REND

“Now that I’ve thought about it, Erind’s plan is way better than mine,” Reo said. Or perhaps it was more apt if I referred to him as Oberon since we were on an actual mission. He was in the driver’s seat of the van he allegedly borrowed from his friend. I wasn’t so sure if his claim would hold up in court.

Myra, or rather, Barb, riding shotgun, said, “Obe, your plan was thought-provoking. It reeked of pure, high-level intellect. You were playing 4D chess with your eyes closed…I’m saddened we didn’t get to see it...fail.”

“Thank yo—hey! It was a genius plan. We hijack one of the food suppliers of Eve, like the Pink Oven Cake delivery van, right? Go in all sneaky like, and Deen and Erind can go in the club from the kitchen or something. It could work!”

“Other than the cake supplier arrives late afternoon while the club will not be open for a few hours. What would Deen and Erind do? It’s going to be weird to see two ladies dressed up to party inside a club that’s not even open yet.”

“I know, okay? I already conceded that Erind’s plan is better than mine.”

“Is there any word from Dario, I mean Blank?” I said, talking a touch louder so they'd hear me from the back of the van. I tried to push away a large speaker beside me, but it wouldn’t move because of the stack of boxes beside it. If I wanted to, I could really push it and squash the boxes, but I reminded myself that I was a weak normal human.

These sound system equipment thingies were supposedly also borrowed by Oberon from his friend who was in a band. There were a couple of tripods and cameras crammed in here with us as well, provided by Deen, to lend credence to the disguise.

“No update. I think they’re still following Bianca’s crew,” Oberon said. “But that was some time ago. We should get going.” He started the van, turned on the lights to illuminate the dark alley we were hiding in, and started to drive onto the main road.

“Bianca’s not with her camera crew?”

“The last time they saw her, she went inside her van after her shoot. But that van was still outside the Promenade Club when the pips with the cameras and equipment left. Blank and Johann had to follow them.”

“The crew always goes first to set up, anyway,” Deen said. She was sitting in the middle of the van, hugging a bag with our outfits for later. “She’s probably having her makeup redone.”

“Are you pips okay back there?” Oberon said. “Emcee might get angry with us if something happened to you. And by you, I mean Deen. Sorry, Erind.”

“It’s cramped back here,” Deen said, ignoring Oberon’s teasing. “But we can manage.”

A cellphone’s ringtone made us all silent. “It’s Blank,” Barb said. “I’m putting him on speaker.”

“—a mess. Sorry, Boss. I can’t make it to the meeting on time,” Blank said. There was chattering and yelling in the background. His voice became distant like he was talking to the people on the other side. “I’m sorry, sir. Just calling my work to let them know I’ll be late. Wait a bit, let me just get my insurance info.” Then he was back talking on the phone. “The police are here. I’ll get this sorted out asap. It’s only minor damage. I might catch up to the meeting if we're done here fast enough.” A long beep followed, signaling the end of the call.

“Blank said ‘minor damage’?” Deen said.

“Yeah, he did,” Barb said “That means we don’t have much time. But he really couldn’t wreck the ride of Bianca's crew too much or they’ll be late getting to the club and that'd be suspicious.”

“He also said ‘the police are here’,” I pointed out. “And that means Johann is also there now.”

“That 3D printed badge Johann uses looks so convincing,” Oberon said. “I should get me one of those. Could be very handy.”

“Hey, get serious.” Barb hit him jokingly on the head with a rolled-up poster of Bianca. “It’s nearly showtime.”

“Five minutes until we reach the club,” Oberon said. “Remember boys and girls. Err, only girls here. Remember that being undercover is twenty percent disguise and eighty percent attitude.”

“Are you going to tell us again the story of how you snuck in the backstage of whatever stupid concert that was because you dressed like one of the stagehands and just walked straight in? Spare us that BS.”

“But it did work. If you vaguely look like you belong in that place, just strut about and be confident. No one will question you.”

