The Mall (38 page)

Setting the head-piece of the expired Bot gently onto the floor, Simon went to his knees beside Lara, where she held Cora tightly in her arms.
 
He placed a hand gently on her arm.
 
“Don’t restrain her,” he stated.
 
“She’s having a seizure.”

Lara fought for a moment,
then
simply watched in confusion as her youngest child flopped about on the landing.
 
“Is there something w-wrong with her brain?” she asked bluntly, her vision blurring with tears.

“Not necessarily.
 
It could be something as simple as sleep deprivation or high tension.”

“But it isn’t any of those, is it?”

“She might be receiving.”

Lara looked over at him.
 
He had dropped his eyes and turned slightly away from the girl.
 
The expression on his face was one of classic nausea.

“Has she ever exhibited symptoms like this before?” he asked.

“I’ve been asking myself that,” Lara replied, kneeling to push the jacket back beneath her vibrating head.
 
She swallowed back the fear that was slowly rising to a panic in her stomach.
 
“She’s been talking a lot about colors?”

Simon’s head snapped up.
 
“Colors?”

“Yes, like ‘Owen turned red,’ or ‘Teacher was bright pink.’” Lara scoffed.
 
“I just thought she was becoming something of an artist.
  
Now this!”

“You’re agitated.”

“Fucking-A, I’m agitated!” her voice lashed like a whip, the tears that had been building finally spilling over and down her cheeks.
 
“We were just attacked by a robot and my daughter’s having a Grand Mal.”

“Relax, Lara. You’re safe now.”

He had lowered his voice, in an attempt to be soothing.
 
A hand reached out and touched her shoulder gently, but she shook it off with petulant anger.
 
Another aspect of his programming, no doubt, she thought bitterly.

“Safe?” she asked in an incredulous voice, quaking with anxiety as she watched her child in obvious agony.
 
“How long is this supposed to go on?”

“Over five minutes, we may have a problem.”

“Five minutes?” the words of disbelief were wispy and without force.
 
It was a nightmare.
 
She was having a bad dream and had dragged her two children in with her.
 
Then through the fog of emotion, Lara registered the word he had uttered; the first time she could recall him using it.

We.

Then Cora slowly calmed, her body settling to the floor, and blinked clear-eyed up at the Ferris wheel above her.
 
Lara rushed to her side.
 
She brushed the hair out of her eyes and wiped the foam from her lips.
 
She shushed her in a soothing tone and stroked her head.

“It’s okay now.
 
It’s Mommy.
 
I’m here, Sweetpea.
 
Everything’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Cora croaked with effort.
 
She looked around with agitation.
 
“Simon.”

When he had kneeled down beside her, the tension in her face loosened.

“The Mall wants us.
 
It’s looking for us.”

Simon cocked his head at Cora then sat back on his heels to look slowly around them.

Lara continued to stroke her head, making the shushing sounds.
 
“Relax, Cora.”

Cora turned to her mother.
 
“They got away from the Boogeyman,” she told her excitedly.

“They?
Who’s ‘they?’”

“He’s older than Owen, but he’s just as scared.”

“Another boy?
Older than Owen?”

Cora nodded and continued. “The Boogeyman was after them but they got him.
 
Got him good,” she exclaimed, squeezing her small hand into a tiny fist.

Simon rose and stepped up to the railing to look down across the Mall below.

“Sticks sticking him.
 
Falling twisting.
 
Prickly ropes tight around his arms.”

“They tied him up with rope,” Simon said with a nod.
 
He gave a look down at Lara.
 
“You have quite a capable brood here.”

When Lara didn’t respond, Simon studied her.
 
She nibbled her bottom lip pensively, her eyes unreflective mirrors focused on some other place. Or time.

“But something else’s got the Boogeyman now.”

“Got him?” Lara asked, her eyes returning to her daughter.

“Like a bigger fish gets a smaller one,” the girl replied.
 
“Y’know, like that shark show on channel eight.”

“You said he went away?” Simon asked. “Where did he go, Cora?”

“One second he was asceared and full of hurt, then suddenly… he was gone.”
 
She shook her head at him and wiggled her fingers in the air.
 
“Poof!”

“We should go,” Simon murmured to Lara, casting a glance back over his shoulder.

Lara glanced up at him furtively,
then
took her daughter’s hands.
 
“Can you stand?”

Cora nodded and rose slowly to her feet with Lara’s help.

Simon started down the escalator.
 
