The Search For WondLa

by DiTerlizzi, Tony

  “WondLa,” Eva had dubbed it. She studied the picture in her hands. The girl was smiling. The robot was smiling. Eva was certain the adult was likely smiling too as they all walked together in unison through a field of flowers. Moving as one. As friends. Exploring the forests above.

  But Eva’s robot would not allow her to explore. She wouldn’t even let her leave the Sanctuary.

  A Sanctuary that had been connected to another Sanctuary.

  A Sanctuary that had been connected to many other Sanctuaries.

  Eva had seen the omniscient floor plan.

  However, like the door before her that led to the adjoining Sanctuary, they were now all closed off to her.

  “I don’t know why Muthr doesn’t want me to have other friends,” Eva said as she returned the WondLa back to its place. “But she’ll never find out about the WondLa, or us … until it’s too late.”

  Lifting the Omnipod up from the floor, Eva scanned the collection of unmoving toys. The soft light illuminated their blank faces. She paused on one, a grungy Beeboo doll.

  “I brought you a medi-sticker too,” Eva said as she ripped open the little packet with her teeth. Eva placed the sticker on the doll’s soiled paw. “I don’t want you to get an infection when we escape from here.”

  As she stood to leave, a tremendous shock wave rattled the entire Sanctuary, raining dust and debris from the corridor ceiling down onto Eva Nine.

  CHAPTER 4: BOOM

  The omnipod light danced wildly about the secret passageway as Eva rushed back toward the Sanctuary. She activated the door controls as another loud reverberation rocked the walls, causing her to stumble through the open doorway and back into the supply room. The shelves inside vibrated with each rumble, and several containers of disinfectant fell to the floor. Holding on to the shelves, Eva snaked her way to the front of the room just as the door hissed open. Standing in the entrance was Muthr.

  “There you are!” exclaimed Muthr. She thrust Eva’s jackvest and a large food container into the girl’s hands. “I have been looking everywhere for you. Do you have your Omnipod?”

  “Yes,” replied Eva, holding up her right hand, the device hanging from her wrist.

  “May I have it, please?” Muthr asked.

  Eva handed the Omnipod to her. Immediately its tiny lights began flickering in rhythm to a tiny light on Muthr’s torso. “What is that?” Eva shouted over another tremendous bang. The sound was coming from above them. All the lights in the Sanctuary flickered.

  “Is this another exercise? Or a drill? Because—” A shrieking siren cut her off, a noise Eva Nine had never heard before. With large eyes—frightened eyes—she watched the robot. Muthr was silent and stoic, but lights blinked in rapid succession all over her head.

  “Muthr, what’s happening? What is the Sanctuary telling you?” Eva asked. She huddled close to the robot as another shock wave boomed overhead.

  Muthr blinked out of her trance and addressed Eva. “An intruder has breached the Sanctuary’s doors and is now descending to the main entrance. Come now. We have only minutes to get you to safety.” With that, the robot spun around and wheeled out into the main hub. Eva hopped along behind her, slipping her jackvest on over her beige tunic. The Sanctuary shook again.

  “Kitchen doors, open, please,” Muthr commanded, and she barreled through the adjacent door.

  “Wait—the kitchen?” Eva stopped in the doorway, confused. “Why are we going into the kitchen? Shouldn’t we head to the control room?”

  “Not now, Eva, dear.” Muthr grabbed Eva by the wrist and yanked her inside. The robot slid open a small hidden panel near the doorway and began typing a sequence of numbers into a security keypad. The kitchen doors slid shut and locked. Over the sound of the alarm, Eva could hear the other doors in the Sanctuary lock as well. Next, the ambient sounds of the central living hub, along with every appliance within the Sanctuary, powered on with the volume at maximum level.

  “This noisy diversion will not buy us much time, so we must be quick,” Muthr said. She looked directly at Eva and placed two hands on her shoulders. “Now, listen very carefully to me, Eva. You must leave the Sanctuary and head up to the surface for safety. This intruder is clearly not benevolent, and I will not have any harm befall you.”

