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The Mall crawlers rarely have much to say to outsiders. But one of them caught their attention. She could only name herself "Call", and this is more her story than theirs - but it is the only story they have that is truly their own...

Excerpt from The Call by Sara K Gray - written 1990, updated 1996

The place down in the center of the valley below her had a wide parking lot around it, and Call realized that it was an old shopping mall. Trees encroached around certain areas, vines climbed the walls of most of the buildings, but they all had their roofs and there was no sign of overt damage to the ground. She glided the bike up to the open mall entrance, and turned it off.
Hesitating, she got off and left it there.
Something deep in her memory laughed: remember where we parked!
Call saw movement, within the mall's wide courtyards. It was uncovered, none of the buildings more than two stories but tall ones none the less. People were there, perhaps dozens of them.
Call was excited, but the thrill of fear ran through her as well. It had been years since she considered herself social in the least.
His voice startled her: "Hey, nice bike." A young man -- perhaps only a few years older than Call -- was who she saw when she spun around. He had come from the side of one of the buildings, through an open side door. He had rich brown hair, nicely cut, and a sharp face. He was terribly overdressed in the previous decades' fashions.
"Thanks," replied Call. "Nice threads," she indicated his black wool scarf wrapped around his neck.
"Hah, she guessed it already!" Laughed a girl who looked a lot like the guy did, only closer to Call's age. Her own hair was short and slightly lighter than the other's, but her face had the same sharp chin and downturned nose.
"Guessed?" Asked Call, weakly. The girl lept behind the man's tan overcoat, and hugged him.
"His name, silly! Threads!"
"Oh," Call said. She looked about at the high storefronts and clean unbroken windows in amazement. It had been a very long time since she had seen a solid wall. The shiny windows framed full displays of merchandise like the clothes Threads wore, trinkets, records, things Call had forgotten about. Things she thought no longer existed.
"Don't the soldiers ever come here?" She asked, finally.
"Hardly ever," replied the girl.
An odd sensation came over Call. She felt she was being watched, so she scanned the rooftops and dark planters nearby. There -- behind the arch above the walkway -- a movement? A shadowy form vaulted from the roof to the ground, landing silently and without difficulty, and surprising Call with its agility.
The person who approached was clad in possibly even more clothing than Threads, though this one had many little strings of jewlry and plastic items and other things dangling from under the outermost layer. The hair which also had a red bandana below it was blond at one point but dyed several times and was growing out into a mousey color. It seemed to Call that this person should be making a whole lot more noise than they were.
"Terrible Two! Who've we got?" The voice told Call she was female.
"Well, uh," started Threads, then looked to Call. "Dunno, Vel, uh, who are you, anyway?" He asked of Call.
"I... I'm Call," she figured correctly that they would like her name.
"Well, Call, this is Velcro, and this is my little sister Treads." Treads moved too fast for Call to follow, and stood eye to eye with her. Call started back a moment, but relaxed as she saw the bright sparkle of Treads' pale brown eyes rather than any shine of a weapon.
They stood that way for as long as Treads refused to blink, about a minute, then the slinky girl pulled Call's hands and began tugging her over to a store. The mall still had noises coming from it. And Call suddenly realized that there was tinny music playing from the speakers in the balcony supports.
The store Treads led the others to was three in from the corner, meaning that Call could no longer see even the parking lot, let alone her bike. It made her slightly nervous, but she went along with it. Make that extremely nervous.
Racks and tables filled with old televisions crowded the place near the entrance, but Call saw the open area by the middle of the store. They sat down on grey fluffy pillows, the weave of the material let light and dark threads wind and cross, and they matched the colors of Call's jeans.
All the televisions were on, but the sound was not. Where the images were coming from was a mystery to Call: Television had been done away with shortly after the war.
A woman in bright print sweats danced out from behind the last bank of TV sets, and stopped when she saw Call. Her black hair was elegantly curled, tossed over her shoulders heavily. She had dark olive skin, and very dark brown eyes which were wide and happy looking.
"Call," said Velcro, "this is Viddie. Vid, meet Call."
"Hi, darling. You new in town? Oh, lord, look at these clothes. They'll never do. Threads, my God, how can you sit there and look at this girl? Up up up! Come on..."
Call paused and inwardly rolled her eyes. There were things about the old world that she could surely do without.
When she did not move immediately, Viddie cried, "you look like you've been wearing those things since the war started!"
"I have," Call said, meekly and looking those selfsame clothes over. They didn't seem all that bad... Well, compared to the ones everyone else in the room was wearing they were awful.
A look of horror crept across Viddie's face, and she turned away.
"I can't take this," she said, and swept out of the room as she had entered it.
Treads and Velcro shook their heads and eyed Call.
"Sorry," Treads said, "Viddie lives in her own little world."
"Doesn't everybody?" Velcro said, smiling. Threads nodded and his sister echoed him.
"But she's right sometimes," Threads added. "We really must get you something decent to wear. It's too cold nowadays to go around with just that thin jacket." He held out his hand, and Call took it. He instructed his sister to see about certain items, and led Call outside, down the strip, and into a maintenance area. In the corner had been set up a shower system. It was a series of hoses, hooks and draperies, and completely alien to Call.
