Chapter 18

New Year’s Day.

The group of six, everyone except Emily and Aggie, began their trek shortly before 8 AM, six bicyclists all with side-cars. They reached their destination a little more than an hour later, the Hot Toys and Hobby Shop at the 25.1-kilometer mark of Black Mall. It was the last locked store of the black spiral, and the location where they had the remaining 3,000 black mushrooms locked in storage. Like no other Mall, the black spiral gave Mark the creeps. His hair felt raised on the back of his neck, and he had been nervously watching the corridor ahead the entire time they’d been biking.

One nice thing about the locking the stores, once they were locked there was no place for a hostile group to hide in ambush. By the time they neared the Hobby Shop, the view of the inside arc expanded to 300 meters, and double that on the outside. Mark took some comfort from the fact that they had a small cushion of time to turn the bikes around and out-pedal anyone who might try to catch them on foot. He looked at his phone as they reached their destination, 9:07 AM. He gave a small grin as he realized that dawn was just breaking now twenty-four meters above.

Once Ashley opened the Hobby Shop, all six team members began loading the already packed tote bags of locks into the six side-cars. The cars could comfortably hold ten bags each, 300 locks, so four more pickups would be required later to move all the locks down spiral.

The side-cars were designed to fit a bicycle on the bike’s right-hand side, so it was relatively easy for riders to close the doors on the inside arc of the spiral as they traveled outward, riding single file along the inside arc with the back riders closing any doors the forward riders happened to miss. Mark and Jada rode nearer the outside arc, Mark scouting the corridor ahead and Jada counting the stores and distance.

The four riders on the inside arc closed the doors. Ashley was the last rider and also dropped two sacks on the floor every kilometer. After her fifth drop she turned around and began biking back to the Hobby Shop for a second load. Fatima was the next rider to be last and did a similar maneuver for the next five kilometers.

At 10:15 AM the final four riders reached their destination, the 37.6-kilometer mark of Black Mall, 11.6 kilometers and about 700 stores beyond the Hobby Shop. Their new depot for the locks turned out to be Rubin’s Kosher Deli on the inside arc and the Modern Coin Superstore on the outside. Jada raised her eyebrows and commented that perhaps she would pick up some deli items for the return trip.

As they had hoped, there was a sky bridge connecting the second floors of the Deli with the coin store on the opposite arc. Madison stood next to the outside arc and trained her binoculars down the corridor, dialing Mark’s and Emily’s phones and setting up a three-way bridge. Hannah began unloading the forty bags from the four side-cars while Mark and Jada climbed the stairs to the second floor of the Deli.

And there it was, a new elevator taking up most of the length of the short six-meter sky bridge. Mark was extremely relieved to see an access code brightly displayed above the keyboard. He took that as a sign that the mall in this area was pristine. They were the first group to reach here. Jada read the code to Emily over the phone. They both wrote it down and the confirmed the sequence twice by repeating it to each other. Mark and Jada then left the elevator and saw the sequence blink out of existence.

Feeling the riskiest part of the mission was almost over, Mark and Jada continued their walk across the sky bridge and entered the second floor of the coin shop. Like the sky-bridge stores in the other spirals, both these stores were sixty meters in length, with their two entrances separated by about thirty meters of spiral distance. This particular store had a huge inventory of modern coins and currency from every nation Mark could think of. It was a little disconcerting seeing all the money lying around in the open. Their old habits and attitudes would not die easily. Something on a display counter caught Mark’s eye.

“Hey, look at this Jada! It’s a tube of $50 Gold Eagles, mint mark of 1986. Feel how heavy it is.”

Jada paused for a moment and sighed as she opened the tube and poured out a handful of the shining coins, gazing at them thoughtfully. “They are very beautiful, I admit. Kind of useless now though, huh?”

“Oh no, not at all. You’ll see.” Mark rolled some of the coins back into their container and kept the rest in his hand. He and Jada then descended to the first floor and then left the coin store. As they walked along the corridor, Mark counted out and dropped a number of the coins haphazardly on the floor.

They next spent some time helping Hannah unload the last of the tote bags. Afterwards they unhooked two of the side-cars and placed them on top of the other two. Mark and Jada began biking back up the spiral along the outside arc, closing the doors as they passed. Hannah began biking down the inside arc without her side-car and locking the doors as she also returned. Madison kept her sentry position alone at the Deli, carefully watching the spiral beyond.

Mark and Jada returned to the Hot Toys and Hobby Shop at 10:50 AM after waving at Ashley and then Fatima who were headed to the Deli with new loads. Mark and Jada left the two extra side-cars by the Hobby Shop and loaded the last twenty bags into their side-cars and then headed back and reached the Deli at 11:20 AM.

