“What the hell was that about?” barked Dee as Vicki made them coffee and Jack sat down for a cup.

“It’s fine, it’s been handled.” Vicki said calmly.

“What does that even mean? Some big creepy jackelope thug breaks into Vinn’s place while he’s gone and threatens Nicole and it’s just fine?”

“She called me instead of the police; we’re lucky she did that. I was right here and responded, the situation is handled. I took care of it.” Jack replied.

“How did you take care of it?” she asked.

“He said he took care of it, so it’s taken care of, Dee. Just trust him.”

“I just don’t understand this. Some giant monster trespasses on their property and basically tells Nicole she’s a slave, and we DON’T call the police, and then you go down there and just intimidate him? Jack you’re a fairly big guy and in descent shape and your confidence is borderline magical, but you intimidated a guy 3 times your size who has horns and isn’t afraid of Vinn? Jack what the fuck happened?”

“What did Nicole tell you?” he asked.

“She said you talked to him and told him never to come back and you intimidated him to leave and then went home.”

“Then I guess the only thing you need to do is trust me. Trust my connections, trust the names I can drop, and trust the things I get done. The situation is handled, there is no more problem, thank god it worked out that way, do not make any problems, or get anyone into a panic. Nicole is okay, please do not go on a rant that makes her feel not okay, okay?” he said firmly, oddly aggressive for him in a way she never saw before.

“Jack you are a disturbing man and I’m glad as shit you’re on our side, because I trust Vicki and Vicki seems to think you got this handled, but I don’t know what that means and I’m gonna worry about that.”

“You worry too much.” Vicki said, sitting down with her coffee. “We have a good life here; no we have a great life here. It’s not perfect but it’s better then what we had before, There’s a lot of things you can worry about and people you can not trust if you want, but jack knows what he’s doing and if he says she’s safe with Vinn and he handled the problem, then the problem is handled. Maybe if you ever trusted either of them and stayed calm about anything, we wouldn’t have to keep you in the dark about everything. Jack took care of it.” She repeated slowly, calmly flipping her red hair out of her face and sipping her coffee.

“I just wanna say for the record I’m happier every day that my boyfriend is a boring old construction worker, and all I have to do it shake my titties and wear cat ears online for donations, because I can’t handle much more than that without my head just blowing up.”

Dressed in full PPE, Nicole stood staring at a corner in the kitchen wall, or the wall that would eventually be the kitchen.

Why is this area so wet? It’s not leaking is it?” she asked.

“Oh it’s leaking like hell. Absolutely. Hence the green stuff.”

“Can you fix it?” she asked looking worried.

“I thought humans likes water. Your whole planet is covered in water, you’re mostly made of water, it rains water, All the best homes are on the beaches. You’re always playing in the ocean and building swimming pools. But you’re afraid of water and cant swim.”

“You can?”

“Gods no. Delmarians are not built for that.”

“So where’s the water coming from? The plumbing isn’t even all in yet and there’s nothing up there is there?”

“No, that might just be uh…slightly under the lake.”

“Under the lake?” she asked.

“Yea I told you I thought humans liked water, your whole damn group house was on the beach.”

“Yea up TO the water, not under it. Is it gonna flood or collapse?” she asked, looking like she was having some kind of attack.

“No, it’s fine. I told you that stone is insanely strong and I welded in enough supports on the roof to hold a damn second moon. Nothing is coming down. Come here sweetie.” He said calming her. “Delmarian greystone is so tough we have to drill holes and saturate it with chemicals before setting off explosives. It only breaks along these darker lines because those darker lines are porous and it soaks in the brittling agent.”

“So why is it leaking?”

