“Who are you? What have you been through?” she asked the image, but he didn’t answer. He just continued to strain against the machine he was holding up, determined to get it where they needed it. As if all of their lives depended on his strength. Maybe they did.
Vega thought about her own life, and how she’d never been afraid for it once, not until just a few days ago.
Her parents had left her on Perseus to pursue careers on other airships. Her dad was an engineer and had been transferred to the Chinese ship for reasons unknown to her. She wondered now if it had to do with their need to land.
Her mom was an ambassador before she died from a cold she’d picked up on the European ship. Something about immunities they had but she didn’t. Vega had lost touch with her dad, and hadn’t ever talked much to her mom before her death. They were their own people, with their own lives.
Vega had been forced into that life at six when they left her behind. She’d lived in a special wing of the airship equipped with playground equipment, toys, and all kinds of fun things for kids, and the women who worked there had loved her. But it never felt like family. At least until she met Jo, who was also orphaned. They formed a strong bond over their common abandonment, even though it wasn’t all that uncommon. In fact, it wasn’t really viewed as abandonment by their society. That knowledge hadn’t helped Vega feel any less orphaned.
Orphans were uncommon on the airship, statistically speaking. She’d had about twenty companions growing up, but Jo was the only one she’d gotten close to. If something happened to parents, there was usually other family to take the kids in. But Vega had no one. Her parents hadn’t had siblings, and their parents had all died before Vega was even born. She felt like they should’ve valued her more, seeing as she was their only family, and she never understood how they so easily parted ways with her.
But she never felt like her existence was bad. She had everything she needed. Vega had never been abused or went without in any way. Her parents sent enough money to make sure she had exactly what she needed, and even a little extra to have one or two things she wanted. Because of that, she’d never felt angry toward them, maybe a little sad and lonely, but never bitter. It was just their way of life.
Vega thought about the man’s way of life as she stared at the image of him. She imagined it was completely different from hers. He certainly looked like he’d fought tooth and nail for everything he had, and for some things he didn’t.
Vega stared into his eyes and wondered if he would be the one who could save them all.
Ten
The crew spent all night positioning the Perseus to a safe altitude for the shuttle while she was supposed to be sleeping. At first light, she’d made her way to the docking station, loaded up, and headed down.
The shuttle fought her some, but not as much as she originally anticipated. If this was as hard as it would get, she was lucky for once.
As the cloud layer parted, she saw them. “There,” she said into the small earpiece.
“We see them,” Major Burridge said.
Slowly, she took the shuttle down, relying heavily on the instruments since she couldn’t see directly underneath her. She aimed right inside the circle of safety created by the fog of bots. Suddenly, an alarm sounded, followed by another.
Her heart skipped, but she kept her voice calm. “I’ve got a problem.”
No one responded to her statement—all she heard was dead air.
She hovered for a few moments and assessed the situation. The altimeter was dark, as were several other instruments.
“It’s possible it’s just an instrumentation problem. The engine is still humming along. I’ll just try to set her down gently using visuals.”
“Visuals?” Major Burridge asked. “How much can you actually see?”
She peered out the window, seeing the islanders staring up at her. Some were pointing. Others had their mouths open. Still others were clutching each other, as if they were afraid. She was puzzled at the thought of them being afraid. What did they think she was going to do?
Sudden images of the alien movies she’d seen on the ship surfaced in her mind, and she wondered if they thought she was an alien. She almost laughed out loud at the idea, but caught herself just before it escaped.
As she descended further, the shuttle shuddered and bucked. “It’s fighting me.”
“Flush it,” the major commanded.
Vega flipped a few switches. It bought her some time, but it didn’t stop the alarms.
“Major, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get it off the ground again if I take her all the way down.”
“One problem at a time, Captain Fowell. Get on the ground. We’ll get you back up here, one way or another.”
“Comforting,” she said, but the major didn’t respond.
Carefully, she lowered the shuttle the last few hundred feet, fighting for a gentle landing all the way down. She could only hope that the people had scattered. She’d zeroed in on a spot that was bare of any structures, but that meant a lot of them had gathered around to watch.
With her teeth clenched, and a bead of sweat making its way down her forehead and into her eyebrow, she plopped the shuttle on the ground harder than she meant to. But she was alive, and the ship was still running. Based on the lack of screaming or general chaos around her, she assumed she hadn’t killed anyone in the process. It was a win as far as she was concerned.
“Beginning shutdown procedure now.”
“Aye,” the major said.
After she completed her tasks, she took a deep breath, looking out at the people around her. They were leaning in, talking to each other, but no one took their eyes off her.
“Ready to exit.”
“Aye. Clearance to exit the shuttle granted. Good luck, Captain,” the major said.
As Vega looked at the curiosity and outright fear in the eyes of the mainlanders, she knew she was going to need it.
Three mainlanders from the image she took yesterday stood closer to the ship than the rest. None of them had changed in any way from the day before. They were still even wearing the same clothes. She wondered if they had other clothes, or any way to clean up. If the grey streaks on their faces were any indication, she’d say no.
