Dom busied himself with plans for weapons, armor, and of course, rebel insignias they could use to signify their existence. Carefully sketching out his plans in his little composition book, he looked up seeing Sola was making herself useful by listening to the radio, speeches and of course telecasts from the “Good for You” and Ritters party. It was important they figure out exactly what their plans were next so that they could be prepared. As he continually observed her, the phone rang, nearly scaring him out of his own skin. Digging through the mess of papers, he found the phone and answered.
“Dom here, what can I do for you?” Sola looked up, curious to know who was on the phone. Rarely did someone call at this time of night… although that was generally the safest time to call downstairs. She watched him, figuring she could eavesdrop at least just a little. Just as Dom was about to speak, Sola caught sight of D00m some distance behind him in the basement. Squinting Sola had to hold back a giggle with the aid of her hand as Dom’s assistant swung from the lamps like Tarzan, or maybe even an ape. Turning her gaze back to her “boss” she saw he was calmly talking as if nothing was going on behind him.
Boy was it a sight to see: Dom talking casually as if to a coworker, and then D00m in the background causing mayhem and… cleaning—much to Sola’s surprise. Why she would be cleaning at the same time as swinging, she’d never know. But somehow D00m had a magical way of keeping this place incredibly spotless. Digging into the pouch of her sweatshirt, Sola pulled out her digital camera and managed to snap a few shots of the picture before Dom finally hung up and D00m jumped down to move on to other cleaning.
Dom saw Sola staring, and blinked. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he sure was curious why she was watching him. Blushing at the thought that she was just watching him because she could, he returned to sketching out his plans for weapons and armor. Several of the materials for these items would take a long time for him to collect, especially since many of them were somewhat hard to find in these parts. This meant… business trip.
Switching to his laptop, Dom left his plans aside and figured he should plan his trip so he could at least collect more supplies. It was getting to that time of year when he needed to take a “Business trip” in order to make it seem that his company was being productive. Granted, all he did was find more suppliers for cardboard and check out the latest machines to make poster tubes… but really, he didn’t need any of that stuff. This was all for show for the sake of his employees and his mom. Otherwise Dom rarely left the warehouse at a long distance or long time.
Typing away from a few minutes, he searched through several travel sites to find a package he preferred. No matter where one looked though, one was always going to run into high airfares and low hotel rates. Not seeing any to the places he wanted to go, Dom grumbled for a few moments, refining his search terms. Still with no results he liked, he did a bit more thorough search until finally he saw that the web browser showed him that there weren’t any results. Too specific, great, he thought, going back to the main page and searching again.
At long last he found at least some better prices. Unfortunately he needed someone to stay here and at least run things while he was away. Looking up at his two employees, he could see D00m was busy cleaning while Sola was chiseling away at listening to several hundred hours of tapes to find anything suspicious. Sola needs to stay here. She can watch things and make sure everyone shows up, he decided, knowing that was the only way things could possibly work. Booking his ticket and D00m’s, he then formulated a list of supplies he would need to find with D00m’s aid. Flipping through a page of notes, he blinked, seeing that his list was already a page long. And yet he still had to make more instructions for Sola on what she should be expecting this following week or so when he’d be gone.
Getting back onto the web, Dom quickly placed his usual order for materials to be delivered to the warehouse—food, cardboard, ink, cardboard tops… It all needed to arrive within the coming week in order for the company to still remain busy. Otherwise he could just give his employees the time off; which could look incredibly suspicious. Either way he wanted them to remain working. This trip he would bring up at dinner.
* * * * *
It was his night to be the chef, which Dom didn’t mind completely. The rule was that whoever didn’t make dinner did the dishes; and since Sola or D00m did not cook tonight, it was their turn. Sola mostly did the dishes when he cooked though. Making sure that everything was preparing properly, he looked over to see the two were setting the table. D00m had a can of Monster clutched in her fist as she happily chugged it down in large gulps. Finding that his food was almost complete, he turned off the stove and moved over to start serving it up. After all three of the plates were adorned with food, he returned the pan to the stove and sat down with his “family.” All three of them ate in silence for a moment as Dom waited to let them start into the meal.
“What would you say if we went on a business trip?” He asked casually, taking a bite of a sugar snap pea pod.
“Cool. But this probably isn’t a hypothetical question,” Sola said, eyeing him curiously before she stabbed a piece of chicken and munched on it.
“Where’re we going?” D00m looked up happily like an excited little kid.
“Well, I need someone to remain here and keep an eye on things while I’m gone. And well, the other person will come with me and help me gather materials for all the armor and weapons I need to make,” he explained, glancing between them. Sola looked at him as she was mid-bite.
