January 31, 2138 (Early morning, continued)
The nightmare at the mall seemed so easy at first. Yet within minutes all of our plans were at risk. As Kim shoved the Dread Youth female towards the door we could hear voices and footsteps coming up from behind us. The other Dread Youth members that were with the girl must have gotten through Dad's smoke grenade and had made their way down the hallway behind us. With the bag that I had filled I didn't know how we were going to outrun them, and I looked at Tommy to see if he was thinking like I was. He looked at me for a second, and I gave him a sideways nod in the direction of the bag I had and an obvious big eyed look. He strapped his laser over his shoulder and grabbed the bag from me, then ran towards the door.
Kim had made it to the door with the girl as the dark haired youth swung around the entrance of the store we were in and aimed his laser towards us. I yelled, "Kim, the door," as he fired once in their direction from far across the store. The glass in the door exploded and sprayed both inside and outside of the store as Kim grabbed the girl and pulled her back away from it. I fired back at the dark haired youth as he ducked back behind the open entrance and the shot flew out into the hallway and hit a wall along the side of it. I kept looking and aiming at the entrance and I could hear Kim call to Dad. He left my side and stayed low as he moved towards her, and I could see another two youths creeping into the store from the front entrance from the hallway we ran in from.
The dark haired youth popped back into the entrance and aimed at us, firing again as the other two started clearing the entrance and moved inside of the store. His shot almost hit me as it flashed by my head and hit something behind me. I fired back and hit the dark haired youth in his exposed shoulder. He fell back out into the hallway yelling out in pain. I ducked back down and I could still hear him yelling out as this wave of guilt hit me. I didn't want to hurt him, but he was trying to kill us. For a second it made me wonder why I didn't have the guilty feeling with the Cane thing as I was now with shooting this person. And I realized that it was because whoever he was, he actually believed in what he was doing. Cane was just a predator wanting to rape my sister and kill us. There was this difference, yet the problem was still the same.
Steeling myself to having to do it again, I looked over the counter again and couldn't see where the other two had gone. This scared me to death as I had no idea where they might be. For all I knew they could have been on the other side of the counter I was using for cover. Sarah had moved up next to me with what looked like some kind of a sniper rifle, and Kim came up next with one too. Maybe it was just that they were there with me, or maybe it was the intimidating look of the longer rifles they were carrying, but I suddenly felt a lot safer.
Kim looked at me and said, "There's another girl near the lift hiding behind another counter, and a guy about 20 feet inside of the store hiding behind an overturned table. I think they're waiting for one of us to go for the door again so that they can nail them as the get in the doorway. By the way, that was a nice shot on that nuisance at the entrance."
Ignoring her compliment I said, "What are we going to do?"
"We have to help Tommy and your dad to get out the door. The bag Tommy has is heavy and we have to give him some time to get through the door without those two cutting him to pieces," Kim replied.
"What about our hostage," Sarah asked.
"Oh, I strapped a wrist grenade to her. I think she'll cooperate a little better wearing that," Kim said back to her.
"What are you thinking, Kim? You put a bomb on her and she's standing right next to Tommy," I asked.
"I won't have time to put it on her later and run at the same time. Besides, if she thinks we're all suicidal I think she'll be too scared to mess with us," she said in an unconvincing way.
At that point we could hear the other female youth yelling to us, "The day of the machine is inevitable."
Then the male spoke out saying, "All things of flesh and emotion will be eliminated.
Sarah yelled back, "Yeah, we'll take care of that for you in another minute."
One of them shot at us and hit something made of glass on top of the counter we were hiding behind. It shattered and a liquid fell on top of me and Kim. Some kind of fragrance left unscathed from the war had fallen on both of us and Kim started to lose it as I could see her anger spilling over. She yelled out, "You want to rock with me?" Then she rose up and started firing back and forth in both directions that the voices were coming from. Sarah seemed to be feeding off of Kim's mood as she moved to the side of the counter and started firing her rifle at the counter near the lift. I rose up enough to see both pieces of cover that they were using burning from the energy that these rifles were firing. The table had a couple of large holes in it and the male that was hiding there must have had to move away. Otherwise he probably would have been wounded by the fragments blown out of the table.
As I glanced to the lift I could see the other girl running into it as Sarah fired at her again. She had long black hair and looked a little younger than me. More Sarah's age than mine and I was hoping that neither one of them would have to kill the other one. I ducked back down as Kim started turning her rifle in the opposite direction of the lift and started firing another two shots there. Unknown to us at that time, Dad and Tommy had both slipped out the door with the brown haired girl while Kim and Sarah were raining lasers across the store at the two youths. Maybe that was Kim's plan all along. Who could really tell with her?
Kim ducked back down and spoke to me again saying, "Watch out. He's behind the pole to the right."
Suddenly several laser shots came at us from the direction of the lift that forced Sarah back behind our now burning counter. The liquid must have been helping it catch fire even more and I knew we had to move soon before it got to one of us. The shots stopped for a second and I jumped up and fired once at the lift. The shot didn't hit inside of the lift like I wanted, but it hit the control panel outside and the door suddenly closed with the female youth inside. I could hear the female youth yelling, "No," and she started blasting the door from the inside of the lift in an attempt to get through it again.
This had gotten Kim's attention and seeing the door close was enough to get her to start shooting at the pole the other youth was hiding behind. She kept shooting while she said, "Go. Get to the lot and I'll follow you." Sarah and I both ran to the door as she kept shooting back at the male youth, who seemed unable to even stick his head out to see what was happening. Once we reached the door I could hear Dad on the communicator again saying, "Come on. There's a Phantom Striker hovering on the North side of the mall. Get out now."
I was worried that Kim would start getting fired upon as soon as she turned to run to the door, so I told Sarah to stop and we both turned at the door and started covering her as she ran to us. Both of us started firing at the pole as the male youth tried to aim his laser at Kim. I can remember seeing the flames flying up from the counter as she ran to us and a biodread emerge from the entrance of the store from the hallway. Sarah must have seen it too and blasted it right back out into the hallway as fast as it came in. Kim reached us and didn't slow down as she said, "Go," as she passed by.
Once we got outside we could see that Dad and Tommy had taken the other girl and were already across the lot and far into the trees beyond. I could hear the noise from the ship on the opposite side of the mall and we ran across the lot as fast as we could while Dad waited for us. Tommy kept moving on with the youth girl and the bag draped over his shoulder. The girl wasn't resisting and I could see the mechanical device that Kim had placed on her wrist. I couldn't help but look back as the ship remained there, hovering in the air and it made me wonder if it was the same one we saw at the power plant on the way to the mall.