A Hero for WondLa

by Tony DiTerlizzi

  Eva and Rovender backed out of the cockpit, and the door hissed shut. From within Eva could hear Hailey command the ship, “Bijou, music, please. Play me my ancient rock and roll collection infused with electronica and filtered into a fast-track beat. Thank you.” Hailey’s music began thumping in a steady driving rhythm throughout the ship.

  Rovender hung his hat over the galley speaker, effectively muffling the sound. He took a seat in one of the hovchairs at the table. “Did you give him the transcoder?”

  “I did,” said Eva, looking back at the closed cockpit door, “but I don’t know if he used it.”

  “He has not,” Rovender said into the mouth of his bottle, and took a swig.

  “That stuff.” Eva gestured at the bottle. “You’ve drunk that before. What is it?”

  “This? This is Nuccan usquebaugh, so called because it is made from the fermented milk of a nucca plant.” Rovender tilted the glass flask, causing the contents to swish about. “Apparently Besteel enjoyed it as I do. I found it among his many things.”

  Eva crinkled her nose. “It smells . . . gross.”

  “It helps to ease my nerves, Eva Nine. You know how I feel about machines. Traveling in one, to a village I know nothing about, makes me wary. My methods are usually more . . . cautious.”

  Eva reached out and held his large hand. “This is a big change for you, too, huh? I guess I was so excited about leaving that I didn’t think of how all of this would affect you.”

  “It is okay. Where you go, I go,” Rovender said.

  “Thanks for coming with me.”

  “For you it is important we go to this place. I must confess I am curious to see what sort of essence inhabits it.” Rovender took another swig.

  “Essence?”

  “Yes.” Rovender grabbed his rucksack and began rummaging through it. “The essence will be evident everywhere. In all that the citizens do: in their art, music, food, and their buildings. If the essence of a place nourishes your spirit, then it is a good place to be.”

  Eva sat back and absorbed his words. “Yeah, I can’t wait to explore it with you and find our new home.”

  “Home?” Rovender pulled out a voxfruit and a strip of cured turnfin meat. “Eva Nine, a village of your kind does not necessarily make a home.”

  “Of course it does,” said Eva. She seized one of the voxfruit berries. “It is where you fit in. Where you find happiness.”

  “Bluh!” Rovender washed a piece of meat down with his drink. “One can find happiness in a variety of places. It can be in a busy city of many, such as Solas; but it may also be alone, deep in a tranquil forest. It is not always among your kind.”

  “You mean your kind, don’t you?” Eva said. She knew that Rovender had left his village after the death of his partner and child, never to return.

  The Cærulean put down his food and bottle. Eva realized that his eyes were watery—but she wasn’t sure if this was simply a reaction to the dank aroma of his drink, which lingered in the galley.

  Looking down at his bottle, Rovender spoke softly, “If you are referring to those I left behind, Eva, then you are right. They were my kind in that we were of the same sort, but not of the same mind. I see their faces in my memory every day that I wander, but the place where they dwell is no longer home to me.”

  Eva felt awash with remorse. As she watched Rovender return to his meal, she wanted to take back the words she’d just said to him.

  She thought back to when Rovender had confessed to being a widower running far away from his pain. Am I running away too? she wondered. Am I running from the pain of losing Muthr? A realization drifted into her mind, filling her with dread. “Rovee, if something goes wrong, will you leave me? Or will you stay with me as you promised?”

  Rovender took a drink from his bottle and looked up at Eva. “I’ll always be there for you, Eva. You have my word.”

  She smiled at him, but this only hid the notion that, though Rovender had given his word, somehow Eva felt there was something he wasn’t saying. All this was too much to ponder at the moment. They would be arriving in New Attica before long.

  She changed the subject. “So, I was checking in with my Omnipod today—which, by the way, seems to be working perfectly. Can you believe that? After where it has been?”

  Rovender cracked a grin, lightening in mood. “That is something.”

  “It is,” Eva said, “and my Omnipod reminded me that tomorrow is my birthday!”

  “Your birth-day?” Rovender tilted his narrow head, looking confused.

