The Dead World (The Dead Room Trilogy Book 2)

by Erickson,Stephanie

  “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, w
ho 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.

  Approximate year, 2346

  Lehman dreaded having to tell the others what had happened. Not only did they lose all that wood, and time, but they’d also lost a man.

  Tristan said the further out to sea they got, the more the sand bags shifted as the boat rocked, making them unstable. They hadn’t thought to tie things down. After all, they were enclosed in the belly of the ship, so where could they go? Once the shift happened, they couldn’t fix it fast enough, and the weight was like a runaway freight train. The man in the back got his foot caught when the ship tipped too far, and it was all downhill from there.

  “How do we move forward?” she asked, shivering and struggling to breathe. Her lungs burned, as if she were still trapped in the ship, looking at the face of that man.

  She’d seen a lot of dead bodies over the years, carrying each one to the pyre faithfully. But this man, so recently gone, spooked her. His life hadn’t been given willingly—it had been taken from him by their quest for the mainland. And suddenly, she wondered if it was all worth it.

  She sighed, doing her best to shake off those kinds of thoughts. She couldn’t take them to Mattli and Mason. They would look at her like she had six heads. They were too deep into this now to be having regrets. She just had to find a way to break the news to them.

  But before she did, she wanted a game plan for how they would move forward. “Perhaps a simpler approach. Something more like the rafts we did earlier. But with some added stability. Maybe an arm like some of the catamarans we saw in the library?” They’d spent days studying the books in Mattli’s library looking for inspiration for something that would be stable, as well as large enough to carry what they needed.

  “Fine,” Tristan said, a bit of a ghost of himself.

  “Tristan?”

  He looked straight ahead, but he didn’t respond as they sat next to each other on the beach. Despite the fact that they were both wrapped in blankets, along with ten or so other men scattered around, his lips were still blue. She imagined hers weren’t much different, but she wasn’t feeling the cold. All she could feel was the desperation she’d felt from seeing that man.

  “He had a family, didn’t he?” she asked.

  “Yes. He did. A good family. They were a good match. They loved each other.”

  “Of course they did,” she said, feeling even sadder. “I will tell his match tonight, although she may already know by then. First, I must speak with Mason and Mattli. We need some kind of game plan for how we intend to overcome this.”

  Only then did Tristan turn to her. “Overcome this? Someone died because of me. How am I supposed to overcome that?”

  She unfolded herself from her blanket cocoon and put a hand on his shoulder. “He didn’t die because of you. He died in pursuit of the mainland. Nothing more, nothing less. We are all in pursuit of the mainland. If we die trying to get there, so be it. But hopefully, the future generations will thank us.”

  He glared at her. “The same way we thanked Bennett Ashby, the complete fraud? We’re no better than him,” Tristan said, getting up and storming off.

  Lehman was on her own. Her mind spun wildly as she walked over to where Mattli’s crew was working on the windmill. He was smiling widely when she approached.

  “Good news?” she asked, trying to hide her despair. She’d managed to ditch her blanket and change clothes on the way over, but her hair was still wet. She hoped he wouldn’t notice, at least not right away. The cold air was making her ears ache as her hair touched it, and she pulled her collar around her neck as she walked toward him.

  “Yes. We’ve made some excellent progress today. We can actually store energy. I think this will work for the EMP. I’ve given Mason the go-ahead to build their prototype, and by the time they’re done, we should be able to connect the two.”

  “That’s wonderful news,” she said, a little more flatly than she meant to. It made Mattli stop and look at her. Really look at her.

  “You look terrible. Has something happened?”

  “Actually…” She wasn’t sure where to begin—with the rations or the man. “We’ve had a rather tragic day.”

  “Tragic?” He stood up from his seat at his desk and walked around to face her.

  “We’ve lost another ship.”

  “Damn it. I didn’t anticipate this part of the equation being this difficult.”

  “There’s more.”

