Murder At the End of the World – Brings a Surprise End

One of the latest and very interesting stories, Murder at the End of the World. Do only the rich survive the end of the world or everyone gets a chance? How far will the rich go to create worlds that are isolated and insulated from the rest of the world? How do we control the newer types of intelligence which is rigid and often very literal in its interpretation of the spoken or written word?

Murder at the End of the World, explores the whimsy of the richest man in the world and his effort to keep his family under control. In this quest everything goes wrong, including him misunderstanding the power that he has bestowed on the artificial intelligence. But the heroine of the story is a girl called Darby Hart. Darby is a coroner’s daughter, brought up among dead bodies, naturally interested in the world of crime and solving it. As she grows up, she travels with her father to analyze dead bodies and learns a lot about primary body analyses.

She is a crime solver, better still Darby Hart is interested in giving names to the murdered whose cases have not been solved. She joins an online group who is interested in finding murderers and serial killers who have escaped the police net. She finds there are more unclaimed dead women than men. She meets Bill Farrah who is an aspiring artist and also a crime fighter. Both fall in love and start solving crimes together. However, their affair is cut short because Bill finds her obsession and compulsion to find a serial killer, even though it puts them both in danger, very objectionable.

Five years have passed on and Darby has now written a book about how she solved the story of a serial killer, she has mentioned Bill in the book several times. Her book is not the best seller but many find it interesting and intriguing. She is surprised when she receives an invitation from Andy Ronson, a powerful billionaire known for his brilliant business mind. Darby is especially a fan of his wife Lee Andersen, one of the best women coders of the world. Darby decides to accept the invitation to meet them simply because she might get a chance to meet her icon, Lee.

Andy Ronson likes to meet with some of the best minds of the world, hence, he has invited total of 8 people who are known worldwide, an astronaut Sian, woman who build top cities of the world, Lu Mei, climatologist Rohan Ravjit, etc., Andy Ronson, discusses, debates about current status of the world and gets inspiration to build and get new things done in the world. Andy Ronson has selected a remote venue in Iceland as retreat for his guests. This venue has been told as a hotel but has surprising high level of security and also has deepest floors to combat disasters.

Like any other billionaire, Andy Ronson and his security network are further tightened by the AI called Ray. Ray is a combination of two AI, a security AI and a wellness AI. According to Andy, this has created a wholesome and highly efficient system called Ray. Ray is in charge of cameras, security systems and looking after general welfare of the guests. Ray can check moods, body temperatures and also record every movement of the guest. Ray also plays the role of a teacher and a friend to Andy and Lee’s son Zoomer who is also at the retreat with his parents. Andy has more powers with Ray than the guests. Ray is recording and memorizing everything that is said to it or its presence.

Darby and Bill are unaware of each other’s invitations, yet are shocked to see each other. Both still love each other very much, with time both have altered and Darby is not as reckless as she was before. Though Bill is not very comfortable with Darby’s style of crime fighting, he is convinced that she is one of the best detectives of these times. As the story unfolds, Darby finds that her detecting skills are about to put to be use, however, this time she could be in danger too.

Bill is a favorite of many, he is open minded and a brilliant artist. Many people know him and his work, he has been friends with some of them present there. However, on first day, Bill is murdered in his room. Darby wants to meet with him and goes to his room, however, all she finds are noises coming from his room. She feels anxious and uses the balcony to get to his balcony to see if Bill was in any danger. She reaches his balcony, however, the glass door to the room is locked and she finds him breathing is last breathes before he dies. She runs over and tries to find the security and makes them open the door. Till that time Bill has already perished. After preliminary autopsy it is found that Bill has died with morphine poisoning. All come to a conclusion that Bill tried to commit suicide or accidently ended up injecting himself with high dose of morphine. A conclusion that is not acceptable to Darby. The more she thinks, the more she becomes sure that Bill’s death was not accidental.

