Kai
Retired Staff
Somewhere in the Northern Nepleslian colonies, Life moves on, almost as if there wasn't a war going on. On one planet, in one colony, in one town, there is a store owned by a mega-corporation. This store sells everything, except, apparently, intelligence for its customers.
******
Wren Uharu, Stock-girl extraordinaire, Loads stacks and stacks of toilet paper onto the shelf! These shelves can hold up to 462 rolls, and stack three deep. If only I could stack them four deep, then I could fit 616 in there! Wren thought, as she stuffed one more package of toilet paper onto the shelf. Today had been a long day, as apparently, the entire colony had been having simultaneous bowel movements, and the shelves had never emptied so quickly. The blonde, with wavy bob-cut hair, looked around, wondering if any of the nearby customers needed some. Mentally, the ex-neko calculated how many rolls they had sold today. Eight hundred and seventy two rolls.
Lark Rand, Cashier extraordinaire, Rings up customers' purchases of toilet paper. This register can process up to 462 QR codes and handle three customers all at one time. If only it could handle four, then maybe I could get out of here at 6:16, Lark thought, as she stuffed one more vanilla wafer down her gullet. Today had been a long day, as apparently the stock girl was wasting time getting the toilet paper on the shelf and the customers were starting to complain. The brunette, straight haired Nepleslian glowered at the ex-neko and her slow and lazy work ethic. Mentally, Lark sung the words to the latest hit pop song in her head.
Eight hundred and seventy two stars~ o/`
Another Employee, Yuno Kaneko, would hear Wren's voice fill her head, as the girl used Telepathy to contact her co-worker. "Yuno, we need more stock for Aisle seven. Somebody's been buying double the coupon limit on cake batter, and I'm busy with the Softer Brand over here in home and bath!"
Yuno was considering hitting a customer on the head with the broom she was holding as he casually dropped a bit of paper litter onto the floor. Instead, the Origin Employee walked by in a hurry and tripped him with the edge of the broom before vanishing into the crowd. He cried out in pain, but didn't get a look at her. Chances were, nobody would think it was deliberate, even if she was caught; employees were busy people after all. 'I'm on it Uharu. As Yuno brought over a pallet's worth of cake batter mix, she wondered something quite odd, and bounced the idea to Uharu 'Do you think Origin should expand it's toilet paper types? Maybe make an octo-ply, or another that's best used for TPing a house?' It should have the Origin Logo in it's pattern too, of course. Free advertising. The message carried a tone of dead seriousness. In other words, she was joking.
There was a shuffle of falling items from a nearby shelf to herald a customer approaching the register. He was a large, balding man, in a tight suit with a terrible stench of cake batter about him. Trailing behind him was a cart filled to the brim with 462 rolls of whatever that dunny paper was called. He sniffed the air twice and quickly produced a tube of nasal spray for his terrible sinuses. As he was applying the saline to his nose, he spoke, "Christ on a cracker, can I get some goddamn assistance over here? The Super-Savings Ultra-Discount Card I usually use here ain't workin' and you lazy girls are just layin' around here," he turned to gesture and accidentally knocked a couple of boxes of cake batter all over the floor. "Ugh, and this place is a pig sty!"
"Yuno.I think your sense of humor got eaten by the customer who's been taking everything off the Shelves. Wren replied, before stepping away from her shelves and going to help the customer. "Sir, we do have a limit on sale items, and you've gotten at least twice as many as the limit, so, Unless you absolutely need all these goods, could you come back tomorrow for more? Miss Rand can ring you up, as well." she told the man, pointing to the cash registers, as the man had been trying to make his purchase at the magazine rack.
Lark smacked her gum, looking at the ceiling. The registers did most of the work and her only real job was pushing the right buttons when the red lights would blink. They only blinked when customers were too stupid to live or were trying to cheat the scanner.
They blinked a lot.
The Neko replied to her friend in a dignified manner. "It would appear so, sadly. Though Yuno started restocking the shelves with cake batter, she made sure there was enough room to put back whatever the overweight customer had with him. Chances were, she'd be doing that soon.
