“He’s the busiest person in the galaxy,” Hot Dog said. “He canceled our whole morning because something ‘important’ came up, remember?”
“Maybe this is that important thing,” Benny said. “Maybe he’s found out more.”
“Also, don’t forget he didn’t seem too keen on talking about any of this,” Jasmine added. She scrunched up her nose. “Actually, he didn’t even seem very surprised by the sample in the first place.”
Hot Dog clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “Wait—do you think he knew about this stuff before I got shot out of the sky? Because I am so not cool with that.”
“He probably just didn’t want us to worry,” Drue suggested. “Like you said, Benny.”
“Worry about what, though?” Benny frowned, wishing they were back up in the main part of the Taj so he could look out the window and see the bright blue-and-green ball he called home.
“What’s wrong?” Hot Dog asked.
“What if this was an attack of some kind,” he said. “We might be fine here, but there’s no dome around the Earth. What if . . .” He trailed off, not wanting to finish the thought.
“Well,” Drue said, drawing out the word, “we could always try to find out what was going on ourselves. Maybe peek into Elijah’s files? I bet he’s got all kinds of crazy Space Runner designs no one’s ever even imagined before.”
Jasmine shrugged slowly. “Like I said, I think we could really be of use researching this. With our combined brainpower, maybe we could help figure out exactly where these asteroids came from. Even if Elijah didn’t technically ask for our assistance.”
She turned to Benny, who couldn’t get the idea of his family being in danger out of his mind. He wasn’t sure what was going on exactly, but he knew one thing for certain: he wasn’t going to just sit around on the Moon hoping that everything was okay. That Earth was safe. He had to do something.
“Come on,” he said finally, heading back to the elevator. “I think we should see what Ramona’s up to.”
17.
They found Ramona in her suite. After answering the door, she turned away, head buried in her Taj-provided HoloTek, not offering so much as a hello.
“Uh, hey,” Benny said, as he stepped inside her room. He wasn’t really sure how to ask such a favor. “We were just wondering if, uh, you’d help us with . . .”
Drue snapped his fingers and motioned around the room.
Of course. Pinky. It definitely wasn’t a good idea to say her name and risk her walking out of a wall.
Hot Dog took control of the situation, leaning in close to Ramona, relaying what the four had talked about quietly on the elevator ride up to their floor: that if anyone could poke around the Taj’s files and see what Elijah had discovered, it was the girl who acted like she could speak to computers.
Benny told himself this wasn’t really stealing or spying. Well, okay, it was. But he needed to put his mind at rest with the knowledge that whatever these strange rocks were, there weren’t more of them coming that might endanger his family. That trumped everything else. Even Elijah’s approval.
Ramona listened, not taking her eyes off her HoloTek. But she did smirk, which Benny took as a good sign.
“You don’t have to,” Benny said, speaking in a hushed voice. “Just say no and we’re out the door. I totally understand if you don’t want to get in trouble.”
Ramona tapped on her HoloTek, and in a split second purple numbers were scrolling across one of the walls.
Benny looked to Jasmine.
“She’s telling you to chill out,” she said.
Ramona finally looked up at them. “Don’t worry about Pinky. I mapped her eyes and ears. Max spyware, but blind here. Deaf. We’re in a four-oh-four blackout zone.”
Drue stared back at her. “I don’t understand you at all, you strange, strange girl. But . . . you’ll help us, right?”
She grinned. “What’re your info needs?”
They explained to her as best they could what they were looking for. Ramona either wasn’t shocked, or did a good job of hiding it as she focused on her screen.
“We don’t want you to get caught, though,” Benny said. “Be careful.”
“Ha,” Ramona scoffed as she plugged a portable drive the size of a fingernail into her HoloTek.
Something flashed on Ramona’s screen. Her eyes narrowed to slivers.
“Does not compute. Max encryption. Total firewall.”
“So . . . that’s bad, right?” Hot Dog asked.
