The Search For WondLa (2 page)

CHAPTER 2: SKILLS

I am making
spinach and strawberry salad,” sang Muthr as Eva walked into the kitchen and flopped down at the booth.

The eggshell-and-cream colors of the kitchen walls and numerous stacked cabinets did little to make the compact room appear cozy. A scratched, scuffed oven dominated the far wall, with a large exhaust vent growing out and up through the ceiling. Mounted next to it was a sink that had a variety of faucets and taps dangling over it like metallic-ringed tentacles. Eva picked at a dried bit of food on the steel tabletop.

“I am so glad that we were able to fix the irrigation system in the greenhouse last week. Our crop production is already up seventy-six percent,” Muthr said, setting a bowl full of strawberries in front of Eva. “Here, you can cut these up.”

Eva picked up a strawberry the size of her fist and grabbed a knife from the knife block.

“That is a filet knife,” Muthr pointed out, gingerly taking the utensil from the girl. Another wire-veined hand handed Eva a small chef’s knife. “This should work fine.”

Eva placed the immense strawberry on its side, ready to slice.

“Are you not forgetting something? Are your hands washed?” Muthr asked, still facing the sink, where she was now washing spinach leaves. Eva rolled her eyes and joined her.

At the sink Muthr prepared the food in her usual efficient manner. One hand passed a clean wide, wavy spinach leaf to another, which then placed the leaf on a cutting board. There, a third hand cut the spinach up into perfect squares. “I have been thinking,” the robot said, “we need to back up and review some of the basic procedures before we continue with our outdoor training.”

Eva dried her hands on her tunic, leaving damp splotches along the hem. “R-review?” she sputtered. “How long is that going to take?”

“If we start tomorrow, several more weeks—or twenty-four more days, to be exact,” Muthr answered, scraping the chopped spinach into a steel salad bowl.

“Twenty-four days?” Eva said, shocked. “Why don’t we just go out and do some of these exercises for real? I’m sure I’d do a lot better.” She lopped the green star-shaped top off a strawberry and sliced the fruit.

“You know good and well that you are not yet ready,” Muthr replied, opening a large cabinet door. The cabinet was stocked full of marked containers of different sizes meticulously arranged as in a giant spice rack.

“I am ready,” Eva said. “I know more than you think.” She slid the quartered strawberry next to the bowl and grabbed another, even larger than the first. “And besides, maybe if we explore, we’ll find … you know … others.”

“‘Others’?” repeated Muthr. She paused and rotated her head. With her large eyes, the robot looked like a mechanized owl observing Eva. “What others are you speaking of?”

“You know … others. Humans, like me,” Eva said, keeping her gaze focused on cutting the ripe red fruit.

“Eva Nine, we have been over this numerous times before.” Muthr grabbed a hanging pot above her. When she placed it under one of the faucets, water automatically began to fill it up. “And, as I have told you before, there are no indications of others down here like you. That is what makes you so special.”

Eva mouthed the last line in perfect unison while she lopped the top off another strawberry. “But I think that’s why we need to leave. To explore and find out for sure,” she countered.

“You failed the simplest of tasks today—a LifeScan sweep. You are not yet ready.” Muthr returned her attention to her cooking. “Stove top, burner one, heat level six, please.”

“But I am so cooped up in here,” Eva said in a despondent tone. “Can’t we go out for just a little bit?”

Muthr replied, “You will in time, my dear. Now—”

“I don’t think you understand, Muthr. I—”

“I do understand. Now please pay attention. Focus on what you’re doing.” Muthr’s tone was stern.

“How can you understand?” Eva slapped the knife down onto the tabletop with a loud clang. “You’re not me! You can’t get bitten by a snake! You … you’re not even human!”

The kitchen was silent except for the clicking of Muthr’s blinking eyes. She studied Eva with her deep dark orbs. The pot on the stove began to burble softly. Somewhere high above, an exhaust fan hummed as it sucked the heat up and out of the room.

Eva sneered at the robot, waiting for a reaction. She wondered what Muthr was thinking with all of those zeroes and ones coursing through her electrical nervous system. It was then that Eva realized that she was bleeding.

“Eva!” gasped Muthr, wheeling toward her.

“I just nicked myself with the blade. That’s all,” Eva said, putting her thumb into her mouth. As she lapped the tiny wound with her tongue, she could taste her blood. She could feel the pulse of her own heart.

