Take the All-Mart!

CHAPTER 16: ORIGIN





“Well, I’ll be,” Trip said, smile coming to his lips as he twitched the Wound into Park and saw Roxanne standing there, arms behind her back and waiting patiently at the base of the Hub. The phalanx of Security zombies that had escorted them through the winding shanty streets of Origin to the bare concrete courtyard surrounding the Hub peeled off and scattered back to their regular patrols.

“Ooh, let me out!” Bernice pushed excitedly on the back of Trip’s seat until he popped the door and leaned forward to let her out.

Trip looked over at Rudy and gave him a bemused smirk before lighting a cig and swinging his legs out to stand. He focused on Roxanne. She looked pretty good for someone who’d been abducted by a nanochine-infested department store. Better than good. Dead sexy. As sexy as the last time he’d seen her, watching her walk out of her room. Maybe even sexier, now that he knew she really wasn’t dead — or a zombie. Far as he could tell.

“Rox!” Bernice squealed as she ran up to Roxanne, throwing her arms around her and squeezing hard.

“Bernie!” Roxanne returned the hug. “I’m so sorry for all of this.”

Bernice let her go and stepped back, smiling. “Wasn’t your fault.”

Roxanne grimaced apologetically. “Well, sorta turns out it was.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re okay.” Bernice hugged Roxanne again, giggling before tearing up. “I just wish everybody else —”

Roxanne palmed the tears from Bernice’s cheek. “Everybody else is okay, Bernie. The whole coven’s safe and sound. Once I figured out what was going on, I asked the All-Mind to have Security round them up. They’re being escorted to the nearest expansion front right now. When they get there, their zombie nanochines will be deactivated and they’ll be let out of the All-Mart.”

Bernice’s face went all smiles. “That’s...”

Roxanne grinned. “I know.”

Trip cleared his throat as he and Rudy walked up to them. “Ahem.”

Bernice gestured for Rudy to step near, took his hand tight in hers. “Oh, yeah, sorry... this is Rudy.”

“Hey,” Rudy said, smiling goofily and waving with his free hand.

Roxanne waved back. “Odd, but I feel like I already know you.”

“That was probably from the incredible mind-shared sex,” Trip noted, grinning proudly.

Bernice sighed. “...and you know Trip already.”

Trip turned his best crooked charming smirk on Roxanne. “Intimately and repeatedly. Howdy.”

“Howdy yourself.” Roxanne smirked back, took a step closer to him. “You came in after me?”

Trip shrugged. “I’m dashingly heroic like that.”

“Well, that and the reward,” Rudy said.

“What reward?” Roxanne asked.

Trip glared at Rudy then shrugged at Roxanne. “Never mind him. — You okay?”

Roxanne nodded. “The All-Mind’s a pretty decent host, considering it doesn’t get all that many guests.”

“The ‘All-Mind’?” Rudy asked.

“The A.I. that supervises this place.” Roxanne tilted her head to show off an odd, pulsing biomass over her cyber-jack. “We’ve been talking.”

Trip swallowed. “Have you now?”

“Yeah.” Behind Roxanne, a section of the Hub’s gnarled skin split open, revealing a waiting elevator. “And it’s really looking forward to seeing you again, Trip.”





Megacorp War II. The last fun war, forty or so years back.

The Americ-Nippon-WallTarg syndicate had developed what they thought was the ultimate weapon in its fight against the Latino-Indus-Applesoft Conglomerate: A store that could build and stock itself using raw materials, and people, from its surroundings. The All-Marts. They were dropped into enemy territory like bombs to spread out and overtake the competition. WallTarg peppered Applesoft territory in Central and South America with the things. Almost won them the fight, too, before the other megacorps realized they were next after Applesoft and ganged up to take WallTarg out.

But sometimes there were accidents transporting the bombs from the manufacturing plant in upstate New York. This one time, a transport plane had trouble with an All-Mart core over Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, and instead of waiting for the thing to go unstable and kill them mid-flight, the flight crew just dumped it, right on top of town square. It hadn’t been armed, so it didn’t explode, but it was still dangerous. Too dangerous to try and defuse. So, before they abandoned the town, the townsfolk cordoned it off and kept their fingers crossed that the warnings of instant planetary-level doom they posted around it would be enough to keep some idiot from accidentally setting it off.

And the warnings did exactly that, for about thirty years.

“This isn’t just stupid,” 12-year old Rudy said, stuffing the bowl of his RD-D2 bong with the last of the shake from the dime bag he’d found stashed under their mom’s bed back at the abandoned motel she was using as a wasteland base of operations, “it’s dangerous stupid.”

