Published: September 18th 2020, 2:00:04 pm
"I-I'm not sure..." Victoria swallowed, looking at the table full of food. How should she even finish that sentence?! She doubted she could finish all of that, and she certainly didn't need it all...
"Come on, Vickie," Taylor teased. "You wouldn't want to let all our... Well, your... money go to waste, would you?"
"Taylor!" Victoria glared at her, kicking her legs, wishing they were just a bit longer so she could stomp on the floor while sitting on the chair. "You have to stop using that!"
"You let me borrow it," Taylor shrugged. "I just figured, as long as it's for you, you might as well be paying for it."
"After all," Sawyer chimed in, "you're the one who keeps claiming you don't need a babysitter. A real grown-up would pay for her own lunch, wouldn't she?"
"W-Well, yeah," Vickie had to admit. "B-But I wouldn't have..." She gestured at the veritable feast, supposedly for one, although it was big enough to feed a small army.
"And you would have missed out," Taylor told her. "You need to know what's good for the next time you come here."
Victoria wasn't overly concerned about that, but it didn't seem to matter. The girls had already made their minds up, and the food was already there... Something was going to have to be done with it, and, apparently, that meant she had to eat it. Some of it did look straight-up good, while some appeared more 'good for the mall', and the rest was about what she would expect. That didn't mean it was bad, she reminded herself... Sometimes, at least when she'd been younger, trashy mall food was what she craved. How well it was going to sit, atop all the other stuff she was about to gulp down, was another question.
"You know," she gave one last-ditch effort to put a stop to this while she still could, "it seems kind of wasteful to have all this food for myself..."
"You might have a point," Sawyer nodded, Vickie squirming in her seat, surprised to hear agreement. "There are hungry people out there." Victoria nodded. "So you'll just have to make sure you eat all of it so it doesn't have to get thrown away. THAT would be wasteful, and obviously you don't want that."
Vickie sighed, realizing they'd wound up right back where they started, except now it looked like she was agreeing with the babysitters. She was older than these girls, had been to college - was nearly done with it, in fact - she should not be getting outsmarted by them like this... Of course, this time, she'd been the one to bring it up.
She decided to start with the gyro, since that was what she had ordered for herself, and had planned on eating. It wasn't bad, but in all honesty, she was feeling full before she even got to the fries... And she was barely halfway through her drink. They couldn't seriously expect her to finish everything else, could they?! This had to be some weird, expensive joke... But, if it was, it would be the first.
After all the confusion with ordering the french fries, it felt wrong not to eat them. They were pretty standard, though, almost looking like they came out of the same frozen bag as the ones on a couple other plates in front of her, and she could only get a couple down as she waited for a sign that the girls were going to stop her. When it didn't come, she pushed them aside, and moved on to the Chinese food.
She wasn't sure why, exactly, she chose that next... There was the old cliche that you'd be hungry an hour later after you had Chinese. She'd never found that to be true herself, but she'd probably be here at least an hour if she ate all of this, so if she got a little more room in her tummy at that point, it would be welcome.
If it was going to happen this time, she couldn't wait; she'd slowed down quite a bit as she made her way through the orange chicken, eating as little of the rice as she could - it was hard to avoid when the chicken was sitting right on top of it, the sauce sucking some grains up and making it impossible to separate without making a mess that wouldn't really be worth the trouble - since she knew it was more filling, but that was nothing compared to the snail's pace at which she moved on, afterwards, to the hot dog.
There had been no real strategy before then, other than thinking of that saying that likely wasn't even true... Now, she'd simply chosen the smallest entree, the one that looked the most like it might fit into her overly full tummy, which was already feeling bloated, although she didn't dare glance down to see if there was any difference. It seemed like a good idea at the time, except that, when it was done, she still had more to eat, and everything else was bigger, and less space than ever to put it.
And, all the while, she was slowly making her way through the drinks as well. Thankfully, it appeared that they'd gotten her a different drink from each place, so it wasn't the same thing over and over... None of them were labelled, though, so, short of memorizing which drink was from which restaurant, it was always a surprise whenever she picked up a cup and slurped on the straw as to what, exactly, she'd taste. At first, she'd thought she would just concentrate on the drink that went with the food she was eating at the time, but that went out the window immediately once she hadn't drained the soda she'd picked out for herself with the gyro.
