"Yes! We made a hole. Now, let's try to get in," Lexus said.
"But first, we need to enlarge the hole. It's a bit too small," Xiaolang said.
"Argh… Water is getting in." Shingo complained. Water was the nemesis of electronics, so he unconsciously complained whenever water came into the ruin. Moreover, he was afraid the ruin would get submerged.
"It's fine. We can just ask Auscella to close the door later. If we want to get back up, we can ask her to open the gate again."
"Why was the ruin dry, though?" Bob tilted his head as he peered into the hole Xiaolang had made.
"It must have some sort of pump to get the water out or something." Laurel said.
"Uh… There is something in the water." Anna said.
"Of course there is something in the water. It's an ocean! There are waves and possibly rocks. Don't just stand there. Help us!" Lexus yelled at Anna, who idled nearby. He was furious. Why did the son of the Black Diamond Group have to do labor while she idled away?
Xiaolang turned away. "Stop! There really is something in the water."
"Hah?" The water bubbled before rising like a reverse waterfall, revealing a humongous whale beneath. For a moment, the children stood frozen. The whale was massive. It was almost the size of the starcruiser they had been on. It was over 100 meters long and over thirty meters wide.
Even the Seliphesaurus didn't come close. Heck, even the Seliphesaurus might be mere food to it. The children could even build a house or a small village on top of it.
Its head was covered in crystals that stretched down its back, just like the Seliphesaurus. But this one was pink, while the Seliphesaurus was closer to blue. Even when it closed its mouth, the children could see sharp teeth poking out from the corners of its lips.
This whale was a carnivore.
"It's a monster!" Lexus took out his gun, but Xiaolang stopped him. He didn't want Lexus to provoke it, though he doubted Lexus could hit it with how much his hand was shaking.
"Stop! Don't shoot! You will only anger it! Get inside the hole, now! It's too big to fit inside! We will be safe there."
The children rushed to dig. Xiaolang stabbed at the dirt with his spear while Shingo and Laurel clawed at it with their hands. Just a little more and they could get through.
"Auscella! Hurry! Get in! Everyone! One by one!" Xiaolang said as the whale swam closer. It looked at the children in wonder. Then, it swam closer, trying to get a better look at the moving dots near the cliff that had trudged a bit too close to its territory.
One by one, the children rushed into the hole and dropped onto the wet and slippery floor. The contrast between the wall of dirt and the sleek metallic tunnel was uncanny. Lamps embedded in the ceiling created an eerie, bright, and empty corridor.
Then, an earthquake.
"Whoa!" Xiaolang was the last to enter as the leviathan nudged into the tunnel. It crashed into the wall of dirt, cracking it. Soon, water began seeping in. Water splashed through the hole they had entered.
"Damn it. One monster after another. When will they give us a break?" Lexus cried out.
"The dirt wall cracked. Auscella, where's the door? Close it!" Xiaolang turned. He hoped. No, he prayed that the door made of alien technology was enough to ward off this monster.
"Done!" Auscella said. The door slid open from the side. Then, another earthquake shook the whole structure. The children held their breath as they saw the door, wondering whether it would crack open like an egg under the pressure of the massive leviathan.
"Whew. We are saved." Lazarus slumped down, the tension leaving her body.
"..." Xiaolang was silent. He knew they weren't saved. In fact, they were trapped. But he remained silent, fearing he would only cause panic instead.
"So, what next? What do we have here, Auscella?" Laurel asked.
"Dunno." Auscella said. "The room is silent. I hear nothing."
"Silent?" Lexus tilted his head.
"She probably means the computer was turned off and can't receive any signals from her here." Shingo said. He wondered whether his hypothesis was true. If it was, why separate the door from the main computer?
Auscella could talk, but she spoke like foreigners sometimes did. Her vocabulary was still limited. She probably meant something else unique to alien computers.
"Eh… Then this ruin was useless! It was just an abandoned building! We need aircraft! At least a ship to set sail against those monsters." Lexus said. Disappointment flashed across his face.
"Wait. If the computer is off, how could she close the gate?" Laurel tilted her head.
"It's probably a simple wireless on-and-off switch." Shingo said. Auscella nodded.
"Speak! Only acknowledge yes and no!" Auscella chirped and nodded. Her wings flapped as if to get rid of the seawater lodged in them. The water then sprayed to all of them.
"Auscella… That's rude." Lazarus sighed.
"Au… Sorry."
"If the door can be opened and closed, that means this ruin still has power. Maybe the computers are simply offline or are in a closed-loop sequence." Laurel said.
The children walked along the corridor. Each step of their shoes created an echo that went back and forth, creating a cacophony of eerie sounds. It was as if they were in a haunted house, and the green wall with purple glowing lines did not help ease their worries.
"Look! Is that a torpedo? So huge! Is this a military facility?" Laurel asked.
"This is about right if this planet was infested like that crystal rockhead whale earlier." Lexus nodded. The torpedo was large, almost as large as a subway train.
