The Dead World (The Dead Room Trilogy Book 2)

by Erickson,Stephanie

  “I’m not such a fan of being maimed,” Mason said, wrinkling his nose.

  The volunteers, mostly young men, nodded seriously at him, and he chuckled. “So, see what you can come up with.”

  Most of their designs involved creating a closed circuit.

  “This looks great, fellas,” Mason said a few weeks after they’d started working. “Only problem is we don’t have an energy source to run this.”

  “That’s the power team’s problem,” someone answered without missing a beat.

  “This will work. We just need the supplies,” another of the young volunteers said.

  Mason had no idea how they could be so certain. And his perplexed expression must have shown.

  “The mathematics of it work, Mason,” one young man said as he approached him with a piece of paper. It had drawings of the device along with a lot of numbers and letters, like it was supposed to mean something to him.

  “All of these components are inside the dead room, but they shouldn’t be essential to its function. Gabe was telling me about the triple redundancies inside the room. He thinks Ashby did it on purpose so we could go home.”

  “Mmhmm,” Mason said, eyeing the paper and not understanding it one bit. “One thing’s for sure. Gabe is right. You are all smarter than me.”

  Mattli spent his time helping the team building the power source. They’d settled on a windmill, since they already had one on the island powering the dead room.

  Only some of it was total gibberish to him. He’d spent a fair amount of time reading about electricity in the time before, however none of the books actually told how to build a windmill. But the science was there, and with a working model to go off, he thought they’d have it done pretty quickly.

  Boy was he wrong. They struggled with it and failed, repeatedly. When Mason approached Mattli with a design for the EMP that relied heavily on their windmill for energy, Mattli wasn’t sure what to say.

  “This looks great.”

  “They’d like to test it soon.”

  “Of course they would,” he said, deliberately being evasive.

  “When do you think they might be able to do that?” Mason pushed.

  “Honestly, I don’t know. I mean, a breakthrough could come today. Or it could be a month from now. We’re sort of grappling around in the dark here. Literally,” Mattli said, studying the design closely. It was brilliant and complex. He didn’t understand a few of the components, but he got the basic gist of it.

  “This will work. It will emit a constant signal instead of a pulse like Ashby’s devices,” he said, getting excited.

  “Only if we have an energy source to run it.”

  “Indeed,” Mattli said, focused on the EMP and not his own problem.

  “What seems to be the problem here, Mattli?”

  “The problem is wind. What if we don’t have it all the time? I mean, we can build a turbine easily enough, but if the wind dies down, we can’t test it, and storing energy is another challenge. We need to make sure you get a steady flow of energy, right?”

  “That’s ideal, yes.”

  “Wind isn’t steady. Sometimes, it really blows. Others, it’s deadly still,” Mattli said, reluctantly bringing his thoughts back to his own problems.

  “Plus, it has to be small enough to be portable, but big enough to catch the wind,” Mattli pointed out.

  “One problem at a time. What if you hooked it up to some bikes or something that could be man powered to keep the turbine going, just until the wind kicked back up?”

  “That’s a great idea, Mason. I mean, whoever has to pedal it won’t love it, but it’ll keep people alive. Thank you.”

  “Always happy to turn the lights on for you,” he said, smiling as he left Mattli to his work.

  Lehman was having a rough go of it. And she thought she had the easy group. All they had to do was build some boats to get all their crap from point A to point B. But it was easier said than done apparently. Their concepts were unbalanced, or they couldn’t withstand any kind of rough water.

  Both Mason and Mattli tried to help, proposing their own ideas, but each one took time and resources to build.

  Tristan Wharwood had taken control of the group of fishermen trying to help with the project. He’d said Ashley had saved his foot once, and he knew she was passionate about getting off the island. So it felt right to help her cause.

  A few weeks into their toils, he came up with a rather complicated design that basically looked like a giant canoe. One they could all sit inside, and then have rowers on either side.

