Authors: Bryant Delafosse
“So how were you able to do what you did if you were designed with these governors?”
“The behavioral code inherent in all Bots takes precedence over everything else,” he stated.
“I can’t allow anyone in my presence to come to any danger.
If it is within my inherent abilities to prevent it, I must.”
Although she still had many questions, she had more pressing issues at the moment.
“Right now, I need you to tell me one thing.
Will you be able to hear Reggie when he finds my son?”
He gave her a prompt nod.
“I’ll hear him.
The low frequency at which Reggie will transmit will travel a much farther distance than a higher frequency.
Actually, you might be able to hear it as well, Lara, if you condition yourself to listen for it.”
Lara turned and looked down the escalator anxiously.
“Can you ask Reggie how he’s making out so far?
Find out how much ground he’s covered or something?”
“Oh, I can’t send communications to him that way,” Simon responded.
She turned and flashed him a look that was almost accusatory.
“I’m confused.
Why not?”
“The restrictions that have been placed on me make that impossible.”
“If Reggie can communicate with this low frequency, why can’t you?
You were built with the same capabilities right, they’re just being… stunted, right?”
“In a sense.”
“Well, can’t you turn this governor thing off?”
He gave her a simple shrug.
“No.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Weren’t you designed to be human-like?
Humans have free will.
Don’t you have free will?”
Simon gave Lara a look of such pained sadness that for a moment she found it nearly impossible to believe that the expression might simply the result of the activation of tiny servos beneath a synthetic material.
“No, Lara.
I’m constrained by the perimeters of my programming.”
Owen heard the footsteps and realized that he had been asleep.
How long, he had no way of knowing because the hands of his NASA Mission Control wristwatch stood frozen at ten before three, dead with the rest of the Mall’s electronics.
He became aware but disoriented, confused as to where he was and the direction the sound of footsteps was coming from.
It was dark and warm and he was lying down on something soft.
In an instant, it all came back to him in a rush.
After some time waiting for his pursuer
(The Boogie-Man)
to
find him, he had regained enough confidence to move out from behind the clothing display along the wall, where he had been hiding, and rushed up the steps of the escalator to the second floor of the JC Penney store, stopping only once to look and listen for any sign of pursuit.
When he’d reached the hardware/automotive section, he was able to find a box-cutter and a heavy-duty flashlight that somehow still worked.
(Why some things worked and others didn’t, he could not seem to find a connection.
It seemed completely random to him.)
The flashlight was a hefty stainless-steel number, rugged and weighty enough to use as a weapon if he had too.
He’d debated for a few minutes on whether or not it was right to take the items without paying for them, then decided that if he paid for them later, it wouldn’t be considered stealing.
Besides, there was no way to pay for them anyway with all the payment kiosks down.
Instead, he wrote down the exact price of each item on a slip of paper and put it in his pocket.
He believed in a God—unlike his mother he suspected, from certain off-the-cuff comments she had made to he and Cora in the past--and he believed that the God in which he believed did ultimately punish, maybe not in this life, but most definitely in the next.
And he did not want to go to Hell for a simple flashlight and box cutter theft!
Thus armed, Owen found a spot in the kitchen and bath section in a dark corner.
There he had crawled onto the lowest shelf and made a sort of cubby-hole in the farthest corner behind all the folded and stacked plush bath towels.
It was from this position that he listened as someone approached, the footsteps growing louder and louder as he came near.
When Owen caught a glimpse of the shadow of the figure moving steadily up the tiled center aisle, he abandoned the tiny eye-space created by two stacks of towels and withdrew deeper into the dusty darkness of the alcove.
Owen held his breath, afraid even his exhalation would give him away.
The footsteps seemed to pass his particular aisle and continue on.
Suddenly, it stopped.
Owen held completely still, listening as the thumping of his heart increased in his ears.
He squeezed his eyes shut in shame as he felt the insides of his underwear bloom with moist heat.
Moments later, he could smell that familiar sharp, sour scent that held so many negative emotions for him.
Bad boy.
Bad boy.
Bad boy.