In their previous missions, Blank said they wore balaclava face masks to hide their identities when attacking 2Ms’ illegal activities. Actually, only Blank and Emcee needed to wear masks—sometimes Johann if he decided to jump in when they were in a severe pinch, but he was understandably hesitant in joining the fight of superhumans and monsters. Oberon was usually far away from the battle. And Barb, of course, always wore a helmet made of the bark-like material she could produce to hide her face in addition to protecting her head.

With this operation, however, we'd be revealing our faces. Oberon confirmed with Sneak that there were security cameras outside and inside the club. Depending on what happened tonight, or what other missions we might have, the enemy would have a record of our faces and it would only be a matter of time until one of them had enough brain cells to review the security cam footage looking for us. We did wear caps pulled low to partially hide our faces from the security cameras.

This was the subject of lengthy deliberations, but in the end, we decided to go for it. Barb reasoned that they already knew about her because they kidnapped her sister, a suspected Adumbrae. They also knew me, they already kidnapped me once. It was a huge question why the 2Ms didn’t do anything else after that. But then again, an Adumbrae was the leader of their entire operations. Who knew how an otherworldly entity would think? Now that we decided to try to find and attack the Red Island, we would fight them head-on anyway.

We just had to win. Simple.

However, there was an even bigger question that Blank, Deen, and the rest hadn’t considered. Why did the 2Ms want to kidnap me? The group assumed that it was related to the mysterious woman who attacked Barb during the Sander’s mall fiasco. Barb assumed that woman was with the 2Ms, could be a client, and they wanted to get me because I saw her.

That would've been a good guess were it not for the fact that that woman was me! There was no reason for the 2Ms to kidnap me because they didn’t even know about me. Or rather, before the kidnapping, they had no way of knowing about me and my connection to these superhero wannabes.

Which led me to think…what if one of us was a traitor?

I mean besides me.

Which also didn’t make sense?

Hmmm…

 

---

 

There was a small crowd of Bianca’s fans outside the Eve, washed by the cool blue lights from the neon sign of the club. They couldn’t get inside the club even if they could afford the price, which was astronomical, because of the club’s policy that only a former customer or someone they personally invited could get in. That didn’t stop Bianca's fans from coming through. The staff of the Eve cordoned them off to the sides so they wouldn’t block the entrance, with a few muscleheads in an all-black tuxedo trying to keep them in line.

“You guys see Emcee?” Barb said.

Oberon pointed to someone behind a herd of high school girls. “There he is. Haha! He even printed a poster of Bianca.”

“Isn’t that your poster of Bianca like this one you gave me?”

“No way I have a spare poster of Bianca that I gave to Emcee so he can pretend to be one of the fans.”

“That’s an oddly specific denial you got there.”

Someone shouted outside, “There they are! Bianca’s logo is on that van! Let’s go!” And the crowd surged forward, the bouncers of the club couldn’t do anything. It was Emcee who egged on the crowd to go out of control. Oberon was laughing his ass off as he carefully parked the van on the curb while screaming girls, and some guys as well, converged around us.

Deen opened the door of the van. The crowd stopped pushing each other, surprised by a beautiful woman stepping out. Taking advantage of the lull, Deen said to them, “Ms. Bianca is still not here! She’s arriving later. We just finished shooting at the Promenade Club. We’re the advance crew so if you could please make way while we unload the equipment.” The people didn’t budge, murmuring among each other, unsure of where to go. “Okay people, we have a few Bianca shirts, the rest are still with the main crew. So, if you guys could line up there, we can give shirts to the first twenty people. The rest will have to wait.”

Emcee said somewhere in the crowd, “I’m going to line up! Give me a shirt!”

The crowd parted, herded away by grateful bouncers who couldn’t exactly beat up the people to disperse them. A lady also wearing a black tuxedo and carrying a clipboard under her arm and a phone in her hand came out of the club and approached us.

“You’re up, Deen,” Barb said.

“No prob. Leave it to me,” she said.

During the planning, every one of us agreed that Deen should be present in all stages of the mission. Her power, even with its numerous limitations and several aspects we weren’t sure of, was an invaluable security blanket. We hoped she could get us through without getting questioned.