  “It looks like a Viking ship,” Lehman noted.

  “Right. That’s the idea. Something big that they can haul a lot of stuff on, but stable enough to withstand any rough waters,” Tristan said, chewing his bottom lip.

  “Do they need something this big? It will use a tremendous amount of trees. If it sinks, we might not have enough left to try something else,” Lehman replied, looking down at the schematic he’d handed her.

  When she looked back up, his face had fallen completely. “Not that your design is guaranteed to fail. I didn’t mean that at all. I just…after all this time, we need an out. They’re counting on us to come through. If we can’t get them over to the mainland, this is all for nothing.”

  “I know that,” Tristan said, more than a little defensive. His posture straightened, and he folded his arms over his chest as he watched her.

  “Perhaps consider making something smaller, and doing more than one of them if it works. We can split the rations and things up between the ships, then attack the problem that way.” She nodded to him, trying to be encouraging.

  “That will require some recalculations.”

  “Then you have some work to do. Try to understand that I’m trying to conserve our supplies while not totally razing the island in the process. The people who live here will want trees when we’re gone.”

  He nodded, but he didn’t say anything when he left.

  A few days later, he came back with a small boat. One carved from a single piece of wood. A prototype.

  “Look,” he said as he pumped water into the sink.

  The boat was long and very pointed at the bottom, while being wide at the top. “To cut through the water,” he explained as he put it in the sink once it was about half full.

  He used a bowl on the counter to create small waves in the sink, and the boat remained upright somehow. It seemed to defy the laws of physics.

  “See?” he said.

  “I do see. But this is carved from a single piece of wood. It can’t spring a leak. You will need to replicate this on a much-larger scale, unless you want to send mice to the mainland,” she said, watching the boat rock in the sink.

  “Oh, ye of little faith,” he said as he smiled and ran out of her house. She splashed the boat, and it tipped, quickly sinking to the bottom.

  Retrieving the soggy boat, she frowned. “Indeed.”

  It took a few weeks, well, several weeks if Lehman was honest. But luckily, the others were struggling too. The windmill was slow going—seemed they had it working, but it was huge, way too big to transport to the mainland—and the EMP was at a bit of a standstill without it, so she felt better knowing they weren’t waiting solely on her and her crew.

  Finally, Tristan had a vessel ready to go.

  Lehman assessed the boat. It was big, but not overwhelming, and deep.

  “How in the world did you get it in the water?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “A lot of men.”

  What else did she expect him to say? That they’d used their minds?

  “Well, are you ready to launch it?” she asked, more than a little anxious. The stakes were higher now. Although they’d loaded sand bags on board to simulate the weight of supplies, the wood and materials used to build the boat couldn’t be replaced.

  “Whenever you are.”

  She nodded, staring at the boat, willing it to reveal any weaknesses to her so she could fe
el comfortable saying no, hold everything. But she saw nothing. It seemed like a solid piece of craftsmanship. It barely bobbed with the waves as it stayed tied to the dock, making it appear very stable indeed.

  “Well, Godspeed to you then.” She nodded, and he threw his arms around her, startling her for a bit.

  “See you in an hour or so.”

  “I hope you’re dry at the end of that hour.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith!” he called over his shoulder.

  That phrase seemed to be catching on for her. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

  She stood on the dock while she watched Tristan untie the boat and shove off, with the help of a few other men. They all held their breaths as they watched it go out into deeper waters. Rowers maneuvered it expertly, as if they’d been doing it their whole lives. But before long, the boat began to list inexplicably. She could hear shouts coming from the ship, orders probably, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  She walked to the end of the dock, as if the extra ten feet would give her a better perspective of what was going on. The boat tipped further and further. The waves were not even a factor. It was tipping on its own accord.

  “Abandon ship!” she heard someone yell, clear as a bell. Soon, people were jumping overboard and into the sea less than fifty yards out from the island.

  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 minutes.”

  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.”