It's My Party

There were also a few ultra-comfortable looking recliners scattered about that looked more suited for taking a nap as opposed to serious reading. And near the windows by the pine tree park stood a massive and gleaming pool table. The room was an open invitation for care-free play and vegetation. And the window views of the adjacent parks and swimming pool were lovely.

There was also an opposite door leading further south, but Mark didn't want to spend too much time exploring on this level. If the frat boys had been here, Mark couldn't imagine them not leaving the room a mess. The first floor seemed pristine and deserted, and the stairwell down had piqued his curiosity. "Come on," he called. "Let's check outside and then see what's below." A moment later the group was standing on the path of pink cobblestones.

"Of course, of course," said Emily. The two parks, they form the two halves of the basic hexagonal unit. The circular well, it's dead center in the middle of the hexagon."

Mark nodded as he agreed with her. It was a hundred meters back south to the vertex with the elevator, and a hundred meters further north along the cobblestones to the opposite vertex at the far end of the two parks. A door to enter the northern vertex was clearly visible.

View of the hexagonal complex, showing perimeter walkways and 2nd floor layout

"Wow, feel how warm it is," commented Hannah. "Definitely above freezing. I think we'll be getting rain, not snow." All eyes went to the clouds above them. They looked very turbulent and had an unusual rolling motion to them.

Jada commented and agreed with Hannah's guess. She thought the temperature was four or five degrees Celsius and was surprised the weather prediction could be off by that much. The forecast from yesterday was for a moderate snowstorm, with temperatures definitely staying below freezing.

Ashley pushed her arms out wide and took a deep breath, savoring the smells of the pines and the damp earth. "Wow, we haven't had weather this nice in weeks, and smell how clean the air is! I wouldn't mind grabbing a book and just reading out here for a while." She stared at the clouds above and added, "as long as doesn't rain."

After a few minutes of stretching and enjoying the fresh air, the group went back inside and continued their circular descent. The dome above provided a lot of light, even with the clouds, and there was also recessed lighting built into the circular wall. There was a single large metal door at the bottom of the well, facing south back in the direction of the lounge.

"I think this is a very encouraging sign," Madison said to Emily, trying to sound hopeful. "We're at the right level and facing the right direction to return to the underground tunnel. Remember the T-junction in the room by the elevator? It could easily lead right here. It all fits. Sort of…"

"What about the soccer pitch?" Jada thought silently. "If that tunnel last night was more than a hundred meters, I'll…" She didn't finish the thought.

Hannah joined in Madison's optimism. "Maybe Kappa Alpha called this stairwell the Stairway To Heaven. It is very beautiful."

Emily blew a load of air through her cheeks, "But that's not what the instructions said. It didn't say go down the tunnel on your right for party #6. I still don't get it." She took another deep breath. "I'll say one thing though. You guys get me to where we got on the elevator, I'll get us the rest of the way to our cars, no problem. That's the core issue. The elevator ride is the one part of our journey that I don't know how to retrace."

Emily walked to the door and placed her hand upon it. It looked and felt very solid, and there were adjacent eyebolts in the door and frame. The door could easily be pinned shut from this direction. "Fearless leader, do you want to do the honors?"

Wondering if it would open, Mark walked up to the door and also put his hand upon it, feeling the cool metal. Then he turned the handle and pulled. The door opened easily and silently. Mark went in first. Each person felt a bit of a shock as they walked through. What was on the other side was the last thing they were expecting.

The door was a portal through the back wall of a simple changing booth, the second of five along a flat wall on the other side of their entrance well. The new place was reasonably well lit, and Mark went first down a short corridor. He turned and found himself in a women's clothing store.

Hannah was right behind him, and she was so surprised she bumped into Mark as she came out of the changing area. "My gosh!" she said laughing in disbelief. "It's a Dress Barn!"

Mark nodded numbly and took a few steps This was so different than all the empty shells of stores they passed last night. This store was packed with clothes and looked ready for business. The only thing missing were the employees and muzak. But except for themselves, the only other noise was the faint white noise of the ventilation. Otherwise the place was silent and deserted.