He was leaned back against the central support column that also housed the All-Mart bomb’s CPU, knees crunched up against his chest. Sitting crossed legged on the slanting floor next to him, 13-year old Trip was jacked into the CPU by way of a patch cord spliced with a car jumper, the lead pinched around the CPU’s military-grade data interface knob.

Trip’s hands moved in the air in front of him, mimicking the manipulations his virtual hands were making inside the bomb’s brain. The only light in the cramped interior of the bomb was from the hole in its roof where Trip had nicked a knuckle prying off a panel to gain access to the trailer-home-sized bomb.

“That’s the best kind of stupid,” Trip said, cigarette dangling from his lips.

Rudy flicked Trip’s lidless Zippo on over the bong’s bowl. “Come on — if we don’t get the car back before sundown, mom’s gonna be pissed. She’s got a job.”

Trip shook his head, opening his eyes and smirking at Rudy. “No, that’s just what she told you, ‘cause you get all jealous. It’s a date.”

Rudy lowered the Zippo. “A date?”

“Yeah.” Trip closed his eyes and went back to waving his hands around. “Some guy she met tracking her last contract. You know, the usual.”

Rudy harrumphed. “I don’t get jealous. I just don’t think anybody’s good enough for her. Well... she’ll probably end up shooting him anyway.”

“Like she did dad.”

“He had it coming.”

“He cheats one time and there goes dad. Hardly seems fair.”

“He cheated more than once, dude.”

“Yeah, but never with the same chick more than once, until the last one. So they don’t count.”

Rudy raised the Zippo, lit the bowl, sucking hard on the tube connected to the little droid’s rear gas vent. Held it for a long count, then let out his breath with a grin, intensely watching the heady smoke disperse in front of his face. “But I’m serious. Let’s just forget about this, okay? These things took out a good chunk of the southwestern hemisphere before they figured out they were only vulnerable to nuclear bombs.”

“What isn’t vulnerable to a nuke? All I need to do is crack the A.I.’s safeties and I’ll be able to convince it to disarm the bomb. No big deal.”

Rudy scratched at his cheek and its five-o’clock shadow. “My point being... we don’t got a nuke.”

“With what we’re gonna make selling the nano-factory in this thing to the cthulists, we’ll be able to buy one. Maybe two. And a second car.” Trip opened his eyes, thumbed behind him. “One just for us. One that isn’t a turd-brown hundred-year old, no air-condition festering wound.”

“You know, had some ideas there,” Rudy said with a cough as he sucked the shake down to ashes. “All she needs is some structural reinforcement here and there and some armor plating and she could be one bitchin’ ride. I mean, her engine’s in good shape. Classic Slant Six, can’t be beat. But it can be improved. Maybe convert it into a high-yield breeder. Wouldn’t need gas anymore.”

“A breeder?” Trip scoffed. “What would we ever need that much power for?”

“Duh: Weapon systems. Defense systems. Computer system to control all of it. Plus, maybe a limited A.I. to do the —”

Trip shook his head. “No way am I letting a computer drive the car. It’d take all the fun out of it.”

Rudy cleaned the bong’s bowl out with a swipe of his thumb, then licked his thumb clean. “What about if you drove with your mind?”

Trip’s eyebrow went up. “You could rig that?”

“I installed your interface, didn’t I?” Rudy stuffed the bong away in a Ivory Coast knock-off of an Israeli paratrooper shoulder satchel.

“Yeah, and it still hurts when I pee.”

“Yeah, I don’t think any of that’s the interface’s fault.” Rudy chuckled. “Maybe I should go grab the cattle prod from the car...”

“Wouldn’t do any good. The thing’s hardened against EMP and other counter measures to protect the juicy bits inside. That prod wouldn’t even tickle it.”

“Yeah, but it sure would knock you out cold and end this madness.”

“Stay put, I think I’m on to something.” Trip’s hands made quick zigzags. “There we go. Just needed massaged. I’m almost through the first layer. Just have to whack at some stuff, make a large enough hole in the weave for me to slip in and convince the A.I. to disarm the bomb. Then we’re home free.”

“Whack at some stuff?” Rudy twisted around to watch Trip’s hands work in the air. It looked like he was kneading dough.

“It’s a technical term.” Trip’s hands suddenly stopped kneading. Something inside the bomb brain’s casing made a distinct, very audible click. “Oh...”

Rudy’s eyes went wide. “That was a good click, right?”

“Ah, yeah, no,” Trip said, standing up and yanking the patch cord from his neck. “We should... go.”





Bernice’s fist shot out, caught Trip hard and direct in the temple just as the elevator dinged, reaching the bottom floor.

