“Dad always thought that was so corny.”
“Maybe. But I heard him say it to you boys more than once.”
Benny smiled a little and nodded, staring down at his hands. “Yeah. I guess that’s true.” He bit his lip. She was right. He couldn’t lie to her. And with his brothers gone, at least he wouldn’t be scaring them with what he was about to say.
Besides—wouldn’t his father have wanted him to face things head on and be honest?
“Okay,” he said slowly. “There is something else.”
That’s when he noticed a shadow fall across the carpet. He turned to look out the window to his left and gasped.
There was something strange on the side of the Grand Dome, a dark mass of some kind. No, something was growing over the force field shell, already starting to obscure his view of Earth, the brown crescent of the Drylands.
“Benny?” his grandmother asked. “Is everything okay?”
He turned back to the screen to see her face crinkled in concern, the wrinkled brown skin around her eyes folding in on itself. The screen flickered twice.
No. Something was very wrong. But he swallowed hard. “Yeah,” he said. “Everything’s great. I think we have a connection issue. I should go. But . . . I love you guys.” He smiled wide, trying to offset the hammering in his chest that he was afraid she might actually be able to hear. “So much.”
She smiled, too. “We lo—”
And then the screen went black. That’s when he heard the first scream from the courtyard outside his window.
15.
Alarms blared as Benny bolted into the hallway, which was already overflowing with the handful of Mustangs who had been in their rooms. Shouts of confusion filled the air as the kids struggled to figure out what was going on.
“Warning.” Pinky’s voice rang out around them. “An unidentified substance has latched onto the exterior of the Grand Dome. While the integrity of the shield has not been compromised, please make sure you are wearing a space suit in the event of unexpected shifts in the artificial environment.”
Benny found Jasmine standing with a few other kids who had crowded around a window in the hall, all staring out into the courtyard. The dark mass continued to grow over the dome, almost blotting out Earth completely.
“Jazz,” Benny said.
She turned to him, her eyes wide. “It looks like . . .”
He nodded. She didn’t need to finish her thought—whatever was happening out there was being caused by the Alpha Maraudi. Dr. Bale had told them the aliens had the ability to control rock, and he’d seen some of that himself when he was on their ship. This had to be them.
He patted his space suit pocket, making sure the gold glove was inside. Just in case.
“There must be more ships out there,” Jasmine said.
“What?!” Alexi, one of the Mustangs, asked. His dark, bushy eyebrows rose high on his forehead. “There are more ETs attacking? What’s going on? I thought we stopped the asteroids and stuff yesterday!”
Then everyone was looking at Benny and Jasmine, shouting questions. It wasn’t until Pinky appeared beside them that the group began to quiet down.
“Everyone, we’re gathering in the Firebirds’ common room on the first floor,” she said, speaking in a tone that gave no room for hesitation. “Go. Now. I need to talk with Benny and Jasmine for a moment. Iyabo.” She nodded to the girl who stood in the rear of the group. “Will you lead the way?”
Iyabo looked back and forth between Benny and the AI for a second before she nodded. “Yeah. Of course. Come on, guys.”
Reluctantly, the others followed her. Pinky turned back to Benny and Jasmine. “It looked like you needed some help.”
“Thanks,” Benny said. “What’s going on out there?”
“You know as much as I do,” Pinky said. “This would appear to be a Maraudi attack, but my sensors didn’t pick up any approaching ships. Not surprising, really, but we have no way of knowing how many of them are out there. Not even visually now. In my estimation, the entire dome will be covered within the next twenty-seven seconds. In addition, we’ve lost touch with our satellites. Something in that mass is interfering with our communications.”
“They’re cutting us off,” Benny said.
“What about the dome?” Jasmine asked. “Will it hold up?”
“It’s not in danger of rupturing at the moment, but I have no way of gauging how much force this ‘rock’ might be able to wield. If it were to contract . . .” Pinky shook her head. “I’m not sure.”
