The Mall (12 page)

Ignoring him, Chance came to a complete stop and unzipped the backpack.
 
Tucked inside were a dirty pair of gym socks--to dissuade the casual snoop--and a half a dozen CD’s that he’d lifted from a couple of music stores earlier in the day.
 
Hidden at the bottom were two cans of spray paint--neon red and fluorescent yellow.

He shook his head.
 
Son-of-a-bitch, he thought.
 
Not this again.

When he’d reached the escalator stop in the direct center of the Mall, Jesse was waiting for him, standing directly in front of the platform exit.
 
He had hoisted himself off the floor by his arms on the platform’s uptake railing, his elbows locked and his big red Nike cross-trainers cocked out before him in mid-air threatening to kick like a frisky kangaroo.
 
Chance tossed the backpack directly at him, forcing him to drop back down to his feet.
 
He stepped off and started toward the up escalator.

“So what do you say, Chancie?
 
Are you down?”

“Blow me,” Chance replied with a bored sigh.
 
“I don’t have a strong desire to see the inside of a jail cell tonight.”

“What, you think Big and Beautiful is gonna catch us?” Jesse asked, stepping onto the escalator backwards and giving his friend a huge toothy grin.
 
“Fat chance, Chance!”

Chance tried to ignore Jesse as he split a gut over his witty repartee.
 
“Look, Jess, I just don’t give a shit about getting in that stupid gang.
 
I just don’t care,” he told him, as he stepped onto the moving staircase after him.

“This thing will buy me a little street cred, dude.”

“Not interested in any of that.”

Taking a step back down to Chance, Jesse leaned against the railing, staring down at the pack in his hands.
 
“Neither am I, man.
 
I just want to give myself a little breathing space, s’all,” he replied, in a low voice.
 
“Y’know, it’s just that I figure if I don’t, something
bad’s
gonna happen.
 
Then maybe if I can get in good with them, they won’t mess with you either.”

Chance followed the other’s eyes to the pack gripped in his hands, the nails of which had been chewed down to the quick.
 
He could just make out Billy Idol’s fading scowl, that curled lip of his, and remembered how Jesse had gotten the pack for Christmas two years ago when every other song on the radio was “White Wedding.”
 
They were both thirteen back then.
 
Still kids, Chance thought.
 
Now here they were talking about “street cred” and covering each other’s asses.

What a wonderful world they lived in.

“Look,
it’s
quarter to two,” Jesse continued.
 
“There’s not gonna be anybody on those trams.”

Chance glared up at Jesse and found
himself
listening for the first time.

When Albert reached the tram, Vernon Willowby and Sam from maintenance were already on the scene.
 
He could see the damage from a distance through the slowly dissolving group of shoppers stepping away from the sign Vernon affixed across the outside glass of the car reading “Out of Order.”

“Next tram will be along shortly, folks,” Vernon explained in a loud voice.

Albert stepped through the crowd to stand beside Vernon.
 
“What happened here?”

“They saw a couple of kids on the surveillance cam just before one of them blacked out the lens,” Vernon replied, rubbing the bubbles out of the plastic self-adhesive sign.

Almost on cue, both their radios squawked: “Attention all security agents, be on the lookout for two teenaged boys in jeans and t-shirts with skateboards, one with a backpack, last seen in Yellow Sector.
 
Wanted for defacing company property.
 
Message has been transmitted to all mechanized support units via the network. Bots have been ordered to report location if spotted, not to engage suspects.”

Phrases and slogans in bright red and yellow covered the entire inside of the tram.
 
“6th St Sculz,” the largest one, across the back wall, read.
 
Others read: “Watch your ass!” and “Sculz rule 6
^th
.”
 
Albert’s eyes couldn’t seem to get past the one that read: “Fuk U, Fat Azz Piggy!” with a crude image of a pig wearing a badge.

“If you locate them,” the voice on the radio continued, “please escort them outside the premises.
 
Remember, never engage a customer physically.
 
I repeat: do not engage a customer physically.
 
If they refuse to leave peacefully, call law enforcement immediately.”

Vernon glanced furtively over at Albert.

“They were the ones at the Ferris Wheel,” Albert stated.

“Yeah, I figured.”
 
Vernon studied the other’s frozen expression as he stared at the graffiti.
 
“Remember what I told you, Al.
 
They’re just kids.
 
Don’t sweat ‘em.”

Sal, a uniformed black man with a perennial smile on his face stepped up to the door of the tram.
 
“I’m taking her down to maintenance to get her cleaned up before the boss sees.
 
You guys wanna ride?”

Glancing at Albert, Vernon shook his head.
 
“Nah, I’ll hang here.
 
Thanks, Sal.”

With that, Sal hit a button inside the open panel beside the entrance and the doors slid closed.
 
“Clear?” he asked into his radio and after a moment it squawked back.
 
