Mike leaned in, whispering in her ear, “What’re they talking about?”
She shushed him and inched closer to listen for any words that might sound familiar, but they were talking too fast.
“Did you hear that? I swear the guy just said the word ‘food’,” said Mike. “A big fat burger and fries? Maybe onion rings?”
She peered at his hopeful face. There they were, basically relying on an unknown civilization to save them, and all Mike could think about was finding a pen to sign autographs and devouring a big bag of fast food. “I’ve no idea, Mike. You’re the one with the imagination. They could’ve said anything from ‘food’ to ‘dude’. I just hope it wasn’t ‘shoot’.”
Something clicked inside her temple, making her gasp. A sudden burst of heat rushed through her ears. When it stopped, she peered around, hesitant, wondering if the others felt it too. Tuning back in to the conversation, she noticed Orthon and the other guy speaking perfect English with a hint of a Swedish accent. “What the—?” Her fingers wandered to her neck. Orthon had been telling the truth: He really had injected them with a communicator chip.
“Preparations will begin immediately,” said the man in charge.
Casey could hardly contain her excitement. She tugged on Mike’s arm and laughed. “It works! It really works!”
His eyes sparkled as a grin spread across his face. “Yeah, mine just kicked in too. I understand them now.” He paused briefly and then continued, “You were right. It really was a communicator chip.”
Her grin widened. “Maybe you should listen to me more often.”
“Please inform General Ashtar that our guests have arrived,” said the man in charge. “I’ll keep them company until he gets here.”
Orthon nodded, then glanced at Casey and Jack. “See? I told you I would not hurt you.”
She shot him a weak smile, heat stinging her cheeks. “Sorry we were as nervous as scared, shaking Chihuahuas.”
“Yeah, but at least we didn’t leave a big puddle on the floor,” said Mike.
“Not a problem. While your fear was unfounded, I understand the issues involved with such a practice where you are from.” Orthon turned and pointed to the other guy. “This is Commander Gallant. He will be taking over for now.” And with that, he bowed slightly and turned on his heels to leave.
Casey’s fingers shook as she pointed to the screen. “Those ships took our friend Jack.” She shuddered as her mind replayed the awful moment when Jack vanished right before her eyes. Her tearful gaze met Commander Gallant’s. “We trusted you and took that awful shot. Now, can you please tell us about the plan to get Jack back?”
A shadow crossed Commander Gallant’s face. “I’m sorry to hear about your friend. Our general will be here shortly to explain how we’ll proceed.” He leaned in and touched her shoulder. “You have my promise that we will try to rescue him.”
“That’s great news!” Mike smiled and squeezed Casey’s hand.
The beautiful words gave Casey hope. A tear streamed down her cheek as her voice choked with emotion. “Thank you, sir. We can’t thank you enough.”
“A scout ship abducted your friend,” said Commander Gallant. “He’s probably on the mothership by now, along with all the other prisoners.”
Casey jerked her gaze up. “Wait . . . there’re more captives? On a huge mothership?”
The commander pointed upward. “Yes. It is currently hovering above Earth.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, wondering if things could possibly get any crazier. Jack was in space prison. He must be scared to death. She blew out a breath and scanned the room, her heart pounding. No one seemed to be in any sort of hurry. Where the heck is the general? Sipping coffee with his feet propped up on a desk in some office? She was anxious to hear their plan for rescuing Jack. Minutes felt like hours. She blinked her eyes open as Mike’s voice pierced through her thoughts, asking the question she’d been dying to find out since the moment she was shipwrecked.
“Where are we, exactly?”
The curiosity was slowly chewing her up from the inside out. She couldn’t go another moment without knowing. “Please just tell us.”
The commander shook his head. “I have no idea how you got here. Do you know what’s interesting? We named our city Agartha because it means inaccessible or unreachable.”
“Maybe you should fire the guy who told you that,” said Casey.