  Eva gasped. “Leave? Now? I mean, I want to, but—”

  Muthr’s voice remained calm while explosions tore apart the Sanctuary outside the kitchen door. “Do not worry, my child,” she said. “I will be all right. I know we were not finished with your exercises. However, you—”

  “Room two fire sensor has detected smoke,” announced the Sanctuary over the intercom speaker. “Please seal off the room and begin extinguishing sequence.”

  Muthr wheeled Eva over to the cooking exhaust vent, and began removing the corner screws from the intake grill at once with all four of her arms. “Eva, inside here is a ladder that will take you directly to the surface.”

  Eva blinked, dumbfounded. There was an escape hatch right here in the kitchen all this time? The floor plan on the Omnipod had shown only one way out, and that was through the robot’s quarters.

  A loud sonic vibration, just outside in the central hub, rattled the walls of the Sanctuary. A mighty explosion erupted, as if a door were being blown to pieces.

  Eva backed away from the kitchen doorway a bit, and bumped into Muthr, who had now removed the grate. She set the grate down and continued with her instructions. “I have been closely monitoring the nearby terrain. If the reports are correct, we are concealed in a densely wooded area near a river. Once you reach the ground level outside, you need to run from here as fast as you can and find a place to hide among the trees.” Muthr supported Eva as she climbed up onto the stove top and stepped inside the exhaust shaft. It smelled smoky, like burnt toast. “Stay put until daylight,” Muthr said, “and above all, do not let this intruder spot you.”

  Kneeling down in the exhaust shaft, Eva looked at Muthr. Her heart was pounding in tempo with her rapid breathing.

  This is not an exercise.

  “Rooms three and five are also detecting smoke,” the Sanctuary’s intercom spoke in its eerie, calm tone. Another explosion interrupted its report, “—begin extinguishing sequence.”

  Room 5. That’s my room.

  My life is in there. My clothes … my bed … my entire holo-show collection.

  Room 5 was where Eva had dreamed up countless plans of how she was going to find others, just like her, and bring them back safely to her home. Friends and family would live with her and Muthr in the Sanctuary, just like the picture depicted on the WondLa.

  Another explosion rocked the kitchen.

  “Eva, I need you focused and alert,” Muthr said, handing her the Omnipod. “Remember what we have studied and all that you have learned.” The robot lifted up the grate and began screwing the bolts back in. “Trust technology, and do not return unless you hear word from me. Understand?”

  Eva nodded as it dawned on her what was happening. Her eyes started to sting. This scenario wasn’t on any list. Sure, she had wanted to explore the surface, but not this way.

  Not alone.

  “Room six fire sensor has detected smoke,” reported the Sanctuary. It might as well have been greeting Eva, its tone of voice was so calm. “Please seal off the room and begin extinguishing sequence.” Static fuzzed over part of the announcement. Despite the growing heat from the fire outside, Eva’s entire body trembled as if she were chilled.

  “Muthr! You … you have to come with me!” yelled Eva. The smell of smoke now drifted into the kitchen. “Please!” She panicked. “There’s room for you in here! I can help you up! Don’t leave me!”

  Muthr put her hand on the grill. “Eva, listen. Listen very carefully to me.” Eva curled her fingertips around Muthr’s, gripping so tightly that the blood rushed out of them. The robot continued, “I have shut the exhaust fan off, but it is on a timer. It will restart soon, so you have to hurry. When you get to the top of the v
ent, there will be a wheel. Turn it counterclockwise to open the hatch and climb out.”

  Smoke wormed its way into the kitchen from under the door, carrying a nauseating stench of smoldering metal and melted plastic. Outside, Eva could hear a loud hum followed by a piercing sonic vibration. The kitchen door buckled from the explosion, but did not open. Muthr spoke in that slightly distorted melodious voice. “Eva, I love you very much, and I hope that I will see you again,” she said, “but you must go, NOW!”

  Muthr moved away from the grate. Eva pounded on it, screaming, “No! No! No!”

  A metal covering slid down, sealing the exhaust vent shut. Eva could hear a tremendous explosion and the kitchen door blow open. Frightened, she sat frozen at the bottom of the vent for the longest minute of her life. She listened to the rummaging and pilfering going on beyond the grate covering in what had once been her kitchen—what had once been her home.