And it was an oddly shaped store with shoebox proportions. Mark estimated about seven by thirty meters. The changing rooms and a set of stairs heading down ran along the length of one of the walls along the long axis. Except for the crazy door through the changing booth, the stairs were their only means to leave. He thought to look at the time, 11:07 AM, and then stared in amazement at his sister.

The college women were still staring around the room amazed, but his sister and her two high school friends were already looking through the racks of merchandise with obvious interest. Madison was inspecting a selection of blouses. "Hey Ashley! They've got some nice stuff in here!"

Mark cleared his throat loudly. "People, please! This is no time to shop!" Chagrinned, the group followed him down the stairs. They walked through the lower level of the store and through an exit and then…

They were back at the mall! Or at least some part of it. The Dress Barn exit led to what appeared to be an extremely long underground shopping corridor. It was impossible to tell exactly how far it extended. The corridor was gently curved, and the curve eventually cut off visibility in both directions. Leaning up against the wall of the outside curve, Mark thought he could see over a hundred meters along the inside curve and twice that on the outside curve. The vastness of the place was incredible. Mark shook his head in disbelief.

The group paused for a moment as they stared at the mall. Everything was brightly lit and open. The nearby shops were bursting with merchandise and seemed open for business. And their openness was in profound contrast with the silence of the mall. The place seemed deserted. Fatima startled everybody by giving a loud yodeling yell with a distinctly Middle Eastern sound, and then she waited for a response. Nothing.

"Oh Fatima," Jada said nervously. "Please don't do that again. We don't know what's down here. We might not want to be attracting attention."

Fatima turned to her and looked a little confused. "Okay," she said simply.

"This is impossible," muttered Mark. He turned to Jada. "Do you remember what the mall looked like, on the other side of the elevator?"

"Yeah, I sure do. The stores were all empty shells. "This… This is crazy! I think I can see a hundred stores just from where I'm standing! Maybe more, and everything is open and ready for business. This place is huge!" Jada examined the entrance to the Dress Barn closely and then the candy store across from it.

The walls separating the store interiors from the central corridor were about 20 cm in thickness. In the archways of the stores about chest high was a circular indentation about 5 cm in diameter and 5 cm deep. "Mark, I think there's a button here in the arch. Okay to push it?"

"Yeah, good idea. Maybe it'll activate something that will show up on mall security."

Jada nodded and pushed the button. A thick clear barrier began to descend from the ceiling. Jada pushed at it with her fingers on the way down. It felt like stiff but very flexible plastic. After about 10 seconds the barrier completed its four-meter drop to the floor. There was a faint hiss and snap noise, and the barrier appeared very faintly luminescent. Mark and Emily walked up to Jada's side, and all three pressed their hands against the barrier.

"Wow, it's changed," comment Jada. "It feels as hard as stone now. Believe me, it felt soft before, like plastic."

Mark nodded. He saw there was a half-oval cutout in the side of the barrier, aligned so that the indentation in the archway was still available. Mark reached in and pushed the button. The barrier lost its luminescence and a second later began to rise at the same rate it had come down. Mark pressed his fingers against the material as it rose, and could indeed feel a faint sponginess now.

"Some kind of lock might fit into that indentation," commented Emily. "It would be a very effective way to close up." She turned and stared down the long corridor. "But for some crazy reason, all these stores have been left open."

Incredibly, the mall corridor ran east-west, perpendicular to the direction they were trying to take. They checked out the candy store across from the Dress Barn but it had a plain back wall on both its first and second levels. The group was at least sixty meters north of where they wanted to be with no way to get there.

"I love to shop," Ashley giggled nervously as she stared down the corridor and surveyed the great variety of stores. "Just turn on the muzak and I'd think I'd gone to heaven." She reached out and offered to hold hands with Madison.

Madison accepted her hand and then turned to her brother. "Can we explore this place? Do you think it's safe? We're so far underground. What if the power fails? We'll be lost in pitch blackness down here."

