The Mall (20 page)

“Once the doors have been shut and locked, there will essentially be no way out of the Mall, until management determines that the current threat has been alleviated.
 
Even the most optimistic outlook won’t have us out of here for a few days at least, though I suspect from the evidence I’ve seen, if we don’t leave, we might be stuck here much longer than that.”

“How much longer?”

“If there is evidence of looting and civil unrest,” Simon replied with a shrug, “perhaps indefinitely.”

Lara swallowed awkwardly and stared at her smiling daughter’s face.
 
“But there’s food and water here, right?
 
It’s not like we’d starve or anything.”

Simon blinked at Lara, his expression almost comical in its amazement.

“Listen, I’m not suggesting that we just go nuts and start making snow-angels in puddles of caviar or something,” Lara added urgently.
 
“I’m just thinking of long-term survival here.”

“Well, in such cases of survival, I would say that we would have enough food and water to sustain ourselves for well into the foreseeable future, as long as there aren’t others trapped along with us.
 
There’s no way to know for sure, of course.”

Lara stared at Cora silently.

“I would advise that you let us get you safely outside then organize a search for your son.”

“No,” Lara responded definitively, with a single stern shake of her head.
 
“Sorry, I can’t do that.”

Simon wagged his head slowly back and forth, frustration creasing his forehead.
 
“I’m afraid I don’t understand your reservations.
 
Clearly, you…”

Lara grabbed his arm and pulled him to a complete stop.
 
“Simon, do you have children?”

For a moment, it looked as if he would speak, but instead he simply shook his head.

“Try and understand when I tell you that I’m afraid.
 
I’m afraid that I’ve already put my son in very serious danger by not being able to provide simple things like food and shelter for him.
 
I’m afraid that when the authorities find out that I’ve lost him, during some sort of emergency, they might decide that I’m an unfit mother and take my children away from me permanently.”

Simon simply watched as the tears began to roll down her cheeks and she rubbed them away angrily with the back of her sleeve.

“But I’m not going to let them!”

If the Mall of the Nation was designed in the shape of a cross, the tram-way formed a ring-like target around it.
 
Even with the fast moving belts, located on the subterranean level as well, it had been the quickest way to get from one anchor store to another without going all the way back to the hub.

Here at the yellow sector tram station, Jesse and Chance had come to the end of their limited supply of patience.

“I’m telling you, man, it ain’t coming.
 
It ain’t just the lights.
 
Everything’s down,” Chance snapped.
 
“We should have gone along with the rest of that crowd you wanted to hide from.”

“Are you serious?” Jesse scoffed.
 
“You saw the security geek that was with them.
 
I’m sure every one of them’s looking for us by now.”
 
He set his board on the ground and stepped up to the glass plasti-steel partition that separated the loading platform from the track.
 
Digging his fingers under the lip of the door, he half-heartedly attempted to pull it open.

“Now what are you doing, dumbass?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m not walking all the way back past two hundred stores to get back to blue sector.”

That’s where the bikes were locked up. Chance had nearly forgotten.

“Y’know, why don’t we just start coming in through the yellow sector,” Chance complained.
 
“We always end up at the arcade anyway.”

“Cuz the blue sector is closer to Sedgewick Park where we come in from, Dingleweed, and I’m not about to ride a marathon around the building just so I can park my bike outside the arcade,” Jesse shot back.
 
“C’mon, over here and help me with this.”

Chance sighed heavily to let Jesse know what a stupid idea he thought this was before dropping his board next to the other and grabbing the edge of the door just underneath his hands.

“On three now,” Jesse told him.
 
“One, two, three.”

Both of them grunted and strained.
 
After a few moments, the door screeched in protest and slid roughly apart.
 
Pulling it wide enough for passage through, Jesse eased up and finally let go entirely.
 
“It’s staying open.”

Chance wiped his hands on his pants and casually glanced over his shoulder.
 
He thought he had spotted something in the shadows and fixed his eyes on the darkness, waiting patiently for another sign before he spoke up.
 
He sure as hell didn’t want to catch crap from Jesse if he’d been seeing things.
 
Maybe it had just been one of those Bots wandering around.

“Hey, wake up!”
 
Jesse slapped him roughly on the arm and pointed down to the tracks.
 
“Go on down and I’ll toss you the boards.”

“Screw you,” Chance hissed.
 
“I ain’t going first.”

“What’re you?
 
Some kind of pussy?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I am, you fag,” Chance replied, giving him the finger.
 
