Chapter 24

The three move through time.

... Thad started toward the shopping center, and the other two followed. “Maybe they’re just having a power outage. What did they call them?”

“Blackouts,” Mack supplied.

“Yes, that’s it,” Thad continued. Then looking at Mack, Thad asked, “Where do you think we are?”

“Somewhere not too far up-time from the twenty-third century.” Mack refrained from commenting on how tempted he had been when he passed the turnoff to his own time. Instead, he said, “I really need to rest.”

As they neared the buildings, Thad continued to sweep his borrowed light’s brilliant beam through the area, revealing broken window glass and scattered and broken merchandise from the stores.

Thad whistled through his teeth. “This is more than a power outage,” he said while leaning through a glassless window to shine his light around inside an adjoining store. From the looks of things, this must have happened months ago.”

Mack shined the light across the mall, lighting what appeared to be the entrance to a much larger building at the end of the vast parking lot. “That looks like what in my time was called an All-store. It should have a large assortment of sales goods. Maybe there’s something left that we can use,” he said through teeth clenched to keep them from chattering.

After looking around for a few seconds, Mack switched the light off. “Look, I’m uncomfortable with all this. I think we had better dispense with the lights while we’re out in the open, and we should be very cautious about anything we do here. I don’t know what’s happening, but almost anyone we attract will probably be trouble for us. The city might even have declared martial law and are shooting looters — which they would take us to be,” he finished grimly.

In the darkness, other than the moonlight, they cut across the parking lot and approached the larger building. Its windows, like the others, at least on this side, were bare of glass, the empty openings appearing like empty eye sockets in a skull. The wind picked up, adding its version of encouragement to get them off the street. Thad switched his light back on at its lowest setting and covered even that much light with his hand until only a faint tendril of light was visible. Not bothering to check if the main doors were locked, they made their way across the low windowsill and into the store proper. Glass crunched under their feet, unreasonably loud in the stillness.

Away from the window, deeper into the store and out of the wind, the cold was a little more bearable for Mack, but he was still far from comfortable. He increased the intensity of the light and shined it around. The inside was similar to the All-stores he was familiar with and displayed a sign that must have proclaimed that cosmetics were sold there, although the smell delivered the message better than the weird lettering did, at least to Mack.

While the group continued searching for something for Mack to wear over his borrowed shirt, they made their way deeper into the store. This place is huge, Mack thought as they finally found what once must have been an escalator. At least, he assumed it was one. The entire stairway was made of a startlingly transparent substance, but the treads slanted into the floor at the top and bottom like an escalator. “This floor has been stripped,” Kathy said as she took Thad’s arm before stepping onto the dead escalator, apparently unconcerned with the near-transparent stairway. Mack, with a last look behind them, followed while wondering why anyone would make transparent steps, but he wished he could see the thing while the steps were moving.

There were signs proclaiming items for sale that he had never heard of, in addition to prices, if that’s what they were, that had no meaning to him. The group searched the level and again found no type of clothing or coat that would help Mack but found another of the inoperative escalators. The next floor had been ransacked as well, and the merchandise either carried off or destroyed. In the back corner, they found a small tent that had apparently been on display. It was no longer set up, and when Mack picked one side up, he could see slashes where someone had cut the material with a knife.

Mack dropped the slashed tent and started to turn away when he heard Thad say. “Ah, just what I’ve been looking for.”

Thad cut a section out of the thick fabric, folded it several times and forced it through the opening in his suit. The thickness prevented the material from slipping out of place, effectively blocking the ragged hole. Although the suit’s environmental unit didn’t work on that side, the other side would put out enough heat to compensate without the hole to let the warmer air out.

Discouraged, Mack entered a small office hoping to find a warmer place to rest. As he uprighted a chair behind a desk, he noticed a bundle on the floor that turned out to be a sleeping bag. Why would anyone have a sleeping bag in here? He called to the other two as he shoved the desk aside and rolled out his find.

As the others entered the office, he maneuvered the chair out of the small room. “I think there’s room for us to rest in here.”

“Where did you find that, Mack?” Kathy asked while eying the bag.

“Behind the desk. Someone must have brought it in here, then forgot about it. I suppose none of the looters found it because of the desk and chair concealing it.” While he was talking, he took his boots off and without further comment, slipped into the bag. In moments, he succumbed to the exhaustion he had fought off until now. He was deeply asleep in seconds, unaware of the other two inflating their pillows and inflatable mattresses before sharing a ration bar.

