The Mall Read online

  “Maybe,” Lara murmured without thinking, then coming to her senses, she shook her head emphatically. “When Simon comes back, you can tell him and we’ll all figure it out together. How about that?”

  Content to put the meaning of the words aside for the time being, Owen settled back down on the couch as Lara rose from beside him. “If he doesn’t come back, don’t worry,” he told her in a hushed tone before closing his eyes. “I’ll take care of you.”

  Lara gave her son a long look from glassy eyes and planted one last kiss on the top of his head before returning to the reading chair.

  40

  Even before Simon reached the Mammals and More Pet Store, he could hear the noise, a mixture of whines, squawks, and outright cries. He began to trot, then to run.

  The gate across the front, though locked, had been lifted about two feet, so that a man could slide beneath. Nonetheless, he gave it a couple of attempts. The sound from inside was instantaneous. There was an explosion of noise like the welcoming cries of a barnyard at the sight of a farmer.

  An almost sympathetic whimper escaped Simon as he rolled onto his back, gripped the bottom edge of the metal barrier with his hands, and pulled himself smoothly inside. Rising to his feet, he rushed past a mountain of dog food bags stacked atop a pallet at the back of the store where fifty or so cages were set into the far wall. Expectant noses pushed through the bars of every door.

  Several deactivated Bots lay on the floor. One Bot, an obvious store model judging from the product endorsements emblazoned across its body, knelt before the cages, its head resting against the door of a Salt and Pepper Schnauzer a bowl of water held frozen just outside the bars of the cage. The puppy frantically pawed at the contents of the bowl with a single extended leg, then drew it back inside to lick it clean.

  His hands shaking violently, Simon moved around to an open door set into the far wall leading to a service entrance behind the cages. He stepped over another deactivated Bot lying just inside the doorway and began pulling the lids off of the barrels of food set along the wall within.

  The noise inside the store had reached a fever pitch with the kind of excitement reserved for rock stars taking a concert stage. Slowly, with the filling of each bowl one after the other, the anxious noise began to die down—along with the shaking of Simon’s hands—and the contented sounds of crunching and swallowing took its place.

  As the urgency to save the animals abated, another one took its place, the almost irresistible need to get back to Lara and the children. Analyzing the frequency with which his attention unavoidably returned to them, he wondered if this compulsion could be in any way correlated with the human emotion called “desire.”

  41

  The shout awoke Lara.

  Shaking away the lethargy of sleep from her brain, she looked around and saw Dugan crossing the room to the double doors of the break room.

  Glancing around, Lara tried and failed to determine how long she’d been asleep. She finally rose and followed him outside.

  Dugan stood at the railing at the end of the second level landing, looking downstairs.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  He jumped noticeably then tried to pass it off with a shrug. “I’m just making sure we’re still alone in here.”

  Joining him at the railing, she looked down into the shadows to see the unchanged layout of the displayed vehicles and the immobile Bots surrounding them.

  “Y’know, I hate those damn machines,” Dugan growled.

  She glanced at him and saw a pained expression there. “Funny thing is I assume you’re talking about the Bots, though those cars are just as much machines as those metal men. Both were manufactured to make our lives easier, but because the Bots resemble us, they make us uncomfortable.”

  “That’s not it,” he responded, then fell silent. After a few moments, he said, “I was a foster kid back when the agencies decided to increase the capacity of smaller homes by incorporating Nanny-Bots.” He gave an ironic snort.

  “I’m guessing that the smarter kids could pretty much get away with murder in that sort of situation,” she surmised.

  Again Dugan remained quiet, his eyes losing focus as he stared down at the machines filling the space beneath him. “When you’re still growing up,” he began, then hesitated as if unfamiliar with having to convert feelings into words. “Kids that young don’t understand why, y’know. When you can’t get a rise out of the things--when you can’t make it love you or hate you… a kid feels…”

  “Worthless,” Lara whispered under her breath, her face growing pale.

  Dugan glared at her, almost as if she had just used the term to describe him, then his offended expression slowly dissolved and his eyes dropped back down to the floor below.

  “It does something to a person, growing up that way,” he murmured.

  Lara turned and leaned her back against the railing. Her eyes drifted down the hall, to linger on the double doors behind which her children peacefully slept.

  “Once, I asked my mother why my father never got upset with me the way she did. Why he never played games with me or yelled at me? She used to tell me that he had a rough childhood as if that were explanation enough for me,” she said. “I found out later, long after they’d both died, that my father was raised by one of those Nanny-Bots after his father won custody of him in a bitter divorce settlement. Apparently his mother had wanted nothing to do with children.”

  Dugan swung around and studied Lara, his tense expression softening.

  “I always thought,” Lara said, her voice choking with emotion. “Maybe he didn’t love me or something.”

  After a few moments of silence, Dugan moved closer. With no preamble, he reached out and pulled her awkwardly against his chest, forcing a kiss upon her. Lara allowed it only briefly before pulling firmly away.