Mark had been considering the same question as he stood outside the entrance to the Dress Barn. "Yeah, good point. I suppose our phones might give a little light, but we'll have to limit our exploration time down here. Everybody, remember this location, the Dress Barn across from Candy Warehouse. It's our route out of here if we have to backtrack. Hey! Is that a hardware store?! Up ahead on the outside curve…" He was standing in front of the Dress Barn and pointing down the corridor to his left, to a store about a hundred meters away.

Hannah's face brightened. "Yes! Batteries, flashlights, yeah! Let's check it out!"

They quickly walked east down the corridor, the gentle counter-clockwise curve barely discernable, their footfalls echoing faintly on the stone floor. It was indeed an Ace Hardware store, with letters from floor to ceiling advertising its presence. And as they entered, they saw it was packed with merchandise. On the upper level they found a shelf with a great assortment of flashlights. Surprisingly, they all were rechargeable with interior sealed batteries. They all appeared to be holding a good charge. Mark insisted everyone take at least two, a small one and a larger one.

As they were about to leave the store, they had a curious moral decision to make. How could they pay for what they were taking? Try to leave cash out in the open? None of the merchandise was even priced. Mark finally left a note by the cashier's station, listing his name and phone number and the items they had taken.

"This still feels vaguely like stealing," Hannah commented as they left the store.

Emily shrugged. "Right now I wouldn't mind being hassled by mall police, would you?"

Ashley was even more upset. "All of these stores are unlocked!" She looked further up the curve. There were many new stores to see, and no end of the curve in sight. "What are we looking at here, hundreds of stores, maybe more?! Millions, billions of dollars of merchandise?! Why aren't these stores locked? How can they leave everything out in the open like this?!"

Hannah answered. "Well, the mall is probably locked from the outside. Ashley, we're not supposed to be in here."

"Then what are we doing here?!" Ashley replied in a half shout.

"Trying to leave!" Madison shouted back.

"People!" interrupted Mark. "We have to start acting like a team. Try not to shout at each other."

Madison gave a small shriek. Mark frowned at her, but then she said, "No, I wasn't complaining. Look! I think it's a Radio Shack!" She was pointing to a store perhaps another hundred meters away."

"So?"

"So, more chargers for the phones!" The group walked further along the arc at a brisk pace.

It took a half-hour to set up, including a quick trip back to Ace Hardware for a long extension cord, but by 11:50 AM, Mark thought they were making some progress, and they still had about four and a half hours till sunset. His group was currently camped out in the mall corridor outside the Radio Shack.

They had a long extension cord charging all six of their phones, even the cells, and three people were calmly trying to dial 911 a few times a minute on the Leophones. The message was still saying that all satellite circuits were busy, but all they needed was one hit to talk to the outside world. Ashley also had picked out a portable radio but was getting absolutely nothing on it. Mark wondered about that but wasn't too concerned. They were quite a bit below ground, and maybe the ceiling supports had a lot of shielding metal in them. But the sat-phones were still managing to reach the satellite. It was a bit strange…

Mark waited with the group till noontime, and then got up and wandered a few stores further up the corridor, thinking of the time and how far this corridor might last. Emily came and joined him, giving him a small smile as they met. They idly wandered up another couple of stores until they came to The Old Towne Spice Shoppe.

"Notice the setup for the food storage?" Emily asked. "It's the same as in the Candy Warehouse and in Kappa Alpha's kitchen. Everything is sealed in metal cabinets that hiss and snap when you close them. A rat doesn't stand a chance down here."

Mark nodded and looked back down the corridor. They were standing five stores over and on the other side of the corridor from Radio Shack, perhaps a hundred meters away but still in sight of the rest of the group. Mark considered the geometry of the mall for a moment and then commented, "This layout makes very little sense."

Emily grunted and replied sarcastically, "Duh, yah think?!"

The total cross-sectional width of the underground tunnel including the stores seemed to be twenty meters. There were seven meters of depth for the stores on both the inside and outside sides of the arc including the thickness of the walls between the stores and the corridor, and finally six meters of width in the central corridor itself.

