Chapter 42

Time: Friday, February 1, 2019 6:48 AM

Place: On the inside arc of Black Mall, at spiral-mark 69,300 meters

Charles looked at the time on the Leophone and smiled. The triple mission of lockdown, surveillance installation and kayak procurement so far had been running flawlessly, and all three objectives were heading to successful completion.

He and Tom were quietly hugging the wall along the inside arc of Black Mall in front of a small ten-meter wide store called Puppets Galore! It was stuffed with thousands of hand puppets, all different shapes and sizes, mostly animals, at least on the first floor. Charles had no idea what was on the second floor, and he certainly wasn’t going to find out tonight. It would be absolutely insane to explore the issue. He and Tom were only 800 meters from Jacob’s Bar and Grill.

Charles took another look at the puppet store and grinned. A totally useless store now, but within a year or two, when perhaps the first children would be born, Charles thought this store might be a very popular stop. He eyed a cute lion puppet within five meters of where he stood. Hell, maybe he’d pick it up now, a little present for Mandy, maybe get something for Brandi too. She liked owls, and Charles admired a beautiful barn owl in the store. The owl looked almost real, and it would only take a few seconds to pick up both puppets.

In order not be seen from the observation chair pressed up against the outside arc across from Jacob’s, Tom and Charles were being extremely careful to stay within two meters of the inside arc. That allowed a thin 10 cm of a final safety buffer, and then conceivably they would be visible to the observation chair if the observer was looking just in the right spot. Currently Amber was in the chair, and she was doing a very diligent job with her binoculars.

The first part of the mission was concerned with surveillance installation and kayak procurement only. This way, if they had to abort early, they would leave no visible trace of their presence in the Mall corridor and might have another chance later on. And the look-around-the-corner of Looking Glass was marvelous. Their group had chosen a mode of operation that on the surface seemed risky but in actuality had paid off a big safety dividend.

They started advancing past Rabbies Dram shortly after 2 AM with their last Matrix sensor located in the last locked store of Black Mall at spiral-mark 62,560 meters. From there Looking Glass enabled them to enslave the lower-tech sensors at spiral-mark 63,471 and observe the full corridor for an additional 480 meters, and the outside arc for an additional 960 meters.

A bored-looking three-person team of Alfonso, Jessica, and Jenaro had shown up at Rabbies Dram shortly after 1:45 AM. They did a ritualistic quick peek into the liquor store through the transparent door and then promptly headed back home. With the aid of Looking Glass, a small four-person bicycle team of Tom, Charles, Emily and Fatima followed them at a distance of 800 meters back, walking their bikes tightly on the inside arc.

They kept in close communication with Lynn and Akiko at their monitoring center, and at the 63,471 spiral-mark, the two women gave a go signal to Emily and Ashley that confirmed no one in Alfonso’s party was looking back. Emily and Ashley quickly dashed across the corridor and exchanged the old sensors with new Matrix units, enabling the sensors at spiral-mark 64,396 to be enslaved and adding almost a full kilometer to their scanning ability.

Over the next two hours, they successfully completed this trick five more times. They had Alfonso’s party under almost continuous observation. There were two short stops as Alfonso and Jenaro entered food stores for supplies while Jessica kept a bored watch outside in was seemed to be a very familiar routine. Not once did they turn and seem to recognize an additional ambush team in any of the stores. Uno didn’t have the personnel to support such an activity anyway, and as the mission progressed Charles began to feel very confident ambush would not be an issue.

Their last Matrix sensor now was at spiral-mark 68,230, and it had enslaved the sensor at 69,224, giving them a close-up view of Brandi hugging the outside arc in front of Jacob’s Bar and Grill at spiral-mark 70,098.

Transporting the large kayaks was taking longer than anticipated, and Jada was hugely relieved their mission plan had an extra buffer of time for boat retrieval. It wasn’t until 4:30 AM that they had loaded six huge kayaks on top of six-pair of nose-to-tail-linked sidecars and started slowly biking the massive boats back to the sky-bridge at 8 kph. According to their estimates, the boats would fit inside the 3x4x4-meter elevator carriages with only a few cm to spare by jamming the boats across the opposite vertices. The kayaks were that big.

