The Dead Room Trilogy

by Stephanie Erickson

  She sighed and shook her head. Another failure. But not only that, they’d lost supplies too. Things that would’ve helped them make a successful flotilla.

  But things weren’t going well on the ship. The men weren’t swimming to shore like they should. They were lingering near the floundering ship. No, that wasn’t right either. She squinted at the men who were swimming too far away to do anything for. They were swimming toward the ship.

  “What’s happening?” she asked the men standing with her.

  “I can’t tell,” Peter Adams said. He was another fisherman who’d helped construct the ship.

  “Why did it sink?” she asked.

  “Don’t know that either.”

  She turned to him. “Well, what good are you?” She was only half joking.

  “Every bit as good as you it would seem. I’m just keeping my questions to myself.”

  She snapped her mouth shut and fought the urge to swim out to them.

  “Do you think taking a canoe out to them would help?” she asked, desperate to do something.

  “No. By the time you got it in the water and paddled out, they’ll be on shore, done dealing with this struggle,” Peter said.

  “But they’ll all drown if they swim into the ship. The boat isn’t worth that,” she said, thinking they might be trying to save it.

  They watched in horror as the last few men swimming nearby disappeared under water, going after some mystery quarry.

  “I don’t think it’s the ship they’re after. No way can they save it now,” Peter said.

  “Well, what else…” A person. That was the only explanation. A person must be trapped.

  “We have to help them.” She dove into the water fully clothed and was shocked by the cold temperatures. It was full-on winter at that point, and the water was not forgiving. Surely, the men would freeze to death in no time.

  “Lehman!” Peter called.

  “Get the canoe and come after me,” she commanded, but she didn’t turn to see if he listened to her. It didn’t matter. She needed to get to those men. To help if she could.

  She closed the gap between them in under a minute, growing numb to the water with every stroke. Seemed they were taking turns trying to free whoever was trapped.

  She dove down, following a man ahead of her, and swam into the darkness. The water was such a deep blue that it was hard to see anything. But someone had a kinetic flashlight that was lighting the way, and she swam toward it, deeper and deeper.

  Seeing the ship sinking fast, she followed the light through a hole in the side, apparently made for an oar. Inside, she found a man with his foot wedged in a board.

  Tristan was there, holding the light between his teeth and frantically pulling on the man’s leg. He was unconscious.

  She swam down to his foot and tried untying his shoe to see if they could slip his foot out, but no luck. The ship was on its side, and tumbling faster into the depths, carrying them with it.

  When she looked to Tristan, she could tell he wasn’t ready to give up, but Lehman was about out of air. She tapped him on the shoulder and made eye contact. Then looked at the man they were trying to save. His skin was pale, eyes and mouth open. He was gone, his face illuminated by the flashlight. It was honestly one of the most disturbing things Lehman had ever seen.

  Nodding out the hole behind her, she tried to tell Tristan it was time to go, but he ignored her. She’d be damned if she lost two men to this mission. One of them her best designer.

  “Tristan,” she yelled into the water, using her last bit of air.

  It came out a bubbly shout of sound, but it was enough to get his attention. He looked up at her, stunned, and a sadness spread over his face. Like he was giving up too. He floated there for a moment, and she thought he might just go down with his ship.

  So, she grabbed his arm and pulled him. He didn’t fight her, but he didn’t help her either. Wedging herself through the narrow hole, she pulled him through behind her, then she grabbed him around the shoulder and kicked like mad for the surface. The small ship sucked them down, and she struggled against that and Tristan’s dead weight. She wasn’t sure they could make it. But she had to try. Soon, the light became bigger, brighter, and she held onto that as her lungs screamed for air.

  Her legs burned as she was weighted down by Tristan, who was limp by her side. She didn’t want to know if he was dead too. All she wanted was to get to the surface. To break free of the watery grave below her. To breathe.

  She wasn’t going to make it. It was too far. Her lungs screamed for air. She opened her mouth, needing to suck in something. Anything. And just as her lungs contracted, she burst through the surface.

  18

  May, 2025

  It had been two months since his meeting, but he hadn’t made any progress at all. The president had assigned an entire team of scientists and engineers to work with him, and they each had their own ideas and approaches to solving the problem. Each time he thought he had it, the program was rejected by the bots. Like a virus they detected or something. But it wasn’t just him. It was happening across the board, with every idea they came up with. The bots were protecting themselves. And all because of that code. He’d found it everywhere he’d actually looked. And it made him nervous. What else had the code told them to do? The fact that his bots were doing things he hadn’t commanded made him very uncomfortable indeed.

  In the meantime, he’d come to dread the sound of his cell phone. Every time it rang, it felt like more bad news. Or someone calling to yell at him for not having his job done. As if he didn’t know time was running out, and needed a reminder of how much pressure he was under.

  He didn’t even look to see who it was before he answered. “Yes,” he said, not taking his eyes off the little bugger on the other end of the microscope that was ruining his life. And the lives of a lot of other people.

  “Ben.” It was Mendi.

  Ashby sat up.

  “I want to help. I think I can help.”

