The Battle for WondLa Page 2

  That picture—a young girl arm in arm with her smiling robot and parent, traipsing through a field of red flowers—was the life Eva had longed for. To her it represented a life of happiness. It represented a loving family waiting for her in the warmth of a secure home.

  She now knew it was only a picture from a long-lost fairy tale, left behind by a long-lost sister. She now knew that achieving her goal—finding her WondLa—might never happen.

  “What does it matter now?” Eva had said to Rovender.

  “Now is when it matters most, Eva Nine.”

  As usual Rovender had been right. It did matter more now than ever. Eva couldn’t tell Hailey. But she knew, she could sense, the intruders lurking about in the Wandering Forest looking for her, hunting her down as Besteel had once done. They will never hurt the ones I love, she thought, because they will never find them.

  And they shall never find me.

  CHAPTER 3: WRECK

  He’s taking wing. The message drifted into Eva’s mind, rousing her from sleep. She blinked her eyes open and focused. A gaggle of turnfins peered down at Eva from their perch in the wandering tree just a few branches up from where she slept. The morning sun struggled to light the forest through a gray blanket of overcast sky. Next to the smoking campfire Hailey was getting dressed. He pulled a brown oversize retriever jacket over his sinewy frame. It was just the same sort of jacket that Rovender had worn when Eva had first encountered the Cærulean. A frayed but colorful shoulder patch—an emblem of an airship with white wings—flapped in an animated fashion with each move of Hailey’s arm.

  Eva climbed down from the large cuplike leaves that held her. “Where are you going?”

  “I just remembered that I have a spare Omnipod on the Bijou, and I need it.” Hailey gathered his few belongings and stuffed them into the oversize pockets of his jacket.

  “What for? Why?” Eva pulled back several strands of her long hair. The chill of the early morning caused her to shiver.

  Hailey did not answer. He rolled up his sleeves and removed the makeshift bandages from his forearms. Patches of red welts crisscrossed his skin where the beast’s venom had burned him.

  “The moss worked,” Eva said, trying to keep the conversation going.

  “It did.” Hailey rolled his sleeves back down. “Eva, I feel indebted to you for rescuing me from the Bijou . . . among other things. But I can’t just sit out here and wait to be eaten by another monster in this forest. I have to go.” He donned his faded flight cap, then pulled several packets of nutriment pellets from his pocket.

  Eva’s pulse quickened. “So you’re going to just leave me again, is that it?”

  Hailey placed a couple of the packets in Eva’s hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back. I need to contact Vanpa. I need to know if he’s okay and what’s going on with the invasion. I’m worried that the aliens will retaliate. I’m sure he’s worried too.” Hailey squeezed a button on his jacket, and it zipped itself up. “And I’d bet that Rovender is probably worried about you.”

  Eva watched Hailey shake the pellets from one of his packets into his dirty palm. “Don’t go. Those ghost sand-snipers . . . you know, the ones that were tearing apart the Bijou? They are still out there.”

  “Okay, fine.” Hailey crunched a mouthful of nutriment pellets. “Then come with me.”

  Eva shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “I don’t understand what is wrong with you!” Hailey threw up his hands in exasperation. “Let’s just go and get the Omnipod.”

  The grease and oil that usually smudged Hailey’s face had been replaced with dirt and ash. Out from the shadowy confines of his ship, his eyes appeared more hazel than umber.

  Eva looked away from him. “You don’t get it!” She balled her hands into fists. “I failed! I couldn’t help Arius. I couldn’t get Hostia her home back. I couldn’t stop Loroc or Cadmus. I . . . I failed.” Eva blinked back the tears from her eyes. She didn’t want Hailey to see her cry.

  “So you failed,” he said. “So what? Big deal. Do you know how many times I tried to fix the Bijou before it could—”

  “I’m not a ship! You can’t just fix me.”

  “Fine, Eva! But what I need to do is figure out a way to get us out of this mess and somewhere safe. That’s why I am going back to the Bijou to get that Omnipod. So, are you coming with me or not?”

  Eva shook her head and turned away.

  “Great!” Hailey grumbled. “I’ll be back later.” He trudged off into the forest.