The phantom continued up the center aisle, his feet making the evenly-paced sound of someone cautiously and meticulously searching for something.
Owen threw off the towels and set his knees carefully onto the carpeted floor of the side aisle, distributing his weight so as not to cause the thin metal of the shelf that held him to bubble under him and signal his location.
Flashlight in hand, he crawled down to the end of the aisle on hands and knees and peered around the corner as low to the floor as he was able.
The store before him was completely dark except for a single starkly white emergency light somewhere along the back wall of the second floor, creating long willowy shadows out of every upright object.
He caught a brief glimpse of the figure just before he disappeared to the right around a corner up ahead, his footsteps fading completely as he stepped onto the carpet.
Flicking the switch of his flashlight on, Owen bolted left in the opposite direction, toward the down escalator up ahead.
“Owen Myers!”
Owen sucked in a lungful of air, his legs locking in panic beneath him.
He slowly turned toward the source of the voice, the action almost automatic despite his unwillingness to know.
The six foot tall figure stepped out into the main aisle, the emergency light at its back giving it an unnaturally long fifteen foot shadow across the lines of tile at its feet, like the legs of a human-sized spider crawling down from its web.
It’s the Boogey-Man, Owen knew with a child’s certainty.
And it knows my name.
All the blood drained out of Owen’s extremities as it advanced on him.
He slowly felt himself back away from the monstrosity, waving his arms before him in a warding off gesture of someone stricken deaf and dumb.
“I am here to return you to your mother,” it exclaimed in a loud almost artificial voice.
In school, they always told us that’s what the kidnappers would say when they came for us, he thought, increasing his backward progress toward the escalator.
Finally, Owen lifted his flashlight, revealing the metal man moving up the aisle toward him, open hands held out before him like a criminal surrendering.
“Owen,” the Bot suddenly screeched, its blue eyes sensors flaring intensely.
“Behind you!”
Owen turned, but it was far too late.
The man in the blood-splattered uniform was rushing up the last few steps of the frozen escalator to drop upon Owen from behind.
The ten-year-old had just enough time to twist to one side as the two-hundred pound adult dropped to the floor, his hands falling on thin air.
Owen dropped backward on his butt just as the man fell forward to his hands and knees.
Owen turned his light fully on him, and the man squinted, his mouth transforming from a toothy grin to a grimace.
Thrusting his face back into the harsh white beam of Owen’s light, the man roared like a wild animal, foam flying from his open mouth.
Owen swung blindly out with the stainless-steel flashlight and felt his arms vibrate all the way up to his shoulders as he connected with the chin of the man.
A shattering sound reached his ears, and for a moment, Owen wondered if the figure he had struck was actually a Bot and he had just broken some vital component.
But then the other howled and cast all doubt aside.
Suddenly something blocked Owen’s view, and a bright white light pooled around him like the beam of a spotlight.
“Back away from the boy!” the voice rung out with blunt authority.
“Where..?”
The sound came from Albert’s mouth in a gargle and blood began to seep from the corner of his mouth, trailing down his chin.
His chin was on fire and several pieces of what felt like teeth cascaded loosely across his tongue.
What in the Hell was going on?
Then, in a moment, he knew.
It had happened again.
He’d blacked out and now he was in a department store.
JC Penney from the look of it.
He peered up at the silver Bot and gasped.
It looked as if it meant to attack him!
And just behind it was the familiar face of a boy, probably not more than ten.
Looking at him, Albert felt a sense of dull directionless dread.
In his mind, he could see a woman, a little girl, and a boy and suddenly recalled spotting them this morning on the apartment level.
They were sent here, Lamia.
In his mind, he could see the girl turn and look at him he passed them.
Had that been recognition in her eyes?
Initially, he had thought it had been the girl that he had hit with his car.
He knew now that it couldn’t possibly be her.
That other girl had died.
Not dead, Lamia.
Destroyed beyond repair
.
If the other girl was dead, how was this little boy and his little sister connected?
They were sent here to deactivate you.
To remove you from service.
Specifically you.
Because they believe that you are a flawed machine.
That you are not fulfilling your function.