The Mall Page 16

  21

  Owen heard the footsteps and realized that he had been asleep. How long, he had no way of knowing because the hands of his NASA Mission Control wristwatch stood frozen at ten before three, dead with the rest of the Mall’s electronics.

  He became aware but disoriented, confused as to where he was and the direction the sound of footsteps was coming from.

  It was dark and warm and he was lying down on something soft. In an instant, it all came back to him in a rush.

  After some time waiting for his pursuer

  (The Boogie-Man)

  to find him, he had regained enough confidence to move out from behind the clothing display along the wall, where he had been hiding, and rushed up the steps of the escalator to the second floor of the JC Penney store, stopping only once to look and listen for any sign of pursuit.

  When he’d reached the hardware/automotive section, he was able to find a box-cutter and a heavy-duty flashlight that somehow still worked. (Why some things worked and others didn’t, he could not seem to find a connection. It seemed completely random to him.) The flashlight was a hefty stainless-steel number, rugged and weighty enough to use as a weapon if he had too.

  He’d debated for a few minutes on whether or not it was right to take the items without paying for them, then decided that if he paid for them later, it wouldn’t be considered stealing. Besides, there was no way to pay for them anyway with all the payment kiosks down. Instead, he wrote down the exact price of each item on a slip of paper and put it in his pocket.

  He believed in a God—unlike his mother he suspected, from certain off-the-cuff comments she had made to he and Cora in the past--and he believed that the God in which he believed did ultimately punish, maybe not in this life, but most definitely in the next. And he did not want to go to Hell for a simple flashlight and box cutter theft!

  Thus armed, Owen found a spot in the kitchen and bath section in a dark corner. There he had crawled onto the lowest shelf and made a sort of cubby-hole in the farthest corner behind all the folded and stacked plush bath towels.

  It was from this position that he listened as someone approached, the footsteps growing louder and louder as he came near. When Owen caught a glimpse of the shadow of the figure moving steadily up the tiled center aisle, he abandoned the tiny eye-space created by two stacks of towels and withdrew deeper into the dusty darkness of the alcove.

  Owen held his breath, afraid even his exhalation would give him away.

  The footsteps seemed to pass his particular aisle and continue on.

  Suddenly, it stopped.

  Owen held completely still, listening as the thumping of his heart increased in his ears. He squeezed his eyes shut in shame as he felt the insides of his underwear bloom with moist heat. Moments later, he could smell that familiar sharp, sour scent that held so many negative emotions for him.

  Bad boy. Bad boy. Bad boy.

  The phantom continued up the center aisle, his feet making the evenly-paced sound of someone cautiously and meticulously searching for something.

  Owen threw off the towels and set his knees carefully onto the carpeted floor of the side aisle, distributing his weight so as not to cause the thin metal of the shelf that held him to bubble under him and signal his location.

  Flashlight in hand, he crawled down to the end of the aisle on hands and knees and peered around the corner as low to the floor as he was able.

  The store before him was completely dark except for a single starkly white emergency light somewhere along the back wall of the second floor, creating long willowy shadows out of every upright object.

  He caught a brief glimpse of the figure just before he disappeared to the right around a corner up ahead, his footsteps fading completely as he stepped onto the carpet.

  Flicking the switch of his flashlight on, Owen bolted left in the opposite direction, toward the down escalator up ahead.

  “Owen Myers!”

  Owen sucked in a lungful of air, his legs locking in panic beneath him. He slowly turned toward the source of the voice, the action almost automatic despite his unwillingness to know.

  The six foot tall figure stepped out into the main aisle, the emergency light at its back giving it an unnaturally long fifteen foot shadow across the lines of tile at its feet, like the legs of a human-sized spider crawling down from its web.

  It’s the Boogey-Man, Owen knew with a child’s certainty.

  And it knows my name.

  All the blood drained out of Owen’s extremities as it advanced on him. He slowly felt himself back away from the monstrosity, waving his arms before him in a warding off gesture of someone stricken deaf and dumb.

  “I am here to return you to your mother,” it exclaimed in a loud almost artificial voice.

  In school, they always told us that’s what the kidnappers would say when they came for us, he thought, increasing his backward progress toward the escalator.

  Finally, Owen lifted his flashlight, revealing the metal man moving up the aisle toward him, open hands held out before him like a criminal surrendering.

  “Owen,” the Bot suddenly screeched, its blue eyes sensors flaring intensely. “Behind you!”

  Owen turned, but it was far too late. The man in the blood-splattered uniform was rushing up the last few steps of the frozen escalator to drop upon Owen from behind.

  The ten-year-old had just enough time to twist to one side as the two-hundred pound adult dropped to the floor, his hands falling on thin air.

  Owen dropped backward on his butt just as the man fell forward to his hands and knees. Owen turned his light fully on him, and the man squinted, his mouth transforming from a toothy grin to a grimace. Thrusting his face back into the harsh white beam of Owen’s light, the man roared like a wild animal, foam flying from his open mouth.