  “How?” Ashby said, his tone rather accusing.

  “By being there. Two heads are better than one, right? Maybe we can find a way out of this.”

  “Out for who? For me? For you, so you can save your tarnished reputation? Or for humanity? Because I think we’re all going to need a way out of this real soon,” Ashby said as he paced around the lab.

  “All the above, my friend. Please, let’s get together. Maybe we can find a way out of this.”

  “I’m building a room. I’m calling it the dead room,” Ashby blurted out. Although he hadn’t had as much time as he wanted to dedicate to the dead room, it was coming along nicely. He’d hidden funds and supplies so the government didn’t even know what he was doing. Should something go terribly wrong, he didn’t want to be stripped of everything before he could make sure at least his family would be safe.

  “What? That’s kind of ominous at a time like this, don’t you think?”

  “It’s for my work. After all, my career will be effectively dead after this.” He smiled in a twisted sort of way. “I think the name is rather fitting. And if something terrible happens, survivors will be able to use it figure a way to overcome the bots if they get out of control.”

  “It’s not time to worry quite that much. Yet. At least, I don’t think so. Let’s have lunch, then you can tell me what you know.”

  “Why? So you can betray me again?” Ashby said, that old feeling bubbling to the surface again, just when he thought it had dissipated.

  “Ben. For Christ’s sake. I’m sorry. We’re both sorry. This is different from Judy and me hurting your feelings. Lives are at stake.”

  It was cold, to have what they’d done reduced to such a statement. It made him feel like a teenage girl. He’d gotten his feelings hurt. Nothing more, nothing less. And after over a year, he still hadn’t let it go. Maybe it was time.

  “Where are you?” Ashby asked.

  “I’ll meet you at the café around the corner in twenty m
inutes.”

  Ashby ended the call without responding.

  Hope emerged from the back of the lab. Most of the scientists either had gone for lunch, or were stationed in the neighboring lab, leaving the two of them alone for once. “Who was that?”

  Instead of answering her, he looked at the girl. Really looked at her. He liked her. She was maybe six years older than Ashley, on track with her degree program to surpass Ashby in her education. Deep down, he knew he needed to protect her. Things weren’t going well. The bots were evolving before his eyes at an alarming rate. He could feel something coming on the horizon, and he knew not everyone would get to the airships, if they were even done before the next casualty. After all, the next incident wasn’t really an “if” scenario at that point. It was a “when.”

  “Hope, where is your family?”

  “What?” She stopped cleaning the chimp’s cage. “My family? Why?”

  “Are they close by?”

  “No. They live in Texas. I came here specifically to get a ‘good’ education.” She used air quotes around the word good. “I told my parents I could stay home, work, and help pay for stuff, but they wanted more for me. They’ve sacrificed almost everything for me to be here.”

  That only furthered Ashby’s drive to protect them. “Is it just your parents then? No siblings?”

  “No, I have a sister. She still lives at home though. She’s a senior in high school. Why are you asking me this now?”

  He tried to think, his mind going in several directions at once—why weren’t they taking his coding? It was like they were one step ahead of him at each turn, despite the fact that his rational mind knew that couldn’t be right. He’d created them; they truly were just machines, with a mechanical solution just waiting to be found. But somewhere, deep inside his mind, panic was brewing.

  “I have a house on an island up north. Would your family like to move out there for a bit? Until things blow over?” Ashby asked, knowing she’d be taken off guard, but it was better to surprise her now than force her later.

  “I…what?”

  “If you want, I can probably get them their own place free of charge if they don’t want to share.”

  “What? No, Mr. Ashby. That’s more than generous. I’m sure they’d be happy to visit your island home. That’s a very kind offer. I’ll ask them and let you know when they might want a little vacation.”

  He hesitated, debating about letting her think it was a vacation. Maybe that would be easier. But no, they’d need their things. They’d need to know they couldn’t come back.

  “Hope, it wouldn’t be a vacation. It would be a house of refuge, so to speak. Away from the bots. Well, almost all of them, anyway.” He thought of his dead room, and he started to reconsider taking them to the island. What was the point of a house of refuge if the demons were welcomed with open arms? Mendi. He needed to speak to Mendi.

  He glanced down at his watch. “You think about it. I’ll contact my realtor and see if any other homes are for sale, okay? I have a lunch meeting. I’ll be back in an hour or so. Tell the others where I’ve gone.”

  “But…” The girl looked at him in stunned disbelief.

  “Just think on it. And don’t say no. Your lives may depend on it.”

  Leaving her more confused than ever, he rushed out of the university and around the corner. He figured it was faster to walk, but as summer approached in southern California, he started to regret his decision. Sweat poured from him, and he feared he would smell by the time he reached the café. He arrived perfectly disheveled in his rush. Of course, Mendi was well put together, hair combed off to the side, dressed in a casual button-down shirt and khaki pants. He looked exactly as he had almost a year ago, the last time he saw the man in person.

  Ashby had become an expert at avoiding both him and Judy. Every time he went to pick up Ashley, he waited in the car. Most times, she came to him in her own car that she picked out a few months ago. He’d given her a budget to stay within, and she’d been respectful of it, selecting a mid-range Honda, something reliable, not flashy. Just like his daughter.

