The Battle for WondLa Read online

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

  presents

  Contents

  Epigraph

  PART I

  Chapter 1: Hunted

  Chapter 2: Fire

  Chapter 3: Wreck

  Chapter 4: Control

  Chapter 5: Return

  Chapter 6: Caruncle

  Chapter 7: Discoveries

  Chapter 8: Whispers

  Chapter 9: Hunter

  Chapter 10: Trust

  Chapter 11: Pantomime

  Chapter 12: Signs

  Chapter 13: Mouls

  Chapter 14: Turn

  Chapter 15: Siblings

  Chapter 16: Devastated

  PART II

  Chapter 17: Thunderstorm

  Chapter 18: Twenty-Three

  Chapter 19: Pryde

  Chapter 20: Extinction

  Chapter 21: Shock

  Chapter 22: Regeneration

  Chapter 23: Faunas

  Chapter 24: Elders

  Chapter 25: Messages

  Chapter 26: Home

  Chapter 27: Scars

  Chapter 28: Prediction

  Chapter 29: Disintegration

  Chapter 30: Feast

  Chapter 31: Chorus

  Chapter 32: Understanding

  Chapter 33: Truth

  Chapter 34: WondLa

  Epilogue

  100 Years Later

  200 Years Later

  300 Years Later

  Regional Map of Orbona

  The Orbonian Alphabet

  Acknowledgments

  About Tony Diterlizzi

  Glossary

  For Angela and Sophia, my WondLa

  FOR, IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS,

  our most basic common link

  IS THAT WE ALL INHABIT

  this small planet.

  WE ALL BREATHE THE SAME AIR.

  We all cherish our children’s future.

  AND WE ARE ALL MORTAL.

  —John F. Kennedy

  PART I

  CHAPTER 1: HUNTED

  Eva Nine could scarcely hear anything above her own ragged breathing. Her pale green eyes, wide and wild, searched for a clear path through the dense undergrowth of the Wandering Forest. Burning leg muscles carried her past fallen trees and over moss-laden stones.

  “This way! Come on!” Eva shouted. Her instinct warned that her voice would give away her location, but she suspected it didn’t matter. The beast knows exactly where I am, she thought.

  Lagging behind Eva was the teenage pilot Hailey Turner. Eva ran back, seized Hailey by the hand, and yanked him along with her. They moved quickly through the dappled shadow of the canopy.

  “We have to keep moving,” she whispered hoarsely. “Let’s go.” She pushed aside a cluster of feathery blooms on waist-high stalks.

  “How can you run so fast?” Hailey tried to catch his breath. “You’re—”

  A low snarl sliced through the stillness of the wood. Startled turnfins flapped away from the disruption. The beast was not far now.

  “Over here!” Eva bolted toward a clearing where the trees thinned out. Here she and Hailey could make up more ground, but so too could the beast. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a blur of tawny fur with horns on its head. It bound through the thick underbrush as effortlessly as a spiderfish swimming through water, with its razor claws sending up leaves and bark in its wake.

  “Can’t you . . . ask this thing . . . to leave us alone?” Hailey asked between gasps. He would not be able to keep up this pace much longer.

  “I’ve tried to, but it is not responding.” For a moment Eva wondered if her newfound ability to communicate with all forest denizens had somehow vanished. But perhaps this creature simply did not want to talk—it wanted to eat.

  Eva and Hailey dashed across the glade and back into the shadowy cover of the forest. She looked once more at their pursuer, but it was nowhere to be seen. Before Eva could turn around, she tripped headlong over a large fallen log. As she brushed dead leaves from her colorless hair, Eva realized she had landed next to a giant sundew bush. The plant’s sticky stalks immediately bent and quivered in her direction.

  Its voice entered her mind. Let me touch you. Let me hold you.

  Eva scooted away from the sundew. Her abilities had not left her, after all.

  “Are you okay?” Hailey climbed over the log.