"It might not be a torpedo, but a submarine."
"Eh? But a submarine should have that thing, right? The top thingie?"
"Yeah, it doesn't have a hatch, does it?" Shingo nodded.
"We need to find the computer first. Learn about the things here before making conclusions." Laurel said. They continued their search. The ruin was large, with a bulk door at the top of a flight of stairs that led into a hall or some sort of room. Tables, various unknown cans, and plastic boxes lay stacked in one corner.
"Food!" Lexus yelled. He was hungry. They had skipped lunch to get here, and if they had to spend the night here, he might as well skip dinner. Or worse, spend two days starving.
"We don't know that. Don't touch anything."
"Really? They were made in cylinders, not cubes, though," Shingo asked. Most food was packed in cubes to maximise volume back on USF.
"Even if they are food, can we even eat them?" Anna asked.
"Well… I heard from games that USF space food could last for decades or even a century!"
"That was in the vacuum of space. This was inside a living planet. Germs, moss, or fungi could infect them." Laurel scolded him.
"Hmm… This is a door." Auscella stared at an empty wall. From the outside, it looked no different from the wall beside it. "Let me open it."
The wall slid open, revealing yet another room. The children gasped. Bones of creatures were scattered across the floor.
"Hiek! There are monsters here!" Laurel shrieked, as the memory of stepping on the bones of dead animals resurfaced.
"Hmm… I don't think there are any. The bones look intact." Shingo inspected the bones. Just as he said, the bones were whole. "Is this place a morgue? They were all placed neatly on the floor. Why are they dead, though?"
"Their deaths seemed unnatural to me. We should return as soon as possible. There might be disease here." Xiaolang said.
"How old are these bones? They are practically dust now." Bob said. When he touuched the bones with his foot, it crumbled. "The same thing also happened in the ruin in the forest. They must have been here for decades, even centuries."
"Huh? But there is still power here. Are you saying these facilities can run for decades without anyone supervising them? That's unbelievable." Shingo frowned.
"It's possible if there are maintenance bots," Lexus said. "Levi Hunter had empty alien structures for millennia."
"This isn't a game, Lexus. And do you see any maintenance bots here?" Laurel said.
"There are computers." Lexus shrugged.
"Not in this ruin. Auscella still couldn't hear anything, right?" Anna said.
Auscella nodded.
"Let's find the computers, then get out of here." Xiaolang said. He wanted to get out as soon as possible. Whatever killed them could infect them as well. But he didn't want to leave empty-handed either. If that torpedo could be controlled by Auscella, the mission to build a boat would be a lot easier. That torpedo could be their primary propulsion system. The children would only need to build a hull for them to hold on to.
They also wouldn't need to worry about monsters. Torpedoes should be able to outmaneuver any monster.
"Ah, there is a terminal here. Floor map. I give you," Auscella said as she headed into a wall. Using Laurel's smartbox, Shingo had downloaded an application to convert images to Auscella and vice versa.
"Geez, does this planet have no monitors, touchscreens, or anything?" Lexus scowled.
"Well… many technologies nowadays also forgo monitors, right? Even our smartbox didn't have a screen because we rely on Neurogear for that," Laurel said. Her hopes were rising as she thought the aliens here might have technology similar to that of the USF.
"Hmm… I wonder if this means the aliens had the technology."
"Of course they did. They probably dwarfed the USF. They could clone and create life from scratch." Lexus said. "Let's borrow an airship and go to other facilities."
"Ah! There it is. The command center is upstairs. There is also a bedroom there. We are in a corpse room. Yeah, that's basically a morgue. Then, there is a loading port in the room before us and a ship's house." Shingo said while sharing the message from Laurel's smartbox.
"Ship's house?" Laurel tilted her head.
"That's what Auscella wrote," Shingo said.
"Ship's storeroom! Place where ships rest and heal."
"Maybe it's a dock." Anna said.
"Who builds a dock underwater and inside a mountain? We aren't in some secret military base, right?"
"Maybe we are in a secret military base, but monsters broke loose and killed all the inhabitants before we arrived." Anna said. Her imagination ran wild. She was excited.
"Don't be excited. If we are in a military base and it was abandoned, why were the corpses lined up neatly in a morgue? It might be a disease. We need to get our bodies checked by Mistral and the AMS kit later." Xiaolang said.
"I don't think we need to worry about that. Diseases and viruses need a specific host to incubate. We are aliens here. There is no way the virus could infect us." Shingo said.
"I hope the disease didn't kill all the inhabitants from outside this island." Laurel sighed.
"Let's get to the command center, quick. I don't want to stay in this graveyard for too long."
The kids then climbed another set of stairs and opened the door to the command room.
We found guns. And then, we found another ruin. Lazarus was right. Something good was bound to happen if you just believe. If you persevere, your fate will turn around. I'm sorry for losing hope, Lazarus. ~Laurel