  “Great! Go!” Eva shoved the nutriment packets into her pocket. She crawled back up into the bough of the wandering tree to sulk.

  The base of the large leaves formed a basin which held a clear puddle of water. Eva scooted down and cupped the water in her hands. Before washing her face, she looked down at her reflection in the water. Old words came to her mind. Leadership is not inherited. It is earned through action. You are a leader, Eva Nine. A hero.

  “I’m no hero,” she said to her reflection, and splashed the water.

  From above came the familiar call of an air-whale. Far in the distance the call was answered from others in the vicinity floating high over the forest. Soon a melancholy chorus rang out in the skies. Though haunting, it somehow reassured Eva.

  “They are happier when they are together. They are safe. They are strong,” Eva whispered. Overhead the mighty whales soared over the treetops, temporarily blocking the dim rays of the morning sun. Several young whales called out as they floated past. She listened to their song: Together. Safe. Strong.

  Eva finished washing up. She ascended to the topmost bough of the wandering tree. Over the forest the air-whales continued their morning flight. Let’s go get him, she thought to the tree. On its many prehensile roots, the wandering tree lurched forward and shuffled off after Hailey.

  Eva found him resting at the edge of the Wandering Forest.

  He looked up and grinned. “She arrives. And in her personal forest gondola.”

  She returned the smile. “I figure someone needs to protect you.” Eva climbed down from her perch in the tree. Her sneakboots crunched on the gravelly ground as she approached Hailey. “It might as well be this reboot.”

  “Sounds like a good deal to me.” He offered Eva his water container.

  Eva took a sip. “Hailey, I can trust you, right?”

  “Come on, Eva, after what we’ve been through?” Hailey plucked the water container from Eva’s hands. He hopped up onto one of the lower boughs of the tree. “You’re not gonna bring up that bum deal with Cadmus again, are you? I told you I didn’t know what he was up to.”

  “No. I know.” Eva’s voice was low. She walked over and leaned on the tree’s trunk, next to Hailey. “I want you to know why I can’t return to Faunas to be with Rovee and why it may be dangerous for you to return to your camp.”

  Hailey’s grin disappeared. “Go on.”

  “After the humans invade Solas, Loroc is going to somehow trick Cadmus . . . then kill him.”

  A look of alarm grew on Hailey’s face. “The alien adviser guy is gonna kill Cadmus? Why?”

  Eva shrugged her shoulders.

  “How do you know?”

  Eva picked at her fingernails. “He told me . . . right before he tried to kill me.”

  Hailey pulled off his flight cap and ran his fingers over his fuzzy head. “He told you? And you are the only one who knows?”

  Eva nodded. “I think so.”

  Hailey said nothing. It was clear he was trying to put all the pieces into place.

  Eva continued. “After we fled from the Bijou’s life capsule, Cadmus sent a warbot to track us down. It nearly killed us all.” She stifled a shudder. The conjured vision of Eva Eight’s body convulsing from electrified SHOCdarts would not leave.

  “I remember seeing those warbots loading up in the hangar,” said Hailey. “They looked like bad news.”

  “When I got to Lacus, Cadmus’s warbots had already invaded.” Eva turned and gaze
d out at the barren salt flats, her mind heavy with dark memories. “They destroyed the village. They tore apart the homes—the lives—of the Halcyonus that lived there. The warbots didn’t care if the villagers got in the way. They just swept them aside.”

  Hailey stood next to Eva. “I’m sorry.”

  Eva kept her gaze on the horizon. “There are warbots in the forest right now. I can feel the fear they’re causing the plants and animals. These warbots are searching for something.”

  “You?”

  “Yes, me.”

  Though the facts were bleak, Eva somehow felt better sharing everything she knew with Hailey. It was as if a heavy burden had been lifted from her spirit.

  Hailey put his arm around Eva. “Well, then, that’s all the more reason for us to leave. Loroc can’t find you if you’re not here.”

  The mention of Loroc’s name brought forth his parting words to Eva: I do not fall by your hand. You, however, shall fall by mine.

