Nora’s cheeks flamed. “Dammit, Simon.” Luckily she said that low enough that Tilly didn’t overhear her swearing. Simon just laughed as he braced the container on the hover’s floor more solidly.
The drone kept pace as they traveled, but hovered lower than usual. After a few miles it seemed to dance right ahead of them, veering away and back, almost as if it were leading them. Nora drummed her fingers on the steering wheel while watching. “I asked earlier for a good spot.”
“Asked them?”
“Yeah, they didn’t respond, but look how it’s moving. I’m gonna follow it.”
She watched Simon’s mood change from joking to scowling up at the sky, but he didn’t argue as Nora took the path the drone indicated, on a road she hadn’t gone down before.
He huffed and glanced away. “They would know. They spy on everything enough.”
They do, but . . .Nora bit her lip as she gazed upward. She meant what she had said to them before, about being grateful. “Well, hopefully they do.”
There was a moment of regret initially as the road she followed the drone on became more difficult, the ride unsteady.There, though.A sigh went through her as the path cleared out after a moment and Nora saw a building loom ahead, just as large as the mall she had been to many times before.
“That rough road must have hid this,” Nora whispered. The structure still stood high, metal twisting toward the heavens. Whenever she came upon a new place where the building stood tall like this instead of complete rubble, she always felt a bit hushed. Like she was traveling through a graveyard. “Simon, do you know what this is?”
Simon frowned, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Yes. My GPS is helping. This was . . . this was a movie theater, in part. And there were also more department stores attached to it.” He pointed to the very large structure still mostly standing. “That was the movie theater part.”
“Movie theater?” Nora wracked her brain. “Like the Mars feeds they play at the drop?”
“Yes, exactly like that. Only entertaining instead of just nature. It was like the radio stories only in moving picture format. This place should have some interesting things. If Max liked the magazines, there should be other . . . nostalgia . . . here to gather.”
Nora pulled up, idling the hover right outside the large, crumbling walls. “It was just pictures inside?”
Simon's voice took on a faraway quality. “Yes. With words. When you watched them, it felt like you were in a different world.”
They climbed out of the hover and Simon led them to a flat spot, hidden and shaded by the wall. “Wait here. If it is safe to walk in some I will let you know.”
“Okay.”
Tilly’s head darted side to side, her eyes wide. “This is so big!”
Nora held her against her chest while they waited. “Sure is.”
They watched as Simon walked away from them, soon eaten up by the opening as he went inside the ruins. Nora was happy to let him take the lead now, knowing he was so much surer footed than she was. But still, she craned her neck, looking everywhere.It’s so dang big, huh.This building, more than the others, seemed so intact that she really wanted to see what it was like inside.
Simon poked his head out a minute later, carrying a piece of signage. The sign was made of a weathered plastic. He brought it to where they stood, turning it over in his hands. He dropped the sign by her feet. “The building is relatively stable. Safer than the mall was.”
Tilly’s eyes grew large on the dust-covered sign. “There’s lots of that stuff inside?”
“Yes.”
Simon rubbed his hand on the signage, and both him and Nora watched the thick dust come off to reveal more of the picture underneath. He took the fabric of his shirt sleeve and rubbed harder. “I would still prefer to do most of the scavenging though. There is a lot of rubble.”
Nora's brow puckered. “Alright. What is that?”
“A sign for popcorn.”
Nora watched, entranced, as the dust peeled off and revealed a picture of a small yellow food item. After it was mostly cleaned off, Simon rotated it in the light, holding it out to her.
“Tilly, look.” Nora pointed, away from the sign. Immediately, she broke into a sweat as her head whipped around in every direction, scanning the broken concrete horizon. Fear, sharp and precise, slipped down her spine.
Tilly wasn’t there.
“Wait, where’s Tilly?” She shouted a second later, unease in her stomach, “Tilly?”
Simon echoed her call, walking back toward the ruined structure.