Benny swallowed hard. He’d learned since being on the Moon that a fracture in the Grand Dome wouldn’t send them shooting into space like he’d once imagined, but it would suck all the oxygen out of the courtyard.
“Okay, worst-case scenario,” Benny said. “The dome breaks. What happens?”
“The Taj has backup environmental systems, right?” Jasmine asked. “In case of an emergency?”
“Yes, but . . .” Pinky’s shoulders slumped. “The emergency system acts like the force field in a Space Runner, so there’s some shielding—sort of like your helmets. But it’s nowhere near as strong as the dome. Structurally, the Taj’s windows are a superhard polymer and most of the outside is titanium-based, but the resort wasn’t built to withstand a direct attack of any sort.”
“We’d be sitting ducks,” Jasmine said.
The AI nodded. “Now I wish Elijah had gone ahead with a plan to shoot the Taj into space. At least then we’d have an exit strategy.”
Benny shook his head. If the dome went, their best line of defense was gone. That meant the safest place for everyone on the Moon to be was . . .
“We should get everyone underground,” Benny said.
Jasmine considered this for a moment before nodding. “That’s a good idea, and those tunnels to the dark side mean we wouldn’t be trapped, but . . .” She frowned. “Are we really just going to abandon the Taj and everything up here?”
“No,” Benny said, taking another look out the window at the blacked-out dome. “I’m definitely not.”
“I’ll see if I can get the McGuyvers to help with evacuations,” Pinky said.
“We should do this now,” Jasmine said. “While the lobby elevator is still working. If power goes out for some reason, there’s only one other way down there from the Taj.”
Benny thought of the seemingly endless winding staircase he and the others had descended when they first discovered the underground city—and imagined the chaos of trying to get dozens of scared EW-SCABers down it safely.
“Yeah,” he said. “Where’s everyone else? Hot Dog and Drue? Dr. Bale?”
“Dr. Bale and his team are in the garage. Hot Dog is chasing after Ricardo and Trevone in the lobby. They’re having some sort of argument, but . . .” Pinky’s hologram flickered. She looked puzzled for a moment, and then her mouth dropped open. “A new program has been introduced to my operating system. He’s taking complete control of the Taj servers. I—”
She spat a few more garbled words before her hologram disappeared completely.
“Oh my gosh.” Jasmine gasped. “They’ve taken Pinky off-line.”
“Not good!” Benny shouted.
And then he was running for the stairs.
“Come on,” he said. “We gotta get down to the garage and see what’s going on.”
“No,” Jasmine said. Benny turned back and saw that she hadn’t moved.
Benny took a deep breath and nodded. “If you want to go underground, too, I understand.”
Jasmine looked up at him with one eyebrow raised. “What? No. That’s not it.” She glanced at the spot where Pinky had been standing a moment before. “Have some faith in me. I’m going to find Ramona.”
Of course. If anyone might be able to get Pinky working again, it was her.
“Be careful,” he said, because it seemed like a good thing to say. And then he darted for the stairwell door, half tripping down the stairs once he was through. On the f
irst floor, his footsteps echoed through the lobby, with its sleek, color-changing walls and the four-story windows that had once looked out onto the Sea of Tranquility but now offered a view only of the covered dome, making the entire room seem much darker. He could hear shouts coming from his fellow EW-SCABers down the hallway that led to the Firebirds’ common room, but he never paused, dashing past framed pictures of Space Runner blueprints, Taj concept art, and a giant portrait of Elijah West. The fastest way to the garage was to cross the courtyard, and he burst through the resort’s front door and onto the shiny steps leading down to the dark-graveled ground.
That’s when he finally paused. He couldn’t help himself. He’d seen the mass accumulating on the Grand Dome from the windows, sure, but now he was there in the center of it, looking at a thick crust forming all around him. But the rock itself wasn’t completely dark. It pulsed with a dull greenish light in places, seemingly at random, like chain lightning almost completely obscured by clouds.
It took his breath away, and for a second it seemed like whatever had solidified over the dome had covered his chest, too, squeezing it tight.