"Ab-so-lute-lee? Excuse me, lady, I am a business man." The reply was almost blubbered through saline solution running down the overweight Nepleslian's face and neck. "Honey, do you know how much toilet paper I use at the cattle farm? Them cows ain't gonna wipe their own ass, sister!" The apparent farmer shifted again to retrieve a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wipe the remaining nasal spray from his neck before spitting that from his mouth directly on the floor. "Now how in the name of the Great Free Lighthouse of Never Again am I supposed to ring all this stuff up?!"
Lark helpfully pointed to the instructional sign. "So easy a Spacer could do it."
"When you're done with the batter, Yuno, we need you to clean up a wad of dip from the line at register twenty-two." the ex-Neko informed, blandly. "And I'm fairly certain that you'll need to put back eight boxes of batter from here, as well. thankfully they aren't broken."
"I'm one-sixteenth Spacer on my momma's side-- I take offense to that." The farmer mumbled, gazing at the sign with a look of utter confusion. The instructions seemed simple enough, but at the same time they looked really complicated.
"You can register a complaint at the complaint department over there," the bored cashier replied, pointing to a terminal in the corner, "or chat with my manager on Monday morning between three and four."
"Now just gimme a second here." The fat man interjected, idly squirting more saline into his nose, "What's with the part after 'Remove your items and leave the store' bein' in Yamatai-Go? I don't know Yammie-Go? What in the heck am I supposed to do at this part?!"
"Take all the time in the universe," Lark replied, not even paying attention to the man any more and deciding that now was a perfect time to inspect her nails for any damage. She kept extra nail polish and an emery board were just under the counter for emergencies. Pushing buttons and talking to customers was hazardous to her manicure, after all.
Wren was the one who actually answered the Nepleslian's question. "Sir, all the instructions are repeated in Yamatai-go after they are displayed in Nepleslian, because we have a variety of customers here at Origin-mart." She answered this very politely, with a smile. "Also, Origin has very strong ties with the Yamataian government, so we try to help out its people wherever we can."
It was about at that time that a red haired Origin Employee walked by with a cleaning wand, cleaning up the dip that was spat out, passing in front of Lark and the overweight customer like passing traffic. She then circled back around, and stood behind him out of sight. Yuno gestured for Lark and Wren to move to the side a little in hopes of having the customer shift his gaze to follow them. 'Just enough so he won't see me putting the cake batter boxes back.'
Embarrassed by his lack of forethought, the fat farmer took a second to adjust his tie, making a small 'huh' sound before dragging his cart towards the register. There was the sound of scraping as at least four boxes of cake batter found their way underneath the frame and began spewing a yellow jet-stream across the floor behind him. He grunted and tossed the first case of TP on the register, knocking over a candy stand sitting innocently to one side.
Yuno's patience was starting to wear thin. A voice behind the Nepleslian customer spoke up soon enough; it was brassy, full of character and volume befitting a tall and buxom woman. "Excuse me sir, you'll have to pay for that damaged package." If he bothered to turn around though, he would only find a 5'1" Neko who had just transitioned from green to red hair not too long ago. A Neko who was small in many respects and modest in appearance.
Another puddle of nasal spray was spat on the floor before the plain and simple answer came in a very unfazed; casual tone. "Put it on my tab."
The register commodore hit a button and lo-and-behold, the damage caused by the man below her was added to his bill. Lark didn't often have to hit this particular button, and most didn't notice when she did. She didn't know how the computer knew what to add, but she suspected that it had to do with the cat-stockers and their weird radio-enabled ears.
There was a chuckle followed by an eerie guffaw as the farmer pointed to the display where his current bill was displayed. He smiled and turned back to Yuno, saying "Lookit'at! Ain't that fancy. It just jumps right on there, don't it? Heh, well, I kinda wish the thing'd put everythin' on my tab for me and I could just load it up in the Big Cat and take it on home. It doesn't do that, though does it? Lemme try... 'Put it on my tab.'"
