The Mall of Cthulhu Page 9

  "Uh, sir, I, uh, I'm sorry, but I'm a little confused."

  "Yeah. I'm confused too. In my day, we had to pay dues before we ever got any kind of assignment worth doing. But I'm just an old white guy, some kind of dinosaur, and apparently the old rules don't apply to young women, or something. I suppose I should count myself lucky you didn't file some bullshit hostile environment claim or something, so at least you didn't take me down on your way up." He paused and glared at her like nothing would make him happier than jumping across the desk and clocking her. "Well, it's the twenty-first century. I guess we had our shot at running things, and now you get to take over. So go celebrate. You've got your wish. You're going to counter-terrorism."

  "But, sir, I . . . " she wanted to say she'd never put in for the transfer, but then she might not get to go to counter-terrorism, and whatever they were working on over there, it had to be a hell of a lot better than what she was doing here.

  "I mean, don't get me wrong. You're a good agent, you work hard, and God knows I'd give my left nut not to have to do this Whitey ATM bullshit anymore, so I don't blame you, and I don't even blame you for going around me, because if you thought I'd stand in your way, you were right, so at least they got a smart one. But I've got twelve guys in this office every bit as smart and competent as you, with more seniority, but no ovaries. That's all. Oh, yeah, they want you up there right away."

  "Thank you, sir!" Laura said, turning around and all but skipping out of the office. She'd fantasized for ages about telling McManus off, and, in the end, the best thing she could possibly do to piss him off was to smile and thank him for the transfer. Ha!

  Feeling happier than she could remember, Laura went back to her desk, decided she could clean it up later, and took a pad of paper and a pen to the elevator. Heart pounding with excitement, Laura pushed the button for the tenth floor.

  Once she reached the tenth floor, she was disappointed to see that it looked exactly like the eighth floor—a cluster of drab cubicles in the center of the room, offices with glass doors ringing the outside wall, offices with wooden doors to show you who was really important, and a couple of conference rooms. Laura noticed that counter-terror had much newer conference room furniture than organized crime. She wondered if they just moved the stuff down as it got older, until the mail fraud guys down on four got milk crates and old doors.

  Agents were bustling around, and nobody seemed to notice her. She walked tentatively over to one of the offices with a wooden door. The door was ajar, but Laura gave a knock she hoped was confident and respectful at the same time.

  "Come in!"

  Laura walked into the room and found herself facing a middle-aged Asian man. According to the nameplate on his desk, he was Mr. Nguyen. Normally she would have begun with "Mr. Nguyen, I'm Laura Harker," but she realized to her embarrassment that she wasn't really sure how to say Nguyen, which threw her off her stride, so she found herself saying, "Uh, Mr., Uh, good morning, sir, I'm Laura Harker? I was told to report here?"

  "Yeah. I just got the paperwork last night. Your transfer came in from DC. You must have some pretty powerful friends."

  "Honestly I don't, unless you count my friend who works in the coffee shop, heh-heh." Mr. Nguyen looked at her blankly, and rather than interpreting this as, "I understand that you have made a joke that is completely unfunny," Laura thought he meant he didn't understand that she'd made a joke.

  "Because, you know, everybody needs their coffee, right? He could slip them decaf, and the city would come to a halt!" Mr. Nguyen continued to look blankly at her. "Pretty powerful . . . " Laura trailed off.

  There were five agonizing seconds of silence, during which time Mr. Nguyen didn't blink. "Well, be that as it may, you're here now, and I'm always happy to get additional personnel up here, so I'm glad you're here. And I happen to have an assignment for you."

  Yes! An assignment! Cool!

  "I'm afraid it's kind of a rookie hazing thing—that is to say, I know you're not a rookie after—" he glanced at his computer screen—"three years with the bureau, but you're new up here, so I'm afraid I have to give you this.

  "We got an anonymous call about somebody trying to hit the Providence Towne Centre Mall. Now, as you probably know, malls are our softest targets, and frankly our worst nightmare, because if they start hitting malls, the economy's going to tank in a way that will put 9/11 to shame."

  "Not to mention the loss of life," Laura said, then realized she should have shut up. Too much adrenaline, and she was having trouble controlling her mouth. That was supposed to be Ted's problem.