“Now, that is not the way to address a minor cut, Eva.” Muthr rolled closer, extending a rodlike arm. “Let me see it.”

Eva pulled out her thumb and allowed Muthr to study it. At the same time, dinner preparations resumed, as Muthr dropped several pills from the cabinet into the simmering pot of water. The small kitchen began to fill with the scent of roasted chicken.

“This is exactly what I am talking about,” Muthr said. “Now, what you need to do is sterilize the site. Then place a small medical sticker on it so that it may heal without infection and with minimum scarring.”

“I’ll be fine, Muthr. It’s just a tiny cut.” Eva yanked her hand back. “I’ll live.”

“Eva, please just—”

“Fine!” Eva yelled. She stormed out of the kitchen, muttering under her breath, “It’s not like you’ll ever die.”

She walked out to the hub, manually activating an adjacent door, which led to the supply room. As the door slid shut behind her, Eva walked past the labyrinth of shelves containing all manner of household items: electro-gaskets, holo-bulbs, lumen-packs, various cleaning products, and hydration kits.

“Hello, Eva Nine. May I help you find something?” asked the calm tone of the Sanctuary over the intercom.

“I’m okay, Sanctuary,” Eva replied, stopping in front of a rack holding medicinal supplies. “I’m just looking for a small medi-sticker.”

“Medical sticky bandages with SpeedHeal ointment are located on the bottommost shelf,” the Sanctuary said.

“Thanks,” Eva said, pulling open a metallic bin. She grabbed two, pocketing one of the medi-stickers in her tunic. She ripped open the plastic packet with her teeth and placed the medicated sticker over the congealed blood spot on her thumb. Pausing in the shadowy aisle of shelves, Eva listened. Through the ply-steel walls she could hear Muthr humming as the robot set the table. Eva walked to the very back of the storage room and stared at the faint outline of a sealed doorway.

A doorway she wasn’t supposed to know about.

“Eva, dear?” Muthr’s harmonious voice came in over the intercom. “Did you find the medi-stickers?”

“I did,” Eva replied, though she knew the question was pointless. Muthr and the Sanctuary were linked. “I just want to grab some other things, um … electra-paper … to write notes for tomorrow’s class.”

“Good thinking,” Muthr said. “Dinner is ready!”

Later that evening Eva relaxed in her cozy electric bed, watching her favorite holo-show,
Beeboo and Company
. Muthr entered her faintly lit room and moved through the clutter on the floor. “I thought I asked you to pick this up,” she said as she approached Eva.

“Come in,” Eva said sarcastically while she watched brilliantly colored cartoon characters cavort about her bedroom. A blue raccoon was trying to help an orange octopus build a home using sticks and rocks, but the house kept collapsing. A cat wearing a silver suit emblazoned with a logo for the Dynastes Corporation giggled, announcing, “You two need building blocks!”

“Pause program, please,” commanded Muthr in that cheery tone of hers. “I made some notes of my own and thought you might want this,” she said, handing Eva an electra-paper.

As Eva studied the semitransparent sheet, faint lines of text scrolled up to meet her roving gaze. “This is just a list of the six basic survival skills,” she said. Eva looked up at Muthr, causing the text to stop scrolling. “We’ve gone over this before.”

“Well, we need to go over it again until you get it right,” Muthr replied.

“What?” Eva said, aghast.

The robot put a hand on her shoulder. “I am going to quiz you on what each of these skills means tomorrow,” Muthr said. “Pass this quiz with a perfect score, and we can continue with the fire-starting exercise right where we left off today. All right?”

Eva looked back at the list. “We won’t have to start all over again?”

“We will not have to start all over again
if
you pass tomorrow’s quiz,” Muthr said. “You have a ninety-nine percent chance of doing this, so I expect you to perform exceptionally.” Muthr turned away, rolling out of the room. “Good night, dear.”

As the bedroom door slid shut, Eva could hear Muthr command the Sanctuary to power down for the night. She looked at the list, the words faintly glowing on the electra-paper:

SIX BASIC SURVIVAL SKILLS FOR HUMANS

1. Trust Technology

2. Signal Others

3. Find Shelter

4. Create Fire

5. Procure Food and Water

6. Know First Aid

Eva slid out of bed and threw a blanket over the life monitor peering down from above. She pulled on her sneakboots, then grabbed her satchel from the nightstand. As she did so, her Omnipod was knocked onto the floor. Jostled, it projected a life-size hologram of a girl in workout attire. Her face bore an uncanny resemblance to Eva’s.

