"Would you stop pacing Peter?" Ned asked, from his seat in the corner of Peter's room, a bulky laptop open in his lap. He was turning ever so slightly, back and forth in the revolving chair.
"I can't stop pacing," Peter said. "It's been a week since I first saw her and I'm still no closer to catching her," he said, sitting down on his bed in frustration, the mattress creaking under the sudden weight.
"Whoever this girl is, I'm sure it'll be fine. You have a good shot at getting a girlfriend," Ned said, leaning over to pat him on the back. "You went with that upperclassmen to the Homecoming dance last year," he said. "As a freshman."
"Not a girlfriend, Ned. Persephone. The crazy drug lord," Peter said. "You're supposed to be my 'guy in the chair'. Do you have any leads?" he asked. "Besides, that was last year. This is sophomore year. I have to be 'cool' Peter now, not Pity Date Peter," he said.
"Oh," Ned said, drawing out the syllable as he realized who Peter was talking about. Careful to keep their voices down, they continued to talk. "Shouldn't Persephone be a crazy drug lady? You know. Because she's a girl. At least I'm pretty sure she is," he said, tapping his chin.
"Fine. Drug lady. We need to find her," he said. "And we need to finish our math homework."
"Right. Can I see what you found again?" Ned asked.
"Sure," Peter responded, opening his sock drawer and pulling out a large plastic bad that was shoved in the corner and hidden. "Here," he said, handing the baggie filled with one unit of each drug he had found in that warehouse.
"Thanks," Ned said examining the contents of the bag. "Whoever this lady is, she knows her stuff," he mumbled. "Because her drugs actually glow," he said looking at the faint luminescent purple. "Didn't that new girl on the Decathlon team give you her old math stuff? Do you think some of the problems are the same?" Ned asked, switching the topic, as he continued to focus on the drugs, poking one with his finger through the plastic.
"Yeah, I'll see if I can find them," Peter said, shuffling through the folder Connie had given him the other day.
"Anyway, why are we trying to track down this lady? We've been on this case for hours already today. You said you would finally help me build the Death Star. I think we should take a break and come back with a fresh set of eyes," Ned said, looking to Peter and pointing at the half built Lego set on the shelf. "You promised me that months ago."
"Right, sorry Ned. We can do that now," Peter promised as he pushed the files and the research and the homework to the side and grabbed the set from the shelf.
AVANI: I'm so bored
CONNIE: It's not my fault you got dragged to some dinner
AVANI: How come you don't have any sort of business dinners? I have so many doctor ones
CONNIE: It's my fault your parents are successful doctors
AVANI: :P
CONNIE: You could always just skip next time. Say you have homework. Parents always believe the homework excuse
AVANI: My parents would just say to stop texting and start managing time correctly
CONNIE: That is also true.
AVANI: They barely have any vegetarian food. I'm eating soggy french fries and bad salad
CONNIE: You think they'd have better food
AVANI: I know right? And the fries are these weird healthy things. They don't even taste like fries
CONNIE: I don't know what to tell you
AVANI: You can tell me you love me and everything's going to be alright
CONNIE: I love you and everything will be alright.
AVANI: I wasn't serious
CONNIE: And I was trying to help you
"Hey Connie, why don't you get off our phone and help me with this?" Tina asked, bringing her back to her surroundings and out of her little texting bubble.
"Yeah sure. Just give me one second," Connie said.
CONNIE: I have to go. Talk later?
AVANI: Don't you dare leave me here
CONNIE: Sorry
AVANI: CONSTANTIA DON'T YOU DARE STRAND ME HERE
CONNIE: I will text you later I swear
AVANI: Whatever you're abandoning me to do better be important
CONNIE: It is. Now eat your weird french fries
Sending that last text to Avani she slipped her phone into a pocket in her skirt and running over to help Tina.
