“So the code is a word, probably. Five letters, definitely. Starting with E, possibly.” She traced the edge of the lock with her fingers. “Something important to Dalhart, maybe … it’s a bit obvious but …” She closed her eyes, said a quick prayer, then turned the remaining wheels to spell “Ellis.”
Something clicked. She threw her hands in front of her face, prepared for the worst. For three heartbeats, nothing happened. Then another click.
The door slid open.
Chapter Eleven
Nyssa stared into the darkness for a moment before switching from infrared to night vision. A stack of crates loomed a few feet before her, labeled things like “BEANS” and “MIXED VEGETABLES.” Several were cracked open, revealing lines of tin cans.
“Well, if I need a snack, there’s that.” Nyssa stepped around the crates and stifled a shriek. Before her stood a heavy, wooden desk, covered in papers and books. Amongst them, slumped forward, was a man.
Nyssa froze, torn between flight and fight. Wait. All that noise out there, and he’s still asleep? She forced herself towards him.
Matted white curls covered his head like the layer of dust coating his clothes. One skeletal hand, shrouded in paper-like, shrunken skin, clasped a picture frame. This held a sepia photograph of a well-dressed family: a dignified, mustached man, an elegant woman with long black curls, and a young boy, with his mother’s curls and his father’s slightly prominent nose.
“We meet at last, Professor Dalhart.” Nyssa shook her head.
All this pain, caused by a miserable old man who had died peacefully at his desk. A line of computers with traditional monitors, rather than mirrors, covered the wall behind the desk, all dark and lifeless. She touched one. It was cold, probably not run since Dalhart’s death, which judging from his desiccated corpse had been at least six months before, maybe more than a year.
She considered booting up the system, seeing if she could communicate with Hart, but wanted to collect herself first. How would he respond to Dalhart’s death? What information would be left for him to find? Would it say anything about Ellis?
Her heart now calm, she savored the silence … the almost silence. Something hummed.
She followed the sound to the far corner and a patch of wood-paneled wall. Feeling along the paneling, her fingers met a button, and the wall slipped into a gap. Green light washed over her.
Moving through the doorway, she blinked several times. A wall of glass beakers and tubes glowed in the eerie light. Yellow, green, and blue fluid bubbled within. A robot jerked about, fussing with wires and dials under the beakers. It was thinner than the maid, with an open chassis, revealing wires and gears, no sign of human-bits.
Nyssa froze. The muscles in her arms and back felt like water, and the bruises from her roll down the stairs throbbed.
Do I have the strength to fight another robot?
The automaton turned around, pistons hissing, and rolled towards her. She flailed for the door latch, but before she could find it, the robot wheeled right by her. It pushed several buttons on a keypad, plugged one of its pincer-like hands into a socket, then froze. The lights on its headpiece flicked off.
Recharging, maybe? In sleep mode?
Nyssa hazarded a step into the room. A line of stenciled letters on the robot's metal skull read, “Dalhart's Automated Nursing System: PROTOTYPE.”
Maybe it lacks the home defense mechanism added into the maid.
Beyond the beakers lay an operating table draped with a white sheet. Tubes ran from the glass vessels to the table then disappeared under the sheet. Bundles of blue and silver wire, identical to the wires in Hart’s circuitry, sprouted from the other side of the table. These connected to a massive computer system with a screen the size of a wagon bed and a keyboard with at least a hundred extra buttons. Nyssa’s heart hitched.
There's someone beneath the sheet.
She hesitated. Could she pull the sheet away from this poor soul and gaze into his eyes? What would be left of him?
Steeling herself against imagined horrors, she stepped over the tubes to the head of the table. She peeled back the sheet, just to the neck.
Her breath fled as if she’d been punched in the stomach.
The man was young, not much more than a teen, with nearly translucent skin and dark curls left to grow well past his shoulders. A light scruff of a beard covered his sunken cheeks. Beneath his skin, she could see the gentle throb of his carotid artery. She caught herself on the edge of the table.
“Ellis?” she whispered, pushing her goggles up for a better look.
She traced the wires which burrowed beneath his hair. Brushing back his curls revealed electrodes fastened to his scalp.
Ellis is Hart. He has to be. Oh what will Hart think of this … and can I revive him?
She smoothed his hair back in place, uncertain what removing any of the equipment would do. The tubes, combined with the robot's care, had to be keeping him breathing somehow, but how long could that be sustained? Especially now that Dalhart wasn’t alive to supervise?
Her hand brushed against his cheek as she withdrew. His skin felt cold. Worried, she rested her hand on his neck and savored his pulse. Weak … but constant. Her fingers lingered for a moment. He might’ve been a handsome youth, if not so wasted, but more than that, he was Hart, her companion throughout this hellish day. He was her friend, and seeing him like this ached.
Oh God, please don't let this hurt him. Help me help him through this. Let there be a way to wake him.
Covering him again, she turned her attention to