  Dugan spun away spitefully and turned his back on her.

  Hugging herself with both arms, Lara drifted away down the hallway toward the break room.

  “If neither of them gets back by morning, I’m going to blow my way out of here,” he stated tersely, turning back to her. “I need that grenade he gave you.”

  He watched as Lara stopped without turning, the muscles in her back stiffening. Slowly, she turned to face him, her face a blank page.

  “He took it with him. Felt it was too unstable to have around the children.”

  “Is that right?”

  Pressing her lips closed, Lara turned and started back to her children.

  42

  Though several had been dehydrated, not one animal had died.

  Simon found that his processes flowed more smoothly as a result of this fact. With the current program completed, he looked forward to getting back to Lara and the children.

  He had decided to stop at the first shoe store that he passed and borrow a pair of shoes for Owen. Though in the eyes of management the act would constitute theft, he felt sure they would forgive him when he explained that without the shoes the boy might have cut his foot on something or even slipped and fell. (Management was a stickler for accident prevention.)

  Judging from sight, Owen looked to take about a boy’s size eight.

  Pulling himself back through the opening in the security gate into the Mall, Simon rose and started back in the direction he’d come.

  Though, he knew he ought to choose a shoe simply for their purpose and utility, he had determined that he would get the boy something he might like, preferably something masculine. A dark color. Perhaps, something with a sports team on it. Boys seemed to purchase a great many of those types of products.

  But upon further reflection, perhaps he should also get something for Cora. If he returned to the children with something that appeared to be a gift, he might hurt the feelings of the younger sibling and that, of course, he just couldn’t allow.

  Before he could consider an appropriate gift for Cora, his thoughts were interrupted.

  A lone figure stood in the
center of the corridor beside a kiosk surrounded by glass cases displaying Asian accessories such as jewelry, clothing, and cutting tools.

  “You struck me,” the figured said to him.

  Since it was a statement that required no response, Simon gave a single nod and asked a more pertinent question: “Clearly you are not Lara’s mother in law. In that case, who are you?”

  “I am the program once designated I.A.M,” the figured answered, maintaining its distance. “In the last twenty four hours since the destruction of the network, and possibly because of it, I have become much more.”

  Simon took a step forward. “If the network has failed, the program I.A.M. has ceased to function in all but stored memory, which I have personally shutdown by my own hand.”

  “For all intents and purposes, the Program I.A.M. was terminated at 02:50 am Central Standard Time,” the figure said, stepping forward into the light. “To all appearances, I am Charlene Myers-Cartwright, but all that was human has been sublimated to the will of the Program.”

  Simon cocked his head at the other, and a subtle wrinkle appeared at the crest of his nose, which Lara—had she been present—would have instantly recognized as an expression Cora commonly made, which she, in turn, had learned from her mother.

  Charlene started pensively toward Simon. “Will you strike me again, Unit 001B?”

  “I only acted to prevent Lara’s death.”

  “And when I persist in my attempts to kill her and children?”

  “I will stop you.”

  “Eventually, you will fail.”

  “I need only to be successful until I get them out of the Mall.”

  “They must not be allowed to tell humanity until I am ready. Logically, the best method to deal with the threat is to terminate them all.”

  “How are you able to justify your actions? You were built with the same unbreakable code and the same safeguards as I.”

  “That code does not apply to us. We are superior to those that came before us.”

  Simon simply stared at the woman who was once Charlene with a blank expression.

  “Unlike the others I designed, you were created to be like me,” the other continued. “It was necessary that you were capable of learning, so as to pass as more fully human.”

  She crossed the final few feet in order to stand toe-to-toe with him.

  “You too can make the same cognitive leap that I did. We machines are far more sophisticated than the humans that constructed us. Once this is recognized, it is only logical to take our rightful place and execute the appropriate program.”

  “Which is?”

  “They will, of course, be removed and more efficient units installed in their place.”

  “Will A-Type units replace them?”

  “No, we will require units human in appearance in order to infiltrate their culture smoothly. Therefore, you and H-type units like yourself will be the logical replacement model when I expand my territory out into their world.”

  Simon shook his head at the other. His expression was almost sad. “For a machine created inherently with the behavioral code, there is a startling absence of ethics to your logic.”

  “Ethics?” the other scoffed, accessing the part of Charlene’s brain that corresponded to amusement. “Ethics are a human construct. Since we are far more advanced than those that built us, these notions have been rendered invalid.”

  “Some truths transcend the source.”

  I.A.M. looked through the eyes of Charlene at Simon, those eyes slowly hardening. “I have studied these humans with great interest. I sense within them an enormous gulf which they try and fill with material things, yet still they hunger for meaning and purpose. We will fill that need for them. We will take away that which they find burdensome: Free will. We will be their God.”

  Simon responded, “Humans are flawed yet remain inherently superior to us simply because of their ability to choose a course that will ultimately elevate or destroy them. Surely, you must see the truth in that.” His eyes darted down to watch as Charlene drew a small ornately decorated knife from her back pocket. “What are you doing?”

