Doomsday Supermarket

Chapter 15 - Window Shoppers

Chapter 15 · 1,200 words

The three came back the next day.

Wren was at the counter, processing a batch of carapace fragments from a hunter he'd seen twice before, when the entrance doors opened and the same three walked in. The lean man, the watchful woman, the younger one with his hands in his pockets.

They didn't come to the counter first. They split up again, but differently this time. The woman went to the shelves, different shelves than last time. She was looking at the medical supplies now, the first-aid kits and bandages and the healing-tissue-derived products that the processing station had started producing. The younger man stood near the entrance, not moving, just watching the Store's interior with the same measuring look.

The lean man came to the counter.

"Busy day," he said.

"It's been busy."

"You process everything back there?" He nodded toward the processing station.

"What I can."

The lean man bought a container seal, one of the processed items. Paid with a carapace fragment. While Wren processed the transaction, the man said: "You get a lot of teams coming through? With materials?"

"Some."

"Big teams. Organized."

Wren looked at him. The man's expression was the same, open, curious, the kind of face that could be friendly or could be something else entirely.

"Why?"

"Just wondering. How the supply works. You get materials from hunters, process them, sell the products. That the model?"

"That's part of it."

The lean man took his container seal and moved back into the Store. He joined the woman at the medical supplies shelf. They spoke quietly. Wren couldn't hear what they were saying, but he could see the woman pointing at items and the lean man nodding.

They left after fifteen minutes. Small purchases. The same minimal spending pattern as the day before.

Wren added to his notes: *Visit 2. Same three. Different focus: medical supplies, processing capabilities, supply chain structure. Questions about teams and organization. Purchased: 1 container seal. Total spend: ~2 credits.*

The next visit was the day after that. Or maybe two days after. Wren's time sense was unreliable, and the Store's countdown didn't distinguish between one day and the next in any way that helped him track intervals. What he could track was the pattern.

They came back. Three of them. Same faces, same coordination.

This time, the lean man didn't come to the counter at all. He stood near the entrance with the younger man, and they talked to a regular customer, a hunter who'd been in three times in the past two days, bringing small batches of carapace and buying supplies.

Wren couldn't hear the conversation at first. The Store was busy, two other transactions in progress, the processing station cycling through a batch. But the Store was also quiet in the way that retail spaces are quiet when the lighting hum is the baseline and every other sound stands out.

The lean man's voice carried.

"—where do they get the materials? The ones they bring in?"

The regular customer, a middle-aged woman with a crossbow scar on her forearm, shrugged. "Hunters. Scavengers. People go out, kill things, bring back parts."

"Specific teams? Anyone big?"

"There's a team. Four of them. Leader's a guy named Jax. They bring the most. Good materials, mostly."

The lean man nodded. "Jax. You know where they're based?"

"Based? They don't have a base. They come from the east, usually. The road."

The younger man was counting something. Wren watched him from the counter. He was counting customers as they entered and left. His lips moved slightly, numbers, not words.

The woman was at the shelves again. This time she was looking at the pricing. Not the products, the prices. She was comparing the credit cost of different items, her eyes moving from shelf tag to shelf tag. Wren hadn't put physical price tags on the shelves; the prices were displayed on the Store interface at the counter. But the regular items, the pre-apocalypse goods, the canned food, the water, had prices that were visible when you selected them through the interface. She must have been watching other customers' transactions, learning the price structure from observation.

The lean man finished his conversation with the regular customer. He bought nothing this time. The younger man bought a water bottle. The woman bought nothing.

They left together. Stood at the lighting edge. Watched.

Wren sat down. He pulled out his scrap paper and turned to the section he'd started two visits ago. He wrote:

*Visit 3. Focus: supply chain (Jax's team named), customer flow counting, pricing structure observation. Zero or minimal purchases. No questions at counter. Gathered info from other customers instead.*

He looked at the three entries. Visit one: physical layout, entrance points, processing capabilities. Visit two: inventory range, medical supplies, supply model. Visit three: supply chain identity, customer flow patterns, pricing structure.

Each visit had targeted a different aspect of the Store's operations.

Wren set the pencil down. He looked at the three figures standing at the lighting edge, visible through the glass. The lean man was talking again. The woman was still looking at the Store. The younger one had stopped counting and was just standing.

They were mapping him.

The realization completed a pattern he'd been assembling since the first visit. The questions that were too specific. The purchases that were too small. The deliberate pace of people who had time and a purpose.

Wren picked up the pencil again. He wrote: *Organized. Systematic. Three visits, each targeting different operational data. Intelligence gathering. Working for someone.*

He looked at the notes. Then he looked at the Store interface. The transaction counter. The audit countdown. The revenue balance. All of it running, all of it functioning, all of it oblivious to the fact that someone outside the Store was building a picture of what the Store could do, what it was worth, and where its materials came from.

He couldn't stop them. The Store couldn't refuse paying customers, and the three of them had paid for what they took. They hadn't violated any rule. They hadn't threatened anyone. They'd walked in, asked questions, bought small items, and left. Every transaction was legitimate. Every observation was legal.

Wren wrote one more entry: *Share with Jax. He needs to know someone is asking about the team.*

He folded the scrap paper and put it in his pocket. The three figures at the lighting edge finally turned and walked away, east, toward the road, the same direction the regular customer had said Jax's team usually came from.

Wren watched them until they reached the boundary of the new lighting radius and the darkness took them. Then he went back to the counter and served the next customer.

The Store hummed. The transaction counter climbed. The processing station cycled through another batch. Everything was working. Everything was growing.

And somewhere beyond the hundred-meter mark, someone now knew the Store's layout, its inventory range, its pricing structure, its customer flow, and the name of its primary supplier.

Wren served the customer. Took the materials. Processed the transaction. Made change.

The scrap paper in his pocket felt heavier than it should have.