  Mr. Nguyen looked at her for five seconds, then said, "Goes without saying. So, anyway, we got this anonymous tip about people hitting a mall, and it said they were using an abandoned building next door for planning. So I'm taking three guys off the playoffs and sending them shopping. And, I'm sending a panel van down there with some surveillance equipment to watch the building next door. You know how to run a listening rig?"

  Laura considered lying, but instead said, "No, but I did see The Conversation."

  Once again she got the look, and Mr. Nguyen said, "Great movie. Well, Agent Killilea's a great tech, he can make sure it's all running okay and you can just sit there with the headphones on."

  "Yes sir."

  "I hope you showered this morning, because you probably won't for a couple of days. It's not going to be glamorous, but try to remember two things. The first is that although the overwhelming majority of these tips turn out to be complete bullshit, there is always the possibility, however remote, that it's not bullshit, and that by doing this boring, unglamorous, ultimately thankless job, you're going to save hundreds or thousands of lives."

  Laura felt a little swell of pride. Now this was why she got into law enforcement.

  "And if that's not sufficient motivation, picture yourself in DC with fifty cameras in your face answering questions from some pole-up-the-ass senator about why you didn't prevent this horrible attack. Get the picture?"

  "Yes sir."

  "Good. You'll find Killilea in the third cubicle on the right. Get to it."

  "Yes sir." The spring was back in Laura's step. The chase was on! And even though nobody knew it, nobody could know it, she was responsible for this assignment. Which meant that if it turned out to be a bust, she'd be suffering more than anyone, sweaty and constipated in the back of the van, but if it was for real, she'd be an honest-to-God law enforcement hero. Pretty damn cool.

  She really wanted to call Ted and tell him the good news, but Killilea had to brief her for what seemed like hours but was only forty-five minutes, and when they gave her an hour to get home, get changed, and get back, she stole time in her apartment as she pulled on comfortable stakeout clothes and called Ted.

  "Hey, boss!" he said.

  "Ted, guess what? Ugh, no, you know, no bra is eighteen hour, no matter what they say—"

  "You called to tell me that?"

  "No, no no. I'm multi-tasking because I'm in a hurry. But I got transferred, I don't know how or why, but I'm not gonna argue, and I'm staking out a certain place adjacent to a certain place of power! Today!"

  "Thank God. Because I woke up at four, totally freaking out about how I'm going to get killed, how this thing is way bigger than we thought it was, how I was over my head, I'm a crappy secret agent."

  "Well, with a couple of notable exceptions, you've done great so far."

  "I know, I know! Hey, what the hell are these things you bought for me to sell at the pushcart?"

  "Two gross of cell phone covers for a model Nokia no longer makes. They were very cheap, and I don't want you distracted from your real work by having any actual customers."

  "Cool!"

  "Alright, I gotta go. I gotta turn my phone off while I'm doing the surveillance, but I'll call you when I can. Be careful—you're on your own for a few hours."

  "I got it!"

  Nine

  When the FedEx guy—white, red-faced and grumpy, had arrived at T
ed's apartment, he'd had a moment of panic until he realized that the guy was most likely delivering the cell phone covers and not here to kill him for trying to prevent the summoning of the Old Ones. Sure enough, Ted signed for the package and the FedEx guy went on his surly but peaceful way. Carrying his wares, Ted trudged down to the Providence Towne Centre. He was trying to think more like an undercover agent, and right now he was thinking that lugging a couple of big, clear plastic bags full of crap down the street was not the greatest way to stay inconspicuous.

  Once at the mall, Ted wandered around looking for the management office, because he had no idea where his unpushable pushcart was located. Eventually he saw a narrow, linoleum-tiled hallway tucked in between the Wilsons Leather and Natural Wonders. He walked back until he came to a white metal door that said, in plain black letters, "Mall Office."

  Ted opened the door and found himself in a small, white room, lit by fluorescents in the drop ceiling. In the center of the room was a nondescript brown desk, and behind the desk was a middle-aged black man in a blue suit.

  "Uh, hi, I'm Jonathan, uh, Salem? The lady at the Harker company sent me down here to sell stuff at a pushcart?"

