“In the future, you will be allowed to elect new leaders. Leaders will no longer be groomed from childhood. Mason is an excellent leader with out-of-the-box ideas none of us would have been able to come up with. It’s shown me the need for change.
“In the future, the new leadership roles will be selected from among yourselves. Whomever you choose will be eligible to lead this island in the fashion you deem right.”
More murmuring spread throughout the audience. But Mattli was happy to see that most faces in the crowd were pleased. The only exceptions were the excluded elders.
“One last change coming down the pipeline will be the elimination of the island’s secrets. Once Mason is healed, we will discuss this further. But changes are coming, and you all need to know why and how, so that you can be a part of this change.”
The applause started small. One or two people clapping. Someone in the back corner shouted, “Hear, hear!” Soon, the clapping and shouting was overwhelming. Almost every voice was raised in celebration of the coming changes. Mattli smiled and turned to Lehman, who was clapping along with the crowd and smiling widely. Even the axed elders were reluctantly clapping, if only because they were forced to by sheer peer pressure. Mattli didn’t care what the reason was. He knew they wouldn’t step out of line again with this kind of support behind him.
Although the celebration eventually quieted, Mattli’s smile remained just as broad. “I’m so glad you’re all in favor of these new changes. I think Elder Alkoff would be very proud of you today. And in light of that, let’s begin our celebration of his life, and say goodbye to this great man.”
Automatically, he started to say the words, but his mind was elsewhere. “In the name of…” Ashby hadn’t been the savior he thought he was. Yes, he’d saved a few lives, but he’d also killed millions of others. If it hadn’t been for him… He shook his head, wanting to focus on the moment, saying goodbye to his friend. “…of our savior, Bennett Ashby, we give thanks for this life. For without him, it would not have existed at all.”
He supposed that much, at least, was true.
Lehman didn’t know what to expect after the ceremony. She carried the body to the preparation stone like always, but Mattli asked her to linger. Since his second in command was out of commission, he needed her help with the disposal.
Admittedly, she didn’t care for that word—disposal. Part of her had always been curious about what happened to the bodies, particularly after her own match had died. He was always so clinical. He probably would’ve been fascinated by the process. But beyond that natural curiosity, she hadn’t thought about it much. She’d always chocked it up to one of life’s mysteries she’d never know the answer to.
But now, with the answer mere moments away, she found she didn’t really want to know. There was something unsettling about how closely this secret was guarded. It made her uncomfortable, and as Mattli approached, she shifted her weight back and forth.
“Thank you for coming, Lehman. I know this can be a bit…overwhelming.”
She nodded, figuring saying nothing was better than the alternative.
“I’ve just been to your house. Mason is doing well actually. He’s awake and very uncomfortable, but he’s alive. The doctor says he may always have some pain there, but that with time, he should heal nicely.”
“Well, that’s good news,” Lehman said, letting out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.
“Shall we go to the dead room?”
“You’re not even going to warm me up? Ease me into it? I hope you’re better at foreplay with Gwen, because that was a bit rough if you ask me.”
Mattli’s ears turned bright red.
Lehman smiled wide, working hard to stifle an all-out laugh. “Good to see I can crack that tough exterior. Lead the way, Mattli.”
They started with Alkoff, working quickly to send him on his way. Then, they went up and collected Branneth, who’d been left in the woods near the preparation stone during the funeral. Mattli felt she didn’t deserve his time. Lehman couldn’t argue with that.
The process was all very odd to her. The concept of tiny robots emerging and eating a dead body, then returning from whence they came was so…well, fictional to her. She had a hard time grasping it. At least until she saw the ash.
While they waited for the timer to count down, Mattli told her everything—what they’d read in the journal, how the dead room worked, and Alkoff’s desire to go back to the mainland.
They took Alkoff’s ashes topside and let the wind take him to see the rest of their world. They did Branneth no such respect. She was simply swept into a small can near the table along the wall, mixed with the ashes of those before her, ready for disposal at some other time.
As they carefully covered the door to the dead room, Lehman stood and stretched in the sunlight. “So, that’s where the secrets started, huh?”
Mattli nodded down at the brush covering the island’s dark history. “And that’s where they end.”
13
March, 2025
Ashby was restless. As if the fire lit by the incident hadn’t been put out, but burned in his mind, burning his whole life down around him. What if it wasn’t a malicious attack? Or human error? What if it wasn’t an isolated incident? What if it was a malfunction? Bots were stationed not only all over the country, but also all over the world.
Jen had started a charity organization—Cure-bots. The logo had a ridiculously oversized C to represent the C in C-bots. Ashby argued it was less than subtle, but she said subtlety was overrated. The organization brought C-bots to third-world countries, giving them drinkable water, clearing land, and curing diseases easier and more affordably than any other organization had been able to. They’d raised the standard of living in over twenty small countries so far, and they were still going. Ashby couldn’t think of a place where the bots hadn’t gone. Scientists had even taken them to the poles to help dig through the ice and make discoveries that never would’ve been possible without Ashby’s C-bots.