The small, cat eared woman swept the cleaning instrument over the new puddle on the floor, only to have larger amount of the solution deposited by flapping lips again nearby. Inwardly, she raised an eyebrow at this, and mulled over it for a brief moment. "My, my." she said in a silken voice. "Are you quite alright there?" Yuno asked.
"Naw, damn allergies been acting up ever since I set foot on this rock. Me and the wife are thinkin' of heading back to good old Prime if the cow business don't pick up soon." Came the asshole's response.
"For a nominal fee," Lark droned, "You can have smiling Origin-Mart employees help bring your items to your vehicle." She leaned down over her desk to point down at the scanner where the man was standing. "Just push this button here." Was that a burr on her nail? Goddamnit, she thought, quickly retreating to the safety of her desk where she could grind the shit out of that nail in peace.
"So you run Nepstar Dairies? They supply all the fresh meat for our butcher's department." Wren asked, though she knew he didn't- she had met the actual owner, and he was definitely not the man in front of the Ex-Neko. "This guy's full of more shit than even that amount of toilet paper can clean up." Wren told her friend telepathically. The normally shy blonde was in quite a mood today, probably all of the frustration getting to her from the sheer amount of idiots they had as customers.
Yuno took note of Wren's statement; the other had something else in mind by the looks of things. A smile started to come onto her face. 'Wren, if we bombard him with questions about Nepstar Dairies, he'll either act like a know it all jackass, or be so uncomfortable, he'd leave. What do you say?' the Neko asked.
"Well, hell no I don't!" Fatman replied, "Them suckers across the fence been stealin' all my business since I got here. Oh, sure, I tried to--"
"But, Sir. Nepstar Dairies is the only Legal Dairy in the system. Surely you aren't running a Dairy without a permit?" Wren exclaimed. She tended to read as many of the publicly available legal documents as she could when she was bored, and hadn't seen anything about a second dairy yet.
There was a twinkle in the Neko's eyes as she watched Wren slowly manipulate the situation into a snowball going downhill. It was a fine art that she had never mastered; more...brutal and direct things were her specialty. Still, she relished this. Yuno kept her mouth shut for the time being; no need to hurry, and no need to throw a wrench into the machine. Yet.
"Permit?!" There was a snarl in the farmer's tone now, "I got a license back on Prime, and that's all I ever needed. I don't have to have a high-falootin' permit. What is this, Yammie space?"
"Well, sir, Nepleslia's Legal code requires a new permit whenever you move facilities, whether it be on the same planet or to another one. The Origin-mart had to get twenty eight different permits just to be able to sell it's full stock of items from a single establishment, so we know very well the legal code in this system." Wren explained, as she began to fix the candy rack that had been knocked over previously.
Yuno's 'radio ears' had notified security, and sent them an audio of the conversation. Whatever happened next was up to them. She was looking forward to some more...physical things, despite the entertainment provided by the blustering buffoon.
The stock-cats were keeping this retar-- mentally challen-- customer here longer than he needed to be. Pushing the intracom button, (work was rough!) she spoke into her microphone that blasted her voice over the piped-in music. "Clean-up on Aisle Eight. Clean-up on Aisle Eight. Y'know and Rent please report to Aisle Eight for clean-up. Clean-up on Eight."
"You mean..." the simpleton collected his thoughts, "I paid over thirtah-too thousand deeyay to move sixty cattle all the way out here from Nepleslia Prime and now I gotta get a damn permit to run the poor bastards into the ground?!" Another puddle of nasal spray formed on the floor with a spat.
Wren raised her eyebrows, first looking at Yuno, then at Rand. The Nepleslian cashier could be annoying at times, but she was their superior-- technically-- and so they had no choice but to listen. "Well, it's not our fault, sir." Wren said, suddenly, grabbing armfuls of the toilet paper bags that hadn't been purchased due to the store's limits, and stomped off toward Aisle Eight, where she knew there was nothing to clean up.
