by T E Stouyer
Shaped like a hollow cube with a height, width, and depth of approximately 360 feet, the giant arch, which is made of steel and concrete covered in glass and marble, is a remarkable feat of architectural engineering.
The monument is also a building, comprised mainly of office spaces stacked along its two sides, which have square-shaped windows arranged into a grid, like pigeonholes. The upper part, fittingly called le Toit de la Grande Arche [the Roof of the Great Arch], is home to an exhibition gallery and a restaurant. From there, one can step out onto the actual roof of the structure and enjoy a panoramic view of the city.
At the base of the void inside the cube, a white tent, called the cloud, is suspended to the arch by steel cables. Resembling two large sails, and riddled with round glassy windows to allow the sunlight through, the cloud hovers above the ground at about forty feet at its lowest point, to about sixty-five feet at its highest.
Kincade and Arianne paused for a second to gaze up at the massive edifice towering over the vast plaza like an enormous doorway into the future.
Then, they made their way over to the control booth on their left.
Kincade waited outside as Arianne broke into the booth.
She quickly examined the panels and said, “I think I can get the elevators working.”
Shortly afterwards, the pair boarded a cabin and started the slow ride up.
The two masked men moved stealthily along the shadowy walkway, the muzzles of their weapons aimed straight ahead, ready to lock onto their targets.
The only problem was that those targets were now nowhere to be seen.
The masked men had clearly spotted two dark figures, less than a hundred feet farther down the walkway. But then they had lost them around the bend. The two figures shouldn’t have been out of their sight for more than a couple of seconds. But now, it looked as though the shadows had swallowed them whole.
The masked men hastened their pace in order to catch up with their prey, unaware of the danger that awaited them.
As it turned out, their prey hadn’t been devoured by the shadows, but instead had become part of it. They were now using the dark veil as an ally against their would-be hunters.
The first shot came from the left, taking down one of the masked men.
The other soldier turned and immediately retaliated against the unseen enemy. But as he was aimlessly discharging his weapon into the darkness, Marie emerged from his blind side and fired two bullets at him.
The second masked-man went down.
“Are you all right?” Doc Chen asked as he stepped out of the shadows.
“Yes,” the detective replied. “We’re lucky you spotted them. It could have been us lying down here instead of them. I never noticed that they were trailing us.”
“Neither did I,” Doc said. “These guys are no amateurs.”
“But then … how did you know?” Marie asked.
He shrugged. “When you do this job for as long as we have, you develop a sense for this kind of thing.”
Marie wasn’t exactly satisfied with that answer, but what did it matter. They were still alive and unhurt, and the number of people trying to kill them had just decreased by two. All in all, a positive outcome.
“Come on,” Doc said. “Let’s get moving.”
Sonar turned his body half-way around and stood motionless. There had been a clear reduction in the frequency and intensity of gunfire. At this point, he could only make out a few sporadic shots coming from deeper inside the shopping center.
But that wasn’t what had prompted him to stop and peer over his shoulder. For the second time now, he thought he’d heard something. The first time, he had dismissed the impression offhand, blaming it on hyper-alertness caused by a surge of adrenaline. But this time, the sound had been clearer, and had seemed much closer than before.
Am I being followed? He wondered. He couldn’t be sure, but the idea was now firmly etched in his mind.
He was almost at the meeting point, the coffee shop on the next level above. They had chosen this particular shop because it was located at the far north-west corner of the mall. And because one of its two exits led to an outside terrace with a clear view of the Grande Arche monument, where Arianne and Kincade had gone.
As Sonar went up the escalator, he threw the occasional sweeping glance down the side of the ramp, to check if anyone was there.
Once he reached the top, he stared at the coffee shop for a while. But instead of going into it, he suddenly darted away from the area, and ran all the way across the floor.
The third level of the shopping center covers a much smaller surface than the levels below it. The walkway on this floor is shaped like a bowling pin. It twists into two uneven loops, a large one—where Sonar had arrived—and a smaller one, each with a set of escalators at their center.
The stores on this level consist mainly of restaurants and fast foods. There’s also an ice cream shop and a coffee shop. But the largest space, by far, is the one occupied by a popular toy store.
Sonar headed straight towards it.
There were two large cardboard posters on either side of the store’s entrance. He squeezed behind the one on the right and smashed the glass as quietly as he could to make a hole big enough for him to pass through. He then crawled inside while carefully negotiating the shards of glass on the floor.
Once he was safely through, he got up and ran deeper into the store. He hid among the tall racks of costumes and stuffed animals. And there, he waited.
He didn’t have to wait long.
Although they were faint, he could distinctly hear the footsteps, now. They echoed at a slow and steady rhythm, wandering around without a clear destination.
Someone’s looking for me, the redhead thought to himself.
He stuck his head out from behind the racks to try to see who it was, but his view outside the store was limited. He couldn’t see anyone from where he was standing.
He considered moving closer to the entrance to get a better look, but reason dissuaded him from risking it.
