Chapter 14: Book 1: Chapter 7 (Part 2 of 3)

Five minutes later we turned left off Corunna road and cycled beside the car park of the local BuyMart. My current, or former now I supposed, place of employment. As we got closer, I could see there was a small crowd gathered outside the superstore and that the security grills had been pulled down locking the place up.

This was unusual. The store didn’t close until ten p.m. on a Friday night. I’d had the ‘get up at the crack of dawn and open up for the morning’ ten-hour shift, which at the time had felt like the worst thing that could happen today.

“The BuyMart?” Shana said as I stopped at the exit of the car park.

“Yep, the place at which I slog away daily to pay for that shitty apartment and the occasional beer that tastes like piss as it’s all I can afford,” I joked.

“We can get in via the employee entrance around the back, but I want to see what’s happening out front first,” I said and pushed off again.

I cycled through the exit road and rolled up to the crowd. Roughly sixty or seventy people were milling about outside. They were angry and there was a fair bit of swearing and gesturing going on. I didn’t bother analysing most of the people, they just looked like your usual suburbanites expressing their fears in the form of angry protest.

What was unusual, given the general animosity in the crowd, was that no one was rattling the grill or banging on the windows. I sent my bike to the inventory and approached a portly gentleman on the edge of the crowd who seemed a bit calmer than most.

William Barnes (Human)
Civilian (Z) 1
Potential: Low	Value: Very Low
Threat: Very Low	10 XP

 

 “Hey there, chap,” I said by way of greeting. “What’s going on? Why is the BuyMart closed? It’s not ten o’clock yet.”

William seemed a bit startled at first, but after Shana flashed him a beaming smile, he warmed up to us enough to speak.

“I wasn’t here when it happened,” he started. “I came after, after you know, to stock up but it was already shut. Apparently, after you know, what happened, the store manager made everyone leave and then shut the place up.”

“Wow, that sucks. I mean people need to stock up in an emergency situation like this,” I said, playing along as an equally clueless citizen.

“I know, right,” said William.

“Well, how come nobody is trying to force their way in,” I said quietly.

“You can try, but that’s when things get really weird. You get a message in your head that the building is protected by a level one security field. It doesn’t hurt people or anything, but nobody has been able to move the security grill. A few folks went to the state police station down the road to get them to come and make them open the store, but they were told the police didn’t have the resources spare to help ‘shoppers’ and to stop wasting their time,” William rattled off.

William proved to be quite talkative when you got him going.

“Well, thanks for the help, William. I think we’ll try our luck elsewhere,” I said and taking Shana’s hand, led her away and around the corner of the BuyMart out of sight.

“How did he know my name?” I heard William ask another bystander as we walked away.

What he told me was odd, though. And I wasn’t talking about the security field which I analysed the building to confirm.

BuyMart Superstore (Flint MI branch)

Owner: BuyMart Organisation Access: BuyMart employees. Mana Enabled Security: Level 1 Protection field Durability: 10,000/10,000

 

That didn’t give me much additional information. I would ask Quixbix in a moment when I was sure we were out of earshot. I could have done it mentally but that would have excluded Shana from our conversation.

What was bugging me, though, was his talk of the store manager booting everybody out of the place.

Gareth ran the store, and he was a decent enough guy. He was a lifelong employee of BuyMart and a little bit too by the book, but otherwise a ‘good egg’ as he liked to remark. Expelling customers and closing the store, even in an RPG apocalypse, was most definitely not by the book and therefore very unlike him.

We were halfway down the side of the store when the realisation hit me. Of course, it hadn’t been Gareth. He’d have left by five on a Friday and that meant…fuck, it was Vincent and Constance, two of the shift managers, it had to be.

You couldn’t hope to find a bigger pair of asshats drunk on the minimal amount of power they’d been given. Being able to avoid the pair of them for most of my shift was the silver lining of being an opener.

“Quixbix, what’s the deal with this level one security field?”

<Torin, some buildings owned by recognised organisations are granted a mana fuelled security system. Level one is very basic and really only useful for keeping out low-levelled sentients and low-grade creatures.>

“Mike’s bikes didn’t have anything like that, did it?”

<No. As a locally owned business, it would not have been recognised during the integration period. Only brands familiar to a high percentage of the population are acknowledged.>

“Okay, so no to the mom-and-pop stores but yes to the national chains. Will this field keep Shana and me out?” I asked again.

<With your class you would likely be able to overpower a level one security field and force your way in. Although as I understand it, you were employed here before integration.>

“Yes,” I replied.

<In which case you will be unaffected by the field.>

“Good to know. What happens if I’m fired once we get inside?” I asked him.

<The field has no effect inside the premises, only on unauthorised entities trying to gain access without an invite from the outside.>

“Gotcha, that should make things easier if Vincent and Constance become a problem,” I said absently.

“Who?” Shana asked.

