A Hero for WondLa

by Tony DiTerlizzi

  “No!” Eva pushed the muzzle away. The blast fired off into the ceiling.

  “Don’t kill me! I didn’t know!” pleaded Hailey. “I just thought you would both be admitted into the city. Not made into lab rats.”

  “Come on, Rovee,” Eva said, taking back the weapon. “We have to get out of here. We’ll kill him later!” She made for the elevators.

  “Wouldn’t want to be you, hero,” Huxley said, rubbing Hailey’s bald head. Hailey swatted the alien’s hand away.

  The elevator pinged. The door slid open, and a squad of authoritons poured out.

  “Get back!” Eva fired at the squad with the boomrod while the others retreated under the floating gurneys.

  “There’s got to be another way out!” Rovender said as he supported Nadeau.

  “What if we take cover behind the cells?” asked Hailey.

  “No good, hero,” Huxley replied. “They’ll catch us in there for sure. Like spiderfish in a pen.”

  “We need more weapons.” Hailey limped across the control room toward the front offices that ringed it. The other fugitives followed while Eva covered them.

  “Think of something fast! They are closing in!” she shouted over the fray.

  “All doors are locked.” Rovender pushed his shoulder against a closed door. A spray of SHOCdarts peppered the wall next to him.

  “Hold on, blue. Old Hux’ll get it.” The large alien bounded over and beat the door in. “Nothing here. Next one.”

  “We could try the front exit of the ward,” Hailey said.

  “Wrong again.” Huxley moved to the next office door.

  Rovender added, “There will be more waiting. They are corralling us as it is.”

  “It doesn’t look good. But at least we’ll go down fighting,” added Huxley.

  The office door blew open from the inside, sending the fugitives scattering in all directions. Out of the dusty debris stepped Eva Eight wielding a large ElectroRifle. “There you are, Nine,” she said with a smile. “I was starting to worry I’d never see you again after our little tiff.”

  Eva Nine smiled back as she fired shot after shot at the fast-approaching squad.

  “I thought you only had one alien friend.” Eight sidled up next to Eva and fired her rifle at a nearby authoriton. Its helmeted head exploded and its body fell to the floor. “It looks like you’re liberating every prisoner in here.”

  “Eight, meet Huxley, Rovee, Nadeau . . . and Hailey.” Eva fished around in her pockets while the boomrod charged. She pulled out a vocal transcoder, pilfered from the medlab, and gave it to her sister. “Press the button here and talk into this, then everyone will understand you.”

  Eight took cover and did as she was told.

  “We need to get moving.” Huxley pointed at the fast-growing squadron of authoritons. “Any ideas?”

  Eight spoke into the transcoder. “There is a maintenance shaft over here. Let’s go!” She directed everyone into the room and toward the hatch. It was held ajar with the remains of a battered autoserver.

  Eva Eight scooted into the shaft first and helped Rovender with the weakened Nadeau. Hailey then entered, followed by Eva.

  “Oh, no,” said Eva as she scrambled through the hatch. “Huxley, you won’t be able to fit. We have to try to escape another way.” She began to crawl back out.

  “Too big? Nonsense!” Huxley laughed, patting his paunch. “Huxie can fit all this beauty into any space that my noggin can fit in.” Playfully he pushed Eva back into the shaft. “Now get going!”

  Huxley ducked his head in and wriggled his entire body into the shaft. Once in, he began to move through the duct like a giant slithering snake. “Let’s move!” he said.

  Eva heard the hatch slam shut, and the duct went dark. “They’re going to figure out where we are,” she called ahead as she crawled on hands and knees. “Where do we go?”

  “We are underground, below Attican Hall,” Eight replied. “We’ve got to get up to the ground level.”

  “We can’t go up,” said Eva. “They’ll expect that.”

  “Do these shafts go everywhere?” asked Hailey.

  “Pretty much,” replied Eva. “These are pneumatic ducts for the autoservers that tend to the building. Why?”

  “The western hangar is also underground,” Hailey said.

  “Hangar?” said Eight. “You want to get to the airship hangar? I came across it looking for you, Nine.” The lights in the shaft flickered on for a moment. There was a loud whoosh as an autoserver zoomed by in a nearby duct.

  “Is that where you brought the Bijou?” said Eva.

  “Yeah,” Hailey said.

  Eva was afraid to ask, but it was the only chance they had. “Can you fly us out of here?”

  “If I can get to the ship, yes.” The pilot looked back over his shoulder in the cramped duct. He looked more like himself with dirt and grime smeared on his face. “I’ll get you and your friends out of here, Eva. I promise.”

  Rovender grumbled loudly.

  “You better help us,” Eva hissed.

  “I will,” Hailey replied. “You have my word.”

  Still looking at Hailey, Eva called out to her sister, “Eight, lead the way.”

  CHAPTER 20: GERMINATION

  Following her sister through the zigzag of pneumatic ducts, Eva tried to keep from panicking. Cadmus could have an army of authoritons flush us out of these pipes at any moment. Where would we all hide? What would Cadmus do to us? “Hailey, how is Nadeau holding up?” she whispered. There was a murmur as Hailey spoke with Rovender.

  “Rovender says he’ll make it,” the pilot relayed back to her. “I don’t know, though. He’s been through a lot.”

  “That could have been you,” retorted Eva.

  “Honest, Eva. I had no idea Cadmus was doing crazy stuff like that.” He looked at her over his shoulder. “I should have listened to Vanpa. He warned me to steer clear of Cadmus when I dropped you off.”

  “He warned you?” Eva scuttled forward and punched Hailey in the back of the leg.

  “Ow! What the?”

  “You knew that all along and you still delivered Rovee and me directly to Cadmus?”

  Rovender called back, “Eva, not now. This is neither the time nor the place. We need to focus on getting out of here.”

  Eva cocked her fist, ready to punch the pilot one more time for good measure, but Hailey stopped her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Well, get us all out of this mess and I’ll consider forgiving you.”

  “Deal,” he replied. “I just want to get to the green spot. I’d rather take my chances there than die slowly out in the wasteland.”

  “What’s this about the green spot, little bayrie?” asked Huxley.

  “You know,” Eva said, “the green spot, where the Wandering Forest is . . . and Solas.”

  “Oh, you’re talking about the Germination Zone, where the Vitae Virus generator was dropped,” Huxley said.

  “The what?”

  “The Vitae Virus generator. How do you think King Ojo got this rock breathing again? He didn’t use a magic monocorn’s horn, I’ll tell you that,” said Huxley.

  “So this generator is what did it?” Eva slowed her crawling, intrigued.

  “Yup,” Huxley replied. “Old kingy brings his big ship full of us colonists into Orbona’s orbit and drops the generator down to the surface. Then he tells us we have to wait . . . How long was it, blue? Do you know?”

  “About four trilustralis,” Rovender answered from up ahead.

  “That’s it. Four trilustralis for that clunker to get working,” Huxley said with a chuckle. “But work it did, and here we are. Little did we know there’d be natives who were none too happy about it.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” said Eva. “I am not like Cadmus or his people.”

  “I see that, little bayrie. You don’t need to explain.”

  “We’re here!” Eva Eight’s whisper reverberated through the duc
t. “I kept a wedge in the door, just in case.” She pointed to the severed head of an autoserver, which held the hatch door ajar.

  A series of ducts intersected at the maintenance hatch, allowing Eva and the others to huddle close and get a view of the vast underground hangar.

  “This is it.” Hailey spoke in a hushed tone. “The Bijou should be over there somewhere.” He pointed past a fleet of gigantic polished airships parked in perfect rows. All around them crewmen and robots worked on the ships at a hectic pace. Sparks fell from giant welders as rounded gunner stations were attached to outer hulls, while cases of ammunition were loaded into cargo holds.

  Gigantic gunmetal robots, almost as tall as the aircraft, strode into the hangar on thick gear-jointed legs. Their glowing orb eyes and downturned radiator grills gave them a gaunt skull-shaped countenance. A crewman directed the robots to different airships. As the robots approached the designated ships, they retracted their legs into their bodies and rolled on board.

  “Those are the robots we saw at the plant, Eight,” Eva said.

  “And those are giant luxury transcarriers,” Hailey added. “Boy, are they impressive. Look at the size of those engines!”

  “But they don’t usually have weapons on them,” said Eight.

  “That’s because they are being outfitted for battle,” Huxley replied in a grim tone.

  Rovender grumbled, “This is not a good sight to see.”

  “I told you, Nine,” Eva Eight said. “Cadmus is not to be trusted. He is rationing energy to build these warbots.”

  Eva thought about the vision on the Divination Machine. She thought about the ancient ruins and wondered what had become of Earth.

  And so one society flourishes as another one perishes, Arius had said.

  “Cadmus is going to invade Solas,” Eva said. It seemed a horrible thought, an unbelievable thought, and yet there was no other explanation.

  Quietly everyone watched as the humans and robots prepared the fleet of airships for war.

  “Do you think you can get to the Bijou, Hailey?” Eva asked.

  “I think so,” he replied. “But I don’t know how we are going to get a bunch of aliens through this hangar without Cadmus’s entire army coming down on us.”

  “We’ll figure something out,” Eva said.

  “What about once we are on board? Can you fly us out of here?” asked Rovender.

  “If the hanger doors remain open, yes. I can fly through the narrowest ravine without getting a scratch,” Hailey replied with a proud smile.

  “How about with weapons firing at you?” Rovender said. “They have likely been alerted to our escape and will be expecting this.”

  “Rovee’s right,” said Eva. She ducked as a trio of crewman walked by and began to load crates onto the flat forks of a battered yellow robolift.

  “None of these other ships look like they are airworthy yet,” replied Hailey. “If we can get to the Bijou, I can get us out.”

  “What about the parts you needed so badly?” Eva asked.

  “Hopefully they’ve fixed the Bijou,” said Hailey. “After all, I don’t think they were expecting me to come and steal her back.”

  “Okay.” Eva charged the boomrod and aimed it at the three nearby crewmen. “I think I can get us onto the ship.”

  “Hold on. Don’t charge it too much.” Huxley turned a dial on the boomrod’s charger pack. “You just need a quiet little wallop to knock ’em out.”

  CHAPTER 21: PRIME ADVISER

  Hailey dragged the third unconscious crewman over to the hatch, where the others pulled him into the duct.

  “Hurry up!” Eva whispered as she watched Hailey pull off his lab coat and don a crewman’s drab coverall and cap. He ran to join Eva and her sister, already in disguise.

  “Eva Eight and I will empty these,” Eva said, depressing the open button on one of the ply-steel crates. The lid popped open. Inside were rounds of SHOCdarts, much larger than the sort the authoritons used. “Can you operate this lift, Hailey?”

  “It shouldn’t be too hard.” Hailey stepped onto the dented hull of the robolift. He climbed up to a simple seat with controls set on a short tower overlooking the lift’s rounded base. This base held an array of robotic arms and forks to heave and haul any load. The robolift lurched forward, then spun around uncontrollably, nearly toppling a towering stack of crates.

  “Hailey!” Eva finished emptying her crate.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Hailey called down to her. “I got this. I’m good.”

  “You’d better,” replied Eva. “Eight, help Nadeau into this crate here.”

  In moments Rovender and Huxley snuck out from their hiding place and climbed into their crates. With the robolift’s arms Hailey hoisted and stacked them onto the forks of the lift and turned the vehicle toward the main hangar. “Climb onto the back,” he called down to Eva, pointing at rungs affixed to the hull of the robolift. “The lift knows where the Bijou is and will take us there.”

  Eva and her sister climbed up, and the robolift entered the stream of bustling traffic in the open hanger. Traveling down the aisles, Eva looked up at the colossal warships. Their immense bulk blotted out the overhead lights as the lift passed underneath them. The polished ships were adorned with angry eyes and jagged teeth, making them appear even more foreboding up close. Solas won’t stand a chance against this, Eva thought.

  “Psst!” Hailey called down. Eva looked up and saw that he was pointing toward the far end of the hangar. There she could see a densely packed fleet of cargo ships all similar in size to the Bijou. The robolift carried them toward the airships, passing a knot of people and robots gathered around none other than Cadmus Pryde himself. Eva turned away, concealing her face, as the robolift rolled in front of Cadmus.

  In the back row of the fleet sat a familiar battered ship. As the lift neared, the Bijou beeped and the entry ramp opened from its belly. Hailey took over the controls of the robolift and carefully unloaded the crates with the aliens in them. Eva turned back toward Cadmus and his gathering.

  “Nine? Is everything okay?” Eva Eight lined up a crate on the ramp. The floor of the ramp began to move, like a conveyor belt, carrying the crate into the cargo bay.

  “Yeah, I just want to see something. . . .” Eva peered through the docked ships at the throng out in front of the open hangar door. People and robots were leaving as if being dismissed. She could now see Cadmus clearly. He was standing with his back against a stack of crates conversing with a floating being.

  It was an alien. The only alien Eva had seen in all of New Attica that wasn’t being held in a cell or experimented on.

  “I’ll be right back!” Eva scurried through the airships toward Cadmus and the alien. Its shape and form looked just like Arius and Zin.

  She rounded the duo and approached the stacks of crates behind them. Eva nodded at another crewman and opened one of the crates. From the other side of the stack, she could hear Cadmus’s conversation.

  “. . . even if we don’t retrieve her, I am certain of what I saw, Prime Adviser,” he said to the alien.

  Prime Adviser?

  “A circle within a circle?” the Prime Adviser asked. His voice sounded like two voices saying the same thing at the same time.

  “Yes,” Cadmus said. “Set into her skin as if it were a birthmark.”

  “And the Omnipod’s memories?”

  “Shows that she went through the green spot to get to Solas. It was this clip recorded in Lacus that, I believe, has what you are looking for,” Cadmus said.

  Eva peeked through the cracks between the crates and saw Cadmus holding her Omnipod. A cinematographic hologram of Lacus appeared—the one taken by Eva the morning she was captured by Besteel. From the Omnipod’s speakers she heard a familiar singsong voice. “Human child. Eva the Ninth. Nine Evas. The child human.”

  “That’s it!” the adviser exclaimed, waving his stumpy arms. “Our first stop is Lacus. We shall start there.”

  Lacus? Eva
thought. What do they need in Lacus?

  “Hey! Who ordered you to open this cargo?” A crewman approached, pointing directly at Eva. “These are supposed to be sealed and loaded.” As he neared, it was apparent that he was puzzled by Eva’s small stature. “I’m speaking to you. Please identify yourself immediately.”

  “Sheesa!” Eva jumped up onto the stack of crates. On the other side the Prime Adviser rose. Eva gasped, realizing that the adviser was not like Arius or Zin, after all. The creature that faced Eva looked like a piece of rotten fruit as it glared at her with two pairs of slit eyes. Over a dozen of his short arms reached out to her, like an anemone trying to grab its prey.

  “It’s her!” the Prime Adviser said, though his mouth did not move.

  “Capture her NOW!” Cadmus said. “I want her alive!”

  Eva scrambled to the summit of the towering mountain of crates. As she was clambering up, her foot banged against the controls of a crate, and the top opened. It was another crate full of ammunition. A trio of nearby authoritons rolled close and took aim. With extreme effort Eva shoved the open crate off the top of the stack. It crashed down upon one of the authoritons, crushing it and sending a volley of giant SHOCdarts off in every direction.

  Eva leaped toward the next stack of crates while darts shot up from below. She recognized the whine of an airship’s engines rising in pitch. There was little doubt in Eva’s mind for whom the ship was coming.

  “Little creature, your past will serve my future. You will belong to me,” two voices said behind her. As Eva jumped from one peak to another, she glanced at the Prime Adviser rushing behind her. The shreds of his dark tattered cloak flapped about like the wings of an ominous black bird. In moments he would be upon her.

  The engine of the airship rose to a deafening level as it closed in. The blast of its exhaust sent the Prime Adviser spiraling off Eva’s trail. She scuttled to the topmost crate and took in her situation.

  There was nowhere else to go.

  On the ground below, swarms of authoritons encircled her while the Prime Adviser rose back up toward her. Above, the hovering airship lowered its ramp, revealing more armed authoritons. “You are surrounded, Eva Nine,” the pilot’s amplified voice broadcast over the loud engines. “Please surrender immediately or—”