Chapter 25

Time: Wednesday, January 16, 2019 3:40 PM

“Fresh Dill!” the woman at the lounge entrance yelled out to the kitchen crowd. “I just remembered! Toshi would always put fresh dill on a roast. It’s a great idea, and I forgot. But I know where it is!” She turned around and ran back into the kitchen.

Toshi grabbed Mark’s hand and together they ran out of the elevator. The door began to close the instant they left, and just a couple of seconds later Mark and Toshi slipped into the vestibule connecting the lounge to the walkways on the hexagonal perimeter. Mark’s mind was working furiously. Should they make a dash down the walkways and risk being seen through a window, or try to hide in the vestibule closet?

In the closet they would be helpless if discovered. Mark thought their chances to escape by fleeing were much more reasonable, even if the men managed to see them go. So his first thought was for them to run through the vestibule and flee along the perimeter walkways.

He was about to open the final door to the vertex when another thought occurred to him. Would the men see them running? If Mark and Toshi were seen escaping down the corridor, the woman who had called out Toshi’s name would be in a horrendous position. Mark couldn’t be that callous, not after she had risked her life to save theirs. He pulled Toshi to the side of the vestibule and into the side closet with him, closing the closet door behind him.

There had been a few white-diode lights in the ceiling of the vestibule, but when the closet door closed they were in pitch blackness. “Hell, Mark!” Toshi hissed. “We were in the Mall! What happened?!”

He whispered back, “One sec. Thank God I have my phone.” By the light of the display, Mark put his phone in silent mode and then dialed Emily who quickly added Jada and Akiko to the call. It only took a moment of whispering to explain the situation. Mark turned the volume on the phone to absolute minimum, and Toshi had her cheek touching his so they could both hear the conversation.

Jada sounded very upset over the phone. “Damn it! I knew we shouldn’t split up like this! We don’t have the phones or the people!”

Emily interrupted. “Oh Jada, what could the others do? Besides, they should be back from White Mall anytime now.” Before Mark and Toshi had split off from the main group, Madison had told Emily to expect the main group back by four o’clock.

“Mark,” asked Jada, “Can you describe your situation?”

Mark whispered back, “We’re okay for the moment. I’ve got my phone with about a half charge, and I’ve got my charger. We had a big lunch at Esau’s Bar and Grill, and we both used the lavatory facilities there afterwards.” Mark could feel Toshi’s cheek lightly brush against his as she nodded. “And Toshi has a half-liter iced tea bottle. It’s still unopened...”

Mark shined the tiny light of the Leophone around the closet. There was ample space for them to sit and even to lie down. It was a right-triangular space. The wall leading to the vestibule was a little over two meters in length, and the perpendicular wall separating them from the lounge was four meters. The hypotenuse wall separated them from the hexagonal perimeter walkway. There were three deep shelves in the acute angle of the closet opposite the door, set at one, two, and three meters in height. The shelves were totally bare. Before the entrance of Mark and Toshi, the closet was in pristine condition.

“I don’t think they’ve ever used this closet,” whispered Mark. “Maybe they don’t even know it’s here. It looks just like ours. No lights, but there are a pair of small ventilation ducts. I can feel a slight breeze on the floor vent. I would guess the temperature at 18C or 19C.”

“Mark,” said Jada. “You promised me you’d travel with spikes.”

“I’ve got some, four. I hope to God I don’t have to use them.” Mark returned to thinking about the shelves. “The top shelf, I’m looking at the angle. It might hide us from someone in the doorway. Just maybe, if they’re not too tall...”

“Toshi,” whispered Kiyoko, “was it Frida who saved you?”

“Yes. How did you guess?”

“Of the four, I think only she would have the courage.”

Toshi nodded, again brushing her cheek against Mark’s. “Yes, and the kindness.” She paused for a second. “Perhaps Cassidy would also have made the gesture.”

“The woman’s name was Frida?” Mark whispered. “Well, she saved both our lives. We were sitting ducks in the elevator. It was brilliantly fast thinking.”

“Mark,” asked Jada, “what should we be doing?”

“Uh, yeah ... Toshi and I left Esau’s Bar and Grill wide open.” Mark felt his jacket pocket. “I still have the mushroom lock with me. Someone should bike down there with another lock. Take a side-car too, pick up our bikes.”

Emily blinked at a sudden realization and hissed, “Of course! The two brothers, Jacob and Esau! The Black Mall home complex is through Jacob’s Bar and Grill.”

