The Extinction Trials(17)

Owen shined his light over toward Maya, who was still searching the room, her back turned to him. “You think it’s true, what Bryce said? That we’re part of some… experiment to save the human race?”

“It does sound crazy. Honestly, I don’t know, but a part of me thinks it’s too crazy not to be true. What would be the purpose of telling that lie?”

That made a strange kind of sense to Owen. In fact, he had felt the same thing.

“Over here,” Maya called out.

At the back of the room, Owen spotted a doorway. It was the only other doorway beside the airlock.

The door opened onto a narrow corridor that was dark except for their flashlights. It ended in a door, and there were two others along the right-hand wall. One led to what looked like a storage room with prepackaged food and a silver metal cart like the ones they’d found in the pods.

“That will solve our food problem for a while,” Maya said.

She was right. And it was a good thing. Food was something Owen hadn’t even considered until now.

The other door across the hall was the strangest thing Owen had seen yet. Inside were three standing alcoves just big enough for an adult to stand in.

“I’m guessing this is where Bryce recharged,” Maya said.

“If so, it implies that there were three of him.”

“Possibly. Or simply the capacity to have three on staff. It could mean that the other two had already left the station. Or were never present here.”

A thought occurred to Owen—and it brought with it fear. “Or that one or two androids are still here. In hiding. Or possibly in observation two.”

“A fair point,” Maya said. “And something to keep in mind.”

Behind the last door, they found five boxes made of hard black plastic. They were sealed and locked with a simple numeric punch code.

Owen’s first thought was that the boxes contained records. If so, that would be immensely helpful.

Maya bent down and typed some numbers into the first box: 171717.

The box beeped and the diode flashed red, and the lock didn’t open.

She shrugged. “Worth a try.”

“They can’t be that hard to open. We could get some tools from the closet.”

“True. But I think we should get back to the observation room. They’re going to start wondering where we are soon.”

“I agree.”

“Before we go, I think we need to form a plan.”

“A plan sounds pretty good about now.”

“First things first,” Maya said. “My memories.” She glanced through the doorway out into the command center, where the red flashing light was very faint through the airlock. “It’s like that strobing red light. I just get flashes of what happened to me. It’s like when you mentioned my mother and sister. I remembered then. It was more a feeling—the emotion—of what they meant to me. Then I could see their faces. It’s like if I see something or remember something, it reveals memories that are connected to it. It’s so… disorienting.”

“How’d you lose your memory? Injury?”

“No. Or I don’t think so. I was sick. In the hospital. I think whatever made me sick had some sort of effect on my memory.”

“Like some sort of neurological disease?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you have any other symptoms?”

Maya shook her head. “No. Ever since waking up here, I’ve felt fine.”

“Maybe they cured you as well. Maybe the memories will return.”

“I hope so.”

“In my mind, the biggest question now is what to do. If we believe Bryce’s assertion that the station is going to undergo an imminent power failure, it implies environmental systems will fail and we’ll need to go outside.”

“We know how that ends.”

“Exactly. However, we do have the environmental suits.”

Maya considered that. “True. But we don’t know how long the suits will last. If we could wear one of the suits to get to a region where the atmosphere is survivable, maybe it works. I think it’s safe to say that we need to figure out a way to call for help.”

“I see risks there as well,” Owen said. “What if the people who come aren’t the good guys?”

“I see your point.”

“Here’s what I think: we need more information. We need to know where we are, first of all. Second of all, we need to know more about ARC Technologies. I’d never heard of them before today. And most of all, we need to figure out who those people are in observation two.”

“Suggestions?”

“First, I think I should take the doctor outside and we should do some sort of rudimentary autopsy on the old man. That might give us some clue as to what we’re dealing with out there.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. It’s a good idea.” Maya glanced back towards the command center. “I was thinking the answers might be in here. The younger guy—Will—said he was a computer programmer for ARC Technologies. If so, maybe he knows how to work some of the computers. If they have an internet connection, we could use that to call for help—and figure out what’s happening.”

“Turning on the computers could also alert someone that we’re here—and awake.”