The man roared with laughter. “I think we’ve all been there,” he said. “Come on, we’ll find someone to give you a ride back home, and maybe you can try the fish and chips, yeah?”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Heroic Introductions

Teddy yawned as Melaton pulled them into a parking garage, then stopped the car before a ticket booth. She fished around in a cup holder until she found a card, which she swiped over the screen of the automatic barrier.

When it rose, she drove past a few rows of cars, then past a second barrier and down a floor. “We should be pretty alone around here,” she said.

Teddy wasn’t afraid of tight spaces, quite the opposite, really, but she still felt as if the ceiling was pressing down on her as they sank deeper into the garage. Too much concrete and pipes, not enough grass and trees.

Melaton swung the car around into an empty bay and put it in park. “Right, let’s go,” the Hero said as she started to unbuckle herself.

Teddy was faster, though, unclicking her belt in no time at all, and bouncing out of the back of the car to land next to it with a smack of her boots on the ground. The Boss was the last out, but that was okay—she needed to make an entrance, sorta.

The Boss extended a hand down to Teddy, who grabbed it, then they both followed Melaton. They reached a heavy-looking door, one with a keypad next to it that Melaton poked at for a bit. A buzzer sounded; the door opened.

“All the way down,” Melaton said as she pushed through the doorway.

There was a long, long hallway, with pipes in the ceiling and lights every few paces. Their shoes plap-plapped along the ground, the sound only interrupted when the door clunked shut behind them. It was a real boring tunnel, but at least it didn’t smell like gas, like in the parking place.

The end had another door, this one requiring more tapping away at a keypad before it unlocked.

Teddy was expecting more tunnels, like any proper hidden base should have, but instead it opened into a perfectly ordinary corridor, with white walls and a plasticky floor. Teddy didn’t even have time to look around before the Boss’s hand tightened.

Two men were coming their way. Men in white-and-gray uniforms and bike helmets with visors over their eyes. They were armed, but their guns were tucked away in hip holsters, and they didn’t look too threatening.

Both of them had badges over their shoulders and chests, with little maple leaves and the initials HRF on them. “Melaton,” one of them said. “Right on time. Can you follow us?”