The female support unit — Becks, Maddy found herself thinking — lashed out with a fist and caught Barney in the throat. He disappeared from view.
‘Whuh?’ said the girl in the pink shirt to herself. ‘Did she just punch Joshua…?’
The male support unit’s eyes panned round and caught sight of Maddy just as she was about to duck back down out of sight. He raised his arm, something in his hand glinted. Someone screamed.
And then the gunfire started.
Chapter 21
7.29 a.m., 12 September 2001, North Haven Plaza, outside Branford
Maddy felt a warm puff of displaced air on her cheek as the shot whistled past her head. She heard the shot impact on something. A soft thud followed by a gasp.
She turned to see the girl on her knees beside her, dark crimson blossoming across her store shirt. She looked down at the blood then at Maddy, perplexed.
‘I… I… just got shot…’
Another couple of gunshots, deafening in the shop’s stillness. The baby clothes hanging from the rail above Maddy lurched and danced. A blizzard of foam stuffing erupted from a Humpty Dumpty on a shelf nearby.
Maddy remained hunched down, Foster beside her. ‘My God, we’re gonna die!’ she whimpered to him. There were raised voices outside the toystore in the mall’s main concourse. A male voice. Two of them, issuing a sharp challenge. A warning.
More shots, aiming out of the store this time.
‘Maddy… you go!’ It was Foster.
‘They’re distracted!’ she whispered. ‘Come on, let’s — ’
‘No!’ He shook his head. ‘I can slow them down. You go!’
‘Slow them down?’ She made a face. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘Not fight them… I’ll talk to them.’
More shots. One of them hit a wall nearby, showering them with flakes of plaster.
‘You can’t talk to — ’
‘They’re just like Bob! They have the exact same AI.’
‘Yeah, but… but they’re running an entirely different freakin’ mission! You step out, they’ll shoot you just as soon as look at — ’
Foster grasped her arm. ‘Maddy… I’m dead anyway.’
He didn’t need to explain that. They both knew he was dying. She knew he was dying the day he walked out of that Starbucks and left her in charge of the team. But somehow the reality of that had seemed removed. With time looping for her in New York, he was never going to die. Every time she’d gone to visit him in Central Park, he was the same old Foster. No sicker. But then, of course, he wouldn’t be. It was always the same moment for him. The same morning over and over and over.
Since she’d grabbed him from Central Park, time, for him, had advanced. Two days, that was all it had been, but enough time that she could clearly see he was getting worse. A dying man. He should be in a hospital bed, a hospice, kept comfortable on a drip perhaps, not running for his life through a shopping mall.
‘They know me,’ he said. ‘It’s enough… it’ll confuse them. They may let me talk.’
‘ Know you? ’
‘There’s no time to explain!’ He pushed her. ‘Go! Just go!’
Maddy glanced at the girl beside them. She was in shock, pale. Alive, but maybe for not much longer unless she got some help.
The gunfire was beginning to wane. Whomever the support units had been exchanging shots with outside on the concourse, police, mall security, it was nearly a done deal now.
‘Foster, I…’
He shushed her with a finger over her lips. ‘This is goodbye, Maddy. Don’t ruin it by blurting something stupid.’
She pulled his hand away. ‘Foster…’ She wanted to call him by his real name. ‘Liam…’
Foster smiled. ‘It’s a long while since I’ve been called that.’
‘Please…’ She had no idea what she wanted to say. Something meaningful. ‘ Please ’ wasn’t it. ‘ Please ’ was just so pathetically lame.
‘For the love of God, Maddy… will you just bleedin’ well go!’
‘Liam…’ she said again. ‘I, I…’
He waved her silent. ‘I loved you, Maddy. Each time. I always did. Even when I knew…’ He stopped himself. So much he wanted to say, and so little that he could in this all too short heartbeat of time. ‘Just go!’
She heard footsteps inside the store. Heavy, purposeful footsteps drawing closer.
Then, cursing herself for being a coward, for leaving him behind, she scooted on hands and feet, through aisles of chunky plastic playsets, beneath rows of fur-hooded children’s anoraks and racks of cheerily coloured wellies, perfect for little feet to stamp in autumn rain puddles. She scuttled on all fours until she finally stumbled upon the moving metal grated steps of an escalator.
Foster waited until she was out of sight, stood up, his hands raised above him. Both support units levelled their weapons at him. The male support unit was bleeding from three gunshot wounds, one to the forehead. A dark trickle of blood rolled sluggishly down between thick brows, down the side of his nose from a circle of puckered flesh above his eyes. A perfect take-down shot from some policeman or mall guard. Whoever had taken that head shot must have died wondering how a man could be shot between the eyes and shrug it off like a mere gnat bite.
‘You know me,’ said Foster.
The female support unit frowned, a hesitant, confused expression on her face. The old man standing before her looked very similar to one of the faces in her database. It wasn’t an exact match, but a very close one. Close enough that she wanted to take a couple of steps closer, see him more clearly and confirm his identity one way or the other.
‘Where are the others?’ asked Abel.
Foster shrugged. ‘Long gone.’
‘You are a part of their team?’ Halfway between a statement and a question.
‘You know me, don’t you?’ said Foster again, trying a lopsided smile. ‘It’s me. I’m your Authorized User. Now then… why don’t you lower your weapons?’
Abel narrowed his eyes. He had to admit the man standing in front of him with his hands raised did look very much like the man who had issued them their instructions: Authorized User.
He cast an uncertain glance at Faith. A glance that asked the question: Is he?
She was still working on that particular one herself.
The escalator carried Maddy slowly towards the shop’s upper floor; Baby-Toddler Wear. It was so still, so very quiet. All she could hear was the gentle hum of the escalator’s motor and the soft chime of mall music outside. Still down on her hands and knees, she decided to chance one last look. She lifted her head to see over the smoked glass side of the escalator, over the black rubber rim of the hand rail and she caught sight of Foster, standing just yards in front of the two units. His arms raised in surrender… but slowly lowering them as if the gesture of surrender was no longer necessary.
He was saying something, she could just about hear his voice, low, unclear. But it was definitely him doing the talking.
My God, he’s actually doing it! He’s actually talking them round!
For a moment there, just for a moment, she let herself believe something might go their way for once.
Then one of the units fired.
Her last image of Foster was him dropping to his knees in front of the killer meatbots. She thought she heard him swear at them, something Irish, something defiant… something so very Liam. Then, as the escalator carried her past a sales display and she finally lost sight of him, she heard four or five shots one after the other. Then one
