“Right,” Jasmine murmured, distracted. “Guys, these walls are so smooth. It’s such precise work. How was this place excavated?”
“And why?” Benny whispered.
A few steps later, they had an answer to the first question, at least.
The staircase ended abruptly, opening up to a large, flat slab of smooth gray stone suspended in the air. In front of them was a cavern so big Benny couldn’t see the other end of it. The walls were mostly craggy, but in some places the rock was more refined. In fact, it looked to Benny like it had been carved into familiar shapes. There were makeshift doorways and windows in the walls. Some of them even had glass panes and wooden doors, complete with stone balconies that had been chiseled out of the rock itself.
It looked like some kind of underground city in the process of being built.
“Holy whoa,” Benny said after a few moments of forgetting to breathe. “What is this place?”
Dozens of platforms floated in the air around them, powered by hyperdrives. Big glowing lamps bobbed among them like miniature stars. A giant screen—it must have been a screen—on one wall displayed a beach view, the surf rolling in slowly. As one of the platforms dipped lower, Benny could see row after row of vibrant green plants, water misting around them from nozzles coming out of the ground. He couldn’t help but think of the floating trays that brought food to the tables back up in the Taj’s restaurant. Is this where their dinner had come from?
“Look. There are tunnels heading deeper into the walls,” Hot Dog said.
“Are we in some kind of secret camp in the core of the Moon?” Benny asked.
“No way,” Drue said. “We weren’t on the staircase that long.”
“Plus the Moon’s core is made of iron,” Jasmine said as she looked around. Her voice was soft, distracted—repeating facts without actually thinking about them. “At least, that’s what scientists on Earth believe. Maybe Elijah knows more than we do.”
“Why do I feel like that’s becoming more and more of a thing the longer we’re up here?” Hot Dog asked.
There was motion above them, and Benny watched as four floating balls of metal shot lasers into one of the walls. A rumbling filled the cavern as the rock was cut away, falling into freight containers waiting in the air below.
“This is what’s been causing all the shaking,” Benny said. “It’s not earthquakes. It’s someone carving into the Moon!”
“Not someone,” Drue said. “This tech is obviously Elijah’s design. I’d recognize it anywhere.”
Jasmine nodded her head slowly. “It must be fully automated. I don’t see anyone else down here, and it doesn’t seem like there are any environmental fields activated except for those surrounding the gardens.” She took a long breath. “This is . . . this is incredible.”
“I dunno,” Hot Dog said. “It’s cool and all, but if he wanted to expand the Taj, couldn’t he have just done it aboveground?”
Benny spotted two silver doors in the side of the wall at the other end of the platform they stood on.
“There!” he said. “Those look like elevators, right? Maybe they go back up to the resort.”
They ran to them. As Benny searched for a call button, Jasmine stared up at the ceiling so far above them that it was hardly visible.
“I’m not totally sure,” she said, “but I think these might be connected to main elevator shafts that go through the lobby.”
“I definitely didn’t see a button for ‘creepy cave town’ in the elevator,” Hot Dog said.
“Pinky’s probably programmed to only let certain people down here.” Jasmine’s eyes lit up as she pulled out her HoloTek and tapped on it. Then her face fell. “I’m not on the Taj’s connection anymore. I can’t contact Ramona.”
“And I don’t see a way to call an elevator down,” Benny said.
“So, we’re still stuck,” Drue said.
“Guys,” Hot Dog said. She started to jog away from them. “Maybe there’s another way up.”
She was heading toward three carts lining the edge of the rock platform. Benny and the others followed her, and the closer they got, the easier it was to see what Hot Dog had in mind. Each cart had waist-high railings and looked big enough to hold six or seven standing people. Two short metal arms were perched on the front of each machine, angled toward each other. And attached to the bottoms . . .
“Hyperdrives,” Benny whispered as he watched Hot Dog climb over one of the railings. “These things can fly!”
