“AnatoScan: Emergency Situation activated. Please sync Omnipod using IMA.”
With teary eyes Eva looked across the floor at the sand-sniper prodding the Omnipod at the far side of the lab. “That’s not going to happen,” she groaned.
“Pull right tunic sleeve cuff over laceration wound immediately,” the tunic instructed.
Wincing, Eva yanked her cuff over her hand. The deep cut soaked the sleeve in scarlet.
“Procoagulate glue applied to trauma site, followed by SpeedHeal ointment,” the tunic said. The climatefiber in the cuff wept a cloudy liquid, and the bleeding in Eva’s palm stopped. The bloodied cuff then unwove, separating itself from the sleeve. It constricted tightly over Eva’s hand, acting as a bandage over the cut on her palm.
“Administering pain control,” the tunic announced. Eva felt a prick in her shoulder, just under the patch. A warm wave of calmness emanated into her body, numbing her hand and her shoulder. She exhaled and refocused.
“Beginning anti-swelling treatment on phalanges. Please pull remaining tunic sleeve over injury and restrict movement.” The tunic instructed.
Eva did so, feeling the nip of ice as the climatefiber surrounding her broken fingers chilled.
“Further medical treatment must be handled in conjunction with the Omnipod. Thank you.” The tunic finished.
Still dizzy from the medication, Eva scrambled to her feet. With her good hand she scooped the taxidermist’s scattered remotes up from the floor.
“I’m not letting any of you die,” she said, pressing the buttons on the remotes rapidly. Cells floated about the room, banging into one another; probes rose up from the floor; the hose began squirting its solvent into the sand-sniper’s empty cell; and overhead lights flashed off and on. At last one button caused all cell walls to ripple, like liquid membranes, allowing the captives within to crawl, hop, and flutter free. The sand-sniper now focused its attention on the freed animals, pursuing them around the laboratory. In the fray Eva snuck around the lab’s perimeter and grabbed her Omnipod before exiting out the lab’s large door, which shut automatically behind her.
She found herself in a dim, lofty, cathedral-style corridor that arced gradually around a bend. Recessed circular doorways were positioned along the length of the hall, and elaborate jellyfish-shaped chandeliers lit the way. The walls of the hall were ribbed with enormous segmented pillars. These pillars were textured in such an organic fashion that it looked as if they were once alive. Eva was but a few doors down from the lab when she heard voices around the bend.
“This way! Hurry, Zin!” the taxidermist said as he rushed toward her. His rattled voice echoed throughout the hall. “We need this specimen contained immediately. It cannot escape into the museum.”
Eva slipped into the shadows of a doorway and held her breath. It was like hiding from Muthr during hide-and-seek.
The two zipped right past her. “It was that unusual bipedal creature. It somehow called to the sniper and commanded it,” the taxidermist continued.
“Fascinating,” Zin replied as they paused at the entrance to the laboratory. “Can you please mist the room before we enter? That should paralyze all within.”
Eva risked detection, peering from her hidey-hole.
“I dropped all of my remotes, including the emergency pillar guard controls!” The taxidermist sounded desperate.
“Pillar guards?” Zin floated back to one of the pillars near the entryway. “That’s certainly one approach to nullify the danger.” He pulled out a dark remote from his jacket and aimed it at one of the pillars. He waved a stubby hand over the trio of lights on the remote.
Eva looked up. From high atop the pillar three glowing slits revealed themselves, and a blatting sound came from within.
“Follow me, please,” Zin commanded as he floated to the lab door.
A long square leg stepped forward from the pillar, followed by two more. Eva’s eyes went wide as a six-meter-tall automaton emerged, marching out from the pillar base it had been standing on. Rows of small lights inside its armored alien coating flickered in rhythm from its three feet to its three eyes. Segmented arms, ending in endless talons of every size, extended down from its sides. Eva sunk into the recesses of the shadows in the doorway, watching the pillar guard. It stood in the high-roofed corridor in front of the lab door and looked down at Zin.
“Behind this door is a feral carnivore that has escaped,” Zin explained as he fluttered around the guard. “I need you to enter and immobilize it immediately. Use any means necessary, understand?”
