Soon, he was able to rent a small, furnished apartment near the university, and it was then he realized how much he missed having his own space. For the first time in months, he sat in a comfortable chair and read the newspaper. He had leisure time. Granted, not a lot, and what he did have was stolen after a late night at the lab, but it was still there, and still better than that cot with his chimps.
He was going places. Until something odd happened.
One night, as he was reading the paper before going to bed, he noticed a small story buried on the bottom of page A12. It was a blurb, no more than three paragraphs along the left column of the page.
A small headline read:
Hospital worker dies mysteriously
Doctor Leonard Greene, a renowned physician at Shands Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, died seemingly without cause doctors said. He was head physician and implementing Bennett Ashby’s new miracle cure for cancer.
“He will be deeply missed, and the hospital is left scrambling to replace him and continue the work that was so important to him. Saving lives, that’s what mattered.”
Greene is survived by his wife and three grown children.
Ashby read and reread the article. Without cause. What did that mean? It could be completely unrelated, he told himself as he folded the paper and tried to stand from his chair, trying to comfort himself as he walked to his small bedroom. But what if it wasn’t?
It gave him pause. In fact, it made him turn. Before he could second-guess himself again, he grabbed his keys and headed to the university.
Normally, he rode his bike to his lab, but his car was faster. That late at night, he was able to park right next to the elevator and get to his lab quickly. He pulled out the first bot he could get to and double-checked all of its circuitry and functionality. Then he did the same thing on the next one. And the next, until all twenty bots had been checked. He had dozens more waiting to be shipped out in the morning to various hospitals, and he wondered if he should check them too, or chalk the doctor’s death up to an anomaly. Something totally unrelated to the robots.
Before he knew it, morning was upon him. He didn’t notice Hope come in as he was standing over the hard cases of bots waiting for FedEx to claim them.
“What’s up?” she asked, noticing his tense posture as he scrutinized the shipment.
“Leonard Greene died.”
“Oh, no. What happened to him? He seemed so nice.”
Ashby thought that was such an odd thing to say. As if someone’s niceness had a direct coloration to how long they lived. Mean people must live very long lives, because no one ever said thank goodness, that person was a bitch. Good riddance wasn’t uttered when someone died young. No, it was always a shame. In this case, it really was.
“Unknown cause is what it sounds like.”
“What? Didn’t they do an autopsy?”
“Not sure. If they did, it wasn’t listed in the paper. Poor man only got three paragraphs buried on the bottom of page twelve.”
“Want me to call down there and see what I can find out?”
Ashby looked up at her, grateful yet again for such an assistant.
“I’ll do it right now,” she said, rushing off to the phone.
She wasn’t gone very long. “I’m not sure you’re going to like what I have to say. I managed to speak to the pathologist who performed Dr. Greene’s autopsy. Told him you’d asked me to call and find out what had happened. Knowing how much Greene valued your work, they put me right through. He said Dr. Greene’s innards were like soup. He’d declined slowly at first, noting pain here and there, until it became debilitating. By then, it was too late. Scans and blood work showed failing organs across the board. The pathologist thought it was some superbug and has put the hospital on quarantine. They’re not accepting any new patients into the program until it can be locked down and cleared.”
“A superbug?” Well, that was one explanation. Shands was a top-of-the-line medical facility in the nation. They treated everything. He could’ve been exposed to any number of diseases.
Ashby took a shuddering breath. “A superbug.”
Hope looked at the crate, now clearly as uneasy as Ashby was. “The way he described it…” She hesitated, and Ashby tensed even more, holding his arms out straight at his sides, frowning at the crate of life-saving robots. “Well, it sounded a lot like some of the early rats. Ones who’d been eaten alive by the bots.”
Ashby shook his head. “It was a superbug, Hope. It had to be. Otherwise, other doctors, patients, and workers would be sick too. An isolated incident doesn’t add up to an epidemic. I’ve proven the new programming works. They learned to do their jobs. Remember, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one. Superbug makes sense.”
“I think that’s what hospital officials are hoping,” she said, and Ashby knew they were right, except for a tiny niggling at the back of his mind, that he promptly ignored.
11.
January 2025
The call came two months after Doctor Greene died. Ashby was living the high life with his bots humming away and saving lives. He never heard anything more on Doctor Greene, or his cause of death. If it had been his bots, the pathologist would’ve been next. Someone. And it would’ve made more news. An outbreak of the superbug. However, things remained blessedly quiet.
Until the phone rang. The number was out of state. “This is Ashby,” he answered, not sure who it could be. Maybe someone wanted an interview. Or another hospital wanted to join the program. Although, he had people who handled that kind of thing now.
“Ashby,” the man on the other end said breathlessly, as if he was panicked. Something about his tone made Ashby grip the phone a little harder. “Please. We need help.”
“Who is this?”
“The bots. They’re out of control. People are…” Ashby heard a scream in the background.
“How do you know it’s the bots?” Ashby said immediately, trying to think of a more logical explanation.
“The containment room malfunctioned. It freed them all.”
“Who is this?” Ashby demanded again, hoping beyond hope that it was a prank call.
