The Mall Read online

  “Ferris Wheel,” Owen corrected, without even a hint of derision. Progress, Lara thought.

  “I call it a Fairy Wheel because that’s where the fairies live, silly.”

  Look at these brilliant, beautiful little creatures, she told herself, another shot of bitterly cold pain piercing her gut once again. It took every ounce of strength she had to keep from crying in that moment. They deserved so much more than she could offer them. What could they have possibly done in this life (or the previous one if you believed in that sort of thing) to warrant a mother such as her? What atrocities could they have committed?

  Maybe they just had the bad luck to be born in a world controlled by a God that seemed to work misery the way sculptors molded clay.

  Didn’t she owe them the truth, she asked herself. No, she owed them protection, security, and happiness, as fleeting as it was, for as long as possible. The truth, the terrible reality of their situation, would come later. Now, they simply needed to be happy.

  Suddenly, intruding upon her thoughts like a small mechanical dog tugging on the cuff of her pants, she remembered to ask the question that had been nagging at her.

  “Hon,” she inquired, taking her daughter by her shoulder and pivoting her around. “Why did you say what you did back there? What burned?”

  “Huh?”

  “You told me to make Grandma Charley stop,” Lara reminded her gently. “You said that it burned. What did you mean by that?”

  Cora stared at her mother blankly and finally shrugged. When she started to turn back to the glass wall of the elevator, Lara turned her back to face her again.

  “Did you mean a pain?” she asked with trepidation, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. She didn’t need this, her inner-teenager screamed in petulant rage. “A pain, like a headache, hon?”

  Cora nibbled the corner of her lip. “No, more like a belly tingly, just more behind my eyes instead. Like when you go over bumps in the road fast and the car flies,” she murmured with disinterest, her eyes fluttering to the glass wall beside her. “Like when Daddy used to swing me high and you would yell at him to stop.”

  Lara swallowed the pain back and attempted to get the sudden tide of emotions under control enough to continue when the elevator gave another flourish and the doors of the car slid open, a group of four or five people crowding in around them before they could even escape.

  In the brief moment it took to extricate her children and pull them outside, Lara wondered how Cora could remember being swung by her daddy when he had died when she was only two, over three years ago. Could a child’s memory extend back that far? Perhaps this was one of the earliest memories her youngest had of her father. Possibly one of the few.

  Did Owen ever think about him, she thought achingly? What kind of memories did the ten-year-old have of his father?

  The blunt sadness of these domestic mysteries had yet to wash over her completely before she stepped from the elevator and nearly collided with one of the Mall Bots, this one with highlights of red throughout its metallic shell.

  “Are you in need of assistance, ma’am?”

  “Can you get me to the Blue tram?”

  The red Bot seemed to perk up, its blue eyes pulsing brightly for a moment. “Yes, indeed,” it responded, turning as briskly as any foot soldier to face the east end of red striped corridor. “I would be more than happy to be of service. Follow me, ma’am.”

  Cora rushed up until she was alongside the red Bot. “What’s your name?”

  “My official designation is RM-321B.”

  “Can I call you Red?”

  “My designation is RM-321B”

  Every third step Cora would have to double-trot-step to catch up with the Bot.

  “Can you slow down, Red? I think you’re going to fast for my Mommy.”

  “My apologies.” The Red Bot reduced its pace. “Is this acceptable?”

  “It’s fine,” Lara replied, moving up along the other side. “Where do you go to get repairs?”

  “This unit has never needed repair,” RM-321 said with what could almost be called pride.

  “I understand, but if you did need repairs, where would you go?”

  7

  Jesse shoved through the revolving plasti-steel doors into the CD Connection store, took one look around, and swore under his breath.

  Tucking his skateboard nervously under his arm, Chance glanced back over his shoulder at the sandy-bearded attendant with his dusty Vans perched atop the front counter, talking animatedly on the phone. The twenty-something seemed oblivious to them.

