“Oh shit,” Axle whispered.

My light shined into the tunnel, glinting back against the trail of Sleem and occasional yarsp excretion. The light bobbed as I agreed with Axle.

“Oh shit is right,” I said. “They’re in the pasta-damned yarsp hive?”

My friend and partner simply nodded, staring into the dark tunnel ahead of us. It was undeniably dug by the yarsps. We knew they were deep, but the aquifer was supposed to be safe from them, as they wouldn’t knowingly compromise the structure of their hive by letting large amounts of water into it. The species was evolved for digging and had a series of instinctual drives that pushed them to notice and avoid excess moisture when tunneling.

None of us had counted on the aquifer draining so quickly, and it was clearly becoming a larger problem than we’d expected.

“Contact the hive crew, we have to warn them,” I said.

Axle immediately pulled out his phone and got to work. His tail was tucked and his ears were plastered flat against his head. He ran so much of the affiliate for me that I often failed to realize the strain all of this must have put on him.

While he made some phone calls, I activated my gravitic drive and floated into the tunnel. I kept my light active and explored only up to the first junction. It appeared as though the yarsps had dug down to our level but didn’t get the chance to expand before the Sleem arrived.

There was only a small handful of their excretions, which formed hard tile-like structures to pave their hive walls. The earth, stone, and clay were all recently dug as well, still glistening with moisture, and occasionally slime from the passage of dangerous caustic monsters.

Great, my meat production was going to drop too.

It’s not as though the excess yarsp meat my hobbs produced was worth a ton of morties, but the hive kept Prescott fed.

Losing food along with water would be a deathblow to the affiliate.

I realized while I floated back to Axle through the tunnel that my entire future was in the hands of Captain Omen and his crew.

If they couldn’t get water production back up and running soon, we’d face a mass exodus. Or worse.

I collected myself before arriving back at Axle’s side. We needed to fix this, not crumble because of it. Axle wrapped up his call and shut off the tablet as I arrived.

“What’s the word?” I asked as I landed at his side.

He cocked his head to indicate I should follow him and started walking back the way we had come. “A multi-level quarantine and Fumble-Bee sweep is now in progress. They’ll find and contain the Sleem, but that may drive them back to us.”

My Knowle friend glanced back at me and gestured for me to follow. “We should leave. Now.”

I nodded and increased my pace to keep up.

“Thanks. What are you thinking for an escape route?” I asked.

“I was hoping you would blast us out through the sinkhole,” Axle replied. “It should be connected to all of this somehow.”

We walked at a brisk pace, following the Sleem trail back to the edge of the aquifer remnant. On the way back, a detour around a particularly muddy patch of terrain exposed the hidden crack in the stone most of our fresh water had disappeared into. It snaked off into the darkness, and I thought of the monster that had caused it.

Kraken corp.

I didn’t care for the idea of being a hired gun, but honestly, the scale of that creature and what it was capable of made me the best choice for killing it. Captain Omen was right. I was the right tool for the job, and the thing had already attacked me.

As Axle and I stood at the edge of the lake, contemplating the next step, I resolved to request another segment on CTV. Kraken’s human puppet would tell me more about the creature, one way or another.

“So, yeah,” Axle said, pulling out his tablet for a light source. “Go ahead and fly.”

I chuckled and activated my gravitic drive, plunging up into the air. My helmet cast a glowing reflection in the smooth water of the underground lake, and I took in the beauty of it for a moment while I flew up to the ceiling.

My cartoon starfish joined me in flight, distracting me with a demand. “Using the gravitic drive like this is taxing, user! Don’t forget to break something for some charge!”

I concentrated on my destination and landed on the ceiling with both feet. My first task was a quick exploration of the cavern’s roof, so I hopped off the ceiling and started a long series of loping moon-jumps. The gravitic drive made it feel like I was hopping lightly, and traversing the cave’s roof sent a thrill through me with each leaping step.

My mobility had been significantly enhanced with this upgrade, and I felt good about learning to use it more effectively.

All it took was some practice.

Most of the cave was solid stone, but toward the back wall of the aquifer remnant I encountered a massive patch of wet clay. A ramp of loose earth and clay led directly up, making it all look like a fresh cave in.

I skipped over it and took a kick at the material, looking back to see the effect. A patch of the clay shook loose and fell, sending with it a cascade of loose earth. But then more clay filled in the fallen patch and the tumble of falling earth ceased.

With a few leaps and bounds across the ceiling, I managed to get turned around and come back for another attempt, but the result was very much the same. On an impulse, I concentrated on changing my direction and started falling for real, down toward the lake.