  “Shhh!” Eva grabbed the back of Hailey’s utili-T-shirt and yanked him down to the ground. Together they crouched behind the rotting log. Eva noticed that the ground dipped underneath the log to form a small hollow. She began clawing the forest debris out from the hollow. “Get under here.”

  “But it will find—”

  “Just do it,” she hissed. Although she heard no sound, Eva knew the beast was nearby, stalking them.

  Hailey grunted as he wedged himself into the hollow. Eva clambered up to stand on top of the log. Catching her breath, she scanned the forest but saw no movement.

  The wind blew through the canopy above, causing the jigsaw shapes of the treetops to sway. Eva closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She could feel the energy that the plants and mosses gathered from the sunlight. She could sense the fear of the smaller animals hiding from the predator.

  A twig snapped. Then, silence.

  Now! A voice entered her mind. It may have been a turnfin or a tree, for all Eva knew, but it was all the warning she needed. As fast as a sand-sniper, she dropped to the ground as the beast lunged at her from its hiding place. It flew over Eva’s flattened body, over the log, and into the giant sundew.

  “Be careful!” Eva said to Hailey. She scrambled over the log and pushed Hailey away from the trapped animal. The shaggy beast writhed in the sticky tentacles of the carnivorous plant. In minutes it was a tangled mass of fur and sap.

  Though winded, Hailey seemed awestruck. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” Eva’s heart was pounding from her near miss with the beast. She couldn’t believe her trap had worked.

  With the thick curved horns jutting from the back of its head, the beast thrashed at the tendrils of the sundew. Its hairless face was flush with anger.

  Let me hold you, Eva heard the plant whisper to the beast. I shall hold you within me forever.

  The beast roared in response.

  “We should leave.” Eva backed away from the trapped animal. “I don’t want to be anywhere near here if it should free itself.”

  Hailey’s gaze shifted between the beast and Eva.

  “What?” she asked.

  “The way you stood your ground, then tricked that thing . . .”

  Eva turned back to look at the trapped beast. “I . . . I’m sorry, Hailey. . . . I didn’t know what else—”

  “No, Eva.” Hailey climbed up onto the log where Eva had stood, as if to reenact the scene. “That was . . . You were . . . amazing! I mean, look at those claws. It would have torn us to pieces and eaten us alive if it had caught us.”

  Eva couldn’t look back at the beast. It was, after all, a creature of the forest doing what it needed to survive. She climbed over the log and started back down the route they had taken. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Hailey took a last look at the beast before jogging up alongside Eva. “I wish I had my Omnipod. I would have loved to see what Identicapture thought of . . .”

  Wait.

  Another voice entered Eva’s mind, muting out Hailey’s words. Eva stopped and looked back at the sundew. The beast was no longer struggling. It let out a low growl. In that growl Eva heard words.

  Free me.

  “You’ll kill us, then eat us,” Eva spoke aloud to the creature.

  “Eva?” Hailey stopped.
>
  Not eat you. Feed.

  “Okay, then you’ll feed on us.” Eva started back toward the beast.

  “Eva, wait a nano.” Hailey went to stop her.

  Not feed me. Feed my pups.

  “Feed your pups? Then you’re a . . . you’re their—”

  Mother.

  Eva put her head in her hands. “Of course,” she whispered.

  Hailey joined her atop the log. They both looked down at the beast. Piercing lemon eyes watched them, causing Eva’s hair to stand on end.

  “Eva, I don’t know what this thing is telling you,” Hailey said, “but we need to leave.”

  Free me. I will leave.

  Eva stepped cautiously toward the beast. “You won’t eat us?”

  I will not eat you.

  Hailey remained on top of the fallen log. “Um, I’m going to repeat what you just said two minutes ago about not wanting to be near here if this thing gets free.”

  “No eating? You promise?” Eva came closer to the beast. She could see the burns on its face where the sticky secretions of the sundew had begun to take effect. Eva knew the animal’s predicament all too well. After all, she had been snared in the gooey grip of a giant sundew once before. Fortunately, her friend Rovender Kitt had come to cut Eva free before she’d become plant food.

  I will not eat you, the beast said.