Lara snatched her Hickory Farms bag from where it had fallen and tugged Cora after her.

“I thought those things weren’t supposed to do that,” Lara snapped in frustration.

“That’s correct; we’re absolutely incapable of injuring a human being.”

“Well, I don’t know if you happened to notice that he nearly ripped my arm off trying to get me to stand up!
 
I mean, my daughter was having a seizure for God’s sake.
 
Shouldn’t it have been trying to assist her instead?”

“They cannot willingly disobey the direct order of a human, unless that order would put another human in danger.
 
Notice how quickly it released you when you commanded it to.”

“Yeah, but then it grabbed me again,” Lara remarked, “as if it came to its senses or something.”
 
She gathered Cora up and guided her between them, stroking her head protectively.
 
“What was all that about H-type units and who is this designated Mall representative?”

“Someone that remained behind after the evacuation.”

“Why the urgency all of a sudden?
 
We’ve been in this Mall for hours and suddenly these two Bots come out of nowhere.”

“This command was issued to all Bots within the Mall.”

“Wait,” Lara snapped. “I thought you made it clear that since the network was down there was no way for them to communicate with each other.”

“It utilized an emergency frequency established in the event of a catastrophic network failure.
 
It doesn’t require a network as the information is relayed sonically.”

“You heard it as well?”

 
Simon reached the bottom of the escalator and stopped to await the other two.
 
“Yes, I received it along with a separate command to power down and await further orders.”

Lara stopped a few steps from the bottom of the escalator and stared down at him in alarm.
 
He offered his hand to her and said, “Since I haven’t completed the current program that I’m running, I’ve been forced to ignore the request.”

For the first time, Lara realized that he held the headpiece of the Bot that had attacked her protectively under one arm.
 
She glanced at him disapprovingly and bobbed her head at the disembodied head.
 
“Are you going to recite some Hamlet later,” she quipped.
 
“Get rid of that!”

Simon stared down at the head longingly before setting it down on the broad stone banister.
 
Great, Lara thought.
 
Now it looks like a bust announcing entrance to a shrine.

Guiding her and Cora down to the first level, Simon turned his gaze at Cora.

“Which way, Cora?” he asked her.

Slowly Cora stepped out into the center of the Mall beneath the shadow of the Wheel of Time and stared around at each of the four open corridors facing them.
 
She stopped to face the red painted corridor.
 
“Down there.
 
That’s where all the bad things are happening.
 
That’s where the Boogeyman got ‘em and where Reggie died.”
 
She gave a shiver then peered up at Lara with an expression of anxiety.
 
“Mommy, that’s where Owen
is
.”
 
She shook her head slowly.
 
“I don’t want to go there, Mommy.
 
Please don’t make me go.”

“Don’t be silly, Cora.
 
If your brother is there, we have to go get him.”
 
She gave her arm a single firm shake and started up the corridor, but Cora stood rooted to her spot.

Cora stared wide-eyed up the empty corridor and shook her head from side to side in denial, her eyes welling up with tears.

Lara spun and dropped to her knees before her, seized her gently by her arms.
 
“Your brother is lost and scared.
 
You know that, don’t you?”

Without taking her eyes from the corridor over Lara’s shoulder, she slowly nodded, tearing streaming down her face.

“We can’t leave him by himself, can we?”

She gave a hesitant shake of her head.

“Now we’re going to be brave, Coraline, just like he would be for you if you got lost. Okay?”

Cora grasped Lara around the neck, burying her face in her shoulder and began to sob.
 
Lara lifted her with a grunt and cast a look at Simon, who held his hands out tentatively.
 
She shook her head and turned to start up the corridor.

Simon appeared at her side.
 
“You’re very good at that.”
 
When Lara gave him a look of confusion, he stated: “The parental language.
 
You speak it well.”

She gave an ironic laugh, but before she could say a word, he had veered over to a set of double doors marked “Mall Personnel Only.”
 
He bent and with two fingers, touched the tile in front of the doors, spotted with drops and the imprint of wheel treads through what looked like paint to Lara.

Simon squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away, only to open them again a moment later and rise quickly to his feet.

A Bot with red stripes down its sides lay on its back in the middle of the corridor.
 
Its legs very slowly pumped through empty space.
 
Kneeling before it, Simon firmly gripped the machine’s head between his hands and whispered something inaudible into its face.
 
The eye sensors flickered weakly then went out completely.
 
The legs froze still.