He gritted his teeth and managed to tear his eyes away from the sky as he sprinted across the courtyard. He was halfway to the garage when the McGuyvers raced out, on their way to the Taj. Bo moved swiftly, bounding toward the front doors on his thick, tree-trunk legs. He glanced at Benny as he passed, but didn’t say anything. Ash followed behind, no match for her brother’s speed.
“We’re evacuating,” she said. Her breath was already short.
“I know. I talked to Pinky about it,” Benny said.
She paused. “You’re not coming with us?”
“Not while my friends are still up here,” he said. “Not until we know what’s going on.”
She hesitated, but then nodded. “Good luck. And let me know as soon as you have an idea what’s happening.” She glanced back at the garage. “I don’t trust that man one bit.” And then she was sprinting across the gravel again, Bo already somewhere within the Taj.
Inside the garage, Benny spotted Drue near the back of the building watching Dr. Bale and his team as they set up devices he didn’t recognize. Beside the McGuyvers’ office, Hot Dog was yelling at Ricardo and Trevone. It looked like she’d blocked them, holding both hands up and standing in their path.
“He murdered Pinky! She was standing right beside me and then she just disappeared. He’s a killer!”
Ricardo didn’t say a word, but Trevone stepped up to his side. “She’s not dead. She was never even really alive to begin with. He just . . .”
“Turned off her personality.” Hot Dog pointed a finger at Trevone’s chest. “Real cool. And you helped him do it.”
“I didn’t . . .” Trevone started, his eyes turning to Benny as he approached the group. “I put up a few firewalls before, sure, but this is different. Bale’s plugged his own programming into our servers. It’s a complete system override. I’m not sure how to bring her back. At least not the way she was.”
“But someone else up here might be able to, right?” Benny asked.
Trevone looked at him for a few beats before nodding. “She could.” He turned to Ricardo. “Are we really letting him take control of the Taj?”
“We have bigger problems,” Ricardo said, pushing past them and heading toward the back of the garage where Dr. Bale and his assistants were unloading one of their trailers. “What’s going on?”
“The Alpha Maraudi are making a move,” Dr. Bale said as he opened a big metal trunk and started rummaging around inside. “Sooner than I’d expected. They must have had ships waiting in the wings somewhere. Those blasted stealth crafts.” He started tossing things onto the cement floor. “Where are the scanners?” he shouted at his assistants.
“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Benny asked.
“No. But you’ve been to their base on the dark side. It’s made up of rock just like this. Ah!” He held up what looked like a HoloTek attached to a satellite dish no bigger than Benny’s palm.
“What is that?” Trevone asked.
“A custom radar set to detect the unknown elements that make up the composition of the Maraudi ships.”
“How?” Trevone asked, taking a few steps forward.
“So we could have seen this coming,” Hot Dog said. “Maybe setting that scanner up should have been your first move, instead of clearing a path for your reinforcements.”
“It hasn’t been thoroughly tested,” Dr. Bale replied, an edge of annoyance in his voice. “And its range leaves much to be desired.”
Hot Dog threw her arms out to her sides. “Uh, this blob on the dome leaves much to be desired, too. Turn it on and see who’s out there!”
Dr. Bale gave her a hard look before tapping on the HoloTek a few times and then turning the screen around to them. All Benny could make out was the shell around the Grand Dome.
“Like I said,” Dr. Bale continued. “The range is short. I did the best I could with the equipment I had to work with out on the dark side, but I didn’t have anything close to a state-of-the-art laboratory. It’s not going to pick up anything outside of the rock.”
Hot Dog dropped her arms. “Oh.”
Dr. Bale handed the scanner to Todd. Meanwhile, Mae continued to unload the trailers, pulling out items that Benny vaguely recognized as having been from Dr. Bale’s armory, along with several of the alien samples. Drue watched every crate and piece of tech they unpacked.
“So what do we do to get this stuff off?” Ricardo asked.