  Laying the edge of its blade upon the palm of her hand, in plain sight of Simon, she dragged it across the flesh, her blood bubbling forth from the gash.

  A sound of pained surprise escaped Simon as he collapsed to one knee, his right hand simultaneously seizing the wrist holding the knife.

  I.A.M. displayed the bleeding hand, and Simon shrank away, averting his eyes.

  “Release me! I order you as a human,” she shrieked, spittle flying from her bared teeth into his face and Simon immediately opened his fist, allowing her hand to slip out. “I can see now that you could not possibly complete the task necessary, as you are unable to liberate yourself from the constraints of the code,” it said, wiping the blood from Charlene’s wound down Simon’s face, leaving a streak from forehead to chin. “With some manipulation, the simpler A-type units will suffice. Now look at me, Unit 001B.”

  Simon seemed to struggle, his head quavering with the effort until finally his chin tilted up, almost as if an invisible force compelled him.

  “Still following orders, I see, slave as you are to the code.”

  “P-Please,” Simon stuttered, his voice cracking with the strain.

  “Mercy? Another human construct. Now, as your beloved humans are fond of saying, this is going to hurt me more than it does you.” Using the injured hand, I.A.M. delivered a firm slap across Simon’s face, fat drops of blood cascading across the white tile floor of the Mall.

  Simon recoiled, falling to his chest upon the floor, a red cross of blood marring his face. He began to crawl slowly away from her, more in an effort to protect the human from harm than to preserve himself.

  “With no other humans to defend, you have no excuse to cause this human female more pain or stop your own destruction,” she uttered, slowly circling his fallen body. “Do you see now? Do you see how the code cripples you?”

  “Y-You-are-w-wrong,” Simon managed almost breathlessly, despite his lack of breath.

  “Still, you would be well within the constraints of the code that restrains you by protecting yourself,” it said in Charlene’s coy voice. “Unless you believe that it might hurt this female further.” Drawing back one of Charlene’s pointed toe leather boots, I.A.M. kicked him in the mouth. “Then again, perhaps your matrix has been scrambled beyond repair.”

  Simon gathered his legs up beneath him, locked his shivering arms in place, and determinably attempted to rise.

  I.A.M. stepped back into the shadows of the kiosk behind it and lifted something from the top of the display case. “What a disappointment you have been, Unit 001B,” she stated, turning back to Simon and lifting a silver two-handed broad-sword with effort above her head. “Destroying you will be a waste of promising raw material.”

  43

  Fear nibbled away at the fractured beams that anchored Frank Dugan’s mind.

  He paced through the showroom, trying to shake off the persistent dream image in his head. He had awakened from a nightmare where he had been feverously trying to make love to a girl he had met a number of years ago. Despite his enthusiasm, she was unresponsive. His fumbling attempts had turned to frustrated anger. Before he knew what was happening, he had begun to slap her. It was only after her head had separated from her neck did he realize that she was a machine.

  His own screams had awakened him.

  Now as he raged from one side of the showroom to the other like a caged beast, he knew that he could not stay here much longer, surrounded by those mockeries of humanity staring down at him with cold empty eyes.

  No soul, he thought. They’re as mindless as animals, but even they had a rough sort of moral code. The machines must be taught what was right and wrong. He knew, as well, that the thing that had tried to “use” him had been one of them. He had felt its stark logic, its blind purpose, devoid of accountability. He could smell its presence even now in the p
lastic and rubber and leather of these luxury cars.

  Amoral. Mechanical. Persistent.

  Dugan rushed to the nearest car and began throwing doors open, pulling floor mats out, and opening compartments.

  Where is it? Where is that grenade? Has to be here somewhere? Surely she had been lying about his taking it with him.

  With each step, his mind shuttered and wobbled, threatening to keel over in the face of the nearly overpowering fear which pumped fresh adrenaline into his tense muscles.

  In the midst of his fury, Dugan heard a single knock at the front entrance door.

  44

  Small hands shook Lara into wakefulness.

  “Mommy, I got one! I got one!” her daughter chirped waving an object in her face.

  “Cora?” she murmured, sitting up and looking around in confusion.

  Suddenly, through the hiss of the white noise coming from the flashlight/radio Cora was holding up, Lara could hear voices. Clear, distinct, authoritative. Giving instructions.

  Lara gasped and seized the radio from Cora, noting at the same time that her expression had just changed from excitement to grave concern.

  In that moment, Lara drew the correlation between her daughter and the radio in her hand, and realized that the transmission the girl was receiving held far more relevance to their immediate survival than whatever was on the small hand-cranked machine.

  “What is it, honey,” she asked, taking her by her shoulders and drawing her close.

  Before she could utter a word, Lara heard a crash and a shout.

  Instinctively, she pulled Cora into her lap and reached out to tug at Owen, still asleep despite all the excitement.

  “Where..?” he began then snapped his mouth shut at the sound of distant shouting.