The smartwaiter door slid open again and this time it had their food and drink. Zoya leapt up and grabbed the bottle of water.
“I’m so thirsty!” She drained the bottle in one long swig.
Marcus was disappointed with his pizza. Rather than pepperoni, there was some sort of salami on it. “You don’t know what pepperoni is in Russia?” he said, and with a sigh he picked up his plate and the cup of Pepsi and returned to his seat of bags. “And no ice! What good is Pepsi without ice?”
Zoya gathered the cheese, roll of salami, and baton of bread and sat near Marcus. “I should have asked for a knife,” she said and took a bite of bread.
“I should have thought of that myself,” Marcus said. He took a bite of pizza. It wasn’t great, but it was better than he had thought it would be.
“You didn’t tell me how they met,” Zoya said.
Marcus finished chewing. “Well, my mother’s family had been in Phoenix for ages. Father was a refugee from California and—”
“Refugees like ours?” Zoya said. “From the plague?”
“The swine flu pandemic?” Marcus said. “I imagine that played a role, but in California it was a combination of the rising ocean levels and the two huge earthquakes that really did it. Phoenix was already the largest city by size in the country, and it grew by almost half from all the refugees. I remember Papa saying drinking water was heavily rationed. So he was working in a university lab and my mother was—”
«Marcus!»
«Papa?»
«Building security has started checking door to door down the corridor. You need to move now!»
Marcus slapped his forehead. «Okay, lead the way.»
«Damn! They’re moving fast. You may not have time to get out unnoticed now. Is there any place to hide in here?»
Marcus looked around the room, though he already knew there was no sufficient hiding spot.
“What’s wrong?” Zoya said.
“Security is coming. We need to do something.” He saw the smartwaiter, its door still open with the tray sitting in an aperture that often held big broken mechanical items and looked barely large enough to hold both of them. “This might be crazy, but let’s try it. Come on.”
“The smartwaiter? You’re kidding, right?” Zoya stuffed her bread, salami, and cheese into her pockets.
“What else can we do? If it won’t carry us, perhaps we can hide there.” He tossed the tray into the corner with the pitcher and clambered into the hole. He squeezed into a corner and held a hand out to Zoya. “Here, I think you can fit.”
Zoya grasped his hand and Marcus pulled her in with him. It was tight, but the door looked like it could slide shut.
«Papa? Can you get us out of here now?»
The smartwaiter door hissed down and everything went dark. Marcus normally hated the dark, but now his body felt electrified by the overwhelming feelings that washed through him — the heat and softness of Zoya’s trembling body pressed against his; the faint smell of her perfume mixed with smoke and perspiration; the sound of her breath. Then his stomach lurched as the smartwaiter suddenly dropped faster than any elevator. He felt Zoya tense.
“I think I’m going to vomit,” she whispered.
“Just hold on.” Without thinking about it, he hugged her tighter.
The plunge seemed to last forever, though it couldn’t have been longer than a minute before it slid to a stop.
“Thank God,” Zoya murmured, a hint of panic in her voice.
The door slid open to reveal a dimly lit room as small as the coat closet in Marcus’s apartment. The walls were painted an off-shade of red. Zoya slid out onto the floor and Marcus took a couple deep breaths and joined her.
“More fire bots,” Zoya said, indicating six silvery bots in racks on either side of the exit door.
«Is it safe to go out, Papa?»
«I don’t know. This is the lobby level. This door opens next to the banks of elevators, and there are exit doors in all four directions.»
«I guess that’ll have to do.»
Marcus looked at Zoya and saw that she was pale and her dark hair was slicked to her forehead. “Are you okay? The building exit is right out here.”
She nodded. “Let’s go. I want out of this place.”
«All right, Papa, open the door.»
The door slid to the side. It took a couple seconds for Marcus’s eyes to adjust to the brighter lights of the elevator lobby. He saw about a dozen people either walking through the lobby or waiting for elevators. Corridors ran in all four directions, each leading to glass exit doors. Sunlight glittered on the glass of the doors straight ahead. He began to walk that way, but Zoya grabbed his hand.
“Not that way. We need to go east,” she said.
“What does it matter?” he asked, following her lead. “We just need a taxi.”
“This way is a smaller street. They’ll be less likely to be—”
Zoya crashed to a halt and Marcus ran into her. He was about to ask what was wrong, but then he saw it. Two men stood across the corridor, leaning against the wall. One of them was enormous. The other’s eyes were bulging with surprise as they looked directly at Zoya.
“Run!” Zoya yelled.
Marcus’s feet seemed plastered to the floor, and Zoya’s hand jerked hard against his as she tried to pull him along with her. The smaller man punched the huge one in the arm and then started to run toward them.
Pain blazed in Marcus’s face as Zoya slapped him. “Now!” she screamed.
Marcus could move again. He ran after Zoya, still holding tight to her hand. Other people kept getting in their way, some of them shouting incomprehensible words. He saw Zoya glance back over her shoulder, her eyes widened.
“This way,” she cried, jerking him toward a doorway that loomed on the left.
Marcus just had time to wonder why they couldn’t have made it to the exit before he followed Zoya into the gloom of a cavernous room. Lots of small tables and chairs lined the edges of the room, but there were no people that Marcus could see. The center of the room was a large empty space with a hard floor, and across the way was a long bar lined with stools. A club? he thought. Zoya ran straight through the dance floor with Marcus close on her heels.
«Why didn’t you warn us about them, Papa?»
«I lost their signals some time ago, so they must have turned off their wireless. I hadn’t seen their faces. I’d only spoken with them. I had no way of recognizing them through the cameras, and voice recognition software is iffy at best, especially in crowded areas.»
“Zoya, stop!” came a shout from behind them. “We won’t hurt you!”
Zoya continued to run, and now Marcus saw there were other people in the room, and Zoya was leading him right to them. There was a small platform to the right of the bar, and four young women dressed in skin-tight black outfits, their hair glittering with neon, were setting up equipment for some kind of musical show. All of them had stopped what they were doing to watch as Zoya raced up to them.
“Is there a way out?” Zoya cried. She yanked the gun from her waistband and whirled about to point it at their pursuers. “Stop, Tavik!”
Marcus turned in time to see the smaller man skid to a halt. The huge man looked like he intended to come lumbering on until the smaller one — Tavik apparently — grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to a stop as well. “Don’t shoot,” Tavik said. “We don’t mean to hurt you.”
“You’re too late for that, fucker!” she screamed. Marcus thought she was going to shoot, but she stood still, her arms thrust steadily out in front of her, the gun aimed at the bigger man.
“You’re not a killer,” Tavik said. “Right, Zoya? Just give us the cards and get out of here. I swear we won’t touch you.”
Zoya adjusted her aim but otherwise remained still. Marcus looked at the women on the platform. Two of them were attempting to shield themselves behind stacks of equipment, one with pink and green neon hair was hefting a long-necked guitar (Marcus knew little about music, but he assumed it was what was called a bass), and the fourth was vanishing through a doorway as pitch black as the wall. He tugged lightly on Zoya’s jacket.