As Trinity left Ellen behind her, wishful thoughts about finding another cute, eminently-brainwashable girl consoled her as she made her way through a few more streets, until finally, she arrived at her target. It was hard to miss. The old, mostly disused Castron Performing Arts Centre had been given a new lease on life, and now, it was drenched in adverts and banners, and swarmed with both hired security and the rich people they'd been hired to protect. The surrounding streets were crowded too, both with locals hoping for a look at some or other celebrity, and guests who hadn't managed to buy their way onto the VIP list.
Trinity loathed it all, immediately. Downtown pageantry like this didn't belong in her neighborhood. And what she hated most of all was the smug, rich-girl face plastered over every single poster and flyer.
Eleanor Quinn was the golden girl of Future City. A corporate heiress and billionaire, she'd come into her money at a young age, and emerged into adulthood as one of the city's richest and keenest minds. Since then, she'd worked tirelessly to expand her company's influence, and now, a huge portion of the city's population entrusted themselves to her safe hands, be it via technology, banking, healthcare, or any number of other sectors.
Which was exactly the problem, in Trinity's book. People shouldn't trust corporate types any further than they could throw them. Them and all their money.
The fact that Eleanor Quinn was hosting the event was part of what made it, in Trinity's book, a perfect target. Generally speaking, supervillains didn't go after charity events, no matter how much money traded hands at them. Some liked to pretend it was some kind of cool villain code of honor, but really, it was just the fact that stealing money from charity made you look like a huge, pathetic dick. Trinity was usually of the same mindset - usually. But this was different. Through a few subtle, well-placed applications of her shimmer, Trinity had come into some very, very interesting information.
It turned out that Ms. Quinn wasn't planning charity so much as a real estate scheme. With one hand, she was using her social capital to encourage people to donate to a local government redevelopment scheme - all run through a certified non-profit, of course. Her status as a philanthropist was beyond repute. But with the other hand, she was quickly buying up land via dozens of anonymous shell corporations. Land that would skyrocket in value as a result of the charitable redevelopment scheme she herself was sponsoring. Eleanor Quinn stood to make billions. Like she didn't already have enough of them.
It wasn't technically illegal, but it was definitely scummy and scandalous as hell, but since Eleanor Quinn's Quinncorp owned - directly or indirectly - every single media outlet in the city, blowing the whistle wasn't going to cut it. Even if Trinity had been able to find a journalist brave and idealistic enough, she was confident a businesswoman like Quinn would have plausible deniability. So what else was a supervillain to do but set the world to right by playing Robin Hood? She could steal from the rich and give to the poor.
Meaning herself. Trinity was pretty broke, after all.
Despite all the security, Trinity didn't think it would be too hard. No-one was expecting supers, after all. All she had to do was get backstage and find the poor mook whose job it was to collect everyone's checks and run the electronic transactions. Give him a taste of the shimmer, tell him to reroute the money into an offshore account, and hey presto. Trinity was rolling in it.
Trinity checked her watch. It was almost all about to get started. With her hood pulled down over her head, she made her way down one of the small side streets adjacent to the performing arts center. There was a small side door, and a very bored-looking security guard standing outside.
"Hey!" Trinity said jauntily, as she approached him. "Does this taste like purple to you?"
One shimmering touch had him limp and drooling.
"Thought so," Trinity said to herself, grinning like a wolf. The adrenaline was starting to kick in. Showtime. "Listen, buddy. You're going to let me in, and you're going to let me out again later, and then you're going to forget you ever saw me. But here's what you're going to do if I get caught..."
***
Once she was inside, things got almost stupidly easy. You had to pass through security to be there, so if you were there, everyone assumed you were supposed to be, and that you had to be someone-or-other's assistant ass-wiper. Just walk around like you knew where you were going, and no-one would bother you. If you wanted to be super serious, you could go around waving something that even so much as looked like a lanyard, and you'd be double-fine.
Trinity wasn't bothering, though. She just walked around purposefully until she had the layout of the place memorized, and then she found somewhere out-of-the-way to settle down and wait. Waiting swiftly proved boring as hell, it took all of Trinity's willpower to stop her from either falling asleep, or making some overworked assistant dance like a chicken for her amusement. Instead, all she had to distract her from the seconds ticking past was the dulcet tones of Eleanor Quinn, muted this far backstage, but nonetheless rendered inescapable by a vast and obscenely expensive sound system that had been installed specially for the occasion. From what Trinity was unable to tune out, it was a whole load of self-serving drivel about giving back to the community, wanting everyone to profit from Future City's successes, blah blah blah. Trinity tried amusing herself by instead imagining all the awful things she could do to Eleanor Quinn if she ever got her hands on her. She'd have a field day.
After Quinn was done rambling, there was a series of other speeches by various celebrity guests - mostly musicians and actors, for the sake of drumming up media attention. Trinity didn't care about them one bit. She did care, however, about the very large checks they were depositing into Eleanor Quinn's tender care. Everyone loved being a highly-visible, highly-marketable giver. And that was the key to Trinity's plan - they were handing over real, irrevocable, legally enforceable checks. Once they paid out, the money was gone, be it to a fraudulent charity scheme or to Trinity. She simply had to wait until the last minute to mind-control the finance guy, so there was the least possible chance of anyone noticing or anything going wrong.
And, judging by the raucous applause now filling the building, the last minute was arriving. Trinity clambered to her feet, and started making her way over to the office of the finance guy (as she now thought of him). Head down, hands in pockets, not looking at all the people rushing everywhere. It was effortless. Without knocking, she opened the door and slipped inside, quickly closing it behind her. She didn't need any unexpected interruptions. That was when she got her first look at the finance 'guy.'
Trinity smiled, despite the deeply weary, irritated look on the face of the woman sitting in front of her. Maybe there was such a thing as fate. The woman was clearly cut from the same mold as Ellen - strait-laced, severe and professional. The only real differences were that her hair was blonde and straight instead of dark and curly, and her suit looked every bit as expensive as Trinity would have expected from one of Quinn's assistants. The supervillain looked at her with hearts in her eyes. The strait-laced types were often Trinity's favorite. It was so much fun to watch them unravel. Trinity started entertaining fantasies of making her meet her at a bar later. She wasn't sure if the woman was gay, and she didn't like the corporate badge pinned onto her breast, but hey, no-one was perfect. Not until Trinity used her shimmer on them.
"Excuse me?" the woman said sharply, clearly affronted by Trinity's mere presence. "The door was closed for a reason, you know. This had better be important, or else I'll-"
"Quiet," Trinity said, her fingertips blazing with shimmer-light as she set them to the woman's forehead. Sometimes, she liked toying with people. Teasing them, letting them tie themselves in knots, knowing she had the power to turn the tables on them with a single touch. Not today, though. Today she had a job to do.