Ramona extended her HoloTek and turned it around to the others. There were blueprints on the screen.
“It’s basement level,” Jasmine said. “That hallway’s around the corner from where we were earlier.”
“Servers inside,” Ramona continued. A door illuminated as she tapped on the screen. “No systems connecting in or out. Likely a cache of secret files. We’re talking legendary loot drop.”
“You mean it’s something we can’t get to,” Benny said. Great.
“No,” Drue said, stroking his chin. “It’s just that we have to be there in person to access the files, right, robo-girl?”
Ramona clicked her tongue. “Bingo, troll.”
She tapped on the screen a few more times, and suddenly several video feeds of the basement showed up. It was clear to Benny what they were supposed to be focusing on: right by the highlighted door was what appeared to be the Pit Crew’s common room. Ricardo and Trevone stood inside, having what looked like a very intense conversation.
“Analog security,” Ramona said. “Unhackable.”
“Analog security?” Jasmine asked. “You mean, people.”
Ramona shrugged.
“No way we’re getting past those two,” Drue said. “Not if they’re in that room. Is there, like, a fire alarm we can pull?”
“Oh, yeah, that won’t cause everyone to completely freak out,” Hot Dog scoffed.
The rest of the group continued to brainstorm ideas, but Benny stayed quiet, thinking, trying to come up with something, anything that might help them.
He crossed his arms. A glint of metal caught his eye.
Maybe there was an easy way to distract the Pit Crew down in the basement.
“Ramona,” he said, “if we went down there, could you unlock the door and scramble Pinky’s security cams so she couldn’t see us in the hallway?”
“For sure,” she replied. “Feedback loop. Haxxor one oh one. Child’s play.”
“What are you thinking?” Hot Dog asked.
Benny’s fingers grazed the loop on his left wrist.
“I think we create a little distraction for our fearless Mustang leader.”
He tapped on his wrist, and suddenly there was another him standing in the room.
“Ugh. This thing is so creepy,” Hot Dog said, waving a hand through the fake Benny.
“I just need to find the perfect diversion,” he said, pulling out his HoloTek. He started cycling through old saved photos, changing the hologram. One minute a mirror image of himself was standing in front of him, the next a supervillain from a cartoon he’d liked, and then finally Elijah West himself.
“Ricardo will totally see through that one,” Hot Dog said. “He’s Elijah’s right-hand man. Plus, we’d need to mimic his voice and stuff, too.”
“Hey, didn’t you say you had a voice modulator?” Drue asked.
“Please. There’s a difference between looking like Elijah and acting like him.”
“I could pull it off!”
Benny played around with it a little more, and suddenly a giant tarantula was standing between them.
“Nope!” Drue said, covering his eyes and turning away. “Anything but that. Do something a little less . . . spidery.”
With a little more searching, Benny found a perfect candidate for their ploy. An image he’d used in the past to scare his little brothers while telling stories late at night.
“Okay,” Benny said. “I think I’ve got this.”
br /> After a quick stop in Benny’s room, they made their way back to the lower level of the Taj, making as little noise as possible. Ramona stayed behind, working her technological magic and keeping a live feed of the security cams streaming to Jasmine’s HoloTek. Ricardo and Trevone were still in the common room between them and the door to the locked-down server.
“Ramona’s got a feedback loop running,” Jasmine whispered. “Pinky’s temporarily blind to the basement level.” She looked up. “We’re going to be in so much trouble if anyone finds out about this.”
“Ramona’s going to be in trouble,” Drue said.
“We’re not hanging her out to dry on her own,” Benny muttered. “Look around. We need a place to hide.”
As if in response, the door to the room they were passing slid open. All of them jumped except Jasmine.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “That was Ramona’s doing. She says it’s clear inside.” She paused for a second, looking at Benny. “You’re sure this is the best idea?”
Benny let out a long sigh. “I think so. You want to know what’s really going on with those rocks, right?”
