Emma stares glumly into the seemingly endless green of the wetlands and the sparkling beauty of water trickling slowly toward the river. Sitting here, one might never know that the green disguises an entire headquarters for Grassroots: enormous rooms and networks of moss-covered tunnels, all devoted to a secret organization with a vigorous, successful history— an organization that doesn’t seem to care that the Resistance needs help.
Emma wipes her tears and sniffs. She barely tasted dinner, as delicious as it was.
Bells’ family had been sympathetic, and all Emma could do was nod and say thanks. Inside she had been churning with anger; how dare they not even hear out her entire idea, not see that the Resistance needed them? That if they didn’t work together, Kingston and the League might stay in power forever?
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out, sweetheart,” Collete said.
“I can’t believe Torrance brought you into the meeting with all the regional and international chapter leaders,” Nick said. “That’s quite an honor, to be heard out like that.”
Emma just nodded; she didn’t know what to say.
“Well, I’m glad Grassroots leadership understands the situation now.” Collete smiled at her and smoothed her hair, and that only made Emma feel more like a kid. “And asking for help was very brave. It sounds like they didn’t have the means for a national broadcast like you wanted anyway, right?”
“I guess,” Emma said.
“That’s too bad,” Bells said. “I totally thought it was gonna work out, that the comm system seemed exactly what we needed.”
“It’s not connected to the national data system,” Emma explained.
Thinking back on the conversation, Emma realizes that that Grassroots could have offered support in another way, such as letting the Resistance piggyback on their existing communication system, eliminating their current unsecured radio communication between hideouts. I guess I forgot to bring that up too, she thinks, flustered.
Emma hugs her knees tighter and tries to distract herself by watching the river and appreciating the desolate beauty of the Unmaintained lands.
Behind her, footsteps approach. That must be Bells. He gave her a meaningful look earlier during dinner, right after that awkward conversation. After more than a decade of friendship with Bells, Emma could interpret his looks down to the wire. This one clearly said, I’ve got an idea, but I have to wait until we’re alone to tell you.
“Hey,” Bells says, sitting down next to her. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Emma says.
Bells nods, but he doesn’t say anything. They watch the water, and Emma thinks back to another time when they sat like this, looking over a forest, and Bells silently offered her support. She’s filled with gratitude; for Bells, for his thoughtfulness, his everything.
“I’m not fine,” Emma says.
Saying that aloud makes it seem real, and she stands up, says it again. “They heard me out, but they treated me like a child the whole time. Like, ‘Oh, it’s great you figured this out but hey, we’re the ones doing the real fight against the Collective.’”
“No way!” Bells’ eyes widen as Emma recounts her experience with Torrance and Skye and the Grassroots leadership. She paces, telling Bells how they disregarded her, and at the end of it she’s exhausted. She plops back down on the ground, feeling her anger dissipate into the earth.
“That sucks, the way they talked to you,” Bells says. “I’m sorry. You didn’t even get to say your whole speech!”
Emma laughs, relieved. “So what’s your idea? You have one, right?”
Bells grins at her. “There’s a vehicle that the org was gonna scrap that my parents wanted to give to me before the League gave me that solarcycle. It’s here, actually, and I know that, now that I don’t have the official Chameleon cycle anymore, my parents were gonna give this one to me when I turned eighteen.”
“Yeah?” She can see the mischief sparking behind Bells’ smile. She loves his way of looking outside the box to getting things done.
“So technically it’s already mine, just not yet. I know where the keycard is. We could just take it and go.”
The idea lights a fire inside Emma. “We could go anywhere. We could go all the way to the Rockies and get Jess and Abby. We could go off on our own mission.”
Bells laughs, affectionately bumping her shoulder. “There’s the Mastermind Emma I know and love. All right, let’s do it! What do we need?”
Emma sits up, and blood rushes to her head, making her dizzy. “Should we wait until everyone is asleep to sneak out?” Emma doesn’t know the routines of this Grassroots hideout, but she’s pretty sure that stealing a vehicle—even if it’s supposed to Bells’—is sure to cause a ruckus.
“I can leave my parents a note so they don’t worry, like we’re gonna take the car and go visit my ‘art school’ friends.”
Emma nods. “That’s a good idea. That way they won’t worry as much as if we just disappeared. Wait, what if we really did track them down?”
The idea is taking hold, exploding in a thousand new directions. Art school. Emma almost laughs at the euphemism Bells used for the summers he left to go to the Meta-Human Training center before he told them all his shapeshifting secret. Last summer he told them he was going to a special art program in Aerial City.
“What, find the other meta-human trainees?”
“What about Christine?” Emma asks.
Bells’ eyes light up. “Yeah! I think she’s been working on something, but she definitely wants to take action?” He waits, tracing Emma’s fingers with his own playfully. “You know, for your plan, we actually don’t need Grassroots or the Villain’s Guild.”
Emma thinks about this. The communication plan with Grassroots’ network? They can’t do anything about it right now. But what they can do, what she’s wanted to do from the beginning, but thought it was too big, too impossible… She gasps. “Interrupting a live broadcast— we don’t need the whole Villain’s Guild to do it.”
Bells makes a drawn-out mhmhm noise. “Maybe just a few of us, you know?”
Emma nearly bounces. “We could just do it now. We don’t need to convince everyone. Sure, the support would have been nice, but we don’t need their permission. If we don’t move forward, they never will!” She stands up, thinking about Christine’s powers. That would be great. She could keep the staged battle restrained while Emma or Bells talks to the camera. Or maybe Bells should shapeshift into someone the public trusted, like a reporter? What about Wilton Lysander?
Emma thinks lightning quick, trying to put a new plan together. They need to find Christine first. “Have you heard from her?” Emma wishes Christine had come to Andover with Ricky and Sasha and Tanya, but she had already left the Villain’s Guild, and they didn’t know how to contact her.
“She was hiding out in New Bright City the last time we talked,” Bells says. “We could all meet up with her there.”
“And take matters into our own hands,” Emma says. This is what she’s talking about. “Yes, let’s do it.”
The car is not at all like his motorcycle; it’s clunky, seeming to take up all the room in the tunnel. Emma can tell he’s not impressed. Bells has a very specific style. He likes his jackets sleek and evoking the old-school leather style, his jeans black, his shoes bright and colorful. Bells’ aesthetic is almost effortlessly cool, with a touch of unexpected color.
This car is loud and obnoxious; its lights and the front metal grille seem to give it a face, one that’s smiling ironically.
Emma loves it immediately.
Emma runs her hands over the side door. “Hello,” she says warmly.
“What are you doing?”
“Saying hi to the car,” Emma says, grinning as she admires the beast. And what a beast it is, towering over them as if it’s surveying its prey.
There’s no keycard. Apparently, this car was rebuilt from twenty-first-century tech, and there’s an actual key. Bells hands it to Emma, who traces her fingers over the metal teeth, fascinated. She’s only seen these in diagrams, when she was obsessed with engines and projected various twenty-first-century paraphernalia all over the room. Keys disappeared from vehicle design in the early twenty-second century; people favored using either a keycard embedded with a datachip or just syncing directly to their DED.
Bells squints at the door. “Do you know how to—”
Emma pokes the key into the car’s side, turns it, and hears the tumblers click. She climbs into the driver’s seat and beckons Bells inside.
Key in the ignition and turn.
The car’s engine growls. It sounds completely unfamiliar. It’s a different kind of engine, Emma realizes. She runs her hand across the dashboard, trying to figure out all the features. The beast is a messy mix of twenty-first-century tech and Grassroots innovation, cobbled together to create a working car.
“This is leather,” Bells notes with interest, running his hands along the scratches in the seat fabric. “All right, that’s cool. It’s like, a hundred years old, though. Is that a fuel engine?”
Emma shakes her head. It must have been rebuilt from one of the first attempts at electric cars: a hybrid engine, designed to run on both fuel and battery. She didn’t see solar panels on the roof of the car, but, as she scans the interior, she can see there’s a set of them folded neatly in the back.
The interior feels too spacious for the two of them and their backpacks of scant supplies.
Bells hums. “Good, because I have no idea where’d we get fuel. I thought all that stuff was gone already. Used up.”
“Grassroots must have some fuel stores,” Emma muses. “I bet the car has a battery-only option. I saw solar cells in the back, so we can recharge as we go.”
Bells nods. “Ready to go?”
Emma has never been more ready in her life.
She steps on the gas, and the car purrs, heading forward into the dark.
New Bright City in the Hopestar Region is a four-hour high-speed train ride from New New Orleans, but they’re definitely not going to be able to go that fast. It will take a week of driving at least, and that’s not factoring in how long the solar cells will need to charge.
Bells is fast asleep with drool running down his chin, so it’s just her and the wide-open sky and the road ahead of her. She pauses for a quick break to relieve herself outside, wondering if she should turn on the camouflage function. She hasn’t figured out all the options and features of the car yet, but that button was easy enough to find. Emma has a sinking suspicion that camouflage will use a lot of battery power, so it’s probably best to activate it only if they pass any active Regions.
Emma uses the sun’s position to plot a northwest course. Without a map, she can’t know for sure if it’s the best course, but at least they’re headed in the right direction. She thinks fondly of the map in their hideout in Andover, which was marked clearly with all twenty-four Regions. They’ll have to be careful to stay in the unplottable Unmaintained lands.
Traveling incognito is not new to Emma; they did this when they drove to the Rockies from Nevada. But this trip is twice as far, and they don’t have the benefit of having Jess and her power pointing them in the right direction.
The sun is high in the sky when Emma notices the battery gauge blinking. She pulls the car to a stop and glances at the odometer before hopping out of the car.
“We’re there already?” Bells jokes, rubbing at his eyes. He’s still blinking awake, stretching and yawning like a long-limbed cat.
“Oh, yeah, record totally broken for quickest cross-country trip.” Emma snorts, pulling water bottles from the back and handing one to Bells.
He’s got his sketchbook out, scribbling away. “Know where we’re going?”
“I’m no Jess, but I figured out which way is northwest,” Emma says. “There’s a maglev track I’ve been following out of the corner of my eye too.”
“Good idea. They can’t see us from there, right?”
Emma shakes her head. She squints, trying to see as far as she can into the distance: nothing but shimmering heat over miles of wetlands and trees. A looming advertisement proclaiming THE COLLECTIVE WILL PROTECT YOU FROM P019 is just legible enough to be unnerving.
The long billboards were easier to spot than the track itself. The stretched signs, designed to be visible from the high-speed trains, haunt the edge of her vision. With every warning of the P019 event, Emma grows more and more nervous, despite her initial affirmation that everything would be taken care of by then. November is approaching faster than she thought, and the constant barrage of HAVE YOU RESERVED YOUR SPOT IN YOUR REGIONAL SHELTER YET? and PREPARATIONS AND YOU: HOW TO MAKE SURE YOU’RE SAFE DURING THE IMPACT on the signs only unsettles her more.
Emma gets out of the car. She has no idea how far they’ve gone; she figures they must be well out of the Louisiana Region when the signs become few and far between.
Bells hands her his notebook through the car window; he’s drawn a rough map of the North American Collective. The coastlines and the shape of the country itself look good, but he’s drawn blobs all over, as if he’s guessing where the Regions are.
“We need a real map.” Bells shakes his head. “We can’t keep following the train tracks forever.”
“There’s a ton of maps at train stations,” Emma muses.
“Hmm, we all know what those maps look like, though,” Bells says, hopping out of the car. He picks up a stick and traces in the dirt the stylized hovertrain routes that most people know as a “map” of their country. It’s barely a map at all, designed for people who only go from region to region. It has no details about the Unmaintained lands, the roads, or what kind of hazards they’d meet.
Bells helps her set up the solar panels, and they lean against the south side of the car in the scant shade. In the distance, a train zooming along the track is a barely perceptible glimmer cutting across the country.
“We need a pre-Collective map,” Emma decides.
Bells nods. “Let’s see if we can find one.”
It’s an eerie drive, weaving their way through the forgotten cities abandoned in the Disasters. Emma and Bells take turns driving long stretches. They fall into a routine: drive, eat, rest, charge the car. They drive past signs for places long since gone, the ghosts of old advertising, signs beckoning to shops, some still filled with wares.
They don’t have much luck in the first few towns they come across, but, in a stroke of luck, Bells spots a boarded-up store. The lettering is peeling and faded, but one word is clear: BOOKS.
Sweat drips from Emma’s brow as she and Bells push on the crowbar, prying the boards free. Finally, they open up enough room to crawl inside.
Emma coughs, blinking and trying to adjust to the light. It’s not quite dark. Sunlight is seeping in from the cracks in the boards; dust motes trail lazily in the air.
“Oh, wow,” Emma says, once she can take it all in.
“We can’t take everything,” Bells says, holding up a hand. “I know that face.”
Emma gasps. “So many books. And they’re all historical and, like, not vetted by the Collective’s Censorship Council. Everything here is precious.”
“I know, but—” Bells does a double take as they walk past a display of DVDs.
“Do you think they have the next one in that series Jess likes?” he asks, already picking through the titles.
Emma laughs at him from the next aisle, LITERATURE, and shakes her copies of A Desperate Arrangement and Put Down in Words at him. “Maybe. What happened to ‘we can’t take everything?’”
“It’s a present! It doesn’t count!”
Emma hesitates, about to put the novels back down on the shelf. It would be impractical to bring reading for fun, but if it’s a present…
She finds a shopping basket and drops in the novels. She’s sure someone will enjoy them when she’s finished.
Bells is somewhere deep in the store, whooping about detective novels. Emma laughs, marveling at how, aside from a thick layer of dust, some sections of the store seem new, as if the books are waiting for customers to discover them.
After the Disasters, everyone just fled. People looking for resources sought food and clothing and other supplies first. Books are heavy, Emma muses, although, as she runs her hand along an empty shelf, she realizes that people most definitely came here, looking for a distraction, an escape, maybe some love stories or stories about space.
Space.
Emma walks quickly through the store; they must have a science section.
She grabs a fiery red book with MARS emblazoned on it and greedily flips through, reading about the missions and NASA and how the journey to get there began. Emma thumbs her finger over the photo of the Opportunity rover drawing pictures in the red soil of Mars and giggles as she reads that Curiosity sang Happy Birthday to itself. She wonders if Curiosity is still beaming data at Earth with no one to receive it.
When the North American Collective was formed, the space program was deemed an unnecessary expense, and the government focused on rebuilding the country and on food production in what few areas were still arable. They still benefit from the space program every day; its tech is in every aspect of their lives, from communication to travel.
“Hey, I found a book on hybrid cars! It says our model is a 2027. Exactly one year before the X29 flare. It must have been parked in a bunker to avoid getting fried.” Bells grins, holding a book aloft at her. “Whatcha got there?”
“Mars,” Emma says, tracing her fingers over the red planet.
“You’ll get there,” Bells says. “We just gotta fix the government first.”
Emma laughs. It seems so simple when he says it.
“We can always come back here another day to get these books,” Bells says.
Right. They came for maps. “Did you find a travel section?”
Bells holds a large book aloft. North America Road Atlas 2027.
“Perfect!” Emma flips through the pages, looks at all the roads and interstate highways. She’s seen these: in some places, they’re big enough for four cars to drive next to each other. She thinks about the millions and millions of people who used to live in this country and the massive structures they built, the roads on which they traveled. Surely they didn’t need a road this wide only within a city?