They were on the last leg of the mission. The team members worked in pairs, one carrying the two side-cars and locking doors on the outside arc, while their partner with just a bicycle inserted the mushroom locks on the inside arc. By 1 PM they were all back at the Hobby Shop with a full half of Black Mall locked down.

Jada looked over her team members. It had been a solid five hours of biking, porting and locking and most of them were looking tired. She turned to Mark. “I don’t suppose we can do Blue Mall today too, can we?”

Hannah stretched and gave a soft groan.

Mark took a moment to reflect on his authority. They had discussed this last night, and everyone including Aggie had agreed that with their present form of government, Mark was an absolute dictator and could rule by decree, even though they had meetings and Mark tried hard to work towards consensus. Some time in the future they would have to work on a permanent government, but for now it was Mark’s decision whether to follow Jada’s desire. Should he push the limits of physical exhaustion with the group with a two-mall-a-day schedule or just stop at one?

It wasn’t an easy decision to make. Mark realized that taking it easy now might be a decision they would regret bitterly in the future. Still, the group looked tired, and did he really want to meet up with a potentially hostile group of people in Blue Mall with his own team exhausted from an overly strenuous work day?

“I see your point Jada, and timeliness is a valid concern. But...” Mark didn’t have to finish. There were several audible sighs of relief. They took a very easy pace home, stopping for lunch and restrooms about halfway there, and got back home at 2:33 PM, in time for Mark to take a quick shower and be on time for his 3 PM astronomy lesson.

Six days later.

Time: Wednesday, January 7, 2019

Asleep in his room in the nighttime darkness, Mark felt his hair being ruffled.

“Hey, sleepyhead! Are you planning on spending the whole day in bed?”

Mark looked at the clock and yawned. “Jada, what? It’s two hours before the crack of dawn!”

Jada laughed. “Yep, 8:04 AM.”

Mark sighed. “I love sleeping in late.”

She gave him an affectionate kiss. “Come on. This is Emily’s and Aggie’s big day.”

“Did the away team get off okay?”

“Oh yeah, Maddy’s Marauders left over an hour ago.”

Mark gave a brief laugh. “So early?”

“They have a very ambitious schedule today, and they were bitten by the lockdown bug. I could tell. I’m very familiar with the symptoms.”

“Right. Hmmm...” Jada and Mark shared a long kiss and hug that got Mark fully awake. Jada was so wiggly that the contact also started getting him erect. Jada laughed and pushed him away when his hands started to wander. “Come on, it’s time for breakfast, not sex!” Mark grinned and got up and began to dress. Jada turned on the lights and helped him pick out his clothes, completely at ease with his nakedness.

It had been an extremely busy week. Mark sometimes wondered what it would be like to hold down two jobs, and now he thought he knew. The routine for the last six days had been up at 7 AM, a quick shower right after the women were finished with the bathroom, then breakfast and leaving before 8 AM for a strenuous workout biking and porting locks and locking down another spiral piece of the Mall.

Mark would return with the group shortly after 2 PM, in time for another shower and to share going to class with Emily 3 PM to 5 PM in the downstairs library. Then an hour for dinner, sharing a class with Aggie 6 PM to 8 PM, the group’s nightly meeting 8 PM to 9 PM, and then his final two-hour class of the day 9 PM to 11 PM, usually with another woman hanging around the library to keep him company. Then there was a final climb to his bedroom where Jada would pet him until he fall asleep bone tired.

Yesterday the schedule finally eased up a bit. They completed the half-lockdown of their own Red Mall which chopped off almost 26 kilometers of biking compared to their routine of locking down the other spirals. And this morning would be delightful. It was probably going to be a little too cold for swimming, but shooting pool with Jada in the game room would be nice, and maybe even cuddling with her over a movie in the music room after a leisurely lunch. Nothing serious was scheduled for either of them until 2 PM. Marvelous! Some R&R at last!

Six hours later.

Time: Monday, January 7, 2019 1:55 PM

The last of the orange light left the top the eastern wall of the forest park. Mark briefly made an entry in Emily’s master log of the time. Sunset was right on schedule. Amazing how precious the daylight had become, he thought, once there was so little of it. One thing for sure, it made his decision about the rest of the day very easy. There was no way they would try to explore above ground at night.

Emily’s and Aggie’s final exams were scheduled to end at 2 PM. This was their final class. There were several bikes in the library in anticipation of what would come next, along with Jada who was trying to relax with an art book.

Scoring results were displayed immediately after the exams ended. Emily and Aggie both pumped their fists into the air at becoming Kappa Alpha employees. There was a minute of joyful hugs and celebration with Mark and Jada, and then Emily walked over the library elevator and opened the door. The unpowered keyboard and display were clearly visible to all four people in the room.