“Nothing,” Dr. Bale said. “We’re going to hold out until the reinforcements arrive. Once my drones have cleared the way, armed Space Runners will come flying in from Earth. The Grand Dome will hold. I helped in its engineering process. It’s a flawless design.”
“We can’t just wait for help to come.” Ricardo took a few steps forward. “My friends are out there. The rest of the Pit Crew. We’ve lost contact with them.”
That’s when Benny realized that Sahar and the Miyamura twins had never come back from patrol. They must have been outside the dome, and that meant . . .
“Oh, crap,” he muttered.
“They were making the rounds on the dark side,” Ricardo continued. “I thought it would be good to have eyes looking out for any of those stealth ships. They’re great drivers. I thought . . .”
“Pinky,” Dr. Bale said, and the AI appeared beside him.
“At your service, Dr. Bale,” she said. She stared at him blankly, her voice monotonous, detached. Benny hadn’t realized how much he’d grown used to Pinky—had thought of her as a real person—until he heard her flat speech. Beside him, Hot Dog’s chin quivered: Benny could tell she felt the same way.
“I assume that both the auxiliary tunnel and the main entrance have been covered by the alien rock,” Dr. Bale said.
“That’s correct,” Pinky responded.
“Then we’ll use the mining lasers,” Ricardo said. “Or your weapons. We can break down the rock on the outside and get them.”
“And what if that’s what they want us to do?” Dr. Bale asked. “To go outside we’d have to lower the force fields at the end of the tunnels. What if there’s an entire army out there waiting for us? Are you willing to take that chance?”
Ricardo didn’t hesitate. “I am.”
Benny looked up at him. He knew Ricardo was serious about finding Elijah and making sure he was safe, but he hadn’t realized how close Ricardo was to the rest of the Pit Crew. But of course it made sense. If his friends had been trapped outside right now, Benny was sure he would’ve gone after them—and he hadn’t known them near as long as the Pit Crew had been living, working, and flying together up at the Taj.
Dr. Bale tilted his head back slightly as he looked Ricardo in the eye. “Listen to me. Whether you like it or not, this is war we’re talking about. War has casualties. Sacrifices.”
“They aren’t casualties,” Ricardo said. “They’re the Pit Cre
w. We can save them.”
“The longer we wait,” Trevone added, “the more likely it would be that the aliens will have gathered troops on the ground. If we move quickly—”
“No,” Dr. Bale said, and then he immediately went back to rummaging through the cargo trunks, as though nothing else mattered.
Ricardo’s fists were balled so tightly at his sides that they were shaking. He turned to Pinky, who was still standing beside Dr. Bale, her eyes staring into the distance.
“Pinky, I’m taking one of the laser-mounted SRs,” he said. “Open the auxiliary tunnel for me once I’m inside.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Ricardo,” the AI said without even looking at him.
“The Taj is under my control now,” Dr. Bale said. “Given the extreme circumstances, it’s the only thing that makes sense. And it’s time for you to make a decision, Mr. Rocha. Do you have what it takes to go after Elijah? Do you have the guts to face this alien threat, to ensure humanity’s survival no matter the cost?” He looked up at the boy and stroked his beard with one hand. “Or are you a coward?”
Ricardo didn’t speak. He didn’t even breathe as Trevone looked back and forth between him and Dr. Bale.
“A coward like Elijah?” Benny asked, breaking the silence growing between them.
Both Ricardo and Dr. Bale turned to look at him.
“Uh, maybe not a good idea, Benny?” Hot Dog whispered.
“That’s what you mean, right?” he continued. “That Elijah was a coward for not trying to destroy the Alpha Maraudi.”
“We could have dealt with them years ago,” Dr. Bale sneered.
That’s when the lights flickered and went out, leaving the garage in utter darkness.
16.
“What’s going on?” Hot Dog shouted.
“It’s a blackout, obviously.” Dr. Bale’s voice came from somewhere in front of them.
Benny stood frozen, unable to see anything. He half expected to hear Drue scream nearby, given how much he hated the dark—but Drue didn’t make a peep.
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