“There’s a screen here,” she said, tapping on something Benny couldn’t see. A holographic interface appeared, hovering over the front of the cart. “Wow. Okay. This is new.”
“What kind of controls are those?” Drue asked, voice full of wonder. “It looks programmable, but I don’t see a flight yoke or steering wheel.”
“Can you fly this thing?” Benny asked.
“I can fly anything,” Hot Dog said. Then she scowled a little as she turned back to the controls. “I mean, eventually. This might take a little bit of getting used to.”
“We could always just wait and go back up through the server room,” Jasmine said. There was hesitancy in her voice. “We could try to get past that padlock again and then sneak by everyone. At least then we’d get the information we came for.”
“Yeah, ’cause that climb back up sounds like a lot of fun,” Drue said. He hopped into the cart. “I could always pilot if—”
“Dream on,” Hot Dog interrupted as she continued to study the lights in front of her.
Benny turned back to Jasmine. “They’ve got to be taking all the rock they’re digging somewhere, right? There has to be another way out. A way to the surface. Even if we end up outside the Grand Dome, Ramona can get us back inside.”
“What do you think?” Hot Dog asked, turning back to them. “Wanna explore a bit?”
Jasmine thought about this for a few seconds before nodding, climbing into the cart. Benny followed her.
“You’re sure you can handle this?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Hot Dog said, squinting at the holograms in front of her. “I think the layout is similar to a Space Runner control board, just with a few extra buttons.” She looked back at the others. “But, uh, I’d hold on if I were you, just in case.”
Benny gripped the side of the cart. “Okay. Let’s go slow.”
“Sure.” She reached out a finger, letting it hover over a holographic button floating at chest level. “This should turn on the hyperdrive.”
All four of them screamed as the cart suddenly shot straight up at such a speed that Benny fell, pinned to the metal floor.
“Too fast!” Jasmine shouted.
“We’re gonna hit the ceiling!” Drue said.
Benny looked up at the gray rock overhead getting closer with every second.
“Do something!” he yelled.
“Okay, okay,” Hot Dog said. She reached out, pressing another button. A holographic flight yoke appeared in front of her. “Yes!” She grabbed it, pushing hard. The cart instantly changed directions, flying forward and causing Jasmine to stumble back. Drue caught her before she hit the side of the cart. She mumbled thanks as Benny struggled to get to his feet. He glanced over the railing and gulped at the blur of platforms beneath them and the complete blackness even farther down.
“Hit the brakes!” Jasmine said.
“What brakes?” Hot Dog shouted over her shoulder. “The button I thought would slow us down just turned the headlights on.”
The cart continued to zoom through the cavern as Hot Dog was forced to take evasive maneuvers, swerving to avoid floating lights and platforms, throwing her passengers around inside the cart.
“Try this one!” Drue said.
He reached out and hit one of the holograms. The two metal arms at the front of the cart began to glow, and then yellow neon shot out of them—lasers. The two streams met and formed one thick beam shooting into the side of the cavern, sending chunks of rock falling into the darkne
ss.
“Nice work!” Hot Dog said through clenched teeth.
Drue was trying to shut the thing off when a joystick-like hologram appeared in front of him. He grabbed it and pulled back, but that just moved the laser beam up, causing it to slice through the corner of a platform above them and destroy part of the ceiling.
“Oops,” he said.
Hot Dog hit a button and the laser turned off, but debris was falling all around them.
“Hang on!” she yelled, pulling a hard right on the holographic yoke.
They shot around one of the floating lights, narrowly missing a falling hunk of ceiling. But this sent them careening toward a solid wall. At such a high speed, there was no time for them to turn around: the only way to avoid crashing was for Hot Dog to rocket them into a dark tunnel carved out of the cavern’s side.