She had her first shower in more than half a decade. And she decided that she enjoyed it. Just like the rain, only she remarked happily to herself, warm. When she got out of the improvised shower stall, Threads was there, but her clothing was not. She cast about frantically with a towel around her body, looking not for her clothing because she needed it: but because she was afraid they'd taken the Light.
"It's okay," Threads said, softly. "I've got a robe for you--"
"Where's my jacket?" She nearly shouted. He obviously noticed the edge to her voice, worried about something.
"It's... Treads has it. We won't throw it out or anything, she's just finding you something nicer."
"There's-- something in it I have to keep near me," she said, rushed. She took the robe, and though she wanted to push it into her face and smell how clean it was, she was also quite flustered about not having her possessions about.
Threads waited for her to assemble herself with the robe, it was a nice terrycloth one in teal. It made her orangey eyes stand out, he thought. It was a pity he'd never gone for girls, he might have even liked this one. A little skinny, no chest to speak of, but then again he had decided he'd have been a leg man anyway.
Finally, Threads insisted that she not worry about the jacket. He calmed her down sufficiently while sitting with her and slowly combing out the snarls in her long hair, that he could lead her through the mall in some relaxed comfort. They passed by stores that had not been used by anyone but the small camp for years. Call had done her share of looting in the beginning, shifting in the dark from building to building, in search of anything valuable, but she gave that up when she realized there was no value to money...
But this was something else. For years, she had memories of all the fantastic things people could buy, and now here they were. Toys and games, televisions, clothing of all kinds, vehicles, everything.
All kept up, used sparingly by these people. The place was spotless, as well. They kept their home like it ought to have been: ready for others to see it. They seemed happy, those who Call saw passing by, but slightly oblivious. They acted so differently: she moved nearer the walls, hunched up against them mostly, while they were confidantly moving in and out of the buildings like ... ants. She felt terribly out of place. And she desperately wanted to make sure the Light was safe.
Finally they met up with Treads and Velcro, again, who led Call into another store where they then outfitted her with what were their latest fashions. They decked her out in warm, fitting winter clothes, new track shoes, even replaced her leather gloves with clean new ones of the same style. They passed her old clothes by her in paper sacks, and when she came across her jacket, she clutched onto it and dug around until she was sure the orb was still within.
They didn't seem put off that she was so grabby about her stuff. They were used to it. She huddled with it in a corner of the small leather company shop, rocking with it and silently thanking them for not just tossing it into an incinerator.
"You've been so kind," Call said, finally. She noticed she was shaking. Like a rabbit, like a mouse. She felt afraid of their openness. No one in her memory had ever done these things for her. And she was having trouble with people being this way at all.
The posessive nature of the streets of Angels Port was ingrained so deeply that Call had never known anything otherwise: before or after the war started. And never rich to begin with, she remembered whenever she would get anything from a store as a child she would hoard it and cherish it.
Suddenly, she stopped her repetitive rocking, realizing that she was ignoring her hosts.
They were kind of staring at her, but not overtly. Not harshly. Threads fingered a long black coat, and traded it for his tan one, but his sister shook her head and tsked her tongue.
"I don't think so," she said, staccato. She turned to Call, hoping that this would bring the girl out of her shell. "What do you think, does this navy go with the black scarf or not?"
Staring, trying to figure out what in the world Treads was talking about, she finally accepted it, and shook her head.
"Too much charcoal in that scarf, not enough black in the blue," Call said. "Uh, look, I'm really tired out."
They noticed that though it was only early evening, Call did look pretty wasted. It wasn't just the lack of food -- which they were certain lent itself to her pallor and sunken flesh. (Food, they had noticed, consisted of roadkill or something... they got rid of the remains of that 'coon thing mostly because it was smelly and pretty rotten.) She had clearly been riding -- living in those clothes and all -- and they offered to show her to the guess rooms.
She nearly ducked out. She passed the entrance where the parking lot was, and saw her bike ("still there," she breathed to herself, "thank goodness!") and almost ran to it. Anything to make sure that she got out alive. But the building they led her to was a department store, and had everything bright in it she could ever imagine.
Sights like an empty store, full of things but bare of people, were slightly frightening to Call, but she dove past the mannequins (they spooked her the most) and displays, they led her up the non-functional escalator into the matress department.
They left her, then, but Call was certain she was not alone in the store. Something... odd, about the way that the place just felt... Or maybe it was just her nerves. There were no windows, so she couldn't see any stars, and she had gotten so used to them. But it was silent -- that was what was different about this place over the others: it had no eternal background music to it. It unnerved her more than the presence of nearby gunfire would have. The lights slowly flickered off about nine in the evening, bank by bank, and left Call alone in the dark.
"It has been so very long..." Call thought as she tried to sleep. She had wandered through the department looking for the right matress and the best pillow and the warmest blanket, as the others had looked on in pleasant silence. After they left, she changed the pillow for a smaller, firmer one. And after that she realized that the matress was just too soft. She felt like her neck was curving too much to breathe. So she took the warm southwestern pattern blanket and the pillow with the pictures of birds on it, and curled up on the floor. She was asleep in minutes.

