The Mall (11 page)

“Mom, didn’t you say we could sneak-in to more than one.”

Ignoring Owen, Lara nodded to the Bot and said, “Thank you for your help.”

The Bot bowed slightly but didn’t seem to pick up her insinuation.
 
Guess they didn’t program the things with etiquette. “Um, excuse us, but…”

“Go away,” Owen barked and with those words, the Bot started immediately away from them.
 
“You have to give them direct a command or they’re clueless.”

“That was rude,” Cora barked.

“What does it care?
 
It’s a machine.”

“Yeah, well, it looks like the next showing of
Back to the Future
lets out in plenty of time to see a couple of others,” Lara said, swiping her card and retrieving the three tickets it dispensed.
 
“That is, if you guys can stay awake.”

“I can,” Cora chirped.
 
“I might even watch
Goonies
twice.”

One by one, the three of them fed their tickets into the automated turnstiles and pushed their way through the plexi-steel booths into the main lobby of the theater.

One of the movies must have just ended as a group of ten or fifteen couples meandered through the lobby to the exits, talking excitedly amongst themselves.
 
The lobby of the Cine-verse at the Mall of the Nation might have doubled as a ballroom, even the crystal chandelier that hung directly above its center contributed to this illusion.
 
Multi-colored carpet covered the fifty yards leading to the enormous concession stand that split into two sections: one for automated service and the other for full “interactive” service (as it had been termed in the customer service industry).
 
The lighting had been slightly diminished on that side to give a gentle prompting that if you wanted live service, sir, you were out-of-luck.

An elderly couple laughed as they fumbled through the procedures of purchasing their snacks at the concession stand.
 
The gentleman glanced over at Lara and the kids as they entered and flashed them a smile.

“Would you be in need of assistance, sir?” one of the lobby robots asked the gentleman.

He waved his hand at the Bot.
 
“No-no-no.
 
Mind your own business, Sparky!” he growled.
 

Lara snickered and felt instant affinity for the couple. She knew that there was the higher degree of distrust of the mechanized men among the generations born before the technological boom of the seventies.
 
Being an engineer, her father had been at home around Bots; her mother on the other hand had reacted to them in much the same way the elderly man just had.

“Look, Mommy, popcorn!” Cora said in a loud whisper that, nonetheless, rivaled her normal speaking voice.
 
“Can we get some?
 
Pleeease?”

“Hush, Cora,” Lara hissed.
 
“We have just enough for the movie.
 
That was the deal.”
 
Though she had eleven dollars left, Lara could not bare to part with it just yet.
 
After all, it was her life savings now.

The elderly gentleman gently brushed his wife aside and tried to take control of the situation.
 
She moved dutifully out of the way and noticed Lara and the kids for the first time.
 
“Why, look here, George,” the woman exclaimed.
 
“A smart young lady and gentleman.
 
Maybe one of them might see fit to help us with this infernal machine.”

Owen stepped forward tentatively and said in a shy voice: “I can show you.
 
It’s easy.”

The couple glanced at each other with identical expressions of amusement.
 
“That’s what our grandchildren are always saying.
 
‘It’s easy.
 
It’s easy,’ the older gent said in a gently mocking tone, stepping back and glancing at Lara.

“Sure, why not,” Lara stated.
 
“He’s been waiting for the opportunity to flex his grey muscle all evening.”

“We’ll take one large bucket of popcorn, my good man.”
 
The gentleman held his debit card out to Owen and smiled over at Lara.
 
“I’m George and this is my wife Tess.”

“Your techno-savior here is Owen and this is Coraline.”

“Nice to meet you,” Cora said brightly.
 
“We’re going to see the
Goonies
.”

“
Back to the Future
,” Owen growled under his breath.

“We figured on seeing this western
Silverado
,” George responded, quietly admiring the confidence with which Owen punched through the button sequence.
 
“Pretty fancy shooting there, kiddo.”

“Butter?”
Owen asked.

“Well, of course,” George quipped.
 
“What’s movie popcorn without
butter.
”

Tess and George watched as a large empty tub dropped down into position.
 
A thin spray of butter coated the popcorn as it tumbled from a separate tube down into the tub.
 
When it stopped, Tess lifted the tub and offered it up to George.
 
He took a handful and sampled it.
 
“So, it’s not cold and stale?
 
How do you suppose they know to pop it fresh like that?”

Lara shrugged.
 
“Maybe it has something to do with purchasing history on your credit card, y’know, that you usually get a large bucket of popcorn when you see a movie or…”
 
She glanced over her shoulder melodramatically.
 
“Either that or we might have a Big Brother situation here.”

“You really think so?”
 
Tess looked up as well and gave an involuntary shudder.
 