Oberon alighted from the driver’s side, went around to our side, and began unloading the boxes with Bianca shirts that Deen ordered online on express delivery, as well as the speakers. “Come on, pick up the boxes and give them to the people.”

Barb took out the boxes and gave out shirts to the ones in line. I helped out Oberon unload the equipment. We pretended to play around like we were checking them. I gave a sidelong glance at Deen to see how she was doing. She looked very sure of herself talking to the Eve employee, then shouting something in her phone like she was calling the rest of the crew.

“Claire, Dessy!” Deen called out to me and Barb with our fake names. “Let’s go check out the inside. We’ll have to see if we brought compatible equipment.” She turned to the Eve employee and said, “I’m sorry but we need to get inside now to check the place.” She jostled the lady who appeared to be in charge even before she could finish speaking to get inside.

The lady tried to follow us but Oberon cut her off asking about wiring and lighting and stuff like that. Speed was the key before they could suspect something was wrong. We were pretty believable if I may say so myself.

“Okay, I’m now texting Emcee to mess with the power,” Barb said.

After being part of the crowd, Emcee’s next task was to burn Eve’s power…box? I wasn’t sure what he was going to do; I heard them discuss it but I didn't know much about electrical matters. From what I understood, it was something about interfering with the club's electric supply, making it look like a few wires overheated and melted on their own.

The purpose was three-fold: one was to turn off the lights while we were inside the club switching into our disguise, two was to cause some commotion so that the Eve personnel wouldn't notice two of Bianca’s supposed crew were nowhere to be found, and las, was to be the exit strategy for Oberon and Barb. They were going to say that the generators might not be able to handle the equipment so they’d have to meet with the main crew first.

Which was absolute nonsense. But if we did it fast, no one would think about it hard enough.

“According to this, the restrooms are this way,” Barb said, consulting the map Obe drew based on Sneak's reconnaissance. The lights flickered a few times before turning off. A couple of emergency lights went on, saving the place from total darkness. The heavy music also stopped as well as the barely noticeable hum of the centralized air conditioning. Someone was yelling to turn on the backup power. "Let's go this way," Barb said, walking down a corridor.

Two women rushed out of the restroom with their cellphones out to light their way. As they walked past us, we hurried inside. With the lights of our cellphones, we confirmed there was no one else inside. Deen threw a small duffel bag to me. Next, I entered a cubicle and placed my lit phone on the lid of the toilet seat. I stripped out of my shirt with a Bianca’s Travel Diaries logo, skinny jeans, and sneakers. I took out the contents of the bag, my outfit for the night, and stuffed it with the clothes I shed off.

The lights flickered back on. I threw the bag over the cubicle door.

“Got your clothes,” Barb said. “I’m going now. Good luck.” I heard the door of the restroom open then close while I quickly finished putting on my next set of clothes.

After two minutes, the door of the cubicle beside mine opened. “Are you done?” Deen said. Wow, she was fast.

“A sec, just putting on my heels.” I went out and saw Deen combing her hair into a stylish wave. A pure white, high neck bodycon with ribbed design hugged her body, showing off curves that I didn’t have—perhaps in another lifetime or plane of existence. A small makeup kit was on the sink along with expensive accessories she was going to wear. “You look gorgeous,” I said. “All will think you’re a beautiful socialite out clubbing tonight…oh wait, you are.”

“Cute outfit,” she said, looking at my reflection on the mirror while she fluffed her hair. She moved on to applying makeup. When she was done, even the lady who she talked to in front of the club wouldn’t recognize her. Or maybe I just sucked at recognizing women with and without makeup. “And you look pretty tonight.”

I wore a navy blue playsuit with white stripes. The legs were cut mid-thigh. It had puffed sleeves and a lowcut neckline, which didn’t reveal much because there was nothing to reveal. I folded my arms and frowned. “What do you mean I look pretty tonight? I look pretty all the time.” We both laughed at my stupid joke as if we weren't on a serious mission. “Let’s finish preparing before someone else comes in here.”

With a little more than five minutes of feverish hairstyling and putting on makeup, we walked out of the restroom, two gal pals ready to party.