After a period of not less than three weeks under the influence of the MetaLinker, any regestered Meta shows clear advancement from their original marks. Genetic studies reveal a connection in the eighteenth chromosome which offers some insight to locating Metas in the future as well as tracing them through the past.
On a more unsettling note, there also appears a distinct connection to that selfsame eighteenth gene which some research has noticed an upswing in pathological manias.
-- Dr Hasagawa Ikome, Project personal log

Call dreamed of the war. But it wasn't quite the way she remembered seeing it. Things were dustier and bloodier in real life, not like the clean fighting and precise explosions in the dream world. In the dream, she saw the hotel that Sleeper and his followers were gathered in, and it bustled with activity. She saw Sleeper himself, smiling and peaceful and sitting in a brightly patterned chair in the lobby, eyes still closed. He still beckoned Call when she came near. He had been fiddling with an archetictural model of something. Something which had never been built.
"Yes, Call?" He said, but his mouth did not move.
"These people, should I start with them?"
"Do you want to?"
"Well..." Call thought for a moment. Was she dreaming? The voice was too clear.
"I think they do not need your help," Sleeper smiled wider. "They have held on to the things that everyone else has forsaken. Far from needing the Light, Call, they have never lost it."
"They sure are strange, though," Call said, looking over her shoulder. In the dream world, the hotel had become part of the mall. Half-sighted mall people poked out from the corners and from behind things. The bustling activity in the hotel had slowed to a crawl, while the mall people stopped them and insisted on taking measurements for new clothing.
Or new bodies, there was that distinct flavor to the dream.
"Yes," Sleeper finally said, his eyes eternally closed and his mouth remaining in a shut smile. "But wouldn't you be too?"
"Perhaps they will help me?" Call wondered.
"That is entirely up to you to decide. If you make a proposal to them, though, I suggest making it a good one. They have everything to lose, still."
Someone had come up to Sleeper and unhinged his head. He looked ever so slightly perturbed when they reached into his skull and inserted a battery into something. His eyes still closed, his faint and elegant black eyebrows furrowed slightly. A technician offered a small tray of tiny sandwiches, which Sleeper turned down. The other one finally finished digging around in his head, and closed it up again without a seam.
Call was disturbed by this vision, but then Sleeper shook his head and the background more fully resembled the mall, during the daylight hours. The sense of peace he offered was gladly recieved. He stood, and Call wondered again what kind of dream she was having: she hadn't seen him even move his legs in real life. Here, he stood and walked to her (eyes still pressed closed), extended his soft warm hand to hers. She and he walked through the mall under the summer sun. He was well taller than she, she felt more like a child than she had before. His hair was much longer than hers, and was less unruly than it had been before. She suddenly noticed that he lacked the thin mustache and beard of reality here.
They stopped walking and sat on a bench that was framed by a wooden box with flowers in it.
"I can offer you one suggestion, Call," Sleeper said. "You must stop running."
"I wasn't runn--"
He pushed her face toward a gathering of mall people. "You were running away from them. You'd run away from me, if this were not simply a dream. Show them that you are not afraid. Show me." He suddenly seemed less nice and far more spooky than before.
A long and complicated silence attacked Call, and her waking mind tried to speak (shout?). The dream Call just lowered her eyes.
"But I am afraid. I'm afraid of the troopers and the guns, and bombs and--"
"And you are afraid of the responsibility of saving the world."
"Is that really what I'm doing?"
There was no answer. At that moment, Call awoke. All the images of the war, and the techs performing surgery, and other things supressed during the dream, came to her eyes.
Call shook even though she was more than warm enough, curled up on the floor wrapped in a thick blanket, and wept.
She stayed awake until the lights of the department store began flickering on in a steady one-circuit-at-a-time fashion. It equated to moring outside.
Though the florescent lighting units worked well, there were some which flickered at that frequency that only some people can see: Call was one of them but this was the first opportunity she had ever had to find that out. It bothered her, but she fixated on it. She watched patterns of dust float and rise in the air. Thinking did her no good, so she drifted back to sleep eventually, and did not dream.

