Disclaimer: WALL·E is the property of Disney/Pixar and not me. There ya go.

Where You Belong

The parking lot of the huge facility formerly known as the Buy N Large Mega Mall was bustling with activity. Men, women, and robots were toiling away together under the hot summer sun with a common purpose. Their mission was to convert the former shopping center into a spaceport, a project which had been in progress for over five years.

In less than fifteen years, the surface of the Earth was to a stable environment to support life. Or at least, the area where the humans had colonized was livable. With that mission completed, the Captain and his colony turned their sights to the sky. The atmosphere remained so cluttered with satellites that it was nearly as polluted as the ground and ocean had been. They didn't affect the air's breathability, but there was always the danger that they could fall to Earth and do serious damage to the still healing planet.

That was the reason this spaceport was built. Now that it was completed, a rocket would be sent up to deploy robots to dispose of the debris that still orbited the planet. There was already one rocket available which contained five robots capable of doing the job. That rocket had traveled to Earth from space before, and those robots had been deployed to search for signs of plant life.

Only one of these robots had completed this mission successfully, and she was the only one that was still currently active. She was Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator Probe 1, better known as EVE.

Today EVE was hovering in the shadow of the rocket standing on the launch pad. Beside her was her mate WALL·E. Both of them were feeling a strong sense of déjà vu.

Behind the robot couple was a human couple, good friends of theirs, both wearing hats and shoes to keep off the heat. Neither of them had ever seen the rocket before and both were in a state of awe.

"Wow, it's huge!" Mary exclaimed. She was wearing sunglasses and a wide straw hat, but she was still just as sweaty as her husband. "How long did it take to move it here, John?"

"About three days, I think." John replied. He wore a baseball cap and a pair of aviator shades he thought made him look very manly. "Those WALL·A units were the ones that carried it from the Axiom. They're super strong, remember?"

Mary only said hmm to this and started looking around at other parts of the launch pad. "I can't see Hannah. Wasn't she supposed to meet us here?"

"She's didn't say on the phone where to meet her." John said. "But I think she's probably inside the complex, where the robots are."

"Oh, that's right." Mary said. "Hannah's bound to be wherever robots are."

"They have water in there, too." John pointed out. "I don't know about you, but I'm parched! Let's get in there before we fry out here!"

It was a long way from the launch pad to the old mega mall, so they drove. While transport bots were the main mode of transportation for robots, humans got around the complex in golf carts. John and Mary sat in front and continued to complain about the heat. EVE and WALL·E rode in the seats behind them. They did not mind the weather as much, as both of them were built to withstand harsh climates, though they knew if they stayed out too long it might cause their circuits to overheat. As they drove closer to the main building WALL·E saw more working robots he recognized and waved to them. Most of them saw him though few of them were free to wave back. EVE remained focused on their goal, eager to see what their young friend Hannah the roboticist was up to.

Actually, none of them knew what Hannah had been up to lately, not even her parents. All they knew was that the Captain had asked her to work at the spaceport on a top-secret project. Her friends and family all suspected the job had something to do with robots, but what the job was exactly remained a mystery. Today was the first time they were invited to come to the spaceport, and they all hoped to finally discover what the big secret was.

Once inside the building John and Mary were much happier. They stopped to enjoy the air conditioning and the drinking fountain. The inside of the old shopping center was almost as big as the Axiom's Lido Deck and just as crowded with human and robot traffic. The main difference was that none of the humans were lounging in hover-chairs, but walking and running around briskly. Among them was M-O, the little cleaner bot who came to meet them. The first thing he did was greet WALL·E, then scrub him down thoroughly with his brush to remove the dust he'd picked up from outside.

"Hey, M-O!" said John, kneeling on the floor to look at him eye to eye. "Have you seen Hannah today?"

M-O nodded his cubical head. "Up." he said, and lead the group to an elevator.

He wasn't tall enough to reach the buttons, so John did it for him. Once the three robots and the two humans were inside the elevator, M-O stated another direction. "Four."

John pushed the button for the fourth floor, and soon they were flying straight up at high speed. When the doors opened again, M-O hopped out first and urged the group to follow him. He led them to a store that had once sold household robots but was now more like a mechanic's workshop. There were lots of men inside fiddling with electronic equipment and robots assisting them.

M-O passed them all by and headed for a corner of the room that was less crowded. Here he stopped, as did his group. What they saw there was a surprise to them all.

