Chapter 4 Susan
Susan Minter and the fifteen others from ECON 001 seminar meeting are lying on the floor of a storage room. The room was not large enough, of course, it is a storage room of the economy building, no one is supposed to stay here for hours. They cannot talk loudly, cannot turn the lights on, and cannot leave this room, because a criminal with a gun is likely to be roaming inside their campus. Friday, November 17, 2040, the next week will be Thanksgiving holiday, but black Friday has arrived earlier that expected.
"When do we get to go home?"
A boy muttered in a whisper, knowing that no one in this room could answer his question, even their professor was sitting on a stool with his eyes closed.
“We get to go home when that god damn murderer is caught. Anyway, who would think of someone are pointing guns to students these days.”
“That's why we have to use this crap room as an emergency room, no one has prepared for this.”
"The last school shooting before this time…… was how many years ago?"
“I guess It has been 20 years, the 2020s, can’t remember exact date."
"20 years? But how can a gun let them shoot innocent people back then? How can this kind of thing still happen in these days?”
“Lower your voice!” The professor says in a whisper, he is a tiny old man but his voice was lower than any of the students, which is also more recognizable, "Anyone in the hallway would hear you!”
The room was instantly quiet again.
Susan's stomach begin to groan again.
She has left the dorm early in the morning, gave up her breakfast to catch CALC 002 lecture at eight in the morning. Then she had missed her lunch because an extended office hour. Then she had to go to the ECON 001 seminar at two o'clock and ended at three, her original plan was to have dinner after this meeting.
At 3:00 p.m., a bastard ran into the physics building at the other end of campus, he entered a lecture hall filled with 200 students who was having an Astronomy class. He pointed his automated gun to the class, shoot all of the bullets out and then fled. There haven’t been any mass shooting cases ever since Fishion becomes a common thing. The college was not prepared for this to happen. As the security team arrives at the building, they have already lost four students and got one badly injured. All of them were having a lecture in the physics building. The school immediately activated its emergency plan and placed all students who remained on campus in the nearest shelters - small exhibition halls, audio-visual classrooms, storage rooms, and other enclosed spaces without windows.
At three o'clock, Susan’s seminar has just finished. She was thinking of going to a nearby Thai restaurant for some warm curry. She tossed her books and computer into her backpack, and froze while unzipped it - she had left Percy in her bag when she got home yesterday and forgotten to take it out, and the eyes on that little LED face were staring back at her.
She must have become nut after studying for her upcoming tests after Thanksgiving, she even forgot to organize her bag lately, that’s why she left her newly matched gun inside. But Percy was very cooperative, even if it couldn't be turned off, it hadn't made a bit of noise during Susan's class.
Susan decided to go home first to put the gun away, as she stepped out of the classroom, she was stopped by a group of security guard and was led to an evacuation room - which is the storage room. At first people were immersed in fear. After an hour someone starts to pulled out their homework. As time goes by, more and more people collapsed to the ground and drifting into sleepiness. There was also joking talk about whether they would stay in this storage room forever if this shooter keeps hiding.
Susan tries to recall her friends’ name. She was worried if someone was in the physics building when the shooting happens. The Wifi signal doesn’t reach this tiny room in the corner, she can neither recall their phone numbers. Her parents called her earlier to make sure she’s in a safe place. Susan also wish other student’s parents could contact with them.
Thank God, it was almost 12:00 when she receive a message - the alarm was finally lifted.
Lights are turned on in a sudden. The room was filled with groan and stretching sound. Students starts to pack everything they take our in the room.
"Be safe, your family and friends should already be waiting for you in the east parking lot.”
Susan walked out of the storage room side by side with the two girls as their cell phones receive a long-awaited mobile signal.
“What on earth is going on?”
"The body of that shooter was found, he suicided with the last bullet out of the campus."
“Suicide? Isn’t that his gun decided to kill him after killing a lot of people.”
“Who knows, it is a gun that kills people.”
Susan walked quickly to pass these girls, she leaves the building straight away and walks to the north parking lot, where Richard always pick her up during the weekend.
"Hey Susan," Percy called out her name as there was no one else around, "are you okay?"
"I'm okay, I'm alive at least." Susan sighed as her phone email beeped with a ding-dong sound, and she clicked on the new email tag, the list of victims pops up, following with an arrangement of condolence event. She looked through it twice, not finding any names she was familiar with, and was relieved by it for a second. This tiny relief soon disappeared as she thought about the families of those students, and the students in the same classroom. Even if they hadn't been physically harmed, they will need something more than a long-term psychological intervention to help...... As she continues to skim through the emails about the reinforcement emergency practicing event, her screen shuts off in a sudden.
“Damn it.”
"What is the ‘damn it’ about? Let me see."
Susan looked around to make sure there was no one there and took Percy out of her bag, so they could hear more clearly what the other was saying.