Later in the morning, Velcro came to wake Call, and sadly gazed at her as she lay on the floor. Since she hadn't exited the building they had to assume the girl hadn't run out during the night. Her jacket was near by, but Velcro noticed that she was going to lose a bet with Treads: she wasn't actually sleeping with it. Too used to sleeping on the ground, she thought to herself. It must be real bad out there.
"Call... Call, it's your wake-up call," Velcro snorted and chuckled. "Heh, wake up, call." She hummed. Call blearily blinked and shook her head from sleep.
"What time is it?" She asked.
"Noon, more or less. Come on, sleepy head. I want you to meet the rest of us." Velcro helped Call up. She watched as the girl-woman gathered her things (the jacket -- just wait, put it on over that nice Chargers parka we got you and you're gonna get slugged -- ah, good girl) and seemed to be gaining confidence.
They wandered down to the first floor, and then out into the courtyard again. It was bright, and sunny (too like the dream for Call to ignore it), and going to be a warm day in spite of the inclement rain.
There were gathered more than a dozen people, all about Call's age or slightly older (into their twenties) who stood or sat or crouched on planters, whatever was their preference.
"You've met Threads and Treads, and Viddie," Velcro said. That trio waved in turn, each of them was wearing something vastly different than they had the day before and Call barely recognized them. "That is DJ," Velcro said of a handsome tan-skinned blond who stood close to Threads. "Fix, Cabbie, Cook, Shiner, Hobbit, Gasman, Crash, Gusher, Tag, Pearlie, and back there somewhere are the Creepies..." She waved her hand at each one, and then gasped for air. Each of the people in question had in fact raised their hand when their name was called, but Call was pretty sure she wasn't expected to remember all their names. They ranged in looks from Crash's dark chocolate brown skin and bald head to Tag's short red hair and obnoxious bright print shirt. "This," Velcro finally said, "is Call."
She steadied herself, and stepped forward. All eyes focused on her.
Shiner whispered in the lull, "she's gonna make a speech..."
Call took a deep breath, and smiled, though her hands were still shaking.
"You all have been here since the beginning. Have you ever seen what happens out there in the cities? It's terrible. There are troopers constantly hunting people down, and if you don't help them they shoot you."
They muttered to one another, but were attentive to Call.
"You all remember what it was like before the war?" They generally agreed. "Well, nobody else does. Even I didn't quite, but..." She brought out her jacket, and dug around in it for something the crowd couldn't see. "This brought it back."
Call lifted the glowing orb into the air for all to see. The mall people stared at it and in hushed tones commented on it.
The young woman who dressed in the finest shimmering beads and jewelery stepped a foot or so closer.
"It's very pretty, Call, but what is it?" she said.
Call smiled, and told them the edited version of the history of the orb. Nods and mutterings flitted across her audience, and most gazes rested either upon DJ or Fix. In turn, the two of them looked at each other. DJ strolled forward to face Call, while Fix pulled on his long, red hair.
"We think we have seen this before. Come on, I'll show you."
He led Call into Viddie's store, and into the back rooms, where thousands of videotapes rested on shelves. DJ and Fix found several tapes of interest to them, and then handed them to Viddie, who, of course, followed. Call was ushered back out to the main room, where the rest of the mall folk were already seated. All the screens went to static, and a hum filled the room.
Every screen was suddenly alive with scenes from the past. Call knew them, but only because of her sight through the orb. A news broadcast began, an interview with three of the scientists who worked on the history-globe. They spoke in excited tones about their work, and how it would soon be unveiled. Call recognized them as Paul Gomez of Radiation Development, Raisa Peck-Beir in Theoretical MetaTech, and Martin Blaine of Chipwork Inc.
Then static blasted the view, then another broadcast. Havoc in the streets, firebombings, mayhem. The war started. Call watched, transfixed, as the events unfolded, tears running down her face. This was a local broadcast, and she was local enough that the sights had been on their very own television.
"Just like I remember..." she whispered. Heads turned, and she ignored them. The newsman on then was crouched beneath a wall that had recently fallen to a tank. Dust filled the lens, and occasionally the cameraman wiped it off. Troops marched beyond the wall, and the reporter quieted. The uniforms were the same, the faces different, but still made Call shake.
The first tape ended, and a second started. The High Commander, a no-longer-young man with short greying black hair, deeply etched lines on his olive skin, and sharp dangerous looking blue eyes, wearing medals that dated back to before the turn of the nineteenth century and a severe black uniform, spoke at the masses. He stood before a black sigil: a tower design. Stronghold.
"Order has been achieved," he said, in a low voice, one that made certain none would mistake him for another. "The rioting in the streets will cease soon, or the public will suffer even more than it has. Reports of troop harassment of civilians is an obvious and blatant lie, and further claims will result in punishment." The echo of the man televisions made Call (and not coincedentally the whole rest of the viewers) shudder.
Call turned pale. With all the hair on her neck standing, she sought out Sleeper, and felt his mind on the fringe of hers.
*That is my enemy,* she thought.
*Yes,* replied Sleeper. *He is hard to miss.*
*So, I must stop him?* The image continued to speak, but she could no longer hear him correctly. The voice in her head overrode those nerves.
*Yes,* Sleeper thought to her. Carefully, he listened for her response.
*But--* It was what he expected. He cut her off.
*His way is the only way he can be stopped. Kill him.* There was a bitterness to his thoughts which made bile come to Call's throat.
Call felt a creeping sickness in her soul, as she digested what Sleeper said. Kill him, the one who destroys the world. But that very act is contrary to the Call. She shook her head and broke contact with Sleeper.
The mall people were still watching the tape, as if they had never seen it before. Only DJ and Fix seemed aware of the reality of it. The next tape was obviously an homemade one, taken from above the mall. People moved about in the parking lot that was still full of cars then. Call recognized Velcro and Viddie among them, and they both grinned and pointed at themselves.
