Gracie slowed at the top of the stairs.
A line of windows along one side of the vast room let in the moonlight. Clothes rails in one section, much like Olga had seen in several other shops. But in another section, there were steel frames from old tables, chairs, and beds. Then in another corner of the huge room sat a line of off-white plastic boxes with windows on the front. The glass remained in most of them, albeit with a spider-webbing of cracks. Those that had lost their screens were filled with wires like some of the other dead machines in this city. “What is this place?” Olga said.
“It used to be a department store.”
“A what?”
“A massive shop that sold everything you could want, from clothes to furniture to electronics.”
Olga’s eyes stung with her sweat. She wiped them with her dirty sleeve. “Why didn’t people just make what they wanted?”
“It was easier not to.”
“Huh?”
A second to catch her breath, Gracie gulped with a dry click.
Olga swallowed against the same parched itch, her saliva a paste in her arid mouth.
“There was a time,” Gracie said, “when people travelled from one side of this world to the other. They’d gotten so good at it, it worked out cheaper and easier to get someone in a faraway country to make something for you and bring it over.”
“What? That’s impossible.”
“I think—” Gracie leaned forwards and rested her hands on her knees “—the word you’re looking for is unsustainable.”
“Don’t tell me what words I’m looking for.”
Gracie raised an eyebrow. “Well, it was.”
Max, Artan, Dianna, and Hawk all joined them one at a time, bursting from the top of the stairs. Gracie leaned to one side, looking past them. “Where are Matilda and William?”
Olga ran back and peered down into the darkness. She turned her palms to the sky and shook her head. “They’ve gone.”
“What the hell?” Gracie said. “Is it that hard to listen to what I say?”
“Maybe they had a better plan,” Olga said.
“And what plan’s that? To get themselves killed?”
Olga balled her fists. “We’re not wet behind the ears, you know? We’ve been through enough shit to help us make good choices. If they’ve gone a different way, it’s for a good reason. Maybe they don’t trust you.”
“Really? After all I’ve done.”
“After all you’ve done?” Olga stepped towards Gracie only to meet Max’s restraining arm.
Gracie shook her head. “So what do we do now?”
“We wait,” Artan said. “They’ll be here. We just need—”
A white searchlight glare cut across the abandoned store. The deep hum of a drone’s propellers. The flying disc shot through one of the window frames on the far side, tearing across the decaying junk.
“I’m going,” Gracie said. “It’s your choice if you come with me or not.”
While the girl who’d led them this far weaved through the rails and remnants of a long-forgotten life, Olga, Artan, Max, Hawk, and Dianna waited.
“Look, Artan,” Olga said. “We’re in this together, and we stand by you.” The drone’s thrumming buzz grew louder. “But what good are we to the others if we’re dead?”
As if backing up Olga’s argument, the whir of the drone’s guns spun. The ends lit up as red rings before the stuttered burst of bullet fire spewed forth. They all ducked. The bullets played percussion on their environment.
If they waited any longer, they’d lose sight of Gracie. “Come on.” Olga tugged Artan’s hand. The first step kick-started him into action. They ran after Gracie, Olga at the front.
The drone’s light showed them the way. They had a fifty-foot lead on the machine. Gracie about another fifty feet ahead of them. Then she vanished.
“What the fuck?” Hawk said.
The drone gained on the group. The ting of bullets hit the surrounding metal. But it fired less than before. It must have been running out of ammo. If only they knew how much it had left.
Gracie had dropped through a hole in the floor. Just about wide enough for a person. The drone wouldn’t be able to follow.
Olga dropped to her front and slid backwards. Gracie caught her and helped her land.
The rest went through one at a time. Artan slid through last, pausing for one last check.
“Still no sign of them?” Olga said.
A shake of his head, Artan moved aside while holding his arms above him as protection. Chips of floor tile sprayed down on them. Red-hot streaks from where the bullets flew over the hole. The drone got closer. Its attack chewed into the floor where they’d stood, but it couldn’t get an angle on them.
Stairs at the opposite end of the building like the ones they’d climbed to avoid the drone originally, Gracie reached them first and shoulder-barged through the steel door. This time, she led them down.
Small windows let in some light, but not enough. Olga ran on faith, following the sound of Gracie’s steps, wincing every time her foot landed in case it twisted beneath her.
They’d climbed four floors to get to the shop above, but they now went down five. No windows on the final two floors, they ran blind. A metal rail on her right, pockmarked with rust, Olga held onto it for guidance, the friction like sandpaper against her palm. A white flash slammed through her vision when she collided with Gracie nose-first. Her eyes watered and her sinuses burned. She shoved the girl in front of her. “You could have fucking told me you’d stopped.”
As Olga said it, Artan slammed into her back, sending all three of them sprawling.
Hawk fell over them next before Olga finally called, “Max! Dianna! Slow down! We’ve stopped at the bottom of the stairs.”
When they were all back on their feet, and Max and Dianna had joined them, Gracie said, “Follow me.”
The creak of old hinges helped Olga pinpoint the door’s location. She reached out, the steel barrier cold and rough with