Once the boat convoy was under way, Charles’ team near the home complex and the extra four team members that had helped to secure the boats at Herman’s got busy with Mall lockdown. The side-cars picking up the kayaks had transported 400 mushroom locks to Herman’s. As six women biked the kayaks towards home, the remaining eight people worked in a well-orchestrated dance of biking down the corridors and closing doors, while others biked bags of locks to prearranged drop-off locations and still others snapped the locks home and secured the stores.

And now the time was approaching 7 AM. This was their target time for completing the sensor installation on the outside arc at spiral-mark 69,147 and heading home. Over the Leophone Lynn reported to Charles that the kayak convoy was just passing the 44-km spiral mark. Charles thought for a second. That was somewhat less than they had anticipated. The kayaks were still over seven kilometers from the sky-bridge.

“But,” Charles thought, “what the heck? They’ll be back at the sky-bridge in one hour. Nothing wrong with that.”

Tom tapped his shoulder and motioned behind them. Charles was amazed to see Hannah and Ashley walking their bikes towards them along the inside arc. Ashley was walking first closing doors and Hannah ten seconds behind snapping in the few remaining locks as soon as the doors finished closing.

“What the hell are you two doing?” Charles hissed as Ashley walked up to him.

“Uh, using up the last of our locks. We figured, what the hell?” She reached over and pushed the button to close the door on the puppet store.

“Ashley!”

“Aw, come on Charles, we’re no more visible here than you are.”

Charles sighed and looked back. Absolutely all the rest of their work was done, except for a single store on the outside arc at spiral-mark 69,147. Emily and Fatima were a hundred and fifty meters back, standing near the inside arc, waiting for a go code from Lynn or Akiko to switch the sensors and lock their last store. The extra distance back made a huge difference in the safe buffer area. Emily and Fatima merely had to avoid the last 115 cm closest to the outside arc.

As Hannah walked up and snapped her last lock home, Jada’s voice came over the Leophone. “Ashley, I agree with Charles completely. You and Hannah, get your butts out of there! Start biking towards home. Remember to hug the inside arc for the first half kilometer. Charles, you too Tom, you should retreat to Fatima’s and Emily’s position. Fabulous job, guys.”

A few minutes later at exactly 7 AM, Hannah and Ashley nodded their goodbyes and took off for home. The last four members of the mission team remained standing along the inside arc at spiral-mark 69,147. They were right on schedule, Charles thought, except for the fact that they still weren’t done with the last store. Not bad at all.

He was amazed at how much work they had done in so few hours. Charles chatted with Jada who had joined Lynn and Akiko temporarily in the Hilton Center, leaving the Black Mall sky-bridge open but temporarily vacant. The mission was looking like a complete success. The six women with the kayaks were within an hour of reaching the sky-bridge, and except for Fatima and Emily, all the women on the lockdown team were at various stages of biking home.

The store at 69,147 meters was just a little bit closer to the home complex than they would have liked, but it was a large sixty-meter store and the next entrance at 69,087 was just a few meters too far away to be able to lock the sensors at 70,098. Jada made a command decision that the ability to scan directly into the interior of Jacob’s Bar and Grill justified the small additional risk of targeting the closer store at 69,147.

At 7:03 AM, just as Hannah and Ashley disappeared from Charles’ view, Lynn observed Amber lowering her binoculars to rub her eyes. Lynn then gave the go code over the Leophone. Fatima and Emily rushed across the corridor and entered the outside arc store, a food store specializing in all types of nuts. Fatima carried a small, lightweight ladder with her which she and Emily used to reached the sensors at the three-meter height and replace them with the Matrix units. Fatima slipped the old units into a jacket pocket and zipped it closed. She and Emily then waited for the final go code to close and lock the door. Then the last four members of the mission team would start for home.

Lynn’s voice came over the Leophone. “Hold up for a while. Ricardo had come out to talk to Amber.”

Jada’s voice added. “We have successful slavery of the sensors at 70,098. We can see right into their entry store. Beautiful work, guys. This is great.”

“Who else do you see inside Jacob’s?” Tom asked quietly.

Jada answered. ““Just who we expected, Hernando. If you’re thinking of Kiyoko, I doubt we’ll have an opportunity.” Jada was referring to another modification to the mission plan. Kiyoko and Brandi were currently in Esau’s Bar and Grill near the hub area of Black Mall. If Lynn or Akiko blinked three fast yellow flashes on the Matrix sensor there, Kiyoko and Brandi would take the trapdoor to the Black Mall lounge and attempt to seize control of it.