"This is shortly after they outlawed TV," said Fix. "We started making our own shows, then. The soldiers stopped coming after us when they realized we would starve. They didn't count on us living. I doubt they even remember this place is still standing. Maybe if they ever used the jets, but they don't. They are still fighting, I take it, on the ground?"
Call nodded. "They have pretty much flattened everything else, all that stands very tall anymore are a few skyscrapers they use for command housing. And those aren't even as tall as they used to be. They knocked the tops off them, and sealed over the mess."
"That is what they do best, Call," said a quiet voice, Hobbit, apparently. "They seal over everything that offers no resistance, and kill most of whatever is left." The room fell silent, save for the screens. Call watched as the inhabitants threw down pipe bombs and shot soldiers with crossbows liberated from the archery shop. Many of them were very good shots, and Call was surprised.
"But we don't usually make much of a fuss about it anymore, we just kind of live here and protect ourselves when we need to." Finished Fix.
Call was beginning to get an idea. But it had to wait: the mall crawlers had decided to throw a kind of party for her and the orb and whatever else they could think of. It was so alien to her, again, that Call felt like running away most of the time, but slowly, the memories of being with people began creeping back. Happy times, shared with people who were long dead.
She tried not to think of her mother, and her older brother, both of them killed by the same firing squad near the beginning of the war. (Their crime? A fascinating mix of being born poor and half-Mexican, resisting arrest for an unknown offense, and just getting in the way of the wrong squad.) Instead, she concentrated on the little trinkets they offered her: the hand held video game which blipped and twinkled and made all kinds of noises which would get her killed out in the real world; the hackey sack which they noticed she was very good at; and the picture book which Hobbit handed her. She paid most attention to it, gaining the revelation that because she had the orb, it had taught her to read again.
It had been a long time, after all. The mall crawlers did all read, they assured her of this. Little else to do, other than read the books in the book store and others places, technical manuals and all.
The inhabitants noticed her desire to be left alone after a while. She and the quieter elements (Hobbit, Fix and Cook, mostly) seemed to get along better than the louder ones. While hanging on to DJ and Velcro, Threads observed to them that they should get her on film, perhaps they'd see her again but more likely they wouldn't.
Later that day, as the sun set in a blaze of grey, Call and several mall crawlers sat and ate in a fast food joint. They explained that their food supply was mainly interrupted from a truck line which had been headed south, every time they went past, the crawlers would flag the driver down and trade items. They did this almost one hundred miles away, however, to keep their location a secret. It was a good gig, they said. The Stronghold only hired people out, they didn't own the trucks which supplied their own food.
Discussing the world, and seeing the light in the young people's eyes, Call finally steeled herself on her course of action.
"Ever thought of going back on the air?" asked Call. Fix and DJ glanced at each other, and then back at Call.
"Well," said DJ, "yeah, Call, but we would get found out too easily. And we don't have all the equipment we'd need."
"No," said Fix, waving a french fry in the air. "I think we might. Viddie is well stocked, and my place has more than enough stuff to make up for what her's lacks."
Call was interested. "Where do you live, anyway?"
"In the Radio Shack."
"Thought so."
They laughed, and Call told them her plan.
"What you could do is get one of those old video vans like the television station had. They could broadcast, right? I gather that you could fix it up if it didn't quite work? Then you could go on the road. It would be very hard for them to catch that kind of a moving target. Their tanks can't move nearly as fast as my bike, and I remember cars moving a lot faster."
"Well, Call, that sounds like a great idea, but," said DJ.
"But."
"But from what you have told us, few places have any electricity, and even fewer have televisions that work. Radio might work better, since batteries still work. And then there is the question of who would go."
"I guess I hadn't thought of that." Call cast her eyes down. Fix reached over the table and set his hand on her shoulder.
"But we'll think seriously about it, Call. It is a good idea. I only wish more people could receive TV."
Call nodded.
They told her about their own earlier problems with electricity. After the war, their own supply of fuel for the generator below the mall ran out quickly. Now, they had gone through old maps and physically went out to re-connect lines to the Stronghold: they were never noticed and didn't make a dent in the power grid anyway. They covered their tracks as always, and occasionally Gasman and Gusher would go out to see that all the power lines and water supply were still functional.
Another night in the old Sears building, Call rested. She could barely sleep, she was afraid to let Sleeper back into her dreams. Loathe to see another live lobotomy, she tossed and turned, and finally explored the building more fully. There were people in there. The Creepies? She hadn't seen any of them, but the others assured her they were there. Possibly children who had been abandoned and somehow were raised by someone other than the friendly mall people. They didn't know much about these Creepies, but they had their worries.
Call moved through the fitness department, and looked in awe at the pictures of Flex magazine and Fitness brochures. She had never seen people in such overwhelming health. She lifted some dumbell weights, easily taking twenty pounds in a hand. That surprised her, she didn't think she was that strong. Maybe it was the Light again.
There was no maybe. She went back to the matress department and finally decided on a firm low futon, determined to sleep on it this time. Before she finally tried to sleep, however, she took the orb out and fondled it.
"Tell me," she said to it. "What exactly are you doing to me?"
In response, the Light shone in a slight flicker. In her mind, as she stared at it, the images were of the bio-technicians and Meta people. Through their innovations, it seemed, the orb would be able to impart its Metacommune stimulating power. She was literally tapping into the mind-energy of those Sleepers back at the hotel. Using their strength, accessing their memories, tapping into their reflexes.
She wondered, did they simply dream what she was doing? Or were they aware? Or...
With the orb in her hands, loosely, she had fallen to sleep.