She groaned, feeling drowsy as she surveyed the table, still packed, even if she ignored the sides she'd been mostly skipping over so far. "I-I don't think I can eat any more," she confessed.
"But you aren't done," Sawyer reminded her, as if she needed it.
"A lot of it's already cold by now, I bet," Taylor mused. "I suppose, if you need a break, you can have one."
Vickie didn't know how much good that would do, unless it was a day or two long, although her jaw was grateful for the break from chewing. She leaned back - there was no room to go the other way, not without resting her head on a hamburger bun or something - head against the back of the chair, tummy churning.
"Hey," Taylor said, though, when Victoria raised her head, she saw that it wasn't directed at her, as the two younger girls looked at one another, and at Taylor's phone. "It might be time for..."
"Good call," Sawyer nodded. "Hey, Vickie? We have something to take care of... I want you to stay here and behave yourself. Don't move from your seat, and don't try anything sneaky like throwing away any of your food... You don't want to be wasteful, do you?"
Victoria really regretted bringing that up now; she would happily waste some food if it got her out of this seemingly never-ending purgatory of eating. "N-No, ma'am," she answered anyway.
"We'll know," Taylor threatened, and, while she didn't say how, Vickie didn't want to take the risk that she could be telling the truth somehow. They might have friends there, watching, or maybe there was a camera hidden on the table, somewhere among the food wrappers... Evidence or no, there was too big of a chance they actually would find out, and probably simply buy her another serving of whatever she tried to get rid of.
As she watched them go, however, she couldn't resist testing the limits of the other rule they'd set down for her. If she stood up, moved around a little, perhaps she'd be able to make a bit more room... Or at least not feel so much like a slug, just sitting there and eating. As soon as she hopped down off the chair, she braced herself, half expecting some other teens to appear, or the girls to return.
When neither happened, she let out a sigh of relief. She wasn't ready to toss out the food yet - their way of knowing could simply be to look in the nearby trash cans for evidence if there was noticeably less food on the table when they returned - but she was more than happy to go on a little stroll. The table looked like a large family had claimed it, and still in the midst of eating, so she wasn't too worried that workers would swoop in to try to clean it up for more customers...
And, if she was being honest, she was very curious interested in what Sawyer and Taylor had been talking so clandestinely about. It worked out, since, if she was going to do this, she needed to keep a close eye on them, to ensure they wouldn't return to the food court before her. She'd assumed, at first, that they were simply going to the bathroom, although she'd found it strange they wouldn't make a big deal out of it, ask her if she needed to go, considering the training panties she was wearing, and everything that had happened the day before.
As she'd watched them go, however, it had been plain to see they were going in the opposite direction of the nearest restroom. They had a bit of a headstart on her, but the side of the mall they'd headed down didn't connect anywhere else, so they had to be somewhere there... And, as long as she kept her eyes open for them coming back towards her, she wouldn't lose them.
Just like with the food court, this was a part of the mall Vickie wasn't as familiar with. The whole section had been blocked off a few years before she'd gone to college, all of the stores having gone out of business, or moved to other, smaller locations elsewhere in the building. She could remember, faintly, what had been in some of these places long ago, especially the jewelry store she'd loved as a tween that was now selling cell phones, but that was in one of the first spots, and, even when there were other things further in, she'd rarely bothered to venture deeper into the wing.
At the very end she knew there had been a department store, the closing of which had been a part of everything else in that section slowly dying. She doubted that was where the girls were going, so she didn't pay much attention to it as she walked up one side of the hall, peering into every store she passed, searching for the pair.
She'd really hoped she'd find them there, since it was much riskier going the other way... If they emerged from one of the stores ahead of her on the trip back towards the food court, they would almost definitely beat her there, and find her missing. The further she got, with no sign of them, the stupider she felt for taking this risk, the more sure she was that she was going to regret this...
As she got closer to the end of the first half of her journey, and the former department store loomed nearer, she began to assume nothing had replaced it after all. The mall hadn't put up the temporary walls that had blocked off this whole section in front of the entrance, but she could see them right on the other side of the glass wall, only a small portion of the store open, and mostly empty except for some computer stations, spaced out every few feet. The gate was open, however, making her wonder if the computers were there for public use, like at a library.
