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“There is no way I’m going down in there, Bill. You can forget it. Not in these shoes. Not this body.”

“Oh, come on, Lydia,” Bill smiled, adjusting his headlamp. “Sewers are amazing places. Full of adventure.”

“No.”

“Full of life…”

“No.”

“Even full of drama.”

Lydia peered at him over her new focals.

“Drama?” she asked suspiciously.

“Oh, yes, Lydia. You can hear all types of gossip, echoing through the tunnels. How do you think I know so much?”

“Yes, why do you know so much?” Lydia asked. She pushed her glasses up her nose and then leaned over close to his face. “Why do you know so much about sewers, darling? I thought you were in the garden. In the sunlight.”

Bill chuckled and leaned closer.

“Mushrooms,” he said with a smile.

“Mushroom?!” She blurted back. “Like magic mushrooms? You? Doing drugs?”

“No, no, not like that,” he laughed. “Just regular mushrooms. But they’re still good. Also, there are creatures down there that are incredibly useful to me. The lichen snail? Unlike other snails, they don’t eat leaves, but instead have a taste for stink worms, which do have a taste for leaves. Specifically, my cabbage leaves. I fetch two or three lichen snails during a full moon; they have a feast in my cabbages. Much better for the garden than pesticides.”

“You are full of surprises, treasure,” she said, smiling.

“And so are you,” he said, handing her a pair of waders.

Lydia shook the waders out. They were thick, waterproof rubber and included boots. Suspenders kept them up.

“These are hideous,” she announced.

“But I am sure with your fashion know-how, you could pull them off.”

Lydia took off her glasses and smiled at him.

“Flattery will get you everywhere with me,” she chuckled, putting them on.

“See. Wonderful,” Bill said.

Lydia rolled her eyes.

Bill held out his hand and helped Lydia climb down the ladder into the sewer.

As Lydia thought, it was disgusting. But she could also see how Bill liked it. There was a certain type of magic to the place, with the glowing fungi and lichen. The bioluminescence on the shells and glow worms. But there was also a sense of danger to it, as she could see the eyes of dark, slimy beasts in the dark. The rubber pants sucked to her legs, and she didn’t care to think about what kind of muck and slop she was standing in.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to a small alcove that had a pile of blankets and books. A couple of balls of wool were stashed in the corner, with the yarn dangling and clinging to the wall like a spiderweb. “Nobody actually lives down here, do they?”

Bill turned and looked to the corner.

“Oh, that’s a Maude’s joint.”

“Maude?” Lydia asked. “You mean that woman who was in the presidential running?”

“Yep,” Bill said. “You remember her? They had the ‘Games’ that year, where if you could outlast the hunt, your prize was to run the country.”

“Yes, yes, of course, I know all about it,” Lydia said, sweeping her fringe to the side. “Rumour has it that Maude had made it to Artizan and was living there. I had no idea that she was still in Vertex.”

“Oh, she’s around,” Bill said. “She’s a ninja. You never catch sight of her, but there are tells that she is definitely here somewhere.”

“Isn’t she about eighty now?”

“More. The games happened when she was in her early twenties. She’s been on the move ever since. Unfortunately, she’s so good that no one has been able to catch her and tell her she’s won.”

“Yes, I know the legend,” Lydia said. “Probably better than you.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Bill replied. “Cabbages talk, you know.”

“What?” Lydia said, giving Bill the side eye.

He was cute, but she wondered exactly how much fertilizer he had sniffed in his life.

Bill held a small cage that he brought to put the salamander in.

“So, what exactly is your plan, treasure?” she asked.

“This sewer will lead us to the main line,” he said. “There we will probably encounter an obstacle of sorts. I’m not sure what. Something to keep wandering civilians like us out. But I suspect that in the main line is where we will find our slushie.”

“Slushi?” Lydia questioned. “I thought we were going to find a salamander.”

“Oh, we are. But I call them slushies. Because of their icy abilities. You pull their tail, their eyes bulge right out of their skull, as their jaw drops and a huge blast of ice comes out. They’re only good for maybe one or two blasts, and then that’s it. They can’t do it again for four moons.”

Bill’s headlamp reflected on the water’s surface. There was an oily substance that floated in the calmer corners. Moss and ferns seemed to sprout wherever a little light seeped in. As they waded their way through, something moved and scraped from within a nearby pipe, and Lydia stepped a little closer to Bill.

“You don’t have to worry,” Bill assured her. “Most of the creatures down here are more afraid of you than the other way around.”

“Most…”

He looked at her. She was completely out of her comfort zone, and all because he had made the suggestion that a weed would kill the town. She didn’t have to be here. She could have backed up Rammi and his flour theory.