They surrounded her, the scientists. At the back of their gathering, Sleeper stood.
These had to be self-images, dreamers, Call thought, because they were walking with open eyes and talking animatedly. They came to her. They explained things with a touch and a glance that the orb couldn't tell her directly.
Yes, they dreamed her, but they also sensed her. The MetaLink was there to combine their powers of perception into a massive web. They could see through anyone who had that odd mutation on their eighteenth chromosome, all over the world there were such people.
It had been kept private enough, this knowledge about the gene, that at least they had kept the information from Fighter and his people. Had he known, he would clearly have taken the opportunity to slaughter those with it, and together with that, would have broken the world thoroughly.
Then the orb shone itself through the mass of people. Light floated itself around, not held by anyone. It couldn't do this in real life, Call decided.
It blinked, she would say happily. It was ... self aware. It had a mind because of all these people. And it could thank them -- and her -- and it did.
Call woke, briefly, smiling.

The next day, Call went to other stores and spoke to people who universally were friendly and open. She held on to this precious commodity: kindness, and kept it in the back of her mind constantly. Slowly, she stopped wanting to run from them.
She was taking Sleeper's advice. Maybe he'd be proud of her.
Finally, through the next day, Call talked over her plan with Fix and DJ and others, each who had a different take on it. They might or might not do any of it, but when she asked them to, they said they would go ahead with it. They trusted her judgement, somehow. It was a pleased Call who asked for a gathering in the Shack to organize notes and plan formally.
"I have to get going, though. I have a lot of work to do. I have to save the world."
Fix and DJ eyed one another.
"Come on," they said. Together they stood and led Call back to the video store. They then filmed her speech which she could recall through the orb, they let her show it off. They insited she do the tricks that she had related about her escape from the Stronghold building in Angels Port. Velcro and she played while they went through several hours of video tape.
Two days later, Call was again on her way. The mall people gathered together again, and in the fashion that they greeted her, bid her good-bye. When Call reached her bike, she was dismayed that there was now a large cruising cycle in it's place. It was loaded with foods and clothing, and other things Call would wait to look at.
"How am I supposed to hide this thing?" she laughed. Velcro and Treads both gave Call large hugs, and Fix and DJ and Viddie gave her thumbs-up.
Call started the bike up, and it purred. She was astounded at how quiet it was, as her dirtbike was a noisy thing. She waved and departed.
Dust flew behind her, as Call got used to piloting the new bike. It was more stable than her old one, balanced enough to stand upright on it's own without a kickstand, but it wasn't quite as useful to get through rubble and over things. Call decided she liked the bike when she got on an open stretch of road, and got it up to eighty-five. She loved the feeling of being encapsulated behind the large windscreen, a luxury she lived without for years on the old bike. The side compartments were full with water and dried and canned food, things she needed on long trips but never thought of before. Food in her old life had been rat stew, or if you were lucky, part of a dog or pigeon. Even though she remembered people still keeping dogs as pets after the war, food riots killed many of them off. Some people even used them to catch food. Or to guard something.

