The Search For WondLa

by DiTerlizzi, Tony

  “Eva Nine, we have been over this numerous times before.” Muthr grabbed a hanging pot above her. When she placed it under one of the faucets, water automatically began to fill it up. “And, as I have told you before, there are no indications of others down here like you. That is what makes you so special.”

  Eva mouthed the last line in perfect unison while she lopped the top off another strawberry. “But I think that’s why we need to leave. To explore and find out for sure,” she countered.

  “You failed the simplest of tasks today—a LifeScan sweep. You are not yet ready.” Muthr returned her attention to her cooking. “Stove top, burner one, heat level six, please.”

  “But I am so cooped up in here,” Eva said in a despondent tone. “Can’t we go out for just a little bit?”

  Muthr replied, “You will in time, my dear. Now—”

  “I don’t think you understand, Muthr. I—”

  “I do understand. Now please pay attention. Focus on what you’re doing.” Muthr’s tone was stern.

  “How can you understand?” Eva slapped the knife down onto the tabletop with a loud clang. “You’re not me! You can’t get bitten by a snake! You … you’re not even human!”

  The kitchen was silent except for the clicking of Muthr’s blinking eyes. She studied Eva with her deep dark orbs. The pot on the stove began to burble softly. Somewhere high above, an exhaust fan hummed as it sucked the heat up and out of the room.

  Eva sneered at the robot, waiting for a reaction. She wondered what Muthr was thinking with all of those zeroes and ones coursing through her electrical nervous system. It was then that Eva realized that she was bleeding.

  “Eva!” gasped Muthr, wheeling toward her.

  “I just nicked myself with the blade. That’s all,” Eva said, putting her thumb into her mouth. As she lapped the tiny wound with her tongue, she could taste her blood. She could feel the pulse of her own heart.

  “Now, that is not the way to address a minor cut, Eva.” Muthr rolled closer, extending a rodlike arm. “Let me see it.”

  Eva pulled out her thumb and allowed Muthr to study it. At the same time, dinner preparations resumed, as Muthr dropped several pills from the cabinet into the simmering pot of water. The small kitchen began to fill with the scent of roasted chicken.

  “This is exactly what I am talking about,” Muthr said. “Now, what you need to do is sterilize the site. Then place a small medical sticker on it so that it may heal without infection and with minimum scarring.”

  “I’ll be fine, Muthr. It’s just a tiny cut.” Eva yanked her hand back. “I’ll live.”

  “Eva, please just—”

  “Fine!” Eva yelled. She stormed out of the kitchen, muttering under her breath, “It’s not like you’ll ever die.”

  She walked out to the hub, manually activating an adjacent door, which led to the supply room. As the door slid shut behind her, Eva walked past the labyrinth of shelves containing all manner of household items: electro-gaskets, holo-bulbs, lumen-packs, various cleaning products, and hydration kits.

  “Hello, Eva Nine. May I help you find something?” asked the calm tone of the Sanctuary over the intercom.

  “I’m okay, Sanctuary,” Eva replied, stopping in front of a rack holding medicinal supplies. “I’m just looking for a small medi-sticker.”

  “Medical sticky bandages with SpeedHeal ointment are located on the bottommost shelf,” the Sanctuary said.

  “Thanks,” Eva said, pulling open a metallic bin. She grabbed two, pocketing one of the medi-stickers in her tunic. She ripped open the plastic packet with her teeth and placed the medicated sticker over the congealed blood spot on her thumb. Pausing in the shadowy aisle of shelves, Eva listened. Through the ply-steel walls she could hear Muthr humming as the robot set the table. Eva walked to the very back of the storage room and stared at the faint outline of a sealed doorway.

  A doorway she wasn’t supposed to know about.

  “Eva, dear?” Muthr’s harmonious voice came in over the intercom. “Did you find the medi-stickers?”

  “I did,” Eva replied, though she knew the question was pointless. Muthr and the Sanctuary were linked. “I just want to grab some other things, um … electra-paper … to write notes for tomorrow’s class.”

  “Good thinking,” Muthr said. “Dinner is ready!”