The pillar guard blatted in response as Zin opened the door. A flying crab creature chirped as it soared out of the lab and down the hall. The door closed behind the pillar guard after it entered.
“This is overkill, don’t you think?” the taxidermist asked as he listened to the chaos on the other side of the door. “Those things are supposed to be used only if we are under attack. We probably could have just had a few royal guards handle this.”
“Perhaps, but if that large subterranean arthropod is as deadly as Besteel says, then let us not risk any casualties. The pillar guard will handle it efficiently,” Zin chirruped.
While their attention was focused on the battle within the laboratory, Eva slipped down the hall.
CHAPTER 28: ARTIFACTS
Eva Nine discovered that the bending corridor was simply a big loop with mysterious rooms radiating off it. With a sigh of relief she found her way out, undetected. As the exit door retracted open, Eva stepped out onto the topmost floor of an enormous multilevel open hall.
The Great Hall’s ceiling was similar to the one she’d seen in the laboratory, but executed on a much grander scale. A network of aged support beams was woven into a mesmerizing geometric lattice, supporting the transparent arched roof. Outside, Eva saw colorful banners fluttering in the afternoon breeze—all of them adorned with the symbol of a single eye with a horizontal iris.
Here and there, pedestrians of every shape, size, and color ogled at the rows of exhibit cases that lined the ribbed walls. The architecture was so organic, so magnificent, so otherworldly, that Eva momentarily forgot the peril she was in and strolled about, taking in the grandness of it all.
She gazed down from the balcony to the floor of the museum. Perfectly preserved trees from the Wandering Forest were displayed down the center of the hall, their topmost boughs just short of the floor she was on. Suspended from the ceiling beams were a variety of flying creatures, frozen in midflight. Eva moved down the aisle of displays, looking for a face in the crowd—any face—that was similar to hers in appearance. All that she saw staring back was a myriad of horns, tusks, beaks, and snouts.
She made her way down the impressive grand ramp, pausing at each of the other three floors before she was on the ground level. Weaving in and out of the busy foot traffic, Eva continued her search for another human in the mass. She passed the towering pillar guards standing rigidly as they lined the Great Hall like gigantic supports for the building.
“Please tend to fractured fingers immediately. Thank you,” Eva’s tunic reminded her.
As she approached an impressive display of Orbonian plant life, Eva slipped between the densely placed trunks of forest trees. Slumping down behind a mounted specimen of a wandering tree, she checked to see if she was well concealed from all passersby. With her unharmed hand she activated the Omnipod.
“This is Eva Nine. Initiate Individual Medical Assistance, please,” she whispered. “This is an emergency.”
“IMA initiated. What is the nature of your emergency?”
It hurt Eva to admit it. “I’ve broken my fingers on my right hand.” She recalled Rovender’s warnings about sand-snipers.
“Please place Omnipod over injury,” the device responded.
Eva held the Omnipod over her hand. The central eye became an X-ray, allowing her to look inside her body as she moved the Omnipod around. She could see that the thin bones above the knuckle of her ring finger and pi
nky were split across the middle.
“Digitus annularis and digitus minimus manus have sustained simple fractures in the proximal region. Accessing HRP utilitunic for splint preparation. Please wait,” the Omnipod said.
Eva poked her head out from behind the mounted tree and realized that in the bustle of the Royal Museum no one seemed to be paying any attention to the human girl hiding in a display.
“Remove reinforced rubberized toe cap from within right sneakboot,” the Omnipod said as it projected a diagram showing how to remove a U-shaped form nestled in the toe of her shoes.
Eva set down the Omnipod and yanked off her right sneakboot, keeping her wounded hand as still as possible. She pulled out the U-shaped toe cap.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ve got it.”
“Place fractured fingers inside toe cap as shown.” The Omnipod illustrated its instructions. Eva followed them.
“Remove cuff from left sleeve of utilitunic,” the Omnipod said. The climatefiber on the left cuff unwove, leaving the cuff free. “Now wrap tightly around toecap as shown.”