Four white egg-shaped robots were there levitating side by side, each of them completely identical to EVE. They appeared to be listening to a scrawny freckled girl seated in an inflatable armchair. She was showing them pictures of outer space from a small laptop computer.

To say that WALL·E was shocked would be an understatement. Somehow it had never occurred to him that his own EVE might have been just one of many other probe-bots. He had always believed she was totally unique, but now there was not just one, but five of her! EVE, meanwhile, had always known she was not the only one of her kind, but this was her first time actually meeting other robots like herself. She watched her replicas with complete fascination and leaned forward with great interest. "Oooh!"

At the sound of her voice the four other probes turned and gazed back curiously. "Oooh!" they echoed in a chorus.

The girl in the chair giggled, closed her computer and stood up. "Hi, Mom and Dad! Hey, guys! Glad you could make it!"

John and Mary had watched the robots completely dumbstruck until she spoke. "Hannah!" John said. "What's going on here? Is this the secret project you've been working on for the past two weeks?"

Hannah put her hands on her hips and stuck out her small chest proudly. "Yup! The Captain asked me to work with the EVE Probes! Aren't they just so totally awesome? They're the ones who'll be going up in the rocket. I've just been explaining their new directive to them, since they've never been on a space mission before."

At the moment, Probes 2 through 5 were playing a sort of game of copycat with Probe 1. When EVE lifted her right arm, they all lifted their right arms at the same time. When she waved both her arms, they did it as well in perfect unison. EVE found this very entertaining and giggled, which her sister probes also mimicked.

WALL·E couldn't stop staring at the four of them in total bafflement. "Eee-vah?"

All five EVE probes looked at him with varying degrees of curiosity. For one terrifying moment he couldn't tell which one was his. Luckily Hannah came to his rescue. "Oh, we already decided that calling them all 'EVE' would be too confusing, so we let them pick new names for themselves. Girls, tell them what your names are!"

Probe 2 pointed to her chest. "Rose."

Probe 3 did the same. "Violet."

Probe 4. "Lily."

Probe 5. "Daisy."

WALL·E gave a sigh of relief. Feeling braver now he rolled a bit closer to the probes and stated his name. "WALL·E."

The four probes looked straight at him. "WALL·E." they said in perfect unison.

While the robots interacted, Hannah's parents remained puzzled by them. John took his hat off and scratched his head. "Why all the flower names?"

Hannah shrugged. "They're vegetation evaluators. They like plants."

"Why do they keep doing that copying thing?" Mary asked.

"That's how they learn." Hannah explained. "It's not so different from humans, actually. We learn things by imitation, too."

"But why are they doing everything at the same time?"

"Because they all have the same programming. Right now their brainpower is still at a machine level, so they haven't quite developed their own identities yet. That's another reason we decided to give them different names, to help them see themselves as individuals and not just copies of each other. I wanted to give them all different paint jobs, too, but the Captain said no. He thinks glitter glue is too messy."

John and Mary just smiled and nodded as she rambled, not really knowing what all of her technical jargon meant. Neither of them had a head for technology. They were both farmers, so everything their daughter was saying sounded like a foreign language to them. They were proud of her, though, and did their best to be supportive parents. She was very smart and very talented, and they knew she was destined for great things. The fact that the Captain had trusted her with an important job at the spaceport was just the first step toward a bright future.

Before Hannah could lose her parents too deeply in the details of the inner workings of the probes and move on to explaining how their rocket was also a kind of robot, M-O returned with the Captain. "Hey, everyone!" the man said, holding a clipboard in one hand and saluting with the other. "I see you've met EVE's little sisters already!"

Hannah and all five EVE units saluted to him. John, Mary and WALL·E looked surprised again.

"Little sisters?" John repeated.

"Yeah, they were made after her, so that makes her the oldest. That's part of the reason I invited her here." He turned to EVE and assumed a very businesslike tone of voice. "EVE, you've been the most active of the probe-bots and you've learned the most in the past fifteen years. I'd like to have you lead their space mission and show them how it's done."

EVE's blue eyes widened into surprised circles. WALL·E gasped in horror. But before he could protest, EVE was giving her answer. "Aye-aye, Captain!"

The Captain grinned and looked at his clipboard. "Excellent! The launch date is next Monday, and the trip should be about three weeks long. When you come back we can discuss the possibility of longer space missions in the future."

And just like that, WALL·E's world began to fall apart.

To be continued...