  The guy extended his hand and said, "John Thomas." Ted shook his hand and used all the energy at his disposal to suppress a fit of giggles that was fighting its way to his mouth. "Yes. I currently have two cart vacancies. Your employer didn't express a preference, so I guess it's up to you. I've got one outside Industrial Dessert Company, and one outside Ye Olde New England Candlery."

  Near where Cayenne worked! Score! Also, up there on the third level, he could keep watch on more of the mall than he could on the first level. Ted tried to quiet the part of his brain that said he'd need at least four other people to really watch the mall effectively.

  "Uh, well, I like the candle smell better than the smell of the food at Industrial Dessert, so I guess I'll take that one."

  "Are you sure? That first-floor location sees a lot of foot traffic."

  "But not enough to keep the cart in business, huh?"

  "No, they were doing great—I just got too many complaints from family diners that they had to explain to little Jimmy what a novelty condom cart was, like little Jimmy doesn't know that from sneaking down and watching Cinemax on Friday night, but whatever. I don't see how they could object to their precious angels seeing some cell phone covers."

  "All the same, I think I'd rather have the candle one."

  "Okay. You know where it is?"

  "Yeah."

  "You got signage?"

  "Sorry?"

  "Signage? You know, a sign?"

  "Oh. They didn't provide me with one."

  "Well, I'll let you open today, but tomorrow you have to have one up. Here's a sheet with the approved fonts, sizes, materials, and manufacturers. Make sure they get one here soon. All the carts have to have signage."

  "Okay. Signage. Got it."

  The mall manager rose and shook Ted's hand, and Ted walked back from the spartan office to the relative opulence of the mall. He took the first escalator up and walked for a full five minutes until he came to the empty pushcart.

  He threw his bags down and looked at the Rings and Things cart. The stool was empty. No sign of Cayenne.

  Well, that was fine anyway. He wasn't here to flirt. He was here to surveil. Or whatever. Look. Watch. Keep the mall under surveillance. He hoped the FBI was watching. He did feel good knowing that Laura was around somewhere, even if he didn't know where. He wasn't alone.

  He was ravenously hungry, though. Laura had been so excited and had gotten off the phone so quickly that he'd forgotten to ask about another cash infusion. He really didn't know how he was going to get any money. His merchandise was specially designed not to sell, and anyway, as he looked at the cart, he realized that he was supposed to provide his own cash register. Which he didn't have. While he hoped the FBI was watching carefully enough to prevent any attempt to call forth the Old Ones, he also hoped the FBI didn't look too closely at him, because if they were at all observant, they'd notice that he was only somebody who was pretending to work at a pushcart.

  Ted moved the stool to the end of the cart closest to Cayenne's cart and tried to remember to look alert. But what was he looking for, anyway? He'd only recognize one of the cultists. Would they walk in here with a gigantic leather-bound book and a bunch of bayberry spice candles and draw a big old chalk circle on the floor and invoke their evil masters? Or would they just mumble something under their breaths and rip open a hole in the fabric of reality, bringing gigantic octopus-headed evil deities through to romp through Providence?

  Ted suddenly felt like his stomach was clenching around a block of ice as he pondered what it would really look like to have the Old Ones loosed upon the earth. Would it really be the end of the world? Would the Old Ones prefer to rule over a barren wasteland with bad geometry, or would they be happy to have insignificant human gnats doing their bidding? Would seeing them drive everybody completely insane? Ted figured the best-case scenario if the cultists succeeded was that these giant monsters would go on a Godzilla-style rampage and kill tens or even hundreds of thousands of people before the US military took them down. And the worst-case scenario was that life on Earth would be transformed into an unfathomable nightmare forever. Ugh.

  Ted looked at the old people in their white walking shoes strolling by, at the hot young moms pushing strollers, at the teens obviously skipping school, and he envied them their ignorance. They went to bed every night thinking vampires were just something from the movies, and that horrific alien Gods were just figures out of overwritten horror fiction. They had no idea that everything they cared about or valued was teetering along like a unicycle-riding clown on a tightrope.

  Well, this was a depressing line of thought. Ted tried to call back the heroic adventurer he'd believed himself to be, the one who was active in the face of danger, the one who was going to win. He suspected that guy wouldn't come back until he'd eaten something.