Eva did as she was instructed. She winced, gritting her teeth, as she tightened the wrap around the toe cap, which now acted as a splint for her fingers.
“Splinting complete,” the Omnipod finished. “Avoid activity that may aggravate injury, and keep dressing clean and dry. Have IMA recheck injury in twenty-four-hour increments. Thank you.”
Eva slid her foot back into her sneakboot and tucked the Omnipod back into her pocket. She snuck out of her hiding place and back into the throng of museum visitors.
As she walked the floor of the Great Hall, she discovered that there was an entrance on either end. Eva trotted toward the closest, the back entrance, passing a preserved herd of grazing water bears. She was almost at the back entrance when she spotted Besteel.
While his back was to her, Eva slipped behind an enormous tank full of spiderfish and spied on him. The huntsman turned his head as he talked to another museum patron, and Eva realized that it wasn’t Besteel at all but simply another Dorcean. She let out a sigh of relief and headed off in the opposite direction—toward the front entrance—just to be safe.
She hurried as she neared the door. She felt the warmth of the late-day sun beaming in from the decorated high-arch windows over the wide half-circle doorways. She was just about through the entrance when something caught her eye.
Something in one of the exhibits.
The exhibit that attracted her attention was down a corridor to her left. Eva paused at the front door as throngs of pedestrians slipped past her. Mesmerized, she walked slowly toward the exhibit corridor. Hanging at the corridor’s entrance was a gold-speckled flying contraption, but it was the illuminated display below it, welcoming visitors into the exhibit, that caught her eye.
A dingy yellow jackvest, with long sleeves covered in worn emblems, was mounted under thick glass. Below it were a soiled, crumpled pair of wooly socks and a single sneakboot. A display full of tarnished clunky versions of the Omnipod stood nearby. All around, glass bubbles floated with captions projected onto their round surfaces. Eva could not read the symbols that they projected, but she remembered something Rovender had said about her WondLa.
I have seen similar objects in the Royal Museum in Solas.
She entered the exhibit, staring at the encrusted items arranged in the glass displays: a collection of corroded spoons, stacks of chipped bowls, sheets of nonworking electra-paper, a cracked holo-bulb, and the unmistakable head of a robot, its silicone facial skin long eroded away.
Eva slumped forward, leaning her forehead on the display’s glass.
Well, this proves it for sure, she thought. Muthr and I weren’t alone on this planet.
“But it looks like we are now,” Eva whispered, gazing at the lifeless eyes of the robot head. Its braincase was shattered, the top of it missing.
She felt the hairs on her neck stand on end. Without moving Eva saw the familiar face of the taxidermist reflected in the glass next to her. With a gasp she spun around. The squat creature sneered at Eva. In his nasally voice he said, “No use running. You cannot escape.” Behind him a tall helmeted royal guardsman stood on either side. Each held a polished decorated sonic boomrod.
The hard muzzle of a boomrod shoved Eva in the back as she stumbled into the taxidermist’s lab. “Ow, that hurts!” she whined, struggling against her tight arm binds.
“Ah, it speaks!” the taxidermist said, thrilled. “You must have a v-coder on you, I suppose?” He nodded to the guards. “Search her.”
A tall guardsman frisked Eva, placing the found items on a white table: the vocal transcoder, several stolen remotes, a half-eaten SustiBar, and the Omnipod.
This is not good, Eva thought.
“Very good!” The taxidermist examined the Omnipod closely through his thick goggles as he turned it over in his tiny hands. “Guards, I thank you for your assistance. Please inform Curator Zin that we’ve found the fugitive. I’ll have it prepared for the queen shortly.”
Thankfully I am still in range of the transcoder and can understand what he is saying.
The royal guardsmen left the room through the shutter door. A still-loose flying crab chortled from its perch on top of an empty cell.
Nice work. The place is pretty trashed, Eva thought.
“You’ve caused quite a mess in here,” the taxidermist said as he pressed a button on his remote. An empty cell floated to the center of the floor. “It will take some time to clean all of it up.” The taxidermist retrieved one of his stolen remotes.