The conversion was beautifully simplistic. They were eating machines after all, so instead of cancer, he programmed them to eat parasites in the water, tear through trees, or chew through the ice. He’d already been doing it for NASA, so he knew what needed to be done. It was only a matter of figuring out how to do it. Programming was a beautiful thing, much easier to work with than the fragile bodies he was surrounded by.
The island.
Before the incident with CSMC had happened, Ashby had been looking at a vacation home north of the university, in the Pacific Northwest. It was lovely and isolated. It had a fair number of homes on it, but not much else. Grocery stores, post offices, and most importantly, hospitals were all on the mainland a good ten miles away by boat. It was perfect.
“Hope, can you get my realtor on the line, please?”
Hope seemed startled. “You want to move at a time like this?” she asked. She’d also been anxious since the incident, working silently, wringing her hands often, and watching the remaining chimp like a hawk for signs of decline.
“I want to get away. I need to clear my head. And I’ve been thinking of getting a vacation home. My apartment isn’t much. Might be nice to have a space I can call my own.” Really, he thought if his world came crashing down on his head over this, he could escape there. Retire. Live comfortably.
“I hardly think—”
Ashby cut her off. “I didn’t ask what you think about it, Hope. I will call him myself.” He hated to hurt her feelings, which by the look on her face, he’d clearly done, but she didn’t have the whole story. What had happened was bound to have consequences eventually.
He ignored her quivering lip as he dialed the number. “Larry. Hi. I’d like to see some houses over on that island you were telling me about. Today.”
After that very brief conversation, he packed up and left Hope alone in the lab. It was a long drive north.
He arrived after dinner, and he and Larry took a ferry out to t
he island. The homes were lovely and well taken care of, even if a few of them had been there for quite a while. They were well spaced, and many of them had some prime real estate with their own beaches.
“I’d like one of these with a beach if possible.”
“Certainly, Mr. Ashby, but you must know they aren’t all for sale,” Larry said, clearly a little nervous around him.
True, his celebrity often preceded him. And with the worldwide penetration of the bots in the last several months, he’d gotten a huge chunk of change squirreled away. He could pay cash for any one of these homes and not even put a dent in his account. Which was good. He’d need the money to buy supplies under the table from NASA employees…
“What about this one here?” A for-sale sign stood in the yard. It appeared to have beach access and a good-sized lot. The street was quiet. He couldn’t think of a better place for he and Ashley to live out their days should the world come crashing down around them.
“This is one we have to look at, yes.”
“Well, let’s go.”
It was perfect. Spacious, modern—everything he wanted.
When he told Larry he’d take it, and to make them a good offer, Larry sputtered at him. “Whatever you think is fair is fine,” Ashby said. “I can’t worry about those details. You do it.”
Forty-five days later, the house was his. He began hauling materials over immediately, and he bought a small piece of land out in the woods of the island. It would be his lab and storage facility. He really couldn’t imagine life without his work. And if he were going to retire there, he’d need a workspace away from others, where he couldn’t be bothered. He even had plans for a containment room for his bots.
A tiny voice in the back of his mind that he didn’t really listen to wanted to focus on the true cause of the incident at CSMC. Had it really been human error or a malfunction? Results of an investigation were “inconclusive.” It didn’t give him a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. If he’d known what would happen at CSMC, would he have created the bots anyway? He thought of all the lives he’d saved, the names, faces, and people he didn’t even know now that the program was largely autonomous. There were at least ten times more lives still on Earth because of the bots than had been killed by the bots at CSMC. At least.
But somehow, the idea gave him little comfort. It wasn’t necessarily the lives lost at CSMC that made him panic. It was the potential that incident created. Before, he lived in a world of relative ignorance. He knew what they were capable of, but he’d thought he’d safeguarded against all that.
This time, he’d make sure to protect what was important to him. No matter what.
It took months to build what he lovingly called the dead room. He brought Ashley with him almost every weekend she could spare, and she adored it. He even showed her the dead room, although he didn’t call it that in front of her.
“What’s all this for, Dad?” she asked him as she looked around at a half-finished metal door, walls lined with black metal, and a sophisticated panel of instruments.
Ashby was busy screwing in something at the panel when he answered her. “It’s a contingency.”
“Contingency for what?”
“For a worst-case scenario, lovely.”
She snorted in the way only an eighteen-year-old girl can. “Dad. Really?”
“Really,” he said, staying focused on attaching the last screw to the motherboard. It was a brilliant design if he did say so himself. He could operate the bots from outside, set them to work, and never have to actually be exposed to them at all. No way would any kind of human error or malfunction be able to set the bots loose here. He’d added so many redundancies to the huge metal, bot-resistant door that they’d never get out of there unless someone carried them out.
“Please, Dad. You’ve never been much of a shit-hit-the-fan conspiracy theorist. What changed?”