After Vega exited, they stared at each other across a safe-zone space of about ten feet. No one moved to cross it. They simply gazed at each other as Vega listened to the silence of a world without machines and moving parts for the first time. It was distracting. Nothing moved. Someone coughed in the crowd, and she jumped.
The sound prompted the man with a bald head and steel-grey eyes to step forward and examine her. It gave Vega a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach, as if she were being judged. She straightened up to full attention, shaking away the thought. Wrinkles formed in the corners of the man’s eyes as he squinted at her in the sunlight.
“Hello. I’m Mason Hawkins. One of the folks in charge of this small settlement. Welcome, I guess,” he said.
“Thanks. I’m Vega. Captain Vega Fowell. I’m here as a representative of the Perseus.” She gestured skyward, but the ship was concealed by the cloud layer.
“Perseus?” he asked.
“The airship.”
At that point, the man did something rather startling. He doubled over with laughter.
Eleven
Vega cleared her throat, unclear on why he was laughing.
“The airships are real?”
“I’m not sure why that’s funny, Mr. Hawkins, but…”
“It’s not. Forgive me. It’s just…we’ve been scraping to survive all this time, and here the airships were real. It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head and cleared his throat, clearly working hard to get a hold of himself.
“Maybe there’s somewhere we could speak in private?”
She pried her eyes away from Mason, noticing that the others were closing in.
Mason snorted. “Where exactly? What you see is what you get here, Captain Fowell.�
�� He held a smile on his face, and she wasn’t sure if he was making fun of her or not. She fought the urge to get defensive, lest she ruin everything with her sharp tongue.
“Please, call me Vega.”
The old man stepped forward then. “What my colleague means is that we haven’t had time to construct many shelters. Most of us are still sleeping under the stars. We’ve only just arrived a few days ago.”
Then the woman spoke. “Frankly, you spooked us with the flyover yesterday, and now with this contraption. A little openness might do the others some good.” She held out her hand to Vega, which startled her. She wasn’t used to such open friendliness from authoritative strangers. “Lehman.”
“Vega,” she said.
“Nice to meet you.” Lehman smiled warmly, and Vega couldn’t help but smile back. She wanted to draw nearer to the middle-aged woman.
Major Burridge remained frustratingly silent in her earpiece during the exchange, offering no instruction.
“Clearly, you came here for a reason. Why don’t you tell us what you want?” the older man said as he held an arm out, ushering the group toward a roughly hewn wooden table.
Vega shrugged, and then walked over to the table and sat down.
“Vega, huh? Nice to meet you.” Mason held out a hand this time. She took it, and he shook her hand roughly across the table. Vega could only smile weakly at him, and Lehman’s grin grew even wider as she sat down next to Mason.
The older man sat down next to Vega. “Thank you so much for joining us here in our humble settlement, Vega. My name is Mattli. How can we help you? I know we have a lot of questions.”
Instantly, his demeanor helped Vega feel more at ease and less defensive. Good, she thought. Take a breath.
“As do we,” Vega said, trying to sound official. “Unfortunately, we need some help.”
“I’m sure we’ll do anything we can. But as you can see, our resources are very limited,” Mattli said as he looked around at the small settlement.
Mason spoke up, a quizzical look on his face. “Who exactly are you talking about? Who needs our help? Are you talking about the islanders? Are they okay?”
Lehman shifted in her seat, and Vega was even more confused. “The smoke…” she said. “Is that where you came from? Are there others left on that island?”
Mason nodded, but he didn’t add anything more. The suspicion on his face was evident, but there was curiosity there as well.
Vega figured she might as well dive in with both feet. Taking a deep breath, she looked into his hard eyes—eyes that were no longer laughing—and said, “It’s the world that needs your help.”
Twelve
“I…what?” Mason asked, sounding confused.
“We’ve found ourselves in a rather precarious position,” Vega said.
“And what do you call this? Living the high life?” Mason asked.
Vega sat up a little straighter, affronted by his accusation. Clearly, they’d had a rough time, but that wasn’t her fault.
Mattli glared at his younger counterpart. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?” he encouraged.
“You see, the Perseus—actually, all the airships—are dying. We must find a way to land. You’ve found a way to survive, to coexist with the bots. We’re hoping you can help us.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Start over. Airships?” Mason asked, shaking his head and rubbing his forehead.
“We were right. General Quelch was successful. They got off the ground. How many are there?” Lehman asked.
“Seven.”
“Seven.” Lehman leaned back, awe on her face, and Vega thought she might fall right off the bench.
“How many people is that?” Mason asked, clearly just as caught off guard as Lehman. He’d lost a little color. He swallowed hard, visibly trying to regain control, but it didn’t seem to help. Only Mattli showed no outward display of emotion. He looked quizzically at Vega, as if she was a newcomer from another world who he could learn from.