She nodded slowly.
“We’ll follow your lead,” Hot Dog said.
Benny motioned for the others to hide in the newly opened room and then tapped on his bracelet. The tiny particles of the band flew into the air, and an eight-foot-tall monster made of projected lights began to take the shape in front of him. Two hollow nostrils lined what might have been called the creature’s brow. It looked at Benny and grinned over two rows of long, pointy teeth. The three eyes floating around its head—connected to its neck by wisps of tendon—blinked at him.
Benny shivered, and then ran his finger over the bracelet, commanding his conjured terror. It floated across the hallway, the strips of soiled rags that hung from its body like seaweed sliding over the smooth cement. Finally, it came to a stop in front of the common room and opened its massive jaw.
Benny raised the voice modulator he’d grabbed from his suite to his lips and screamed as loud as he could, until his throat felt coarse and raw. The device changed his shout into a deafening roar that reverberated through the corridor. He ran his finger over his bracelet, and the holographic monster sprinted down the hallway toward him as he jumped inside the room where the others were hiding, the door sliding shut behind him.
“They’re following it!” Jasmine whispered as Benny got to her side, watching the Pit Crew members chase his creation. He controlled it as best he could using the band. Somewhere behind him, Hot Dog was talking.
“Oh my God, you guys. Do you know where we are? This is Ricardo’s room. This is . . . this is the dream of every girl I know in Dallas.”
On the feeds, Benny watched the door to the lab they’d been in earlier slide open. His monster darted in, then he tapped his wrist twice and it disappeared, the tiny nanoprojectors flying back out into the hallway to return home to the bracelet. Ricardo and Trevone rushed into the lab. The door slammed shut behind them, locking them inside.
“Wow,” Drue said, watching over Jasmine’s shoulder. “Ramona is good.”
“We need to move,” Benny said. “Who knows how long it’ll be before Pinky takes control again, or Trevone finds a way for them to break out.”
“Can’t we stay just a little longer?” Hot Dog asked.
Benny turned to see her reaching out to touch a dirty soccer ball on Ricardo’s bookshelf.
“Now,” he said.
They darted down the hallway towards the server room door. Two seconds passed before it opened, allowing them to slip inside.
“Okay,” Jasmine said, pulling a tiny flash drive out of her pocket. “We just have to get this connected to the server and then—”
She stopped talking when she got a good look at the room. The floors and walls were all cement, polished to such a shine that it looked as though they were standing on dark, still water. A large metal loading door was inset against one wall, but other than that the only thing in the room was a huge, black box, at least ten feet tall and twice as long across.
“Uh, so, I’m guessing that’s it,” Hot Dog said.
“Find a way in,” Benny said. “We don’t have much time and—”
He turned to Hot Dog and saw that she was wearing a red soccer jersey. Rocha was spelled out across the back in white letters.
“Seriously?” he asked.
“No time, remember?” she said, dismissing him with one hand as she started around the box.
They found a door on one side. Benny tried the handle, but a thick black padlock kept him from getting in.
“That’s mechanical,” Jasmine said. “Ramona can’t help us. There’s no overriding it.”
“Benny, you’re our hot-wiring expert,” Drue said. “Can you do anything with this?”
“You can’t hot-wire a lock,” Hot Dog said.
“I know that, but if he can hot-wire a car maybe he can pick a lock.”
Benny eyed the thing. He’d seen his father get past a few doors or locked tool cases before, but this was something else entirely.
“Sorry,” he said. “This is way beyond me.”
Jasmine knocked on door. “This is thick. We’d need a laser cutter to get through.”
“We should have grabbed one from the research lab.”
“Let’s look around,” Hot Dog said. “Maybe the key’s here somewhere. My neighbor kept a spare to her place taped underneath a flowerpot on her porch.”
“I doubt Elijah’s hiding it in a shrub somewhere,” Drue said.
“It won’t hurt to look.”
