Reply to Guest: Yes, I did it so well apparently that I was blackmailed for it. As long as you remain civil, feel free to speak freely.
Chapter 19: Vice (Part 3)
The City of Townsville. The Strip. Backside B2B LLC Office (Child Trafficking Front)
9 FEB (Thursday) 1989. 2300.
Katerina opened the door to Bubbles' rent room to peek out. There were footsteps in the distance - Bubbles' hearing was good enough for her to discern it from the raucous bidding happening outside.
"I want that Vietnamese girl for two thousand!" someone made another offer.
The woman turned back to Bubbles, whose heart sank even further than she thought it could when she did.
"Looks like he's here," the child trafficker said. "Don't worry, I know him intimately. He's gentle as long as you are, and he'll treat you real good too as long as you do the same."
A hand, sleeved in expensive cashmere wool, shot out from the opening at the door, widening the gap. A man in his thirties, undeniably handsome and well-dressed and likely well-connected, even hard-wired into the society of the city, appeared at the threshold. He looked at Bubbles with the softest gaze, his eyes blue like hers. Had Bubbles met this man on the streets, she wouldn't have known that he would be found in a place like this. She would have liked to talk to him, or even befriend him.
"My, you weren't kidding about the girl," the man said to Katerina, before giving her a peck in the lips and a stack of hundred dollar bills. "Where did you get her from?" The woman thought about it, and it occurred to her that she hadn't bothered to find out where she was from.
"Anastasia, where are you from?" the child trafficker asked Bubbles, who was visibly sweating as her mind was racing with some crazy ideas on what would happen next. Her question had gone unheard and unanswered as Bubbles, for a crazy moment, hoped that the man was only here to read her a story, or play with her. "Anastasia Summers, don't make me ask again."
"Ca-California," Bubbles found it surprising that she remembered her cover story.
"Ah, California. I've been there too many times. It was sunny and beautiful there, last I checked. Full of hot girls too - no wonder Hollywood's there," the man said, before turning to Bubbles again. "Do you want to be an actress, Anastasia?"
"Y-yes…" Bubbles said - and she wasn't lying. She'd seen the TV, and she wanted to be there, and not while she was fighting one criminal or another.
"I'll leave you to it then," Katerina said as she left the room. "Holler if she's giving you trouble."
"You know me. They never do," the man said to the child trafficker before turning back to Bubbles. "Be sweet to me and I can make that happen, Anastasia Summers. That's a beautiful name, by the way."
The City of Townsville. The Strip. Mussel Street.
9 FEB (Thursday) 1989. 2301.
Detective Wednesday felt like hollering at the computer. Despite regaining the signal from Bubbles' GPS transponder, it was an intermittent signal, disappearing and reappearing as if on the whim of some trickster god. It'd never shrunk by any substantial size, and the whole 'probable location bubble' was the size of nine city blocks. Even with hundreds of undercover cops, it would take forever to search through them. Scattered throughout The Strip, some of them would be out of range. Almost all would likely be searching the wrong buildings if they had to go through nine city blocks.
"This is Mullens! Where the fuck is my go-ahead signal!?" the older detective was practically screaming on the radio, though it was likely due to the volume. Detective Mullens sounded dead worried, desperate even. They both knew what could happen to Bubbles, even though Wednesday had downplayed the threat.
"Just wait, damn it!" Detective Wednesday snatched his radio off the table and shouted after pressing the 'speak' button. "I'm working with some shitty instruments here!"
Blossom felt like she could have a meltdown there and then - she'd begun fantasizing about busting through the van and all the buildings on The Strip to find her sister, but she was smart enough to figure out that it wouldn't work out that way. For all her powers and enhanced abilities, she felt helpless.
Buttercup, on the other hand, was nodding off. A sliver of drool was slipping down her lips. It was way past bedtime.
Detective Wednesday stared at his computer, begging for it to do better - as far as he was concerned, it was his only option for now.
And somehow, it'd worked. The location bubble began shrinking again, slowly at first, before doing so rapidly. He jumped at the development, staring hard at the screen, making sure that he remembered where the bubble was highlighting least it disappeared again.
What was once a gigantic bubble covering nine city blocks became the size of four, then one. Then a quarter of it. Good enough. Had to be. The younger detective grabbed his radio.
"This is Lieutenant Wednesday to all units, location confirmed!" he was practically screaming into the radio. "Storm The Blue Moon, Gold Pole Strip Club, Backside B2B, and Your Inqueery Hotel, now!" He turned to his partner in the cab: "Felipe, drive!"