“What?” she asked accusingly.

Her eyes gave him a sharp look, and he broke eye contact. She wouldn’t admit that she was nervous and uncomfortable. She was too tough for that kind of confession.

“Here,” he said.

He reached his hand into his waders and into his pants pocket and pulled out a small torch.

“It’s not much, but it should scare off the critters.”

She looked at the torch in his hand and took a breath. She wasn’t good at accepting help or trusting, for that matter. She wasn’t sure how this man managed to convince her to climb into a sewer, let alone wear these horrendous rubber pants. The water suction was making her legs look like coleslaw stuffed into a water balloon.

But the scratching, hissing, and grumbling of creatures that were no doubt full of mange and slime made her more terrified than her trust in Bill. She took the torch, and with a flick of her ballet-pink polished finger, she flipped it on. She shone it down a tunnel to her right and saw movement of unknown terrors scurry.

“This is it,” Bill announced.

Lydia shone the light forward. Their tunnel was opening up into a main intersection. Five tunnels all converged in one spot. The space opened up, and Lydia could crawl out of the water onto a small edge. Bill joined her. Ahead was a circular gate that had a wrought-iron woven barrier. There was a chain with a cylindrical lock that had four dials. Lydia looked at the dials and rotated them.

“These aren’t numbers,” she said, over her shoulder. Bill was peering down the nearest tunnel.

“What are they?” he said.

“Shapes,” she answered.

“It’s a conundrum,” a voice bellowed.

Lydia shrieked, and shone her torch into the corner. There, hanging upside down, wrapped in a dirty blanket, was a strange man. His face was red as a traffic light. He gave a big smile before doing a loop in the air and landing on his boots. He swirled the blanket around, then folded it back into his backpack, which was also hiding in the corner.

“Sorry, there, didn’t mean to scare you!” he chuckled as he walked over and smacked Bill on the back. “Me name is Ziggy. Ziggy Pumpknickle. I was just doing some wee investigation into how it feels to be a blue-finned, red-chested bat. They’re native to these parts, you know. I’m writing a book on them, so I thought I would come down here and do some research. You’ll be able to buy my book if you’re interested. It’s going to be called ‘Flaming bats in the sewers with rats, that could have cats, but don’t. And other untold stories.“

“What the hell!” Lydia said, her eyes still wide, staring at the man.

Ziggy wriggled his pants right up to the chest pocket and had a huge smile.

“Take some air, honey. It’s going to be alright,” he said. “Now what do we have here anyway? A strange lock to a strange tunnel, to a strange adventure. Sounds crazy!”

“We are trying to find the salamander with the ice abilities,” Bill said.

“Ah yes… the famous Slushie!” Ziggy announced, staring off into the tunnel. Lydia turned to look where he was looking but there was nothing but darkness.

“Um, yes,” Bill said with a smile.

Ziggy turned and gave Bill a huge smile. He then grabbed Bill’s hand and shook it with great energy.

“Well, it’s been real SWELL to find you down here in the sewer,” he said. He then turned and strode up to Lydia to give her a big handshake too.

“I wish you the best with your quest, there, lassie,” he said. “The great slushie should be easy to find once you get through the locked gate.”

He then took giant steps and splashed hard into the sewer water.

“You know…” he said, putting a finger to his lips, then swinging around to look at Bill. “These tunnels have things to say. They might tell you a thing or two about that lock.”

He then peered into the darkness again in contemplation.

“Or maybe they only whisper lies. Who knows!” Ziggy laughed. Then chuckled. Then just bashed his teeth together for a few seconds before he bounced down the tunnel with a whoop.

Bill thought about it. He went to the first tunnel on the left and twisted his head so that his ear was cocked to the tunnel. There in the distance, he could hear the drip, drip of the leaky tunnel. He then went to the second tunnel and peered in. Here, the water bounced down four levels before joining the rest of the sewage.

He walked past Lydia, who was studying him.

“You listening for that so-called drama you were telling me about?” she asked.

He chuckled.

“Something like that,” he replied.

He then leaned into the third tunnel. There was silence. He was about to move on when he heard it: steam travelling through the pipes, which leaked out of a crack, creating a long hissing noise before going quiet again. He nodded to himself and moved on to the last tunnel. There, silence met him again, but this time he knew to wait. He closed his eyes and was rewarded with a car driving over a manhole some distance down. The noise that echoed was a ‘rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle’ of the manhole being driven over.

Bill moved his way back to Lydia. Lydia loved talking and chatting, but she knew that there was also a time to listen. Bill came over and whispered: