The Search For WondLa (20 page)

CHAPTER 36: BREATHLESS

Eva watched
a cluster of small wandering trees meander around a muddy pool in the middle of the dark sands of the wasteland. Like a mirror reflecting the azure sky, the surface of the pool was as flat as glass, even as the occasional turnfin approached the bank and stole a quick sip. In the dampness surrounding the large waterhole, a variety of colorful lichens and mosses blanketed the desert sand.

“Now, Eva, dear,” Muthr cautioned as Eva parked the Goldfish in the shade of a low ridge. “Let me examine the mineral content of the water before you add a purification tablet and consume it.”

“Okay.” Eva hopped out and threw her jackvest onto the seat. She walked over and joined Rovender.

“One more request, Eva,” Muthr said as she opened the access hood on the side of the hovercraft. “If you could bring some water back to refuel the Goldfish, that would be good. I do not want to use up all of your hydration tablets to keep it running.”

“No problem,” Eva said, and stroked Otto as she passed him. The water bear shuffled over to join Muthr and the Goldfish in the shade.

“Otto does not want a drink?” Rovender glanced back over his shoulder as he walked with Eva.

“He said he was fine,” Eva said, padding over the damp sand toward the pool. “His herd is not far off, and he’ll be rejoining them soon where there is plenty to eat and drink.”

“Oh, I see,” Rovender said as he knelt down at the shoreline with several bottles. The large crystalline pool contained numerous rocks and sticks visible on its shallow bottom. All were coated in a fine silt. Eva flopped down and began to pull off her sneakboots and socks.

“Oh, this is going to feel so good,” she said with a giggle, and rolled her leggings up. “The sneakboots make my feet so sweaty!”

Rovender dipped his fingertips into the water and washed the grit off his face. The pattern of pores that composed his nose sensed the water. “Something isn’t right,” he whispered. He splashed more of it onto his face. “Eva Nine,” Rovender called. He stood and scanned the area. “Get out of the water, now.”

Eva had waded up to her knees. “Why? What is it, Rovee?”

“Just get out as fast as you can. Look!” He pointed to a stand of wandering trees near the pool.

Eva saw a small flock of turnfins watching them from the nearby trees. “What?” she said.

“None of the turnfins are in the water,” he said. “Get out!”

Eva waded back toward shore. Behind her rose a monstrous flower bulb from the center of the pool, supported on a thick, hairy stalk. Wide-eyed, Eva stopped, turned, and watched as the bulb opened in the warm sunlight, a prodigious bloom full of speckled, spattered color. It reminded her of a gigantic exotic orchid as it released a cloud of pollen particles into the air surrounding it.

“It’s so beautiful,” Eva said. Dazzled, she stared at its center. The banded filaments of the flower stretched like tentacles as they unfurled toward her.

Rovender splashed into the water, shouting, “Eva, I don’t think …” He paused when he reached her, looking at the giant flower. “You are right,” he murmured. “It is a lovely, magnificent blossom.”

The uncoiling filaments unrolled toward the mesmerized pair, and the powdery anthers neared them. Eva let out a deep sigh as the fuzzy end brushed against her face.

“It’s … wonderful … ,” she said, breathless.

“So … sublime … ,” Rovender said, and wheezed.

As she watched from the shore, Muthr called out to them, “Eva! Mr. Kitt! I would recommend you back away immediately from this unknown plant species.”

Otto hooted loudly and shifted back and forth in the damp sand on his many legs.

“Stay here, Otto, dear.” Muthr wheeled over to the hovercraft and snatched up the Omnipod. “I am not sure what this monstrous bloom is doing, but it appears to have them in some sort of a hypnotic state.”

The robot rolled out into the water toward an unmoving Eva. “Eva Nine, can you hear me?” Muthr shouted. “I need you to—oh, my!”

Eva’s skin was tinted blue, and her eyes fluttered. She exhaled in a long gagging yawn as the air was sucked from her lungs through her open mouth.

“Oxygen levels in this area are critically low for human respiration,” the Omnipod chirped. “Please avoid immediate area at all costs without proper breathing aids, or hypoxia may occur.”

Muthr picked Eva up and turned back to shore. As she carried the added weight, the robot’s single wheel dug into the sediment below. Otto bounded toward the pool.

“No, Otto! Stay!” Muthr commanded as she sank farther into the pool’s muddy bottom. “This plant is bad!” She glanced over at Rovender, who stood motionless while the flower sucked the air from his lungs. She was now up to her waist in water, her single wheel digging her deeper and deeper into the muck.

“Remote ignition of hovercraft S-five-thirty-one, please,” Muthr commanded the Omnipod as she kept Eva’s unconscious face above water. The disturbed silt revealed a murky bed—not of rocks and sticks but of bones and skulls.

“Ignition of hovercraft commencing,” the Omnipod chirped. “Hold for one moment, please.”

“I do not have ‘one moment’!” Muthr said. “Get me virtual navigation of that vehicle immediately!”

The Goldfish burbled to life, hovering toward Muthr as she guided the craft with her free hand. Water sprayed out in a fine mist as the Goldfish drifted over the surface of the pool.

Otto squawked loudly.

Muthr turned her head in time to see the filaments of the flower coil around Rovender, squeezing the last breaths out of him. With most of her metallic torso now submerged, the robot hoisted Eva’s lifeless form into the Goldfish. Muthr navigated the hovercraft toward shore. She grasped tightly on to the tailfin and pulled herself from the mucky grip of the pool’s bottom.

With the Goldfish hovering back over land, the mud-caked robot called out to Otto. “Grab her, please!”

The passenger door opened and Otto lifted Eva from the car with his beaky mouth and carried her far from the pool. Muthr climbed into the driver’s seat and raced the Goldfish back out over the pool toward Rovender.

He appeared lifeless, constricted in the banded tentacles of the monstrous plant. As soon as Muthr neared him, the bloom belched out more pollen, dusting Muthr’s lacquered surface. She grabbed the filamentous tentacles that held Rovender and began twisting and turning them, and ripped them from the flower head.

As she struggled to haul Rovender’s unconscious body into the hovercraft, the plant sent more tentacles out toward the Goldfish, wrapping filaments around anything they came in contact with. With tremendous strength it began to pull the hovercraft into the water toward it.

“Omnipod,” Muthr commanded the device as she watched the waterline creep over the tail of the craft. “I need to know what will immediately terminate the life of an aquatic plant.”

“If it is a freshwater variety,” the Omnipod replied, “salt water may affect it, or acid rain, pesticides, lack of sunlight, or other forms of contamination. Shall I continue?”

“How about electricity?” Muthr opened the access hatch on the dashboard.

“It could have quite an immediate effect if—”

“Good!” Muthr yanked out a handful of the Goldfish’s internal wiring and submerged them into the water. An electric jolt shot through the pool, causing the monstrous plant to release its grip. It retracted and sank back below the surface.

Muthr brought the sputtering Goldfish back to a waiting Otto on dry land. She exited, carrying a limp Rovender. “Eva, dear, are you well? Please tell me how you are doing?” Muthr asked as she laid Rovender flat on the hood of the hovercraft.

“I’ll be okay, I think,” Eva said between gasping breaths. She was sitting up in the shade next to Otto. “But I’ve got a massive headache,” she added.

“We have to help Mr. Kitt, Eva, and we need to hurry,” Muthr said. She held the Omnipod in one hand while she scanned his body with a red laser. “His physiology is entirely different from yours, so I need you to tell me anything he may have said about how he functions internally.”

“He never said anything,” Eva said between gasps. “But I did create a file for him on IMA.”

Muthr opened up his eyelids, revealing dilated pupils. She probed his mouth with two mechanized fingers. “Eva, dear, I need you over here immediately,” she said, her voice calm as she opened a small compartment panel above her wheel casing. While one hand searched for a pulse on Rovender’s thick wrists, another pulled out a corrugated tube and placed it into his mouth.

“What—what are you doing?” Eva asked as she stumbled over to Muthr. As her stupor faded, Eva realized the grave situation. The IMA program was rendering a translucent three-dimensional hologram of Rovender over the Omnipod’s central eye. Muthr studied the flickering charts on the Omnipod.

“We are attempting to resuscitate Mr. Kitt by blowing controlled bursts of air into his lungs,” Muthr said, and tilted his head back. “I will supply the air by using one of my internal cooling fans. To do this, I need you to hold his opercula, or gill covers, shut so that the air will travel down into his lungs. The covers are located underneath his chin, here. Hurry, dear, my hands are full.”

Eva looked down. With Rovender’s head tilted back, a pair of ruby slits were revealed, just under his jawline. They had been hidden by his beard of barbels. Eva placed her palms firmly over the gill covers to close them. She swallowed down the iciness of dread that began to coil into her stomach.

Please don’t die. Please don’t die. Please don’t die.

Muthr blew puffs of air into Rovender’s mouth in two one-second bursts. Eva watched his stomach rise and fall. Rise and fall. Muthr studied the Omnipod and repeated the process.

“Please don’t die, Rovee,” Eva whispered.

“I am doing all that I can, Eva,” Muthr said as she blew the air in again. “He has many organs that are indescribable by the Omnipod. Therefore, I cannot risk cardiopulmonary resuscitation.”

“Please, Rovee.” Eva tried to keep the chill from overtaking her shaking hands. She kept them firm on the lanky creature’s neck. “Please.”

She felt a lurch …

… and a cough …

… and Rovender Kitt blinked his indigo eyes.

Muthr pulled the tube from his mouth and returned it underneath her metallic shell. In her cheerful movie-star voice, she said, “Mr. Kitt, welcome back. You gave us quite a scare.”

CHAPTER 37: SIGNAL

The campsite
that night was the familiar submerged entryway into an underground Sanctuary. With the door long gone, the stairway leading down was packed full of desert sand. Even so, the lone covered entrance provided some shelter against the chilly windswept desert plain and the preponderance of hunting sand-snipers clicking outside in the night.

“Definitely tomorrow,” Rovender said as he looked at the beamguide map. “If we get an early start, we should be there by midday.” He tucked the guide in with the other items packed in his large rucksack.

“We have made good progress, despite this afternoon’s setback,” Muthr said as she looked over at Eva in the lantern light.

Eva was placing all of the contents from her satchel out to dry, as the bag had gotten soaked in the skirmish at the oasis. She glanced outside at Otto, who was sleeping soundly next to the Goldfish.

“I believe we shall have plenty of fuel to get us to our destination as well,” Muthr continued. “Once there, we can locate a water source that does not contain such malevolent plant life.”

Rovender chuckled, then rubbed his swollen neck. “Yes, let us hope so.” He saw the reflection of his lanterns dance and flicker in Muthr’s large orbs. “Mother Robot, it is no secret that I am not one who is fond of machines. To be truthful, there have been instances when I have even questioned your upbringing of Eva with such mechanisms as the Omnipod, and even your Sanctuary.”

Muthr nodded. “Well, I think we have all seen that these machines, myself included, do not have all the answers. I do not believe anyone does, Mr. Kitt.”

“You are right,” Rovender replied. “I am also the first to say when I am wrong about something, and I am wrong in judging the makeup of one such as you. Please accept my sincerest apologies for such small-minded notions.”

“There is no need for an apology, Mr. Kitt,” Muthr said. “You have taught Eva and me many things about this world that could not be contained in a program or simulation. It is I who should be apologetic for ever doubting you.”

“Fair enough,” Rovender said with a grin. “Fair enough.”

The two sat quietly for a moment, huddled in the abandoned Sanctuary entryway. Eva savored the reconciliation. With her back still turned to them, neither could see her face beaming with pleasure as she traced her fingers over the damp image on the WondLa.

“I think I am really getting the hang of this,” Eva said the next morning as she piloted the Goldfish over dark rippled dunes.

“You are doing very well,” Muthr replied. “Make sure you adjust the roll a little when we get over this open, flat area ahead. The wind can get quite gusty.”

“Why didn’t we practice driving hovercraft back home?” Eva said as she focused on the instruments projected on the windshield.

“I am not sure,” Muthr said. “We had information on hovercrafts in the Sanctuary’s virtual library, but I was not aware of any exercises that would instruct you on how to operate one.”

Eva rubbed her finger splint with her free finger as she gripped the yoke, thinking. Her healing palm itched. “I really like exploring a lot. I feel so active, so excited, so
alive
while I am doing it, you know?”

“I do have a sense of understanding what you’re saying. You certainly are a most adventurous spirit, Eva.” Muthr looked over at her.

“Do you miss being in the Sanctuary?” Eva glanced at Muthr, then back to the landscape in front of her.

“I miss having access to anything and everything when I need it and, by extension, when you need it,” the robot replied. “I am designed to be in control of my environment. Out here, it appears the environment is trying to control me.”

Eva was quiet for a bit as she thought about this.

Muthr continued, “But I suppose that is the very nature of survival—living and existing despite the odds.”

“Yeah,” Eva said.
Living despite the odds.

“Though, I must confess, I do miss our holo-shows. I enjoyed watching them with you.”

“Really?” Eva looked over at Muthr, a smile growing on her face. “What shows?”

“I actually enjoyed
Beeboo and Company
,” Muthr replied. “Watching some of the episodes with you was quite entertaining.”

Eva laughed out loud. “Really? You were entertained?”

“Actually, I was more entertained watching you. Especially when you were younger,” Muthr said. “After the show was over, you would pretend that you were one of the characters. How you adored that Beeboo.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Eva asked.

“I am not sure. I suppose I was simply so busy making sure you were content,” Muthr replied.

“Hey, maybe if we find the other humans, they’ll have some of the old episodes,” Eva said, smiling. “You and I can watch them again.”

“I would like that very much.” With her silicone lips Muthr smiled back.

“Ho! Eva!” Rovender called out as he stood atop Otto’s back. “Hold up!”

Eva slowed the Goldfish and circled it back over the crescent dunes of black sand and gravel. The hovercraft’s metallic flecked paint sparkled through its dusty coating in the late-morning sun as it came to rest alongside the water bear. Rovender slid down and sat on Otto’s great head. He placed the crystal beamguide on the flat hood of the Goldfish, and the prism relief map projected out from it.

“Well,” Rovender said as he studied the landmarks. “We are almost there. It’s just over this large dune up ahead.”

“Let us see if we can pick up any clues,” Muthr said, and pulled out the Omnipod. She spoke to the device, “This is Muthr zero-six. Initiate LifeScan. Please sweep the area for any other detectable life-forms.”

“Initiating LifeScan,” the Omnipod replied. Eva watched the familiar radar hologram of the terrain before them. Muthr extended the radar’s range, revealing their final destination. There certainly were all sorts of structures present—as well as a lot of glowing life-forms. Large glowing life-forms.

“A first sweep shows that there are approximately two hundred and forty-seven large life-forms aboveground and in the area indicated,” the Omnipod reported. “They are elephantine in size and, based on recent images acquired through Identicapture, are likely giant tardigrades.”

Otto let out a long, low hoot.

“That’s Otto’s herd,” Eva added. “They’ve been here waiting for him to rejoin them.”

“Really?” Muthr asked.

“He told them where we were going,” Eva said, patting Otto; he started purring. “I guess they knew where the ruins were. Apparently there’s a lot of food for them there.”

“You never cease to astonish me, Otto.” Rovender climbed back up to his saddle and shooed away several turnfins that had taken his spot in his absence. “All right, Eva Nine. Lead the way!”

It took some time for the group to scale the windward slope of the largest linear sand dune that they had yet encountered in the boundless wasteland. Loose ebony grains blew about as the hovercraft rose higher and higher at a steep angle toward the summit. Eva parked the Goldfish at the crest and hopped out. Her friends soon joined her, staring in awe at the monumental sight that was now revealed to them.

In a vast valley that stretched across the entire horizon, hundreds—perhaps thousands—of spires, walls, and hunks of architectural rubble, stood half-submerged in the dark drifts of desert sand.

Extraordinary lichens, the largest and most colorful Eva had yet seen, grew from the old remnants of bridges, towers, and other edifices of this lost civilization. Countless turnfins circled and roosted among the ruins, while in the distance a great herd of water bears grazed around the structures.

“Oeeah!” Rovender whistled from high atop Otto’s back. He peered into his spyglass. “This is quite a find, Eva Nine. A place unlike any I have ever seen!”

The hot wind tousled Eva’s brown-blond bangs. She stared, speechless, as she tried to comprehend the utter enormity of the site. Muthr’s motor whined as the robot neared. Eva whispered, “This was once ours, wasn’t it? We had colonized Orbona, hadn’t we?”

“It certainly seems that way, does it not?” Muthr replied.

They both gazed out at the remains reaching up toward the sky—as if the remains themselves were trying to escape from the sands of time that slowly consumed them.

“The folly of humankind is that it believes it is impervious to decay,” Muthr said.

The Omnipod chirped as the lights on it began flashing in a flurry of patterns.

“What is it?” Eva pried her eyes away from the landscape before her. “What’s going on?”

“I have never seen the Omnipod act like this,” Muthr said, reading the slew of information displayed on the screen. “Let us get closer.”

With Eva driving the Goldfish, Muthr navigated the group down the large slope of the dune toward the ruins. As they approached, Eva realized that the corroded spires were gigantic, towering high above them into the afternoon sky. Hordes of turnfins swooped around them and flitted about among the spires. Their chattering had risen to quite a din as the explorers had traveled down the sandy pathways.

Eva felt a tickle in the back of her brain. She glanced back at Otto and Rovender.

“What is it?” Muthr watched Eva.

“It’s Otto.” Eva closed her eyes for second, trying to get a better read on him. “He’s uneasy for some reason. Something is bothering him. . . . It could just be all of these birds.”

“And I am sure he is anxious to reunite with his herd,” Muthr said.

“You’re probably right. I bet he can’t hear their song with all of this racket.” She focused on driving, still not quite at ease. Eva guided the craft under the remnants of a magnificent steel archway. “So, what’s the Omnipod say?”

Muthr continued to read the charts displayed by the device. “Well, according to this, there may actually be some sort of computer system online here.”

Eva’s eyes went large. “Are you serious?”

“I would say it is improbable, but judging from what we are seeing, it appears to be so,” Muthr said as Eva brought the Goldfish around the crumbling remains of a building. She continued, “The signal is weak. It is coming from an underground source.”

“A Sanctuary!” Eva’s pulse quickened.

“I will not be able to tell for sure until we investigate,” Muthr said, studying the location of the signal.

Eva picked at the skin around her thumbnail while she held the steering yoke tightly. As they journeyed past the remnants of a still-standing tower, she looked over at the Omnipod. “Does it . . . Does it detect any others like me? Any humans?”

“At this point, no,” Muthr said, her eyes still on the device. “But that does not mean we will not find any sort of clues here.” They approached a pair of similarly shaped lichen-encrusted rocks, and Muthr said, “Stop here, Eva! This is the place.”

“Rovee!” Eva shouted as she parked the Goldfish. “Over here!”

“We are on our way,” Rovender shouted back as he and Otto rounded the path to join them.

“According to this,” Muthr said as she exited the vehicle with the Omnipod, “there is a faint signal coming from directly below us. Though the Omnipod is not very accurate at detecting subterranean elements.”

Eva stepped out of the Goldfish onto a wide, flat half-submerged rock. “Hey, Rovee, is it okay to walk around? Are there any sand-snipers here?”

“Not here, Eva,” Rovender replied, and hopped off of Otto. He stared up at the ancient monuments that surrounded them. “Fortunately for us, they prefer open areas.”

“Look!” Eva brushed the sand away from the rock she was standing on. “These are steps.”

“Yes,” Rovender said. “Steps leading down . . . someplace.”

She sprinted across the half-buried step to Otto and put the palm of her hand on his forehead.

Are you okay?
she thought to him.

Safe. You. Me.

Are we safe?

Noise. Hurt.

It’s the sound of the birds, right?
she said to him silently.
They are pretty noisy.

Hurt. Noise.

Eva looked around and noted that there were not many turnfins in this open area. Even though she was desperate to explore, she stayed near Otto. The water bear shuffled over to one of the nondescript rocks jutting up out of the sand and pulled off a large clump of enormous lichen.

“Eva,” Muthr said, peeling back one of the wide gray leaves. “Can you ask Otto to remove all of this lichen?”

“Sure.” Eva walked over to the stone formation that was jutting up from the top of the steps. The other formation, almost identical in size and shape, was many meters away. They were like large newel posts on the top of a wide stone staircase.

Otto grabbed the lichen with his short, sharp beak and sheared off the growth. As he munched it up with relish, Eva recognized the aged, pitted rock underneath.

It was a sculpture.

A sculpture of a lion.