  “I knew we should have gone to the Galleria,” Jesse grumbled to Chance as he headed down one aisle deeper into the store, reaching out to casually spin a rack of fuzzy key chains emblazoned with band name logos. “They got that ice rink and hot girls like to skate.”

  Without thinking, Chance reached out and stilled the spinner as he passed. “The Galleria’s got crazy security, Jess. Worse than here.”

  “Chancie, you don’t need security when everything is dispensed by computers. I mean, look at this,” Jesse complained, stepping over to a random section covered in clear plasti-steel broken every few feet with holes large enough to put a hand through. He casually flipped through a row of organized stacks of compact discs and pulled out a copy of Rush’s Moving Pictures. A narrow metal slide just wide enough for a single CD case lay below the shelf of CD’s like a rain gutter, where the chosen CD would slide down to be dispensed. Outside the plasti-steel was a slot designated for credit card payment. “No way are we getting anything out of here. It’s Fort fuckin Knox,” he grumbled flipping the CD case away angrily and letting it skitter across the tops of the others until it came to rest several feet away within its clear plastic prison.

  “What’s the big deal? You got all their CD’s anyway,” Chance commented, glancing up at the attendant, still absorbed in his phone conversation.

  “It’s the principal of the thing. Where’s the trust, huh?”

  “C’mon, let’s cruise.”

  “Okay,” Jesse sighed, starting down the aisle toward the exit after him. “Oh wait! Lemme check on one more thing while I’m here. Get Shaggy’s attention for me.” He spun on his heel and disappeared down the next aisle before the other could protest.

  Chance ambled down to the entrance and wandered over to the counter to look through a rack of ink-pen laser pointers. The attendant took one look and swiveled his chair slightly away from him, never pausing in his phone conversation.

  Chance took one of the laser pointers and located the tiny adhesive sensor on the bottom-- easily removable with a long nail--that would activate the alarm and lock the plasti-steel door at the exit should anyone try and take it out without paying for it. He knew that like most of the stores in the automated Mall of the Nation he didn’t need an attendant to purchase it. All he needed to do was place the object into the compartment of a price scanning machine and with the swipe of a credit card, the scanner would deactivate the sensor that would set off the front door alarm, allowing the product to be safely taken out of the store.

  Though the alarms and door locking mechanisms varied from store to store—some would seal doors shut at the exits while others dropped chain-link curtains or red-striped arms like guillotines until security Bots or personnel could arrive--he knew from experience that there were ways around any security system if you had a shrewd eye and knew their weaknesses.

  Snapping the button on the side of the laser pointer, Chance passed the tiny red dot of light across the carpet, up along the wall then across the ceiling. Rad!

  Jesse would get a kick out of these, especially if he could use it to hack someone off in a darkened movie theater. Nothing made Jesse happier than to “piss off the suits” as he often put it, and sure, fun was fun, but sometimes Chance just did not get it.

  “How much you want for one of these?” Chance asked.

  The attendant refused to shift his attention from the phone, simply pointing indi
fferently to the price on the top of the rack. “So, I told her, I said look, if you want to hang out, we’ll hang out, but don’t get all possessive and shit. I mean I need to keep my options open, right?”

  Chance bristled. Condescending asshole! He couldn’t possibly leave the store without giving him a little business. “So, is Van Halen coming out with another album or what?”

  Finally, the eyes of the bearded attendant acknowledged him. His face held the sort of alarm reserved for someone who had just yelled something obscene about his mother. “What? What?” He cocked the phone’s receiver away from his ear and murmured, “Hold on, dude.” Casting a heated glare at Chance, he spat, “Look, Van Halen is dead, ya hear me! Dead, dead, dead! How many times do I have to explain this to you people? Van Halen is no more. Finite! Kaput! Got it?”

  “So, what, they aren’t touring anymore or just not recording?”

  With a blank expression on his face, the attendant just blinked at Chance for a few more moments before turning back to his phone. “I’m back,” he sighed heavily. “Just some kid, s’all. Nah, I’m at work, dude, I told you. I’ll be out of here at midnight. That’s when the Mall takes over for me.”