“No, no, no!” gasped Eva, reaching down for the device.

“Who’s ready to warm up with some jumping jacks?” the hologram girl asked in a far too cheerful tone. Eva whispered to the Omnipod, “Deactivate Gym Buddy!”

“Deactivating,” the device whispered back. The hologram evaporated, leaving a whitish glow illuminating Eva’s face. “Is there anything else I can assist you with, Eva Nine?” it asked.

“Just a sec,” Eva replied, slipping her bony hand through the Omnipod’s wrist strap. Watching her door, Eva waited to see if the noisy outburst had attracted Muthr. Finally, she told the Omnipod, “Please command the Sanctuary to discontinue tracking my location and reporting to Muthr until instructed otherwise.”

“Tracking of Multi-Utility Task Help Robot zero-six discontinued.”

Eva opened her bedroom door and stepped out into the main hub. From under the soles of her sneakboots, she could hear the squish of disinfectant seeping up from the floor tiles as the Sanctuary began its nightly cleaning. The stinging scent of cleaner hung in the air, causing Eva’s eyes to water and the inside of her nose to burn.

She snuck along the perimeter of the hub on a path farthest from Muthr’s quarters, the control room, in hopes that the ever-vigilant robot would not hear her.

Thankfully, the door to the supply room was malfunctioning and could no longer be voice activated. Eva tapped a glowing green button, and the doors slid open with a low hiss. Eva froze, waiting for the doors of Muthr’s quarters to slide open in response. What would she tell her if she were caught? Medi-sticker, she thought. The old one fell off in the shower tonight.

Eva slipped into the supply room, her body heat activating the overhead lights. Watching the door slide shut, she brought the Omnipod close to her mouth.

“Omnipod, please instruct the Sanctuary to open the back hatch in the supply room,” she whispered into the device.

“Doorway opening.”

The door in the back of the room slid open with a hiss. Eva’s silhouette stretched out into the dank, murky darkness. Eva whispered, “I’m on my way.”

CHAPTER 3: SECRETS

Eva pressed
a glowing red button, causing the door to slide shut behind her. She ran her fingers over a logo, an emblem stamped into the ply-steel composed of the letters
HRP
.

The Omnipod entered lumen mode, and the device created a strong beam of light from its central eye. As Eva made her way down the long, winding corridor, she thought back to her first discovery of the secret hallway… .

She’d been five years old, playing hide-and-seek with Muthr.

Eva’s favorite place to hide had been the empty cabinet under the kitchen sink, but she had grown some and could no longer fit under there.

Instead, Eva had found her way into the very back of the labyrinthine supply room and had hidden behind the last shelf full of nutriment capsules. Giggling, she had leaned against the back wall, sliding into the shadows and awaiting the sound of Muthr’s playful voice. On the cold surface of that wall, Eva had felt the unmistakable seam of a doorway.

Muthr had found her moments later trying to get the Sanctuary to open it. The robot had told her it was a malfunctioning door that had been sealed off long before Eva Nine had been born.

Eva had soon forgotten about the mysterious door, until the day she’d made the other discovery.

Putting a pair of rolled-up woolen socks away in her dresser, an eight-year-old Eva had found something scratched into the metal on the
inside
of the top drawer. Printed in blocky lettering was: “CP01: OMNISCIENT: FLOOR PLAN.”

Eva had puzzled over this cryptic code for days. She’d wondered if she should go and ask Muthr about its meaning. She’d pondered this idea, but had hesitated, for it was also at that time that Eva had started to realize that she and Muthr were truly not the same. This observation had led to a notion that had itched at the back of her mind: She wasn’t being told everything.

There were other humans depicted in the holo-shows and programs that she watched—but none living in the Sanctuary. Where could they be? When she had asked Muthr, Eva had received the same response: “There are no others like you. That is what makes you so very special.”

Eva had returned to her dresser and stared at the words written inside the drawer.

That was when she’d asked her Omnipod what a “floor plan” was.

The device had prattled out a lengthy definition, projecting lavish holograms of various architectural layouts, then had asked if she wanted to know more. She had not.

Eva had then asked what “omniscient” was. The Omnipod had answered that “omniscient” was an adjective derived from a seventeenth-century word meaning “to know everything.”