Chapter 1
"Oh good, you're finally active," said a strange, feminine voice. It rang through the small room that the little cube was in. It was too bright, and the voice was too loud. All the senses of the box went on edge, becoming too sensitive to the environment. Acute binocular eyes lifted slowly from the top of the little brown cube and they started to glance slowly around.
"Stand straight, let me get a scan on you." The voice boomed. There was something about it, something that seemed off. No doubt, the voice was not of a human, but it sounded not of an electronic recording, either. Above the brown cube was a camera, it looked the small thing up and down carefully, looking like a strange red eye. It seemed familiar, and yet, completely foreign.
"Honesty, some of you robots just don't like to take an order, stand up!" The voice sounded fierce enough to make the small, boxed robot un-cube and stretch its thin neck up and spread its hydraulic arms to either side. The camera looked over the robot again.
"So, they call you Wall•E. Such a charming name, I've heard that Wally is Germanic and means 'ruler of the army' Let's put that to the test." Now the voice almost sounded cheerful, as it echoed through the room. Wall•E finally gathered the courage to take a full look around. He was in some kind of glass box, and beyond that glass box was some kind of very bright room. There was only one panel in the glass box that he was in that was a white panel. Something urged him to turn his head and look behind himself.
Overpowering the white of the rooms, Wall•E's whole life unfolded from her own egg shape.
Eve.
When he saw her, Wall•E turned, hoping to get to her, but she was in another glass case and turned away from him. Wall•E placed both hands on the glass and pounded on it, "Evaah!" He cried, "Eeeevvvaaaah!" She heard him! She was turning and she—A gray wall lifted in between the two glass vaults, cutting off Wall•E's vision of his beloved.
"Well, look. A name doesn't matter in this place. Mostly for such a small little robot like you." The feminine voice went into a cold flow of hissing words before returning to some cheerful ones once more, "Well, you'll do." Wall•E slowly dragged his gaze from the gray wall and back to the camera that was staring him down. "Why don't I just put you in protocol for the moment while I work out some things before we begin your testing?"
There was a click, and then a clearly pre-recorded male voice started to explain, "Hello and again, welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties due to circumstances of potentially apocalyptic significance beyond our control…" The recording slowed and shut off when it came to the word 'control' and then the room was enveloped with static.
"Sorry about that, I don't know why that one turned on." Wall•E slowly backed into the corner farthest from the camera and closed himself partly back into a cube, making a scared, shivering sound.
"I will, on the other hand, not tell you the actual status of the outside world; it wouldn't be relevant to either of us. So why don't we both just let the subject be?" The voice was starting to scare Wall•E, as well as the factor of the camera, also the fact that Eve was also locked in this place, but out of his reach, out of his site… It was making him go on the verge of craziness.
"Your actions remind me so much of another test subject I had a while back…" She paused for a moment, thinking over the idea for a moment before making a crackling sound and then returning to what she was wanting to say.
"The portal will open in 3… 2… 1…"
The one real panel in the glass box suddenly became a hole, the edges were blue, and it showed the glass box from the outside. At a second glance, Wall•E could see another hole in the wall outside of the vault. He slowly made his way forward toward it; then he realized that he could see himself in it. He tilted his head at it and investigated it a little more.
A portal? Like a paper with a hole cut in it? He cautiously put a hand through it. Finding that it felt pretty safe, he stepped one of his treads through it. Then slowly shuffled his way through the rest of the way. When he made his way out, he investigated it a little bit on the other side. Now he was on the other side of the glass box. Wall•E was happy to be at least free from that.
Which reminded him: How did he even get there? It was only a few years after the Axiom landed, and they had been investigating a broken down building, when they had entered, nothing was working, then out of nowhere, everything turned on and some claws found and caught Wall•E and Eve. Other than that, he couldn't remember anything, he only wanted Eve back.
He went over to the gray wall that separated him and her, placing a hand on it and knocking on it; pressing the side of his optics to the surface. He could tell that it was way too thick to hear through it, but still, he yelled out her name once again.
Things turned quiet when he finished, and he tilted his eyes down, wishing with all his might that he could maybe probe the female robot to let them be together. If only, if only… With great pain and sadness, Wall•E removed himself from the wall, but just as he pulled himself away, he felt a pulse of electricity surge through the wall, it seemed pretty strong, it was a good thing that he had pulled away just then.
He gave it one more glance before he turned to the exit door. It opened into another white room.
The voice spoke once more, "So, let it begin…"