Chapter 79 (1/2)

Dan's house did not include a basement. There was nothing in the floor plan about a bottom layer, nor did his previous tour include a sojourn into the subterranean depths. Which would neatly explain why there was no convenient set of stairs leading down into the large metal structure hidden beneath the floor. As it was, Dan found himself staring blankly at a patch of wood floor, positioned roughly in the center of the house. The squarish section of wood was positioned beside a wall, directly beneath a power socket. It was about as plain and undecorated as your average floor. Dan's power insisted that this was the thinnest layer between the bottom of the house and the open space below it.

”I don't see anything,” Abby noted, kneeling down a few feet away from the supposed opening. Her eyes squinted as she added, ”No visible seams. You think there's a secret button?”

Dan's veil dripped through the floor like a leaking pipe, soaking the wood and steel. It spread outwards, flowing along the edges of the entrance, up the wall, down into the earth. The pool of energy within him drained ever lower, pulsing with every new material it pierced. It formed a map, a mental reconstruction of what lay beyond the wall. X-ray vision, except worse in almost every way.

But good enough, as it turned out.

There were an awful lot of wires running from the wall outlet, down into the ground. An awful lot of rubber and copper, stretching across the underside of the floor. Beneath it, attached to the section of floor, a sliding section of metal. Like a trapdoor, opening downwards. All it needed was a trigger, some way of activation. Dan's eyes trailed upwards. The previous owner of the house was a minor electrokinetic, and there was a socket directly above the hidden entrance.

Dan pointed at it. ”I'm pretty sure that's your secret button.”

”The outlet?” Abby frowned. To her credit, it took only a moment for her to make the connection. ”Oh right, because then only he would be able to open it.”

They both stared at it for another few moments.

”Well crap. How are we supposed to work this thing?” Abby asked, coming to her feet. She stretched the kinks out of her back, grumbling, ”Maybe you should just stick a fork in it.”

”Oh, now you wanna open it?” Dan questioned curiously. She'd been all for calling the cops, right up until they had found the actual entrance.

His question seemed to remind her of that fact. Her eyes widened, and she jabbed a finger at him. ”No! This is way too dangerous to mess around with ourselves! We should be calling the cops. I just got caught up in the moment is all.”

”Uh huh.” Dan eyed the wall socket, as he puzzled out a plan. His veil pulled back into him, pooling around his feet. ”And how would we explain my knowledge of this thing?”

Abby faltered at that. ”We could say... that you tripped the breaker? And— and that opened it automatically when the power went out!”

Dan's veil extended in a single microscopic thread. It crawled through the wooden floor, reaching the sectioned panel that acted as an entrance. ”I can think of, like, ten different ways for that lie to get exposed. What if this area has an independent power source? What if the police investigate the breaker and find out nothing actually happened? What if they take a look at the opening mechanism and discover that power loss would have absolutely no impact on it?” These weren't even the largest issues, to Dan. His greatest concern was that, should the secret room prove to be some kind of vigilante lair, the APD would simply seize his house.

Unfortunately, the rational part of his mind was screaming at him to be a responsible interdimensional-immigrant and call the police. Or maybe even the local equivalent of the FBI. Vigilantes were basically considered terrorists, after all. It seemed reasonable.

But he needed a way to explain how he found the lair in the first place. His plan was both straightforward and simple. His veil finished its mission, covering a large section of the trapdoor's sliding frame, leaving the panel above untouched. The entire structure consisted of several pieces attached with heavy bolts. By removing the last section, he hoped to fake a half-completed repair job. He glanced over to Abby.

”I'm just gonna remove one of the supports.” He decided aloud. ”The trapdoor won't fall by itself, but it should drop as soon as enough weight gets put on it. It's a reasonable thing to overlook, and we can float the idea that our dearly departed vigilante was in the process of replacing it when he was killed.”

Her face scrunched into itself. ”I don't get it. Then what?”

Dan shrugged. ”We'll put a piece of furniture on it. It'll fall in. Then,” he paused, sighing, ”I'll call Gregoir.”

Abby lit up at the sullen admission. She clapped her hands together and bounced slightly on her feet. ”That's a great idea! Gregoir probably has some experience with this sort of thing, and you can trust him not to screw you over.”

”Intentionally, at least,” Dan muttered to himself. He shifted on his feet slightly, feeling out his veil. His plan had plenty of holes as well. The largest of which, was that the previous owner's death had been investigated. He was banking on the general dislike of vigilantes carrying the lie for him. The investigators had clearly half-assed the job, having missed the gigantic underground lair. Additionally, the realtor in charge of selling the property had, by her own admission, set foot on it maybe three times in total. It seemed possible, if unlikely, that the malfunctioning trapdoor could have been missed.

Dan shrugged off his uncertainty. Worst case scenario, he would simply plead ignorance. There was no lie here that could be exposed. He placed a piece of furniture down on his floor, and it fell into a secret room. Boom. Easy. It's not like they'd dig up the missing support from beneath his mattress, covered in Dan's fingerprints. The damn thing would be well and truly inaccessible.

With the last of his doubts fading away, Dan willed himself into the void.