She was ready to write it off as that and pass by without paying it any mind, when she finally spotted them. She nearly missed them, as they were standing at a computer off in one corner, where the store had originally started to stretch outwards from the entryway when it had been at its full size, hidden from the view of anyone staring straight down the hall. Luckily, she heard them giggling, then, as she looked around nervously, half expecting them to be right behind her, despite her ears telling her that wasn't the direction the sound had come from, saw the pair.
Her heart began to race as she watched them, realizing it would be far easier for them to see her as she stood there, gawking, right in front of the wall of windows. She scurried over to the wall, flattening herself against it, hoping the frame around the panes of glass was thick enough to hide her, even after the huge lunch she'd had - and, theoretically, was in the middle of now.
What were they doing there?! Taylor's laptop hadn't come in yet, sure, however she was positive Sawyer already had one that was probably much better than whatever the mall was providing... For that matter, their cell phones were likely faster, too! Why wouldn't they have just used them?! She couldn't get a good look at the monitor, to see what they were laughing at, but it definitely seemed strange that they'd been so weird and secretive about going to use a public computer.
In fact, leaning in closer, Vickie could see that Sawyer had her phone out, and was looking at it at the same time. She could see its screen easier than the computer monitor, but it was just as impossible to tell what was on it. There were no icons, no recognizable social media feeds... All it had was lines and lines of text, far too small for Victoria to read from this distance.
"I can't believe it's this easy," Sawyer shook her head. "There's, like, no security... Do parents actually leave their kids here?!"
"I think it's mostly babysitters," Taylor shrugged, the two looking at each other and giggling. "So I guess it's perfect for us, huh?"
What was this place?! It didn't look like anything... Victoria stared up at the wall over the gate, but she was too close to read the sign there, and, if she slid back along the wall, it would be easier for the girls to see her, and harder for her to hear them. She made a mental note to check it later, if she had the chance, and went back to spying.
"This is going to take a sec," Sawyer said. "Make sure nobody's coming this way."
Vickie swallowed a gasp, flattening herself as much as she could against the wall, right as Taylor turned around. She was pretty sure her camouflage was working, since she couldn't see anything around it herself, but if Taylor moved to the right spot, or, heaven forbid, stepped out of the store itself... There was nothing she could do. It was too late to try to run away now.
There was a little hallway, tucked away between stores, that Victoria had never paid attention to until she was at the mall with her parents one day, shopping at that jewelry store, having insisted she was old enough to go on her own. It had been storming outside, but she hadn't really cared; she'd just gotten her allowance, and she was going to buy herself something nice, without her mom and dad looking over her shoulder while she was trying to pick it out. She'd never felt more grown-up, or mature.
And then the sirens had started. They made her jump, at first, although, since she didn't know what they were, she tried to ignore them... Until the workers at the store had ushered her out, locking the door behind them, shepherding her and the other customers to that little hallway. It might have been cool, any other time, to see it, to get to go behind the scenes of the mall, since the door at the end of the hallway was marked 'Employees Only'.
The space beyond was just a large, concrete room, however, with a few doors to storage rooms, marked with the names of some of the bigger stores. And it was packed with people, gathered together in clusters, whispering nervously to one another solemnly in a way that immediately scared her. She looked around, searching for her parents, but they were nowhere to be found.
She'd always thought the people who worked at the jewelry store were so cool, though now she realized they were probably just a few years older than her at the time. Without her parents, not knowing anyone else, she clung closely to them, working up the courage after a while to ask, "Wh-What's going on?"
"It's a tornado watch," the girl had told her. "Hey, don't worry... It's probably nothing... This is just the safest place in this part of the mall, so we have to stay here until we get the all-clear."
"Umm..." Vickie had swallowed, looking up at the older girl, almost not wanting to correct her, or ask the question burning in her mind. "D-Do you mean a tornado warning?" It was tornado season, so they'd been talking about them in science class a lot. She'd seen lots of very scary pictures and videos that made her certain, if this was a warning, if a tornado really had touched down somewhere near here, that this room wasn't going to protect her, that she was going to die here, not even knowing where her parents were, because she'd just had to shop by herself...
"Oh, maybe you're right," the worker had shrugged. "I can never remember which is which. It's the bad one, whichever that one is... They only sound the siren if it's that one."