“It’s Frank Voskins. Director over at Colorado State Medical Center.”
Shit. It was real. How could it be the bots? They would target diseases, not healthy flesh. Why wasn’t his programming working?
Frank’s pleading interrupted his stream of questions. “Ashby, what should we do?” He expected an answer. Ashby was their savior. He would have an answer.
But he didn’t. He had no idea.
“Let me think. I will call you back.”
Before Frank could respond, Ashby hung up and hurriedly laid the phone down on the table in front of him. He stared at it as if it were a foreign object, a bringer of death.
“Is something wrong?” Hope asked from behind him. She was gently brushing the chimp’s hair, lulling her to sleep.
He remained silent. He needed to think. “They could use an EMP. But it would destroy all the other medical equipment in the hospital. And could they even produce one large enough? Who knows where all the bots are at this point? It would have to be a large scale.”
Hope walked slowly over to him, but he didn’t notice. “Where could they get such a large-scale EMP?” she asked, picking up on the problem quickly.
The military base wasn’t too far from the hospital. Maybe an hour or two. By then, the bots could be anywhere.
His mind raced, volleying wildly between solutions and disbelief. How could this happen? He programmed them to be picky eaters, not voracious monsters. And the containment rooms. They were supposed to prevent this kind of incident. Someone must have breached containment protocol. It couldn’t be a malfunction on such a large scale. Human error made more sense.
With a shaking hand, he picked the phone back up and hit redial. One ring. Two. Three. After nine rings, he gave up.
He turned to look at Hope, feeling completely lost. “No one a
nswered.”
“Mr. Ashby, what is going on?”
“A catastrophic failure.”
He wondered if they’d thought to call in help other than him. “Hope, please look up the number for the closest military base to Colorado State Medical Center.”
In the meantime, he called the CDC.
“How can I help you?” a woman with a perky voice asked.
“There’s some kind of situation happening at Colorado State Medical Center.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Not really. I got a call from the hospital director, saying the bots had gotten lose, and there was screaming in the background. I think they need to set off a massive EMP, but it will disable all the medical equipment that’s keeping people alive in the hospital. You need to take action and be prepared, or lives will be lost.”
“Whoa, slow down, sir. What are you talking about?”
He took a deep breath, and he tried to remember this woman wasn’t involved. She had no idea what kind of program they were running at the hospital.
“My name is Bennett Ashby. Founder of C-Bots.”
“Oh. Yes. I know who you are. What seems to be the problem, Mr. Ashby?”
“Colorado State Medical Center is one of the many hospitals nationwide participating in the C-Bot program. I believe the bots have gotten loose and are…well…eating people alive. You need to get there and set off a massive EMP to disable them. Now.”
“Okay, I don’t know if any of our units have that kind of capability. We will need military aide.”
In that moment, Hope raced over and slapped the phone number in front of him. He handed her the phone. “Here, you talk to the CDC.”
Racing across the lab, he picked up the landline and dialed the number Hope wrote down.
Someone official answered and started to rattle off their title and location of the base. “I need help. My name is Bennett Ashby. Founder of C-Bots.”
“Hello, Mr. Ashby. It’s an honor to—”
Ashby cut him off. “I need a massive EMP, and I need it at Colorado State Medical Center now.”
“Sir, that’s an hour away.”
“Do you have anything at all that could be used nearby? People are dying.” Ashby was getting desperate. And he was hundreds of miles away.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean people are dying, Sergeant.” He thought that was what the man said his title was. He couldn’t be sure, and he didn’t really care. “Either help me, or I will find someone who will.”
“Um, yes. Hold on. Let me see who I can find.”
Ashby was on hold for an intolerably long time. He listened to Hope on the phone with the CDC, trying to help the people at the medical center.
“Oh, ok, yes. Do that. Hurry, please. Yes, I’ll stay on the line.”
“What are they doing?” Ashby demanded.
“Sending in the SWAT team. They have specialized equipment, I guess.”
Ashby breathed a sigh of relief. It took another three full minutes before the Sergeant came back. “The SWAT team has been deployed, sir. They will be there momentarily.”
“They have what they need to zap the bots?”
“A military team isn’t far behind them.” The man didn’t give specific details, but Ashby didn’t need them.
“They know that when they deploy the EMP, it will disable all medical equipment, right? Are they prepared to deal with the domino effect from that? Ventilators? Heart monitors? Dialysis machines? Everything will come to a screeching halt.”
“Yes, sir, they are dealing with the issues as they present themselves. I’m sorry, sir, I need to let you go. Things are moving fast now, and require my attention.”
“Fine. Thank you for your help.”
The sergeant hung up, and Ashby robotically returned the phone to its base. Hope had hung up by then as well.
“They’re on their way.”
Hope ran to the back of the lab and grabbed her laptop off the table. Frantically, she typed in a Google search and brought up a local Colorado news station’s website.
Across the top in capital red letters, it read:
INCIDENT AT CSMC POSSIBLE TERRORIST ATTACK
“What?” Ashby asked as he read the headline. It wasn’t terrorists. It was nanobots. His nanobots. Did that make him the terrorist in this scenario? He frowned, not liking that label at all.