  Experienced shoppers at the Mall of Nations knew that the lion’s share of the stores went fully 100% automated at midnight, though some did so earlier. By midnight, most Mall personnel, except for security, were tucked snug in their beds. After the witching hour, all he and Jesse would have to put up with would be Bots and security assholes like the one they ran into at the Wheel of Time earlier.

  This would be there last opportunity to hassle the suits before dawn.

  With this in mind, Chance gave the attendant a shifty look and turned briskly away from the front counter.

  “And kid, if you want that laser pointer, you gotta pay for it.”

  Chance spun back around, tossed the laser pointer across the counter, and backed defiantly toward the exit. “What do they pay a loser like you for anyway? Everything is automated now.”

  “They pay me to put up with asinine questions about defunct bands. That’s what.”

  “You’re redundant!”

  The attendant stared blankly at Chance as Jesse swept up behind him and grabbed the sleeve of his The Police Synchronicity tour t-shirt. “Smell you later, Shaggy” he called, giving Chance a shove toward the exit. “Give the Scooby-gang my best.”

  The attendant wagged his middle finger over his shoulder at them and turned back to the phone. “Any idea what a re-dumdant is?”

  Chance spun around and glared back at the entrance as Jesse steered him outside into the Mall. “Seriously, what’s the point of guys like him when the Mall essentially runs itself?”

  “He’s a body with no authority and no purpose but to take up space. Y’know, like that fat-ass guard who hassled us. They’re all just scarecrows,” Jesse answered, digging through the back pocket of his baggy jeans and yanking out a handful of the fuzzy key chains. “Here,” he said, tossing one at Chance. “I snagged these from the store. Not one sensor on any of them.”

  Snatching it from the air, Chance glanced back at the CD Connection. He turned the key chain over in his hand. “Why would I want this? I’ve got, like, one key to the front door of my parents’ house.”

  “I got Tears for Fears cuz I know you like them. They’re a little too gay for me.”

  “No more gay than Billy Idol. I mean, ‘Dancing With Myself?’” Chance began to dance around and pump his fist below his waist.

  Jesse gave him a shove and increased his pace to leave him behind. “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.”

  “Dude, waitaminute! Turn around. What’s that?”

  Jesse turned and looked down. “What are you...?”

  “On your crotch.”

  Jesse looked down at the bright red glowing dot below his waist.

  “I think it might be cancer of the scrote!”

  Jesse grabbed at the object in Chance’s hands. “You shit-licker! Where’d you get that?”

  “Snagged it right out from under that prick’s nose. I even made it look like he caught me.” Chance tossed the laser pointer over to Jesse. “What a tool!”

  Jesse stared at it coolly. Without comment he turned and started into the Mall, dumping the remaining key chains into a garbage chute as he passed.

  “Hey! Why’d you go and do that for?” Chance asked, following after.

  “I never really wanted them anyway,” he replied, heading into the Mall, the red dot of light dancing ahead of him at his feet like a tiny emissary.

  8

  Owen rushed to the entrance to the E-Bot store and stood transfixed by the wonders even before he’d set foot within. Crowds of young and old alike flittered among the laughing, barking, pinging displays of synthesized biology.

  Lara and Cora brought up the rear, his mother studying Owen with amusement.

  “Well, go on,” she chirped, reaching out to ruffle his curly head, but he was gone before her fingers closed. “Don’t leave this store, until I get back,” she cried after him. Lara watched him disappear into the chaotic display of motion and light, knowing that he would be safe for the time being, but feeling a tinge of discomfort nonetheless.

  “C’mon.” She turned and tugged Cora after her.

  “But I want to see the Bots,” the five-year-old protested.

  “This’ll be better than the store,” Lara remarked. “This is where the real Bots go.”