“When was the last time that worked for you?
 
When you were five?”

“What’s your point?
 
Aren’t you five yet?”

“If you’re in such a hurry to get electrocuted, you go first.”

“How would we get electrocuted?”

“Haven’t you ever heard of the third rail, dumbass?”

Jesse rolled his eyes.
 
“Explain to me how we could get electrocuted, Mr. Science, if the power’s out?”

“Screw you.
 
I’m outta here,” Chance murmured under his breath.
 

When he turned his back and started away, Jesse took a long look down into the darkness beyond the plasti-steel doors and sighed heavily.
 
“Fine!
 
Just go get the boards for me.”

Chance walked tentatively over to the two skateboards peering into the darkness where he thought he’d spotted the figure.
 
Maybe he
had
just imagined it.
 
Truth be told, all this was starting to spook him the hell out!

He watched as Jesse carefully lowered himself down to the tracks beyond, nervous lines wrinkling his brow.

Chance watched him with a smirk.
 
He walked casually over to Jesse and spun one of the rear wheels of his board, causing the ball-bearings to clatter around in the base with a sizzling sound.

Jesse threw himself back against the lip of the concrete platform with a startled huff.

Grabbing his gut, Chance wobbled backwards in a fit of laughter, while Jesse, red-faced and sweating, gave him a one-finger salute.
 
He dropped the final few feet to the floor beside the tracks and waved his hands in the air.
 
“C’mon, candy-ass!”

Chance kneeled down on the platform and craned his neck to look down the tram tunnel.
 
“Dude, how the hell are we going to be able to see where we’re going down there?”

Jesse raised the stolen laser pointer high above him, shining a small pin-light into the other’s eyes.
 
“It’s got a pin-light, too.”

“You’re a regular girl-scout.”

“Now ask me if I’m wearing clean underwear.”

The other chuckled under his breath.
 
“I figure I know the answer to that one.”

Chance took a brief moment to ponder the obvious question of why all of the Bots they had seen so far had stalled out when they supposedly ran on batteries, while the little laser/pin-light continued to work.
 
But the question just as easily slipped from his mind as he turned back to the matter at hand.

Handing the boards down, Chance took one last look back down the corridor before lowering himself down beside Jesse.

“See,” Jesse sighed with a smug smile on his face, tucking the boards beneath his arms and taking a step backwards.
 
“What did I tell y---?”
  
Dropping the boards, Jesse’s face contorted and he stiffened, his whole body quivering and shaking.

“Son of a bitch,” Chance growled in bored exasperation, leaning down to snatch his board off the tracks and inspecting it closely.
 
“You better not have scratched my board!”

Jesse chortled, grabbed his own board, and started into the darkness.
 
“I had you going there for a millisecond, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, I was actually thinking to myself, wouldn’t it be great if that wastoid fried himself crispy and I didn’t have to put up with him anymore,” he replied, following a few yards behind him.
 
“But then I’d be left with the job of having to explain to your poor parents how you died humping a fuse-box.
 
Oh, the humanity of it all!”

“Quit screwing around and get up here, willya?” Jesse snapped, shining the pin-light back at Chance.

“Nah, I think I like following you at this distance,” Chance commented wryly.
 
“Gives me a few seconds more to run, just in case something happens to your ass.”

“Mr. Simon, what issa Electro-magnet-pulse?”

For the last few minutes, the group had been walking in virtual silence, broken only by the occasional hiss of static from Cora’s hand-cranked radio/flashlight.

“It’s a burst of electromagnetic radiation that could damage electronic systems.”

“Would that break this radio?” she asked, swinging the flashlight down to him by its fluorescent yellow leash.

Lara watched with interest as Simon examined the gadget for a moment, turning it off and back on, raising and lowering the volume of the incessant hissing of static.
 
“It seems sufficiently operational.”

“But I can’t get any music on it.”

“Probably an issue with the transmission source, not the receiver,” he concluded, handing it back up to Cora, who wore a thoroughly confused expression on her face.

Lara frowned disapprovingly at Simon and was about to make another comment on his people skills, when Reggie slowed, raised a single hand into the air with fingers spread then closed them into a fist.

“What was that?” Lara asked, keeping pace beside Simon.

“He was informing me that the doors have been sealed,” Simon replied, his eyes finding Lara’s and lingering on them significantly.

Lara realized for the first time how interesting his eyes were.
 
They were of a unique color that she was attempting to define when he looked away again.
 
“How does he know?
 
I thought you told me that the system was down or something?”