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“It was asphyxiation,”Nicole said the second I slipped through the doors of the spa.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, more than a little spooked.

“I came for a full body wrap, and it was closed. Obviously that was unacceptable, so I commed Mother and she filled me in.” She tossed her golden locks over her shoulder. She was sporting a skimpy designer bikini in zebra print. I wondered if it was made of real zebras.

“So…you thought you’d hang in the deserted place a woman died?”

“You’re funny, Sam. I wanted in on the investigation. This is not going to look good. The faster we can sweep it under the rug, the better.”

I ignored her eagerness to hide the facts, not sure which was worse, her in-your-face attitude or Candice’s fake sweetness. “You said something about asphyxiation?”

“Yes. Ms. Lakewood was in the mud pool. Great exfoliation for your skin, except you’re not really supposed to inhale it.”

“She drowned in the mud?” I asked, recalling the image of the brown substance caked over her body on the screen and then in person. I shivered. “She could have just passed out.”

Nicole folded her arms and shot me a ‘you can’t possibly be that naive’ look. “She might have died there, but her body wasn’t found in the mud pool.” Then she spun and led the way into the room in question.

The floor was still coated in smeared lines of muddy goop, the impression of a woman’s body imprinted on the smooth rock. It was so much more real in person than on the computer monitor. My head spun, and I grabbed for the wall to steady myself.

“Don’t tell me you’re squeamish,” Nicole said.

“I haven’t eaten much today. So any footprints or fingerprints or anything?” I asked, redirecting her.

“Staff. There are wheel marks right there, but no footprints.” She pointed to the floor between the imprint and the pool itself.

I nodded, edging toward the elevator in the hall. “It looks like someone messed with the security footage. I really need to get back down to Alyssa.”

“I’ll come too.”

Great, we can have a party. I slipped inside the elevator and said, “Engineering.”

In the engineering room, Alyssa was so focused on her computer, I had to clear my throat twice before she looked up. “You’re back. And you brought a friend.”

I wouldn’t have called her a friend, but it wasn’t the moment to point that out. Instead, I filled her in on what Nicole shared.

“So, based on all reports, what we have is the highly suspicious death of an otherwise healthy woman, who happens to be in charge of communications, during the first week here,” Nicole said, pulling up a seat. “No physical evidence left at the scene, and apparent tampering with the surveillance. It sounds like the signature of our vandal.”

“Wait a second,” I said, pulling myself onto the desk, the only place left to sit down, because if I didn’t sit soon, I would pass out. “There was physical evidence at the scene. You said so yourself. Staff tracks in the mud between the pool and the body.”

Alyssa gaped at me, then turned toward Nicole. “This is bad.”

“What?” Nicole snorted. “You really think a robot murdered someone?”

Alyssa licked her lips. “The AI is malfunctioning. What if it really messed up? It may have tried to cover its tracks by erasing the footage.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Nicole said. “How would it know to do that?”

“AI means artificial intelligence,” I said. Compared to Nicole, Alyssa was like Mother Theresa. “It’s programmed to gather information and make inferences from it, to learn. It sounds far-fetched, but it isn’t that unthinkable.” I pressed my hands together and stuffed them in my lap to stop the shaking. The truth was, only yesterday I felt the same as Nicole. But that had to be a more likely possibility than me committing murder during a blackout. I couldn’t have done that. It was impossible. But that red stain on my wall kept popping into my head. The two pieces of sushi in my stomach churned.

“That’s like science fiction crap,” Nicole said, again echoing my previous thoughts. But she shifted her position in the chair, showing she wasn’t as confident as she pretended to be.

“So is an underwater resort,” I said.

This whole situation was a nightmare. It had to be. Part of me kept trying force the memory of what occurred last night after the party. I was not a murderer. But instead of missing memories, all I could see was that can of empty spray paint in my room. Please, please, don’t be me.

I was so busy arguing with Nicole and trying to explain away my nerves, that I didn’t think about Alyssa until I heard the sniffles. She had her head buried in her hands, glasses flung on the desk behind me, shoulders trembling.