I parked my car in the Downtown Mall’s parking lot before heading off to join the stream of people trying to get inside.
I had convinced myself I needed weapons if I was going to protect myself against the Cains and maybe get back what they had taken from me but now that I was actually here, I could feel my stomach churning. The mall was massive, easily a couple of blocks wide and a dozen stories high.
As I approached the entrance, I found myself observing the various metal detectors, thermal imaging, and x-ray machines the ECU had set up. A lot of the gear was mundane tech with only slight modifications made by supers. As I walked through one of the scanners I brushed my hand against it and my power told me exactly what it did and from there it was easy to figure out what they were looking for.
Evomats.
Nothing specific from what I could see but a lot of Evomats tended to have bizarre chemical structures. With the right tech, you could scan for that and it would ping their systems. Thankfully I had left my suit at home and my phone was still made of silicon.
The rest of their tech was scanning for more mundane threats, guns, knives, and so on. While the average citizen might be right to assume this protected them, the same could not be said for people like me. Sunday night taught me a valuable lesson about the world I lived in.
If you had powers, you weren’t safe.
I had been far too eager and reckless. Now because of that, I had put myself and my mother in danger. I had done some research to see if The Cain’s had the resources to find out who I was and was relieved to find that they didn’t have any Mentalists.
That the public is aware of, that is.
Still, I had to hope they didn’t. The two people that had captured me had seen my face but finding out who I was, my address, and so on would be more difficult. Unfortunately, it would make picking me out of a crowd easy for them and that would mean I’d be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life; or until I moved out of the city.
The costume I had created should be enough to stop me from dying from a stray bullet but I knew it couldn’t be my only source of protection. I needed to think offensively as well.
Before, I had been comfortable with flying under the ECU’s radar, creating that delusional ‘no weapons’ policy to keep myself inconspicuous. Now, I had to make a decision; do I risk stepping on the ECU’s toes or do I want to keep myself safe?
The answer was obvious.
My plan was perhaps a tad extreme but I had decided on a gun. I would eventually remake my taser but I had a feeling it wouldn’t be much use against supers without sufficient investment. A gun provided me with much more stopping power and with the right upgrades, I could stop almost anyone in the city.
The only problem was no gun store owner was going to sell me anything. This meant I had to procure one in a more creative way.
So, I found the nearest toy shop and picked a toy gun off the shelf.
My power read the [Type] to be a Nerf USP-S.
The silencer was purely cosmetic, only there to look authentic. With a single charge, I could change that fantasy into a reality. The pistol might be a toy but it served a similar function as any other gun. Projectiles were loaded into it and then shot at a target. That was all I needed to be able to change this toy into a real gun.
My fingers brushed the handle of the toy and I allowed the information to flood my mind.
Compared to a mobile phone, this thing might as well be a blank sheet of paper. Comprehending toys was easy – they lacked much of the nuance and wide array of functions that modern tech had. This little thing was probably put together by some poor sweatshop worker somewhere on the other side of the planet. Too bad I couldn’t upgrade their wages.
There wasn’t much to start with but I could see how to get what I wanted.
Satisfied, I went and paid before leaving. I strolled through the mall with my paper bag, wondering what else I could do while I was here. I could browse one of the electronics stores to see if there was something I could tinker with. I couldn’t think of anything at the moment but maybe something would jump out at me. I should also visit a hardware store to see if there was anything there I could merge with my costume.
I finally got my answer when my stomach rumbled. I had made a light lunch this morning and now I was starting to feel the ramifications of it. The food court was only a quick detour down to the east side of the mall.
Food first. Electronics and Hardware store later. I can finish off by getting some groceries before I leave.
I found a nice little coffee shop amongst all the fast food places and decided to order a brownie and a cola, before taking a seat. I pulled out my phone and re-downloaded my sim data after I had tried to send a text to Mom. There were some messages from Jackson and Chris, all talking about game stuff but the real flood was from Lucy. No wonder she had been so worried.
I decided to check Entropy where there were also some messages from that Samsara person but I ignored them. I still wasn’t sure if I could trust them, but my gut was telling me not to. I was not going to risk getting captured again.
I was halfway through typing a message to Mom when I got a call. I stared, suspiciously at the unknown number. It wasn’t from some scam company as my upgraded security software automatically blacklisted those numbers. No, this was a private number from another cell phone.
As the ringing continued, I quickly opened another app that traced incoming calls. The unknown number was replaced with a name I wasn’t familiar with.
Samantha Leighton.
My thoughts lingered on the name.
Samantha, a girl’s name. Sam. Samsara. Coincidence?