“Vincent and Constance, the shift managers. Petty-minded arseholes, I’m sure you know the type,” I said, and Shana nodded in understanding.

However, even as I spoke the words, I realised I was still thinking of how the world used to work.

Eating whatever bullshit the pair of them served me when they could go running off to Gareth and make up something to get me sacked was the world of a few hours ago. Unless they had picked something unexpected during character creation, they literally had no influence over me. The new and improved Torin, on the other hand, would be considerably stronger than them and definitely didn’t need this shitty job any longer.

I covered the last few feet to the employee entrance with a swagger in my step and a smirk on my face. One other benefit of being an opener was I had the key to the employee entrance door, so we had no trouble getting in. I kept hold of Shana’s hand as we passed the threshold, and she wasn’t affected by the security field.

I did forget that the door was on a weighted hinge and when I let go of the door, it slammed shut behind us.

A stealth infiltration was already off the cards.

We were in the staff changing room and the walls were lined with grey lockers we could use to store our work overalls and personal items. There were a few benches scattered about the place. There were three doors out of the locker area at the end of the room.

The door to the employee lounge was on the far-left corner of the room. The door on the right led out onto the store floor and there was a door in the centre of the far wall which took you into the stock warehouse. The banging of the door triggered some hushed voices coming from the lounge and within moments four people I knew spilled out.

“Torin!” a surprised long-haired man named Keith exclaimed on seeing me.

Keith was a few years older than me and a bit of a stoner. One of his partners in crime was Mia, a petite Hispanic girl who was knocking boots with Keith. We weren’t supposed to know, but let’s face it, stoners aren’t as subtle as they think they are.

On his other side was Malky. He was a big man in his forties with learning disabilities who rarely spoke. Those three were usually on shift together. I wouldn’t call us friends exactly, but they were the only people I’d forged any kind of connection with during the month or so that I’d been working at the BuyMart.

The odd one out in the group was Clarence.

He was a weedy fellow, whose face was normally covered in acne despite being almost thirty, but that appeared to have been cleared up by the Framework.

Clarence took one look at me, squeaked audibly, then raced across the room and out the door on the right.

“Fuckkkk,” Keith said, drawing out the word. “He’s off to squeal to the dastardly duo.”

Evidently, Vincent and Constance were indeed in the building. The dastardly duo was what we called them behind their backs.

“Who’s the hottie?” Keith asked when he looked back.

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Mia elbowed him firmly in the gut at his comment and Shana giggled demurely.

“Hey guys. Feels like forever since I’ve seen you, instead of this afternoon when your shifts started. This is Shana, she’s with me. I hope that’s okay with you guys,” I said.

“Absolutely, Torin. Hi Shana, I’m Mia and this is Keith and Malky,” Mia said and strode over to welcome her.

Keith waved and Malky nodded with a shy smile on his face.

“Yeah, but the duo are gonna pitch a fit,” Keith remarked absently pushing a few errant hairs behind his ears.

“Speaking of our glorious leaders, I take it that it was their idea to shut the store down early and lock everyone out?” I asked.

“Yeah, dude. They ain’t gonna be happy you got in. They said they got some notice from this Framework craziness that said when they locked up it would keep people out.”

Then Keith stared at me intently for a moment. “Dude, I need to lay off the reefer. I could swear you weren’t that big un’ buff this morning,” he told me.

“Yeah, so this Framework thing is for real and I’m a little different,” I said, glossing over the major changes in my physiology. “The duo isn’t wrong about the security measures. Luckily, I’m still an employee and I have the keys. There must be close to a hundred people out front wanting to get in and not being able to move the security grill. I’m surprised you guys let them take over like this.”

“Well, yeah…” Keith started.

“We were afraid of the monsters the character creation person warned us about,” Mia finished for him with a hint of a challenge in her voice.

I shouldn’t really blame them. Hell, Victor’s first instinct was to shoot me. And if I was honest, having the BuyMart to ourselves would make tonight a lot more convenient.

“Fair enough Mia. I’d better deal with the duo, how many of their winged monkeys do they have in tow?” I asked.

Keith snorted at my reference to the other employees who chose to suck up to the pair.

“Clarence makes four,” Malky spoke up unexpectedly. “All the others left to join their families. It is just those six and the five of us in the store.”

That short burst was the most I’d ever heard Malky say in a single sitting. It also hadn’t escaped my notice there was a clarity in the tone of what he said that had been absent this afternoon. It wasn’t just Clarence’s acne that had been rectified.

“I think Clarence was asked to keep an eye on us,” Malky finished.

I dipped my head in acknowledgement and meshed my hands with Shana’s again. We moved through the right door, leaving the carpeted locker room behind and onto the tiled floor of the BuyMart.

There were two dozen aisles filled with everything you could think of on the left and the registers on our right, but we didn’t have to go far before I heard the distinctive clacking of Constance short heels approaching us.

