“Now is when it matters most, Eva Nine,” Rovender replied as he released his grip. “Honor yourself.” She saw the tattered friendship bracelet tied around his wrist.

Eva rose, staring at the fire as it finished eating all the effects of her past life . . . of Rovender’s past life. Soon these ashes would be indiscernible from the black desert sands that surrounded them. She dropped the WondLa to the ground and grabbed her jackvest.

“Where are you off to?” Rovender stood. “It’s past midnight.”

Eva slipped on her jackvest and lit a lantern. “I’m going to finish what I’ve started.”

One of the stone lions was buried under the enormous mound of excavated sand that Otto had dug. As Eva’s sneakboots crunched over the fine grains of sand, she looked up at the now cloudless sapphire sky. The celestial Rings of Orbona glowed like wide ribbons stretched across the heavens. She stopped at the entrance to the tunnel leading down. With her lantern raised over her head for a better view, Eva shuddered, realizing it barely illuminated the darkness around her. Another lantern light bobbed up from behind.

“You didn’t think I’d let you do this on your own, did you?” Rovender said, catching up to Eva on his backward-bending legs. “Are you ready?”

“I’m ready.” Eva looked at him in the golden flickering light. “I need to know the answer to the puzzle.”

He smiled a toothy grin. “I know, Eva Nine. That’s one of the things I like about you.” As Muthr had done, he reached out his hand, and Eva placed hers in it. They ventured into the giant tunnel.

The enormous shaft went straight down for only a short length, then turned, becoming a more gradual angle down. It wound into the dank, cold ground, eventually leveling out into a subterranean walkway.

“Oeeah! Quite a digger, that Otto is!” Rovender observed the tunnel walls with his lantern, now hooked on the end of his walking stick. “Look at all of this.”

Eva knelt down. The earth below her was hard and firm. She brushed the sand away with her hands and discovered numerous little cobbles set in a perfect pattern. She looked up at the earthen walls and roof. “That looks like the Goldfish, doesn’t it?”

Rovender added his light to hers. The face of a hovercar peeked out from the sand-packed walls above them. Its empty headlight sockets watched the two as they passed below. They continued down the tunnel path, where Eva recognized numerous items that silently greeted them from their resting places: traffic signs, more hovercars, and even the corroded remains of another robot. Up ahead, a darkened arched portal closed off the end of the tunnel.