“There certainly are enough cameras now that you mention it.”

“Hold this for me please.”
 
George held the tub out to Owen, took the card back from him and swiped it through the reader again.
 
“Now let’s see if I learned anything from you and get us some drinks.”
 
He pushed a series of buttons and a large tub of popcorn dropped into position. “Whoops!”

“You should have hit the drink button,” Owen commented.

“Ah, well, what shall I ever do with a spare bucket of popcorn?” George said with a smirk, tipping his wife a wink, and patting Owen on the head.
 
“You don’t suppose you two could do me a favor and eat this tub of popcorn for me, could you?”

“I will, I will,” Cora yelled, hopping up and down on her tippy toes.

Lara shook her head at the elderly couple as she handed the first tub of popcorn back to them.
 
“What do we say, folks?”

“Thank you,” Owen and Cora said in unison as they hovered over the slowly filling tub.

George slid his card into a separate vending machine adjacent to the first.

“Would you consider letting me pay for that?” Lara offered, praying that they were the kind of couple she was hoping they were.

George smirked at Lara as he retrieved a plastic bottle of water from the chute with a grunt of effort.
 
“It was a small price to pay for a couple of genuine kid-smiles.
  
We’re pretty selfish that way.”

As George led Tess away from the concession stand with a final wave, he grumbled, “Now, how the hell do we find the right theater in this place?”
 
One of the yellow service Bots scurried anxiously along behind them as they wandered across the lobby, reading signs like a couple of travelers to a far away exotic land.

Cora stared after the couple with a smile that took up most of the tiny space below her button nose.
 
She squeezed her mother’s hand and said, “I like them.
 
They make pretty colors together.”

Lara wrinkled her nose at her daughter and shook her head in confused wonder.
 
“C’mon, you lucky little charmers,” she told her kids.
 
“Grab your pot of gold and let’s go.”

As Lara turned back to watch the elderly couple slowly walk out of their lives, the opportunist in Lara considered the prospect of calling out to them and asking them if they, by any chance, knew a good safe place a displaced mother and her two destitute children could find shelter for the night.

Yet, the diplomatic side of her knew it would be inappropriate to prey on their good will.

So she let them walk away.

There was a momentary chill in the pit of her stomach that she would later recall as the moment that hope abandoned her.

Glancing around wide empty lobby, Lara saw neither human nor robot anywhere.
 
There was no trace of a live human voice, nothing but loud recordings of the coming attractions trailers on the monitors overhead and the scrolling electronic banners advertising concession products.

And she felt a sudden desperate loneliness and recalled the moment on the residential level only hours before.
 
Where were these feelings coming from, she wondered? Why now?

“What’s in the pack, dude?”

Jesse pulled the black backpack with the faded Billy Idol transfer out of the pay locker, hoisted it onto his shoulder and leapt onto the empty down escalator.

Trotting after in an attempt to catch up, Chance thought that Jesse could be a real douche bag sometimes.
 
“Hey, Cinderella!
 
What’s your hurry?”

He finally eased up just before they hit the subterranean level.
 
Taking a quick suspicious look over Chance’s shoulder, Jesse started into the empty passage beneath the Mall.
 
“Will you keep your voice down?”

“You got a bomb in there!” Chance said, intentionally louder than normal.

Jesse made a face and stepped casually up to the entrance to the moving platform.
 
There were no stores down here.
 
Instead, the subterranean level was composed entirely of four long platforms (very much like the ones in airport terminals), each broken into four variable-speed conveyor belts; two of the platforms moved west to east and east to west, separated by a short wall, and two more platforms moving north to south and vice versa.
 
These platforms extended the entire length of the Mall, enabling shoppers to move to the polar opposite side at a faster rate of speed without having to walk or take a tram.

Just before he stepped onto the platform, Jesse flung the pack into Chance’s chest.
 
“Try and catch me, momma’s girl!”
 
Jesse took a four step jog, and then leapt sidelong to his left onto the entrance to the next platform running parallel to the first, this one slightly faster than the first.

For a moment Chance stood immobile with the backpack in his arms before cursing under his breath and rushing after his friend.
 
There was no way he could catch up with him after the head-start he’d taken.
 
Jesse was a pro at navigating the belts in dense crowds, faster than anyone he knew and there was no one riding along down here tonight to create an obstacle for him.
 
The platform was completely empty.
 
It was the first time, Chance had been down here in the bowels of the Mall so late, and it was downright eerie to be alone amid all that open space.

Within thirty seconds Jesse had already skipped to the fourth and fastest belt in the center of the corridor.
 
He turned to face Chance, running back down the platform toward him, taunting him with a tug at his crotch.