"Which?" the Mexican-descended undercover cop asked. Wednesday hadn't considered that. Between a bar, strip club, adult business office, and sex hotel, which would make the best front for a child trafficking ring? They all looked like the right answers. And now they were all starting to look like the wrong one.
"Backside B2B, now! Step on it!" Detective Wednesday ordered. The van screeched into a jolting start soon after that.
The City of Townsville. The Strip. Backside B2B LLC Office (Child Trafficking Front)
9 FEB (Thursday) 1989. 2301.
If Bubbles wasn't terrified, she was now. The man, who called himself her new 'daddy' and 'lover', had chained her wrists to the bedposts, and she wasn't supposed to use her superpowers. 'It's so you'll know what's right', the man had said. The cuffs were loose, but tight enough that she couldn't wriggle out of it. They were strong enough that she would need her enhanced strength to break loose.
"I'm helping you here, Anastasia," the rich man said as he slipped out of a bathrobe and crawled up to her in bed, with nothing but his boxers on - this fact alone traumatized Bubbles immensely, as the last time she saw an adult naked was back when the Highway 13 incident happened. There were a whole bunch of them even, back in the strip club with the strippers. That was when she understood that naked adults were bad. "You'll grow up quickly, and you'll love it."
He reached for her dress and pulled it down gently. Bubbles mewled in fear - although she hadn't fully grasped the concept of shame in its entirety, she knew she wasn't supposed to be naked in front of anyone except for Dad, Mom, and her sisters – with the only exception being Blake, who became her governor when Dad was too sick at one point to care for her. How she wished they were here now!
"Please don't…" Bubbles begged for the man to stop.
"You know, I like it when you girls do that," the man remarked as he leaned in close to her - they were staring face-to-face such that Bubbles could smell the man's breath - and it was deceptively refreshing, minty and lemony. "Makes it more satisfying when I finally break you and make you come around to my way of thinking."
And with that, he kissed her in the cheeks as she shivered in terror, then the mouth - which thankfully did not last long. He ran his lips down her neck and Bubbles could feel a shiver going down the same area. He ran his filthy hands down her legs and body. "Don't worry, I've got a long track record."
"No! Stop!" Bubbles pleaded with the man. She hated the sensation of flesh and saliva on her skin. She hated everything that was happening.
"Shh…" was the man's only reply. "This is how love is made. How you were made." Not that Bubbles really knew. Not that the man really knew how Bubbles was made, or who 'Anastasia' really was.
"STOP!" Bubbles screamed in her high-pitched voice - the last straw had been the feeling of her panties coming off. "NO!" She threw the man off with just her legs, who fell off the bed with a surprised yelp. He rose from the floor, looking mad and incredulous that such a thing could happen. He slapped her savagely, and it was when Bubbles looked back around at him, the anger coaxed out of her, that the man knew that something was wrong with his newest prey.
One of Bubbles' black contact lenses had fallen off, revealing the glowing baby blue underneath it. Angry that she had been violated and made to feel helpless, Bubbles had completely forgotten about her undercover job. With an effortless jerk of her arms, she snapped off the chains tying her to the steel bedposts above her and let off a sonic scream, which blew the child rapist away. He slammed against the door.
Her scream could be heard throughout the entire building. The windows of Bubbles' rent room, which was papered over, exploded outwards. Some sort of alarm had sounded off in the building, and people could be heard screaming. As the pandemonium spread, Bubbles pulled up her panties properly and cocooned herself with the bedsheet from the heart-shaped bed. Floating herself to a corner of the room, she began sobbing as she hid under the dressing table there.
Her near-rapist, with blood slithering down his ears, eyes, and nostrils, stood up with difficulty before disappearing through the door and screaming that the USDO and The Three were in the building.
The City of Townsville. The Strip. Backside B2B LLC Office (Child Trafficking Front)
9 FEB (Thursday) 1989. 2305.
Blossom, Buttercup, Detective Wednesday and Felipe could hear it from a mile away. The sound of windows breaking and numerous vehicles driving off in a hurry. Bubbles' sonic scream. The policemen didn't like the sound of it. It wasn't a part of the plan, nor the expected planned chaos.
"This is Lieutenant Wednesday, how many units at the Backside, over?" the detective bellowed his question into his radio as if it had offended him.
"There's two of us at the front," one of the units reported. "We're the first ones here."
The news hit Wednesday like a car in a dark alley. He'd attended raids before, organized a number even whenever his cases had gotten big enough. He could see bad news from a mile away, with or without the smoke signals.
"Anything to report, over?" the detective interrogated his radio like a suspect.