  “He’ll find me.” Eva turned back toward the wandering tree. “It’s just a matter of time.” She hoisted herself up onto a branch and offered a hand to help Hailey. Both climbed up to the topmost bough, and the tree began moving.

  As the wind tousled her hair, Eva watched the forest give way to a flat barren plain. Somewhere in the distance lay the wreckage of the Bijou.

  CHAPTER 4: CONTROL

  The turnfin perched on Eva’s shoulder gobbled down the last few nutriment pellets from the palm of her hand.

  “You better stop feeding your breakfast to these birds.” Hailey smirked. “I don’t have a whole lot of pellets, and I don’t know how many we’ll find back at the ship.”

  Eva kept her focus on the bird. “I’ll be all right.”

  “What do you want with a bird anyway?” Hailey leaned over to get a closer look.

  “I’m asking for a favor.” Eva stroked the turnfin’s sleek plumage. It gave a low cluck and then took flight. Eva and Hailey shielded their eyes from the sun to watch. The turnfin flapped its triple pair of wings to join the flock of other birds circling high above the tree. After several aerobatic loops the lone turnfin broke away from the others. It began winging west toward the Wandering Forest.

  “He’s going to check on Rovender,” Eva said, keeping an eye on the bird as it soared over the treetops.

  “That’s amazing.”

  Eva turned to him. “What?”

  “How you can now understand animals and trees and stuff.” A smile curled at the corner of Hailey’s mouth. “You are better than an Omnipod.” He kept his gaze on the diminishing silhouette of the turnfin. “Do you hear every bird and animal all the time?” He leaned close to her.

  “Not if I don’t want to.” Eva pulled out the strands of hair that had blown into the corners of her mouth. She separated several more pieces and began to braid them together. “It’s like everything alive gives off a kind of frequency, a pulse, that I can feel.”

  “I get it. Like an electric current,” Hailey said.

  Eva unzipped a pocket in her coveralls and pulled out a handful of dried seedpods that she’d collected from the forest. She began braiding these pods into her hair. “If I shut off everything—you know, like what I’m actually seeing and hearing—then I can link to that frequency and understand it. It was hard at first. I couldn’t really control it.”

  “But now you can?”

  “Now I can.” Eva remembered her attempts to communicate with the deadly sand-snipers . . . and how badly that could have ended.

  “I know what you mean. It’s sort of like when I’m flying.” Hailey gestured to his ears. “If I turn my music up really loud, I just feel more attuned to the controls of the ship. I’m not as distracted by my own thoughts, you know?”

  Eva smiled. She doubted that was anything like her abilities, but at least Hailey was trying . . . and was less annoying.

  Hailey gazed up to the sky in a wistful way. “Boy, I do miss that ship.”

  “I’m sorry. She was a good ship.”

  “In some ways I’m glad you rescued me in the dark of night. I couldn’t see how bad the damage was,” Hailey said. “But I guess I’ll be seeing it anyways.”

  The wandering tree creaked and came to a stop. Eva looked down and saw that they were at the edge of a shallow lake.

  Hailey appeared alarmed. “What’s going on?”

  “Don’t worry. The tree just needs a water break.” Eva stood and stretched. She scanned the horizon and saw that they were surrounded by flat plain. There is no place to hide should we be discovered, she thought, and climbed down from her perch to the shore below.

  Hailey followed her. “So we just wait here?”

  Eva sat on the ground and pulled off her sneakboots. She got up, walked to the shore, and dipped her toes into the water. It was shallow enough that the sun had warmed it, like a bath. She closed her eyes. Like the tree submerging its roots, she could feel her body rejuvenate from the water. She listened to the vibration—the energy—of the lake. Within it Eva could feel the movement of many fish and crustaceans. She remembered the gigantic aquatic plant that had nearly killed Rovender, but there was nothing like that present. On the far shore she sensed two tall animals—possibly Cærulean munt-runners—drinking. Eva could barely make out their birdlike bipedal shapes. They appeared unaccompanied. She attempted communication with them but received no response. Something scuttled across Eva’s toes, breaking her link to the munt-runners. A sandy-patterned spiderfish, about the size of her hand, crawled on elongate fingerlike fins through the shallows.