He stopped what he was doing and looked at her. She was beautiful, and she looked a lot like her mother. Same emerald-green eyes, same brown hair, although Ashley kept hers shorter than Judy and a bit more stylish, same tall, thin build. But she would be a better person. Ashby knew it. All he had to do was ensure she had the chance to show the world.
She looked at him expectantly, but he didn’t know what to say. What did change?
“Circumstances changed.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I hope you’re right. I hope beyond hope that I am overreacting.” He walked away from the panel and took her in his arms. She leaned into him easily and he breathed in her coconut shampoo, making him want to squeeze her harder, to keep her safe like that forever.
“Dad,” she said, more than a little fear in her voice.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. But I do want you to be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?”
“For the end.” He didn’t know if he was talking about his career, or something more.
That night, he sat on the porch, looking out at the island. The waves crashed on the rocks nearby, creating a very calming atmosphere. He loved it there. Part of him wondered what would be so bad about spending the rest of his days on the island. Then he cleared his throat. The bad part would be if he hadn’t chosen to do so, but if he was forced because humanity was wiped out by his insatiable bots that had a mystery malfunction. He shook his head.
Stop it, Ashby. Your worst case is getting fired and run out of town. That’s what you’re planning for.
It was closing in on the end of summer as he sipped his tea in a rocking chair. Winters would be tough on the island. In fact, he didn’t think anyone lived on the island year round. It wouldn’t be easy.
As he held his tea between both hands, he thought about some of the earlier bots, and the trouble he, and NASA, had with them. His bots weren’t particular. They liked metal just as much as they liked organic materials. They ate through a two-million-dollar piece of the Perseus, NASA’s latest rover, set to launch outside of the solar system to search for life in other galaxies.
Ashby sighed. Yet another failure to mark down.
His phone ringing ruined the peace he was reaching for.
“Ben, it’s Jen.”
His heart sank. She only called him for bad news. Well, that wasn’t always true. She’d done a great job covering his tracks with the CSMC thing. Ashley said Mendi was beside himself. The man had even called Ashby a few times and left messages pleading with his friend. Begging him to understand he hadn’t done such a horrible thing, and no matter what happened between them, he would never do something like that.
Ashby knew that. They all knew that. Everyone except the media, who hung the poor guy out to dry. They latched on to that bit of gossip like piranhas, and then held on until there was nothing left of the poor man. Of course, none of his colleagues believed the gossip. They knew he’d been working, and far too busy for such childish things. Several of them even accounted for him, but the media wouldn’t have it.
Every time Mendi called, Ashby couldn’t bring himself to answer. He knew he should apologize. Tell him it was a PR play—Jen’s idea. That she wasn’t supposed to name names, and he didn’t know how they’d dragged him into it. But he couldn’t do it. He’d come close once, until he heard Judy’s voice in the background of the message, calling for him to “come here.” She sounded happy. Happier than Ashby ever made her.
He’d deleted the message, along with all the others. Eventually, Mendi quit calling. But he didn’t think that was why Jen was calling at seven PM on a Saturday night.
“What can I do for you, Jen?”
“We have a problem. Have you been watching the news?”
“No. I’m afraid I don’t have a television out here. I’m on the island.”
“There’s been a meltdown at Shands. Shands, Ashby. It’s huge. The news is all over it. Their program was much larger, and the loss of life reflects that. Plus, the side casualties of setting
off such a massive EMP were tremendous. Nearly a hundred people, Ben.”
One hundred people. He couldn’t breathe. The weight of their deaths constricted his lungs, as if each body was on top of him. One hundred people.
“Shit,” he breathed.
“It’s out of control, Ben. And someone will take control soon. It’s out of my hands.”
“What exactly does that mean?” he asked, a little frightened and perplexed.
“I have to go. Best of luck to you, Ben,” she said, and the line went dead.
He rested his hand on his knee, still holding on to his phone. When it rang, it startled him, and he nearly dropped it. He didn’t even look at the number.
“This is Bennett Ashby.”
“Ben.” The voice stopped him mid-rock, and he stood up slowly.
“Please. I heard the news,” Mendi said.
Ashby didn’t respond. He walked to the porch rail, clinging to the phone and thinking about pitching it into the sea at the same time.
“I promise you. I didn’t do this. You have to know that. What can I do to help you?”
“I…” He wanted to help? Or did he want information so he could betray him yet again? And yet, with his world falling apart around him, he felt desperate to reach out, to have that void created by Mendi’s absence filled again. To have a guide, a confidant, someone to help him through this mess he’d created.
But instead of taking the gentler approach he so desperately wanted, a vision of him and Judy flashed in his mind. That same one that made him turn over the USB to the dean at the university. “How do I know you’re not just going to betray me again?” he spat at one of his oldest and dearest friends.
“I won’t. I’m not. I have no stake in this, Ashby, except you. This world has a lot to lose here. I can feel it. I want to help.”
The Dead Room Trilogy Page 26