SIMON & SCHUSTER

presents

Within

the pages of this book you will find a hidden feature: a three-dimensional interactive map allowing you to follow the sights and sounds of Eva Nine’s journey, brought to life through the wonders of WONDLA-VISION (also known as Augmented Reality).

The illustrations on pages 123, 277, and 433 are the keys to unlock this hidden feature. Just visit WondLa.com for directions. You’ll need a computer with Internet access and a webcam to get started.

If you do not have access to a webcam, you can see noninteractive maps and a video at

WONDLA.COM

Epigraph

If you want your children
to be intelligent,
READ THEM FAIRY TALES.
If you want them to be
more intelligent,
READ THEM MORE FAIRY TALES.

—Albert Einstein

PART I

CHAPTER 1: ALONE

Eva Nine was dying. The tiny scarlet dots on her hand mirrored the glowering eyes of the snake that had just bitten her.

Sitting down on the prickly ground of dead brown pine needles and small cones, she felt the curdled coil of nausea wind its way up her throat from her stomach.

She dropped the sweaty handful of moss that she had scooped up from the forest floor.

“Kindling,” her Omnipod had instructed her earlier in its chirpy voice. “Find a flammable substance such as dry twigs or moss to begin your fire.” The large gathering of boulders Eva had found had seemed like the perfect place to make a shelter for the night, and the surrounding area was blanketed in ashen puff-patches of reindeer moss. As she had knelt down to gather a clump, Eva had realized there was a rust-colored, mottled snake just next to her, sunning itself in the fading light. She’d realized too late, though, to avoid its bite.

Now, with trembling hands, she fumbled through her dingy satchel to retrieve her Omnipod. The handheld metallic device was flat, like a magnifying glass, with a small circular hole in the middle of it that resembled an eye. Eva’s heart pounded, as if trying to escape her chest. She swallowed, interrupting the hectic meter of her breathing. The shoulder patch on her tunic blinked off and on in warning.

“This is Eva Nine,” she whispered into the Omnipod. “Initiate I-M . . . um, I-M . . .”

Eva closed her eyes and concentrated. She put the device to her forehead, as if the Omnipod would whisper to her brain the command she needed.

“Greetings, Eva Nine. How can I be of service?” the device chirped.

“I . . . um . . .” Her hands shook. “I need you to initiate Independent Medical—”

“Do you mean Individual Medical Assistance? IMA for short?” the Omnipod corrected her.

“Yes,” she answered, licking her dry lips and trying to hold her insides in.

“Is this an emergency?”

“Yes! I need help right away!” Eva yelled at the Omnipod.

“What is the nature of your emergency?”

“S-snake bite,” Eva said with a gulp. The nausea lurked just under her tongue, ready to leap out.

“Hold, please. Initiating Identicapture.” Eva watched as three tiny lights on the Omnipod flickered in a rhythm around its central eye. “Begin Identicapture of said snake. We need to determine if it is a poisonous species or not.”

Through glassy eyes Eva scanned her immediate area; she could no longer focus on the terrain around her, let alone find a snake disguised as the forest floor. Her eyes rolled up into her head. Her breathing slowed. She let the Omnipod slip from her fingers.

Eva fell back, like a slain giant collapsing in a miniature forest of moss. She looked up at the fading light of the cobalt blue sky. Her Omnipod lay alongside her as it repeated, “Please begin Identicapture.”

All Eva could whisper was, “Dead. I’m totally dead.”

A voice from the heavens echoed through the landscape. It was a kind and graceful voice, like the sort she’d heard coming from a beautiful woman in an old movie.

“Eva. Eva, dear, please get up,” the voice said. Just like in an old moving picture, Eva could also hear the slightest bit of static hidden in the dulcet intonation.

The pine trees seemed to whisper the girl’s name as the cool of evening blew in. Somewhere in the distance a whip-poor-will beckoned the night. Eva cracked open her pale green eyes into little slits.

“Eva Nine,” urged the voice, “get up.”

The girl rolled onto her side. Lying on the forest floor, she examined the tuft of moss in her hand. She saw that the delicate network of stalks really did make it look like a shrunken tree, albeit a washed-out lifeless one. How does such an insignificant plant survive in a big world? she wondered. What is its purpose? What is my purpose?

“Eva, please—”

“I’m dead,” Eva announced to the sky. “Or couldn’t you tell? I’m gone. Deceased. No more. Deeeaaaaad!”

She turned her attention back to the little moss tree and pouted. “It’s not like you have to worry about that,” she muttered.

The clump of moss in her hands vanished, dissipating into a cloud of light motes. Eva curled up into a ball, shutting her eyes as the world around her also evaporated into nothingness. Emptiness.

The voice was right next to her now. “Eva, what happened?”