  Later that evening Eva relaxed in her cozy electric bed, watching her favorite holo-show, Beeboo and Company. Muthr entered her faintly lit room and moved through the clutter on the floor. “I thought I asked you to pick this up,” she said as she approached Eva.

  “Come in,” Eva said sarcastically while she watched brilliantly colored cartoon characters cavort about her bedroom. A blue raccoon was trying to help an orange octopus build a home using sticks and rocks, but the house kept collapsing. A cat wearing a silver suit emblazoned with a logo for the Dynastes Corporation giggled, announcing, “You two need building blocks!”

  “Pause program, please,” commanded Muthr in that cheery tone of hers. “I made some notes of my own and thought you might want this,” she said, handing Eva an electra-paper.

  As Eva studied the semitransparent sheet, faint lines of text scrolled up to meet her roving gaze. “This is just a list of the six basic survival skills,” she said. Eva looked up at Muthr, causing the text to stop scrolling. “We’ve gone over this before.”

  “Well, we need to go over it again until you get it right,” Muthr replied.

  “What?” Eva said, aghast.

  The robot put a hand on her shoulder. “I am going to quiz you on what each of these skills means tomorrow,” Muthr said. “Pass this quiz with a perfect score, and we can continue with the fire-starting exercise right where we left off today. All right?”

  Eva looked back at the list. “We won’t have to start all over again?”

  “We will not have to start all over again if you pass tomorrow’s quiz,” Muthr said. “You have a ninety-nine percent chance of doing this, so I expect you to perform exceptionally.” Muthr turned away, rolling out of the room. “Good night, dear.”

  As the bedroom door slid shut, Eva could hear Muthr command the Sanctuary to power down for the night. She looked at the list, the words faintly glowing on the electra-paper:

  SIX BASIC SURVIVAL SKILLS FOR HUMANS

  1. Trust Technology

  2. Signal Others

  3. Find Shelter

  4. Create Fire

  5. Procure Food and Water

  6. Know First Aid

  Eva slid out of bed and threw a blanket over the life monitor peering down from above. She pulled on her sneakboots, then grabbed her satchel from the nightstand. As she did so, her Omnipod was knocked onto the floor. Jostled, it projected a life-size hologram of a girl in workout attire. Her face bore an uncanny resemblance to Eva’s.

  “No, no, no!” gasped Eva, reaching down for the device.

  “Who’s ready to warm up with some jumping jacks?” the hologram girl asked in a far too cheerful tone. Eva whispered to the Omnipod, “Deactivate Gym Buddy!”

  “Deactivating,” the device whispered back. The hologram evaporated, leaving a whitish glow illuminating Eva’s face. “Is there anything else I can assist you with, Eva Nine?” it asked.

  “Just a sec,” Eva replied, slipping her bony hand through the Omnipod’s wrist strap. Watching her door, Eva waited to see if the noisy outburst had attracted Muthr. Finally, she told the Omnipod, “Please command the Sanctuary to discontinue tracking my location and reporting to Muthr until instructed otherwise.”

  “Tracking of Multi-Utility Task Help Robot zero-six discontinued.”

  Eva opened her bedroom door and stepped out into the main hub. From under the soles of her sneakboots, she could hear the squish of disinfectant seeping up from the floor tiles as the Sanctuary began its nightly cleaning. The stinging scent of cleaner hung in the air, causing Eva’s eyes to water and the inside of her nose to burn.

  She snuck along the perimeter of
the hub on a path farthest from Muthr’s quarters, the control room, in hopes that the ever-vigilant robot would not hear her.

  Thankfully, the door to the supply room was malfunctioning and could no longer be voice activated. Eva tapped a glowing green button, and the doors slid open with a low hiss. Eva froze, waiting for the doors of Muthr’s quarters to slide open in response. What would she tell her if she were caught? Medi-sticker, she thought. The old one fell off in the shower tonight.

  Eva slipped into the supply room, her body heat activating the overhead lights. Watching the door slide shut, she brought the Omnipod close to her mouth.

  “Omnipod, please instruct the Sanctuary to open the back hatch in the supply room,” she whispered into the device.

  “Doorway opening.”

  The door in the back of the room slid open with a hiss. Eva’s silhouette stretched out into the dank, murky darkness. Eva whispered, “I’m on my way.”

