’t like that last bit, but Trinity had warned them more than once about dangers long before they heard them coming, so it was kind of worth it. Emily scanned the area, looking for trouble, but also for a place to grab a bite. She found the food before the trouble.

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“That looks like a decent spot,” she said with a gesture ahead.

There was a small insurance place right across the street. It was rather nondescript, except she could see a row of three vending machines just inside. The lobby was shared by a couple of other small businesses, so she supposed that it made sense.

Looking both ways before crossing the street (an action that was mostly performative, but she didn’t need her sisters seeing her not doing as she told them to do) she crossed with her gaggle.

The place was, predictably, locked.

A rock solved that.

“Careful with the glass,” Emily warned. They’d broken one of the windows on the side of the building instead of the glass doors at the front. Front doors tended to be made of pretty tough glass, and when it shattered, it did so loudly. Front-facing windows as well. Besides, the damage would be visible from outside more easily if it was right there along the roadside.

Broken glass caught the light, and even if it was a little overcast, she didn’t want to give too many signs that they were around. She knew that her sisters were going to leave plenty of evidence that they were around inside the place.

Two of the machines were for food, but she immediately pointed to the one with sandwiches and salads. “We’re not touching that one,” she said. The salads were mouldy, and most of the sandwiches were more green than bread-coloured. Though a few were disturbingly intact, which only worried her more.

The candy in the other machine was probably okay? She wasn’t sure how long chocolates could sit on a shelf for, but it was probably longer than a week or two. Likewise for nuts and the like. The soda was the same, she figured.

Maple volunteered to get the machines opened. It was that, or Teddy would rip them apart with her bear hands, and that would leave more than a few marks behind.

She watched her sisters go to town on the machines once they were opened. The poor candies inside didn’t stand a chance. Shaking her head, she pulled back after picking up a chocolate bar that had rolled closer. Standing by the front of the shop, she unwrapped it, and chomped down while eyeing the exterior. So far, things were going… well enough, she supposed. It was getting a little later than she would have liked. At this rate, another half day would be needed to scout out another quadrant of the city. More, since that part of the city was a little larger, with tighter roads and more homes.

Then the rest… another day? Maybe two more? It was adding up to being quite a bit of time spent on scouting alone.

Still, it needed to be done. They had to fin–

Emily almost choked on her candy bar as she noticed something outside. Movement.

Not on the street, but up on the rooftop across the road.

Her first thought was that it was the HRF, only the person wasn’t dressed very heroically. She couldn’t make out their gender, not with the all-black clothes they were wearing, but that didn’t matter.

If it wasn’t a hero, then that narrowed down the possibilities a whole lot.

“Girls!” Emily hissed. Her tone must have conveyed something, because the girls snapped to attention, even stopping their arguing over the choicest candies. “Enemy,” she said.

All five of them tensed. “What kind?” Athena asked.

“Look. Careful, don’t make too much movement,” Emily warned.

The figure was moving along the rooftops, not terribly quickly, though. They were walking at a decent pace, only gaining speed when they had to jump the gap between two roofs.

“Idiot. People can see you up there,” Teddy grumbled.

“I agree with the idiot about that person being an idiot,” Athena said before she grunted as Teddy smacked her in the arm. “What? Like knows like.”

“Girls, this isn’t the time,” Emily said. “Come on… we should probably follow them, right? Trinity, do you think you can run out and track them?”

“Can do!” Trinity said. She started to empty her pockets while her other self did the opposite, filling hers with candy bars and soda cans.

Emily sighed. She had her priorities, she supposed. As long as they got out of this with more of a clue as to what was going on, she was happy.

***

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