Mike McQuay - Suspicion

“What do we do now?”

“Well, once we get out, if I can get access to the central core with one of the supervisors, I can reprogram the core to accept human blood as a natural microbe on the body of the city. In this sterile atmosphere, it’s perfectly understandable how such a glitch could happen. It could even be a means for the city to protect itself from infection.”

“But how did David die?” Katherine asked.

“Could it have been blood loss?” Derec asked.

She shook her head. “No chance,” she replied. “There was very little blood. The cut was smaller than yours.”

“What’s left?” he said. “I have to think that his death is a completely separate incident, unconnected to the blood loss.”

She looked skeptical. “Back-to-back coincidences, Derec? Deadly coincidence at that.”

He stood. “You’re right, of course. It must all tie together… but how?” He paced the room. “What other leads do we have? The only other connection is the fact that both of you came away from a sealed room with a headache.”

“We have another problem,” she replied, watching him moving back and forth in the confined space. “When I came in this room the first time to find the body, it had been sealed up… air tight.”

He stopped walking and stared at her. “The city would never keep us locked up without air. It would be a violation of the First Law, should we die.”

“It happened to David.”

“But David was already dead when it happened to him,” Derec said. “In fact, this just strengthens my theory. When the utility robot rolled him over to check for signs of life, gravity pulled a little more blood out of an already open wound. The room didn’t relate to David as a human, since he was dead. All it fixed its sights on was the ‘infection.’ We’re still alive and the city-robot knows it. Whatever else this crazy place may be, it’s run robotically. Ipso facto, we’re safe on that account.”

“Just the same,” she said, “I’ll be happier to be out of here.”

“Me too.”

“You realize, Derec,” she said, her voice low and heavy with meaning, “that we are recreating history right now. We are going through exactly the same progression that David went through before he died.”

“I know,” Derec replied. “But what else can we do?”

They stared at one another across the space of the room, the witness recording it all, and they may as well have been a million kilometers apart. They sat that way for a long time, far longer than it should have taken for a supervisor to show up.

Derec spent the time alternately trying to think his way out of their dilemma, figure out what was going on with Katherine, and looking at his watch. And the late morning turned to early afternoon, and Derec, who wasn’t worried about the air supply in the room, suddenly became very thirsty and began to dwell on the possibility that the robots had either forgotten them or couldn’t find them.

“Friend Derec!” came a loud voice from outside the room. “Friend Katherine! It is I, Wohler, the philosopher!”

Derec glanced at his watch. It was nearly five p.m., which meant rain was undoubtedly on the way. “We’re in here!” Derec called. “Can you get us free?”

Wohler called back loudly, “An Auroran philosopher once said, ‘Freedom is a condition of mind, and the best way to secure it is to breed it.’ Ho, Derec. We were held up digging in the mines, but I now have a laser torch to cut you out. I am here on the west wall of this room. I will ask kindly that you move to the east wall to avoid the torch as well as possible!”

Derec was sitting against the west wall. He stood immediately and moved over near Katherine, who looked at him with unreadable eyes.

“Go ahead!” Derec yelled through cupped hands, Rec moving up closer to the west wall to witness the torching from the inside.

Even through the thickness of the wall, they could hear the hiss of the torch on the other side. Derec slid down the wall to sit next to Katherine. Their arms accidentally touched. Both of them pulled away.

“Something’s wrong,” she said. “Something feels wrong.”

“I know,” he replied, “but what?”

The inside of the wall began to glow red hot in a small, circular section. Then the red turned to white, and a rivet-sized section burned through to reveal the outside through a quivering haze of heat.

Derec watched the hole expand, his mind racing as the torch began to etch the beginnings of a human-sized circle in the side of the room. He thought about headaches, and about erratic behavior and about blood and its composition-and then he thought about the nature of the city-robot.

“Stop!” he yelled, jumping to his feet and running as close to the metal cutting as he dared. “Stop the torch!”

“Derec?” Katherine asked, beginning to stand.

Derec covered his mouth with his hand. “Get on the floor!” he yelled. “All the way down and cover your mouth!”

“What’s wrong?” came Wohler’s voice from outside, the sound of the laser winding down to nothing. “What is it?”

“We can’t use the torch on the wall!” Derec called.

“I don’t understand,” Wohler said, bending down so that his eye covered the hole in the wall and he could look inside.

Derec backed away, getting down close to Katherine on the floor. “Is there some way to flush oxygen in here?” he asked loudly.

“We’ve come in a newly manufactured emergency truck,” Wohler replied. “I believe the emergency equipment includes oxygen cylinders.”

“Get one quickly!”

“The rains are approaching,” Wohler said. “We must hurry and get you out.”

“Listen,” Derec said. “The city material is a kind of metallic skin, an iron/plastic alloy. In the manufacturing process, a great deal of carbon monoxide is used as the reducing agent. I think your torch is liberating the monoxide as a gas into the closed room. By cutting us out, you’re gassing us!”

“The utility robot has gone for the oxygen!” Wohler said. “You have my apologies.”

“You didn’t know,” Derec said. He looked at Katherine. “Are you all right?”

“So far,” she replied. “Are you sure of what you’re saying? David didn’t die until later, outside of the room.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied. “Carbon monoxide in large doses will simply work its way gradually through the bloodstream, bonding firmly with hemoglobin and starving the tissues of oxygen. His headache and erratic behavior were the first signs of an oxygen narcosis reaction and, unless he was treated to massive doses of oxygen, it would spread throughout his entire body, eventually killing him.”

“And my headache?”

“You walked into the room with his body just after they had cut through the walls,” he said. “You undoubtedly saved your own life by passing out when you did, for they took you out of the room immediately, thus limiting your exposure to the gas. Carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. You would never have known what hit you.”

“The oxygen is here, Derec!” Wohler called, fitting a hissing nozzle up against the hole.

Derec crawled across the floor toward the hole. “Come on,” he said, waving her on.

They reached the hole and sat breathing the life-giving oxygen. Derec felt the beginnings of a small headache, but he was sure it would get no worse.

They emptied the canister of oxygen and began another. When that was finished, Wohler returned to the opening. “Rain is imminent,” the robot said. “How do we get you out? We have nothing small to cut through this, and our heavy equipment can’t be brought up this high, at least not with the rain coming. Do we leave you for the night?”