  CHAPTER 3: SECRETS

  Eva pressed a glowing red button, causing the door to slide shut behind her. She ran her fingers over a logo, an emblem stamped into the ply-steel composed of the letters HRP.

  The Omnipod entered lumen mode, and the device created a strong beam of light from its central eye. As Eva made her way down the long, winding corridor, she thought back to her first discovery of the secret hallway… .

  She’d been five years old, playing hide-and-seek with Muthr.

  Eva’s favorite place to hide had been the empty cabinet under the kitchen sink, but she had grown some and could no longer fit under there.

  Instead, Eva had found her way into the very back of the labyrinthine supply room and had hidden behind the last shelf full of nutriment capsules. Giggling, she had leaned against the back wall, sliding into the shadows and awaiting the sound of Muthr’s playful voice. On the cold surface of that wall, Eva had felt the unmistakable seam of a doorway.

  Muthr had found her moments later trying to get the Sanctuary to open it. The robot had told her it was a malfunctioning door that had been sealed off long before Eva Nine had been born.

  Eva had soon forgotten about the mysterious door, until the day she’d made the other discovery.

  Putting a pair of rolled-up woolen socks away in her dresser, an eight-year-old Eva had found something scratched into the metal on the inside of the top drawer. Printed in blocky lettering was: “CP01: OMNISCIENT: FLOOR PLAN.”

  Eva had puzzled over this cryptic code for days. She’d wondered if she should go and ask Muthr about its meaning. She’d pondered this idea, but had hesitated, for it was also at that time that Eva had started to realize that she and Muthr were truly not the same. This observation had led to a notion that had itched at the back of her mind: She wasn’t being told everything.

  There were other humans depicted in the holo-shows and programs that she watched—but none living in the Sanctuary. Where could they be? When she had asked Muthr, Eva had received the same response: “There are no others like you. That is what makes you so very special.”

  Eva had returned to her dresser and stared at the words written inside the drawer.

  That was when she’d asked her Omnipod what a “floor plan” was.

  The device had prattled out a lengthy definition, projecting lavish holograms of various architectural layouts, then had asked if she wanted to know more. She had not.

  Eva had then asked what “omniscient” was. The Omnipod had answered that “omniscient” was an adjective derived from a seventeenth-century word meaning “to know everything.”

  Finally, Eva had asked what “CP01” was. Here, the Omnipod had had no answer. It had replied that the letters and numbers could be some sort of code, perhaps even for another computer or device.

  Still puzzled, Eva had looked at that cryptic message day after day, trying to determine its true meaning. In time, she’d forgotten about it. A year later, she’d been removing her old clothing, which no longer fit, from her dresser drawers.

  Once again, she’d spied the secret words.

  “Show me the Sanctuary’s floor plan,” she had instructed the Omnipod when she was nine years old. Once again, a dazzling hologram had floated up, expounding in great detail about the different chambers of the girl’s home. Immediately, Eva had realized that there were holes in this hypnotic display—pieces of the Sanctuary that were missing. The Omnipod hadn’t been showing her everything.

  Eva had asked to see the Sanctuary’s entire floor plan.

  The Omnipod had asked for a username and a password.

  Eva had replied, “CP01. Omniscient.” …

  She now approached the halfway point of the long hallway. The humidity had increased as she’d trekked farther down the winding corridor. Moisture clung to the walls, and small fungi dotted the ceiling in places.

  “Almost there,” whispered Eva, her voice echoing through the darkness. When Eva had first wandered into this new, uncharted area, she’d been thrilled and terrified all at once. Now she moved without hesitation. Her destination was just ahead… .

  She remembered a time when she had realized there was more to the world than just her life in the Sanctuary. When she’d been six, she had asked Muthr about it as she’d sat down to breakfast. “Why aren’t there trees in our house?”

  “Because trees cannot grow here,” Muthr had replied, dropping a pill into a cup of water. It had fizzed as it had plunged to bottom of the cup, disintegrating.

  “But we have plants in our greenhouse. And my programs show trees. Big, enormous oak trees, growing in large forests,” Eva had said as she’d slurped up her drink. Muthr had told her the taste was like freshly picked oranges.