Best case scenario, it would be one of his comrades, maybe even Arianne or Kincade. But worst-case scenario, it would be one of the other clones. And he wasn’t too eager to come face-to-face with any of them, especially that murderous lunatic Johann.
Either way, he decided it was best to remain hidden until he was sure.
Chapter 15 – What Are You Doing Here?
The top of the Grande Arche monument—the upper-section of the cube—consists of a restaurant and of a 13000 square-foot exhibition area where photographers and artists from all over the world are invited to display their work.
Kincade and Arianne had spent the entire time inside the exhibition area, meandering through a maze of tall white panels decorated with pictures of people and landscapes from some of the most remote areas on the planet. An exhibit of the latest collection of images taken by a world-renowned photographer.
“This place is bigger than I thought,” said Kincade. “We can’t keep wandering around like this without some kind of plan.”
“I know,” Arianne said. “But there were no hints as to a specific location. I was hoping we would come across something that would draw my attention.”
“And?”
“Nothing so far, I’m afraid.”
“What if we got this whole thing wrong?” Kincade said.
“I don’t think we did. I truly believe that the first clue gives us the location of the card, and that the second clue will be the key to access the data on it.”
“Fine. But the problem is that the location’s pretty vague. It’s not as if we can search every square-inch of this place.”
“No, we certainly can’t.”
“What about the restaurant?” Kincade asked. “Do you think it’s worth checking out?”
“I doubt it. It looks renovated. Adam wouldn’t have chosen it as a hiding place. It’s too risky. One of the workers could have stumbled upon the card during the renovations.”<
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“Maybe he didn’t know they were going to redo the place.”
“No. I’m sure he would have considered that possibility.”
“Well, the same can be said about this exhibition room,” Kincade pointed out. “It looks pretty new, as well.”
“Yes, it does,” Arianne agreed. “To be honest, I don’t see how the card could be hidden here. Or in one of the offices in the side buildings. There are too many of them. I wouldn’t know where to start looking.”
The young woman sighed, and then cast an eye over their surroundings. A troubled frown had appeared on her brow. She looked hesitant, and worried, as if she was unsure what to do next.
“All right, let’s go over the clue one more time,” Kincade suggested. “Maybe we’re still missing something. How did that poem go again? From the top of a tower … a soldier’s gazing at something … erm, you don’t happen to have it memorized by any chance, do you?”
“Sure,” Arianne replied. “It goes: From—” she stopped immediately, having barely uttered the first word of the poem, and then gazed up at the ceiling, with her mouth still opened.
“What is it?” Kincade asked.
Her eyes fell back on him. “We have to go outside,” she said, a note of hopeful excitement in her voice.
“What? We just got here!” Kincade exclaimed. “You want to go back down, already? Why?”
“Not down,” she said. “Outside, on the roof.”
“The roof?”
“Yes.”
Crouched in the dark, Sonar pricked up his ears. The footsteps were now drawing away from him, towards the other end of the floor. Maybe his pursuer had given up the chase. Or maybe that person wasn’t after him, in the first place.
Given that he couldn’t contact anyone, his best option was to stay put. He could see the entrance of the coffee shop from his current position, so he would wait until the others arrived and—
What was that? Sonar suddenly wondered.
A strange sound had just interrupted his train of thoughts. A faint rustle, not twenty feet behind him.
He froze on the spot, paralyzed with fear, and listened as the sound grew increasingly clearer. Someone was definitely there, creeping in the shadows.
At least three seconds went by before Sonar was able to move again. At which point, he spun around, placed one knee on the ground, and then aimed his semi-automatic rifle straight ahead.
A few more seconds passed. Each one feeling like a whole minute. And each one bringing the rustling sound closer and closer towards him. The wait was unbearable. His palms were sweating so much that he gripped his weapon tighter for fear it might slip from his fingers.
Then, out of nowhere, he heard the thud of a pair of shoes landing hard on the store’s wooden floor. Almost immediately after that, a figure emerged from the shadows and stood in front of him.
While Sonar had been lying in wait, worrying about the mysterious presence and pondering the identity of the person seemingly trying to sneak up on him, a multitude of faces had scrolled through his mind. But not one of those faces had come anywhere close to matching the one that appeared before him.
The mercenary was so unprepared for the image his eyes showed him, that it took a while for his brain to process the navy-blue cardigan, the dark-purple flowery dress, the white sneakers, and the long silver strands hovering less than five feet above the floor.
“You!” he finally exclaimed.
“Shh,” Lucielle shushed him. “He’ll hear you,” she said, speaking in a low voice.
“Who?” he asked, whispering in turn.
“Johann,” she replied.
The redhead felt his blood run cold. “That was him out there?”
“Yes,” she told him. “He’s looking for you. That’s why I came to warn you.”