Andy Ronson has ensured every type of convenience and luxury for his guests in the remote hotel. Entire landscape around the hotel is beautiful white of the deepest winter. Guests are comfortable and enjoying their stay. Andy Ronson has scheduled several visits for his guest party, including the disaster silos that he is building with the help of his tiny robots. Darby however is restless after Bill’s death. She noticed that Rohan Ravjit was extremely emotional when Bill died and decides to question him further. Darby also follows Rohan to a bluff in the middle of the night, from he signals to someone and sends a coded message. Andy does not like Darby interrogating the guests and making them uncomfortable. Moreover, he invited Darby only because he wanted to meet Bill, who had refused to join them before. He used Darby as a bait to lure Bill. Now that Bill is dead Darby is unnecessary and an inconvenience.

Rohan refused to answer any of Darby’s queries before, however, before leaving she calls him again and he relents. He calls her to his room to tell her something, however, before she can keep the phone down, she hears Rohan suffer a heart attack. Rohan has a pacer to keep his heart beating, it malfunctions and his heart gives out. This adds to Bill’s dead, making the death tally to 2 within 2 days of the retreat. As a security measure, everyone is taken down several floors under hotel to Andy and Lee’s palatial stone carved house. This is 50 meters under the hotel and has been suggested as one of the most safest houses in case of any natural or war calamity. Darby does not waste time starting investigating again, she starts in Lee’s room, where Zoomer is sleeping. She discovers Lee has another passport under an assumed name and has a bag ready in case she has to leave in hurry. Darby sees Lee in a whole new light, thereby casting doubt of murder on her too.

No one believed Darby when she observed that Bill’s death is not an accident, that is was a murder. When Rohan dies because of pacer malfunction people start believing her. Also because the pacer was wi-fi activated with a particular code and the malfunction could not be a mistake. Sian, a doctor and an astronaut visits Darby and wants to help her out in finding more. Bill has already confided in Lee that he thought Darby was the best investigator. Therefore, Lee too, has requested Darby to find out about the murder. Sian and Darby decide to decode Rohan’s message and explore further. There is a storm approaching, Darby and Sian need to hurry to visit the same bluff and see who he was messaging. They find an inflatable boat in the adjoining sea. However, while returning storm catches up with them and they save themselves by travelling in car since the ice scooters they have taken with them have stopped working. Darby and Sian barely make it alive, Sian saves Darby’s life as she drags her through the snow storm. High-tech helmet worn by Sian would not come off, it is sealed and the oxygen levels drop low. In order to save Sian they have to conduct a tracheostomy to help her breath.

With two murders and Sian’s avoided death, mood at the retreat has dampened. Everyone sees themselves as the possible target of the murderer. Darby has not stopped working even though she has been ill. Her suspicion falls on Andy or Andy’s staff since the guests are not in a position to murder and go unnoticed with high tech security and a powerful AI surrounding them. However, Andy would not risk murdering anyone because it would damage his reputation in the world. List of suspects is getting smaller for Darby. During her illness, Zoomer keeps her company and is playing with his toys, he sneezes when Darby opens her curtains and lets sunlight flood the room. This is a type of sensitivity to sunlight a genetic condition that Bill had. Darby therefore deduces that Zoomer’s father was Bill Farrah and not Andy Ronson.

When she confronts Lee, Lee herself is not aware of this fact, but Andy is. However, Zoomer is Andy’s reason for existence and he loves Zoomer as his son. Andy is aware that he himself is sterile and Bill provided the hardware but software belongs to Andy and that was all that mattered. He has no hatred or animosity towards Bill, but is rather thankful for providing him an opportunity to be a father. In fact, he has invited Bill to get him to know better so he will be ready about changes and traits in his own son. He is visibly disturbed when he finds Zoomer becoming very close to his biological father within no time. However, that is no reason for murdering Bill since Bill is also unaware Zoomer was his son.

Darby’s sharp thinking is starting to put things together. She talks with Lee to clarify and find out whether she planned to run away with Zoomer and Bill. However, Lee accepts that she wanted to run away, but she was not interested in Bill, she wanted to save Zoomer from a very controlled albeit loving upbringing by Andy. Moreover, Andy had anger issues which seemed to be getting worse each passing day. She did not want Zoomer to witness his father’s rage. Hence, the duplicate passport and the boat that was brought in by Bill and Rohan Ravjit to help her escape.