  The robot had put an arm around her, “Well, Eva, there are trees. But they cannot grow here, where we live. They grow … above us.”

  “Can we go and see them?” Eva had been excited at the idea of exploring a big forest towering right above them. “We could play hide-and-seek and have a picnic.”

  “All in due time,” Muthr had replied, setting a bowl of oatmeal-flavored mush in front of her. All in due time… .

  Eva finally arrived at the end of the hall. Another door, identical to the one she had opened in the supply room, stood shut in front of her, its manual control panel darkened from water damage. She knelt down, adjusting the light on the Omnipod from a solid beam to a soft, luminous glow.

  The area surrounding the door was lined with a collection of odd and unusual objects that had been placed carefully in little organized rows leading to the door. The items ranged from clothing—shoes and crisply folded tunics—to toys and games, such as an animated rattle and a giggling ball. All had one thing in common: They were items that belonged to Eva that she was not yet ready to discard. She sat down facing a group of dingy stuffed animals at the head of this arrangement and opened her satchel.

  “Hi, everybody!” Eva addressed the toys and objects huddled at the shadowy door. “Sorry it’s been a while. I’ve been so busy with my exercises and stuff. How are you?”

  The toys did not reply.

  “Good. Good,” Eva replied. “Oh, me? I’m all right … I suppose.”

  She showed her bandaged thumb to the toys. “I got cut—see? Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks for asking. It happened while I was prepping dinner. No, no, don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” She rubbed her bandaged thumb against her forefinger. “But I totally flunked my fire-starting test today. I got bit by a snake and died. Can you believe it?”

  The silent collection stared back at her.

  Eva winced. “I know, I know. I think Muthr wanted me to fail and put it there on purpose—so I just dropped dead. I thought she was going to blow a gasket!” Eva chuckled. The hollow laugh echoed on the damp walls surrounding her.

  She sighed, slumping into the shadow outside of the Omnipod’s glow. Her eyes downcast, Eva spoke in a melancholy tone, “What am I going to do, guys? It’s not that I want to fail these exercises. I want to pass them. I mean, the sooner I pass them, the sooner I can get out of
here… . I’m sorry. You’re right—the sooner we can get out of here.” Eva stared at the glowing faces of her old toys, illuminated by the Omnipod. “I just … I just want to have friends. Not that you guys aren’t great friends and all. But, you know.” Eva picked at a loose string of climatefiber hanging from her sock. “I want to meet people … like me.”

  A muffled banging sound reverberated down the hall from the direction of the Sanctuary. She stopped talking and listened … but now all was silent.

  She addressed the toys again. “What’s that? No. Now I have to take a quiz tomorrow to see if I still remember my basic skills. My basic skills! It’s like Muthr doesn’t want me to leave at all. It’s not fair.” She pulled the electra-paper out of her satchel. Its pale glowing lines flickered in the darkness as Eva rolled up the sheet. She slid it carefully inside a small sneakboot standing loyally with its mate next to the stuffed animals. “Guess what? Here’s what the quiz is on. I wanted to make sure you all had the list too.”

  Eva’s eyes rested on a small, thin item hiding in the organized hoard. She plucked it up carefully and examined it closer. It was a blackened, crumbling, flat piece of material—different from anything else she’d ever held before.

  When she’d first discovered this item more than a year before, Eva had tried to identify it with her Omnipod, but the device had concluded that, “There is insufficient data. Not enough information to make an identification.” Eva had determined that it was likely a small piece of tile or even paneling, possibly a sign of sorts, as it was square shaped. On it was an image (a broken one, since it no longer moved) of a little girl holding hands with a robot and an adult.

  The only item in Eva’s secret collection not given to her by Muthr.

  The only item in her secret collection not identifiable by her Omnipod.

  An item another human had left for her, here, by this sealed door.

  Proof.

  She couldn’t make out who exactly the adult in the image was. The scorched damage obscured the face in soot. However, she could see two letters on this worn piece of paneling: L and a. There was a second, smaller piece to this puzzle, which she had discovered as well. Eva had glued this missing fragment to the top of the panel. It, too, had fancy letters printed on it: “Wond.”