Fluff

Chapter Forty-Five - Toy Soldiers

Maple knew it was her fault, even if Big Sister Emily said it wasn't.

Athena had cornered her that morning and said the same thing. 'It wasn't Maple's fault that Rattles had gotten away'.

But Maple didn't feel that way.

All day she'd been a little listless and slow, only putting up some effort to pay attention to Miss Headerson's classes and to play a bit with Steffie in the afternoon. The rest of the time, Maple found herself retreating into her own mind.

Usually that was nice. She didn't tell her sisters, but Maple thought that she had the nicest powers out of all of them.

Everything she saw was a new idea, a new thing to try, a new experiment. Every cartoon gave her a million flashes of inspiration, every time something went a little wrong, her power whispered a thousand solutions.

Right now, Maple was smacking down her power's little voice like a beaver slapping mud down. It could stop its yammering for a bit. It was her power that gave her the idea for the anti-vibration machine in the first place, and that had let Rattles get away.

Maple had seen it all from afar. She didn't mind not being in the thick of it. Fighting was kind of scary, and she wasn't as tough as Teddy, or as immortal as Trinity. It was a lot nicer to be on the sidelines, watching and thinking.

She got to see Teddy fight with Rattles, then Big Sister stomped up to the bad guy and talked him down. It was awesome!

Right up until Rattles broke Maple's machine and hurt the Boss. All because Maple didn't think hard enough and didn't build something good enough.

She should have made her anti-vibration machine better, so that Rattles couldn't pull that trick he did. And she should have made it tougher, so that a smack wouldn't break it apart and leave it useless.

Maple got home from classes and went to her room. She pushed the projects on her bed aside, then flumped down onto it, face smushed into her pillow.

It was a nice pillow. She'd taped an ice tray to the back, with a little fan, and a small container for the spill off, then she put some hoses in, and a battery, and now her pillow was always pleasantly cool.

Maple picked it up and threw it across the room where it rammed into the wall with the tremendous force of a feather carried by a mild gust.

Maple turned around and stared at the ceiling. She wanted to be angry, but anger was hard. Instead she just felt a boring sort of sad.

If she told Big Sister Emily about it, she'd get hugs, and headpats, and maybe some nice words, and it would make her feel a little better, because all three things were good for that, but it wouldn't fix the problem. The guilt from Big Sister being nice to her despite her mess-up would only paint the whole thing into something ugly.

She knew, because that's how she felt already.

Athena was good for talking to, but Athena would just tell Maple that it wasn't her fault too. It wouldn't help, and Athena didn't have Big Sister's knack for giving good headpats. She was alright at hugs, but Maple wasn't in a hugs kind of mood.

Puffing her cheeks out, Maple grumbled to herself, then rolled off the bed.

She was going to do something.

She didn't know what that thing was, but she sure was going to do it.

Stomping (gently, she didn't want to bother the others) out of her room, Maple looked around. It was just her sisters for now. Miss Headerson had dropped them off and now they were waiting for Big Sister to come back from school too, but that wouldn't be for another couple of hours.

Maple glanced around, but whatever she was going to do, she didn't think she'd be doing it here. So with a big sigh, Maple shuffled off to the front of the bunker. She didn't leave though. She wasn't as adventurous as Athena or Trinity, and she didn't like leaving home besides. Also, it was against the rules.

Instead, she opened the door leading to the stairwell that went down into the train tunnel under their home. That was, as far as she knew, still 'home' so it wasn't breaking any rules to go down.

Maple picked up her flashlight from a little peg. It was something she'd made recently, a flashlight that was ten thousand times as bright because she'd placed a second bulb into the end bit. The first one was 100 lumens, and the second was also 100 lumens, and she used her calculator and it said that 100 times 100 was 10,000, which was really very bright.

It also never ran out of battery because she'd connected the end of one battery back into itself so that the power went back around. Maple didn't know why they didn't just do that normally, but Teddy said it was because there was a secret cabal of capitalists making lots of money selling little batteries.

With the stairwell lit up better than if it was open to the sun, she made her way down, then into the tunnels. For a while, she used to think that the train tunnel was just a little spooky, which was silly. Big Sister was often here, so there was no reason to be spooked, and besides, she was a beaver. Beavers practically lived in tunnels. Still, the way it went on and turned dark at the end was always kind of spooky.

Now it was bright-bright, so much so that she had to shield her eyes a little. The brightness did reveal just how many spider webs there were, and it sent a few mice and such scurrying away to safety, but otherwise the tunnel was empty except for their train.

The train was still a big new rustbucket. Maple had plans for that. One day she'd turn it into a mecha, or a jet fighter, or a jet fighting mecha. Then, when Big Sister needed her most, she'd exit (from a cool exit, like a giant lift that lifts a whole mountain up and then comes out of it) while piloting her giant jet fighting mecha and...

Maple frowned. She thought she'd told her power to shush up. Or had that just been her own imagination? Sometimes it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended.

There were some bikes parked next to the train, four of them, just leaning there. They didn't have enough dust covering them to have been in the tunnels for very long.

Maple wandered over and looked at them. She didn't recognize any, but she did recognize some of the voices coming from within the main compartment of the train.

It was the minions.

Maple almost turned and headed back to her room, but... she hesitated. The minions weren't mean. They worked for the Boss, and so did she. Technically, she supposed she was their superior, but they were all big adults and loud and they liked talking and... and she almost convinced herself to run back home.

Instead, Maple walked up to the door of the train car and flicked her light off, plunging herself in darkness. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust enough to see the dinosaur stickers she'd placed on the handles so that they glowed.

Maple really liked dinosaur stickers.

Tugging the door open, Maple stepped in, then hooked her light onto another peg. There was chit-chat going on, and the occasional laugh, then someone said, "That's not fair!" which set off more laughter.

"That's what you get for playing xenos!"

Maple poked her head into the main room, blinking at the soft light within. The minions were standing around the table, which had been moved closer to the middle of the room. There were some little houses and tiny plastic ruins on the table, and a lot of tiny plastic figures, some painted, some uncoloured grey.

The big strong one, Ethan, she thought, was grinning as he rolled a handful of dice onto a small tray. "Oh, that'll hurt!"

"No!" Liam said. "Come on, you've been rolling sixes all--- oh." He froze up on noticing Maple. She had been trying to hide, a little bit, but half of her head was still poking out from behind cover.

It was maybe too late to sneak back out.

"Look sharp, guys, one of the kids is here. Chloe?"

"What?"

"Well, say something to her," Liam said.

"Why me?" Chloe asked.

"Because... you're better with kids?" Liam tried.

"That's sexist."

"What? How?"

Maple slowly pulled herself into the light. "Um, hi," she said. The arguing stopped, then one of them, Lucas she thought, came over and grinned.

"Hey. Are all of your sisters here too?" he asked. "We just... well, the game shop won't let us play unless we buy something, and that gets expensive fast."

"Only because you're cheap," Ethan muttered.

"So you came here?" Maple asked.

"Yeah," Lucas said. "What are you here for?"

Maple shrugged. "I just... needed time? Can I watch?"

***