Ch23 Home Cooking

Taste buds are pretty amazing. Consider the two donuts I’m holding. In my right hand, a donut with ‘chocolate’ glaze. In my left hand, a donut with ‘maple’ glaze. If I were to simply absorb the two donuts, their value as materials would be nearly identical. But, if I eat them with a human mouth, while using taste buds, and filter the resulting data through a human brain, suddenly eating either donut becomes an entirely different experience. The chocolate donut had a slightly bitter quality to it that was only enhanced by the sugar, and maple wound up being just sweet, but it was a different sweetness. Tangy maybe? More research had to be done, maybe humans had a better word for it. Finishing my donuts, I scanned the box for the next one I wanted to try.

 

“What’s this one?” I asked the police minion.

“Coconut.”

 

I grabbed it. The little pale flakes looked like sugar at first, but they actually turned out to be some kind of organic material without much flavor (the ‘coconut’, I presumed). I guess they were more for texture? Sometimes texture was important, although I think humans valued it more than I did.

 

“Isn’t it really neat how they are all donuts, but they all taste different?”

He sighed. “I suppose I never really thought about it before.”

 

Hmm, I believe the emotion the police minion is expressing is melancholy? Depression? I had been answering what questions I could, but admittedly the only thing I told him was useless personal information, and not information about Hellion’s Henchmen like he probably wanted. I almost felt bad, he had been rather polite and friendly given I was suspected of being a member of an opposing faction (not to mention giving me a box of donuts).

 

“Want a donut?” and I offered the box to him.

“…Sure.”

 

For the next few minutes, I went about eating and cataloguing the donuts. When I was nearly done, the door to the room opened, revealing Sandra, and another police minion who gestured for the one who had been questioning me to follow. Sandra entered the room and the police left, closing the door behind them.

 

“Hello Sandra. What are you doing here?”

“Getting you boneheads out of trouble. Especially you. You do realize this is the second time in three days where you’ve decided to play hero? Maybe we should stick you in the sidekick program hmm?”

 

Ack, why did people keep recommending sidekick work to me?

 

“Please don’t stick me in the sidekick program…”

She chuckled, “Tofu I’m kidding. But I am being serious about being a bit more careful. That trick you pulled with Magenta was fine, but fighting real villains like Sanguine is above your pay grade. Don’t put yourself in that kind of danger if you can help it.”

“Alright Sandra. I wasn’t trying to get into danger, things just sort of turned out that way.”

“As long as you’re trying. Now, how about you give me the full details?”

 

For the next few minutes I relayed my version of events, Sandra asking for clarification now and then. When I got to the part where I tunneled through the floor and killed the two guards, she frowned a bit, but when I asked about it she just said to continue. I was just getting to the part where the heroes showed up when there was a knock at the door, and the police minion who had been asking me questions walked in with what looked like a very large smartphone.

 

“Here’s what you requested,” he said, somewhat grudgingly, and handed the device to Sandra. She thanked him and took it, before prompting him to leave. Before he did, he looked at me and said, “Remember what I said kid. Get out while you still can.” Then he turned to Sandra and said, “And if you care at all about your ‘client’ you’ll tell him the same thing.”

“Officer I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Tch, yeah right. If Hellion has to resort to pulling kids off the street for henchmen, then her days are numbered. I’d wash my hands of it if I were you. If you even can.” Then the officer left, slamming the door behind him.

 

Sandra quirked an eyebrow in my direction.

 

“What was that about?”

“Um, he said it was too dangerous being a minion, and that I should join the sidekick program?”

Sandra snorted, “Well, if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black.”

 

I didn’t know what that meant. I wish they hadn’t taken my phone.

 

“Well, let’s see what the damage looks like,” she said, and opened the folder the officer had given her. She scanned the words displayed on the device she held, and the farther she read, the more she frowned.

“Tofu, why did you answer so many questions?”

“He said if I did I could have donuts.”