  Hailey jumped down next to Eva.

  Eat him!

  The beast snapped opened its toothy jaws and spat a stream of brown liquid at Hailey. He threw up his hands to protect his face, but his forearms became covered in thick mucus.

  Hailey groaned in pain and dropped to the ground. He began scraping the mucus off his arm and onto the log. “It’s burning! It’s burning! It’s some kind of acid!”

  Eva knelt down next to Hailey to inspect the wound. The smell of scorched hair and skin assaulted her nose. She stood up to face the forest.

  “Someone—anyone—please help me! What cures the venom of this creature?” she called out to the forest.

  The trees creaked in the breeze. Unseen insects chirped from their cover. Somewhere in the distance a turnfin called out.

  Hailey was still conscious despite his fading pallor. Eva’s mind raced. Burns . . . burns . . . what would Rovender do for a burn? She remembered the rope burn he’d suffered from Besteel’s snare. What did he use?

  Moss.

  Eva located a large patch of rich green moss growing nearby on the forest floor. As she pulled a clump from the soil, water dribbled from the moss as if it were a sponge. If it holds water like a sponge, perhaps it can also soak up liquids, she thought. Eva wrung the clump of moss until it was dry. She knelt down next to Hailey and carefully placed the moss on his arm. “Press this against the burn,” she said softly. “It may draw the poison out of your skin.” Hailey moaned in reply and did as instructed.

  “I hope this works.” Eva wriggled her finger into a frayed hole in the sleeve of her coveralls. With a quick yank she tore off the cuff. “I have no idea what sort of venom this is.” She began wrapping the fabric cuff around Hailey’s arm, binding the moss to his wound.

  “Not too tight!” he said, flinching.

  “Sorry.” Eva continued gingerly.

  “There’s never an Omnipod when you need one,” he whispered with a weak smile.

  “We’re better without it. Trust me. Besides, it would have just slowed things down,” Eva said. “Please initiate Individual Medical Assistance,” she imitated the Omnipod’s calm voice. She chuckled to herself while she kept wrapping Hailey’s burns. “By the time I’d gone through all of that, your arms would have burned off.”

  “Well, keeping my arms would be good. Don’t let me stop you,” Hailey replied.

  “Okay, sit still. I’m almost—”

  You live. I die.

  The trapped beast’s voice drifted back into Eva’s mind.

  “How about: you live, I live?” Eva said aloud. She turned and shot a hateful glare at the animal.

  From the sundew’s stalked tentacles, digestive sap oozed to cover the beast’s unmoving body. Its face now glistened in the afternoon light. Sap dripped down over the animal’s eyes, causing them to close.

  You die. I live.

  The beast’s words seemed different to Eva now. It was as if the voice of the beast had become the voice of the plant.

  Eva turned away toward Hailey and tied off his binds. “Can you walk?”

  “Yeah. I think so.” Hailey winced as he sat up.

  Eva helped him to stand. Together they hobbled away from the dying beast.

  After hiking through the wood for some time in silence, Eva stopped and closed her eyes. She cocked her head, listening.

  “What is it now?” Hailey glanced around with a worried look.

  “Shhh,” Eva said. “Before we leave here . . . I want to . . .” She focused with all of her senses, which came together as if to form a living entity. This entity zoomed through the brush and trees, like a bodiless flying eye, allowing Eva to see. Not only that, but she tasted the minerals of water as trees stretched their roots down into the damp soil. She felt the anticipation of several fledglings, still huddled in their nest with mouths open wide, as their father brought food to them. She hummed to the deep resonating sounds of something beyond her vision, a sound lower in pitch than all the creatures of the forest. Still, she kept searching through the forest . . .

  “Are you okay?” Hailey gently shook Eva.

  Her eyes fluttered open and focused on Hailey’s concerned face. “I’m fine. I was trying . . . to locate the cubs.”

  “The cubs?” Hailey gave a puzzled look. “Wait a nano. The cubs of that . . . thing?” He pointed back from where they’d traveled. “The horrible spitting monster thing that just tried to kill us?”