“Leave me alone,” the ball replied.

“You were not paying attention,” the voice said with a sigh. “You had a ninety-eight percent chance of discovering the snake, had you done a simple LifeScan sweep. It was right there in plain view.”

Still curled in a ball, Eva said nothing.

“Of course, I have to mark you as a failure on this particular survival skill test. We shall try it again tomorrow. All right?” said the voice.

A warm hand brushed Eva’s half-braided dirty-blond hair. At last Eva stood up.

Two dark orbs, emitting an amber glow from deep within, reflected Eva’s own face in a distorted fashion, like a fish in a fishbowl. Large automated eyelids clicked open and closed in a lifelike manner. Several other eyes, small and unblinking, studied the girl, recording endless data and sending it to a computerized brain. A brain that was contained in two metallic canisters mounted on the back of a head—the front of which displayed a mechanized silicone-rubber face.

“What is going on with you, Eva?” the automated lips mimed. “This test should have been effortless for you to pass. Is everything all right?”

One of the robot’s telescoping arms extended from a carousel of several additional arms folded up around the cylindrical torso. Four wiry fingers, also tipped in silicone rubber, rubbed Eva’s shoulders in a reassuring fashion.

“How is your concentration?” the robot asked. “I noted that you did not rest a full ten hours last night, which indicates that you may not have achieved enough REM sleep. That can have quite an effect on your performance.”

“Not now, Muthr.” Eva shrugged the robot off. “I need to be alone.”

She crossed the wide squarish white room and headed for the low doorway. Buff-colored rubbery floor tiles absorbed the sound of her plodding footsteps. Though the chamber was only dimly lit, there was still enough light coming from the holo-projectors mounted around the ceiling to show that the room itself was empty of anything . . . except for the human girl and the pale blue robot.

Eva sulked as she shuffled into the main hub of her living quarters. When the large doors to the holography chamber slid shut behind her, a pastoral scene was projected onto them in vivid detail. Cottony clouds drifted aimlessly across a brilliant azure sky over distant lavender mountains. This gave the effect that the entire hub was like a grand outdoor gazebo, displaying a magnificent vista in the round—though one projection was not working properly and flickered into a corresponding nighttime scene, ruining the illusion.

“Welcome back, Eva Nine.” The intercom spoke in a relaxed tone. Its words reverberated throughout the octagonal chamber. “How may I help you?” Water trickled in a distant stream, and songbirds sang, filling the vestibule with ambient sounds coinciding with the scenery.

“Hi. Please open bedroom doors, Sanctuary,” Eva said, stomping across the hub toward the far window. Projected on it was a spectacular view of a misty waterfall cascading down from a colossal mountaintop. The cast image crackled when the girl passed through it, as through a holographic curtain, into the open doors of her dimly lit bedroom.

“Close doors, please.” Eva flung her jackvest onto her medi-seat. She sat down on the edge of her foam bed and kicked off her sneakboots. As she flopped back onto the oval mattress, Eva stared up at the myriad of pipes and exhaust shafts that wound through her white ceiling. There were water stains on the corner ceiling tiles of the small room, like large ochre flowers blooming from the pipes. One of the overhead lights flickered in an annoying, erratic tempo.

With her hands behind her head, Eva rubbed the raised round mole on the nape of her neck. The warmth of her electric bed permeated through her tunic in a comfy sort of way. Her eyelids drooped, and she had begun to doze off when her bedroom doors slid back open.

“Eva, you forgot your equipment satchel and Omnipod back in the holo-chamber,” Muthr said, rolling into her room balanced on a single tread-worn wheel. “Honestly, dear, how can you expect to pass your training if you do not take care of your things?”

“Muthr!” Eva continued staring up at the stained ceiling, refusing to look Muthr in the eye. “Just leave it. I’ll put it away later.”

The robot picked Eva’s dingy jackvest up from the chair. The discarded garment had been perfectly hidden among the stuffed toys, dirty clothes, and electra-papers that were strewn about the room. “Put it away as you have done with the rest of your belongings? I sometimes wonder—”

“Please, Muthr, I just want to be alone for a while,” Eva barked at the ceiling.

Muthr hung the jackvest on the empty row of coat hooks lining the wall. “Dinner is at eighteen hundred hours. Please be timely, Eva,” Muthr said. After Muthr rolled out of the room, the doors slid shut behind her. Eva reached under her head and grabbed her pillow. As she squeezed it over her face, she screamed.

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 Story Continues on BooksBarbecue!

Enjoyed this preview? ❤️ Do not stop here!

Read the complete book free online → 🔗

Continue reading now on BooksBarbecue and discover every page!

Love reading? Bookmark BooksBarbecue.com for more amazing books!

Happy Reading!