“Tofu, didn’t I just pay you a large cash advance? You could buy dozens of donuts.”

“…”

“Did you spend it all already?”

“…not all of it.”

 

Between Maggie’s, the arcade, the new phone, rebuilding mass due to all the trouble I had returning Nicole’s phone, and the amazing amount of street vendors, I had gone through the thousand dollars much faster than I had anticipated. I did make sure to keep enough for a few tofu burgers at Maggie’s though.

 

“You aren’t spending it on drugs or something are you?” asked Sandra. I noticed a slightly angry tone in her voice.

“No? I spent it mostly on food. I have a high metabolism.”

She frowned at my answer before asking, “You really spent it all on food?”

“Yes, and a phone… and a few rounds of Gribblin’s n’ Ghouls at the arcade.”

She rolled her eyes, “And I assume by high metabolism you just mean you need to eat enough to fuel your shapeshifting?”

“Yes.”

“Just making sure. I might need to give you a pamphlet on money management. Now, in the future I will warn you not to answer personal questions even with fake answers like these. You never know what they might glean from them,” and then she let out a small chuckle, “I can see why he thought you were homeless though. Putting ‘tunnels’ as your residence. If you’re going to lie you need to make it believable.”

 

I didn’t have anything to say about that.

 

And she noticed, her eyes narrowing. Ack. She was another perceptive human like Mikey.

 

“Tofu… are you homeless?”

“I have a place to stay…”

“Is it a tunnel?!”

“…yes.”

 

She placed a hand over her eyes and rubbed her temples.

 

“Tofu, why didn’t you bring this up during your job interview? We went over employee housing options didn’t we?”

“I didn’t think it was important.”

“How could you not… alright, when we get back you and me are going to discuss employee housing.”

“But I don’t really need-”

“No buts!”

 

After that Sandra gave me a lecture on dealing with the police, with a few mentions on how to use money more wisely thrown in. Apparently I should use a ‘grocery store’, and not just buy from vendors? I’d need my phone back to look up what a grocery was. When she finished she said, “I’ll be taking you and Ifrit back with me in a bit, the police can’t hold you as long as the others due to your age. I just need to speak with a few more people and then we can go. Don’t talk to any police.”

“Um, will I get my stuff back?’

“Yes, but they are confiscating the gun parts. That’s actually another thing we need to go over. You’re lucky they were just parts, and not an actual gun. The laws about carrying a gun are quite strict.”

“But Imp uses guns?”

“And he accepts the risks of being caught with them. We’ll go over this in detail later. For now I have to make sure everyone gets out without a strike on their record.”

 

Sandra left, and I was forced to wait for over an hour before anyone came to get me. I really wish they hadn’t taken my phone.

 

---

 

Eventually a police minion came to get me, and led me to where Sandra was. Ifrit was already with her. Surprisingly they did give my stuff back, minus the gun parts, although Ifrit warned me not to turn my phone on until Socket had checked it over. Ifrit and I had to fill out some paperwork, which Sandra guided us through, and then we followed Sandra out of the building.

 

Just like that.

 

“This seems rather strange. They just let us leave?”

“Well, after some coaxing from yours truly,” replied Sandra, “They wouldn’t have been able to keep you anyways though, I just sped things along. The heroes messed up by picking you up over in E13, but then bringing you to E12. If you had committed a crime they would have been fine, but of course, you did no such thing.” At this she winked at the two of us.

 

Sandra led us to a shiny, black, four-door car. She clicked a small device she pulled from a pocket, and the car responded with a strange chirping noise before the doors all clicked. I followed Ifrit’s example and sat in one of the back seats; the front passenger seat was taken up with boxes of paper files. Once we were all buckled in Sandra started the car, and drove us out of the parking lot and in the direction of Ashwood St.