**end**

***

Where do they wind up? And how?

Well, read on!

Because of the weakened condition of the universe, and the continual battering it got from its inhabitants, this Earth began to change from its other-dimension duplicates and accepted visitors here and there from other planets, other worlds and dimensions and times.

One of them rode a dragon. Just one. That's all it took. He glided in on a blue dragon and landed on top of the Sears building. Everyone in the Mall came out - because no one ever believed that dragons were real. Not even ones that had been made at the biotech division.

Of course, it helped them believe when there was one standing proudly at the top of the building.

It didn't help that its rider was blue as well. Shard stood looking down at the collection of people below. He spoke quietly to the blue dragon with the tall crest, and turned back to the group - not realizing that there were three people standing on the roof behind them at this point. DJ, Velcro and Treads all had quickly snuck up the outer catwalks.

"It's a dragon," Velcro whispered. DJ nodded, and waved her to be silent.

"Let me handle this," he suggested. With confidence and a casual air, DJ approached the light blue dragon. He had to dodge the tail, as it swept through the air, attracting the attention of the dragon first.

"It's not often we get visitors like you around here," DJ said. "Where are you from?"

Shard spun, and then calmed down. Jeremoth nuzzled his head and breathed down Shard's neck, while mentally conferring.

"I'm known as Shard, and this is Jeremoth, and we've come through the Nexus. There are some eggs - dragon eggs - which need companions to help them grow."

"Dragon eggs." DJ said. Velcro came up next to him, while Treads continued to stare openly at Shard. "And what does that have to do with us?"

"Everything." Shard said. "Without you on the dunes, some of those eggs might hatch, and then die. Some dragons do that. It's always best to have strong candidates at clutches."

Velcro giggled. "You're blue, dude."

Shard stared at her, and a wide smile grew across his thin lips. "You know, you remind me of someone who said that very thing many years ago..."

"Cool!" Velcro said.

"Now, Jeremoth and I have always been search riders, and we've had some experience in picking out the right candidates out of a crowd. And this crowd is pretty packed."

Jeremoth seemed to agree, and Treads had begun to touch the dragon's smooth skin.

"So what now?" DJ asked. "I'm curious, where are these dragons? They're not here, I mean, this planet's been through a lot, but we've never had real dragons."

"Now you can," Shard said. "If you come back with them."

"You mean I could do that?" DJ asked, his curiosity finally climbing into high gear. By this time, Threads and Hanger had come up to the rooftop as well.

"Of course you could. No one is really forcing anyone to remain where they bond any more. It doesn't make much sense to do so. Besides, if you go to different places to bond, your dragons might be able to breed - and you wouldn't need to send anyone new away to bond. You'd have people coming to you to do it."

"Up here, we've got a science team that breeds the Creepies," Treads said, holding on to Jeremoth's tail, "I can't imagine what they'd do with a dragon hatchling."

"You could come back when they're adults." Shard explained. "They get very protective of their eggs."

