The Black Book Society

Lola wasn't what you would call a role model of her age. She didn't meet the minimum requirements of one that qualified as having a productive life. If someone were to create player stats to select her as an avatar they would read as:

Age:29

Marital Status: Single

Children: One cat (currently)

Employment: Separated

Education: WIP

Social Presence: Reclusive

On the bright side, being newly unemployed afforded Lola the capacity to upscale her overthinking… Que up existential crisis questions of "Is this what I have become", "can I ever make a difference". Digging in to work against the grain of foreboding she developed a plan. Because planning makes everything better, obviously. She purchased a new alarm, told herself that stepping out and experiencing the days in humanity versus wallowing solo at home would be better for a forward trajectory and mending of her life.

Teetering the line of overplanning she set herself a rough daily list of to-dos to accomplish:

1. Go to her favorite coffee shop on the south side of town.

2. Apply to all jobs listed as open and hiring,

3. Creep on others to ensure she kept up with what was "cool".

The coffee shop had just the right mix of eclectic people, general interests, and cozy seating arrangements which afforded her the best opportunity to people-watch while also assuming a certain level of mysticism and distance which was required to make it through the day without an actual person to person interaction. In short, she made the perfect plan, on paper.

Day one of the said plan: *Chirp, chirp, rustle, chirp, chirp, chirp* Went the rising crescendo of the falsely advertised "natural alarm". So hated was that sound already that it didn't even garner a full acknowledgment of its efforts. A lost arm instead swatted out attempting to silence the rising annoyance whilst holding on to the empowering dream that was just unfolding… a failed attempt, of course. The searching arm clasped down on the pestilence and the owner of that moving appendage couldn't detour acknowledging the new day any further… she met it with the most joy she could muster after picking her face up from its cushioned downward position. "For fucks sake".

Hauling herself out of bed, still pissed that her warrior dream was interrupted, momentarily hesitating as she swore she could still feel that power flowing through her veins as she shrugged out of bed… "No, can't be." she thought. Plan in place or not, never having been a morning person, even with the well-intended newly purchased alarm, Lola was late in making it to the bus stop. Setting her behind for her minimum requirement for the day, to get out of the house.

She managed to make it to the bus right as they were about to leave the stop. Tossing her backpack on the floor accidentally allowing pens to escape in the movement she stuck her hand under the seat, low key praying she didn't touch anything unsanitary in the process of collection. Luckily, she sighed in relief as she snagged her runaway items. Coming back up her hand brushed the underside of the seat, she didn't brush old gum but instead, something leathery. Curiosity won out and she pulled the item out to investigate. She saw what looked like a little black journal. Feeling as if she would be invading the sacred privacy of the nondescript journal, nonetheless, she snooped and cracked the spine.

The first page was blank. The second page had an address that was scratched out, third through tenth pages each held another address, written in different handwriting. "Weird," she thought. As there didn't seem to be an ownership marker Lola considered the best thing to do was to put the book back so that whoever owned it could retrace their steps and come back for it. After snapping a couple pictures of the addresses with her phone, "just in case".

Making it to her destination, she went about her daily schedule as intended. At the end of it feeling admittedly underwhelmed with the scale of productivity. When she got home though, she searched the addresses she had snapped. Not much information came up, what could be found was odd.

The next day, she repeated the same motions. Lola didn't want to admit it, but she had caught herself subconsciously praying for a changeup, for something meaningful on the horizon. Stepping onto the bus she had to check, and it was still there the book. She flipped it open only to realize someone had made edits. Two addresses had been marked through, six more were added. Flipping through, she sucked in a shocked breath, written under the last address was a sloppy note "Help us?". Without thinking, she took out a pen and wrote underneath, "How?". She put the book back not thinking a second thought figuring this was all a joke and she'd never see it again.

Another day upon her, just like the last: She stepped onto the bus annoyed that she hadn't seen any traction on her job applications yet. Sitting there frustrated, she couldn't shake the feeling that maybe she was going about this new chapter in her life in the wrong manner. Maybe she needed to do something outside of herself, struggling for pennies up to this point hadn't done her any good. Maybe it was time to put her efforts into something that benefited more than her immediate needs. Benefited others. Not even thinking about it, she checked under the seat and the book was back. Four addresses had been marked through. There was an arrow under the note she made the day before directing her to turn the page, written smoothly was the shortest follow up: "Be ready, 8:30PM".

