Alex Scarrow - City of Shadows

‘How about in there?’ said Sal. She pointed towards a large store with two floors, upper and ground. A pre-school toy store called TOYS-4-TOTS! All bright, happy-clappy colours inside. Out in front of the store a tall, surly-faced young man was putting on the head of a costume, the store’s mascot, a livid pink dinosaur that Maddy suspected was a blatant rip-off of Barney.

‘Yes! Go! Go!’ She grasped Foster’s hand and led the way. The others followed.

She pushed her way past a toddler on reins. The child turned to watch them pass by, blue eyes suddenly round and wide at the sight of Bob. Presumably thinking he was another store mascot, the toddler chuckled gleefully and reached out to grab and hug one of his tree-thick legs.

‘Back off!’ boomed Bob. The toddler toppled backwards in shock, landing and bouncing on its nappy-cushioned behind. It gazed up at them in confused silence, watching this odd assortment of grown-ups leave the play area before finally deciding to bawl.

Maddy led them into the store TOYS-4-TOTS! She shook her head. How’d they get away with a name like that? Still early enough in the morning it was mainly staff milling around inside: puffy-faced teens in gaudy pink store shirts bearing plastic name tags.

It was the right place to hide, cluttered with racks of chunky, plastic nonsense, large furry soft toys, rotating display stands of storybook CD-ROMs and nursery-rhyme favourites.

‘Everyone split up! We’ll lose ’em in here.’ She had hold of Foster’s hand still. She wasn’t going to let it go. She wasn’t losing him again. ‘Split up… and we’ll rendezvous…’

Where?

‘The diner?’ said Sal.

‘Yes…’ Not the RV. Definitely not the RV. There might be another of them waiting for them there. The diner was next to the motel. Good enough. ‘Make your way to the diner!’ She looked back out past the knock-off-Barney mascot standing out on the concourse. She could just make out the distinctive outlines of the support units. Closer now. The pair of them could so easily be Bob and Becks.

‘Go!’ she hissed. ‘We stand out like a sore thumb. Split!’

Their group fragmented in different directions: Rashim and Sal; Bob, Liam and Becks.

She pulled Foster with her, quickly weaving past an extravagant diorama made from BaBe-Blox building bricks into a maze of aisles laden with romper suits and cute, frilly Babygros. He was already breathing hard. This was getting difficult for the old man. ‘Maddy… I…’

‘Shut up, Foster! I’m not leaving you behind.’

She crouched low, pulling aside clothes hangers on a rail to peer out. Across the store she could see the top of Rashim’s head for a moment, then it was gone behind a row of super-large Sesame Street cuddlies. She looked back at the store’s entrance, hoping to see the support units striding past and missing them.

Nothing for the moment. Perhaps they’d already gone past.

‘Maddy…?’

‘Foster, shhhh… I’m trying to see — ’

‘Excuse me? Miss?’

Maddy turned to see a member of staff looking down at her. A girl in a pink shirt, with a nose stud and up-way-too-late-last-night red-rimmed eyes, stared wearily down at her. A face that clearly indicated this was too early in her cruddy day to put up with customer-stoopid like this.

‘Ma’am, you’re not really allowed to hide among the clothes like that.’

Maddy straightened up. ‘I… err… I was just looking for… umm… bargains.’

‘I think it might be best if you step out of the store, ma’am.’

Maddy remained where she was, her eyes on the store’s entrance. ‘Just give us a sec here… we just need… to uh…’

‘You need to leave, miss. You’re clearly not shopping. You’re being a nuisance — ’

‘Christ!’ Maddy turned on her. ‘Just give me a freakin’ moment, will you? It won’t kill you!’

The girl didn’t like that. ‘I’m asking you politely to leave, please. If you don’t, I’ll call the manager. I’ll call mall security.’

Just then Maddy saw them. The support units standing in the entrance, two pairs of grey eyes sweeping the toy store like prison searchlights.

Knock-off Barney, the implausibly pink dinosaur, sauntered cheerily towards them, probably wearily parroting the store’s moronic catchphrase: Friends That Play Together Stay Together!!

The female support unit — Becks, Maddy found herself thinking — lashed out with a fist and caught Barney in the throat. He disappeared from view.

‘Whuh?’ said the girl in the pink shirt to herself. ‘Did she just punch Joshua…?’

The male support unit’s eyes panned round and caught sight of Maddy just as she was about to duck back down out of sight. He raised his arm, something in his hand glinted. Someone screamed.

And then the gunfire started.

7.29 a.m., 12 September 2001, North Haven Plaza, outside Branford

Maddy felt a warm puff of displaced air on her cheek as the shot whistled past her head. She heard the shot impact on something. A soft thud followed by a gasp.

She turned to see the girl on her knees beside her, dark crimson blossoming across her store shirt. She looked down at the blood then at Maddy, perplexed.

‘I… I… just got shot…’

Another couple of gunshots, deafening in the shop’s stillness. The baby clothes hanging from the rail above Maddy lurched and danced. A blizzard of foam stuffing erupted from a Humpty Dumpty on a shelf nearby.

Maddy remained hunched down, Foster beside her. ‘My God, we’re gonna die!’ she whimpered to him. There were raised voices outside the toystore in the mall’s main concourse. A male voice. Two of them, issuing a sharp challenge. A warning.

More shots, aiming out of the store this time.

‘Maddy… you go!’ It was Foster.

‘They’re distracted!’ she whispered. ‘Come on, let’s — ’

‘No!’ He shook his head. ‘I can slow them down. You go!’

‘Slow them down?’ She made a face. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Not fight them… I’ll talk to them.’

More shots. One of them hit a wall nearby, showering them with flakes of plaster.

‘You can’t talk to — ’

‘They’re just like Bob! They have the exact same AI.’

‘Yeah, but… but they’re running an entirely different freakin’ mission! You step out, they’ll shoot you just as soon as look at — ’

Foster grasped her arm. ‘Maddy… I’m dead anyway.’

He didn’t need to explain that. They both knew he was dying. She knew he was dying the day he walked out of that Starbucks and left her in charge of the team. But somehow the reality of that had seemed removed. With time looping for her in New York, he was never going to die. Every time she’d gone to visit him in Central Park, he was the same old Foster. No sicker. But then, of course, he wouldn’t be. It was always the same moment for him. The same morning over and over and over.

Since she’d grabbed him from Central Park, time, for him, had advanced. Two days, that was all it had been, but enough time that she could clearly see he was getting worse. A dying man. He should be in a hospital bed, a hospice, kept comfortable on a drip perhaps, not running for his life through a shopping mall.

‘They know me,’ he said. ‘It’s enough… it’ll confuse them. They may let me talk.’

‘ Know you? ’

‘There’s no time to explain!’ He pushed her. ‘Go! Just go!’

Maddy glanced at the girl beside them. She was in shock, pale. Alive, but maybe for not much longer unless she got some help.

The gunfire was beginning to wane. Whomever the support units had been exchanging shots with outside on the concourse, police, mall security, it was nearly a done deal now.