Sonar cursed his bad luck. Of course it would be Johann. The last person he wanted to see. Why do I always get myself into this kind of trouble, he wondered. But then something occurred to him, and he paused and gave Lucielle a strange look. “Wait a minute – how did you get here?” he asked.
“Through the parking lot,” she replied. “It extends all the way to this side of the shopping center. Then, I used the stairs and service doors. I arrived on this floor just in time to see you slip behind the big poster outside, and then break the glass to get into the store.”
“What about you?” Sonar asked. “Which way did you come in?”
“I crawled through the ventilation systems. But I could barely fit inside, so it took some time.”
“I see.”
“We can’t stay here,” said Lucielle. “Sooner or later, Johann will find the broken glass, and he’ll know where you are.”
“Are you saying he’s still after me?” Sonar exclaimed in a loud whisper.
She gave two quick nods. “This is not a good place to hide,” she said. “We should leave.”
“Are you crazy? That’s way too risky. What if he sees us?”
“There’s a service door at the back. It’ll take us outside, near the entrance to the toilets. We can wait there until he comes in here, and then sneak past him.”
Sonar gazed at her with an intrigued frown. “How do you know so much about the layout of this place?”
“I saw a map of the mall on the computer when Nate and Hulin were studying it, earlier today.”
“So did I … oh, that’s right. I forgot. Photographic memory.”
“Come on,” the girl urged again. “We need to go.”
“Fine, after you, then.”
She took his hand and led the way through the tall racks of costumes and masks, and the stacked shelves of toys and board games.
But as they neared the back door, the young analyst stopped dead in her tracks and gasped.
“What’s wrong?” Sonar asked, worried.
Lucielle didn’t answer. Instead, she just kept staring fixedly into the semi-darkness.
Sonar followed the young girl’s gaze, and soon realized she had stopped to admire a 48-inch stuffed teddy bear. Her eyes were literally sparkling with longing as she stared at the large fluffy animal.
“Are you kidding me?” Sonar whispered angrily. He yanked her arm and got them on their way, again.
Lucielle blushed, feeling a little embarrassed. “Sorry, I’ve always wanted one,” she said as they hurried towards the back.
Just as they arrived at the service door, they heard a multitude of faint cracking sounds coming from the store’s main entrance.
They glanced at each other. There was no need for words. They both knew it was the sound of Johann stepping on the shards of glass on the floor. He had found the hole behind the poster and had entered through it. Fortunately, he couldn’t see the service door from where he was. There were too many tall shelves in the way, blocking his view.
Not wasting any time, Lucielle quietly opened the door, and she and her companion snuck into a small dark storeroom. She then closed the door behind them, taking great care not to make any sound, and the two of them proceeded across the storeroom to a door on the other side. The young girl opened it as carefully as she had done the previous one.
The door lead onto a corridor, near the toilets’ entrance, just as Lucielle had described. They both took a quick peek outside to check that the coast was clear, and then swiftly tiptoed along the corridor, back towards the front of the store.
As soon as they reached the main walkway, Lucielle banked left and picked up the pace while still keeping her footsteps light.
Even though he wondered where she was leading him, Sonar followed her without hesitation. This was no time to stop for a chat. Besides, she seemed to know exactly where she was going.
He was, however, somewhat surprised when she headed straight for the escalators, and went up rather than down.
It wasn’t until they arrived at the top that he understood what she had in mind. Level four, which was the highest level of the shopping center, consisted solely of a large movie theatre.
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“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Sonar asked as they ran past the ticket counters and popcorn stands.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “But I’m pretty sure it’s a better idea than the one you had.”
Sonar didn’t argue with her. There was no point. It would have been too risky to turn back now, anyway, so the question had become purely academic. They had no choice but to keep moving forward.
They ran past a few double-doors, and then finally settled for the ones with the label ‘salle cinq’—screen five—displayed above them.
They entered into a small vestibule with two doors facing each other, one on either side. They went through the right-hand side door and proceeded down a narrow passageway leading to the front seats, near the screen. Once they arrived at the first row, they made a U-turn and climbed the wide steps all the way up to the top seats at the back of the movie theatre. The room was dark. It was a large auditorium. And the only source of light were the four exit signs fixed on the side walls—two on each side of the room.
“I just realized something,” Sonar said as he sat on the floor inside an aisle with his back against a seat.
Lucielle sat next to him. “What?”
“If we stay here, we won’t know what’s happening at the meeting point. The others will probably be there, soon.”
“Hmm … that’s true,” Lucielle said. “But I still think we should wait a while.” She turned and gazed at him, looking almost apologetic, and added, “If Johann finds us, it’ll be very bad … for you.”
“Me? What about you?” Sonar asked, raising his voice higher than he should have.
She placed her index finger upright over her mouth. “Shh.”
“Don’t you mean it’ll be bad for both of us?” he asked, whispering this time.
“Johann would never hurt me,” Lucielle replied. “But you …”
The redhead threw his arms up in the air. “Oh, that’s just great. You know, I followed you up here because I thought we were in this together.”