The floors in the stores came in all sorts of colors and materials. The corridor floor was a uniform dull gray, except for a thin ten-centimeter line of a bright reddish stone running down the centerline, allowing for three meters of width to support the pedestrian traffic in each direction. It was ample space for their group, but for a large crowd, with all these stores, Mark thought it was way too narrow. He could envision a nightmare of human gridlock.

And the stores, they were so strange, and not just that they were open. It was their orientation. Each store interior was less than seven meters deep, fairly shallow, and would run in units of ten meters along the corridor. Each store seemed to have an upper and lower level, and twenty, thirty, and forty meters were the most common store lengths. Ace Hardware was currently the largest store they had seen at sixty meters, and they passed a place labeled Zonko's Joke Shoppe that was only ten meters in length.

Mark was staring up the corridor and then felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and found Emily giving him a friendly but worried smile. She gave him a brief pat before lowering her arm. "Have you noticed, how difficult it would be to restock this place? The Dress Barn has that crazy backdoor, but for everything else, you'd have to restock through this corridor at night. I can't imagine the mall managers would allow pallets being trucked down these narrow corridors while the mall was open."

Mark frowned. "That was one particular piece of insanity I hadn't considered. Thanks Emily."

"Yeah…" Another pat on his arm, near his wrist now, and this time her hand lingered. "I'm sorry for what I said earlier Mark, about the voting I mean. I think you're doing a fine job."

He blushed. "Hey, it really was okay. You had a point. I shouldn't be in charge just because I'm a guy. Emily?"

She lowered her arm. "Uh huh?"

"From the curvature of the mall, I'm estimating a circumference of about ten kilometers, assuming it makes a complete circle. Do you agree?"

Emily stared for a long moment with a critical architectural eye. The corridor was a long tube six meters wide and eight meters high, providing ample height for both levels of the stores. Long rows of recessed lighting were providing pleasant and very adequate illumination. Emily stared down the corridor worked to estimate the circumference from the curvature of the bend. "Yeah, you're close, just a little light. I'm guessing the radius of curvature just over two kilometers… That would make the circumference… Wow, twelve kilometers plus… Wow…"

Mark stared at her. "I'm very impressed. You can judge it that closely?"

"Uh huh. I have very good spatial relations. Seriously, if it were an Olympic sport, I'd be competing for the gold medal."

"Yeah? Seriously back, I'm impressed."

It was Emily's turn to blush. "Well, I can't imagine it actually goes that far, twelve kilometers of mall?!" She gave a small laugh at the thought and then sighed. "When Ashley first saw this place, she thought she had gone to shoppers' heaven. But to me it's an architectural nightmare. Why spread everything out this much? And remember how deep we are? Building like this is hugely expensive. It's such a waste of money."

Mark nodded. "Exactly! Usually it's the mall frontage which is at a premium. But here, the stores are fairly shallow with lots of frontage, just the opposite of how it should be laid out. What's the point?"

Emily raised her eyebrows. "Well, it'll certainly slow down shopping. You have to walk more than in a normal mall, a lot more…" She shrugged and pondered for a moment. "I really can't think of a reason." After another moment she looked at him thoughtfully and said, "So, what's the plan?"

"Well, I thought we'd wait by Radio Shack for another ten minutes or so, give the phones a chance to charge up a bit and then move on. We'll hike until we find an exit."

Emily seemed skeptical. "You're that confident we'll find one?"

"It's hard to imagine not to…" and then he grinned back. "But not impossible, not with this place. But what would that mean? A circular twelve-kilometer double track of stores, with the only entrance through the dressing booth at the Dress Barn?" Mark started laughing. "Nobody builds that crazy!"

An idea suddenly occurred to Emily. "Are you sure that's the only entrance we passed? I mean, I think every store I've seen has a second level." She pointed to the rear stairs in the store before them. "This one does over there. Take a look."

Mark's eyes went wide at his oversight. "My gosh. It would take forever to search every store. Is that what you're suggesting?"

Emily thought for a moment. "No, not now. Not every store anyway. But maybe if we're stopped somewhere, we could do a little snooping." Her hand came to his wrist again, giving him a light squeeze. "Mark, can I ask you some personal questions?"