“Then who’s staying?”
“I was thinking you could, actually. I have to fly up north, which is where a large portion of the supporters of the “Good for You” party resides. If you were already seen and catalogued as a person of interest, they might stop us at the airport,” he reasoned. “So, it would make sense for me to take D00m and you remain here looking after the warehouse.”Sola stared him down blankly. She hated it down here; it was dark, devoid of sunlight and she really just wanted to get out and stretch her legs.
“Why does she get to go?” Sola objected. Dom could tell there might be a fight over this.
“Well, I just figured you’d like to remain here and chat with Minari and Ane when they do come to visit. It’s not like we’ll be gone that long anyway. Just a few days,” he assured her.
“What made you make up that decision, huh? Did you even bother asking me?” This was another conversation Dom knew wasn’t going as he had seen it in his head. And obviously she was hanging out with Ane and Minari too much that she was definitely exhibiting a more dominant side.
“I just thought that if you stayed here, you could go out and have a sleepover with them, or maybe even go grocery shopping—“
“You know that you order the food to arrive here! I don’t even need to go out!” Sola argued, not wanting to hear any of his reasons.
“Well, yeah, but that’s to make it easier. It’s cheaper to buy in bulk,” he said, mentally submitting to Sola’s surging rage. D00m sat there innocently watching the fight occurring between the two like one would watch a tennis match. “But if they stopped us after seeing your passport, we could end up in a lot of deep water.”
“Who gives a flying fuck whether they catch us?”
“Sola, why not remain here and keep an eye on things? You’ll do a better job than Dom anyway,” D00m finally piped in. Opening her mouth to speak, thinking Dom had said that, she smiled at her friend.
“That sounds like a great idea, D00m. I could probably reorganize everything here anyway so that it’s not such a sty,” Sola said, shooting a glare across the table at Dom for a moment before starting to eat again. Remaining silent, he resumed eating, not making any eye contact with either of them; it was in his best interest not to say anything. The silence between them stretched and the tension was so thick you could cut it with a dull spoon. “When do you leave?” Surprised by her sudden question, Dom glanced up nervously at Sola.
“Thursday morning. We’ll be at the airport at three,” he said, finishing his food. Taking a drink of his water, Dom got up and grabbed his dirty dishes. “I’ll do the dishes tonight,” he offered, wanting to ease the idea of him being gone to Sola. After they both were done eating, they deposited their dishes into the sink as Dom cleaned all the stuff and then headed back to his desk. There was still a lot of work to do in order to prepare for before he and D00m left.
As he resumed sketching and working out the technical schematics for some of the weapons he wanted to make for protection if his basement were ever discovered. Moving to get up from his seat, he made it over to a workbench with the blueprints so he could begin with at least a few of the smaller tasks he could finish in the coming days. Going around the underground room pulling together the items he needed, he grabbed his welding mask and torch. Just as he was about to get to work on welding several parts together as a prototype, he blinked, through the glass seeing a figure approach. Turning off the torch so that he wouldn’t waste fuel, he raised up the mask to reveal Sola standing before him.
“Fine, you leave Thursday morning. You better leave me a list with everything I have to accomplish while you are gone,” she said, arms crossed. Dom nodded.
“Of course.”
“And, I won’t have to stay up when you normally do and I can sleep and come and go whenever I please from down here,” Sola added, thinking up her list of demands on the spot. “Next time you don’t get to chose who goes with you. We’ll decide that as a family.”
“I will not do that again. I will consult you both before I do anything,” Dom said. Sola dropped her hands, glad that he was agreeing to all her terms. She poked him in the forehead before turning on her heel to return to her own desk. “But in exchange for all of those requests, you have to agree to go on a date with me.” Stopping mid step Sola turned back around and glowered at him. Storming back over to him, she flicked him in the forehead.
“You could at least do things romantically, you dork! Just asking me while I’m angry doesn’t give you any romance points, you know!” With that she marched to her room and slammed the door. Looking over to D00m and Uno who had both stopped what they were doing, stared at him. D00m shook her head.
“Did I really do something wrong this time?” He watched them for some kind of support on the current situation.
“Boy did you screw up, Dom. You could have at least done something more romantic. Now she’s just going to glare at you for the next few days. I bet right now she’s chatting with Ane and Minari about how you asked her out. Nothing cute or sweet at all, just downright asking; how uncreative,” she said, before walking away.
“I must have really screwed up,” he said, glancing down at Uno who trotted off after D00m. “Great…” Turning back to his workbench, his welding mask dropped back down onto his face, hitting him hard in the nose. “Oww…”
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