“A few people seem to slip in anyway.” The commander’s stance stiffened as he paused. “It’s rare for surface-dwellers to find their way down here and even rarer for them to find their way through the prehistoric wildlife preserve . . . and survive.”
“Surface-dwellers?” Are we in some kind of high-tech alien lair on our planet? Underground? “What does that mean?”
He stretched out his arm. “It means you have somehow managed to find your way to the center of Earth, to the ancient city of Agartha. We’re a huge colony that broke off from Venus, the second planet from the sun.”
“Venus?” Casey bit her lip. How could anybody live on the hottest planet in the solar system? Her thoughts shifted. Hmm . . . so they were a colony at one time? A colony broke off from England and settled in America, and this was apparently the same concept—only without The Mayflower. So how did these pilgrims ever get underground? She began to wonder who they had their first Thanksgiving with. Prairie Dogs? Moles? Rabbits? Foxes?
“We’ve lived here for centuries. This place is our home now,” said Commander Gallant.
Mike laughed.
The commander, however, didn’t even smile; his mouth set in a firm line.
She shot Mike a glance, urging him to keep quiet, but as usual, he had other plans. “I knew you guys were a bunch of aliens all along.”
“Oh man,” said Casey. “I don’t believe this is happening.” It was like something right out of Journey to the Center of the Earth, except they’d taken it a step further and met the aliens too. Still, though, it had all the key elements to make Jules Verne proud. But pretty much, it had all the key elements: Dinosaurs? Check. Giant cave? Check. Center of the Earth? Check. Then again, a few things didn’t fit: Aliens? Negative. UFOs? Negative. A glass city? Negative. Kidnappings? Negative. Leave it to me to veer off course not to Australia or New Zealand, but . . . inside of our lovely planet. Or so they said.
Casey swallowed hard, the sudden mistrust nagging at her. They had to be aliens. Otherwise, there was no way they could have lived inside the Earth for hundreds of years. Then again, there was no logical way they could have survived there. Jack would attest to that. The temperature was simply too hot, and surely they’d all be burned into smithereens. “Umm…this isn’t possible.” She bit her bottom lip and started thinking about everything she had ever learned in science class. Boy, her teacher would have a field day with this joker. “The center of the Earth is molten lava.” She grasped for the words. “The…uh, well, the Earth’s divided into four layers—the inner core, outer core, mantle, and crust.”
Commander Gallant smirked. “Perhaps you have been told wrong, young lady, for the truth is, you’re inside a hollow sphere. The shell varies in thickness from 400 to 800 miles. Underneath the thick crust is a world that consists of vast continents, mountains, valleys, vegetation, and oceans, just like that of the surface. Just remember, to find the truth, you must first believe.”
Casey pulled Mike to the side, whispering in his ear, “Is this wild or what? An unknown world inside of our world? What do you think about that?”
“Hmm. I’m thinking the Secret Service needs to know about this. It’d be a great place for the witness protection program.”
She slugged him. “What? You really think they’d hide gangsters like Sammy the Bull down here? Get real.”
“Okay, okay. I got off track. I think the commander’s story is really out there and farfetched, yeah, but why would he lie? He has absolutely no reason.”
She shrugged. “Unless he’s a bad alien with ulterior motives.�
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Mike called over his shoulder, “Can you confirm you’re not green?”
“Darn it, Mike, get real,” she hissed. “They don’t necessarily have to be green. They could be purple as well.”
Mike smirked and encircled an arm around her waist, pulling her close.
She took a deep breath, glancing up. “Are we really inside of Earth? Honestly, what are the odds?”
“Dunno, but here we are. Just think about it for a moment.”
Casey thought about everything she’d seen: amazing technology, dinosaurs, UFOs, and aliens, just to name a few. Before today, she would have labeled anyone who claimed to have witnessed even one of these amazing sights a complete and total nutcase. Yet, she’d seen it all with her very own eyes, and as far as she knew, she wasn’t crazy. It was all sinking in. She believed Commander Gallant, each and every word he said. Holy cow! We’re inside the Earth! She sucked in a breath and slowly let it out. She turned to Mike and said the only thing she could think of. “My cell phone never would’ve worked down here.”
