The Mall Read online

  A Being that seemed to be everywhere at once.

  46

  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.

  Simon gave a single shake of his head.

  “What is it?” Lara asked.

  “This is the Bot that sent the first distress beacon. Its circuits have been irrevocably corrupted.”

  “English, Spock.”

  “It’s dead, Jim,” he replied, giving her a single ironic glance, before reaching inside his coat to retrieve the small pocket-sized computer that she recalled seeing inside the lab.

  Lara set Cora back on the floor, and she immediately began to give a protesting whine. “Not now,” she hissed. “Be a big girl for mommy.”

  She watched as Simon pulled a panel open just behind the concave receiver on the right side of the Bot’s head and plugged one of the cables from the computer into it. The screen of the computer came to life and page upon page of data began to scroll across it.

  Scanning down to the bottom of the document, he stared down at it with an expression that could only be described as “grim,” then disconnected the cable and rose to his feet. He turned away from them and started up the corridor. “We should keep moving.”

  “C’mon, Cora,” Lara said, retrieving one of the radio/flashlights from the bag and passing it to her. “Why don’t you try getting a station again on the radio?”

  Cora took the flashlight silently and began to crank.

  Giving her a look of appraisal, Lara fell into step beside Simon. “It’s something bad, isn’t it?” When he didn’t respond, Lara said, in a sharp tone: “Tell me.”

  “Just before the Bot’s CPU completely failed, it saw the body of a child approximately fifteen years of age lying upon a flatbed shopping cart. No apparent breathing. The child’s skull had been fractured in several places.” Simon glanced back at Cora, who was ambling along behind them, staring sullenly down at the flashlight in her hands. “The Bot followed the man for two hundred yards, instructing him to stop and identify himself. He ignored him until he reached those double doors. They lead to the incinerators.”

  “Incinerators?”

  “Yes, most of the waste in the Mall is burned there.” Simon paused momentarily and lowered his head briefly before continuing. “The man was a security agent named Albert Lynch,” he said, with a shake of his head.

  “Designated Mall representative,” Lara stated.

  Simon responded with a prompt nod. “Peculiar. He should not have remained behind when the Mall was evacuated.”

  “Right, we shouldn’t have either. Shit happens. What else did it see?”

  Simon shook its head and increased his pace slightly. “That was it.”

  “Simon, don’t do this again,” she growled, rushing forward to catch up with him. “I need to know everything, no matter how graphic you might think it is. Tell me.”

  Lara watched as Simon gave a fair representation of appearing ill-at-ease before continuing. “This security guard told the Bot that it had m-murdered the child.” His voice distorting, Simon decreased his pace, his body quivering slightly. “He told the Bot that he intended to kill the child’s friend as well as...”

  Lara reached out and took Simon’s arm out of simple instinct, needing to balance herself against something solid to maintain her fragile state of mind.

  Simon stared down at her tight grip and pressed his lips closed.

  “What else?”

  “Lara, maybe I should…”

  “Tell me!”

  Cora came to a stop, her full attention on them now.

  “…t-the other boy that was w-with him.” Simon swayed forward. Lara swung around and grabbed him by his forearms, Cora rushing around in front, but keeping her distance.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Lara hissed under her breath, strategically positioning her back to her daughter.

  Simon squeezed his eyes shut, his tremors increasing until he began to shake violently. “Give me a moment,” he said in the wispy tone of an elderly man after a second flight of stairs.

  “Look at me, Simon,” Lara snapped sternly, pointing at her face. “Open your eyes and focus here!”

  His eyelids flickered open and he peered up in her wide authoritative eyes like a frightened animal. “Lara, you must understand. For an H-type android, allowing a human being to come to harm, to d-die,” he managed in a thin whisper through gritted teeth, “is a failure of the worst kind. It is difficult to convey the strength of this rule. It is in our code, written upon our processors, very much like your DNA. Unbreakable.”

  “Like allowing my children to come to harm.”

  The shivering slowly settled and stopped. He gave a slow nod and attempted a weak smile. “Lara, this cannot happen again. I cannot allow it.”

  “If you don’t keep it together, buddy, you won’t be around to stop it.”

  Simon nodded again and finally straightened to his full height. He cast a look around Lara at Cora then looked away again.

  Shame, Lara thought. “Mr. Simon’s okay now, Cora,” she told her, taking his hand in hers and giving it a brief squeeze. “Aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I’m fine now. Let’s get going.”

  Cora nodded and without a word, took Simon’s other hand in hers.

  There’s been a change in him, Lara thought as they stepped deeper into the Red sector together. He’s different than he was when I first met him.

  Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, she saw him studying Cora’s hand gripping his finger and his pinched expression loosened into a genuine smile.

  Is it possible that he’s learning how to be a man, Lara thought with wonder.

  “Stop,” Simon snapped suddenly, turning to Lara. He took her by the shoulder and stepped away from Cora. “I cannot risk you or Cora coming to danger again. I need to tell you this, though it might cause you undue stress, I’ve determined your psyche is strong enough to handle it,” he whispered to her, casting a look at Cora.

  Lara drew him closer until his synthetic lips were close enough to kiss. “Tell me, Simon,” she hissed back.

  “They’re hunting us,” he pronounced in a conspiratorial hush. “It’s impossible but they seem to think that we’re not human and they’ve been given explicit orders.”

  Lara stared at Simon with barely suppressed alarm. She resisted the urge to glance at her daughter, who
she could see out of the corner of her eye was watching them both closely. “What orders?”

  “To kill you both.”

  47

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this, y’know?”

  Chance gave Owen an impatient look from his stooped position and gripped the base of the stanchion again. “Why not?”

  “Because it’s wrong.”

  “Didn’t you know, rules are bogus,” Chance said. “They’re determined by whoever has the money to protect their stash.”

  “Maybe so, but right and wrong are permanent.”

  Chance waved a hand at him in exasperation and turned back to the car.

  Owen looked from Chance to the stanchion. He was having a hard time fathoming just what they were trying to achieve here. “I think we should go to the Sears first, find my mom and sister, then we can all figure this out together,” Owen suggested. He had to admit, at least to himself, that his mother had some good ideas sometimes—like staying at a movie theater all night.

  “You go do that,” Chance said, shifting his legs in an effort to get the optimum balance to do maximum damage.

  “What about the Bots? You keep this up and every last one in the Mall will show up.”

  Chance gave Owen a single exhausted look that was sufficient enough response from him. Pivoting his body toward the driver’s side window, he attempted an awkward lift, his face reddening.

  Owen sighed heavily and set the flashlight down on the floor. He took the base of the stanchion in his hands to help balance it.

  Chance gave him a single expressionless nod. “Now on the count of three,” he hissed between clenched teeth. “One-two-th…”

  Out of nowhere it seemed, a man in a coat stepped up behind them and gently shoved the stanchion aside. Chance and Owen fell down alongside it in a pile, expressions of confusion on both their faces.

  48

  Lara slipped into the dream as effortlessly as if she had been lying in the dark on her bed at home instead of standing on her feet in the late morning daylight streaming down on her from the glass roof above.