It couldn’t be. I doubted it. How had she managed to find my number? First Entropy, now this? She had to be a Mechakinetic digging up information on me.
Against my better judgment, I decided to answer.
“I told you I needed time to think about it. What do you want?”
“Ugh. Leave it to the Mechakinetic to know who’s calling,” the voice definitely belonged to a girl, maybe around my age if the inflection of her voice was anything to go by. Then again, there could be a voice synthesizer on her end. “I’m trying to help you so try not to panic. The Cains have you surrounded.”
I stilled, so much so that I actually had to remind myself to breathe.
“Don’t look! Don’t even move. Act natural or they’ll know. Follow my directions and you’ll get out of this, I promise. Now, take a sip of your drink and lean back in your chair. Act like you're talking to a family member or a close friend.”
I picked up my cola and sipped it, following her advice. I even took a bite out of my brownie for good measure. If today was about to take a turn for the worse, I wanted to savor the delicious, baked chocolate before bullets started flying.
“Why are you helping me?”
“I have a vested interest in stopping the gangs from recruiting powerful supers. There are others but I doubt you’ll want to hear them since you’re a few minutes away from being drugged and kidnapped.”
I knew the Cains wouldn’t let my escape slide that easily. That is, assuming I wasn’t just being gaslit into doing something stupid.
How did they even know I was going to be here? Did they follow me?
“In broad daylight?” I replied, skeptical. I did my best to try and keep my nerves in check. “That’s bold, especially since this place is crawling with ECU. If they catch even so much as a whiff of something sketchy, they’ll have this place locked down.”
“It’s a last minute thing. They weren’t expecting to find you here but they’re willing to at least try. You need to be careful. One of their supers is watching you right now. Second floor balcony, by the video game store,” she said. “If you’re going to look, be discreet. The moment they think you're onto them, they’ll become much more aggressive.”
So this was a complete fluke then. Lucky for them…
Without moving my head, my eyes drifted upward toward the second floor. There were a bunch of people loitering about and talking but my eyes caught a dark-skinned guy by himself, leaning over the rail and looking down in my direction. Could be a coincidence but after Sunday, my paranoia didn’t want to take the chance.
“Who is that?”
“Judging from gender, height, build, and skin tone, that’s Bonesmith. There might be others but I can’t see them.”
“How do you know?”
“My power.”
“Mechakinetic?”
“Mentalist.”
That explained a lot.
“Where are you calling me from?” I took another sip of my cola. I took every natural excuse I could to look around. A baby crying, boisterous laughter from groups of school kids, anything.
“Dream Weavers. The shoe shop to your left.”
I let my eyes wander again just beyond the food court. Dream Weavers was a shoe shop for women, selling all kinds of expensive-looking footwear. Right out the front with a pair of glittering heels in one hand and a phone in the other, was a girl with strawberry blonde hair. She wore an Eastworth Girl’s uniform, sans the red blazer. She was admiring the display rack but I couldn’t see anything else because her back was turned.
“The blonde. Is that you?”
“Yep.”
Convenient that she and the Cains are here at the same time. What are the chances of that happening?
“How do I know I can trust you?” I asked.
“You can’t. Nothing I can say right now will change that, but you have a choice to make. I can help you get out of this mess. The Cains already tried to kidnap you once. You know they’ll do it again.”
“Trust the stranger, or get kidnapped,” I muttered. “I’m loving my options right now. Don’t suppose I have a third option?”
“You could try to escape by yourself but you’d likely end up getting the ECU involved. They’ll drive the Cains off, sure, but have fun trying to explain to them why one of the most notorious gangs in the city was trying to kidnap you. You’ll be in an interrogation cell before the day ends.”
I sighed. I didn’t like my odds and what she said made sense.
“I had a feeling you’d say that. Okay, you better not be screwing with me here. How do you plan to get me out of this?”
“There’s a hallway to your right leading to some bathrooms. Go down there and make a left and keep going straight ahead. There should be a door to the restricted area of the mall; the back rooms.”
The back rooms were maintenance hallways that led to all the fire exits. I could see where she was going with this plan, the only problem was getting through those maintenance doors required keycards, and the only people that had them were staff and security that worked in the building. I wouldn’t be able to get through without cracking the security – and I could do that.
But there was a significant amount of risk involved. I could be caught.
If I stay here I’m going to get caught anyway.
“In case you haven’t noticed, those doors are only able to be opened by security staff. You need keycards to get through them without raising an alarm.”
“We both know that you can get through those doors, I wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise.”
I never had the pleasure of dealing with a Mentalist before. I was finally starting to understand why nobody liked them.