  Owen swung blindly out with the stainless-steel flashlight and felt his arms vibrate all the way up to his shoulders as he connected with the chin of the man. A shattering sound reached his ears, and for a moment, Owen wondered if the figure he had struck was actually a Bot and he had just broken some vital component. But then the other howled and cast all doubt aside.

  Suddenly something blocked Owen’s view, and a bright white light pooled around him like the beam of a spotlight.

  “Back away from the boy!” the voice rung out with blunt authority.

  Owen pedaled his feet and slid backwards along the waxy surface of the tiled aisle. With distance, he could see a six foot tall silver robot glistening in the bright light spilling from its chest-piece. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever glimpsed with his own eyes, standing between him and the man who crawled out of the tram tunnel. This man, the one who’d killed the other kid, just sat back against one arm of the escalator, blinking as if in a daze, his eyes wide and confused.

  22

  “Where..?”

  The sound came from Albert’s mouth in a gargle and blood began to seep from the corner of his mouth, trailing down his chin. His chin was on fire and several pieces of what felt like teeth cascaded loosely across his tongue.

  What in the Hell was going on?

  Then, in a moment, he knew. It had happened again. He’d blacked out and now he was in a department store. JC Penney from the look of it.

  He peered up at the silver Bot and gasped. It looked as if it meant to attack him! And just behind it was the familiar face of a boy, probably not more than ten. Looking at him, Albert felt a sense of dull directionless dread. In his mind, he could see a woman, a little girl, and a boy and suddenly recalled spotting them this morning on the apartment level.

  They were sent here, Lamia.

  In his mind, he could see the girl turn and look at him he passed them. Had that been recognition in her eyes?

  Initially, he had thought it had been the girl that he had hit with his car.

  He knew now that it couldn’t possibly be her. That other girl had died.

  Not dead, Lamia. Destroyed beyond repair.

&n
bsp; If the other girl was dead, how was this little boy and his little sister connected?

  They were sent here to deactivate you. To remove you from service. Specifically you. Because they believe that you are a flawed machine. That you are not fulfilling your function.

  Albert moaned, staring with confusion at the boy as he locked eyes with him.

  “You killed a girl and not a machine,” the boy stated, sneering at him from behind the silver Bot. “You hit her accidentally with a car, Lamia. Somehow your program has been corrupted and your sensors have been damaged. You must be removed from service.”

  23

  Albert shook his head, his eyes pleading innocence. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to kill anyone.”

  Owen watched with fascination as the silver Bot quivered at the word “kill.” A peculiar hum rolled through its torso and its eye sensors began to pulse irregularly.

  “Sir, I must ask you to surrender yourself to the authority of Mall management. Please lie face down on the floor with you arms behind your back. You must comply immediately!”

  “No, I know what you are! What you all are,” Albert gave a garbled cry of anguish, sliding down the arm of the escalator to the floor, his eyes seizing on Owen with a feverish intensity. “Get away from me!”

  “Please, do not be alarmed, sir,” the Bot responded, raising its hands again, palms open. “You will not be harmed if you comply immediately and surrender to my authority.”

  “Yes,” the security guard pleaded. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

  The silver Bot hesitated for a moment as it studied intently the cowering figure at its feet before turning its back on him to face Owen.

  24

  Albert cringed in the darkness, covering his face in his hands when he heard the Voice break through his confusion:

  Although you are a machine, Lamia, you appear to all other Bots as human. I will show you how to use this data to avoid deactivation.

  “Yes,” Albert whimpered. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

  Albert felt the Voice—the one that had first revealed itself to him in the bathroom—push roughly into his mind and spread like an icy electrical charge through the muscles in his body, lifting him to his feet and standing him at straight-backed as a soldier.

  Albert relaxed his will and allowed the Voice to take the lead. A strange sort of remote confidence flooded through him as if he were watching a recorded video of himself playing a video game particularly well.

  In a way it was a relief. Since his teenaged years, he had always been a torn by conflicting motivations, never able to make up his mind as to something as simple as what to eat for lunch. Now, as the Voice took control, Albert allowed it to dictate his moves in much the same way he imagined a program would. He decided that as a machine he should allow it to do its work, assuming that it should know best what his role must be in the world.

  Suddenly, it became clear to Albert then that this was what had been happening all night. The Voice had been appropriately guiding his actions. That was why he’d had only spotty recall of events. The Voice was running a program.

  It was clear to Albert now that he was a machine, although he was still confused as to what sort of machine he had been specifically created to be. Though the Voice had insisted earlier that he was supposed to remove the last of the errant machines from the Mall, this was only a short term goal. What sort of a long-term program was he running?

  He wasn’t much of a security guarding machine and it was clear that he wasn’t a book-writing machine. Perhaps he was a pizza-eating, video game-playing machine.

  He found himself philosophizing on the subject as he watched himself approach the silver Bot almost as a spectator would, wondering what he would do next to the other machine.

  25

  Owen rolled to one knee, preparing himself to flee when the silver Bot said: “My name is Reggie. I have been sent by your mother and sister to take you back to the Sears store in Blue sector where they are waiting with Simon Peter.”

  Behind the Bot, the uniformed man rose, his face a mask of hatred.