  Eva looked down. “Yes. I just didn’t want them to . . . die. Without a mother.”

  “Oh, I see.” Hailey folded his arms, but the movement caused him to cringe in pain. “So you want to rescue them so they can grow up and be a whole pack of horrible spitting monsters that want to kill us. Is that it?”

  “I’m sorry, Hailey. I . . . I guess you’re right,” Eva said, embarrassed. “Come on. Let’s go back to camp.”

  “No rescuing spitting-monster babies?” Hailey wagged a finger at her playfully.

  Eva nodded. “I promise.”

  CHAPTER 2: FIRE

  I think my arm is feeling better.” Hailey sat on the other side of the smoldering campfire. The faint glow of the hot coals reflected in the metallic infuser that he was twirling from a thin chain. The hydration tablet rattling around inside the infuser began to fizz. Hailey let the chain go, and the infuser shot up into the night air. As it came down, he attempted to catch it in a widemouthed container. The infuser ball landed on the ground next to him, sending little droplets of water in every direction. “Okay. Maybe not,” he added with a lopsided grin.

  “You’re wasting water when you show off like that.” The condescension in Eva’s voice concealed the fact that she would have been impressed with Hailey had he caught the infuser in the container.

  “Come on. You’re not dazzled by my awe-inspiring water collecting technique?” Hailey dusted off the infuser and dropped it into the container. “I’m just going to boil it for crystal coffee.” He pulled a crumbled packet from his trouser pocket and shook it. The New Attica logo shimmered on the packet’s label in the firelight. With his grungy sneakboot he nudged a half-burned log back into the fire. A flurry of embers billowed into the night. “You want some?”

  “No, thanks. I’m okay.” Eva sat with her legs tucked up against her chest and her arms folded over her knees. Her clothing, though still colorless from her encounter with the spirit of the forest, was now covered in smudges, scuffs, and stains from outdoor living.

  “You haven’t eaten or drunk much since we’ve been out here.” Hailey reached over and grabbed a dead branch. He snapped it into smaller pieces and tossed them onto the fire befor
e reaching for more.

  “Not too big,” Eva said in a cautious tone.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Hailey grabbed the sticks. “I got it under control.”

  “I’m serious.” Eva’s voice was firm. “You remember what I said?”

  Hailey gave pause. Eva could see the concern etched in his dirty face as he studied her in the growing firelight. The look of concern gave way to one of frustration.

  “I remember.” Hailey dropped the wood back to the ground.

  “I just don’t want—”

  “Anyone to find us,” he finished her sentence. “I know. I know. You’ve been saying that for the past two days since we’ve been in hiding.” He set his water container onto the fire to boil. “We haven’t seen Cadmus’s warbot army—or anyone for that matter—since we’ve been out here. Aside from man-eating monsters, I don’t think anyone is going—”

  “I don’t care!” Eva barked. “Just trust me.”

  “Trust you about what?” Hailey gestured to the forest around them. “We are out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I know,” Eva replied. “It’s just . . . I just . . .”

  “What?” Hailey stood, clearly exasperated. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  Eva buried her head in her folded arms. She said nothing.

  Hailey sighed hotly. “Whatever! I’m going to get more wood.” He pointed to a nearby wandering tree. “And tell your friends not to worry. It will be dead wood.” He adjusted his flight cap on his shorn head and stomped off into the night.

  Eva watched the flames dance along the length of the freshly added firewood. In no time at all the fire was ablaze. Before long the wood would be consumed. It would become ash. Dust. Just like the ancient ruins . . . and Solas. Just like Muthr. Nadeau. Huxley. Even the beast trapped in the sundew. Just like everything Eva had ever cared about. If I had the WondLa with me now, she thought, I’d toss it into the flames too.

  Back at the ancient ruins Eva had almost thrown the crumbling picture into the fire. But Rovender had stopped her.

  “Not that,” he had said. “You must honor Otto, myself, and your mother by seeing to it that you find what it is that you have searched for.”