The two of them kept talking as Benny stepped away. Something else had his attention: there was a strange noise coming from the loading door on the other end of the room. He walked over to it and placed his hands on the metal. It was vibrating just slightly, the same way the Taj had a few nights before.
Why?
He glanced back, but the others were still fiddling with the lock. Curious, he pressed a button beside the door, and the metal rolled up.
“Uh, guys?” he said.
Before him was a staircase that looked as though it was carved into the crust of the Moon itself, smooth stone steps spiraling down, surrounded by smooth gray rock. A banister along one side glowed with a cool blue light. The stairway curved so sharply that Benny couldn’t see where it led.
The others ran over, staring down the new passage.
“There’s not supposed to be a subbasement level,” Jasmine said. “It wasn’t on the blueprints Ramona pulled up.”
“She’s right,” Drue said. “I’ve done my research on the Taj, too. This is . . . new.”
“Secret staircase in a room full of secret files,” Hot Dog said. “Nothing weird about that.”
In the hallway outside the server room they heard footsteps and the sound of Ricardo and Trevone shouting.
“Uh, looks like they got out of the lab,” Drue said. He glanced at Benny. “Should we try another hologram?”
“No, no,” Jasmine said, her voice panicked. “We’re for sure getting kicked off the Moon this time. This was no rescue mission. We were trying to steal Elijah’s research! And we don’t even have anything to show for it!” She started pacing back and forth, feeling through her space suit for the necklace Elijah had given her. “I blew it. I’ll have to go back to the group home.”
“We’re not doomed yet,” Hot Dog said calmly. Then she turned to Benny. “What do we do?”
But Benny didn’t answer. Instead, he did the only thing that might get them out of there without getting caught.
He started down the stairs.
18.
“Yeah, this isn’t creepy at all,” Hot Dog said as they hurried down the stairs.
“Would you rather they find us?” Drue asked. “Because we don’t exactly have a great excuse for breaking Taj rules this time other than ‘We were curious.’”
“The pursuit of knowledge is an admirable . . .” Jasmine started. Then she
swallowed loudly. “Okay, so technically we were trying to hack into Elijah’s files.”
“We’ll find a place to hide, then double back when we get a chance,” Benny said. “Maybe there’s another way into the Taj from . . . wherever it is this leads.”
“You think we’ll be okay?” Hot Dog asked, a hint of worry in her voice.
“Sure. We’ve had to lie low on scouting missions in the caravan. You can usually get away with anything if you stay quiet and out of sight long enough.”
“These aren’t stupid Drylands gang members,” Drue said.
“Watch out,” Benny said flatly. “Spiders.”
Drue gasped and stopped on the stairs. Benny grinned back at him.
“That’s not funny.”
As confident as Benny sounded, inside, his heart was running in overdrive. His palms were sweaty. They may have closed the door to the stairwell behind them, but it was the only way out of the locked server room. If Ricardo or Trevone or even Elijah were afraid someone had been in there, it was possible they’d investigate further.
They descended in silence for what felt like a long time, the staircase continuing to corkscrew down, giving them no idea when it might end. The banister glowed beneath Benny’s white-knuckled grip. He could feel the shaking through his shoes. The farther down they went, the dizzier he got and the more intense the vibrations all around them were.
“At least there’s plenty of light,” he muttered.
“Why would you say that?” Drue asked. His voice shook a little. “You’re basically asking for a blackout.”
“Hey, relax,” Hot Dog said, the harsh edge usually accompanying her voice when she talked to Drue completely absent. “We’ve got our HoloTeks. We pull them out and we’ve got instant flashlights.”
There was a slight distortion and sheen of light in the air around Benny’s head as his space suit’s protective helmet automatically powered on. He glanced back at the others, who looked as surprised as he was to see their own appear.
“Must be losing oxygen down here,” Benny said.
“But our suits can supply enough breathing air for days, right?” Hot Dog asked.