It’s so strange, the rigidly defined lines separating “Canada” and “United States” and “Mexico” and all the states and provinces within them. The interstates are identified with a numbering system Emma doesn’t quite understand, but she finds New Orleans and a familiar river. They must be close to this 10 that goes east through the wasteland. They can take that and connect to this other network of roads and go northeast from there.
Bells peers over her shoulder, touching several bodies of water at the top of the page. “Oh, are those the Dead Lakes? Hopestar is north of that. You can see the lakes from the train.”
“Great Lakes,” Emma reads from the map, looking at the bodies of water. She shakes her head. The lands and cities around them were among the first to be evacuated after X29; several nuclear plants failed there, and radiation seeped into the water. It would affect the area for a long while. They should avoid driving through there, too, on their way to New Bright City.
Bells takes out a pencil and traces a route. Emma squints, trying to follow along, but it’s getting harder to see in the fading light.
“Should we keep moving? It’s getting dark.” Emma glances outside. “Our panels should be charged enough to get us through sunrise.”
Bells yawns, nodding blearily. “Let’s get this stuff back to the car and do one more quick scan in case we see anything we want.”
They load the books into the car and pack up the solar panels. Emma winces; her neck aches when she crawls inside the store. They’ve been trying to push as far as they can, charging the solar panels at least twice a day, especially right before dark so they can push through the night. Emma’s tired, and she can see Bells is, even if he hasn’t said anything. The adventure is getting old very fast: bumpy roads and a dwindling supply of instafood and protein packs, sleeping in the car, and getting barely any rest.
At the back of the store, a door has a sign above it that reads EMPLOYEES ONLY. “Let’s check in here,” Emma says, pushing it open.
It’s a small but cozy room, stuffed with couches and soft armchairs and decorated with still 2D photos. One side of the room has a kitchenette with a sink and a strange-looking stove.
Bells whistles, plopping right into one of the armchairs. “Look at this, Em!” He grins as he leans back, and a panel pops out so he can put his feet up.
Emma laughs, sitting down on the couch. It’s soft and comfortable despite the dust, and she sinks into it, closing her eyes.
“Hey,” Bells says. “How about we take a break? I think we’re making good time.”
“Let’s just stay here the whole night. I don’t think either of us have gotten more than a few hours’ sleep.”
Bells kisses her forehead. “Sounds good. I’ll go get the blanket!”
They eat hot soup at an actual table, laughing over a picture book about cats Bells found. Warmth fills Emma’s stomach. It’s the same calories they’ve been eating every meal, but somehow, the food is more filling this way instead of eating in the car. It’s a small luxury, but sitting here and resting is just what Emma needed.
The couch folds down, too, and the cushions make decent pillows. With the blanket it almost feels like a real bed.
Bells has already taken off his binder and tossed it on another of the armchairs. “I want to be the little spoon,” he announces, crawling under the blanket next to her.
“You’re taller! It’s not optimal for me to be the big spoon.”
Bells sticks his tongue out at her. “You’re the little spoon in the car because there isn’t enough room for you to cuddle me properly, but now we do have enough room.”
Emma laughs. “Okay, okay, come here.” She throws her arm over him and then a leg for good measure. “Nice?”
“Yes. I feel very safe and protected.”
Emma closes her eyes and snuggles closer. She feels safe, too.
Turner City is wildly disorienting. After so long in the Unmaintained lands, setting up camp on dirt roads and broken concrete paths, it’s strange to be in a city, however small. They need supplies, though, so it’s a necessary detour.
Emma pulls the hat down over her curls and adjusts her sunglasses. Bells painted flowers and designs on her face, enough to confuse any facial recognition software. It’s not quite as dramatic as the punk look with geometric shapes, but the flower aesthetic is common enough so that someone passing her by would merely think she’s following the trend.
Bells shifted to a taller version of himself; his face is more angular and a bit wider. It’s somewhat similar to his “Barry” persona, the face he used for so long at the Meta-Human Training center. Taking this form is second nature to him, and Emma spots him smiling at a reflection in a storefront. It’s not exactly like Barry, Bells told her, since he was sure Barry’s face was wanted. This guy is more freckled, with bright fiery orange-red hair, almost like Abby’s. It looks great contrasted with his dark skin.