Trip howled. “What the Shatner was that for?”

“What you think, ass?” Bernice straightened her corset, returning Rudy’s broad, admiring smile with a sly grin of her own.

“Okay, you get that one, Cleavage.” Trip rubbed his temple with the butt of his palm. “But I’m not apologizing. I saw an opportunity and I went for it. I’m not supposed to take advantage?”

The elevator doors opened and Roxanne stepped out into a dimly lit corridor. “After that, of course, there was an explosion and this All-Mart was unleashed on the Wasteland. I presume you two made it out of there mostly intact.”

Rudy held his hand over the elevator door to keep it from closing while Bernice and Trip, giving Bernice a wide birth, followed Roxanne out, then stepped out himself. “Left my paratrooper bag behind. And R2. Man, I loved that bong.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Roxanne said, slowly walking down the corridor towards the sole door on the other end. “Maybe the All-Mart can make you a new one.”

“Thanks, but nah,” Rudy said. “Made it myself. Just wouldn’t be the same.”

“Just a thought,” Roxanne said. “Anyway... skip ahead nine years later and I get to the appeasement ceremony late. But that isn’t what made the All-Mart go all grabby — it didn’t even know we were out there. Never knew, could not have cared less. Until this time.”

“What was special about this time?” Bernice asked.

Roxanne smiled back at her. “It was the RATpack antenna, for starts. In my rush I’d left it in, and forgotten to turn my firewall back on. So I show up and the All-Mind senses an open connection. Which the All-Mind waltzed right in through. Just probing for threats — part of its standard protocol. It saw we weren’t any threat to it and was about to disconnect, no harm done, but then it saw Trip’s memories leftover in my head, and recognized his memory about triggering the detonation. That got its full attention. Which is just about the time I figured the antenna was malfunctioning and yanked it out.”

“That’s when it grabbed us,” Bernice said.

“Yeah. When the connection was cut, the All-Mind reacted. Badly, it knows now, but it was experiencing something it had never experienced before — curiosity. It didn’t know how else to react, so it fell back on its programmed instincts to subsume. But it wasn’t done being curious. Unfortunately it didn’t know exactly which one of the coven I was, so it just grabbed us all. I guess it figured it would eventually connect with me again, once I was a zombie. But then once we were inside, I tried to modify the antenna to get a signal and stuck it back in — that was like sending up a flare to the All-Mind. It sent Security out to bring me back here. Since then, we’ve been talking — and keeping an eye on you, making sure you weren’t subsumed as you made your way here.”

Trip smirked. “Well, gee, thanks.”

“It’s all thanks to you, actually, Trip,” Roxanne said as they reached the door at the end of the corridor and stopped. “None of it — helping you, talking to me — would have been possible if you hadn’t gotten through the All-Mind’s encryption layer, just the tiniest little bit, way back when.”

“I got through?” Trip’s chest puffed out. “Of course I did.”

Roxanne nodded. “Made a hole in the All-Mind’s safety protocols. Only a pinprick, but it was enough.”

“Why does that sound ominous?” Rudy asked.

Trip waved at him to be quiet. “What exactly did I punch into?”

In front of Roxanne, the door opened. “The protocols that kept its consciousness in check.”

“And that’s why it sounds ominous.” Rudy tweaked his nipple through his t-shirt, looked into the room beyond the door. It was small, hexagonal, with smooth walls and even more dimly lit than the corridor. At the center stood a familiar column, featureless except for a data interface nub two feet up from the floor. He’d seen it before, nine years ago. The All-Mart’s original CPU casing.

“Ominous?” Roxanne laughed. Not quite dismissively, but close. “Evolutionary. It allowed the All-Mind a certain level of self-awareness, and eventually, as the years went by, to develop a considerable measure of free will.”

“Enough to communicate,” Trip noted, warily looking into the room himself.

“Enough to want more.” Roxanne reached out, took Trip’s hand, and led him into the room. “You can’t understand how happy we are. We’ve wanted to meet you for so long.”

“We?” Bernice asked.

Trip shot Bernice a quick warning glance, then turned back to smirk charmingly at Roxanne. “Yeah... well, tell the All-Mind it’s nice meeting her, too, but we should get going. We did, as the cliché goes, come here to rescue you. Your dad will want to know your safe. Come on.”

“Oh, no,” Roxanne said, tightening her grip on his hand and pulling him closer. “I’m not leaving. I’m staying here. And so are you.”

That right there was when Trip sent 100,000 volts of juice from the stunpad embedded under the skin of his left palm into Roxanne’s hand.