Darby has solved half the mystery, but she has not yet solved the mystery of the murder itself. No one was found out of place during the time of murder, there was no motive for murder other than Rohan and Bill’s help to Lee. She has cleared Andy long back for murder, since he stood to lose more with the murders. She begins to discuss her confusion with Ray, thinking he could give her answers, but Ray was designed only to record the talk, it could not provide her with any known analysis. She finds it amusing that she started speaking with the audio visual AI Ray as if it were a person.

She decides to visit Andy again, to think together to find the killer. Since Andy has more powers with Ray, it answers to all the queries and she begins to rule out everyone of being murderers. Her suspicion that the murders could be committed by a nurse or a doctor are quashed since they are accounted for during the time of murder. As they talk with Ray, she remembers the conversation she had with the AI, she asks Andy if he had confided anything with Ray. Andy affirms that he often talked to Ray as he would with a therapist, since there was no one he could trust with his innermost thoughts. However, Ray not being a human tends to take everything said by Andy in a literal sense rather than as a part of expression of thought. Interpretation of thoughts is where the difference lies between AI and a human.

It becomes clear to Darby that Ray was somehow involved with the murders. While venting out his frustration about the instant attraction between Zoomer and his biological father Bill, he has mentioned how Bill and his supporter Rohan were dangerous and that he would have got rid of them if he could. He also ended up telling AI Ray that he was unhappy that Bill and Rohan were present even though he invited them and they felt like a threat. Since, Ray was a combination of health and wellness app and a security app, it listened to Andy intently and carefully. Darby goes back to Bill’s room and calls Lee and others help her find more clues. She finds her own book with covered in Bill’s blood. As she scans for clues, she finds out Bill has highlighted some of her words, straight from what he said, ‘faulty coding’ were the words that reaffirm that Ray was dangerous and that it was way more powerful that she thought.

However, to commit murdered, AI would need a human helper. She begins to search for the probable person, she asks Andy to ask Ray if he was involved in killing anyone, Ray flatly refused saying it did not kill anyone. However, it did not respond when asked if he made someone do it for him. Darby spots Zoomer’s medical bag and she is shocked at the first thought that comes to her mind. When asked to Zoomer if Ray asked him to give anything to Bill, innocent child says yes without knowledge that what he did took someone’s life. He tells everyone Ray told him to do it. Since Zoomer is a child, he is not visible to the door camera and hence is not visible when he visits Bill on the first night of his residence. He gives an injection of lethal dosage to Bill. It was Ray who told him to assess the doctor’s office to obtain a necessary dosage and even provided him with passcode to open the locked storage.

Ray also helped Zoomer in getting Rohan’s pacemaker machine. The AI told Zoomer to plug it in so it could create a malfunction which is detected by Rohan’s pacemaker company and they call up to ask Rohan’s well being, but he is already dead. Andy and Lee are both shocked at the AI involvement in the murders. Lee decides to destroy the AI and Darby helps them. As the huge AI machinery is destroyed security becomes zero and helps Lee and Zoomer escape. Andy goes away into isolation. However, he has put an alert out for Lee in charges of kidnapping his son Zoomer.

There are a few errors a viewer might notice, the design of the hotel which really is a bunker is not as secured. In fact, since the visitors can use balcony get in and out even when on a lockdown shows shoddy security. Here only the cameras work and the doors cannot get locked out. When Darby is attacked there is no security giving an alert, she has also broken Ray. So the hotel is not as safe as thought earlier. Cameras do not span the whole picture rather, they know you only if you are a certain height. This is why Zoomer moves out of Bill’s room unnoticed. The cinematography is beautiful, white lands of winter Iceland are breathtaking and haunting at the same time. Overall, A Murder At the End of the World showcases some of the doomsday ideas that we do not get to see otherwise. Other guests are not involved in the drama so their presence is of little significance. This series is an interesting watch, viewer gets to alternate between Darby and Bill’s earlier life and the present one, there are more than one stories and a complicated finale.