  He eyed her. “More?”

  “We’ve lost a fair bit of wood. As you know, we have a finite amount of resources when it comes to building on the island. It will be a problem before long, if we don’t get this right soon.”

  “Not time to worry about that yet, Lehman. We can plant new trees. There’s enough, for now. Let’s just try to get it right next time.”

  “There’s one thing more.”

  He folded his hands over his chest, waiting for her to go forward.

  “A man…” She gulped, trying not to see his face floating next to Mattli as she spoke of him. “He got trapped as the boat sank. We tried to free him, but…”

  “Someone died today,” Mattli said, not as a question, but a statement. He sighed deeply. “It was bound to happen eventually, but I didn’t expect it to come from your team. Mason’s team is dealing with much more dangerous properties. But the sea is nothing to take for granted, that’s for sure.”

  He was so matter of fact about it. Her mouth hung open as she looked at him, and then she turned her eyes to the dead man’s ghost standing next to him.

  “He had a family. A loving family,” she said, as if that would make him feel something for the man they’d lost.

  “I’m sure he did,” Mattli said, watching her.

  But she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at the ghost.

  “He had blue eyes. Dark blue eyes.” It was barely above a whisper.

  She didn’t realize she’d started to shake until Mattli put his arms around her. She couldn’t fall apart. She wouldn’t fall apart. Not here. Not now. But despite her fiercest instructions, the tears came, and once the dam was broken, there was no stopping them.

  Mattli held her for a long time while she cried.

  “His death is on my hands, Mattli,” she said as she pulled away from him, hoarse from sobbing.

  “It’s on all of our hands, isn’t it?” It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. No… Oh, no, it isn’t, Lehman. He went into this knowing the risks. You couldn’t have known. Or… It was just an accident. Nope. Complete and total acceptance right along next to her. It was her fault, but it was his and Mason’s fault too.

  Somehow, it was exactly what she needed—to know she wasn’t in this alone.

  “Are we doing the right thing?” She chanced a look at him. He didn’t smile or offer anythi
ng reassuring.

  “Right and wrong are loaded words when you’re talking about changing the world, Lehman. We don’t have all the information. We’re scrambling for it, trying to put the pieces together. If we had them all, we might make different choices. But we don’t, so all we can do is the best with what we’re given. I expect that’s what you were doing, and that’s what he was doing. At some point, you’ll have to come to accept that.”

  She nodded, wondering if she’d ever leave his ghost behind, or if he’d always be there, floating in front of her.

  Mason didn’t take the news as well as Mattli did, but he was also new to this. He hadn’t had to make as many hard choices as Mattli had. He hadn’t sacrificed lives for the greater good before.

  As he sat in the dead room with Mason while the others worked around them, he suggested going topside for some fresh air. The expression on Mason’s face was unreadable, and for someone who was usually so filled with emotion, Mattli didn’t think it was a good sign.

  While they walked the path outside, Mattli hoped it would calm Mason’s nerves.

  “Listen, it’s hard to make sacrifices.”

  “Mattli. Don’t. Sacrifices come in the form of my time, my comfort, food, shelter, and things like that. Not people’s lives.”

  He ignored Mason and kept talking as they walked. “The most difficult decision I ever made was sending you and Ashley off to the mainland. I knew we were sending lambs off to slaughter. And I even told Alkoff as much while we watched you paddle away.”

  He turned to look at Mason, who was kicking the ground in front of them as he jammed his hands in his pockets. The snow was getting deep on either side of the muddy path. They’d walked it so much lately that the snow couldn’t settle on it.

  Mattli drew his robe around him more tightly, trying to keep the cold out. “But he didn’t see it that way. Ashley had gotten herself into a bit of a predicament among the elders. We thought if she didn’t come back, we’d at least offered her a chance at survival. Where if she’d stayed here, you know as well as I do, she would’ve died eventually. But out there, that was where she belonged.