“Cute. Who are you supposed to be?”
Bells winks at her. “Styx Kipling, gentleman detective. Now let’s go get ourselves some radio equipment so we can call Jess and Abby.”
After buying more food and water with their burner DEDs, they locate a hobby shop on the outskirts of town that sells electronic “junk.” It’s seen better days. The shelves overflow with glittering tech: holoprojectors and MonRobot parts and commtech and more.
“You sure they would have it here?”
“Let’s just keep browsing,” Emma says. “If they do have it, it wouldn’t be out,” she mutters. “Radios are pre-Collective tech, so the sale and distribution of them is illegal.”
“You kids need help finding anything?” An older man with thick glasses approaches, peering at them curiously. His nametag reads JORDAN and PRONOUNS: HE/HIS. Emma wonders if he lived through the time of the Disasters to see the country fall apart and a new one come together.
Bells shakes his head.
“Well, I’m Jordan, just give me a holler if you need me.”
Emma glances about the store and tries to get a quick sense of who Jordan is. Glasses mean he never opted for corrective surgery even when it was accessible through the North American Collective healthcare system. He runs this shop despite the more lucrative career options he could have taken, so clearly he’s passionate about electronic junk.
A few posters catch Emma’s eye. “Are these for sale?” Emma asks. The pre-Collective one with the laser swords was one of Jess’ favorites. A huge symbol is displayed over the door too; it looks handmade, but it’s familiar: red, almost a circle, but the arc has been cut into three distinct whorls.
“Not for sale.” Jordan folds his arms and follows her gaze to the symbol. “You a fan?”
“Yes,” Emma blurts out. There was a password among nerds like this. That’s how they found the first “Resistance.” “We’re—” she glances at Bells and jerks her head.
“Han shot first!” Bells announces brightly.
“Yes,” Emma says quickly. She hopes that’s right.
Jordan’s eyes crinkle up as he laughs. “Always good to meet more members of the Rebel Alliance!” he snorts. His demeanor goes from suspicious to friendly in an instant. “You all from outta town? Never seen you before in our bunker.”
Bells nods. “Yes, just traveling and visiting family, but, uh, I just miss it, you know?”
Emma tries for what she hopes is a conspiratorial eyebrow waggle. “I know there’s a vetting system—we have a very extensive one back home in our group—but you wouldn’t happen to have anything you can share?”
Jordan beckons her to the back of the shop. “C’mon, over here.” He pushes aside a circuit board on a shelf; behind it, there’s a disguised keypad. He taps out a code, and there’s a telltale click as the shelf swivels forward to reveal a flight of stairs. “Follow me!”
Emma raises her eyebrows. “What’s with all the hideouts underground?”
“Better than way, way above ground,” Bells mutters.
Emma pats him gingerly on the back; he’s probably thinking of the swaying walkways hundreds of feet up in the trees at the Meta-Human Training center.
They follow Jordan downstairs into another living space. It’s decorated with all sorts of paraphernalia: a broomstick hanging on a wall, elaborately painted and polished wooden sticks, a statue of a person in a strange black uniform, and a cape holding a laser sword.
“This is great,” Emma says, looking around. Jess would probably get a kick out of this. “You ever talk to other chapters?”
“Yeah, occasionally, to trade DVDs and such. Mark over in New Bright City is the only one with a Blu-Ray player, though.”
“Do you have a radio?” Bells asks.
“Yeah,” Jordan says proudly. “We’re piggybacking on several towers, got a really strong signal. Mark’s just barely in range.”
Emma whistles. If they can reach New Bright City in the Hopestar region, the Rockies are definitely within range. “Mind if we make a transmission?”
“Always happy to help a fellow geek,” Jordan says.
He gets them set up, and Emma scans the channels, looking for the familiar background music of The Gentleman Detective.