Valentina Rivera, better known as either Tina or by her alias Mirage was one of the only people around her age in the Criminal Underworld. Which is where she had elected to spend her Wednesday night instead of in her lab or at Avani's house. The latter was because of the fancy doctor dinner Avani was trapped in. Tina was her brother's age and could probably pass as some South American movie star or model or something like that.
Tina had taken basically Connie under her wing when she had expressed some interest in what she did. Tina was a spy and a thief as well as a decent weapons mechanic, fiddling with different types of firearms in her free time. If you needed information or a diamond or a decent rifle, you would ask for Mirage and a seventeen year old superhuman would respond. Because of her, Connie was now exceptional at picking locks. And thanks to Connie, Tina was no longer failing calculus.
Grabbing a box from Tina's outstretched arms she brought them over to the booth that Tina called her own little pawn shop in the outskirts of the Criminal Underworld. But you didn't have to be in the heart of the activity to get good business. You just needed to be well known and good at whatever it is you did. Tina was well known. So was Connie. She had her own little booth next to Tina's, but she only sold things out of there sometimes. Most of the time, it was just a spot people could find her if they wanted to arrange some sort of deal. That was the nature of the Underworld.
"Were you texting the Word Genius again?" Tina asked, heaving another box behind the counter.
"Word Genius?"
"Yeah, she's the Word Genius right? You're the Number Genius. Now that you're on the Decathlon team like the nerdy genius you are, I have to label everyone. Peter will be Flakey Genius. I heard about what happened last year, Liz would not stop complaining and it was so annoying. Michelle is Edgy Genius," Tina continued. "Ned can be Supportive Genius, Nick can be Mute Genius, and Nihar can be Tiny Genius," she concluded.
"And you know everyone on the team because?"
"You told me about them. And I go to the same school as you," Tina said, shaking her head at Connie. "Besides, I know things. You know where I work," she said gesturing out to the Underworld.
The Criminal Underworld was a large structure made up of several large warehouses with several levels below them and several levels of catwalks above them. Booths were scattered around the majority of the space, making up crooked aisles that spanned the entirety of the Underworld.
Placing a box on the wooden counter of the booth, Connie brushed off her skirt, careful to keep any sort of grease or dirt off of the floral print, the pale fabric stained easily and she wanted to avoid that as much as she possibly could.
"You should wear a pair of pants once and a while. Or maybe a black skirt," Tina suggested, wiping her hands on her own pair of baggy cargo pants leaving oil and grease stains on the material. "Then the stains would blend in."
"Well I would, but I think they're uncomfortable. Besides, these look nicer on me," Connie said, twirling her skirt slightly so the pale fabric spun around her knees.
"Well at least it's somewhat conservative. Your old man would have a heart attack if he saw you in any skirt higher than your knee, even then," Tina said making a face.
"Thank you. I think," Connie said, sitting on the corner of the counter as she watched Tina unpack her things onto the table.
"But what do you where when you're brewing your little magic potions?" Tina asked.
"Number one, they aren't 'magic potions'. That's impossible. And two, I weak a smock to cover my clothes," Connie said somewhat self conscious of what she was wearing now. She wore variations on the same outfit nearly everyday. A skirt, typically either pastel or floral print or both, and a tee shirt. When it got cold she added leggings and a coat. She didn't really have that much variety, much to Tina's dismay.
"Excuse me, I'm looking for Mirage," a man asked. A man Connie recognized easily. She had sold drugs to him a few weeks back, not that he would be able to recognize her now.
"Who's asking?" Tina asked.
"Jackson Kent," he said. "I needed to hire her, and they told me to come here," he said.
"Well it's your lucky day because Mirage is present and speaking," Tina said, continuing to unload the large cardboard boxes into her booth.
A look of shock passed through his face before Jackson regained his composure. Though it was almost funny to see him try to process that the person he was looking for was a teenage girl. Connie shot him a warning look that clearly said to tread lightly. Whether he heeded her warning or not was his decision. He simply passed a file across the table to her and waited for her response.
