[8] The Survivors

[Piper Juunanagou]

The gunshots were slowly starting to die down. The once deafening roar of the battalion’s energy guns was now barely more than a few pockets of grunts and whimpers amidst the disheveled remains of the mall’s food court. Near the center of the calamity, Piper found herself surrounded by a group of felled soldiers. All of the mercenaries were resting silently atop the shattered tiles and uprooted pipes that blanketed the floor of the area.

A surprised shout caught the woman’s ear and pulled her attention up toward the second floor balcony. Narrowing her eyes, Piper tightened her grip on Trisha’s dagger, but before she had a chance to so much as draw a second breath, an unconscious soldier came plummeting over the top of the broken railing. With a resounding thud, the man crashed through a thick plastic table.

“Impressive,” Piper said with a grin as she turned her attention back to the balcony where Kaden was standing victoriously. “Is that the last of them?” The medic asked as the courier vaulted over what remained of the guard rail and landed calmly next to the solider he had just bested.

“Where’s Sophia?” The courier inquired as he rose to a fully vertical stance and began to scan the food court with his glowing eyes. After a brief moment of silence, Kaden closed his eyes, and when they snapped back open, the shimmer had dissipated. “Found her,” he said proudly as he began to sprint towards a corridor on the opposing side of the food court.

“Is she alone?” Piper asked after catching up to her male companion.

“She has a few very dim sources around her, so I imagine she incapacitated anyone who tried to apprehend her,” he shot back as the twosome entered the hallway and proceeded to take a quick left turn. Upon rounding the corner, they immediately colliding with Sophia, who had been rushing back to the food court to reunite with the pair. With muffled thuds, the three of them all somehow wound up sitting on the flood with mildly dumbfounded looks on their faces.

And then the amazing happened: One of them began to laugh.

Just like that, they were all laughing. It wasn’t that they had at last lost all semblances of sanity—on the contrary—Kaden, Piper, and Sophia finally had a moment where the entire world wasn’t out to kill them. The last twenty-four hours had been filled with death, destruction, betrayal, and trauma, but at last, they could take some time to unwind. At last, they could take a break from being hunted and stalked, and for a moment, they could be normal people without a care in the world…

Or at least, they thought they could.

“Attention all employees and customers,” someone announced from the mall’s bevy of overhead speakers. The female voice was drab and slightly robotic, leading Piper to imagine it was probably a computer. “This facility will self-destruct in two minutes. All employees should report to the back staging area, and all patrons should exit via the main or side doors. Thank you for shopping with us today, and we hope you visit us again.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Piper shouted as she vaulted up off the tiled floor and to her feet. “Do either of you have a watch?” She asked as she tapped her bare wrist with her index finger.

“Sorry,” Kaden replied with a frown as the woman’s voice was replaced by a loud, booming siren that filled every nook and cranny of the empty mall. “We need to move…now!” He shouted over the wail of the siren as Piper reached down and picked up one of the heavy energy guns. With a nod, the medic began to fiddle around with the overly elaborate weapon. After a couple of tense moments, it hummed to life and she flashed her friends a satisfied smile.

“Come on,” Sophia urged as she took a handful of steps down the hallway. “There should be an exit near the end of this corridor,” she added after taking a moment to skim over the large schematic of the map hanging on the wall a few yards away.

“Then let’s get going,” Piper shot back as she broke into a sprint. Above their heads, the computerized woman chimed in with a notification that they only had ninety seconds until the mall blew sky high.

What kind of asshole programs a mall to self-destruct? The redhead thought as they trio hauled down the hallway as fast as their tired legs could carry them. As they drew closer to the hallway’s end, they found themselves staring at one of Trisha’s handy dandy super gates. With a frustrated scream, Piper gave the weapon’s trigger a violent yank and sprayed the energy-infused katchin with a couple seconds of machinegun fire.

“It’s not working!” Kaden yelled over the roar of the gun as its bullets struck the metal gate and fizzled out like dying stars. Lowering her weapon, the redhead bit down on her lower and turned the weapon upon a nearby store. With a pull of the trigger, she reduced the elaborate front of the convenience store to a giant, gaping hole.

“We’ll just go around it,” Piper replied with a frown as she lowered the heavy weapon and hopped over the debris. In the background, she heard the woman inform them that they only had less than a minute before they would burn with the mall. “Come on, come on,” the woman shouted as she ripped her way through the first wall she saw. As all the components of the unnecessarily thick wall were torn to pieces, Piper couldn’t help but listen as the robotic woman continued to loop—each time updating the group on how much time they had lost.

Stepping up beside their companion, Kaden and Sophia lifted their hands and unleashed a dazzling blast of energy that cleared away the wall. With nothing more than a faint smile, Piper and her two allies made their way through the hole and into the neighboring store. Once inside, they quickly located the exit, and with no need for the clunky weapon, the medic hurtled it through the glass door. Above their heads, the computerized voice informed them that they only had thirty seconds left to escape.

“Home free,” Kaden shouted as the trio spilled out into the main hallway and then promptly proceeded to smash through the large exit door.

As Piper and her allies emerged from the mall, they were greeted with a cool blast of air. If they had more time, they undoubtedly would have taken a moment to enjoy some air that didn’t smell like decayed flesh or burning plastic. Unfortunately, the more pressing business was that of the giant, two-story building behind them that was going to blow sky-high in less than thirty seconds.

“Hey, it’s a car!” Sophia shouted as she pointed with her index finger toward a large military truck a few yards away. As they drew closer, the medic realized it was a personnel transport vehicle and undoubtedly the means with which the soldiers had reached the mall.

“Go,” Piper demanded as she teleported next to the vehicle. Without a moment’s hesitation, she threw open the door only to find that there was no driver; however, the keys were in the ignition and the car was actually already started. “In the back…hurry!” The medic shouted as she switched the car into drive and took a glance through the side mirror. Once she’d verified that Kaden and Sophia had made it safely into the back of the truck, Piper slammed the gas down to the floor, and the vehicle bolted forward toward the nearby road.

With a thud, the vehicle smashed through the nearby railing and onto the bordering road. As Piper cranked the wheel to the left and gave the truck’s gas pedal another violent slam, the mall that was only a hundred feet or so behind them erupted upward like an active volcano. Through the small window that connected the front of the vehicle to the rear compartment, Piper saw that Kaden and Sophia were safely strapped into two of the safety harness attached to the compartment’s metal frame.

Glancing once more through her side mirror, Piper let out a sigh of relief when she saw that they had managed to get enough distance from the blast radius. With the terror of impeding doom no longer suffocating her, the woman allowed herself to relax as she turned her eyes to the road ahead of her. As she moved her eyes, however, she noticed a small slip of paper tucked into the vehicle’s ash tray.

What’s this? The woman pondered as she plucked the piece of tablet paper from the closed tray and peered at its contents. What she saw was a list of driving instructions, but instead of ending at the mall, the final destination was labeled simply ‘The Temple.’ Flipping over the paper, Piper saw a small note scribbled near the bottom. Congratulations on surviving this far, contestants. Now come and attempt to claim your prize. Signed Kai.

“Read this,” Piper shouted as she passed the note back to Kaden and then proceeded to perform a sharp u-turn. “We just got a personal invite from the man himself,” she added with a frown as she started toward the temple.