“You think they’ll be there?” Bells seems nervous. He grabs a chair and spins it around to sit in it backward. He runs his hands through his hair; Emma can tell he’s anxious. He’s losing some of his shift; his nose looks like his own now, and his freckles have disappeared.
“Wasn’t your hair red?” Jordan asks, narrowing his eyes. “Might be my old age, but I could have sworn…”
Bells shrugs, letting Jordan second-guess himself. Emma taps the microphone. “Hello? Anyone there? This is Emma. Bells and I are talking to you from Turner City.”
The episode keeps playing, and Bells frowns. “They might be out.”
Emma glances at Jordan. “What’s the date? Day of the week? And the time?”
Jordan looks even more curious, but he just tilts his head. “It’s two thirty-ish Friday…” he glances at his DED. “October second, 2124.”
Two-thirty every Wednesday was their usual call time. If anything, Emma knows Jess, and Jess would never break that habit, even if she hadn’t heard from Emma and Bells—especially since she hasn’t heard from them. Jess and Abby are probably worried sick. Emma imagines them camping out by the radio every week at the designated time, maybe more often.
Styx Kipling’s deep voice is their only company. “I’m on the case!”
“Soon everyone will know the truth,” Bells echoes. He gives Emma a look that says everything is going to be okay.
Jordan’s face scrunches up. “Okay, not to be rude, but actually, I am. I thought you said you were with the Resistance? And contacting the rest of your group? So this is a good show, don’t get me wrong, but you know it’s not illegal, not really grounds for good Rebel Alliance-type media.” He huffs. “I can’t believe I brought you kids into my secret lair and let you use my radio!”
He grabs the microphone, turns it away, and reaches to turn the radio off.
“Hey!” Emma says, more loudly than she meant to. They’ve come so far, and now to be pulled away at the last moment just isn’t fair. “We are just need to talk to the rest of our group!” Emma pleads. “It’s important!”
“The Gentleman Detective is standard for us to play on this channel when we’re using it,” Bells says, shrugging with an air of too-easy casualness. He gives Jordan a conspiratorial grin, as if he’s letting him in on a secret.
“Oh.” Jordan relaxes. He turns the microphone toward Bells.
Emma gives Bells a look. She’s seen him charm people before; she just doesn’t understand how he does it. He’s basically said the same thing she said, but what, nicer?
Bells shrugs, patting Jordan on the shoulder. “Thanks, man.” He turns the microphone, listening intently. “Hello?”
Nothing but the episode. Another minute goes by, and Emma gets more and more nervous. She listens as Kipling carries out his investigation; she’s heard the opening lines in his office multiple times, but they’ve never gotten past that part. Kipling leaves his office on a fast pursuit. Now there are the sounds of wheels speeding off and shouts as Kipling chases his suspects.
“Hello?” Emma says into the microphone. “Jess? Are you there?”
The sound of an explosion makes her jump, but Bells puts a steadying hand on her shoulder. “It’s just the show.”
Right. There’s nothing to worry about. Bells knows this episode inside and out.
Emma tries to keep her breath even as more explosions and loud clangs echo, somehow growing louder in the small space.
Bells sits up, startling her. “Wait a minute—”
“What? I thought you said it was part of the show!” Emma grabs Bells’ hand.
“The first explosion, yes. But…” Bells frowns.
Static crackles. And there’s the sound of another explosion and screams.
“So that’s—” Realization sinks in immediately. Emma gasps. “No! Jess! Abby! Mrs. Tran? Anyone?” Emma shouts over the line.
Jordan blinks. “What’s happening?”
Bells grabs the microphone and speaks quickly. “If anyone can hear this, please let us know you’re okay!”
There’s more noise, as if a cavern is collapsing. Emma imagines her friends struggling in the dirt and she hates feeling useless, hates not knowing what is happening.
Something clangs. A door, maybe?
“Emma!” Abby’s shout is a mixture of relief and panic. “Where are you?”
“What’s happening? Are you okay?”
“The Villain’s Guild is being attacked!”