  “You know, the day I was born. The day I arrived.”

  “Ah, your hatching.”

  “Yes!” Eva giggled. “I guess with all that we’ve been through, I’d forgotten it was coming up. So we have to celebrate and do something fun. Maybe Hailey will join us.”

  Rovender continued eating. “Yes. Your hatching is important when you are a little nymph. But as you grow older, it becomes lost amidst the other great events in your life journey.”

  “Well, arriving at New Attica is about the best event, the best birthday present, I can think of. Don’t you think?”

  “We shall see, Eva Nine. We shall see,” said Rovender, and he finished his meal.

  Back in the cabin, Eva Nine tossed and turned in her bunk. Excitement prevented her from sleeping, as did the fact that Rovender was snoring in the cot below. Eva peered over her bunk and realized that her friend had passed out on the floor instead of his cot. She hopped down and wrapped him in his worn woven blanket. Rovender mumbled something incoherent as he rolled over and buried his head under a pillow. Eva smiled in the dark and gave him a loving pat.

  The ship turned ever so slightly, causing the cabin to tilt. Rovender’s bottle rolled out from his grasp and under the lower bunk. Eva heard the half-full bottle clink against something before it rolled back out into the room as the ship stabilized its pitch. She grabbed the bottle and returned it to Rovender’s rucksack, then investigated what it had bumped into. Using her Omnipod’s light, Eva discovered a small carton tucked far under the bunk. She slid it out into the open and wiped off a thick layer of dust. A logo, similar to one she had seen in her Sanctuary, was stamped into the lid. It was an emblem with the letters HRP printed in the center.

  Eva’s eyes darted around the room. With the hidden carton now revealed, a guilty feeling crept over her. Does Hailey care if I have a look in his box? Should I ask? Eva looked around the cabin for cameras. Seeing none, she seized the carton and climbed back up to her bunk. Sliding the lid off the carton, she shone her light inside. The carton was full of old holographic programs.

  The programs all looked alike: small transparent discs stored in perfect rows with aged foam lining. Eva carefully grabbed the first one by its edges, as she had been taught, and snapped it over the central eye of her Omnipod. So as not to disturb Rovender, she whispered, “Please initiate program.”

  Matching Eva’s volume, the Omnipod responded, “Initiating.”

  “Welcome to the Historical Holography Project.” A portly man with bushy gray eyebrows and a beard flickered above the Omnipod. “I am Leonardo Pryde, lead programmer on this monumental undertaking. Here you can interact with some of history’s most famous names, all brought to vivid life through the magic of holog—”

  Eva pulled the program out and snapped in another one. It was titled Manufacturing Your Own Synthetic Foods. A farmer greeted Eva and began explaining how to instill the natural flavor of fruits and vegetables into easy-to-produce pills and pellets, enough to feed the masses. Masses of what? Eva thought as she plucked out the program. Why eat that stuff when you can find real fruit to enjoy? She inserted a new program and continued going through them one at a time, hoping to find any information on New Attica.

  When the last program activated, a bespectacled man with a goatee materialized over Eva’s Omnipod. He was similar in appearance to the man in the first hologram, but thinner with an aquiline profile. His voice had a welcoming folksy tenor to
it, as if he were about to tell a story by the campfire. “Hello. I am Cadmus Pryde, and welcome to my future world vision for all mankind. It’s called the Human Repopulation Project, or HRP, brought to you by the Dynastes Corporation.”

  CHAPTER 6: HRP

  We have determined that the reality of cost-effective manufacturing of in vitro labs for planetary orbit, or deep space travel, has too many variables and therefore greatly diminishes any chance of success.” Cadmus addressed a small audience from behind a lectern on a small stage. The Dynastes logo flashed about in an animated fashion behind him.

  Eva set the program to 360-degree mode, and the hologram of Cadmus and the stage filled the ship’s cabin at actual size as it projected from the Omnipod. Rovender snored softly underneath the light show. Finally, Eva thought as she leaned forward and watched from her bunk. Answers.

