Ed vaguely heard the countdown Mr. Garry seemed to be doing, He seemed to be around eight.

“You want me to run out there.” The words appeared to sort of drift out of his mouth again.

Mr. Garry skipped a few numbers. “Don’t sweat it, they won’t kill us. They’re just hedging some of my cards out.” Mr. Garry seemed to grimace, glancing between the truck and the trenchcoat guy. He was counting down on his fingers now. “They’ve never seen this trick before… probably… but look kid, this is as far as I’m willing to stick my neck out, if you’re not going to run, can you at least give that back?” He beckoned his hand in a sort of gimmie motion.

His count reached one and Ed flipped the switch. He faintly heard what he was pretty sure was a loud sigh of relief from behind him as he all but sprinted for a small gap between the one of the sandbag lines.

The Mr. Garry clones had disappeared, and as Ed vaulted over a fallen table he noticed more of that black inky stuff from before splattered across some of the tiles. While he didn’t actually have much time to examine them, he was pretty sure they were arranged into like symbols or something. They reached almost to the lines of bags and while as promised, the soldiers were now very much firing in what appeared to be the complete opposite direction, back towards the empty halls, Ed still wasn’t quite too sure how they wouldn’t just instantly notice him as he tried to get past.

Suddenly the two soldiers closest to him were sort of jerked to the slides. Like perhaps puppets on a string, they were sent bowling into their buddies, weapons systematically yanked out of their hands and thrown back over the bags. Oh, Ed thought to himself, barely slowing as he jumped through the gap, guess that was how.

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He heard barked shouts from behind him as he dashed the last fifty meters or so then all but skidded around the corner. Not a second too late too as whatever it was Mr. Garry’d done appeared to abruptly stop right about then as a hail of gunfire crackled through the space he’d just been and into a large styrofoam teddy bear out by the front of a jewelry store.

Gasping for breath, he ducked behind a cardboard cutout as the glass shattered behind him. He leaned his head back, trying to tune out the noise. What in the world was that. One moment he’d been psyched for a kill switch, the next it’s like he’d been thrown into the middle of world war three or something. Mr. Garry had just been so casual about it too. Was this just something he’d have to deal with now? Just daily warzones at the mall? How was this not on the news?

As the gunfire petered out Ed dimly wondered if perhaps Kim had been right all along, and that maybe it really was better to just go ahead and let them mind wipe him. He dragged himself to his feet, he could hear the clatter of boots on the floor and more of those barked shouts from behind the corner. He started jogging down to one of the maps.

It was a good reminder. Besides the one singular dot that he was pretty sure represented Mr. Garry back there, his own little minimap showed a fat lot of nothing. So these guys were ordinary humans. Ok, that was a little hard to wrap his head around. He remembered Mr. Garry saying something along the lines of Shintoists and talismans, wasn’t that some sort of exorcist thing?

The shouts seemed to be getting fainter behind him and while the gunfire hadn’t stopped, it was much quieter now. In fact, he could see one of the large general exits now too. He’d chosen the route closest to one before he’d pretty much even left Mr. Garry.

His body abruptly jerked to the side, a sharp burning pain bloomed out from his lower calf and then he was stumbling to a knee. His eyes darted to the sides. A short helmeted soldier was jogging down from an escalator. Rifle at their side as they pulled out what he was pretty sure was some sort of handheld radio.

“Got a runner.” The radio crackled. “West point seven, Requesting backup.”