Mack awoke in the near-total darkness of the third level of the store with the faint sounds of his companions’ breathing assuring him of their presence. He slid his hand across the top of the desk until he touched the light he had left there last night. After quietly standing with it in his hand, he switched the beam on to its lowest setting. Once outside the small office adjacent to what used to be the camping area of the store, he quietly closed the door behind him. A faint, diffused light came from the direction of the powerless escalator. It must be daylight outside.

Last night they had searched the store for warm clothing, but the building had apparently been stripped of any wearables it might once have had. On the other side of the store from the camping section, there was a group of offices they had been too tired to search. A large counter bordered an area that covered the whole corner of the store. Behind the counter in the work area, he opened drawers at the first desk and rummaged inside but found nothing that interested him. The other two desks were equally lacking. He started to go into the office complex behind the area when he changed his mind and again resumed sitting at one of the desks. The whole place just didn’t look right. Certainly, the office had been trashed — everything torn up, thrown onto the floor, or stolen, but something still didn’t ring true. As he scanned the bare (service?) counter with his light, realization struck. Where were the cash registers, or their equivalent? In his time, this area of the All-stores kept the store’s records — accounts, sales, credit transactions, etc. — surely, there wouldn’t be that much difference in this store. Come to think of it, he hadn’t noticed anything resembling a cash register, computerized or not, anywhere in the store. After again searching the barren desktop in front of him, he pushed a recessed button on the right corner nearest him. A holographic keyboard popped up, followed an instant later by a holographic image of what had to be a computer screen.

SYSTEM INOPERATIVE. At least, he thought that’s what the odd glowing letters said.

“Damn,” he muttered to himself. “I was looking for a date, and the lettering seems to indicate that it is still English, but a different English than I am accustomed to.”

A careful search of the six offices, connecting hallways, and various storerooms yielded nothing of value to him. Although he activated several other computer screens, he was unable to learn anything because of the lack of power. The computers won’t activate, yet they must have enough energy to at least put up the notice.

Cold, he made his way down the two sets of steps and cautiously approached the front. Living in the same era with the cat and the other beasts had heightened his caution and sense of awareness, not to say anything about what being in a looted store did to him. As he approached the front, he avoided as much of the broken glass as he could, flinching as he stepped on some small pieces to the accompaniment of a crunching sound, overly loud to his heightened senses in the quiet of the big store. A few feet before reaching the front windows, he heard raised voices and what he thought to be a car door slamming shut. Cautiously, he eased his face around the opening and peered in the direction of the sounds, careful to expose as little of himself as possible. About halfway down the mall to his right, a vehicle was parked on the sidewalk directly in front of the entrance to one of the smaller stores. A long-haired man stood, rifle in hand, guarding the car while his companions brought items out of the store and deposited them into the vehicle. Because of the angle and the man standing in the way, he was unable to make out what they were taking from the store.

Quietly, Mack retraced his steps until he was well away from the window before he proceeded at a more normal pace toward the escalator.

He met Kathy as he entered the camping area. “We still have a few ration bars that we brought from our emergency stash,” she said cheerfully, “Want one?”

“You bet,” he answered as he took the proffered bar. “Is Thad up yet?” he asked around a mouthful.

“He’s awake, but he’s letting the medkit check his wound.”

As the two entered the tiny office, the change in temperature was noticeable. He assumed the body heat from the three and maybe the suits had warmed the place somewhat, although the temperature was still far below what Mack would have liked.

As he put the light, now set to diffuse, on the desk, he saw the trickle of new blood on Thad’s side. Lamp again in hand, Mack focused its light on the wound. The medkit was busy of course, and as he watched, a tentacle suctioned away the blood as other hair-fine appendages applied pseudo-skin.

“I just started to stand up when it went,” Thad apologized.

Mack bent down for a closer look. “You should be in a hospital strapped to a bed. I should have left both of you back at the cave until I could search out the way.”

“I’m okay. I just tore a small area of the pseudo-skin when I moved around...”

“What tore it was probably all that movement yesterday,” Mack snapped. “When you moved this morning, it started tearing, and if it continues, it could tear all the way through the new tissue and into your lungs. That new flesh looks like tissue paper and might well go with any exertion. With the medkit’s battery almost depleted...”