Eva looked around; green-yellow goo was spattered all about the previously sterile white laboratory. The sand-sniper was nowhere to be found.
I have to get out of here.
“I can see why Besteel wanted to renegotiate his task after your capture,” said the taxidermist. Another button was pressed and the glass walls of the cell rippled like a watery membrane. “You must have given him quite a hunt. And Besteel loves a good hunt, that he does.”
Eva glared at the taxidermist’s many eyes. “He destroyed my home. He nearly killed me. You have no reason to do this. Please let me go,” she said.
“For a dirt-burrower, you sure do chatter a lot.” The taxidermist snickered as he shoved Eva into the cell. She slipped right through the membrane, tripping onto the cell floor. She scrambled up to hop out, but the membranous wall solidified, holding Eva inside. A thin rod rose up in the middle of her cell floor.
“Please, don’t do this! I’ve done nothing to you!” Eva pleaded, her vision blurred as tears streamed out. Her body was numb from the pain medication, but she trembled in fear nonetheless.
“You are going to be a fantastic addition to our collection.” The taxidermist hooked the hose to the base of Eva’s cell and aimed his remote at her.
CHAPTER 29: MARKINGS
What have we here?” Zin floated through the shutter doors to the laboratory. Behind him several royal guardsmen entered, followed by a tall creature draped in resplendent finery.
“Curator Zin, Your Majesty,” said the taxidermist as he approached the queen and kissed one of several pendants hanging from her frilled neck. He glanced around the messy lab, nervous, like one of his own captives. “I wasn’t expecting your presence. I am … honored.”
The queen nodded and glided into the room past her guardsmen.
Though she had yet to be frozen by the deadly mist, Eva was paralyzed with dread as she awaited her fate.
A pair of iridescent eyes, each with a dark horizontal iris, regarded the girl. The translucent, pearly face was decorated with painted scroll-like markings. The angular head was wrapped in a dual frilly collar and adorned with a wreath made of colorful fungi and lichens. A large vocal transcoder hovered over her, following the queen’s every move.
“This is the creature I apprised you of, Your Majesty,” said Zin, hovering alongside her. “It was delivered to us by Besteel, as part of his mandatory task. I believe it may be related to the ar
tifacts we’ve exhumed from that remote site south of here.” Both of them looked fixedly at Eva. Next to the towering Queen Ojo, Zin appeared small, like a tiny bird flitting around.
“If I may add,” said the taxidermist, clearing his throat, “this little bug slipped out of here momentarily. It was captured in the Hall of Artifacts near the artifacts you speak of, Curator Zin.”
Overcoming her nerves, Eva stood to face the queen. “Are … are you Queen Ozo?”
“It is pronounced Oh-ho,” the taxidermist scoffed.
Queen Ojo looked at Zin.
“Its dialect is strange, Your Majesty,” Zin said, intrigued. “Unlike any I have heard before.”
“Can … can you help me?” Eva swallowed down the iciness that chilled her very core. Her arms, bound in front, were shaking right up to her shoulders.
“Shouldn’t she kiss our sacred earth before speaking to Her Majesty?” the taxidermist asked, looking at Zin for affirmation.
The mouth of the queen opened slowly, like the holograms Eva had seen of fish breathing underwater. The voice that burbled out was throaty and erratic, like a pot of thick stew about to boil over. “What are you?” she asked.
Eva glanced quickly at Zin before answering, “I … I am Eva. Eva Nine.”
“An Eva Nine, Queen Ojo,” Zin repeated. “Fascinating.”
The queen circled around the captive girl, studying her. “It had others with it?” she asked.
“Not that Besteel mentioned,” answered the taxidermist, following the queen.
“Your Majesty,” Eva begged. “I’m not sure why I am here on your planet. I grew up peacefully in my underground home that your huntsman, Besteel, destroyed. Since then I have been trying to find my people.” Eva addressed the other onlookers in the laboratory, who watched and listened. “Rovee and Muthr … oh, and Otto, and me. We were coming here to Solas, hoping to find some clues. So if you just let me go, I’ll continue my search. I’ll leave right away. I promise.”
The Search For WondLa Page 17
