Only if the programming fails, Ashby thought to himself, finding little comfort. One way to know for sure.
Gulping, he sat at his specialized microscope. He’d toiled over that programming, but he wasn’t sure it was quite right. The images of the rat’s destroyed innards would probably always haunt him. He knew if he hadn’t taken exactly the right steps, at least he’d taken the first steps to prevent further incidences.
Trust the science. He reached over for his phone.
I’m going in, he typed to Mendi.
Godspeed.
He selected the chimp in the worst condition. It had come to him months ago, after the trials had started. Its cancer was slow growing, but it was starting to cause problems with her breathing and appetite as it spread. He entered the specific type of cancer they were to target, and then set them loose on the chimp.
“I’m sorry, Hope, but can you stay here with me? We need to watch the chimp, make sure she doesn’t decline rapidly, and if she does, discharge the EMP. They could do a lot of damage.”
She nodded, grabbing the EMP wand.
“I’ll make some coffee for us.” While at the machine, it struck him that he never considered the implications of a catastrophic failure in his lab. At any one time, he kept about fifteen bots on hand. Not all of them activated, but if they were, fifteen could take him and his assistant down relatively quickly. A few days at most. Would they even know that was what had happened?
Ashby scoffed at himself. Of course they would. They’d see the bots missing and could just kill them with an EMP. They’d worry about getting them out later. Maybe Mendi’s miracle cure could help repair any of the damage they did.
Mendi. He was being hailed as a God. No, one better than that. He’d defied the Grim Reaper. Brought his subjects back from the dead, and he had been assigned two new patients as a reward.
As if thinking of him brought him to fruition, Mendi knocked on the lab door and didn’t wait for a response.
“I’m heading home.” He looked around, seeing the assistant stationed at the chimp’s cage, and Ashby making coffee. “Aren’t you guys leaving soon?”
“Not tonight. We need to take precautions.”
“Precautions.” He nodded, seeming to absorb the ramifications of Ashby’s work.
“We can’t all be DNA editors, Mendi.” He meant it to sound tongue in cheek, but it came out a little bitter.
Mendi ignored the tone and laughed. “And we can’t all create flesh-eating robots. Imagine how much more glamorous your successes will be. Hollywood will be all over you.”
“If I can get to the success part.”
“That is the tricky part.” He put a hand on Ashby’s shoulder. “Well, goodnight then, and good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Once Mendi was gone, the real work started.
A few hours later, they came to a break. The bots were doing their thing, his assistant was standing at the ready, and there was nothing for Ashby to do but wait. So he called Judy to say goodnight.
But she didn’t answer. That wasn’t like her. Maybe she was already asleep. Ashby glanced at his watch. 10:23. Possible, but unlikely. He only hesitated for a moment before he dialed again.
After three rings, she answered, but she was out of breath. “Hi, honey,” she said, panting.
“What are you doing? Why didn’t you answer the first time?”
“I’m sorry, love. I was mopping the bathroom floor with my headphones on and didn’t hear it.”
“Why are you doing that at ten thirty at night? Go to bed. Mopping can wait until tomorrow,” he said, wondering about her choices sometimes.
“You’re right. But I just had that one last thing to do, and I didn’t want it hanging over my head.”
“Of course. I just wanted to say goodnight. We have a long few days ahead of us, I think.”
“Good luck, love. I know you’ll knock this one out of the park.” She said it with such sincerity that Ashby couldn’t help but smile.
“Thanks. I love you.”
Without hesitation, she said, “I love you too. Goodnight.” She disconnected the call, and Ashby went back to work without a care.
By morning, both Ashby and his assistant were zombies. On the bright side, his chimp seemed to be doing well. She was eating voluntarily, displaying more signs of energy, and drinking. They were hopeful. It was the most rapid turnaround they’d seen so far.
He sent his assistant home for a few hours to rest and shower. When she came back, he went down to the locker room and showered there to try to refresh himself. He’d never been awake this long before, not even in his college days of all-night cram fests for finals. Never mind the fact that he was a good twenty years older. He couldn’t handle this kind of stress for very long.
While he poured himself a cup of coffee around midmorning, Mendi walked up behind him. “Hey there, night walker. How’d everything go?”
“Seems good so far. The chimp is showing major signs of improvement.”
“That’s great!” He clapped Ashby on the back. “So your sacrifice was worth it.”
“I suppose,” he said, bringing the cup to his lips and hoping it would give him the energy he needed to get through the day.
“I have some good news myself.”
“Oh?” Ashby wasn’t sure he was prepared to hear any of Mendi’s “good news.” It would only put more pressure on him. But he tried to act excited. Mendi was his friend, after all.
“I’ve selected a new testing group.”
“That’s great!” Mendi’s patients were all doing beautifully. He had a pool of applicants six feet deep. News of his miracle cure was spreading throughout the cancer community like wildfire. It was every scientist’s dream.
“That’s not the great part. This group doesn’t have cancer.”
Ashby tilted his head as his exhausted mind tried to puzzle out why he would take subjects without cancer.
“They have Alzheimer’s.”