 

While Sandra drove she made small talk, mostly mumbling about district regulations. But she did mention Sanguine, and how it was a shame that he survived the culling of the Espada’s leaders. Apparently Sanguine was one of the leaders who might be able to repair the broken faction. I wasn’t pleased to learn that. I didn’t want them to reach a level where they could again drain resources from Hellion’s Henchmen. They were supposed to drain resources from other threatening factions, not mine.

 

“I’m sorry Sandra,” said Ifrit suddenly, in her raspy voice.

“Hmm? Why’s that hun?”

“…I couldn’t get Sanguine,” replied Ifrit.

Sandra snorted, “Hun, people have been trying to get Sanguine for a long time, he’s a survivor.”

“It’s not that, I…” she hesitated and glanced in my direction, then apparently made up her mind to keep speaking, “I had the shot. I just… couldn’t…”

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“Ohhh, I see. Don’t feel bad about that. It’s not supposed to be easy.”

“Tofu did it fine with the guards.”

 

I wasn’t sure what Sandra was talking about. Sanguine obviously wasn’t a minor threat that could be released for later, and if Ifrit had killed him when she had the chance it would have made rescuing Jasper a lot easier. Maybe she needed more practice with proper threat assessment? Still, that was a rather critical error in judgement. How could she make such an obvious mistake?

 

“Yes, well, that’s not the only skill that counts,” said Sandra, “Tofu has things he’s good at, and you have things you’re good at. Like using common sense when being interrogated by police, isn’t that right Tofu? It’s a good thing I came to check and see how things were going.”

 

Ack. Touché I guess.

 

“So, is that why you came yourself? My mom didn’t ask you to bail me out?” asked Ifrit.

“Is that what you thought? No hun, I just needed to make sure things went smooth since the circumstances were iffy and most of you are new to this. She’s been keeping to her promise. I’m making sure of it,” at this Sandra winked at Ifrit.

 

For the rest of the drive Ifrit was much more talkative.

---

 

Sandra actually drove to a parking garage instead of one of the vehicle access tunnels. Then she took an elevator up to the third level of Ashwood St, while Ifrit and I took a secret elevator to the base. I had instructions to store my gear and meet Sandra in her office for the “housing arrangements.”

 

I’d never had gear to store before, so Ifrit showed me where the locker rooms were (divided into male and female areas), as well as telling me the procedure to request suit repairs. I was very glad that suit repairs were apparently commonplace. From what I had seen of what Socket did for Hellion’s Henchmen I doubted he had the time to individually repair every single suit, and I had been worried that getting it repaired would take a long time.

 

I removed my suit in one of the sectioned off changing cubicles, then I adjusted my disguise. Then I stored the suit in an empty locker, input my name onto the security pad, and pressed the button that would mark the locker for suit repairs. I was back to just my mask and my normal disguise of baggy clothes.

 

Leaving the locker room, I went in search of Socket to get my phone checked out. He wasn’t available, but another one of the minions that worked in the garage was able to help me check the phone, placing it in one of the multitude of devices that littered the garage to get ‘scanned’. He didn’t find anything, and I thanked him for helping before heading to Sandra’s office. I was glad my phone wasn’t compromised. I had a long list of words to search from my time at the police station. A ‘grocery’ turned out to be a vendor dedicated to food, so I was looking forward to that, but I might need more clarification on what Sandra meant by ‘strike’. My searches for “strikes on records” were only turning up accounts of different types of training exercises, baseball and bowling featuring predominantly among the results.

 

I headed to the elevators up to Ashwood St. proper, and put away my mask before I exited into the fake clothing store. Viewing the bulky winter clothes, I considered a few of them for my disguise, but discarded the idea. They would fit over the minion suit, but they would stand out too much in the summer weather. Maybe Sandra could direct me to a store.

 

I headed to Sandra’s office at 512, and entered to find Viper at her normal spot. She waved me into Sandra’s open office. Inside Sandra was seated at her desk, and she was working on several stacks of paper arranged around her.