“Okay fine, I can get through. I’m just worried about what failsafes the ECU has installed,” I replied, eyeing the hallway to the bathrooms. I saw a camera operating as well. I’d have to disable them if I didn’t want the authorities knocking at my door tonight. “That and the cameras.”
“If everything goes the way I think it will, we’ll be long gone before any ECU are able to react. All you need to do is deal with the cameras and the doors, think you’re up for it?”
I finished my brownie before skulling the rest as I stood up. Determination compelled me forward and I started off toward the bathroom.
“I am.”
“Okay. Don’t hang up.”
I kept my phone in hand as I weaved through the tables and chairs, keeping a discreet brisk pace. Trepidation kept me alert, my eyes observed every person in the cafe. I didn’t know which of them belonged to the Cains so I’d have to treat them all like they were.
Better safe than sorry.
As I left the seating area, I heard the screeching of a couple of chairs behind me. The hairs on the back of my neck compelled me to walk faster. Down the hall and toward the bathroom, I thumbed my phone, moving off the call and back to the home screen. I swiped furiously to find the right app before opening it. Immediately, it began pinging every open and closed port within my vicinity.
Every electronic device appeared on a visual GPS map that tracked my movements. There was a sea of green dots, full of vulnerable ports to connect to. Further ahead and to the left, I could see a hallway, littered with orange dots.
I turned and saw the doorway at the end of the hall. I tapped the orange dot and a stream of code poured down the command prompt that opened up. My walk turned to a jog as I rounded the corner. I got to the door right as my phone finished breaching the security.
The keycard reader pinged and the door clicked open. I swung the door open and slipped through just in time to see three guys following me down the hallway break into a sprint. When the door clicked shut, I stumbled back a bit, watching as they reached the door and tried to force it open. The guy at the front viciously pounded the door in frustration. They weren’t going to get the door open, not without setting off an alarm.
“I’m through.”
“Run! They’re moving. I’ll meet you on the south side. Disable every camera you can!”
I ran.
I made sure to check every hallway with my phone before I turned any corners. I must have turned off about a half dozen security cameras before I reached the south end of the mall. Sam was already moving down the hallway toward the door when I rounded the corner into the same hallway. I swiped my thumb over the orange dot and in seconds, opened the door for her.
She slipped through, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Talk about determination. These guys have it out for you!” She exclaimed. “Thank God I decided to stalk you today. Best decision I’ve ever made.”
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
I gave her an incredulous look. “You were stalking me?”
“Yup. Truthfully, I was getting a bit impatient about you blowing me off so I was going to strike up a conversation,” she finally caught her breath and brushed the curtain of blonde hair out of her eyes. “So much for that plan, though, maybe this is better. Nothing builds trust and friendship like running from a gang!”
“Alright, you want to help me, that much is clear and at this point we’re in this together,” I reasoned. “So what’s the plan, how do we get out of this?”
“Ah… I’ll be honest, I’m still working out that part,” she admitted sheepishly. “But! You got me here now and everyone knows two is better than one– oh! I got it! The roof,” Sam snatched my hand and began pulling. “Let’s go. There’ll be a way out there and we’ll be close to your car.”
“You know which one is mine?”
“I’m a stalker, remember? Now move your butt!”
Wasting no time, she jogged ahead of me, gesturing for me to keep up. Grumbling, I conceded and followed after her. I made sure to disable all cameras in the hallways and Sam was patient enough to wait before making a turn into another hallway.
“The stairs,” she pointed at one of the doors ahead of us. “There’s our ticket.”
Sam opened the door, revealing a rectangular spiral staircase leading up. Without a second thought, we began climbing, two, sometimes even three steps at a time. I was given a bit of a reality check when I started to fatigue faster than she did. Sam was racing up those stairs like she did this kind of thing daily. My fitness really wasn’t the best, which was going to have to change if I wanted to get back at the Cains.
“By the way, what’s your name?”
Completely out of breath, I slowed down before coming to a halt.
“What?”
Sam stopped and turned. “Your name, I don’t know it. I only know that you go by Upgrade.”
“How can you know everything else but not my name?”
“If you really want I can use my powers to figure it out, or you can just tell me. Besides, you already know mine. Something to do with your phone. Mechatech software, decryption,” she gave me an amused look. “That’s illegal, you know. Breaching sooo many privacy laws.”
“Says the stalker,” I rolled my eyes and she continued staring at me. “Fine, whatever, I’m Maxis.”
The door at the bottom of the stairwell slammed open.
“Nice to meet you. Hope you’ve caught your breath because we gotta go!”