“Because those dark lines are porous and it soaks in liquids like brittling agent…or you know…lake water. I guess one of those dark lines runs right up to the lake. It’s fine, we can stick a patching brace on there and shoot it full of water-activating foaming sealant. Scrape off the foam, paint the seam, you’ll never even see it, it’s 12 feet up. Just part of the job. We do this all the time. You’re safe. Half the homes on this world have patched and filled spots, just gotta do it right. Anyway, we’ll go get one tomorrow, stuck a bucket under here for now and we’re good. You ready to put in that fancy shower? I got the rock already drilled and soaked. We can blow some shit up.”

“You’re so hot when you’re destructive.” She said, grabbing her gear excitedly.

The room shuttered and a plume of dust rolled out of the wall, swirling up to the venting tubes and clearing in seconds.

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“Oh…” Vinn said turning the corner.

“What Oh? What does Oh mean?” she asked, trying to quickly remove all her demo gear.

“Remember when I said the leak was not a big situation and we don’t need to do anything right away?”

“Yea.”

“Well this is not one of those situations. We may need to work late tonight.” He said as she darted around the corner. She gazed in awe at the fairly square missing chunk they intended to remove, and the two 4 foot wide tunnels branching from it, away from the home. Tunnels that they did not intend to discover.

“What is that?” she asked.

“That’s what we call in the construction business an “oh shit” moment. I’m calling Jack. This isn’t good.” He huffed.

Jack stood with his arms crossed, peering both ways down the tunnels.

“Yea that’s a fuck-up. You were not supposed to dig there.”

“Well, I did and now what do we do? Call Silverback?” Vinn asked.

“I would not do that if I were you. This area is full of old mining tunnels and air vents, lotta maintenance tunnels and stuff. You see down this way? That’s an air intake grid, rusted tight. That hasn’t moved for months or years. On the other hand, THAT tunnel is a different story. I have no clue what that is. Obviously this vent was pulling air from somewhere but that’s a hell of a man-sized tunnel for airflow. It’s almost gotta be maintenance. Probably abandoned and blocked off after the mining. That could go for miles.” Jack said, peeking in.

“And I’m guessing we would get in trouble for that and be living in a hotel room until they fixed it. Jack I swear I checked the plans and that area was supposed to be solid stone.”

“Yea I know. You didn’t halfass it. The plans were updated 4 weeks ago, scans show solid slate.”

“I was gonna use that part for the shower. I was not exactly thinking my shower would be directly in the bend of a hallway. Did they just put this in yesterday?” he huffed.

“Not a chance. Look at the old lightbulbs rusted in the sockets, that air vent frozen shut with grut and corrosion. This has to be an old tunnel. Why the hell was it not in the scans? That just makes no sense.” He pondered.

“Must be haunted.” Nicole whispered, looking transfixed on it. The deep rush of a slow but heavy wall of air beathed in and out from the tunnel.

“Yea right, haunted.” Jack chuckled. “The problem here is that if you just wall that off and this is a maintenance corridor for something, they might just cut right through into your bathroom some day. I doubt it’s ever used, it goes nowhere except to one old vent but that vent might still have a purpose and if you block it, which could set off a sensor somewhere. It would take days to brick up a corner and mortar it shut, and fill behind that with gravel and seal that up like new. So you can’t quickly fix it, and you can’t close it off entirely.”

“We can’t just leave a big open tunnel into the house.” Vinn noted.

“Yea. Tell you what. You get some scrap steel bars and box in that tunnel, I’m gonna go get a heavy gate door from the yard and we’re gonna stick a door there with a breathing hole. If anyone would happen to run into that from the other side, they couldn’t get in without a lot of time and noise and you could at least warn them they’re breaking into your house. Any maintenance crew would listen, and you could open the door and explain the problem, show them the scans. But it would keep out anything bigger then a gerbil for now, and still let air through. Slap a carbon mono sensor on there in case you’re pulling any toxic air, and then we can work on a more long term solution to wall it up correctly. I’d just not mention this to anyone else, we can get this temporarily sealed for the night and everything will be just fine.” Said Jack.

“Man you’re a lifesaver. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t around.”