That night, sitting on her couch Lola's phone rang. No caller ID, "not eerie at all" she thought.

She answered, "Hello?"

The response was a robotic one, stated a simple address date and time. The address she knew, 11:45pm, tonight.

Pulling into the parking lot of the late-night grub shop, it was busy as usual. Having watched too many crime dramas she couldn't stop herself thinking, "Perfect, I'll be taken without any notice here". Nonetheless, she plucked up the courage and walked inside. The only open spot was in the far corner booth. She sat down and started turning the book over in her hand.

"You brought the book, good". Lola looked up; the voice had come from a short-haired brunette tattooed woman who stared at her amusingly. "Come on, follow me," she said, Lola hopped up to follow without hesitation.

She led Lola to the far side of the restaurant through a set of double flap doors marked "workers only". Walked into a deep freezer, Lola paused. "Don't worry, we need the help remember". The girl said. Lola stepped into the freezer and in the back corner, the girl had slid a shelving unit to the side revealing a stairway heading down. Lola followed her, when the girl heard she'd made it to the steps she clicked a remote and the door closed behind them both.

"You can call me Tip by the way. Some of this might seem a bit excessive but it's essential. You'll see why in a minute."

The stairway went down further than Lola expected it could, as they rounded a corner down the hallway brightened. Eventually, they stepped into what could only be described as an attempt at an underground lair –in the far back corner were weights and punching bags, shifting view there were back rooms that were made of glass and concrete, moving further in were rows of computers and tech screens where two other women were deep into projects as they didn't even lookup.

"This is insane," Lola said, under her breath.

Tip: "Yeah, I thought so too at first. Listen, I know you looked into those addresses, what did you find?"

Lola: "Well, they seemed to be locations in which suspected assaults had been reported. I couldn't find much information outside of that."

Tip: "Exactly, each address is a mile marker to where someone has been violated. Many, if not most, have been reported and kits were taken but no follow-up was conducted. I'm sure you heard the news about the thousands of untested kits stockpiled and forgotten in this city let alone the nation. What we and our neighboring sister crews across the country do is act for those victimized, male or female, to bring about justice. We track down abusers, investigate in detail to supply the system with nothing but a solid package for conviction. In many instances, we secure the perp and directly hand them over to the police to nullify their potential threat to repeat. We are the Black Book Society."

"Bad Bitches Society may be more accurate," Lola thought, but she appreciated Tip's calmness in sharing such information.

"How did ya'll come to be, how did all of this," Lola said while circling her finger to acknowledge the underground center "how did this come together?"

"We each have our own reasons for being here and bringing about reformations. What we do have, is a wealthy benefactor or more accurately, a better advocate and supplier of funds. We only know her as 'Mrs. Bono'. She filters founding sourced for us through an offshore umbrella company, 'U2, Ltd.' For "Us Too'; we are the second wave after all, or so we joke." Tip sighed, "'Me Too' was great in shining a light and bringing about an olive branch for us to see one another as what we are, stronger than what they, the abusers thought. But there have been too many left wounded, with no ending to their pain insight. Worse yet, more abusers than can count left to roam and repeat on others. That's why we came together, to help bring about a result. The women here help because they saw a trend, just like you did. Think of us as an underground supped-up PI team. We have gals working in the field who shadow and sometimes act as bait and those in support who analyze patterns and plug in their know-how to aid throughout our deep dive, solely what they prefer and are comfortable with. Those that decide to assist are here on a minimum contract term - $2million for twelve convictions. Timeline nonexistent results only."

Lola leaned on the nearby computer desk, tapping her foot. Her gut had been tugging at her for longer than she'd like to admit, well before losing her job even. She knew her purpose was outside of just herself.

Lola: "Where do I sign up?"

"You just did," Tip said, "check your account, payment has been made in advance. Think of it as a new member perk". She chuckled.

Lola hurriedly pulled out her phone, clicked into her bank app. "Wait, it says the deposit was made last night, why?"

Tip just smiled, "Because you cared enough to ask how you could help. Regardless of if you decided to join us here or not, we knew you would be an asset."