We rushed to the top and burst through the door into another corridor. The back rooms felt like a labyrinth with how many identical hallways there were but at least I felt like we were making progress toward the roof. Still, I couldn’t shake the thought that our escape had been too easy; granted they probably weren’t expecting an unknown to suddenly come to my rescue.
I needed a backup plan in case the Cains caught up to us. There was no telling how many of them were giving chase. I reached into my paper bag and pulled out the Nerf pistol, discarding the empty bag. As we ran, I slowed down a bit to rip away the restraints keeping the toy contained in the box.
“Now really isn’t the time for this!” Sam hissed, urging me to keep running.
We weren’t safe and I wasn’t willing to trust her to protect me. I bit into the plastic and ripped away at the zip ties keeping the toy in place. Panic and adrenaline do wonders when you’re convinced your life was in danger because I don’t think I had ever opened something so quickly before. The bindings fell away and I pulled the toy pistol free from the box.
I didn’t have the time to mess around with trying to find a comfortable model. Besides, all that the [Models] category was giving me was different brands of toy guns. I needed to circumvent that and change its current purpose and the only way to do that was to alter the [Materials] and [Operating Mechanisms].
[Charges: 25/25]
[Type]
* USP-S Nerf Pistol
[Durability 100/100 - Repair Unavailable.]
[Materials]
* Plastic
* * Durability MK I (Cost: 1)
* * * Durability MK II (Cost: 2)
* * Sturdiness MK I (Cost: 1)
* * * Sturdiness MK II (Cost: 2)
* ↓ … ↓
* Copper (Cost: 1)
* Iron (Cost: 1)
* * Stainless Steel (Cost: 2)
I needed to make this into something more hefty. I recalled the only other time I had touched a gun and remembered that the material it had used was stainless steel. Fortunately for me, the pathway to that material was fairly cheap.
[Charges: 22/25]
[Operating Mechanisms]
* Toy Mechanisms
* Paintball Mechanisms (Cost: 1)
* Airsoft Mechanisms (Cost: 2)
* Live Round Mechanisms (Cost: 4)
Why the hell does it cost four charges to get a gun when I could take a phone and skip twenty years of research and development for just one?
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I was trying to rework an object’s purpose. A phone was still a phone, I hadn’t tried to change anything else. The toy gun being a toy might have been too much of a stretch.
A toy’s purpose was to entertain.
A gun’s purpose was to protect and to kill.
Damn, I’m trying to stretch it too far. I’ll think about this later.
I spent the four charges required to upgrade to the necessary mechanisms required for live rounds. Without it, most of the options in [Ammunition] were grayed out. Of course, I could have skipped upgrading the [Materials] and just gone with the [Operating Mechanisms] if I wanted the gun to rip itself to shreds the moment I fired. Sometimes, using my power felt like trying to piece together a jigsaw puzzle.
I had to ensure all the pieces were in the right place. The moment they were, the picture became clearer and more opportunities opened up.
[Charges: 18/25]
[Ammunition]
* Sponge Bullet (12/12) (Incompatible)
* Paintball (Cost: 1 | Incompatible)
* Plastic Pellet (Cost: 1 | Incompatible)
* 9mm Standard (Cost: 1)
* * Armor-piercing (Cost: 1)
* * Tracer (Cost: 1)
* * Incendiary (Cost: 1)
* * Hollow point (Cost: 1)
Standard would do for now. I wasn’t looking to start a fire and nothing else seemed really necessary at the moment. If I really needed them, I’d use them.
[Charges: 17/25]
[Attachments]
* Plastic Suppressor - Cosmetic
* * Suppressor - Functional (Cost: 1)
* Plastic Grip (Active)
* * Leather Grip (Cost: 1)
* * * Synthetic Grip (Cost: 1)
Lastly, I got rid of the cosmetic silencer in favor of a functional one and upgraded to a synthetic grip. I didn’t want it to fly out of my hands or send the mall into a panic. A single shot fired in these halls would echo and someone would hear it.
I barely kept running as the pistol in my hand melted into a blob of discolored liquid. It floated in the palm of my hand but I had never tried to upgrade while moving before. Keeping my concentration steady almost had me walking straight into a wall before Sam pulled me in the right direction.
“Hey—! Woah!” Sam came to a stop. Her eyes locked on the blob of liquid, a mixture of wonder, bewilderment, and fascination. “What the hell…?”
Quickly, it became solid again and began unfolding like origami.
The footsteps behind us were getting closer and just as the reformed pistol took its final shape in my hands, Sam and I turned our heads to see our pursuer round the corner.
[Charges: 14/25]
[Type]
* USP-S
[Durability 100/100 - Repair Unavailable.]
Perfect. Just in time.