  Eva thought of Muthr. She thought of her old friends hiding in the secret corridor.

  She started climbing her way up toward a distant flickering light at the top of the shaft. It seemed like miles away, and the light above turned into a tiny star shape every time tears streamed out of her eyes.

  Panting, Eva was approaching the nonmoving exhaust fan. As she neared the large unit, she could hear it chirp in a steady electronic beat. From below, Eva studied the fan’s wide greasy blades, encrusted with gray clumps of filth, as the chirping sped up in tempo.

  The fan is on a timer—Eva recalled Muthr’s instructions—you have to hurry. She grabbed hold of the fan’s central motor and pulled herself up past the flattened blades. The chirping sped up yet again. Sitting atop the large cylindrical motor, Eva caught her breath. The chirping became a rapid beep. Eva stood on top of the unit and could see a wheel-shaped handle above her lit by a single utility light. Grasping the wheel, she tried to turn it.

  It did not budge.

  “Turn, turn, turn,” pleaded Eva.

  The chirping stopped and the fan’s motor started up again. The vibration jolted Eva so much that she almost lost her footing. The toe of her sneakboot thrummed as the blades whacked at it.

  Another sonic shock wave echoed its way up the shaft, and Eva shrieked. The wave was followed by a rending sound at the bottom of the shaft, and metal clanging. The grill covering had been removed, and smoke now began to wind its way up the exhaust vent.

  Sensing the additional heat, the fan spun even faster. The entire unit vibrated, groaning under the additional weight of Eva on top of it. Through the fumes burning her vision, Eva risked looking down. Below, she could make out the glow of fire coming in from the kitchen grill, growing like an angry orange-red snake up toward her.

  Vertigo tried to topple Eva. She refocused on the wheel, pulling on it with every bit of strength that she possessed until it finally let out a low squeak and moved ever so slightly. The smoke was now so dense that Eva could no longer see her own hands in front of her. She coughed as noxious vapors filled her lungs. Mucus ran from her nose into her gritted teeth.

  “Come on!” she yelled as she blindly pried the wheel loose from its frozen position. At last the wheel spun freely just as the old, rusted bolts holding the fan unit below her gave out, one at a time. With each turn the top vent of the shaft opened a little more, sucking up the fire and its smoky breath. The fan came loose from the shaft walls, plummeting down to the flames below. Hanging from the wheel, Eva pulled herself up and grasped the edge of the vent opening. She squeezed her lithe body through the vent, and then tumbled down to the ground below.

  A ground Eva Nine had never set a foot upon in all twelve years of her life.

  CHAPTER 5: ABOVEGROUND

  Wiping ash and grit out of her burning eyes, Eva Nine stumbled away from the Sanctuary’s underground exhaust vent and into the surrounding wood. She knelt down next to the thick trunk of the nearest tree to catch her breath.

  “C-cold,” she stuttered. “I c-can see my breath.” Eva wriggled her fingers through the mist coming from her mouth and watched it dissipate as it drifted away above her. She fell backward and looked up through the boughs of the trees and saw stars, millions of them, speckling between the patches of thick clouds in the night sky. The soft glow of the moon permeated through the cloud cover as Eva absorbed the utter enormity of the evening sky stretched over her. She was witnessing it all for the first time.

  “It’s so big!” She gaped in astonishment. “And brighter than I thought it would be.”

  The crisp night air smelled moist and mysterious. Eva felt the climatefibers in her clothing tighten to warm her body as her tunic announced the outdoor temperature and her body temperature. She ignored the report and peered into the woods that surrounded her.

  Huge wide, squat trees—almost as big as her Sanctuary—grew in broad clusters. Their cup-shaped branches swayed and creaked in rhythm with sounds of odd chortles and burbles coming from deep within the dense undergrowth. Spindly bulb-tipped plants had sprung up in the spaces in between the trees and were swaying gently in unison as if moved by a midnight breeze.