“You’d call Silverback and he’d say the same thing but then he’d have to report it, and your home would be closed off for red tape and paperwork for weeks until whoever knows what this is cleared it for walling off or rebuilding, and you’d likely get your blasting gear confiscated. Technically you don’t have clearance to do this unless each detonation was cleared by a Foreman so that HE could take the hit for shit like this. Don’t do any more demo till we fix this problem. I’ll be back with a door and some hazard sensors. Start welding.”

“Man I’m stupid.” Vince said, staring at the new mystery door with Nicole.

“Vince he said you didn’t do anything wrong, it’s probably just mining tunnels nobody uses. Just chill out. Things happen, at least we didn’t get the house quarantined or something. At least the lake didn’t collapse in. Jack said that door is solid, we’re safe. In fact if you wanted, we could go in and see where it goes.” She said in a trance.

“Screw that, it could go for miles or lead to a site we’re not supposed to be at, or someone’s workshop. Hell it could branch off and we could get lost. You think there’s gonna be cell reception down there? Fat chance.”

Doesn’t it make you curious what’s down there?” she asked, biting her lip and feeling a strange urge to venture inside. She closed her eyes and she could almost hear the subtle flowing of water in the tunnels. For unknown reasons, she wanted to see it.

“Well yea but not without proper safety gear and a spotting team. This isn’t even on the damn blueprints and we can’t tell anyone. Some mysteries are best left unsolved, and maybe Jack can figure it out later. Plus I can’t fit, that’s a 6 foot ceiling, I’d be crab-scrunching for got knows how far with no way to turn around.”

“You’re right. You can’t get stuck in there. It’s too small for anyone your size.” She whispered, staring into it.

“Anyway, I gotta go. I’m an hour late for my shift and Jack is covering my ass. You good? It’s a solid door, nothing’s getting in, you’re safe in the house, just don’t open the door for anyone on the off chance a crew runs into it. Just call me, and tell them you’re alone, armed and your husband is right down the road and will be here any minute. Which is pointless because I’m 99 percent sure nobody’s done anything in that tunnel for years. Are you scared of bugs?”

“No I like bugs.” She admitted.

“Good because that’s the only thing getting through that grate and none of them are venomous, but the cave spiders freak some people out. They’re creepy looking and large but super harmless. Just try and relax, do your streaming thing, get some sleep, watch a movie. We’ll take care of this.” He smiled. “Shit happens, right? And we fix them together and move on…with annoying delays and extra steps.” He smiled, ruffling her hair. “You feeling okay hun, you look…well paler than usual.”

“I think I’m just hungry, you go ahead.”

“Okay, so there are some various meats in the fridge for you, and I’m sure you can manage right?”

“Yea yea. I’m fine.” She said.

Nicole made her way to the fridge and dug through the selection of meats, picking up a rather hefty slab of whitefish. She stared at it, breathing faster, The smell was hypnotic. She slowly held it closer and gave a deep sniff, opening her mouth. Before she could comprehend what she was doing she found herself halfway through the slab with a mouthful of raw fish and a confused feeling. She finished chewing and swallowed it, putting the other chunk back. For some reason she felt better. A fluke perhaps, a sudden craving?

Nicole breathed heavy, peaking into the new steel door to the tunnels with her flashlight. She double checked her phone, full battery, extra flashlight, baindaids, camping knife, and a backpack full of protein bars and drinks. Big handful of glowbands from the last game party. She turned the large steel bar and slid it unlocked, opening the door and stepping inside. You got this girl, if you can handle Vinn on a couch, you can handle anything in here.” She smirked, feeling a tingle in her arm.

“That’s a good girl.” Gizzy smiled, enlarging the screen and running the program. “You know you wanna see what’s inside.” She whispered in the ominously dark room that she clearly set up for effect and her own amusement. “When the big rabbit’s away, Alice will play. Now see where the rabbit holes goes, little Alice.”