"They're, ah, not using the front door. The other units didn't make it in time," the police officer on the radio said. "Lots of vehicles driving away from the back. Our suspects are getting away. I'm sorry, sir."
"This is Mullens. I'm heading there now," the older detective said over the radio. "The Blue Moon's legal."
"All units in vehicles, pursue all vehicles coming from Backside B2B!" Jack Wednesday ordered through the radio like a pissed-off drill sergeant with a class of failures. "All vehicles from there are to be considered suspicious!"
The detective leaned back. The computer's useless now. To Blossom and Buttercup, he looked like a wreck. It was no wonder why: whatever had happened with Bubbles in the adult business offices had acted as an early warning to the child trafficking ring. They'd evacuated and it would be futile to try to chase them down.
Shortly after that, Felipe pulled the van up in front of the offices. He jumped out with his pistol out, and so did Felipe. Blossom and Buttercup practically flew out, floating above the van.
"This is Wednesday. The Three are at the Backside Offices. I repeat, The Three are at the Backside Offices," Wednesday put out a PSA for his fellow cops over the radio. They went in straight immediately, but the place was deserted. Blossom and Buttercup went through the lobby and main office space on the first floor, as well as the recreation area. Their guns were out and Blossom was keeping her heat beams charging, but there was no one to use them on. The rooms were all empty, and the bad guys had left in a hurry; the lights were still on, dim though they were, and the drinks, cigarettes in their ashtrays and condoms were still there. The criminals had taken everything illicit with them. There wasn't even half a dollar bill left that could be linked to them.
"I think I hear her," Buttercup said as she floated over the stage area of the recreation room, which, unknown to her, had been used as the auction area.
"Hear what? I don't hear a thing!" Blossom exclaimed aloud, still confused as to how Buttercup could hear so well when she scored lower on the hearing score. Buttercup did not reply, but instead flew towards a door and opened it. Blossom followed, and they both peeked into the room. It was lit in red, with a heart-shaped bed in the center. Blossom could finally hear something, what amounted to sobbing and sniffling.
Detective Wednesday and Felipe came up behind them just as the two of The Three entered the red-lit room. Coming up to a dressing table, Blossom and Buttercup had finally found her – Bubbles had been crying and hiding there, with a foul-smelling bedsheet wrapped around her tightly. There was the jangle of chains whenever she moved.
The detective muscled past them to see what was going on. Bubbles, despite the trauma she suffered, saw that she was safe, and came out from under the dressing table. She let go of the bedsheet, such that it became looser.
"What the hell did you do!?" Detective Wednesday accused Bubbles, who shrank away from him. The detective, however, was more preoccupied with the results of the operation than her.
"I told you the ground rules! Don't use your abilities! Don't reveal yourself! And you didn't listen!" He bellowed at the little girl. Before he could lecture Bubbles any further, a cop in plain clothes appeared at the doorway. A man in a baseball cap and leather jacket.
"Sir, we've found a few kids," the police officer said. "They were on the second floor, probably ran off and hid when the traffickers were evacuating."
"How many?" Detective Wednesday asked without taking his eyes off of Bubbles.
"Five of them," the officer said, before eyeing Bubbles and frowning at her as if she was a pest. "Looks like we've done some good, sir." He disappeared from the door.
"Can't say the same 'bout them 'Angels'…" the police officer's voice trailed off but made an impression.
"Five of them," the detective repeated his subordinate's words, his eyes still on Bubbles, who cringed at the way he looked at her. "Five. Did you know how many kids were here?" He didn't wait for an answer. "An estimated three hundred. Three hundred kids. Some your age, a few younger. We could have saved three hundred," the detective had said this, forgetting that Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were not even 3 months old. "We could have saved more throughout the city had we caught those traffickers and made them talk."
"Weeks of work - weeks of preparation and hope, flushed down the drain just like that…" the detective went on. He stared daggers at Bubbles, who was still crying where she sat. "You Girls aren't what you're cracked up to be."
Severely disillusioned, the detective simply turned around and walked away, too shocked and disappointed to reprimand the Girls any further. Instead of redemption, he'd found damnation - and another road deep into the bottle.
"DAMN IT!" the detective shouted halfway through the room, kicking a stool that happened to be close by, breaking the furniture against the wall. And then he was gone. Felipe took a sympathizing look at Bubbles, apologizing with his eyes, before following his fellow detective out the door.
Bubbles stood up, her eyes still on the red-carpeted ground.
