The mall was glorious. Three levels of glass and steel scrambling toward the sky, riddled with balconies, draped in walkways, lonely statues pointing into empty vestibules, frozen escalators left to serve only as stairs. In its day, it must have gleamed like a diamond on the finger of an effervescent newlywed. But now it was blasted to shit, crumbling, shattered, walls falling over, scrap metal haphazardly welded together to form barriers, gun lines. Someone had made their last stand here, thought somehow that this temple to commerce would protect them, that the supplies inside would allow them to outlast the barbarians at the gates.
There were sniper nests and hidey-holes, rubble and refuse everywhere. Walls blackened by explosions, floors stained with three-decade-old blood, ladders and staircases cobbled together from whatever anyone could find. Entire slabs of marble and concrete pulverized, collapsed, others still dangling precariously like they could, and would, meet the same fate at any moment. There had been war here, leaving behind only shadow and ruin. Anyone who wanted to disappear here could, into bombed-out caves that were once shops or dimly lit grottoes that had long ago been food courts rimmed with vaulted glass ceilings.
Like I said. Glorious.
There were places like this scattered all across the continent. Graveyards. Sites still littered with bones and wrecks and mummified corpses, all left right where they’d fallen, the useful bits long since picked clean; the rest left in the open to rust or rot. There was no need for us to bury the dead, no need for cleanliness in places that would be dust long before we had any use for them. Flesh would decay, metal would corrode, and one day they would be gone. No need to speed that process up or hide it from sight.
Respect for the dead is a human notion meant to imply that a life has meaning. It doesn’t. Once you’ve watched an entire world wither away and die after tearing itself apart piece by bloody piece, it’s hard to pretend that something like a single death carries any weight whatsoever.
I slipped in through the rusted frames of front doors that had long ago lost their glass—and into an atrium that featured a bone-dry marble fountain peppered with bullet holes. Light streamed in through blown-out skylights, painting a pale blue glow across the floors, casting charred shadows along the edges of the deeper blackness. There was so much glass in the fountain that it sparkled like water in the dim light, so much on the ground that it sounded like walking through giant piles of leaves, even as I tried to creep through it quietly. Had I not gotten here first, there wouldn’t be a soul in the place that wouldn’t know exactly where I was. So it was perfect for an ambush of my own. My pursuers would make the same noise.
I made a quick scan for Wi-Fi signals, checking to see if there was another poacher inside communicating with his buddies or, worse, the forward scouts of an OWI, and found nothing but empty frequencies. Static. A good sign. The place was dead, every bit the graveyard it appeared to be. I stepped wide over a pair of withered husks—brown shoe leather that was once man and woman, their bodies splayed out several feet apart, arms extended, fragile hands with brittle fingers still intertwined. Two lovers who had met their end together, only to become nothing more than terrain.
I’d been here before, picking through wrecks, so I already had the place mapped out and knew of several great hiding spots. But I kept my eyes peeled for booby traps. Scavengers loved to leave presents behind—sometimes to protect a stash or in case they needed to cover an escape, other times to take out careless citizens for later retrieval. As big as this place was, there was no telling how many snares or explosives or EMP ’nades might be rigged up in the rubble. So I trod lightly, avoiding any suspicious piles.
I crept farther and deeper into the mall, headed toward an escalator that wound up and around to the two levels above. Its dusty metal gleamed weakly in the diffused light, bullet holes and pulse marks riddling its side, frayed wiring and gears exposed, naked through the larger holes. There was a deathly silence to the place, a hollow quiet in which every tiny sound echoed. For a moment it seemed like the loneliest place left on earth.
Then there came the cracking of stepped-on glass, two stories up and behind me to the left.
Shit.
This was a trap.
And I’d blundered into it like a fucking amateur.
The time for running was over; it was time to fight back.
I ran toward the sound, my legs pumping as hard as they could, glass shattering beneath my feet, echoing through the halls like wind chimes in a hurricane. My foot hit the first step of the escalator, launching me up the corroded metal staircase, its steps frozen in place, its grooves orange and brown and green with years of damp time. The rubber handrails along the side were dried out, cracked, the black sun-bleached to a soft gray, coming off in chunks as I grabbed hold, crumbling to dust in my hands. It took only seconds to reach the second floor and only seconds more to reach the third.
I could hear the staccato of heavy footfalls, the CLANK CLANK CLANK of metal on concrete like a slow jackhammer just round the corner ahead of me.
We were seconds from seeing each other.
The shot of a pulse rifle streaked by with a hissing shriek, blowing apart the railing and glass of the overlook behind me, scattering debris down into the atrium three stories below. It missed me by a country mile. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a good shot.
It lumbered out from the shadows, gun in hand, a T-series Laborbot—as big as a bear with arms like tree trunks and hands that could crush stone. Far stronger than me, but slower, less agile—stainless-steel plates welded to every inch of its body and metal spikes on the joints of its elbows and knees. It was clear why the other poachers had left it here; the bot was too slow to give chase, too heavy for a light buggy to maneuver with; built to survive construction accidents and long falls, able to take a hit from all but the most powerful of rifles and keep on coming. I once saw one of these models get hit by a tractor trailer, only to immediately get back up and start repairing the truck.
I was being charged by a rhino and it was about to tear through me like a raindrop through tissue paper. It didn’t have time to fire again. Running at me was the only play it had left.
I would get one shot at this, and only one shot, before it likely punched my head clean off.
The Laborbot hunched over, positioning itself to spear me with a body tackle to my midsection, its massive bulk focused into a battering ram that would hit me with the force of a speeding truck.
I jumped.
I launched into the air, kicking with all my might, trying to land my foot just right.
I was just high enough.
It was just low enough.
As I sailed over its body I could hear my foot shatter the glass of its eyes, the crunch of its optics being crushed to powder. Between its momentum and mine, my foot kicked it like a slug from a .45. There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to pay for that later. Though my foot was solid titanium, a hit like that was going to tear the shit out of my servos.
But without eyes it wasn’t going to see me strip the gun from its grip or know to duck when I fired.
The gun was in my hands before it regained its footing.
The first shot tore its head from its neck.