Vickie always wanted so badly for the girls at the jewelry store to think she was cool, that she was one of them... So it was pretty humiliating when she started to cry, terrified of the tornado. She had no doubt the worker wasn't pleased about being stuck with her, having to deal with this, on top of everything else. Of course, everything had been fine, and a security officer had come by before long to tell them they could all go back to the stores they'd been shopping at.
"Hey," the worker had asked Vickie, "do you know where your parents are?" Vickie had shaken her head, wiping her eyes. "Excuse me, sir?" the worker had turned to the security officer. "Could you help her out? I need to go open up my store again."
Vickie wanted to tell the girl she was old enough to do that herself, but she was still upset, and mortified that she had to be walked back to the security office, to have her parents called over the intercom when she tearfully confessed she had no idea what store they would have been at. And, to cap it all off, when she got out to the car to head home, she'd looked down at her lap, noticed a small wet spot there, realized it wasn't just her eyes that had been leaking while she'd been so scared. It wasn't big, and nobody had said anything... She hadn't gone back into jewelry store for months afterwards, however, in case that same worker was there.
So, she didn't have the best memories associated with that hallway, but if she'd been smart, she would run there when she heard the first inkling that Taylor was going to be a look-out. She hadn't, though, and now it was too late. She whimpered, bouncing in place, hating that she was more conscious of herself, and her body, now, that she could tell right away that there was an anxious trickle of urine making its way into her trainers, expanding the damp spot in them even further.
Of course, if she was caught here, away from the food court where they'd left her, she'd be in more trouble than was inevitably waiting for her when they checked her training panties. She made herself stay perfectly still, trying to hold her breath, feeling like she was back in the tornado shelter, but without an unwilling jewelry store employee to look after her.
Seconds ticked by slowly, Vickie unsure if it was over or not, if Taylor had just taken a quick glance and been done, or if she was actively watching. She wanted to lean over, to take a peek, but if it was the latter, she'd almost definitely be seen instantly. She could feel herself begin to sweat, realizing that, the longer she stayed here, like this, the more chance there was that someone from outside would see her and wonder what was happening. Even if Taylor wasn't looking, she couldn't trust this theoretical other person to stay quiet while they came to check on what she had no doubt looked like a lost little girl, like someone who needed help, like she had that day with the tornado warning...
"Almost done!" she heard Sawyer exclaim. "I might need your help with this part..."
Finally, Victoria worked up the courage to look into the window again, letting out a sigh of relief to find both the sitters facing the computer, Sawyer now typing away on the keyboard. "All right," she said. "I need you to hold these two keys here. Don't let them go until I tell you, okay?"
Taylor nodded, and Sawyer picked her phone up again, pulling something small out of the charging port, so tiny Vickie hadn't noticed it there until she took it away. She assumed it must be a flash drive, although she hadn't seen one as small as that before. She knelt down beside the desk, reaching behind it and fiddling with something.
"I don't think anyone would notice it on the front," she explained, "but it'll still be safer on the back.... There we go! Okay, you can let go now, and let me see... Perfect!"
"Really?" Taylor giggled. "That's it?"
"That's it?" Sawyer scoffed. "Do you have any idea how long it took me to program that last night? And then to find a way to make a closed system like this accept it?"
"Sorry, sorry," Taylor apologized. "But it's all done?"
"It sure looks like it," Sawyer said. "Come on, let's get out of here."
Victoria's heart began to pound again as she prepared to make a mad dash out of there, into the crowd to try to keep herself hidden as she made her way back to the food court ahead of them. Thankfully, she hesitated just long enough to hear Taylor suggest, "Hey, I saw Forever 21 was having a sale... Do you want to go hit it first?"
"Sure, why not? It's not like Vickie's going to go anywhere on her own... We could probably leave her there the rest of the day if we wanted."
They turned to each other, snickering, and Vickie knew she couldn't watch anymore. Keeping low, she skittered to the hallway, turning the corner and looking back to see the pair chatting to one another as they walked out. She watched them go, confirming that they weren't headed straight for the food court, and that she was safe, for now.
The smart thing to do, most likely, would be to go wait for them at the table anyway. It was hard to tell how long they'd really be gone, despite what they'd said... But curiosity got the better of her. She had to figure out what they'd been up to.