I stopped and let them come to us and they emerged suddenly from the bathroom and healthcare aisle. Constance was a plump woman in her forties with poorly dyed strawberry blond hair. She also wore way too much make-up, which didn’t help cover her naturally waspish disposition.

Vincent was in his late thirties, and his dirty blonde hair had receded heavily, nevertheless, he insisted on growing an uncomplimentary ratty ponytail. They were followed by Clarence and three others who I never bothered to get to know. I analysed the pack’s leaders.

Constance Lafleur (Human)
Worker (Snitch) (Y) 1
Potential: Abysmally Low	Value: Very Low
Threat: Very Low	20 XP

 

Vincent Smith (Human)
Lesser Overseer (X) 1
Potential: Very Low	Value: Very Low
Threat: Very Low	30 XP

 

I snorted when I read Constance’s potential and class, that just about summed her up. Otherwise, it was excellent news, there weren’t going to be any Mrs Pearson type surprises here.

In fact, seeing their classes jogged my memory of Victor’s, Tax Collector. On the way here I had been idly analysing people as we went. Most of them remained as Civilians and a few we’d gone by had recognisable combat classes. But these three appeared to have selected a class that wasn’t combat orientated. I would have to consult with Quixbix later.

“There he is,” Constance screeched. “Torin Carter, you are not authorised to be here, tell him, Vincent,” she finished with a smug grin on her overtly red lips.

I quickly analysed the other four and got more of the same unimpressive results. No wonder they were letting Vincent and Constance lead the way. It didn’t matter, I intended this to be a very short meeting.

“Shana be a dear and arm yourself,” I said to the dark-haired beauty at my side.

With a thought, her bow and quiver were out from her inventory and in her hands or around her waist. She calmly drew an arrow and nocked it to the string.

“If any of these pricks makes a move don’t hesitate to shoot,” I ordered.

I used the surprise factor of the appearance of Shana’s weaponry to advance on Vincent unopposed. I had no intention of letting this pair dictate the conversation.

I bounded forward, pulling the bandana and sunglasses off as I went, and revealed my recently acquired Acheronian heritage.

Using my left hand, I grabbed Vincent by his throat and slammed him back into a display of baby formula and nappies. The metal shelves shook as he crashed into them. The extra strength I’d gained helped make this possible. At the same time, I summoned one of my ice scimitars from my inventory and pointed it at the chest of Constance.

Constance quivered with rage but didn’t try to come any closer. Nor did any of the winged monkeys.

“What do you think you are doing, Torin Carter,” she bristled. “Just you wait until I tell Gareth. Assaulting a superior, your days here are done.”

I couldn’t help but laugh in the pompous cow’s face. This only made her angrier, of course. I shook my head at her stupidity. She believed enough in what happened to try and take control of the store but not enough that she imagined threatening to get me the sack would frighten me.

“Silence Connie,” I snarled at her.

She hated being called Connie, but there was a part of me that desperately hoped she’d give me a reason to slice her throat in two.

Unfortunately, my command had the desired effect, and she closed her flapping trap shut. In the back of my mind, I was a little surprised at my behaviour. However, there was another bigger part of me that gloried in the violence and firmly commanded the objecting element to sit down and shut the fuck up.

Which it duly did.

“I’m going to keep this simple. I don’t like you. Any of you. And I’m inclined to simplify my life by taking yours. So, listen up, as I won’t say this again and there will be no second chances,” I growled with quiet menace and resolute intent.

I meant every word. I paused to look each of them in the eye and saw only fear.

Intimidation checks are successful. Targets will be more likely to obey your instructions out of fear. The effect will last 6 hours.

That was handy and should make this go more smoothly.

“I’m in charge. My friends and I will be occupying the managers’ lounge and Gareth’s office tonight after taking what we want…” Constance almost spoke up at that but held her tongue. “…I don’t want to see any of you again. Go hang out in the pet foods aisle for two hours until we’re done and then you can spend the night in the employee’s break room. Do anything else and I’ll fucking kill every last one of you. Understood?”

There was plenty of nodding. Constance was the only one who looked like she might object but held her waspish tongue. I still gripped Vincent’s throat tightly, and he was both choking and utterly petrified. Tears were flowing down his cheeks and he was snivelling wordlessly. There was also a yellow pool of liquid forming at his feet. Disgusted, I threw the cowardly bully to his lackeys and stepped back from the spreading urine.

“Clarence,” I snapped. “Clean up Vincent’s piss before you go.”

“But…but,” he stammered. “You said to stay out of sight, the cleaning equipment is in the locker room,”

“Use the nappies,” I said pointing at the display Vincent had knocked over. “That’s what they were designed to do, absorb piss.”

“Uh, Nappies?” he muttered.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. The sodding diapers you pillock,” I snarled, and grabbed a pack and threw it at him.

With that, I turned and strode back to the employee break room to inform the others the store was ours for the night. Tomorrow was a different story, but we would be gone by then.

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