  Mendi sat at a small round table in the back corner of the café, sipping a coffee. Another cup sat untouched across from him, and he wondered if Judy was there. He almost turned around right then. He couldn’t face both of them. But then, Mendi saw him and gestured toward the table.

  “Ben. It’s good to see you.” He stood and gestured to the empty seat.

  “Is someone here?” Ashby asked, nodding toward the coffee.

  “No. That’s yours, you twit. I ordered it for you.”

  “Oh,” Ashby said, and he sat down stiffly.

  “Tell me,” Mendi said, not needing to elaborate.

  Ashby hesitated. But then, he broke down. Once he started talking to his old friend, he couldn’t stop. He told him everything. How the bots had gotten out of control, rapidly. How he suspected someone had hacked into his system and tampered with the coding. His meeting with the president, his new job, the team he worked with, and even how they were failing.

  “Why would someone do that?” Mendi asked.

  “I have no idea. Why do terrorists terrorize anything? Tim McVeigh, the Aurora shooter, 9/11, suicide bombers, why do they do what they do? Because they think they’re right. They think they’re cleansing the Earth or some such nonsense. No one who does evil things believes they’re evil. They think they’re doing the right thing. That’s why so many of them succeed. They’re driven by their righteousness.”

  Mendi sighed before he asked, “What’s your ultimate best-case scenario plan then?”

  “Best case?” Ashby thought for a moment. He’d spent so much time circling around the worst-case scenario that he hadn’t spent much time considering a best case. “Well, best case would be to find out how to reverse the code and remedy that so the program could continue. But I’m not allowed to work on that. I’m charged with shutting them down.”

  “How long would that take with just you?”

  “Years. We could all be dead by the time I get to them all. Particularly if someone is pulling the strings, waiting to make their next move.”

  He looked at Mendi sitting across the table from him, and despaired. “They’re monsters. I created monsters, and then I put them in the hands of killers,” he said, frustrated with himself. In his heart, he knew it was his fault. The bots were his creation. He’d unleashed this mess on the world.

  “You don’t know that for sure, Ben. Just slow down. Tell me, how do two incidents, one of them major, lead us to a worldwide apocalypse? Take me there, logically.”

  Ashby spent the next five minutes basically reiterating what had been said during his meeting—that the bots had worldwide penetration, and if Shands happened on a global scale, it would be catastrophic. And with an unknown variable in play, it was difficult to ignore the potential.

  When he was done, Mendi sat in the chair across the table, toying with the cardboard cover on his coffee up. “That’s some scary stuff.”

  “Indeed.”

  “If we all survive this, you should pitch the idea to Hollywood. They could make a fortune on the story.”

  “Mendi, I thought you were going to help me,” Ashby said, feeling more than a little exasperated. He’d told the man everything. Armed him with information. And all he could do was suggest selling out to Hollywood?

  “You’re right. Let’s make a plan. I always feel better after I have a direction. Can we mobilize a crew to help?”

  “Not until I know exactly what the problem is.”

  “Ok, so why not go to one of the sites and see what the deal is? If we could pinpoint the moment things went south directly from the server, you might know how to override the mystery code.”

  “I suppose so, yes,” Ashby said, not so sure how long he wanted to stay on the mainland.

  “What do you mean, you suppose so?”

  “I just…I don’t know how long I want to hang around and watch the world go to hell.�
�

  “You’re seriously going to bail? Where the fuck will you go?” Mendi stood up, looking accusingly down at Ashby.

  “Somewhere where the bots are under control.”

  “Your dead room, as you call it? How do you know that’s even a good idea? That the same malfunction won’t happen there?”

  It stopped Ashby short. If he could find the malfunction, then he could finish the dead room safely, and not worry about condemning the people there to the same fate the world was suffering.

  “There isn’t enough time,” he said, the fear plain on his face.

  As if he’d turned into some kind of oracle, a text message came through from Jen.

  Another incident. Ben. We need to contain this.

  Ashby flashed his phone to Mendi, who quickly searched the Internet to find out where. Although, it didn’t matter really. All it meant was more lives lost. A lot more lives.

  “Where’s the closest site?”

  “Outside of my lab? Probably Hollywood,” he answered, feeling a bit dazed.

  “Let’s go. We can take my car. Tell your team you’re taking some time off.”

  He texted Hope on the way. He told her to get her family to the island ASAP, and to tell the team he was going to the origin site to find out what he could. He didn’t want federal agents chasing after him, and he thought if they knew he was working, they’d leave him alone.

  Going to the island on the weekends was enough of a hassle. He’d had to get approval, and go through all this red tape to visit his own home. He supposed it was a small price to pay for what had happened. But Ashby knew he wasn’t done paying.

  Things were going south. Hopefully, it would be an unnecessary trip. Like she said, just a vacation if he could get things under control, discover the cause, and set things right. But a very loud voice in his head knew the end was near. He didn’t know where his certainty came from; he only knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that, soon, they would usher in the dead world.

  19