“…Alzheimer’s.” Ashby struggled to process the news. “I didn’t realize you were that close to testing other diseases.” They’d speculated many times about the wide-reaching impact Mendi’s technique could have. But it was nothing more than theorizing. How had he gotten to application so quickly?
“After seeing the success and relatively low risk of the technique, I’m being allowed some unconventional patients to experiment with, as long as they’re willing.”
“How can an Alzheimer’s patient be willing? How could they possibly understand what you’re proposing when they can’t even remember their own family?” Ashby asked, more than a little incredulous at Mendi’s latest development. It was out of character for him to break the rules. Why would he risk it?
“Well, all families involved have power of attorney. And some have even provided me with a handwritten letter from the patient stating they don’t want to live the way they are. Unfortunately for them, they don’t live in a state that supports assisted suicide. So, families have reached out to me, hoping I could help.”
“How did they even get wind that you were thinking of using it on degenerative brain diseases? Cancer is a long way from Alzheimer’s.” Ashby realized he was being argumentative instead of supportive the way Mendi would’ve been, but he just couldn’t understand how such a leap had been made without any red tape at all.
“The one who gathered the group is a fellow physician. He studied my work, and he reasoned the technique could be applied there, as well as to many other diseases and illnesses.”
“Should you be concerned that it’s that easy to figure out your road map? Someone might usurp you,” Ashby said, a little bitterness seeping through his tone.
If Mendi picked up on it, he ignored it. “Nah. Anyway, if someone did that, they’d only be helping more people. That’s what it’s about in the end, right?”
“Right,” Ashby said quietly, although he wasn’t so sure. Helping people was more of a side bonus for him. He was after the
fortune. The gold mine that would come with curing an incurable disease.
Ashby cleared his throat. “Well, congratulations, Mendi. That is exciting news.” He raised his coffee mug to him, and Mendi bowed his head. “So, what do you realistically expect as far as an outcome?”
“I have no idea,” Mendi said.
“When do you start?”
“Tomorrow. The candidates are gathering as we speak.”
Ashby nodded as he sipped his coffee. Tomorrow. Good things certainly were happening for Mendi. He thought of his energetic little chimp and hoped his own treasure trove of good things wasn’t too much further out of reach.
Two more days went by. He and his assistant started taking shifts so they could sleep. The chimp showed marked improvement by the hour, it seemed. By midday on the third day, they ran another scan and couldn’t find a single trace of the cancer.
“It’s time,” Ashby declared, and he went to get the box.
They donned protective rubber suits, leaving not an inch of skin exposed, and helmets, so the bots wouldn’t get distracted by their bodies on their way to the box. The other chimp was moved to the lab next door so no other organic matter could attract the nanobots.
After an hour of preparing for extraction, there was nothing left to do but remove the two bots at once.
Ashby looked at his assistant, and she smiled reassuringly at him as she stroked the chimp’s back.
The procedure wasn’t terribly risky, but there was a lot at stake. If it didn’t work, if the bots didn’t respond, or did too much damage on their way out, he’d be back to square one.
“Here we go,” he said, taking a deep breath and pressing the button that would engage the box.
He watched the chimp with special infrared goggles, equipped with magnification to the nth degree that helped him see the cool bots moving around once they were outside the chimp. They looked like little specs of dark blue, but they were there. Obediently, they moved right into the box, and Ashby sealed it off once they were inside. Ashby flipped a second switch, deactivating them instead of destroying them like an EMP would.
A huge burst of air escaped him, and he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding his breath.
His assistant looked at him expectantly. She couldn’t see the bots with the naked eye. She had no idea if it had worked or not.
Ashby watched the chimp. She seemed unaffected. The bots had taken the shortest route to the surface, which happened to be out of her left ear. The chimp hadn’t even seemed to notice. She breathed without struggle as she happily shared a banana with Hope.
He breathed a sigh of relief. His program had worked. The bots were secure, and the chimp was alive and well.
“I think we’ve done it.”
Ashby had been stuck in his lab during lunch for the last three days, so he didn’t think Mendi would miss him that day. For some reason, he wanted to share his success with Judy first. She wasn’t competing with him. She was just as invested in his success as he was. And although Mendi was always excited and supportive, it seemed like lately, for every piece of good news Ashby had, Mendi had a better one.
So, he decided to take a long lunch and drive home to surprise Judy. He wouldn’t have more than an hour or so to actually eat, and he warned his assistant he’d be gone for at least two hours.
“Lord knows you’ve got enough comp time after being here all night long for three days straight. Take all the time you need,” she said with a knowing smile. “And congratulations.
“Don’t worry, I won’t lie down. I won’t come back if I do.” He winked at her and left the lab, whistling a happy tune.
Walking past the cafeteria, he searched for Mendi, but he didn’t see him. He wasn’t sure what he’d say if he did spot him, but he couldn’t help himself searching for his old friend. He shrugged when he didn’t find him.
“Maybe he got sick of eating alone, and he’s in his lab,” Ashby said aloud to himself as he made his way to the car.
He couldn’t help but tap out the beat to the song on the radio as he made his way away from the city toward his small home. This was the day his and Judy’s lives would turn around. He’d done it. He could cure cancer every bit as well as Mendi. All he needed was another group of patients.