“Denver Police Department’s SWAT team, as well as a specialized military team, has responded to a call of unknown origin at Colorado State Medical Center. The call is believed to be terrorist centered. No information is available at this time on whether or not hostages are involved. Stay tuned for continuous updates on this story,” Hope read aloud. “That’s all it says.”
“Refresh the page.”
She did, but it said the same thing. Terrorist. This morning, the media painted him as a god. A savior. A miracle worker. Now, he was a terrorist.
“A terrorist,” he spat, sitting back in his seat, arms folded over his chest, totally disgusted with the world.
“They only said that because they don’t know what’s going on.” She paused for a second and really looked at him. “Maybe that’s best if this never fully gets out. Maybe it’s best if you remain an unknown terrorist.”
“What? What do you mean? How on God’s green Earth could it be best to label me some heartless killer?”
“First of all, they haven’t labeled you personally as anything. They’ve blamed terrorists simply because the SWAT team and the military are involved. The media sees a response like that and thinks terror and hostages. Most of the time, they’re right too.”
“It won’t stay that way for long, though. Our secret will be out. There’s no hiding it. And if it is a malfunction, as Frank implied, the other hospitals should know. The containment rooms, and the bots, need maintenance on a large scale.” It had been about eight months since the first bot went out to the first hospital. It shouldn’t need maintenance already, not for another four months at least.
“What could’ve gone wrong?” Hope asked, clearly trying to puzzle it out just as much as he was.
“My first thought is human error. Someone didn’t seal the containment room properly.” Each hospital was given their own containment rooms for the bots, completely lined with the material the boxes were made of. A set of specific codes locked and unlocked not only the room, but also each case inside holding the bots. No way should all of them have been released at once. There wasn’t even a code for that. That didn’t explain why the bots had dumped their programming and started eating healthy flesh again, but he thought he’d take one step at a time.
“Do you think someone did it deliberately?” Hope asked.
“I… That hadn’t occurred to me. I certainly hope not.” But Ashby couldn’t deny its plausibility.
Mendi. The name passed through his mind as if floating on a summer breeze. Although they still worked at the university together, they never saw each other or spoke. Ashby had lunch in his lab, or went to a café around the corner. Despite the fact that he’d been known as the snitch, people still wanted to know him, still wanted to be friendly with him, based on the direction his research was going. As he gained on Mendi, people viewed their relationship as a rivalry, and found it exciting.
It seemed out of place for Mendi to take that type of revenge on Ashby. He would never sacrifice lives to get back at Ashby. Would he? Wasn’t that what Ashby had tried to do? If he’d been successful, how many people would be dead now because Mendi’s cure was out of the picture?
Ashby’s mind whirled out of control for the next half hour while they waited for the story to update. Finally, Hope interrupted his thoughts. “It’s under control. They’re reporting ten people have died, maybe more.”
“Ten people,” Ashby repeated. Ten families who’d lost loved ones because of his ‘miracle.’
“Are they saying what happened?” Ashby asked, horrified.
Before she could ans
wer, his phone rang. “Ben. It’s Jen Collings.”
Jen was his manager of sorts. She handled all his public appearances. Since the initial rush, things had quieted down, and he hadn’t heard from her in a while. Somehow, hearing from her now didn’t give him the normal rush of excitement her calls usually brought.
“Listen, this thing at CSMC isn’t good.”
“I know. Frank called me, and I couldn’t get him to answer when I called back.”
“He’s among the dead, Ben,” she said with little emotion.
“What?” Ashby breathed. “But I was just talking to him, like an hour or two ago. It was chaotic, but he seemed fine.”
“Well, he isn’t now. But he isn’t your biggest concern here, Ben. This is a major situation. One that could result in a complete shutdown of the program. I need you to answer some questions, so I know how to best proceed. I’m already trying to steer the media away from you, and most are taking the bait, but a few are smarter than the public gives them credit for. They’re asking the right questions, and my diversions are only fueling the flames. I think I may have to issue a media blackout on this, in order to keep the program going. That involves the military, Ben. It’s serious.”
Ashby shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with where the conversation was going.
“Could this have been a malfunction on a massive scale?” she asked bluntly.
“I don’t believe so. No. Each containment slot holds one bot, and it has a separate code to release it. There is no code to release all bots at once. I believe it was human error.”
“Or human terror,” Hope said in the background. Jen wasn’t exactly a quiet talker. Hope must’ve been able to hear her from where she stood.
“What was that?” Jen asked.
“My assistant thinks someone at CSMC may have done this on purpose.”
“Is that possible? Do you have enemies?”
“One that I can think of.”
“Mendelsohn,” she said without Ashby having to fill in the blanks. There weren’t many secrets between the two of them. She had to know everything, so as to be prepared for any possible smear campaigns. Although she hadn’t needed any of the information until this moment, he was grateful for the hours of grilling months ago, so he didn’t have to explain himself now.
The Dead World (The Dead Room Trilogy Book 2) Page 8
