Emma remained as before. Silent. She moved through the clearing, searching the ground, her expression sharp with purpose. The rest of us were clueless, but Emma seemed to know exactly what she was looking for. A moment later, she found it. Her attention landed on a tangle of bushes. She crouched and picked up . . .

A rock.

My confusion multiplied. Was this the reason we had traveled all this way? For a rock?

Perhaps the rock held some greater significance we were not aware of. I zoomed in for a closer look. Shape: triangular/flat. Size: about as long/wide as my hand. Color: pale gray. Visible markings: none.

In other words: an ordinary rock.

“Emma?” My voice was uncertain. “What do you need the rock for?”

No answer.

Emma’s mysterious behavior continued. She took the rock to the center of the clearing. Dropped to her knees. And plunged the rock into the ground, pointy end first. She scooped out a small section of soil and tossed it aside.

It was only then that I finally understood.

First: Emma was using the rock as a shovel.

Which meant: She was digging.

Therefore: Something was buried underground.

But what?

My coworkers and I joined in the effort. We did not need stones to dig. Our hard metal fingers plunged into the earth, tossing away the soil. Before long, the ground was littered with holes. Loose dirt and torn grass lay scattered at the edge of the grove.

“What are we looking for?” I asked.

Emma responded without looking up. “You’ll know it when you find it.”

It was an answer, but it was also not an answer.

“I found something!” Ceeron showed off its discovery: an earthworm. The insect wriggled across its palm. “Is this it? Is this what we are looking for?”

Emma eyed the earthworm, a slight smile forming on her dirt-smudged face. “Nope. Not it.”

She went back to digging. So did the rest of us. Clearing away more dirt, our holes growing deeper/wider, until—

CLANG!

I did not expect to hear this sound in the middle of nature. The sound of stone hitting metal. And it was followed by another sound.

A soft, human gasp.

Emma reached into the hole she had been digging, brushing dirt away with her hand.

“It’s here,” she whispered to herself. “This is it.”

I peered over her shoulder into the hole. It stretched about as deep as Emma’s arm. At its bottom was a flat metal surface. As we excavated more dirt, the shape of the buried object became clearer. Its edges, its contours. It went deeper into the ground. Much deeper.

We cleared away the last of the dirt from the metal surface. Finally, I gained a full glimpse of what was buried there.

An underground hatch.

01010001

Hatch. Noun. 1. A small door or opening.

Verb. 1. Life emerging from within an egg.

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