  Lara led Cora to the entrance of a corridor to the left of the store. It was long, narrow and empty without the colorful spectacle that characterized the rest of the Mall. No, this hallway was austere and businesslike, painted a sterile hospital-white, with a single black line painted down its length. She hesitated, glancing up at the sign mounted above the opening, which read simply: “Mall Maintenance.”

  “I want to go back to the store,” Cora stated flatly.

  Lara ignored her and started down the corridor, the sensible flats she put on this morning, more out of comfort than style, echoed louder and louder the further down they traveled.

  We’re off the see the Wizard, Lara thought a bit skittishly.

  By the time they’d reached an unhandled door marked “Authorized Personnel Only,” she had worked herself into such a state that when she pressed the little red button marked “Service,” she was all but certain a booming voice would bellow: “Who dares disturb Oz, the great and powerful!”

  Instead, the door opened almost immediately with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a dark wide hallway, almost identical to a hospital. The only light came from the circular windows on a set of two swinging doors through which a dark silhouette strode. As it turned smoothly and started toward them, Lara was almost convinced that it was human, until its eyes pulsed at her with an inner blue intensity.

  Cora clutched her mother’s arm tightly and darted defensively behind her.

  “May I help you?” the tall humanoid figure asked coming to a stop a foot from Lara. Its voice was rich in timbre, like the voice of a concert tenor. James Earl Jones might have been the inspiration. How ironic would that be, Lara thought. A robot voice modeled after Darth Vader.

  In the light from the corridor, she could see now that it was a sleek silver creature, beautiful to behold. More delicate than the models used on the Mall floor, this one—at least in its movements--approached humanity. She found herself ogling it as she would a sculpture or, maybe more appropriately, a sports car. Was that how a designer saw its creation--an object of art, yet made for utility, Lara wondered.

  “Yes, I was wondering if you repair small Bots here?”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  Bring me the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West.

  It had popped into her head with the same sort of conversational quality that Ben cast his observational asides, making it seem even funnier to her. Ben’s wit could be so dry, yet so funny.

  A snort escaped Lara’s nose, despite her best attempts to conceal it. She brought a hand
up to cover herself, but it was too late.

  “I’m sorry, but could I possibly…” A fluttery sound traveled up her throat like an aggravated butterfly. Oh God, she thought. I’m going to get the giggles right here in this ominous robot hospital.

  “Excuse me?” the sleek silver Bot said sharply, almost pompously.

  Lara attempted a gesture with her hands the approximate size and shape of Andy. Poor Andy. “We just need to fix this little…”

  Fixed? But he was shipped fixed. Spaded and neutered and all that good stuff, right out of the box.

  “A-About yea wide a-and about yea tall.”

  Poor little broken barking machine, her Ben-like voice interjected. Never shits. Never pisses. Never humps your leg. Snuggle up to your state of the art pet, with the warmth and personality of a toaster oven.

  Stop, Lara pleaded with herself, covering her mouth in an attempt to cut off the peals of laughter fighting their way up from her quivering gut.

  Cora was looking at her now, with a slowly spreading, yet confused, smile, looking from the Bot to her mother and back again, wanting in on the joke.

  It’s an engineering marvel! Fun for kids and old tight-assed bitches of all ages!

  Lara surrendered and folded forward, reaching out blindly for balance and finding the silver Bot’s cold outstretched hand, a hand designed to be more articulate than the hands of the other Bots she’d seen. These hands were small and delicate, an artist’s hands, but cold, she thought as she grasped its fingers.

  Trying to stop the laughter bubbling up from her belly, she squeezed its hard metallic fingers until the pain began to sober her up. The metal hand within hers began to quiver like a rung bell, until suddenly it pulled itself out of her grasp. She looked up in time to see the silver Bot lower its head, blue eyes flickering. She could somehow sense its confusion at this outpouring of irrational human emotion.

  A second silhouetted figure peered through a crack in the swinging doors. The face that peered through blinked at Lara through round-framed glasses and retreated back in through the doors like a turtle.