  “Hello there,” Eva whispered to the fish. She knelt down slowly and steadily, like the movement of a wandering tree. The spiderfish remained in place. Eva dipped her fingers into the water and stroked its smooth sides. She could sense the animal’s thoughts.

  It moves. I grab. I eat. It moves. I grab. I eat.

  Eva watched the fish dart after a crab. She waded after it. Like the fish, she felt pangs in her stomach. For the first time since she’d escaped from Lacus, Eva was hungry.

  Hailey called from the shore. “Hey, what’re you doing?”

  “Trying to get lunch.” She kept her focus on the fish.

  Hailey produced several packets of nutriment pellets from his jacket pocket. “I’ve got you covered. What flavor do you want?”

  “I can’t stand the taste of those pellets. They’re just chemicals.” Eva knelt back down in the water. “But I am starving.” She stood. In her hands she gripped the wriggling spiderfish. “Want some?”

  “Uh, really?” Hailey popped a handful of pellets into his mouth.

  “Yes. Really.” Eva brought the fish to shore and set it down at his feet.

  Hailey grimaced at the peculiar spiderfish gasping for air. “So is it going to be tough for you to eat something you can now talk to?”

  Eva wiped her hands on the knees of her coveralls. “To quote Rovender, ‘Its energy and spirit will replenish mine. I respect this, and I shall enjoy my meal,’ ” she said.

  “Better enjoy your meal before it crawls away.” Hailey pointed. The spiderfish was scurrying back to the water.

  Eva chased the fish down and retrieved it. “Do you have some sort of cutting device?”

  “I’ve got a small laser-cutter used for splitting electrical wires.” Hailey pulled the tool from his pocket. “It even has a penlight in the handle.”

  “That works,” she said, and took the laser-cutter.

  “I’ve eaten some strange stuff in the outlands where we live,” Hailey said, “but I never thought I’d eat raw spiderfish.” They were seated in a low perch on the wandering tree, shaded from the warm afternoon sun. “I haven’t been this full in a long time . . . though, it is weird to think that we just ate a dead animal.”

  “My sister felt the same way,” Eva said. She watched the lake disappear on the horizon as the tree shuffled onward. She had hoped to see the pair of munt-runners, but they had moved on.

  “Eva Eight?” Hailey yanked off
his sneakboots and kicked his feet up onto the edge of the large hardened leaves. “You haven’t mentioned her since we’ve been out here. Did she not make it?”

  “She . . . decided to stay behind.” Eva looked west toward the green line of the forest. At least her sister was deep in the Heart of the Wandering Forest, safe from Cadmus’s warbots.

  “Oh.” Hailey seemed puzzled by Eva’s vague answer. “So she’s okay?”

  “I think she’s found a good place to be.”

  Hailey folded his arms behind his head and leaned back against the trunk of the tree. “I know she was real worried about you.”

  Eva looked over at him.

  “She told me when we were escaping in the Bijou.” Hailey slid his flight cap over his eyes, ready to nap. “She said you were all she cared about in the world.”

  “I . . . I care about her too.”

  Hailey chuckled from under his cap. “You don’t sound too convinced.”

  “She wanted to move back into our old home and live as if the world hadn’t changed, and that just wasn’t going to happen,” Eva said in a flat tone.

  “I don’t blame you,” said Hailey. “I was just asking.”

  Eva scooted next to him. From around her neck she pulled out a locket—a small clear vial—that had been a gift from the Cærulean shaman, Soth. Inside was soil from Soth’s home planet and, even more special, an orchidlike bloom given to Eva from her sister after Eva Eight had been transformed into a human-tree.

  Thinking back, the encounter seemed like the stuff of nightmares. But Eva knew it had happened. She blurted out, “Remember the Vitae Virus generator?”

  “That device that rebooted the planet? You guys were talking about that on the ship.” Hailey kept the cap over his eyes.

  “Well, I knew where it was. Eight became crazy—obsessed—with finding it before Cadmus. She forced me, at gunpoint, to take her to the generator in the Heart of the forest.”

  “And you did it?” Hailey lifted up the bill of his cap to look at Eva.

  “I did it.” Eva rubbed her hands over her sides, where she’d once had broken ribs.