“Not in a million years,” said Mike.
They burst out in laughter.
Chapter 3
Casey could hardly fathom that she was actually inside an alien city inside of the Earth. Mike squeezed her hand and shook his head in awe. She wanted to accept what they were telling her as truth, but she needed more answers. “If all communication channels had been severed, then nothing would come in or leave the walls, bubbles, or whatever these people had in place. So, how did—”
Mike’s voice jerked her out of her reverie as he said, “What about the ships we saw? How did they get inside?”
That’d been her thoughts exactly. She peered from the commander to Mike, then back to the commander.
“The rebels broke through our force fields at the North and South Poles,” said the commander.
Casey held up a hand, stopping him. “Whoa! Wait a second. People live there. They usually claim to see polar bears and seals, but UFOs? Don’t those tend to hover over Washington and military bases and trailer parks in the middle of the desert?”
“Aircraft come in and out of there all the time without surface dwellers suspecting a thing. The entrance holes are 1,500 miles in diameter.” The commander regarded her with raised eyebrows, lingering on the last sentence like he’d just explained the sun, the moon, and the stars.
“Huh?” asked Mike.
Casey was glad she wasn’t the only dense one in the bunch. “Wouldn’t curious explorers see the gaping holes? ‘Cause let me tell you, 1,500 miles won’t exactly be mistaken for a rabbit hole.”
Commander Gallant clasped his hands behind his back, his lips twitching. “The holes are protected by an energy field and advanced illusionary technology. We get by your Star Wars satellite system with our cloaking devices. I am aware this is difficult to grasp.”
Casey took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. Basically, he was saying the sky was full of flying saucers carrying little green men from Mars, and no one had ever noticed. “Difficult to grasp” couldn’t even begin to describe it. As much as she forced her logic into action, letting her mind take one step after another toward accepting it, that tiny inner voice inside her kept screaming that she should run for the nearest cab, plane, bus, or train—only there weren’t any around that she could see.
She began to think that maybe the sun had fried her brain. Maybe I’m becoming delusional, schizophrenic, or borderline something—anything as long as she didn’t have to believe what she was hearing. She thought she might wake up at any minute and discover it was all nothing but a figment of her imagination. Believing sucked, and it never came naturally to her. “In…” she started, then stopped to gather her words. “Incredible. This all seems like a dream.”
“That’s what I’m screamin’,” said Mike.
Casey shook her head. If he doesn’t believe all this, how the heck am I supposed to?
“It’s not a dream.” The commander waved his hand over his head, encompassing the ceiling. “We’re here, and we exist. There’s more than you think to what you presume to be the known universe. Take whatever you can imagine and multiply it by a million, and you might be getting close.”
Mike’s eyes widened, as if he was stunned beyond belief. “Wow.”
Casey’s eyebrows raised. “But what about everything we’ve been told by the media about UFO sightings and all those military experiments on aliens? Is it true?”
The commander hesitated, and he turned his eyes away from her for a moment. Then, his gaze locked back on her. “Obviously, there’s some truth to certain rumors, but not all of them.”
Mike’s forehead wrinkled as he seemed to ponder it. “Who would’ve thought? I was thrown off a boat and almost drowned. I can’t believe the worst thing that ever happened to me turned out to be the best thing that has ever happened in my life. I’m quite the explorer.”
“You’ve discovered a new civilization, something many would envy.” The commander tilted his head to the side, regarding him. “It must’ve been quite a shock to learn of our world following such a tragedy.”
Mike let out a long breath. “Well, I have to admit it’s quite a surprise.”
The commander snorted, amusement playing across his lips. “Certainly.”
A surprise? She gawked at him. How can he call the tragedy we went through a surprise? It was more like a kick in the gut. Standing there on that boat, with those ominous black clouds gathering in the distance, Casey knew something wasn’t right. The worst-case scenario she had imagined was being stuck in the hotel, maybe having to play darts or shoot pool with her dad in the game room, while Mike and Jack guffawed behind her back. Truth be told, a trip to the hollow Earth had really never crossed her mind.