It was the guy who had been watching me earlier. Up close, he wore track pants, a plain red shirt, sneakers, a backpack, scarf, and aviators. He wouldn’t have stood out in the mall if he took off his ‘disguise’.
“There you are,” His voice was deep and filled with ill intent. “Decided to stop running?”
“This is a dangerous game you're playing,” Sam sneered. “Coming after us out of costume? Are you looking to start a fight? I’ll fuck you up.”
“Little girl like you?” He scoffed. “I doubt it. We’re not after you anyway. Just him,” He pointed at me. “We have some work we’d like you to do for us so I’d appreciate it if we stopped this little cat and mouse game.”
“Fuck off,” I countered. “You already had your chance. Shouldn’t have made it so easy for me to slip the first time.”
Sam was quick to chime in. “Yeah, you had your chance. Get lost.”
“Really, is that so?” He snorted, his eyes drifting toward the silenced pistol in my hand. “What’re you gonna do, shoot me?”
I flicked the safety off. “That’s what the gun’s for.”
“Your regeneration is slow, Bonesmith,” Sam said. The man stiffened and her grin only widened. “Yeah… I know who you are. Hard to put down, which makes you a good enforcer. But one good shot would still give us enough time to get away.”
He cracked his knuckles. “What makes you think we’ll give you that opportunity?”
I saw Sam’s shoulders go rigid.
A hand grabbed my wrist and twisted it. Pain caused me to drop my gun and an invisible arm wrapped around my neck, pulling me off balance. I gagged and sagged back into my assaulter’s grip as they placed something sharp and cold to my throat. Immediately, I knew who it was, the same super who had drugged me and taken my payload chip.
“Shit!” Sam cursed. “Let him go, Banshee.”
So that’s her name.
I had heard it before.
A recent string of robberies had been attributed to her. Apparently, according to the ECU statement, she had the ability to turn invisible and freely phase through solid materials. Guess that’s how she’d gotten into my car.
“We really need to stop meeting like this,” Banshee whispered into my ear in a sultry tone. She turned her head and looked at Sam. “Make one move and I’ll open his throat.”
“You’d kill the person you're after? You guys need to get your priorities straight. For that to even work, I’m the one that should have the knife at his neck,” Sam said, her gaze flicking between Bonesmith and Banshee. The former had yet to move, opting to stay where he was. His posture relaxed a little and he crossed his arms like he was observing the situation before him with amusement. “What happens if I call your little bluff? You wanna risk pissing Grim off?”
She pressed the knife into my neck and I could feel it break my skin. Information poured through my skull as my power interpreted the steel blade.
“You move. He dies.”
Sam gave me a confident grin.
“I got this, Upgrade.”
Nah. I can get myself out of this.
“No need."
I selected the cheapest upgrade I could. The knife lost its physical form and folded into a floating sphere of metallic liquid. The sudden change threw Banshee for a loop. I took the advantage and elbowed her in the ribs.
Banshee coughed and stumbled back.
Sam blurred and ran, moving far faster than was physically possible. I was already reaching for my dropped gun when I saw her shoulder check Bonesmith, sending him careening into a wall. I turned away before I heard the sickening crack from his impact, my pistol in hand. I was not surprised to see the hallway behind me empty.
I pulled the trigger anyway.
Once, and then twice, the sound of empty shells hitting the floor rang in my ears. I hit nothing but air.
I adjusted my aim and fired a third shot, a scream ringing out as blood splattered onto the floor. Banshee collapsed, her invisibility broken. She clutched her thigh where blood began to seep out onto the floor. She hissed and seethed with anger as she glared at me through her mask.
“Fucking bastard!”
For a brief second, I considered firing a fourth right at her head. It would be so easy but having someone’s life sitting on your conscience was not something I wanted to deal with right now.
Sam was back at my side in the blink of an eye. “We need to go.”
I reached down and snatched the knife that Banshee had and pocketed it.
“Thanks for the knife.”
“Fuck you–!”
Sam clocked her in the nose as we ran past. The villain crumbled over and stopped moving. Bonesmith, on the other hand, looked like a pile of misshapen limbs. What was even more disturbing was they were moving, cracking, and snapping as they tried to put themselves back together.
“Nice work,” She praised as we turned a corner. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I rubbed my neck, the skin feeling tender. “She was the one who took my money. I should have said something, asked her where—”
“She wouldn’t have told you,” Sam reassured. “Trust me, it’s not worth it. Not now. They’ve caught us with our pants down and we need to get out of here.”
I didn’t trust her, but right now, I didn’t have much of a choice.
Thirteen charges left, I grimace. I hope I won’t need them.