Lunch Break

“Back in the seventies, I kept my identity secret. I was a younger man, not quite a hippie but very motivated by social justice. I think, if he’d been a bit saner, I could have been friends with Mister Lizard. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.”

“I mean, I never quite sorted out, at the time, what he had against the only decent restaurant in my not-so-great neighborhood, but a man had to eat, and I wasn’t letting that harassment stand, alligators or no alligators.”

Empire Statesman, talking about a restaurant which turned out to be owned by the Columbian Cartels year later.

The rest of the initial sweep was carefully but quickly completed, with sensors and cameras put into each room on both floors. They decided to wait on the basement, and trooped back to the bus, locking down once again. Emilia and Carl got on computers to link into the equipment they left behind remotely.

"Need any help with lunch?" Ryan asked.

“Sure, this one is simple, I have a smoked tomato bisque and grilled cheese, just need to heat the soup and toast the sandwiches, if you can construct them while I cook, we can get it on the table quickly.” She said, as she set a pot on the stoves burner, pouring in a deli container filled with dark red soup.

"Sure, no problem." Ryan said, even he began to assemble a sandwich. "For the record, weirdly cute lizards are way less bad than some things we've found. The black widows ten times the normal sized stand out in my memory." he admitted. At her curious look he shrugged “Spider themed villainess who allegedly walkes a tarantula the size of a Great Dane on a leash.”

Lisa shrugged at that. “Cute lizards isn’t the worse thing I’ve seen in a house, either. That would be the mansion Hannah purchased sight unseen quote ‘for a song’. We knew it was going to be ugly, but the neighborhood was prime and the house’s stats were perfect. We’re talking about a four bedroom, three bath with a fabulous back porch including built in fire pits. What we didn’t know was apparently a bunch of meth heads decided to have a party there, while it was empty. There was poop, blood and other bodily fluids everywhere. All the sinks and toilets were smashed, there were holes in all the walls, and someone sat with a screwdriver and popped all the tiles off the kitchen walls one by one. I mean, the contractor just reused those, they were removed so carefully.”

"That last one is oddly industrious for vandalism." Ryan mused as he watched her butter, then drop a sandwich into their small skillet.

“Yeah, well tweakers are weird.” She admitted, flipping the grilled cheese. “We had to gut everything, and the biohazard cleanup was a fortune. I’ve never seen Hannah so mad but that was kinda funny. Imagine this brunette Barbie going full southern bell, with a vocabulary that would make a drill sergeant blush. We managed to make a little profit on it at the end but it basically felt like a break even.”

She finished flipping one sandwich and put the next in the skillet. “I have to ask, where did she get these spiders?”

"Poison themed female villain with a spider fetish, pretty much the natural ally of crazy splicers. She'd gotten pet spiders from one. She was immune to them, so didn't care that they wandered around free. Hell, I think she once walked that Tarantula in downtown Chicago. Not that I am sure anyone would have noticed."

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Lisa shuttered cutting the four finished sandwiches in half and slipping them onto plates. “I don’t care if it’s girly. Snakes cool, lizards no problem. Spiders, it’s not no, it’s hell no.”

"I came back and got our flamethrower. I don't play with bugs."

Lisa smiled, putting the steaming pot of soup on the table. “It’s good to find a kindred spirit. Lunch is ready!” She called out to the other two, setting four plates with sandwiches and small bowls in front of them, next to their laptops “I wonder if there is a way to catch the lizards. They are cute but I will need to get rid of them before selling the house.”

"It'll be cool this evening, so a hand warmer in a box might do wonders." Cal suggested

“Worth trying.” She smiled at Emilia and Carl. “Hope you like tomatoes. Dig in.”

"Smells great." Carl said, diving in.

Emilia took a few bites, nodding in appreciation. "We're not seeing anything moving around, other than geckos. The bookshelves in the downstairs office are showing weird on IR and EMF. On the plus side, no ghosts."

“That’s good, though with the right crowd ghosts are a selling point.” Lisa joked. “So next we have to figure out where the car lift activates from and what’s going on with that bookcase?”

"The bookcase is on the same wall as the garage, so it's possible they are connected. I'd bet there's a lift down from in the house, and the car lift up outside, so to speak." Emilia said.

"It's pretty common, and putting an elevator system in one spot is easier than putting in lots of them." Carl agreed.

Ryan nodded. "If that's true, that leans towards a Den. Since the garage is an add on, might be a bomb shelter kind of thing, under the newer structure, so access from the bookshelf area would make sense. Hell, in the sixties no one would have even noticed the addition, Cuban Missile Crisis and all that."

“So, what is the plan once we figure out access. Not going to lie, I am nervous, and I’d rather over prepare than not.” Lisa sipped the soup, pleased with the soft bite of parmesan, and the warmth of the smoke,

"Probably pack a little food, just in case. We'll bring some weapons, again just in case." Ryan said, thinking. "We'll take the full helmets for this they're capable of a full seal for a short while, and are very just in case. But if you need them…" he shrugged

“My cooler has wheels so I can pull it behind, I usually strap my little stove to the top of it. I do a lot of camping, so I’m guessing Carl, and I are in the rear?”

“Unless we come to think something might sneak up on us, yeah. If we think there's the possibility of a threat like that, Emilia will take the rear, but we'll also leave as quickly as we can.”

“Well, so far the house hasn’t been obsessively themed which is nice. Even in the master it was tasteful for the seventies. I half expected a four-poster bed with snakes and lizards. So hopefully it’s just like a den or a panic room like you’re saying.”

"Even a small lab isn't a major issue, just need to rip out the lab stuff."

"So, stove and cooler on the next trip in. Check the bookshelf, then we'll try to figure out the garage. Tonight, we can set a box up with hand warmers to see if we can catch some geckos. I'm sure we can figure something out to keep them in short term."

“Are you wanting some pet lizards for the school?” Emilia asked with a chuckle, going over the weapon loadouts in her head.

"Well, that could be entertaining, but no. We were musing over how to get them out for the later sale."

“Oh, that makes more sense, though they are small enough to be good for calibrating cameras or training people on how to use the motion sensors. Shit, I’m talking myself into it.”

"We will figure out where they go later, for now it's just see if we can get them out, and it's not a priority. More an intellectual challenge." Ryan laughed.

Carl and the girls also laughed. “Well, I know none of them are coming home with me. We are a pet free home after the cat got into the studio and walked over one of her Met dresses.”

"I mean, we told her to put covers over things. But yeah."