“No, no, no,” Drue said over and over again as they continued through the narrow opening, hardly wider than the cart itself. Dim yellow lights lining the walls powered on. After a few seconds the tunnel broke into multiple paths, forcing Hot Dog to choose one at random. Then there was another split, and another. Drue yelped with every new route. Benny and Jasmine were crouched in the back of the cart, clinging on to the sides. All the while, Hot Dog kept hitting the button she’d pushed to start the machine, but it wasn’t responding.
“Pinky?” she called out in a last-ditch effort. “Are you there? Can you stop this thing?”
There was no response.
“Look out!” Drue shouted.
Ahead of them the tunnel dead-ended in a large sheet of metal.
“Door button?!” Hot Dog shouted. “Anyone?”
They were seconds away from splattering against the wall.
“We’re going to die!” Drue yelled, his voice high-pitched and cracking.
Jasmine grabbed Benny’s shoulder. “Which button turned on the laser?”
“This one,” Benny said. He lunged forward, slamming his palm onto the controls. The beam shot forward again, and he twisted the holographic joystick around, carving crisscrossed slashes into the metal.
The door was still there, but damaged. Weakened. He hoped that was enough—and that on the other side there was open space and not a solid rock wall.
“Get down!” he yelled, and then they were all on the cold metal floor of the cart together, trying to brace themselves for impact.
There was a terrible wrenching sound as they broke through the metal, the mounted lasers exploding in a shower of sparks. But the cart held together as they spun. Benny could make out tiny pinpricks of light overhead, which he barely registered as stars.
The controls blinked on and off a few times before something on the underside of the cart—the hyperdrive most likely—seemed to blow out. Their makeshift vehicle crashed onto the ground below, sending them skidding across the surface of the Moon.
Finally, they came to a stop. No one moved. Their heavy breathing was the only sound as seconds ticked by.
“Are we dead?” Drue finally asked.
“I don’t think so,” Benny said.
“Okay.” Hot Dog let out a long, ragged breath. “Maybe that wasn’t as good an idea as I thought it would be.” She got to her feet carefully, staring at the broken display screen and the mangled lasers on the front of the cart. “Do you think this thing will still fly?”
“Oh, no, no,” Jasmine said, climbing over the side. “I’m not riding on that anymore.”
“Well, we can’t just walk back the way we came. I have no idea what tunnels I took back there.”
Benny got out, too, thankful to have something stable and immobile beneath his feet again. Hot Dog and Drue followed, trying to catch their breaths. The surface of the Moon around them was dark, even considering that they were in a large crater. Huge mounds of rock were piled up at one side.
“Looks like this is where they were taking some of the stuff they excavated,” Jasmine said, starting to sound like herself again.
Drue darted over to one of the piles and climbed to the top, taking a look around.
“Uh, so, I don’t see the Taj anywhere.” He jumped back off, floating down to the crater floor.
Something behind him caught Benny’s eye. Fifty or so yards away, buried in a craggy wall, was a large, smooth rectangle colored a dull, greenish yellow.
“Uh, hey,” Benny said, “this is going to sound crazy but . . . doesn’t that kind of look like a door?”
19.
The sickly colored stone was three times as tall as any of them. If it was a door, it must have weighed a ton.
“This is not normal, right?” Hot Dog asked, keeping her distance.
“Definitely not,” Drue said.
“Maybe it’s a back door into the dig site,” Benny said.
“Or a way back to the Taj. That runaway cart was fun and all, but I don’t see it getting us back to the resort any time soon. Especially if we’re not sure where we are.”
“The dark side of the Moon,” Hot Dog said.
“She’s right,” Jasmine added. “I can tell by the stars.” She stepped forward, placing a palm on the smooth stone. “This rock doesn’t look like any of the layers we saw underground. I wonder what it’s made of.”
“You can come back with a chisel,” Drue said as he picked up a thick metal rod lying on the crater floor. “Someone’s been out here.” He waved it around a little, gauging its weight before wedging it into the space between the door and the craggy rocks surrounding it.
“What are you doing?” Hot Dog asked.
