John was wandering the mall a little over an hour later, fresh tricks in hand. Him and the store clerk had ended up chatting over a shared love of esports, especially one of the newest hit games Samurai Rush. The clerk had gotten a ticket to the next tournament in Las Vegas in a couple months.
He looked around, there were a couple promising looking storefronts but on closer inspection they all had additional security that would probably cause problems. He moved on and blended into the river of foot traffic.
Soon enough he came to an area he tends to avoid, a four way intersection. While arguably one of the best places for someone of his profession to perform, the mall security also knew this and often had a higher presence here. Looking around though, he didn’t see any guards.
He decided to take advantage of his stroke of luck and looked around for a good spot to set up. He quickly spotted an area between a few pots holding synth plants where the congestion let up a bit, leaving a perfect spot for him to set up without disrupting the flow of traffic enough to immediately trigger the automated shopping efficiency scanners.
John stood in the center and began to shuffle his deck of cards, slowly at first he rapidly sped up and began including a few tricks. He popped a card into the air and snagged it from the air a few inches away from a woman walking by, offering an apologetic smile. He added it back to the deck and then sent the cards flying from one hand to the next in a line. A small crowd began to slow down and observe him before moving along.
He decided it was time to break out one of his larger tricks. He pulled out a small length of rope and handed it to one of the young men nearby. “Good sir, this is a single length of rope correct?”
“Uh…yes?” He asked hesitantly, not sure of what was happening.
“Wonderful! If I may have it back? Thank you. Now, observe as I cut it half.” John pulled out a knife he had sitting in his pocket and ‘cut’ the rope in half. He handed one half to the young man.
“Now, one would assume you can’t fix this without splicing it right?” A few small nods met his query, “But what if I told you I had a way to do just that?”
Taking the half back from the young man, John briskly rubbed both pieces together before slowly pulling one half out of his closed fist. Soon enough he revealed a whole length of rope again.
Some light applause met his trick while a few of the people left to continue their shopping. A couple of them tossed a cred chip his way as they left.
John pulled out his deck of cards again and began shuffling it as he talked. “So, who here is feeling lucky today?”
A few interested looks met his gaze, but nobody stepped forward. “None of you? Truly? Well that is simply a shame. Perhaps we should change that. You there, with the fabulous top!” He pointed out a girl wearing a flashy long sleeve shirt. “What is your favorite card? Any card at all.”
The girl in question stood shocked, eyes wide. “Uh, Two of Spades?”
“Wonderful!” he shouted as he spun with a flourish. “Now, just having you draw a card would be boring, no? So instead, we’ll have to catch it!”
With that last shout, John began to launch cards in the air. Some of them he sent straight up, some of them he sent flying out into the crowd only to curve around like boomerangs. At one point he juggled five cards flying around the young woman. At first she seemed a bit startled, but gradually she gained a look of wonder as she watched the cards careen around her.
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With a final flourish, John stopped the flying cards and flicked one last card into the air above her. Her eyes locked on it as it slowly drifted to land in her outstretched hands. She cradled the card like it would fly away at any second.
“Well? What card do you have there?” John asked with a smirk as he made the deck disappear into one of his pockets.
The young woman looked at the card in her hands, smiling widely as she held it out, “It’s the Two of Spades! How did you do that?”
John thumbed his nose, “Now, now. A magician never reveals their secrets.”
He turned from the young woman and began observing the crowd trying to decide what trick to do next. As he looked though he noticed a disturbance in the shopping crowd just beyond the boundary of his meager gathering. As he looked closer he caught sight of the black uniform of three members of mall security making their way towards him.
“Now folks, as much as I would love to stick around to dazzle and amaze, I am needed elsewhere. For my last trick, I shall perform the disappearing mag–”
Before he could finish his sentence there comes a tremendous crashing sound from the direction of the mall security. His head snapped around along with the rest of the gathered crowd, there was a cloud of dust billowing out and the muffled screams of people injured from whatever happened. Squinting, John was just able to make out some forms moving in the dust.
He took a half step closer in an attempt to get a better look only to stumble back in shock a half second later. From the cloud of dust, a dog-like creature leapt through the air to land on a shopper that was laying on the ground. The creature was a mottled green and brown with two eyes stacked one on top of the other in the middle of its face. Its triple hinged jaw opened wide and snapped towards the shoppers face, silencing their screams.
As if the Model Three leaping from the dust cloud and eating a shopper wasn’t enough to tell John he was now living his worst nightmare, the notification that popped up in his augs solidified that.
ALERT! ALERT! INCURSION DETECTED IN YOUR AREA. PLEASE EVACUATE TO THE NEAREST SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL!
A beat of silence followed the incursion alert that appeared for every person nearby. The world seemed to take a deep breath before the screaming began. The floor shook as a stampede of panicked shoppers ran away from the group of Antithesis that spilled out of a hole in the floor where the mall security had been.
John stood in shock before somebody shoved him out of the way as they ran. Shaking his head clear he joined the crowd in running towards the nearest shelter. Unfortunately, the easiest shelter to get to was halfway through the mall with its winding hallways. What was a layout designed to increase customer engagement was about to become the reason the vast majority of shoppers would not make it to the shelter.
The crowd surged down one of the hallways leaving the intersection. There was another, smaller, intersection a short way down this hall that they could turn down and would lead them down the fastest path to the shelter. The leading edge of the crowd reached the intersection and turned, only for it to erupt in screams.
Over the heads of the horde in front of him John saw bodies go flying. He attempted to move in another direction but the crowd behind him had not yet realized the issue. He began to be jostled and shoved in directions he didn’t want to go, eventually he ended up being shoved into a nearby store and watched as the crowd surged by the entrance, far too thick and chaotic for him to be able to safely join again.
He attempted to insert himself into the crowd anyway, but every time he did he had to dive back into the store before he was trampled. John decided to accept his lot and instead attempt to barricade himself in the back room of this store and hope against hope the Antithesis wouldn’t find him. Turning to observe the shop he found himself in, he realized he had been thrown into a clothing shop.
He moved towards the back of the shop and the employee areas. Coming to a door, he tried the handle. Unsurprisingly it was locked. He turned towards the register and began digging around the desk area.
‘Come on, nobody who works these jobs wants to carry their keycard all the time. I always hid mine way in the back.’ Luckily, it seemed the last clerk had the same idea and John found a keycard buried in the back corner under some paperwork.
Going back to the door he scanned the card and breathed a sigh of relief as the scanner beeped green and the door opened. With a glance back at the entrance to the store, John slipped inside the back room and closed the door. Looking around he saw a metal folding chair that he then used to barricade the door. He sat in the farthest corner from the door and settled in to try and wait out the stampede, hoping he would remain hidden from the aliens looking for something to eat.