True, they weren’t knocking down his door as they were for Mendi, but he’d get one eventually. And then, he would win. He’d show them.
“Who are them?” he questioned as he pulled into the driveway. He shook his head. It didn’t matter. What mattered was Judy and the look on her face. But as he approached the house, another car was there. Mendi’s car.
What was he doing there?
Admittedly, seeing his friend’s car at his home sucked some of the wind from his sails. Despite himself, he stood up a little straighter. He could tell them both at once this way. The two people he cared for most in the world. Except for Ashley, of course. But she was at school.
He took the stairs to the front door two at a time and shouted when he came in. “Judy! Where are you? We’ve done it! We’ve had a breakthrough.”
She wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen. He thought he could hear some movement in the bedroom, so he headed there, assuming she was putting laundry away or something, totally high on cloud nine.
“Judy, is Mendi here? Listen, the chimp survived. I put two bots inside it, pulled them out without destroying them, and the damned thing survived. Not only that, but she’s thriving. This is it. We’re going to do this,” he said as he came around the corner into their bedroom.
But what he saw there, he couldn’t process. Mendi was shirtless, buttoning his pants. Their bed was a mess, when he knew Judy painstakingly made it every day, including the six or seven throw pillows that had to be perfectly arranged on it. Then his eyes found Judy. She was standing with her back to him. Her hair was clearly mussed, her dress unbuttoned, and her bra cast haphazardly on the floor in the corner of the room.
“What…?” Ashby wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence. How had he been so blind? “How long?” he demanded, turning to his so-called friend.
Mendi at least had the decency to hang his head. “It never stopped.”
As that thought sank in, Ashby backed up until he hit the doorframe. “Judy…” His voice was pleading. This couldn’t be true. She loved Ashby. She’d made her choice. They’d made a happy life together. Was it all really a sham?
“I’m so sorry, Ben,” Mendi said as he approached. “We never meant—”
Ashby cut him off, his hurt turning to white-hot rage in a flash. “You never meant what? To hurt me? For me to find out? I mean, why would I? You guys have kept me in the dark this long. An idiot like me could go on forever being blissfully unaware, wouldn’t you think?”
Judy turned to face him, tears shining in her eyes, her lips red and swollen, lipstick smeared from their recent bout of passion. It only served to fuel Ashby’s anger. “Please, Ben,” she begged.
“Please what? What exactly do you think I’m going to do? What exactly can I do to either of you at this point that would hurt more than what you’ve done to me?”
6.
Approximate year, 2346
Mattli was just about over waiting for that young man to come back into the dead room. Honestly, how long did it take to retrieve a box so they could wrap things up and go to bed? He was probably daydreaming up there, looking up at the sky or something ridiculous like that.
Eventually, the old man’s impatience got the better of him. He was tired, and he yearned for his own bed, his warm match curled around him. She might even have a hot cup of tea ready for him. He didn’t want to be down in the cold, dark, dead room any longer than he had to be.
He stomped up the ladder and threw the door open with more force than was necessary.
“For Ashby’s sake, Elder Hawkins, what is taking you so long?” he demanded before he was even all the way out of the dead room.
But he didn’t see Hawkins. At least, not right away.
He saw a tall person, a woman if the profile could be trusted. She was wiping something on her…robe. An elder.
“Branneth? Is that you?”
She turned toward him, seemingly startled.
He thought he could see the smile on her face give way to mild irritation. “Elder Mattli. Aren’t you up past your bedtime?”
“Indeed I am. I was just waiting for Elder Hawkins to return so we could wrap up some unfinished business.”
“Funny, that’s exactly what he said. I wouldn’t have guessed he was telling the truth.” She continued to wipe the knife on her robe as she spoke to him, rarely making eye contact. Instead, she kept her gaze on the knife, a slight smile on her face.
Mattli moved closer to her, warily, eyeing the knife as he tried to puzzle out what was going on. Until he heard something. A moan, maybe?
“Mattli, stay back,” a voice gurgled.
“Mason? Is that you?” Mattli said, so startled by how inhuman the voice sounded that he forgot his formalities.
He started to rush to the man’s side, but Branneth flashed the knife at him.
“Ah-ah, Elder Mattli. I think that’s close enough.”
His patience was gone. “Elder Branneth, what exactly do you hope to accomplish from this?”
“I’ve already accomplished everything I hoped for. I don’t really care what happens next.” She shrugged.
Mattli knew he was in a tough spot. She had nothing left to lose, and everything to gain. She had the advantage. But he had a gun. He felt the weight of it at his side. He knew he couldn’t get to it easily or silently, but if he could keep her distracted, he might be able to—
“I’m going to advise you to just go on down the trail and back home, old man. Forget what you’ve seen here. In all honesty, I’ve done the island a favor. If I hadn’t killed him, the islanders likely would have, out of fear of having a convicted murderer walking among them, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t think, Elder Branneth. That’s why I made him my second in command. I trust him.” He threw his hands up in exasperation. “For the last time, he didn’t murder Wesley. Ashley killed him in self-defense.”
The Dead World (The Dead Room Trilogy Book 2) Page 4