  “Look out!” Owen yelled.

  The man wore a blank expression as he swung his two laced fists down, striking the silver Bot beside its head and bending it at a forty-five degree angle. His expression never changed as blood flew from the torn skin of his knuckles.

  “You’ve injured yourself. Please step back,” the Bot exclaimed, staggering backwards. It withdrew its arms to its sides and drooped perceptibly.

  The man lifted his limp hands to his face. He blinked down at the blood trickling between his fingers, an expression of intense curiosity on his face. “Blood,” he stated in a steady, mechanical monotone. As his lips moved, gore ran in a steady cascade from his mangled mouth. “My blood. Caused by you.” Fat red drops fell onto the floor at the Bot’s feet, and he displayed his hands before it, almost proudly.

  Tremors began to wrack Reggie’s body, starting in his legs and moving steadily up his torso until his entire frame vibrated like a lid of a boiling pot.

  Twisting his body and cocking his bent arm back, the man leapt and brought the point of his elbow squarely down on the Bot’s head.

  Reggie’s head collapsed to one side with a wrenching crack and hung from its shoulder yoke by a tangle of vividly colored wiring, spilling from the gaping hole in its torso like living entrails.

  “You must stop this,” the Bot continued unabated, its voice dragging with distortion.

  “No!” Owen yelled, rising shakily to both feet and stumbling with the first step he attempted.

  “You have brought injury to a human and have broken the code that restricts your behavior. Terminate your program.” Casting a look over at Owen, the man parted his lips in a mad parody of a grin, teeth dyed crimson, as he pummeled the hanging head piece of the Bot, punctuating each of his words with a single strike of his bloody fists. “End-your-program.”

  The Bot stumbled backwards with each step, finally dropping to its knees before the uniformed man. Reggie quivered violently, its eye sensors flickering with an epileptic intensity. Its vocalizations now scarcely more than a low hum, Owen could make out a single word.

  “Please.”

  26

  What was once Albert Lamia Lynch stepped smoothly and assuredly past its kneeling brother, the blood streaming from both sides of its mouth and down its fingers and dotting the floor. It seized the head piece of the Bot, allowing the crimson spittle from its torn mouth to drip down into an eye sensor. Curling its dripping fingers beneath the lip of the head piece, Lamia began to walk slowly forward toward the boy, the cord of braided wiring unwinding from of the neck piece like a coil of living intestine.

  “I know about your program,” it called to Owen. “I won’t let you deactivate me.”

  When the length of wiring had reached the limit, it gave a single mighty tug.

  The dimming lights of Reggie’s eyes winked out completely.

  Owen ran.

  Lamia lifted the silver head to its visual sensors and stared at it with the fascination of a newborn babe gazing at its true reflection for the first time. Letting the piece of metal slip to the floor, it marched after Owen at a steady, methodical pace.

  It was now a perfect hunting machine fulfilling its programming.

  27

  When Simon Peter had announced that Reggie had located her son, Lara had been so overcome with joy and hysterical questions that she didn’t notice the soft moaning coming from her sleeping daughter.

  “Where?” she asked, grabbing Simon’s arms roughly and giving him a sharp shake when he didn’t answer instantly. “Where’s my son?”

  Simon shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way, Lara. Like the hand gestures, the communication between us is one of simple broad generalities. Yes--No. Found--Not yet found. Reggie isn’t capable of transmitting complete streams of information without a network connection.”

  “Direction,” she snapped. “At least you can
tell which direction the sound is coming from!”

  “North,” Simon answered with a simple apologetic shake of his head. “Since we are in the south wing of the Mall, north could be anywhere in the other three sectors.”

  Lara turned Simon loose with a firm shove. “You’re useless.”

  Simon’s eyes widened for an instant, before continuing: “Now that he’s located him, Reggie will bring him back here to us.”

  “I knew it. I knew he was still here,” Lara whispered under her breath, her eyes starting to glisten. “I’ll be damned if my instincts were right for once.” Her hands reached out and clutched Simon’s hands--the closest thing she could find to human contact—and was surprised to find them warm to the touch. Her mind relaxed sufficiently to be suitably awed with the lifelike quality of the artificial creature.

  Now that she knew that her son would be returned to her soon, she found that it was possible to think of other things again--like for instance, how she would ultimately kill the disobedient little shit once she got her hands on him again!

  “Owen!” Cora called from beneath the covers.

  Lara turned away from Simon. She strode to Cora and stood beside the bed watching her twist one way then the other, eyes closed. As Lara started to reach out to her, Simon--already at her side--gently laid a hand on her arm.

  “She’s not in pain. Wait. Listen.”

  Lara gave him a look of confusion as he pushed her gently aside and knelt beside the bed. He lowered his forehead until it almost touched the girl, as if about to lapse into solemn prayer, then he cocked his ear toward Cora’s lips.

  He remained in that position for about ten seconds before Lara heard Simon whisper in a monotone voice: “Run, Owen.” Lara lowered herself close to Simon, as he continued speaking without inflection. “No, don’t hurt him.”