"The phone is dead, and I was just looking at the list of victims."
"Is there anyone you know?"
"No."
"That's okay, you can talk to me if you're in a bad mood, there's a lot of stuff and features in my system that you don't know about."
"Like what?"
The two of them chats around random topics, light from a street lamp cast a long shadow on the ground. The north parking lot was not the closest one to the economy building, but it was in the same direction as Susan's home.
Meanwhile, the students who had just left the building were gripped by greater horror. The CUP Debug team had just discovered the shooter did not committed suicide, and that the gun-toting body on campus was just a scapegoat. The shooter was still at running, and with even more frightening concerns - that person may own more than one gun.
Because students were evacuated in the direction of the east parking lot, most of them were immediately called back to the building by an emergency message. But Susan Minter, with a dead cell phone, was unlucky enough. She was aware of neither what is happening nor the impending danger.
Susan’s almost at the door of the north parking lot. She can see that Richard is standing next to the white sedan and waving at her. She stops there and thinking about putting Percy away, but nothing seemed to fit except for her book bag and the inside of her jacket, and as she thought about it, a person hit her hard from behind.
"Watch out!"
Susan thought it was a student rushing to the parking lot, but she immediately froze when she turned her back - it was a man, with a mask covering his face and a wide hoodie blocking the whole body, it was impossible to tell who that he is, but she’s sure that person has a gun pointing at her.
"Don't move, if you take another step, I'll kill you."
Susan is too nervous to move, and the next second she realized that Percy was still in her own hands.
"Is that your father standing over there? Walk over and tell him to hand over the car and I won't hurt you."
"Don't trust him," came Percy's voice, Susan had associated it with the bone conduction headset yesterday to play music, a feature neither of them had expected to be helpful in such an emergency. "I can't scan the info on the gun he's holding, it's an old gun that's not logged into Fishion! This man's mask also has signal interference, but he's dangerous, don't trust what he said.”
What am I supposed to do then! Susan shouted in her mind, she had just been matched with Percy and hadn't even been able to go to the range for a second time to practice.
"Why do you keep your hand in your zipper, take it out.”
Cold sweat was running down Susan's hair, she was still hoping that the CUP Debug team would quickly investigate the area, but she also knew that the north parking lot was some distance away from the main campus. They wouldn't be the first to search the area. In that time, she could be killed, or worse yet, her unsuspecting father could be killed after her.