  He went back to putting the old cell phone covers up on the little shelves. Just as he was deciding where to put the last of the Hulk movie tie-in cell phone covers, Ted saw Cayenne walking toward her post with a gigantic cup and a small bag from Queequeg's. "Hey! Cayenne!" Ted called.

  Cayenne looked up and smiled. "Hey, Jonathan. You weren't kidding about coming back, huh?"

  "Yeah." He tried to think of something else to say. Because I am hunting devotees of horrifying deities? Because you're hot? Because I am pursuing a career in obsolete merchandise sales?

  "So." She said. "Did you ever get any food?"

  Ted smiled. "You know, I didn't. I'm having some difficulty accessing my money right at the moment . . . "

  "All your assets tied up in obsolete cell phone skins?"

  "Something like that. So, no, I haven't eaten anything since lunch yesterday. I think I'm going to have a mystical experience."

  "Well, do you wanna eat my muffin?"

  Ted stared at Cayenne for far longer than he should have. Finally he realized she was holding out the small bag from Queequeg's and actually offering him a baked good. "Oh wow, that is really sweet. Are you sure? I mean, I don't want to poach your mid-morning snack."

  "I had breakfast. Go ahead."

  Ted opened the bag, saw the famous Queequeg's double-chocolate muffin, and had a brief flash of exploding glass and crumbs when Half-caf had shot up the baked goods just a few days and an entire lifetime ago. He felt a brief upswell of nausea as he remembered the gore everywhere, the intestines, the brains, the blood. With a great effort, he turned off the movie of the shooting, banished the horrible images from his mind ("If you're going to wake me up screaming every night, you can at least have the courtesy to leave me alone during the day," he told them.), and took a bite of the muffin.

  Suddenly his mouth was filled with saliva, and he thought his brain might explode with pleasure as he ate the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. He looked up seconds later and realized
that Cayenne was looking at him slack-jawed, and that stuffing his face like that might not have been the best impress-the-strange-but-hot-girl move.

  "Wow." She said. "You really were hungry."

  "Yeah," Ted said, crumbs dribbling from his mouth. He could feel himself blushing.

  "So," Cayenne said. "What brings you to an exciting career in pushcart sales?"

  Shit! Ted had no cover story at all! How could he be so stupid? What could he possibly say? He tried to stall. "I will tell you, but how about you first."

  "Are you sure you want to hear it? It's actually a really sad and weird story."

  "Are you sure you want to tell me? I mean, I didn't mean to get personal . . . "

  "Well, see, that's hard, because when you have some horrible thing happen, then everything relates back to that, and so even the most innocuous question gets personal."

  Ted didn't know exactly what to feel. He felt that Cayenne might be a kindred spirit, somebody as traumatized as him. On the other hand, she barely knew him and was verging into what was probably going to be oversharing territory. His crazy-o-meter was beeping, and he was afraid the full crazy klaxon alarm would sound in his mind if he let her keep talking, so he had to steer the conversation to more innocuous territory.

  "Okay, okay, let's save that stuff for later, then. Tell me about a childhood injury."

  She told him about a tire swing and a broken arm, and just as Ted was getting ready to tell the story of when he'd been pushed off a slide and bitten a hole in his cheek, a pack of teens approached Cayenne's cart and peppered her with questions. Ted took the opportunity to look around the mall, and he realized he should've been doing this all along. He felt a little bit guilty about being a crappy secret agent, especially with the fate of the Earth, or at least Providence, hanging in the balance.

  So he looked around and tried to take in everything he could see about the atrium end of the mall. Two white-haired, white-sneakered matrons were making a circuit of the mall. Were they really geriatric fitness walkers, or were they just unlikely cultists? He reminded himself to watch them. Nobody else looked too out of the ordinary, but, of course, to judge by Mr. Average, the cultists didn't look too out of the ordinary. There were two guys in sunglasses wandering around down in front of the video game store. They were carrying big shopping bags that were obviously way too light to be stuffed with purchases. They wore jackets that looked a little too bulky even for the mid-spring temperature outside, much less for the seventy-one climate-controlled degrees in the mall. He hoped they were FBI guys, and he hoped they were being so obvious so they could act as deterrents to people hoping to rend the space-time fabric. The other options were that they were cultists preparing to provide covering fire when the ritual went down, or that they were FBI agents trying and failing to be inconspicuous.