“What does it look like? There are scratch marks and chunks missing from this side. Someone’s pried the sucker open before, which means we can, too.” He leaned on the rod, straining, before calling over his shoulder, “Um, a little help here?”
Hot Dog grabbed the end of the makeshift crowbar and pushed with him. After a moment, the entire panel began to shift, sliding away without any more effort.
“Okay, that wasn’t all me and Hot Dog,” Drue said.
“There must be a kind of counterweight or pneumatic system inside,” Jasmine suggested.
The slab tucked itself into the side of the crater, leaving nothing but a rectangle of pitch-blackness in front of them.
“Anyone see a light switch?” Benny asked.
“I don’t think we’re that lucky,” Hot Dog said, her voice wavering a little. “So . . . who wants to go inside the scary tunnel first?”
“Uh, I don’t really do the dark,” Drue said.
For a flash, Benny was reminded of the bloodcurdling scream when all the lights went out in the Grand Dome. Maybe it hadn’t been Hot Dog after all.
“We probably should have brought some flashlights or something,” he murmured.
Jasmine reached out and touched a spot on his space suit’s collar. A ring of glowing light formed around his neck, illuminating the cave for a few feet in front of him.
“Oh,” Benny said. “Thanks.”
“You should really read the safety regulations that came preloaded on your HoloTek,” Jasmine said, turning on her own light.
“I didn’t even know there were safety regulations,” Drue muttered.
Jasmine sighed and stepped forward into the tunnel. “We’re not going to find out where this leads if we don’t actually go inside.”
Benny took a deep breath and followed her, noticing that the floor and walls around them were made of the same stone as the door.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Hot Dog said, coming up to Benny’s side.
Drue shushed her.
“What?” she asked. “I do.”
“Okay, but shouldn’t we be quiet?” Drue asked.
“Why?” Benny asked.
“Because talking somehow makes this a lot worse.”
“Sounds like someone’s about to wet his space suit,” Hot Dog said with a huge grin on her face. Then she flinched as she bumped into Jasmine’s arm.
They forged on in silence. Eventually the tunnel op
ened up to some kind of room, but Benny could only make out the vague shadowy shapes inside.
“I’m beginning to think maybe this isn’t the way back to the underground cavern,” Jasmine said, taking a step out of the tunnel.
As soon as her foot touched the floor, the room seemed to power up, like someone had flipped an on switch.
Dim lights glowed in what looked like computer terminals against the far wall, though they were certainly like no electronics Benny had ever seen. They seemed to have grown out of the floor, which pulsed with little rivers of light. Above them, the smooth walls turned into jagged rock, eventually giving way to thick, opaque stalactites hanging from the high ceilings. They glowed a pale green. Tables piled high with dust and unfamiliar machinery filled most of the room, which was big enough that half the caravan could have parked inside. On the right end of the room, a few circular nooks had been carved into the walls.
“What in the name of Saturn’s rings are we looking at here?” Benny asked.
“It’s kinda like . . . a weird cave apartment?” Hot Dog offered.
“More like a workshop,” Drue said, taking a few more steps inside. “Jazz, what do you think?”
But Jasmine didn’t answer. Instead, she stood with her mouth agape, her eyes wide.
Benny walked along one of the walls, dragging his fingers along a tabletop and clearing away a line of accumulated Moon dust. The surface beneath was some kind of polished red rock.
“I don’t think anyone’s been here for a while,” he said.
“Jackpot!” Drue shouted, racing to a corner where two thin slivers of green light floated at chest level. They were a foot tall, and the space between them had a sparkling sheen to it that distorted the air.
“The last time you touched something you weren’t supposed to, it turned on lasers!” Jasmine called to him. “We have no idea what any of this—”
But Drue was already reaching out, poking the air between the two beams of light. Within seconds there was a whoosh as all the rocks overhead dimmed. If it weren’t for the lights on their collars, Benny would have barely been able to tell where the others were.
“Oh, that’s perfect,” Hot Dog said. “Let me guess: you were trying to do that.”