Broken Pixels (Broken Realms, #4)

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 7In the distance, beyond the slow-moving traffic, a flash of orange light danced off the ash and clouds hanging over the city. A black mushroom of smoke rolled up from the horizon and expanded rapidly, darkening the skies even more. Mara tore away her gaze from the scene ahead and looked in neighboring lanes at passengers in the vehicles that inched along the interstate.

Each stared ahead with an expression of horror and disbelief. In one car, a mother covered her son’s eyes with her hand and then pulled him to her, holding his head down, while she remained transfixed on the happenings before her.

“There was some kind of explosion. Close to downtown,” Mara said.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the city was under some kind of aerial bombardment, but I haven’t seen any planes in the air. Whatever it is, the destruction is significant,” Ping said.

Mara pressed her cheek to the window and looked into the sky. “Maybe I’m just a little skittish after tussles with the dragon and whatnot, but I’m feeling like a sitting duck here on this highway, especially since we aren’t going anywhere fast.”

Sam pointed to a road sign ahead that indicated an exit for the Lloyd Center and said, “It looks as if robots like shopping malls too. We could get off here.” The van was about two hundred feet away, inching toward the sign. No cars were in the exit lane.

“We’re not using the R word, remember?” Mara said. “It’s kind of odd that none of the cars are taking the exit. Do you think we can somehow get this thing to alter its course?” Mara asked.

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask nicely?”

She looked up at the speaker in the ceiling and said, “State our destination, please.”

The pleasant feminine voice of the vehicle replied, “Our destination is Repository 97210.”

Mara rolled her eyes and said, “I know that, but what is the address?”

“Repository 97210 has no street address. It is located in northwest Portland on a private access road to the east of Saint Helens Road. Would you like the exact coordinates?” the voice asked.

“No, that’s not necessary. Are you planning on taking the Fremont Bridge?”

“Our present route will take us to Interstate 5, exiting onto the Fremont Bridge via Highway 30.”

“Given the traffic, can you estimate how long it will take us to arrive at the repository?”

“If current conditions persist, it will take three hours and twenty-two minutes.”

“Whoa, we could be in Seattle in less time. Would it be faster to take surface streets? Maybe we could cut across Lloyd District and take MLK to the bridge. What about that?”

“Suggested revised route would take approximately one hour and fifteen minutes, if conditions persist. However, several emergency response zones are currently active along that route. Revised route is not recommended.”

Mara turned to Ping and said, “What do you think? You want to sit here and inch across town all day, or should we risk the emergency zones, whatever those are?”

Ping craned forward and looked out the right side of the windshield—to the north—and said, “I don’t see any smoke rising from that direction. Frankly, if I was at the wheel, I’d take the exit—it looks safer than whatever is happening directly ahead.”

Mara lifted her chin and said to the ceiling, “Override the existing route. Take the Lloyd Center exit and whatever surface streets to go to the Fremont Bridge.”

“Revised route implemented,” the voice acknowledged.

After another five minutes of creeping forward, the van took the ramp which shot straight off the highway for less than half a block and ended at a Stop sign. They turned right on a two-lane road that ran alongside Holladay Park, which Mara knew was across the street from the mall just a block to the north. A dozen figures carrying armfuls of clothing and boxes ran through the trees, zigzagging to avoid picnic tables and benches, seemingly staying off the well-defined brick and concrete walkways. A flash of blue light and the squawk of a siren rang out from the north—a police cruiser inched into the park along one of the wider sidewalks and stopped. The front doors popped open, and two police officers dashed after the others.

Mara rolled down her window and watched the action in the park as their vehicle headed north. When it turned right again, she lost sight of the park. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a Macy’s sign and a long multilevel parking garage. They were circling to the west of the Lloyd Center Mall. They took a left and passed in front of a Sears department store—from which flooded dozens of people with armfuls of merchandise, pushing and shoving each other to get past the glass doors. Those who escaped the crowd ran into the parking lot, fanning out in every direction. Several people pushing carts carrying large appliance boxes rammed a path through the knot of people, hurtling into the parking lot, slamming into pedestrians and vehicles without pausing.

“What do you think is going on?” Mara asked, looking at Ping.

“Without knowing the specifics of the shopping conventions of the people in this realm, if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that these people are looting the stores,” he said.

The van passed Marshalls, where more shoppers pushed their way out the door carrying more clothing. In that parking lot, two women were in a tug-of-war over a pink sweater.

“I figured out the looting part, the question is why are they looting?”

“Looting behavior generally results from a breakdown of social covenants associated with traumatic events. For example, during wars or catastrophes. People’s innate survival instincts kick in when they conclude their society can no longer guarantee the necessities of life—food, clothing or other material needs. They take what they need before it becomes unavailable.”

“You’re saying these people have been through something so traumatic that they feel they need to steal to survive?” Mara asked.

“That would be one plausible explanation. Of course we have to remember that, while these people appear quite similar to us, they are very different, and their motivations or what they consider traumatic might be very distinct from what we would expect.”

Having left the mall behind, the van came to a stop at an intersection next to the parking lot of a pub. The door of the establishment swung open, and a man staggered toward the curb and fell to his knees, where he vomited on the sidewalk just a few feet from the van.

Sam cringed and said, “I guess that answers the question about whether they eat—or rather, drink—considering the foaminess of what that man spewed on the sidewalk.”

A woman with a cigarette dangling from her lips stood in the doorway of the pub, yelling for the man to come back. He looked up from the sidewalk, waved and nodded.

The van turned left.

“I didn’t have the opportunity to meet your friend Cam, but I assumed that people who would commit themselves to living as synthetic beings would have found the means to improve on the design of humanity and do something about foibles such as avarice and gluttony,” Ping said.

“I’m no expert, but, based on our short time with Cam, I’m guessing something else is going on than design flaws or poor maintenance,” Mara said. “These people need more than a tune-up.”

She pointed to a bank as they passed. Two men sitting in a pickup truck had chained their bumper to the front of an ATM and were currently sending up a cloud of smoke from their spinning back tires. It didn’t look like they were having much luck carting off the money machine. Mara turned away as the van continued down the block.

After a couple miles, in which they did not see any more felons or shoplifters, the van stopped at an intersection, and cross-traffic proceeded in front of them. Mara leaned closer to the windshield, eyed the corner and said, “There are no traffic lights. The van just stopped on its own, right before traffic cut across our path. There is some kind of tower with a beacon on the corner.”

Ping leaned forward from the rear bench and said, “There’s a light flashing on the side of it. I think it’s a pedestrian crosswalk. If they don’t need traffic lights to know when to stop, why would they need pedestrian signals? Cam has demonstrated that he has the ability to receive signals, so why would anyone here need them?”

“For the kids. If they’re regular flesh-and-blood people, they wouldn’t be able to hear the signals,” Sam suggested.

Ping nodded. “That would make sense, I suppose.”

“Why do they have road signs at all? I mean, they should be able to receive geolocating information without having to stop and read the signs. Wouldn’t they?” Mara asked.

“Good question. Perhaps we’ll have the opportunity to ask someone before we return home,” Ping said.

Traffic stopped flowing in front of them, and the van made a right turn onto Martin Luther King Boulevard. It was packed with vehicles which moved at a slow but steady pace. The skies ahead appeared clear of smoke.

Mara leaned out the open window and looked toward downtown. Smoke streamed from the ground upward, darkening the clouds and putting a pall over everything behind them.