An instant of severe disorientation addled me, but I got control over the fall before I hit the water, and rocketed back up to the roof of the cave, atomic breaker gauntlets extended. With a sharp thought, I activated the gauntlets and smacked into the wet clay with a burst of bright blue light.

Hard earth and wet clay surrounded and crushed me from all sides, suspending me within the cave’s wounded ceiling for an instant before the entire thing began to plunge toward the lake, tumbling down the landslide hill. My helmet protected my face from the deluge, but it was enough like being buried alive that I nearly panicked anyway.

Instead, I thrashed loose of the earth and clay cork, sending a cascade of large and small particles down the ramp into the lake. I diverted my own course the instant I could tell which way was up and flew toward the nearby shore, as the minor landslide continued behind me.

Axle’s light drew me in, and he shielded himself as I arrived, more dirt and wet earth flying from my body. I was dripping in the stuff and took a moment to sling mud off my arms and wipe it from my torso before addressing my Knowle friend.

He looked me up and down, shaking his head while laughter bubbled up from behind his mask. “I am sorry, my friend,” he said between laughs. “Did it work, at least?”

I shook large globs of mud free from my boots, being careful to avoid the Sleem trail. “I don’t even know yet. Gimme a minute, I’ll go back up and check.”

Axle nodded and turned off his tablet again. “Well, since I have you, we could discuss a new income idea, if you like.”

I nodded, mud dripping from my chromed helmet. “Yeah, hit me.”

My friend nodded back. “I found another tape,” he started.

I chuckled and sat down on the edge of the lake, avoiding the icy cold water with my already wet boots. Axle loved watching old vhs tapes found on runs. DVDs and blu-rays too, but he was fascinated by the stuff out of the VHS era.

“This one was something I think we could easily emulate, producing it ourselves very inexpensively, and selling it to the CTV network. They’re interested in Nu-Earth content featuring Nu-Earthers in a variety of scenarios,” he rambled.

“I was thinking we could place a camera crew with some of our BlueCleave patrols, we have a small handful of humans working the security sector who may jump at the chance for the extra morties,” Axle explained.

“They regularly respond to interesting small-scale dream storms, and now with the reaper hounds and Sleem likely to be in Prescott soon, there’ll be plenty of content. You would likely even make semi-regular appearances that could boost our overall presence and income streams.”

“Everyone would want to wear my underwear if I’m on TV, you told me,” I reminded him.

He laughed and nodded. “Yes, even more so with the new show. I was thinking we could call it H.O.B.B.S,” Axle told me, explaining the specific spelling after.

I barked an echoing laugh, before nearly slapping a hand over my helmet, where my mouth should be. The Sleem trail didn’t respond, though, and a quick shush from Axle had me lightly chuckling again.

“I know exactly where you got that name from. It’s great, let’s do it,” I said, getting up and brushing off my mud-soaked pants again. “I’m gonna go check the hole. Back in a few.”

He pulled out his tablet again and nodded. “I’ll get it in motion. Should be minimal setup costs.”

I zipped away, flying in the general direction of the hole I’d punched. The sound of things lightly avalanching into the water had never really gone away, but it had slowed to the point I was concerned before I even saw the abject failure.

More heavy earth had filled in the hole, and while loose earth still rained from it, there was no way I would be able to drag Axle through that without killing him. It felt like I was going to suffocate just from the weight of the ground boxing me in. Instead of making another run at it, I sighed and turned around to fall back to Axle at the shore once more.

“Looks like I’m going to have to do this a few hundred thousand times to get us up and out. It’s just going to keep filling itself in,” I told him.

“Then never mind, we don’t want to spend that kind of time,” he replied immediately.

“What about a portal?” I asked him.

He swiped up something on his tablet and shook his head. “I don’t recommend that. We’re out of free portals until later today around noon, and the charge is exorbitant for that service without the perk freebies.” Axle looked back at me. “We should really upgrade that perk when we have the affiliate levels. We seem to use the portal allotment too often for comfort.”

“Well, how much we talkin’ here?” I asked with a shrug. “You said we shouldn’t go back to Quadrum empty-handed.”

Axle nodded, and I saw an attempt at licking his nose through the mask again. “I believe we are not empty-handed any longer. We have a location and are in the initial processes of retrieving the Sleem. In the meantime, as you said, we will reinforce their prison walls.”

He nodded again, rapidly this time. “I think that will set Quadrum’s concerns to rest.”

“Alright, if you say so,” I told him. We got into position, my hands under his armpits again, and I flew Axle up to our hole in the wall above. I could feel his elevated heart rate through my hands.

My heart was beating quickly as well.