DJ and Velcro exchanged a glance, and then turned to Threads, who tried to pry his sister away from the dragon.

"So where then? There's more than one place?" Velcro asked. "And, who?"

"All of you," Shard said, looking at the five currently up on the roof. "And there are a couple others, and one or two I can't see from here. Jeremoth says there is one inside the building, and one under it."

"That'd be the Creepie," Treads said. "It's still daylight, though, he won't come out until it's night."

Shard's eyebrow went up, but he said nothing more than, "oooookay."

Jeremoth spread his sharp curved wings, and swooped over the open area of the Mall. Dozens of people panicked and ran into the buildings nearest them, but a handful of them remained. It was that handful that Jeremoth informed his rider were the ones he was looking for.

"Well, can you call the rest of them up here, or do we go down there to meet up with the rest of the candidates?"

***

It only took about twenty minutes to assemble all of the group together in the main garden in the middle of the Mall. Shard posed quite the odd quandry for people to explain. He was blue, and he rode a dragon. When the first shock of either of those facts wore off, there were many questions from the group.

The main one was: where?

Shard paced around and finally dug what appeared to be a cel-phone from his pocket, and spoke quietly to someone on the other end. Finally, he could answer that "where" question.

"Some of you should think about splitting up and bonding at different locales - and don't worry because even though you're going to be bonding and remaining long enough to train, learn to fly and handle the dragon, you can still transport yourself through space and the nexus, and wind up coming back only a few days or weeks after you left. If you practice it right."

He winked. No one had a clue what he was talking about, except Hobbit.

"You are joking, right?" He said, pushing his long hair behind his shoulder. "I mean, there are stories about this but they're only... fiction."

"Does Jere look fictional to you?"

There was an uncomfortable silence. Then, Hobbit snorted and said, "well, how many different places do you think we all want to be split up at? There are ... a good number of us. And only one of you, and how exactly are we meant to head to these places?"

"I could always call in backup," Shard waved the cel-phone in the air.

The group splits up as follows: ** 7.8.20, note that none of the off-site links work any longer sorry **
** 2023 have moved Toko and Anna to their own locations **
** 5.14.23 begun making new Mall Crawling inhabitants! **

Creepie, Fix, Shiner	Ring of Fire Halloween HATCHED! View their pages! Creepie: Black Daritonliath (m), Fix: 4-winged Black Amphithorinath (m), Shiner: Bronze-Silver Gomanth (m)
DJ, Velcro, Hanger	CyDragonstake's Apocalypse - Read about the MOVE! -- HATCHED! DJ: Irridescent Blue Demaris (m), Velcro: Yellow/Green/Blue Seranoth (f), Hanger: Blue-Marked Yellow Diyae (f)
Cook and Hobbit	Dragonsoul's Odd Frenzy - HATCHED! Hobbit and Brown Darcy, Cook and Wine-Port Noir
Viddie, Pearlie and Gusher	Read their story! Bonding at Dragonwillow's Glitz and Glitter Frenzy HATCHED! Viddie and (f, bipedal) Zxieonya; Pearlie and Green Pearl (f) Meihyth; Gusher and Purple Zappy (f) Saneecen
Treads, Threads, Tag and Ladylace	Sanrix Azon's Dark Frenzy - read about their first Azon Experience here! HATCHED at last! Check the Experience and link! Threads: Green/Grey Swimmer Camuix (f); Treads: Purple Lightning Storm Wing Lyeax (f); Tag: Green Red-winged Syerian (m); Lady Lace: Pink Heart Marked Sazion (f)
Gasman, Crash and Cabbie	Ryslen Weyr's assorted hatchings -- HATCHED! Check their pages!! Gasman: Red Amocoth (m), Crash: Brown Naugath (m), Cabbie: White-Blue Printh (m)
Toko	Nexus exchange by Phe
Anbananhar	Starburst Weyr giftie!
Photon, Remote	Ryslen Flurry 2005 HATCHED! Photon: Striped Glitz Gold (f) Gietanzera Remote: Silver blue indigo violet (m) Infinitorenth Sponsor from Flurry going with both: Glitz White (m) Raver Picked up later: Snowy Oily Frost (m) Fodyos
Future Folks! Filling out the Mall! (8.21.22)
Auradance Sibs	Half-Siblings with a shared sire, tending to the Mall's newer 'arena' feature
Gideon	FFFRedux by Phe and Dray: Black Rust Copper (m) Tylamadi Filidechiroptidae
Mill	Female Bronze Oedarith from Sithean Weyr Giveaway by Ktrenal