"This better be worth my time," she said as she looked inside the large envelope the papers were concealed in. "How much?"
"We are willing to offer you a large sum," he began.
"I need a number."
"Look if it's too big of a job for you I can go somewhere else," he said, but she cut him off.
"I don't know if this is an age thing and you think I'm too young, because you already knew I was a woman, so I'm going to say that you think I'm just a kid who can't handle this heist. This is something I could do in my sleep. You want Mirage and you're going to get her. You do know what I can do right?" Tina said, raising an eyebrow at him, no trace of a smile could be seen on her face.
"I-" he tried to speak again before being cut off once more.
"I create illusions so real you'll believe them, you won't even question them. I could make you believe you were a chicken or a cow or some other type of livestock. I could make you believe you were on Mars or underwater and watch as you slowly suffocate yourself. If I really wanted to I could create an illusion of pain so severe and so real, your nerves would overload and I would kill you. I can do whatever I damn well please to your tiny little mind and you couldn't do anything about it. I think I can handle this," Tina said darkly, slamming a rifle down on the wood as she pulled it from the box. "Do you still want to question me about my capability?" she asked, her voice was dripping in false innocence and sweetness.
"No," he said simply, his face draining of any color. Connie gave him an apologetic 'I told you so' shrug and went back to silently supporting Tina while sorting through bullets.
"Good, now I think this is a proper payment," she said writing a number down. A large number.
"That can be arranged," he said tersely. "We will be in touch," he added, walking away. Connie could swear that she saw his hands shake.
"Pleasure doing business with you," Tina waved as he walked away. "Another costumed scared to pieces," she laughed.
"I'm very impressed," Connie said. Tina and Helene had taught her everything she knew about conducting business and getting people to take you seriously, but she hadn't seen Helene in a while. Tossing a stray bullet in the air, almost as easily as you would flip a coin, Connie caught it and quickly loaded it into one of the pistols that had just been unpacked. She quickly aimed, but she kept the safety on. She had no intention of firing it here.
"Woah woah woah. What do you have there?" her father asked her, laughing at her and holding his hands up in the air from where he was standing, having just arrived in front of them, the pistol aimed firmly between his eyes. "You can't shoot anyone with that sort of form. You need to extend your arms a bit more, hold them steady and brace yourself for the kickback," he advised.
"Sorry," Connie said, giving her father an apologetic smile. "I didn't mean to try and shoot you," she said, placing the gun down carefully next to her. Her father, Salvatore Maranzano, was a large man, very unlike her mother who was rather wiry. But he always said that there was more of him to love that way. Her father was large and rather strong as well, making him seem all around intimidating.
"That's okay my tesoro," he said giving her a brief yet tight hug using his common term of affection for her. He liked to randomly insert something in Italian to tease her and sometimes he would try and convince her to switch from studying Hebrew to studying Italian. She had chose between her parents' languages and had chosen Hebrew purely because the alphabet they used looked cooler. "Have you seen your mother yet, Constantia?" he asked her, scanning the booths. "I haven't seen her yet today and she said she would pick you up and take you and your brother out to dinner," he said.
Squinting out into the crowded floor she monitored the few bodies that weren't behind booths or engaging in some sort of illegal activity. "Wait I think I see her," she said looking for her mother's face, but it was hard considering her mother didn't like to wear bright colors. When she did spot her mother, she waved high in the air hoping to get her attention.
"Keep waving like that and people will think you're high off your own stuff," Tina teased.
"Hello Ms. Rivera," Connie's mother said with a soft chuckle from behind them.
"Oh um hi ma'am," Tine said. "I'll just go now," she said skittishly, ducking behind the booth she was attending.
"Well alright then," Ariella said, kissing her husband on the cheek and hugging her daughter. "Ready to go?" she asked Connie. "I'll assume your father has actually remembered to tell you the plan for dinner."
