Fluff

Chapter Eight - Shady Dealings

The Dark Cup smelled like a coffee shop. Emily wasn’t sure why that surprised her so much. It wasn’t advertising itself as a den of moral dubiousness or anything like that. The signs, the decor, it all said ‘family owned shop’ without needing to spell it out.

But Emily had grown up watching cartoons about her favourite heroes, and she’d seen the movies with the occasional Mask acting--poorly--as themselves. In those, the bad guys always hid in warehouses and in places that were dark and dingy and that looked the way the villains acted.

The Dark Cup didn’t match any of that, and for some reason that set her on edge more than if she’d walked in to find posters endorsing the punting of puppies and the stealing of candy from babies.

“Can I help you, love?” the woman behind the counter asked. She was a mid-twenties girl with her hair caught up in a net and an apron over otherwise ordinary clothes.

“Um,” Emily opened her conversation as she did all others. “I, I, uh. Yes.”

The waitress looked up from her notepad, one eyebrow rising. “You can sit anywhere,” she said.

Emily shook her head and took a small step closer, tugging Teddy after her as she did. “No. I’m... looking for someone. A, uh, they call themselves a Mysterious Stranger?”

Confusion, then understanding flashed in the waitress’ eyes. She looked Emily up and down, then did the same to Teddy. “Right. Okay. Follow me.”

Emily tightened her grip on Teddy’s hand until the girl returned the pressure. It made her feel a little better knowing she wasn’t alone. Not that much better. Her only help was a girl that looked five years younger than her who had powers that... that Emily had never really looked into. For all she knew Teddy’s power was the ability to sleep for more than fourteen hours straight.

They were led to the back. The restaurant was shaped like a large L, so that the seats at the back were around a corner with access to the washrooms and where the patrons at the front couldn’t see them slip into an employee’s only room.

“Next time, just come in from the back,” the waitress said as she brought them past a little janitor’s closet and to a corridor with a door that presumably led out back and an old wooden staircase leading to another door at its bottom. “Down there. Good luck.”

“Th-thank you,” Emily said.

The waitress waved them goodbye and stepped past them and back out into the coffee shop. The door clicked shut behind them. Emily took a deep breath that smelled like dish soap and soggy mops. “Okay,” she said.

“You alright Boss ?” Teddy asked. “You look like you haven’t eaten anything in a bit.”

“I’m okay,” Emily lied. She wondered if it was too late to go back to her dorm. Or back home. She was sure her mom would accept Teddy, and her dad would like her too after a bit. Coming here, she decided, was a terrible idea.

Emily pulled her phone out of her purse and looked at the time. She had ten minutes before she was late.

The first step creaked underfoot.

The door loomed above her, a thick old thing covered in hammered tin with a big handle that looked well-worn.

Her knuckles tapped on the door with a quick, nervous one-two-three beat.

Emily was preparing to turn around and leave when the handle wiggled, something clunked on the other side, and the door creaked open.

The first thing that hit her was the faint odour of cigarette smoke. The kind of smell that clung onto clothes and that meant she’d need to take a shower on arriving back at the dorm. The second thing she took in was the size of the area before her.

She had expected a tight corridor, maybe some terrifying basement, but instead the room before her has more in common with a bar or a small pub. It didn’t have any windows, and there were steel posts rising out of the floor every few meters holding up the ceiling, but the room had tables and sofas against the walls. A bar sat at the far end with a TV above it turned to an all-day news channel.

“Welcome.”

Emily snapped around and found herself looking at the back of a younger man as he walked towards one of the tables near the middle of the room. There was a pair of laptops set on it and some notebooks stacked up next to them. He even had a pair of empty mugs next to that, as if he’d been at work for a while.

The man turned around as he slid onto the couch on one side of the table and positioned himself behind the computers. He was younger than she expected, with thick square-rimmed glasses and a bit of a beard.

“Sit,” he said with a gesture to the seats across from him.

Emily looked around, searching for anyone else in the strange bar, but they were alone.

“Um, do I have the...”

“You’re at the right place,” he said, not unkindly. “I’m Handshake. This is where I work most of the time. And I’m revealing myself because nothing I do is illegal. This is a neutral place. Do you know what that means?”

Emily shook her head.

“It means,” he continued in a voice that was soft and gentle, it made Emily think of a pediatrician or a nurse. “That offensive use of powers is very much frowned upon here. Come, sit. I won’t harm you.”

Emily moved over to the only seat across from Handshake, letting go of Teddy as she went.

“Who’s the young lady?” Handshake asked.

She looked over to Teddy who was busy dragging a chair over and came to a snap decision. “This is my sister, Teddy.”

“Ah, how cute,” Handshake said without changing his tone in the slightest. “Very well. Miss Wright, do you know why you’re here?”

“I... no?”

Handshake nodded. “That’s okay. See, I’m an information broker. I buy and sell information. Which means that I have people that keep an eye on things in this fair city. You triggered a few things with your searches the other day, so we sent a feeler, and now you’re here.”

Emily nodded slowly.

“Don’t worry, this meeting is really just to ascertain some things about you, about your goals,” Handshake said. He glanced away from her and to his laptop. “From your searches, it seems as if you gained powers recently and were given a... non-heroic starting point?”

“You mean, like starting as a, uh, not a hero?” she asked.

Handshake made a noise at the back of his throat as if agreeing. “Exactly. Don’t worry too much about it. Generally, the morality you start with is the one the power thinks is best suited to you. A lot of people start as anti-heroes, or as deep in the black as vigilantes. I started as a rogue and am still there now,” he said.

Emily nodded, some of the tension in her shoulders bleeding out. “So, there aren’t any villains here?” she asked.

He chuckled. “No, I’m afraid not. We have a few hotheaded individuals who live in Eauclaire. No big name villains though, not for years.”

“Right,” Emily said. Her heart sank a bit. “Um. So you said that you didn’t want to hurt me?”

“Of course not. Judging by your searches you’re trying to work your way over to becoming a hero of all things.” He leaned back into his sofa, the smile he wore never so much as shifting. “Imagine if you become a hero and yet stay in touch with me? I have a few that are wonderful business partners. It’s quite profitable on both sides.”

“Why did you contact me then?” Emily asked.

“I did more than that. I obfuscated your trail. The corporate hero teams would pressure you into joining them. You’re an attractive young woman, I’m sure they’d love to parade you around in tights and show you off to sell... sparkling water or something equally mundane.”

Emily shook her head. That wasn’t what she wanted, not at all. “So, you’ll tell me how to become a hero?”

“For a price,” he said. “One that is agreeable to both of us. That’s my power, by the way. Hence the name.”

She shrank back a little. “What kind of price?”

Handshake shrugged a shoulder, a languid, easy going gesture. “That all depends on what you can offer me, and, more importantly, what you want to know.”

***