"Blossom..." she said, her voice a near-whisper. She was shaking, and in pain on the inside. She'd let go of the bedsheet wrapped around her entirely as she reached out for Blossom, desperately a little something – a human touch free of taint. Anything. Her wrists were still cuffed, and broken chains dangling from them. One of her eyes was still dark brown because of the contact lens while the other was free and baby blue. She looked odd this way. "I'm scared… Please hold me…"
Blossom pushed Bubbles back, and she bumped into the dingy old dresser she was hiding under. Her bedsheet fell all around her. Buttercup flashed a sadistic smile at Bubbles when she had become almost entirely naked once more, save for her panties. Having learned shame the surest but hardest way, Bubbles folded her arms over her chest.
"I gave you a chance, Bubbles!" Blossom said coldly as she stared daggers at her. "Did you hear what Mister Wednesday said? We couldn't save hundreds of kids! Hundreds! I can't imagine-" And she wasn't kidding - the Girls had barely learned the concept of numbers running into the three digits. Therefore, numbers that were three digits or more were as what anything above the quadrillions was to an adult. It was an unfathomable number.
"Mister Wednesday said there's more than three hundred," Buttercup added with a mischievous grin on her face as she observed Bubbles for a reaction. Bubbles sniffled and had to hold back a sob. Her words had only served to make Blossom even angrier at Bubbles after being reminded of the terrible truth.
"Do you know what those kids must be going through now?" Blossom reprimanded Bubbles in place of Detective Wednesday as tears prickled her eyes. A single drop drew a near-invisible line down her left cheek. "He told me what they're going through while we were waiting in his van. Those children were kidnapped and they didn't get to see their mom and dad for days! Weeks! Even months and… Years!" As the Girls hadn't lived over a year, the idea of a year - a time period comprising of twelve months, was just as unfathomable as numbers that ran into the hundreds. "They were made to do things they hate and they didn't get to play!"
"But-" Bubbles was about to say more when Blossom cut her off.
"No buts! You've done it again, Bubbles! You've ruined everything!" Blossom scolded.
"You don't understand! It was horrible!" Bubbles screamed desperately as tears and mucus spilled from her face. "They were hurting me! There was a man doing disgusting things to me! He was- he was touching me and- and-"
"I DON'T CARE!" Blossom yelled back at Bubbles, her temper deteriorating once more as Detective Jack Wednesday's words continued to torment her. The fact that there were more than three hundred kids in the same boat all over Townsville drilled at her psyche. The leader of The Three clutched her head as if it was about to explode, digging her nails into it. She snarled incoherently at Bubbles after that. "YOU JUST HAD TO DO NOTHING! NOTHING!"
"You look fine to me, Bubs," Buttercup added dismissively just to upset Bubbles further. "Better than how we were when you didn't help us with the Purple Man."
"Blossom… Please! I'm scared… it's cold, and dirty and… I'm really upset…" Bubbles begged and pleaded and mewled as she tried again to hug Blossom. "Please…"
"Get away from me!" Blossom exclaimed unsympathetically as she pushed the half-naked Bubbles away again, this time hard enough for her to knock into the dressing table. She fell down on her butt and didn't get up. Neither did Blossom let up with her tirade: "You gave up on hundreds of kids just because someone touched you! You're selfish! You're useless!"
"Don't forget 'cowardly'. Forget it, Bloss. She's not hardcore, not like us." Buttercup continued taunting the helpless Bubbles as she stood beside Blossom like a little devil whispering evil suggestions into her. Bubbles could only look on at her toughest sister in utter dismay.
"You hear that, Bubbles? Buttercup's right. I've had it with you," Blossom went on coldly. "You can't seem to do anything right. You can't fight, and when you get to act like a normal little girl, you couldn't do that either."
"Why do I even have a sister like you?" shaking her head, Blossom turned around and walked away, her love and care for her sister so diminished that it didn't worry her that she was sitting on the floor of an abandoned place, without clothes and suffering from trauma and feelings that were beyond terrible.
"Phew, I'm tired - I can't wait to get some hot chocolate and bedtime," Buttercup wished casually as she followed Blossom, well aware that it would upset Bubbles even further.
"Blossom, please don't go…" Bubbles continued to call out to Blossom, but she was completely ignored. "You said you'd forgive me! You promised!"
"BLOSSOM! BUTTERCUP!" Bubbles screamed one last time but by then, both her sisters had disappeared through the open doorway. They had left her there, and even when she half-expected them to come back with arms folded and 'learned your lesson?' on their lips, they didn't.
By the time Detective Mullens, Olivia and Stanley Talker got to her, she was totally unresponsive and rocking herself where she sat, mumbling to herself incoherently as her soulless, still-teary eyes stared into space. But there was something she kept repeating:
'Don't leave me.'
