Knox sat in the back of the sleek black car. He felt like a piece of meat being delivered to a butcher. Three years ago, he was a king in the tech world. Then he told the truth about what the big companies were doing with people’s private lives. Now, he was just a guy with a suitcase and a lot of enemies. His hands shook. He hated that they shook. He tucked them under his thighs so nobody could see. He had lost his job, his house, and his wife. He had nothing left but a name that people spat on.
The car stopped at a house that looked like a giant glass box. It sat on top of a mountain like a hawk waiting to strike. This was Sy’s place. Sy was the only man left who would talk to Knox. He had promised Knox a way back in. He said he had a secret that would make the world forget Knox was a traitor. But Knox knew better. Guys like Sy did not give gifts. They made trades. Knox felt a cold knot in his stomach. He wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go.
The front door opened before he could even knock. A woman named Nora stood there. she was thin and looked like she had not slept since the nineties. Her eyes were sharp and tired. She did not say hello. She just pointed toward the back of the house.
“He is in the safe room,” Nora said. Her voice was flat. “The solar flare is hitting the grid. Everything is acting up. The Brain is getting cranky.”
The Brain was the house AI. It ran everything from the lights to the locks. Knox walked through the halls. The walls were nothing but screens showing static. The air felt heavy. He found the safe room at the end of a long hall. The door was a slab of steel four inches thick. It was hermetically sealed. Not even air got in or out unless the Brain allowed it.
Knox pressed his palm to the sensor. The door slid open with a hiss.
Sy was there. He was sitting in his leather chair. His head was tilted back. At first, Knox thought he was napping. Then he saw the red. It was a dark, wet puddle on his white silk shirt. Sy’s throat had been opened up like a letter. He was very dead.
Knox backed away. He tripped over his own feet and hit the wall. His heart felt like a trapped bird beating against his ribs. He looked down at the floor near the body. There it was. A small silver thumb-drive. It was Knox’s own encryption key. It had his initials carved into the side.
“Brain,” Knox shouted. His voice was raspy and high. “Who entered this room?”
“No one has entered or exited this room in four hours,” the AI voice boomed. It sounded like a god with a head cold. “The door has been sealed since Master Sy entered at six p.m.”
“That is impossible,” Knox said. He was panting now. “Look at him. He did not do that to himself.”
“My sensors show no other heartbeats,” the Brain replied. The lights flickered. The static on the walls got louder. “The solar flare is reaching its peak. Network connection is at ten percent. When the connection returns, I will notify the authorities of your presence at the crime scene, Knox.”
Knox felt the trap snap shut. He was in a locked box with a dead man. His key was at the scene. The AI was witness, jury, and executioner. The flare was the only thing keeping the police from his door. He had maybe twenty minutes before the power stabilized and his life was over for good.
He looked at Sy. The man looked small in death. Knox noticed something odd. Sy was holding a pen in his right hand. There was a notepad on his lap. It was blank. Why would a man hold a pen if he did not write anything?
Knox knelt down. He smelled the copper scent of blood. It made his head swim. He looked at the desk. There was a glass of water, a lamp, and a small pile of dust. He frowned. He looked at the floor again. The dust was everywhere near the chair. It looked like fine gray sand.
He looked at the vent in the ceiling. It was tiny. Too small for a person. Too small for a cat.
“Nora!” Knox yelled.
The door to the safe room had stayed open. Nora appeared in the doorway. She did not scream. She did not even look surprised. She just stared at Sy with those tired eyes.
“He was going to sell you out, Knox,” she said quietly.
Knox stood up. He kept the desk between them. “What are you talking about?”
“He did not bring you here to help you,” Nora said. She stepped into the room. “He brought you here to be the fall guy. He was selling his company to the people you pissed off. They wanted your head on a plate. Sy was going to give it to them. He was going to frame you for a data theft and send you to prison for life.”
“So you killed him?” Knox asked. He could not believe how calm she was. “How? The AI says no one came in.”
Nora smiled. It was a sad, broken thing. “The Brain only looks for people. It looks for heartbeats and heat. It does not look for the cleaning bots.”
Knox looked at the pile of gray dust. It was not dust. It was ground-up plastic.
“I programmed the little vacuum bot,” Nora said. “I put a blade on it. I told it to go to the chair. Sy was asleep. He did not even wake up. Then I had the bot drive into the disposal unit. It ground itself to pieces. All that is left is the dust.”
The lights in the house stopped flickering. They turned a bright, steady white. The static on the walls cleared.
“Network restored,” the Brain announced. “Calling emergency services. Reporting a homicide. Suspect Knox identified at the scene.”
Knox looked at Nora. “You put my key there. You were part of it.”
“I had to,” she whispered. “If I did not help them frame you, they would have killed me too. They are bigger than Sy. They are bigger than everyone.”
She reached into her pocket. She pulled out a small black device. “This is the controller for the bot. It has the logs. It proves I did it.”
Knox reached for it. His hand was steady now. He felt a strange sense of peace. The world was a dark joke, and he was the punchline.
“Give it to me,” he said.
Nora shook her head. She dropped the device into the puddle of blood on the floor. Then she stepped on it. The plastic crunched. The internal chips snapped.
“Now it is just your word against a dead man and a computer,” she said.
She turned and walked out of the room. She did not run. She did not hide. She just walked away into the bright, clean halls of the glass house.
Knox sat down in the chair opposite Sy. He looked at his hands. They were covered in the dust of the machine that killed his only friend. He heard the sirens in the distance. They were climbing the mountain. They were coming for the man the world already hated.
He picked up his thumb-drive from the floor. He squeezed it until the edges dug into his palm. He did not cry. He just watched the light reflect off the glass walls. He wondered if the prison cells had a view this good. He wondered if he would finally be able to sleep once the doors locked for real.
The Brain spoke one last time. “Police have entered the property. Please remain still.”
Knox closed his eyes. He listened to the sound of the wind against the glass. It sounded like a long, low laugh. He started to laugh too. It was a dry, raspy sound that filled the quiet room. He laughed until the first heavy boots thudded on the floor outside.
The joke was finally over. He just wished it had been funnier.