He gave a bright smile and a wave and flicked a switch inside the panel.
 
The tram slid smoothly down the track.

“Boy, those things are sure quiet, aren’t they?”
 
Vernon glanced warily over at the other, but Albert’s eyes were following the tram into the tunnel, only registering Vernon after it had completely disappeared around the curve of the tunnel.

He turned and looked at Vernon with an odd expression, blinked once, twice, three times, then uttered the following words: “Of course it’s quiet.
 
It’s a perfect transporting machine.”

Vernon squinted at Albert in confusion as he fished around inside his pocket.
 
“Hey man, you sure you’re okay?
 
Have you been getting enough sleep?”

Retrieving a tattered paperback from his pocket, Albert stared foggily down at it.
 
“Nah, I’ve been having a little trouble lately,” he managed in a slurred voice,
then
suddenly more clearly, he added, “Hey, Vernon, you ever read Vonnegut?”

Shaking his head at Albert, he glanced down at the book.
 
“Hell, man the closest I get to reading is the articles in
Hot Rod
magazine.
 
By the way, I finally found that damned roof panel for my Ford.”
 
Vernon had been restoring his old man’s two-tone ‘55 Ford Crown Victoria Skyliner part by part for about five years now, and the acrylic glass roof panel for the “Glasstop Vicky” had been the real thorn in his side.
 
“Got it mail order from Japan.
 
Ain’t that the shits?
 
I had to send off to friggin’ Asia to get a part for an American car. What’s this world comin’ to?”

“Machines,” Albert muttered. “That’s what it’s coming to.
 
The De-evolution
of Man. This society creates skateboarding machines and vandalism machines.
 
They don’t think or feel like me or… you.”
 
Albert turned quickly and stared at Vernon with concern in his eyes.

So intense was the expression that Vernon felt himself shrink away.
 
“Say, you want to grab a bite with me on my break?” he asked tentatively, hoping the answer would be “no.”

“John Fitzgerald Kennedy took office on January 20, 1964.
 
The next eight years of the Kennedy Administration was a historic time.
 
Domestically, Kennedy implemented his policy of the ‘New Frontier’ that saw an improved economy due in part to tax cuts and unprecedented job growth, mostly in technical fields, which Kennedy was a strong advocate of from his first days in office.
 
He pushed for the first manned mission to the moon before the end of the decade and saw his vision completed during his administration on July 20, 1969.
 
His personal interest in technology and space led directly to many foreign policy successes including several talks with the Soviets regarding joint missions during his second term in office (though no agreement was ever reached) and a landmark agreement with Japan, which allowed the sharing of technical advances in the field of electronics and computers (which would eventually lead to the first discussions of robotic technology in the early years of the Humphrey administration).”

Back to the Future
had been such a success with Owen and Cora that they had wanted to stay and watch it a second time.
 
Despite how entertaining the movie, Lara still found herself nodding off halfway through the first run.
 
Whether it was the soft cushion against her back or the cool temperature of the auditorium, or maybe just the sense of being in a safe place, all Lara knew was that the tension of the day, the stress that comes with the insecurity of not having a place to lay your head, drained out of her body from the ends of every hair on her head to the tips of her toes.
 
She had been in a constant state of fight or flight since the eviction that morning and hadn’t eased up.
 
So much so that when she first sat down in the “rocking-chair” seat, she had felt the ache and throb of every muscle, as if she had just completed a full-out marathon dash for some indefinable goal.

“Oh God,” she purred, rolling her neck along the top edge of the puffy soft seat back.
 
“Those tickets were worth every penny we paid for them.”
 
Her stiff neck cracked and she groaned in comfort.
 
Was it possible to get an orgasm from a seat?

Somehow her eyes had flickered open just in time to see the DeLoren fly away up the McFly’s tree-lined street.
 
She had been so deeply asleep that for a moment she was completely disoriented.
 
Where the hell was she?

“Mommy, can we see it again?” Cora wanted to know.

“I don’t know, hon,” Lora attempted, straightening in her seat and blinking foggily at her son in the seat next to her.
 
“What does your brother have to say?”

“Oh yeah!”
 
Owen was all pearly white teeth and green eyes--those same deep emerald eyes that belonged to his father.
 
“That was so awesome!”

“I guess it’s settled then.
 
We go back to the future one more time.”
 
She had looked over her shoulder then and realized that the two other teenaged couples that had shared the auditorium with them had departed, leaving them the sole members of the audience.
 
For a single moment, Lara’s tummy fluttered with an indecipherable panic.
 
Was it possible that they were the only ones left in this entire thirty screen theater?
 
Who was she kidding?
 
Surely on a weekend, there would be tons of teens roaming from screen to screen.

She checked her watch.
 
It was only thirty minutes after midnight.
 
Still early for a Saturday night… er, Sunday morning.