"Of course Eema," Connie said, using the Hebrew word for mother, the same way her father inserted bits of Italian into his speech, Connie and her mother inserted bits of Hebrew. It was like a never ending battle to see who could get the other one jealous first. And that battle had been going on long before Connie or Vincent were born.
"Bye Ariella," Salvatore said before she left. "I'll see you at home," he promised.
Connie's mother, Ariella Maranzano, was breathtaking to the point where some people would stare at her, even now as grey started to appear in her hair. Her father said that when they were younger, she could get entire rooms to focus on her, just by smiling. Her father said that he had been lucky enough to catch her attention in college before anyone else could. Whenever he told that story, her mother would whack his arm and tell him to stop making it seem more dramatic than it actually was.
Wrapping an arm around her daughter, Ariella guided the two of them out to where Vincent was waiting. "Get in the car, dear," Ariella said to both of her kids. "Let's go."
"Hi Connie," Peter greeted as she took a seat next to him in chemistry the following morning.
"Hi Peter," she returned, pulling out her notebooks from her bag, not even pausing to look up. "How are you?" she asked politely as she finally drew her eyes from her bag to him. It looked like her hadn't slept much that past night and she hoped it wasn't because of homework or something like that. When she stayed up late to finish schoolwork, she was always miserable the next day.
"I'm alright," he said, giving her a tired smile, but it still seemed genuine so she went with it. "What about you?"
"I'm alright as well. The day hasn't become bad yet and I intend to keep it that way," Connie said with a firm sense of optimism.
"Right," Peter said doubtfully, dragging the syllable as he opened his own notes for the class and Connie caught sight of something that didn't look like chemistry, but she didn't pry too much into it. She had her own fair share of notes in her various notebooks and binders that had nothing to do with school and more to do with illegal substances that no fifteen year old should be concocting and creating.
"By the sound of your tone, I would say your day is already off to a bad start," Connie said, tilting her head to look at him. "It's only first period. There are five more after this. Six if you count lunch," she said. "Some people count lunch as a period, though I think the only thing you learn is who's dating who and how to eat an entire meal in half an hour."
"My day is normal," Peter assured her.
"Which means it's bad?" she asked. "Or it's good?"
"Sure, let's go with that," he said, not giving her a clear answer before switching the topic to something other than his current mood. "Are you coming after school to Decathlon practice?".
"I guess I am," Connie said. "What days exactly do we meet?" she asked, having been invited to the team with open arms and a few passive aggressive looks towards Peter from the other members when they were telling her how much she was needed after last year's fiasco.
"Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays usually, but you don't have to go every day," Peter said. "We only meet for like an hour after school," he assured her.
"Well last time I checked today was a Wednesday so I guess I'll have to come. I'll be there," Connie said. She had history with Avani last period anyway and Avani would never let her skip.
"Great!" Peter said with a little too much enthusiasm than was necessary, but it was appreciated.
Tucking her hair behind her ear, she penciled the Decathlon meetings into her planner. She had that three days a week and then she had Science Honors Society on Tuesdays and National Honors Society on Thursdays. At this rate she would get sucked into more clubs and teams and she wouldn't go home until nine at night. She really hated to say no when someone needed her.
As their teacher walked in to the class, Connie looked up, tapping the pencil's eraser on her planner. "Anyway, are we still going to the competition next month?" she asked, flipping through the calendar with various test dates and projects already marked in.
"Ms. Maranzano, if you would care to join the class and stop talking to Mr. Parker that would be lovely," her teacher said, looking at her with an ever present frown on his face.
"Sorry Mr. Clark," Connie mumbled apologetically before looking back up to where he hadn't started teaching yet.
Peter gave her an odd look, but she ignored it.
"Forgiven Constantia," her teacher said smugly, turning back to the board.
As the last bell rang, signaling the start of first period, Connie turned her attention back on the lesson that had yet to start while Peter placed some of it on copying whatever she wrote.