Shop ‘till you drop - Part 4

  “So, the Spider, that was the managers’ fear?” said Astrid, ticking off on her fingers. “‘The Absence’ was mine, the Gentleman was Jowel’s… so we just have Razzarl, and you, Mishka? Any idea what we should be looking out for?”

  “I don’t know,” said Razzarl, rubbing her shoulders. “The exit… we need to find the exit.”

  They were presently moving through the bedding section, again. They’d turned onto it after a brief stint in the ‘new’ hardware section, which had been filled with bits and bobs and bolts and screws and other things. Mishka had stopped and tried to cobble together a way-finder. But it hadn’t worked, and she’d discarded it.

  “Mishka?” asked Astrid.

  “Sorry, what?” said Mishka.

  “Your fear – any idea?”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Mishka.

  “Oh, because your fears are so much more dangerous than the anxieties of us ‘primitives?’” teased Astrid.

  Mishka pursed her lips, but said nothing.

  They moved in a straight line, or as close to a straight line as they could manage in the maze-like shop, passing from sporting goods back through into the inn section, and then, another zig-zag past a bunk-bed display, into sporting goods area again. Which was, geometrically speaking, impossible.

  “We’re going in circles,” said Astrid.

  “We’re going to be stuck here forever!” wailed Razzarl.

  “No, it’s were not,” said Mishka. “Come on, back this way. I want to try something.”

  They followed Mishka back around the corner they had just come, and… arrived in what looked like the outdoor furniture section.

  “No! No!” sobbed Razzarl, sitting heavily on a swinging love-seat and putting her face in her hands. “This- this isn’t happening. It can’t be happening! I just want to go home.”

  “Let’s take a break, OK?” said Astrid, sitting next to the reptillian woman and giving her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. “It’s going to be OK, Razzarl.”

  “How is it going to be OK!?” said the reptilian woman. “We’re trapped here. We- we’re going to starve!”

  “No, we’re not,” said Astrid. “Because were going to stick together, and we’re going to solve this – OK? Every puzzle has a solution. OK? And besides, see that silly bear-woman? I bet she has years worth of dessert stashed in her cloak.”

  “I do not!”

  Mishka paused.

  “Although I do have some pudding…”

  “See, we’re not going to starve,” said Astrid with a reassuring smile.

  Razzarl nodded weakly. Astrid smiled, before rising and moving over to Mishka.

  Astrid lowered her voice. “Mishka, we need to get out of here – and soon, she’s not doing OK. I know it’s supposed to be secret and all that, but can you Voidwalk us out?”

  “I don’t think so, no,” said Mishka.

  “You don’t think so?” said Astrid.

  “I don’t really want to try it, not when my magic is acting up – too many things that can go wrong with a spell that complex,” said Mishka. “And even if it weren’t. I don’t think I’d be able to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this isn’t the real world,” said Mishka, taking another pillow. “Watch.” She ripped it open, sending feathers flying everywhere.

  Astrid tracked them for a few moments, before she gasped. “They’re- they’re falling weird!”

  “Exactly. They’re falling weird,” said Mishka, smiling at her friend. Astrid, despite coming from a primitive culture, and having something of a temper, was not slow. “Meaning that wherever we are is some kind of illusionary shared dreamscape, or simulation in a database – or something. And it has limited calculating power – which is why my bracelet doesn’t work properly – it can’t simulate something more complex than it itself is.”

  “Ok, so how do we get out?” asked Astrid.

  Mishka clicked her teeth. “If it is some psychic dreamscape, then we need to find the thing or person that’s causing it, and break their or its control somehow,” said Mishka. “It should be at the ‘centre’ of the dreamscape.”

  “And how do we find that,” said Astrid.

  “It should be the most detailed, the most central part of it,” said Mishka. “We should know it when we see it.”

  ***

  They ascended a set of stairs to find themselves in the art supply section. They turned a corner, into the garden section, then through an area with ferns into the clothing section, then up another set of stairs back into the art supplies.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Mishka made a mark in a notebook she’d liberated from the stationary section.

  “Why are you doing that?” said Astrid. “You know it’s illogical.”

  “Trying to see if there is a logic to the illogic,” said Mishka. She finished, and closed the book, and then opened it again. It was the same. “Interesting.”

  “You know, sometimes I can’t tell if you actually know what you’re doing, or if you’re just pretending to,” said Astrid. “Showing off to the audience.”

  Mishka grumbled and turned around, leading them back through to what should have been the garden section they had just left, but which was now the pet area. The puppies in their pen yapped at her excitedly, and Mishka scratched one of the puppies behind the ears absently as she thought.

  “It’s hopeless,” moaned Razzarl, who seemed to be becoming more and more agitated, and Astrid was all but holding up. “We can’t- we can’t escape. This place… I always hated this place, you know? I wanted to be an archaeologist! Or… or work in a museum!” The reptilian woman shook her head. “Instead, I’m a ‘team member.’ Minimum wage, helping rich people pick out jewellery…” She sobbed. “And now I’m going to die in this fucking store!” Razzarl bared her sharp teeth. “This maze!”

  “Easy there,” said Astrid. “Easy.”

  They passed back into the kitchen-wear, and moved past the lines of pastel coloured cups that the Absence – or the thing playing at it – had smashed, and where the body had been. Like the door to the staff area, however, there was no sign of any damage whatsoever. The cups were just as cheerful and insipid-

  Mishka paused mid step, then backed up, snagging a pink and blue polkadot adorned cup. It had, before, said something like ‘Don’t be sad it’s over, be happy it happened!’ But now? Now it said, in the same cheerful, loopy script: ‘Abandon all Hope.’