"I can't scan this person, but I'm sure the system is out of whack with me.”
“Which means I can shoot.”
All in a sudden, Susan remembers her conversation with her father about whether something was wrong with Fishion or the CUP.
Susan remembered that Percy said it hadn't been shut down for three years.
Now she have a clear answer in her mind.
She didn't want to die here.
Susan Minter pulled her gun.
///
第四章 苏珊
苏珊·敏特和经济001小组讨论的另外十五个人躺在一间屋子的地板上，这间屋子并不大，平日里被用作经济楼的储藏室。他们已经呆在这里几个小时了，不能说话、不能开灯、不能离开，因为一个持枪的罪犯很可能在他们的校园里游荡。2040年11月23日星期五晚十一点半，从此以后23星期五也是黑色星期五。
“我们什么时候能回家？”
有人小声嘀咕着，他知道这个房间里没人能回答他的问题，连他们的教授都坐在凳子上闭目养神了。
“等那个天杀的凶手被抓到，我觉得持刀抢劫已经够离谱了，谁能想到这年头还有校园枪击案件。”
“上次之前的上次……那是多少年前了？”
“有20年了吧，我不记得到底是哪年了。”
“20年？他们到底是怎么用枪打中人的？”
“安静！”教授小声命令着，“楼道里有人的话会听到你们的。”
房间里一下子恢复了安静。
但苏珊的肚子开始发出呻吟。
她一早离开家，为了赶早晨八点的微积分002没有吃早餐，中午饭又因为去office hour而错过了，两点钟经济学讨论会开始，三点钟结束，她本来的计划是三点钟去吃饭。
下午三点，有个畜生跑进了校园另一头的物理教学楼，开枪对着正在上课的学生们扫射然后逃逸。在Fishion系统普及之后，美国就没有再发生过大型枪击案件，所以学校对此毫无防备。校园安保赶到的时候有4名学生已经身亡，还有5人不同程度受伤。学校立刻启动应急预案，将所有留在校内的学生安置到了最近的安置点——小展览馆、影音教室、储藏室这种没有窗户的封闭空间。
三点钟，苏珊的讨论会刚刚结束，想着去附近的泰国餐馆吃顿暖和的咖喱，她把书和电脑扔进背包，拉开拉链时她愣了一下——昨天回家的时候她把珀西留在了包里，忘记拿出来了，那张LED小脸上的眼睛正在盯着她看。
她一定是学习学到糊涂了，感恩节之后不久就是期末考试，最近她都没有整理书包，甚至忘了把新匹配到的枪拿出包。但是珀西非常配合，就算它不能被关掉，也没有在苏珊上课时发出一点声音。
苏珊决定先回一趟家把枪放好，但她刚刚踏出教室，就被拦住领到了避难的房间里。一开始人们沉浸在紧张的情绪里，后来有人掏出了作业，再到后来大家东倒西歪，沉浸在困意中，有人时不时开始闲聊。还有人开玩笑地说着如果这个凶手一直躲藏的话，他们会不会永远留在这间储藏室。
苏珊在脑海中回忆了一遍同学的名字，储藏室没有网络，她没有大多数人的手机号码，暂时还没法联系上他们。
谢天谢地，快十二点的时候，她的手机震了震——警报终于解除了。
教授打开了储藏室的灯，房间各处传来了因眼睛被刺伤的呻吟，伸懒腰的声音，收拾书包的声音。
“注意安全，你们的家人朋友应该已经在东停车场等你们了。”
她和两个女生并排走出了储藏室，手机收到了久违的移动信号。
“怎么回事？”
“那个凶手的尸体被找到了，是用枪自杀的。”
“自杀？现在还有枪会允许人自杀吗？”
“有吧，这毕竟是把杀人的枪。”
苏珊快步绕开了两人，她径直离开教室向北停车场走去，理查德来接她回家时一般会停在那边。
“嘿苏珊，”周围没有人了，珀西喊住了她，“你还好吗？”
“我还好，我至少没事。”她叹了口气，手机邮箱发出了叮咚的提示音，她点开新的邮件，内容是此次枪击的受害者名单，及哀悼活动。她仔细地看了两遍，没有找到自己熟悉的名字，并且为此松了口气，但她又想到了那些学生的家人，还有同一间教室的学生们。即便他们的身体没有受到伤害，他们也需要长期的心理干预……当她继续浏览邮件里写到的加强演练事件时，她的手机没电关机了。
“该死。”
“什么该死，让我看看。”
苏珊环顾四周确认没有什么人，于是把珀西从包里拿了出来，这样一来他们能更清楚地听到对方讲的是什么。
“手机没电了，我刚在看遇难者名单。”
“有你认识的人吗？”
“没有。”
“那还好，你要是心情不好的话可以和我聊一聊，我的系统里还有很多你不知道的东西和功能。”
“比如说呢？”
两人有一搭没一搭地说着话，路灯的灯光在地上投射出一道道影子，北停车场不是离经济楼最近的车库，但和苏珊家的方向一致。
与此同时，刚从教学楼离开的学生们被巨大的恐怖笼罩了。CUP刚刚发现那名枪手并没有自杀，校园里的那具持枪尸体只是一个被伪装成自杀的替罪羊。枪手依然在逃，并且更为可怕的是——那个人可能拥有数把枪支。
因为学生们都被疏散往东停车场的方向，大部分学生立刻受到信息被召回到了教学楼。但苏珊·敏特倒霉就倒霉在手机没电上，她不知道任何发生的事，也不知道即将到来的危险。
她已经走到北停车场的门口了，理查德站在白色轿车旁边对她招手，她想着把珀西收起来，但好像除了书包和外套内侧没有什么合适的地方，在她思考时一个人从背后狠狠撞上了她。
“看路！”
苏珊以为那是个冒冒失失的学生，但她回头的时候立刻僵住了——那是个戴着面具，穿着宽大连帽衫的人，看不出来他的身份，但他手中分明握着一把枪。
“别动，你再动一步我就杀了你。”
苏珊愣住了，下一秒钟她意识到珀西还被自己握在手里。
“那边站着的是你家长吗，你走过去让他把车交出来，我不会伤害你们。”
“别信他，”珀西的声音传来了，苏珊昨天把它和骨传导耳机关联，因为它说自己可以录入和播放音乐，他们都没想到这个功能竟然会帮到大忙。“我扫描不出他手里握的枪的信息，那是一把没有被登录在Fishion里的旧枪！这个人的面具也有信号干扰，但他很危险，别按他说的做。”
那我该怎么办！苏珊在心里大喊着，她刚刚和珀西匹配，甚至还没能去靶场练习第二次。
“你的手为什么一直放在拉链里，拿出来。”
冷汗正在顺着苏珊的头发流下，她还盼望着CUP的Debug队伍能够快点调查到这个区域，但她也知道北停车场离主校区有一段距离，他们不会第一时间搜索到这里。在这段时间里，她可能会被杀，更糟糕的是在她被杀之后她毫无防备的父亲也会被杀。
“我扫描不到这个人，但我确定系统在我这出了什么毛病，我可以开枪。”
苏珊想起了自己与父亲的对话，Fishion是不是出了问题。
苏珊想起了珀西说过自己三年没有被关闭。
现在她心里有了答案。
她不想死在这里。
苏珊·敏特掏出了枪。