  Cadmus continued with his presentation. “You’ve all witnessed the tragedy that occurred with the colonies on the moon, so there is no chance of ‘waiting this out’ off-planet. Therefore, I am proposing the creation of a network of automated subterranean laboratories that would remain inert until surface conditions restabilize to viable levels.”

  Eva had a hard time understanding all that Cadmus said. In fact, he sounded a lot like Zin, the curator at the Royal Museum of Solas. Still, she paid close attention, hoping for more clues about her existence. Behind Cadmus detailed architectural renderings of a Sanctuary and its many rooms were projected. An audience member raised his hand. Cadmus pointed to him and said, “Yes?”

  A distinguished man with short white hair stood. “Bradley Tofield, Virtual Syndicate Press. I want to make sure I understand the premise here, Mr. Pryde. You are proposing to build underground labs—”

  “We are calling them Sanctuaries,” Cadmus interjected.

  “Sanctuaries,” Bradley continued, “where you want to grow test-tube babies?”

  “That is correct.”

  The audience’s murmur carried on for several long uncomfortable moments. Cadmus shifted, obviously nervous, behind the lectern.

  The reporter continued his questioning. “But if your theory of Terra Terminal Hibernation is correct, and we are all to perish, then who would raise these children?”

  “An excellent question, Bradley.” Cadmus touched the screen on the lectern, and a new set of images projected around him. “It is sort of a chicken-or-the-egg dilemma, but I believe I have found a solution. Our research in robotics has grown in leaps and bounds since the approval of the Organ Integration Act. We’ve been able to interface the latest cutting edge technology with cloned human brain tissue. More specifically, we’ve created robots that don’t just mimic human emotion based on preset circumstances built into their programming. They can actually react emotionally and cope with a human in a real-time situation.” Eva watched as technical drawings projected behind Cadmus rendered into the familiar shape of Muthr.

  “Robots raising test-tube babies?” an unseen attendee spoke out.

  Bradley added, “You can’t honestly believe that a robot could provide proper care for a child. They need parents.”

  “I agree,” Cadmus replied. “However, the establishing generations will not have that luxury, because there will not be anyone left alive to care for them.”

  The audience grew restless with disapproval.

  Cadmus tried to calm them, but no one was listening. Finally he gripped the sides of the lectern and spoke out loudly, hushing the attendees. “Listen. I understand your feelings and what you are thinking. No doubt these are radical ideas. However, our dire situation requires nothing less. You’ve seen it. The oceans have lost more than eighty percent of life. Our forests and fields no longer exist, and consequently the atmosphere is thinning, even with our CO2 processing factories working overtime. As you know, we have tried to reestablish balance by cloning and releasing millions of every life-form that we’ve collected, but it is futile. All ecosystems are shutting down, and the Earth is entering a state of planetary hibernation. This is bigger than anything we can control.”

  Audience members got up and began leaving. Some of them booed Cadmus and threw cups and loose electra-papers at him. Cadmus called out to them, “If mankind wants to stake a claim on the future, we have to act now! There is so little time left!”

  The historical program finished. Eva gently removed it and shut off her Omnipod. She leaned back on her bunk. Rovender said that the Ojo family had the ability to wake dead planets. As Eva had concluded back at the ruins, Earth must have perished, and Orbona had risen in its place. So have the humans in New Attica lived here all this time? Clearly Cadmus’s plan was put into action at some point in the past. Here I am, Eva thought. And a robot in an underground Sanctuary raised me, just as Cadmus predicted. He’d been a true visionary.

  Hailey’s voice crackled out over the ship’s intercom, startling Eva from her thoughts. “Hey. We are in our final approach, so if you two can get your things together and come on down, we’ll be on the ground shortly.”

  From below, Rovender stirred and let out a loud yawn. “What is that? What did he say?”

  “We are getting ready to land.” Eva placed the program back in the carton and closed the lid. She hopped down and helped Rovender gather his belongings.

  CHAPTER 7: REBOOT

  The night sky was aglow from a distant circular city sparkling just below the horizon. As the Bijou zoomed beneath the clouds and approached its final destination, the lights of the city pulsed and twinkled like an enormous electric being.

