“Yes.” Rovender inspected the door’s manual keypad. “A riddle that you may solve. Now, you can solve this puzzle in a variety of ways. You can solve it with power, like Besteel did, and force this door to open.” Rovender pointed to the scorch marks that pocked the door. He continued, “You can solve it by asking nicely, which you have already done, and received no results.” He approached Eva. “Or you can solve it by answering the query.”

“The authorization code? But I don’t know that,” Eva whined.

“So who would?” Rovender asked.

“Muthr would, but she would never—” Eva paused, a thought flitting through her mind. She recalled the inscription that had been scrawled into her dresser drawer . . . the one that had allowed her access to the Sanctuary’s secrets.

“Sanctuary,” Eva said, standing. “This is C-P-zero-one.”

The Sanctuary was silent for a moment. Won’t it know it’s just me? Eva wondered.

She picked at the scab on her thumb with her finger.

“C-P-zero-one,” the Sanctuary responded. “Access password, please.”

Eva looked over at Rovender. She then glanced up to the unseen camera mounted in the ceiling. “Omniscient,” she said.

“How may I be of service, Cadmus zero-one?” the Sanctuary asked.

Rovender looked at Eva. “Who is Cadmus?”

Eva shrugged her shoulders. “Open control room door and allow Eva Nine and Rovender Kitt access into main hub, please,” Eva commanded.

With a low grinding sound the door unlocked. It opened only halfway, clearly damaged from Besteel’s siege.

Before she could enter, Rovender put a hand on Eva’s shoulder. He said, “The real question one should ask when presented with a puzzle is, ‘Should I solve it? Do I really need to know the answer?’”

“I do. I need to know the answer,” Eva said, and stepped into the burnt remnants of her home.

CHAPTER 14: ASHES

She had seen the images, and she knew the place was wrecked. But when Eva Nine stepped out into the main hub of her Sanctuary—her home of twelve years—she went numb. The main hub was now dark, no longer illuminated by the hologram vistas of beautiful landscapes. The holo-projector that had created the vistas now dangled from the ceiling by wires as it spurted sparks like a severed artery.

Most of the doors, usually hidden behind holograms of mountains and skies, were torched and pried apart. The greenhouse door opened and closed, banging into a watering can lying in the entryway.

The electronic sounds of birds singing and rivers running were now replaced with the angry hiss of cracked thermal pipes and fractured, bleeding water ventilation ducts.

“It is unfortunate that all of this is destroyed,” Rovender said, picking up a fork from the debris. “So much can be garnered by simply asking for an invitation.”