Jada growled and asked derisively, “Was this place designed as a childish joke?!”

For an instant, Mark thought Jada’s rhetorical question held a profound nugget of insight, playfulness mixed with kindness, but in the tension of the moment, his mind lost the thread of the thought and returned to Jada’s earlier inquiry. He whispered, “Under no circumstances step into the empty storage closet at Esau’s. It acts as a one-way trapdoor to Black Mall’s home complex.”

“Uh, Mark,” began Jada.

“I mean it, no rescue missions. You guys were wondering when I’d issue my first decree. This is it.”

“Mark, don’t abandon the possibility of rescue,” said Emily. “Once Kiyoko is the Section Five janitor, we could use the trap door to come to you, activate Black Mall’s elevator and leave. We could be in and out in one minute.”

“But Emily,” Jada responded in a soft wail, “that could take weeks!”

Kiyoko spoke. “I will dedicate my life to this, make my training as intense as the interface allows.”

Jada addressed her next question to all four of the Japanese women. “How much has Uno explored the surface around Black Mall’s home?”

There was a long pause and then Akiko answered. “I never heard anything about surface exploration. It might have occurred. I just don’t know.”

Mark glanced at his phone. “I’m going to sign off and conserve battery power. I have at most twenty minutes of airtime left.” The Leophone was the size of a large cell phone, but due to the greater power needed to communicate with a satellite, a full battery supported less than an hour of conversation. Jada promised that both their phones would be ready to hear from Mark whenever he called. They said quick goodbyes and Mark shut off his phone.

One hour later.

The group of eight women sat around their conference table at the Modern Coin Superstore, waiting for Kiyoko to finish her training session at 5 PM and join them. The video from the kitchen cutlery sensor displayed on a large monitor nearby. So far the Black Mall citizens had shown no inclination of exploring the locked section of their mall, and the women had yet to visit Esau’s as Mark had suggested.

Madison stared at the dull video of the empty corridor and commented, “Looks real peaceful. Anyone walking down the corridor would never suspect such a large crowd is waiting for them.”

Fatima nodded. “A clever arrangement they have with the optics.” A large mirror had been strategically placed just inside the doorway of a store on the outside arc, and a large telescope had been carried into the opposite store on the inside arc. But the mirror worked both ways. They could see the men taking turns keeping an eye on the locked corridor.

Emily and Kiyoko stepped out of the sky-bridge and sat down. Fatima called the meeting to order. They briefly discussed work plans for the next few days. Creating surveillance networks from the sky-bridges of Blue Mall and Yellow Brick seemed the obvious choice, in case the Black Mall people started to explore the spirals. And after some debate, they realized the monitors at the coin store did not need constant observation. There was no immediate action that needed to be taken if the Black Mall Party started walking the locked spiral. They would leave the monitors unattended from midnight to 6 AM.

Kiyoko would continue her training. The interface had declined her request for more than three two-hour training sessions per day. But she would study in the evenings and try to speed things up as much as possible. She even had some books with her now.

The rest of the meeting was spent debating what advice to give Mark and Toshi. There was general agreement that the next time Mark called, they should try to persuade Mark and Toshi to abandon their position and find a safer place at least a few kilometers from Black Mall’s home complex. In their previous surface explorations, the group did find a few places for food and lavatory facilities. And except for the area belonging to White Mall, there was ample evidence on the infrared satellite imagery of groups surviving away from their home complexes. Perhaps Mark and Toshi would find an outlet to recharge the Leophone. Having them stay at Black Mall’s home complex seemed insanely risky.

Their plans made, Fatima closed the meeting with a prayer. Ann volunteered to monitor Black Mall and stay with Kiyoko as she studied. Nobody felt like having dinner yet. The other eight women jumped to White Mall via Blazo’s Art Gallery at the Green Mall sky-bridge.

Six hours later.

Time: Wednesday, January 16, 2019 11:42 PM

Mark awoke slowly. His body was not stiff, even though he was lying on a hard flat floor. As he became more awake, he realized why. Toshi. She was curled and tucked up so sweetly against him, providing both warmth and softness. Mark had been smelling the scent of her hair and body as he slept, and it had provided the basis for some very delightful dreams.

And he could feel her body now, the relaxed deep breathing. Mark blinked in the pitch darkness. His upper hand. It was inside her pants, inside her panties, the palm of his hand pressing her just below her navel, and his fingers descending into the stiff silkiness of her pubic fur. Mark could feel his fingertips touching the soft flesh on her upper thighs.