  Mishka looked up around the shop, turning on the spot and taking in the peeling walls, the grimy ceiling lights, the chipped and scuffed linoleum, and the threadbare carpets in dire need of a vacuum.

  “Is it me or is this place… grimmer?” said Mishka.

  Astrid looked up from where she had been comforting Razzarl. “I think so, yeah?”

  “It’s hopeless,” said Razzarl, hanging her large head. Tears began to pool at the edges of her eyes. “We’ll be stuck here forever, until we die.”

  “Until we…” said Mishka, before she looked down at the cup. “I’ve got it!”

  “Got what?” said Astrid.

  “This,” said Mishka, gesturing around. “This is Razzarl’s fear. All of this.”

  Razzarl looked up. “What?” she croaked.

  “All of this, the endless store which you can never escape – the entire thing is your fear. It’s more abstract than your manager’s or Astrid’s or Jowel’s was. But it’s your fear,” said Mishka. “I think you’re the centre!”

  Razzarl rubbed her face. “So… so what?” she said. “I know that the store can’t be doing this. Shouldn’t that have broken it?”

  “No, because it’s abstract,” said Mishka. “You’re still afraid of being trapped here, metaphorically speaking, for the rest of your life.”

  “And won’t I be?” said Razzarl, a bitter note in her voice. “One way or the other?”

  “No, you won’t,” said Mishka. “Because once we get out of this nightmare, I am going to give you all the gold coins I have in my pockets – I probably have thousands. Enough for you to never have to work in this place ever again, enough to open your own museum, maybe. Or volunteer at one… I don’t know how it works on this world.”

  Razzarl frowned. “This world?” she said.

  “Oh, right, we’re aliens,” said Mishka, gesturing at Astrid. Astrid sighed heavily. “The coins aren’t from the southern continent. They’re from other worlds.”

  Razzarl’s face strobed through a series of expressions that Mishka had a bit of trouble reading. “W-what?” she said eventually.

  “Yep, Aliens,” said Mishka. “I’m Ursulan, and Astrid is- well, she’s human, but that’s pretty common actually. But she’s not from this world, she’s from some place called Pescia. It’s a bit like this, from what I gather, but a few years more advanced-”

  “We have Voidships!” shouted Astrid. “We are centuries ahead of these people!” Astrid glanced at Razzarl, whose crimson scales had become a few shades paler. “Err, no offence… um. I’m not- I’m not trying to call you primitive or anything.” Astrid glared at Mishka. “Now you’ve got me doing it to, you evil woman!”

  “You’re… aliens,” said Razzarl slowly. “That explains the coins, they were so strange…”

  Behind Razzarl, Mishka saw reality flicker. She grinned. Yes, it was working! They were going to break out of this nightmare.

  “But there are humans on other worlds?” asked Razzarl. “How?”

  “A race called the Architects terraformed and seeded most of the galaxy,” explained Mishka. “But listen to me, what matters is I have a lot of gold, and I am going to give it to you when I get out of here. You aren’t going to be stuck working here forever.”

  “But- I don’t- why would you do that?” said Razzarl, reality flickering for a moment before settling again.

  “Because I don’t need it – my people don’t use currency, and you would not believe how easy it is to find gold once you hit a certain level of techno-arcano development,” said Mishka. “I promise you, I’m not lying.”

  “She really doesn’t understand how currency works,” chimed in Astrid. “Like, at all. Remember her whole ‘may I please have a fungible token’ stuff? She doesn’t get it.”

  “Yes, I do!” protested Mishka. “You exchange a fungible token for goods or services or means of production-”

  “OK, I take it back – she’s read how it works in a book,” said Astrid.

  “I got an excellent mark in my Primitive Economies module at the academy!” said Mishka. “A Double first! I could have gotten into the Xeno-Intelligence Division.”

  Reality flickered behind Razzarl again, and the gecken woman frowned. “I could… I could work in a museum?” said Razzarl. She chuckled. “I suppose if I didn’t need to worry about money…”

  Reality began to warp and crack, and they all looked up to see the world twist and writhe. The kitchen wear vanished from one moment to the next, replaced by the entrance-way, through the large, turning glass door of which they could see the dark, raging storm outside.

  “We’re- we’re free?” said Razzarl with a laugh, standing up. “We did it!”

  Mishka grinned and stood up, tapping her bracelet and bringing up a general scan of the area.

  “Yes!” said Astrid, hugging the reptilian woman. “We did it!”

  “I don’t think we did,” said Mishka weakly.

  “What do you mean?” said Astrid, looking at her. “Mishka, come on, we’re back in the real store.”

  “Then why is my bracelet so slow?” said Mishka, holding it up.

  Astrid stilled.

  “What do you mean? What about your bracelet?” asked Razzarl.

  “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” came a familiar voice from behind them. “You thought that primitive was the centre of this nightmare? Oh, no, no, no. You’re not done yet, traitor.”

  Mishka’s hands trembled as liquid fear shot through her veins, and she slowly turned to see an Ursulan woman standing behind her.

  She was dressed in an officer’s uniform: a red Command cloak, hood up, golden stitching denoting the rank of General; the crisp blouse and the neat ribbons; the practical skirt and warm tights; the big stompy boots good for all terrains.

  Her brown hair was pulled back into a long, messy ponytail that would have gotten her reprimanded if there were anyone to reprimand her and fell out of the hood over one shoulder. Her burning red eyes glinted with the lethal intelligence and viciousness and cunning that had won her that cloak.

  “Hello,” said the other Mishka, grinning toothily. “Me.”

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