5:52 P.M.
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The 08.09 started up.
Driving slowly, Adam pulled out of the building’s garage, and the fingers of the sun, still stretching between the treetops on the sidewalk and the tall towers looming behind them, gleamed off the windshield of the blue compact and touched the small image of the barking rottweiler on the edge of the hood, the symbol of the automobile company.
Malin’s presence in the car was as unsettling to Adam as Juzo’s had been that Friday night. Unlike his brother, though, she at least had the decency to give him precise directions on where to go.
“Go straight for seven blocks and turn left,” she said, not fully leaning back in the seat. The wound ached.
Adam glanced at her sideways.
“Why don’t you tell me what this is all about while we go to the hospital? I have a friend who can see that ugly wound for you.”
“I wanna avoid hospitals, at least for a while,” she replied.
“Relax, Sarah is trustworthy. She won’t sell you to migrations if that’s what you—”
“No,” Malin refused again, with a tone that allowed no objections, and indicated, “Turn after the avenue, and then continue about thirteen blocks until you reach—”
“—Dana’s,” he finished. He perfectly knew every corner of that area and had traced the route in his mind. “One of the oldest shopping malls in Proxima. Is that where we’re going?”
“You know the place. Good.”
“You bet I know the place. It’s near where I work. But what will we do in a shopping mall?” Adam insisted.
Malin carried her eyes from here to there, looking at the streets as they passed; remembering the path she had traveled a few minutes before.
“We won’t go into the mall,” she answered. “We’ll go to the alley next to the mall.”
“What the hell are we gonna do in an alley?”
Malin didn’t reply. Within a few minutes, they arrived.
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That part of Proxima’s Red Area was old, the streets were narrow, the sidewalks even narrower, and the buildings were barely ten stories high, something inconceivable by today’s standards; that the architectural structure of Dana’s was more like an old three-story warehouse than a shopping mall was not surprising. The only thing that distinguished it as such was the huge and old-fashioned sign at the top of the facade that portrayed the logo with green light tubes, announcing: ‘Welcome to Dana’s, the first shopping center in Proxima City.’ In a few hours, when night fell, the sign would light up, becoming an emerald beacon for the entire neighborhood.
Despite it being rush hour, Adam found plenty of parking in the lot.
“Don’t bring anything electronic with you; it might get damaged,” Malin said before getting out of the car.
“I’m not the one with implants inside my wrists,” he commented.
“They are designed to withstand it,” she replied and walked away.
Withstand, what? Who knows! Adam didn’t ask for details; it was too late to have any objections. And why should he have them? Everything had gone well so far, right? There had been no untimely power outages while descending the elevator or while driving, and no short circuits in the car’s electronic systems; nothing. Maybe that thing about not being afraid that Juzo had told him was true. He left his phone in the glove compartment following Malin’s recommendation and followed her, intrigued.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
As they headed for the alley, giving way to passers-by hurrying down the same narrow path, Adam fell behind Malin, and unable to contain his untimely lust, watched her from behind. The movement of her legs, her butt… Malin was as beautiful as she was unsettling. Even the gauze patch that now covered her shoulder and the dried blood on her T-shirt only intensified that strange feminine roughness she exuded so naturally; the same one he’d sensed when he’d first seen her in the elevator.
“I can send you a picture if you want,” she said, not even looking at him.
Blushing, Adam shook his head to shake off all the erotic thoughts about the girl. What the hell had been that hormonal rapture? It was as if the carefree Adam who had died nearly two weeks ago in the hospital had returned, bringing with him a blast of teenage spirit, and forgetting about his current problems.
That was when he saw approaching, among the cars passing along the street next to them, a colossal and shiny gray sedan that slid majestically over the asphalt, and without thinking, he turned in the direction of the wall so as not to be seen. He would recognize that model anywhere; he had helped buy it. A Clarita 15.01. And, of course, they were within the neighborhood. The driver was his friend Trevor Homam.
Of all the people who could have driven by at that moment, why Trevor?! Was it fate responding to that strange déjà vu that had led him to remember better times?
He waited for the sedan to disappear around the next corner, then turned back toward the street.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“A friend,” he said. “I don’t want him to see me with you.”
“Oh, thanks… I guess?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I prefer my boats docked at different docks,” Adam replied. “Other than my friend Sarah, Trevor is the only anchor to my normal life left intact, and I want him to stay that way. I wouldn’t want him to ask about you, and I would have to lie to him to avoid touching on... certain topics.”
“Fair enough,” Malin said, and headed down the alley between the brick walls.
The passage was about six feet wide and extended some eighty deep until it reached a wooden fence. Cardboard crates, plastic bags, acrylic sheets, and other waste abandoned by Dana’s stores were piled up there so that, judging by the presence of some old blankets on the floor, to were used by homeless people to make a night shelter. Luckily, the place didn’t smell as bad as other alleys in the city did.
They heard the creak of a door opening; Malin took Adam by the hand, and they backed away a little. A guy in a green apron came out of a side door of the mall carrying a huge bag of garbage. The guy didn’t even seem to notice them; he tossed the bag into the dumpster and headed back inside the building, closing the door behind him. Malin and Adam continued on a few more feet.
“I don’t understand what we’re doing here,” Adam said, and giggled. “You’re not gonna tell me there’s a secret passageway to Markabia or some stuff like that, are you?” But she didn’t laugh, so he got worried. “Are you?”
Malin took out the small rectangles from her pocket and re-shaped them into bracelets. “Here,” she said and handed them to him. “These are yours. Put them on.”
“What do you want me to wear them for?”
“Just do it, will you?”
Adam didn’t have time to comment, pulled the sleeves off his shirt, and adjusted the Auriga to his wrists. For some reason, he felt handcuffed. Malin grabbed him by the arm and showed him that, by pushing aside a sheet on the left bracelet, he could display a series of coordinates and tiny holographic maps over the chrome surface.
“It was a wrist phone. Now it’s a holographic GPS. Big Deal!” Adam said.
Malin entered a code on the keyboard made of light, glancing up from time to time to make sure no one had followed them into the alley.
“You work with technological equipment, right?” she said. “This is gonna blow your mind, you’ll see.” She stopped as if she had remembered something. “Oh! You don’t have heart conditions, right? You know, high blood pressure, heart attacks...”
Adam’s eyes went straight to hers. “Except for the part where I almost died, the other day in the hospital...” he answered, trying to guess what it was all about.
Malin hesitated for a moment but then continued to operate Adam’s bracelets, pressing cells of light. “It’s fine,” she murmured. “If you survived and now you create those fantastic Photias, it’s because you’re okay. Don’t worry.”
“Well, now I’m really worrying,” he said warily.
Malin finished what she was doing with Adam’s Auriga, then activated the holographic data from her own bracelets and repeated what she had done with his, even marking the same cells.
“Done!”
The bracelets beeped, and then…