This vacation offered more than its share of surprise elements. She didn’t mind adventurous vacations, but this one took the cake. Some questions still needed answers though. Mike wouldn’t care, but Jack would be mad at her if she didn’t take the opportunity to ask. As friendly as their hosts seemed, once they tired of their little Q&A session, she might not get another chance. “What about the water that changed colors?” Casey peered up at the commander, moving closer. “And the glittering sand? How do you explain those chiming flowers we saw?”
Mike stepped behind her and wrapped an arm around her middle, drawing her close.
“Yeah, dude. I gotta hear you explain that one,” he said.
“Over time, we’ve discovered ways to integrate our technology with nature. These landscape effects are created by superior sciences. I’m not at liberty to tell you anything other than that.”
Boy, Albert Einstein would flip. And what does the commander think I’m going to do? Steal his patent? “What about the two suns?” asked Casey.
“They’re artificial, but they provide light and heat. It is a giant quartz crystal, tightly compressed to release the energy within the matrix. We then hold the compressed crystal with a strong electromagnetic field. It’s a long, complicated process, but essentially, it creates a sun that will burn for us for hundreds of years. It gets dim at night, just like on the surface. Other subterranean cities have their own, using the same compressed crystal technology.”
“Wow! Amazing stuff,” whispered Casey. “Wait…did you say other subterranean cities? How many are there?”
Mike held up his hand, stopping her. “Better question, where are they? If there’s someone living under Huntington Beach, tapping into my bath water and cable TV, I have a right to know. Hey, that’d certainly explain all that lag on my Facebook. Is somebody watching YouTube with my Wi-Fi underneath my house?”
“They’re scattered deep under the Earth, part of a civilization we’ve kept secret for thousands of years,” said Commander Gallant.
“That’s great, isn’t it, Casey?” Mike made the high-five sign. When he noticed she didn’t return it, he continued, “Aren’t new cultures and civilizations cool?”
“Sure, as long as it
includes a four-star hotel and a return ticket,” added Casey.
“I know you came here through some unfortunate accident…” The commander stopped briefly before he went on, “…but you ended up in forbidden territory. How could we possibly let you return to the surface after all you have witnessed here? As I said, we’ve managed to keep this a secret for thousands of years, and we need to keep it that way.”
Casey froze to the spot, her mind working overtime. “Whoa! What’re you saying? What’re you going to do with us? We can’t stay here. It’s not where we belong.”
The commander raised a brow. “If we somehow survive this crisis we’re in, we’ll have to relocate you to another planet in our solar system. It won’t be very different from the life you’ve led so far.”
“What did you just say? You’re not letting us go home?” Mike’s voice boomed through the suddenly silent room. A tomb would have been more lively. “Don’t tell us it wouldn’t be much different! We’re not leaving our family, friends, and old lives behind. That’s just not going to happen. You can’t keep us here like prisoners. A one-way ticket to Glassville? Not happening! Not even chained to a tree or thrown into a dungeon with metal doors or—”
“He’s not telling us they’ll keep us here.” Casey’s heart leapt in her throat. “They’re sending us somewhere else.” As far as she was concerned, the bad guys up there could beam her right up, because hatching eggs in the back of her head was better than spending her life on another planet, without ever having the chance to go home. Astronauts might be okay with freeze-dried ice cream in foil packs, but Casey was in dire need of a home-cooked meal from her mother’s kitchen.
“I’m afraid we don’t have a choice,” said the commander, almost silently.
Tears welled up in Casey’s eyes. Coming to the city of Agartha was a giant mistake. She’d known it all along, but Mike and Jack wouldn’t listen. If they ever got out of there, she’d remind them for the rest of their lives.
Endure: Book 5 in The Trapped In The Hollow Earth Novelette Series Page 3