  “That’s it. New Attica,” said Hailey as he brought the ship low for its landing. The metropolis was surrounded on all sides by jagged dark mountains, which Hailey navigated through with apparent ease. As they entered an expansive valley, Eva realized that New Attica was situated at the bottom of a gigantic quarry set deep in the earth. Above it hung a mirror image of the Rings of Orbona.

  “Is it underwater?” Eva asked. “I see a reflection.”

  “Heh.” Hailey chuckled and activated the landing gear. “No, it’s not underwater. There is an atmospheric membrane stretched over the entire city. It helps regulate the temperature inside and protects against the elements.” Hailey dimmed the Bijou’s headlights and navigated the ship around the perimeter toward a low flat canyon dominated by tall hydration spires.

  Eva tore her gaze from the vision that now filled the entire cockpit windshield, and looked at Rovender. Though her heart was pounding with excitement, her friend seemed indifferent as he watched from the cockpit doorway. Eva walked over to Rovender. “Well, what do you think?”

  Rovender stood with arms folded. “It is quite a sight. And it looks to be about the same size as Solas.”

  Eva leaned against him, thinking back to her experiences in that alien city. “I hope we fit in here. I hope these people accept us.”

  “Eva Nine.” Rovender put his arm around the girl. “You should also accept them.”

  “We’ll be landing in just a few moments,” Hailey said. He brought the ship down into a gorge deep in the canyon just outside the city limits. A loose congregation of campfires flickered from the canyon floor.

  Eva and Rovender exchanged concerned glances. “We don’t land in the city?” she asked.

  “Nope. We put in here,” replied Hailey as the ship touched down on the rocky flat ground. He taxied the Bijou toward an opening in the canyon wall. Outside, a band of shadowy figures could be seen running toward the ship. Even through the thick glass of the windshield, whooping and shouting could be heard mixed with the crack of gunfire.

  The hairs on the back of Eva’s neck stood on end, and she scooted even closer to Rovender. “Why here?” She tried to remain calm as she looked down at the dark shabby figures below dancing around the ship. “Are those . . . people? Where are you taking us?”

  “Yes, they’re people. Don’t worry about them. They just get excited. Do you always ask so many questions? I told you I was taking you home, and I am. But we stay here for
the night.” The ship came to a halt in a run-down hanger deep within a widemouthed cave. Hailey shut off the engines, rose from his pilot’s seat, and stretched. “What are you waiting for?” the pilot said. “Go get your stuff. We’re here.”

  From the cargo hold of the ship, Eva could hear the murmur of many human voices echoing throughout the hangar. She leaned down and peered from the entry ramp of the ship to spy on Hailey. The pilot was addressing a small gaggle of people gathered at the entrance of the cavern.

  The first thing Eva noticed was the dirt. All of the humans seemed to be covered in a layer of grime and dust—from their greasy hair to their grungy mismatched attire. Most carried weapons of some sort, even the few children that were present. Eva could not make out what Hailey was saying, but eventually the group broke up and the people filed off into the gloom outside. With the hangar now empty and quiet, Eva carefully stepped out of the Bijou.

  The jagged cavern walls were lined with a store of crated supplies and provisions. Overhead lights buzzed loudly with electric current, fed by several large generators. Deeper within the cavern, next to the Bijou, lay the skeletal remains of another airship. Its ply-steel shell and other valuable components had long been scavenged. Hailey rounded the Bijou with a rolling ladder that he pushed snug up to its nose. Eva approached him, curious.

  From a worn leather pouch the pilot pulled two decals shaped like humans. Carefully he adhered them to the hull of the ship in line with the others. He opened a small can of paint, hanging from the ladder, and painted one of the decals blue. Hailey hopped down from the ladder and examined his handiwork. “You’ve no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that. The blue one is for your friend.”

  There was a clanging sound from within the Bijou, and Rovender started down the ramp with the glider hovering low. “No, that’s okay,” Hailey said, running over to Rovender. He started pushing the glider back onboard. “You can leave it on the ship for now.” He glanced around the hanger as if looking to see if anyone else were watching. “Let’s just get inside.”