Completely forgetting to look at the sign again, she slid into the mostly empty storefront, to that same computer they'd been using. It looked like the computers themselves were locked away in the desks the keyboards were sitting on, as the wires all headed down into a small hole towards the back of the desk. She probably wouldn't have thought about it normally... It was pretty simple, with the back of the desk stretching upwards, the monitor mounted at the top, and a shelf jutting out with the keyboard and mouse on it. Looking closer, however, the back was much thicker than it needed to be, and, on one side, she saw a small door with a lock. Combining that knowledge with what she'd seen Sawyer doing, and heard her saying, she assumed the computers had to be in there, and felt smart for having worked it out.
That still didn't answer what was going on here, however. She looked at the monitor, saw a warning screen saying the computer was out of order. For comparison, she stepped to the next desk, saw a cheery, brightly colored background asking her if she had an account, or had been here before. Returning to the other computer, she pressed a few keys on the keyboard, wondering if this was intentional, or if Sawyer's tinkering had broken something already.
Suddenly, the screen sprang to life, the image on the monitor changing rapidly, filling in several forms in quick succession, before she could read any of them, before a red light shone from the top bezel of the screen, right onto her face.
"Confirmed," a pleasant, female voice chimed. "Welcome, Vickie. You are now enrolled. Are you ready to have some fun?"
"Huh?" Victoria gulped, stepping back. "N-No, thanks... I-I'm not..."
A section of the blank, white wall behind the computers slid open, and a pair of white-gloved hands appeared, at the end of long, metal rods. One beckoned her to step in, moving much more fluidly and naturally than she would have expected.
"Umm... No thanks," she repeated, heading for the door.
One of the hands shot outwards, grabbing her by the wrist, while the other aimed for the hem of her skirt, lifting it up. "H-Hey!" she blushed, trying in vain to grab the fabric out of the gloved hand, to stop showing off her soggy trainer.
"Error," the female voice chirped. "These are not what you are supposed to be wearing, are they, Vickie?"
Victoria struggled, shocked at how strong the arms were, unable to break free, feeling herself dribbling once more into her training panties... Only to see another hand pop up, giving her padding a pat. "See?" the voice asked. "This is exactly why you need to be properly dressed, Vickie."
To her horror, she saw the wall of the plain, white room the hands were trying to pull her into slide open, a piece of furniture appearing inside that was unmistakably a changing table, a whole stack of huge, bulky diapers sitting on top, waiting for her. "N-No!" she gasped, shaking her head. "N-No, you can't!"
She knew exactly what this place was now... Sawyer had teased her about it the day before. This was an automated nursery... And she was about to be admitted as the newest baby! Was this a result of what the girls had been doing? Or had she accidentally done this herself?! Either way, she was no match for the arms, as they pulled her closer and closer to the changing table, Vickie squeezing her eyes shut, not wanting to watch...
"Hey, let her go!" Suddenly, Victoria felt the hand around her wrist being pried off, another hand, this one made of flesh and blood, closing around it instead. A moment later, the one on her skirt released as well, and she was half pulled, half carried, backwards, hastily yanked out of the store, set down onto the floor safely out of the arms' reach.
"Th-Thank you so much!" she squeaked, trying to catch her breath, to calm herself down.
"No problem!" Now that she was out of danger, she started to realize that she recognized these voice. "I knew that was you! I heard you yelling, and I told my friend that we had to go help out... What happened in there?! Are you all right?"
"U-Umm... Y-Yeah..." Vickie nodded, keeping her head down, feeling her heart begin pounding once more; she wasn't out of danger after all.
"You remember me, right? From the food court?" Liz knelt down, forcing Victoria to tuck her chin even further into her chest to keep her face hidden. "This is that cute little girl I was telling you about."
"What?" the other girl chuckled, Vickie gulping as she felt a finger wedge itself under her chin, easily prying it forward, pushing her face upwards. "This isn't a little girl. Don't you recognize her, goofball?"
Victoria did her best not to sigh as she stared up at Jordan, dressed the same as Liz, in a bikini top and cover-up skirt, looking bigger and stronger than ever after that rescue, and making Vickie herself feel so much smaller, and more helpless, and more aware of the childish outfit she was wearing, especially the soggy trainers just barely hidden beneath the hem of her skirtall. "H-Hi, Jordan," she blushed. "F-Fancy seeing you here..."