“Just shy of one hundred thousand,” Vega said as she looked past Mason and saw the people standing around, shifting their weight uneasily, arms crossed over their chests, all eyeing her suspiciously. She cleared her throat as she dragged her eyes away from them, and back to Mason.
“One hundred thousand,” Mason breathed before asking Mattli, “Historically, what was the max population of the island?”
Mattli cleared his throat. “Well, after the initial intake of people from the mainland, which was around twenty-five hundred, numbers dropped significantly. I think our max since then has been somewhere around fifteen hundred, but I’d have to look at the records to be sure.”
It was clear to Vega that Mason had already known that, but had just wanted it said out loud. Vega couldn’t comprehend such a small number. There were two thousand people on her apartment floor alone.
“If you don’t mind my asking, what prompted you to leave the island?” Vega ventured.
“We came here to see if we could start fresh on the mainland, but many stayed behind to maintain our way of life to make sure we’d have something to go back to if things went south,” Mason said. Vega was having trouble reading the emotion in his voice. If things had already gone south, was her quest for help in vain?
“What exactly do you think our handful of people can do to help your tens of thousands?” Mason asked.
“Survive.”
“Seems to me we could ask you the same damned thing. You’ve clearly been living much easier lives than we have. Look at you. Clean. New clothes. I bet you’ve never skipped a meal in your life,” Mason accused.
“Now, now, Mason. We don’t need to be comparing scars,” Mattli said, raising his hands in what looked like surrender. But Vega wasn’t sure who he was surrendering to, Mason or her.
“Captain, get the situation under control,” Major Burridge commanded, but she ignored him. She wanted to spit a sarcastic retort at him, but she ended up snapping at Mason instead.
“Look, it’s not my fault you guys are in this situation. Just like it isn’t your fault the airships are dying. If you’d climb off your soapbox for two seconds and listen, you might see there’s a possibility of a mutually beneficial situation.”
Mason sat a little straighter, but eventually relented. “Apologies.” He’d earned himself glares from both of his companions, so Vega took that as clearance to proceed with caution.
“As you seem to know, the airships have been aloft for over three centuries. They’re breaking down. We need to land to replace some critical parts. But if we do, there are many who believe the bots will eat us alive.”
“They will,” Mason said. “Look at them.” He looked over her shoulder at the cloud, and she followed suit.
Vega had to admit that they were a chilling sight. Kept at bay by the EMP, they created a thick haze around the settlement. Vega couldn’t see anything of the grey wasteland beyond, even though she knew it was there. She’d seen it from above.
She turned back around, happy to focus her eyes on something slightly more friendly, even if Mason hadn’t warmed to her yet. “Considering that, we’ve determined it isn’t safe to land. Not at this time. But if we don’t, we’ll crash. Soon. Some of the airships are worse off than others. But eventually, they will go down, effectively ending all our lives.”
“Forgive me, Vega, but I’m missing how exactly you think we might be able to help you. We’re a people of very primitive technology. We don’t have power or flying machines like you do. What help can we be?” Mattli asked.
“You know how to live here. With them.”
“This isn’t living,” Mason said, and Vega didn’t miss the hint of bitterness in his voice.
“What he means is that this isn’t living yet. We need more time. We’ve only just gotten here ourselves. We’re not prepared to teach others how to do it. We don’t even know if it will work,” Lehman said.
“What is your long-term plan then?” Vega asked, unable to help herself.
“We need to eradicate the bots if we want to live freely,” Mason explained. “I suppose we didn’t think very long term when we left. I mean, we did—we thought about food and things like that needed to keep us alive. But we didn’t think they would…well, nearly block out the sun surrounding us. I guess we thought the EMP would zap them and they would eventually die. All of them.” A chuckle escaped him. “Looking at it from this angle, I can see how naïve that was. They have a sophisticated self-preservation mode we didn’t anticipate. Something Ashby never mentioned in his journal. They won’t throw themselves on the metaphorical blade. They’ve figured out how close they can get and have trapped us near the EMP.”
Mason looked at the cloud for a moment. “I suppose that, long term, our best hope would be to create more EMPs and spread out. But we don’t have the resources for that.” He leaned in close and lowered his voice. “Today, with the information we have, I’d say we’d be better off going back to the island.”
Lehman gasped, but cut it short, regaining her composure almost immediately. She cleared her throat. “You don’t really mean that. Think of Ashley.”
Vega sat up a little straighter. Who was Ashley? His wife?
“I am thinking of Ashley. If she were still with us, she’d probably stay here until she died. She would’ve wanted this—to keep working, keep trying for something better. But I’m not so sure the grass really is greener on the other side.” His words were heavy with sorrow, and Vega looked over at him, catching his eyes. Her heart almost broke for the despair she found there. She couldn’t imagine what he had been through, and she wanted to take his burdens. Help. Do something. And there she was, asking him to save her world.
“You said you needed resources? Technology?” she blurted out.
The Dead Room Trilogy Page 40