  A familiar booming sound rocked the forest, causing the unseen residents to squawk and croak in fright. The shadowy creatures rustled about all around the girl. Eva crawled behind the trunk of the tree and hid. She jumped when she heard the muffled chirp of her Omnipod. With jittery hands she rummaged through her satchel and pulled the device out. Risking a peek around the trunk of the tree, Eva whispered into the Omnipod, “This is Eva Nine. Proceed.”

  The device whispered back, “Greetings, Eva Nine. You have one unplayed message from Multi-Utility Task Help Robot zero-six. Sent twelve minutes ago. Shall I play recorded message?”

  “Yes.” Eva felt loneliness creep into her being.

  A three-dimensional image of Muthr projected over the device. “Eva, dear,” the hologram said, “this message was recorded on the chance that you have successfully escaped the Sanctuary. I know you have yet to explore the surface, but you need to listen very carefully: Get as far away from the Sanctuary as possible and hide for the night. Once you find shelter, begin signaling to the nearest settlement, HRP underground facility fifty-one. I need you to remain hidden and wait for either a live message from me or a return message from those coordinates. Remember, your Omnipod will help you in the interim. Eva, stay strong.”

  “End of message,” finished the Omnipod.

  “I’m not waiting.” Eva sent the distress signal, returned the device to her satchel, and peered back around the tree trunk. A thin ribbon of smoke drifted up from the exhaust vent into the night sky. In it were the burnt, atomized remnants of her Sanctuary. Perhaps even of Muthr.

  “Stupid robot.” Eva wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “I knew we should have explored the surface sooner.”

  Another large tremor rippled up from the shaft, followed by the emergence of a dark, burly figure from another opening in the ground, farther in the distance. “The main entryway,” Eva whispered, remembering the floor plan that the Omnipod had showed her.

  The large, shadowy figure remained still at the entryway as it surveyed the forest. Eva couldn’t make out many details from her vantage point, but whatever this intruder was, it was big and had many legs and arms. It lifted its large head and snorted loudly, then abruptly stopped. Turning, the intruder raised a long rodlike apparatus right in Eva’s direction. She could hear a distinct electronic hum rising in pitch, followed by a woom sound of intense sonic vibration. The tree trunk Eva was hiding behind exploded, throwing her backward.

  The concentrated sound wave had blasted a hole, the size of Muthr, through the thick trunk. Digging herself out of the debris that had dropped down onto her, Eva heard the groan of the weakened trunk as the tree began to topple. She scrambled out of the way, and the sprawling treetop crashed into the ground behind her, sending leaves and branches flying in all directions.

  She got up and took off, running through the dense woods. Soon Eva could hear only her footsteps padding acr
oss the soft forest floor.

  Is he gone? Did I outrun him? she thought.

  Just to the right of her another tree was reduced to splinters by a sonic explosion. She was being followed.

  She ran for some time, zigzagging through the undergrowth. Her lungs burned from the crisp, chilly night air. As she dashed around the enormous trunk of a tree, Eva tried to locate her attacker. She leaned against a low branch and caught her breath, wondering where she was.

  Eva looked up through the wide leaves above her. In the shadowy forest there wasn’t enough moonlight for her to take in her surroundings and find a safe place to hide.

  Perhaps if I get to a higher vantage point, I can see more. She grabbed on to the branch. Like she had done many times on the monkey bars in the Sanctuary’s gymnasium, Eva lifted herself onto the branch and tested her weight on the platform of hardened leaves: They held her.

  Eva hopped from leafy platform to platform. In moments she found herself on the moonlit top of the irregular tree. Peering over the edge of the topmost bough, Eva could see the swift-moving tapered shape of her assailant below.

  Once again the intruder stopped and sniffed the air. It circled the neighboring tree trunks. Though her tunic and jackvest kept her warm from the cool of the night, Eva shivered from fear and slid back onto the leafy platform to hide.

  I have to lead him away from me, she thought. But how?

  She peered back down below her. In the wan light she could see that the intruder was still in the area, poking around in the bush with his bulb-tipped weapon. Some ways away a covey of birds, silhouetted in the night sky, fluttered up. The intruder froze and listened. Hunting.