"Wait, now! I'll pay for it full price-- I need it for the cows!" Fatman yelled after her, hurriedly ringing up the items he still had.
"Sir, could you please continue out of the store," Lark urged from her golden throne high above the mucky-muck, "It's the last part of the instructions and really, the easiest to follow. There are other customers waiting to be processed." into canned meat, she mentally continued. God she was exhausted. She hated this job.
"Well, I'm sorry that we can't help you sir." Yuno spoke in her most comforting voice. "But look on the bright side; thing's can't get any worse for you, right?" The Neko followed Wren's lead and packed the excess into another nearby cart to ship it back to isle eight; an empty space on the shelf with the perfect room to fit it all awaited these goods.
A solitary, perfect tear formed in the eye of the troubled, overweight, down-trodden working-class Nepleslian. He sniffled a few times and then supplicated his nose with more spray. With a sigh, he jammed his hand stiffly into his pockets and uttered his cry of defeat. "Yup. That's it for me and Mabel and the boys. We're gonna head back to Prime tonight. Well, ya'll been real nice to me. Now if you'll pardon me, I've had it with this dern place. Thank you kindly for helpin' me out." And with that, Fatman moseyed out the door, dragging thirteen packages of toilet paper (presumably just enough to last the cows until they got back to Nepleslia Prime) behind him in a slow scraping symphony of bitterness. He was headed towards the dealership attached to the store. Farewell.
******
Dramatis Personae:
Lark Rand: Revolver
Wren Uharu: Kai
Yuno Kaneko: CadetNewb
The Fatman: Lam
******
Wren Uharu, Stock-girl extraordinaire, Loads stacks and stacks of toilet paper onto the shelf! These shelves can hold up to 462 rolls, and stack three deep. If only I could stack them four deep, then I could fit 616 in there! Wren thought, as she stuffed one more package of toilet paper onto the shelf. Today had been a long day, as apparently, the entire colony had been having simultaneous bowel movements, and the shelves had never emptied so quickly. The blonde, with wavy bob-cut hair, looked around, wondering if any of the nearby customers needed some. Mentally, the ex-neko calculated how many rolls they had sold today. Eight hundred and seventy two rolls.
Lark Rand, Cashier extraordinaire, Rings up customers' purchases of toilet paper. This register can process up to 462 QR codes and handle three customers all at one time. If only it could handle four, then maybe I could get out of here at 6:16, Lark thought, as she stuffed one more vanilla wafer down her gullet. Today had been a long day, as apparently the stock girl was wasting time getting the toilet paper on the shelf and the customers were starting to complain. The brunette, straight haired Nepleslian glowered at the ex-neko and her slow and lazy work ethic. Mentally, Lark sung the words to the latest hit pop song in her head.
Eight hundred and seventy two stars~ o/`
Another Employee, Yuno Kaneko, would hear Wren's voice fill her head, as the girl used Telepathy to contact her co-worker. "Yuno, we need more stock for Aisle seven. Somebody's been buying double the coupon limit on cake batter, and I'm busy with the Softer Brand over here in home and bath!"
Yuno was considering hitting a customer on the head with the broom she was holding as he casually dropped a bit of paper litter onto the floor. Instead, the Origin Employee walked by in a hurry and tripped him with the edge of the broom before vanishing into the crowd. He cried out in pain, but didn't get a look at her. Chances were, nobody would think it was deliberate, even if she was caught; employees were busy people after all. 'I'm on it Uharu. As Yuno brought over a pallet's worth of cake batter mix, she wondered something quite odd, and bounced the idea to Uharu 'Do you think Origin should expand it's toilet paper types? Maybe make an octo-ply, or another that's best used for TPing a house?' It should have the Origin Logo in it's pattern too, of course. Free advertising. The message carried a tone of dead seriousness. In other words, she was joking.
There was a shuffle of falling items from a nearby shelf to herald a customer approaching the register. He was a large, balding man, in a tight suit with a terrible stench of cake batter about him. Trailing behind him was a cart filled to the brim with 462 rolls of whatever that dunny paper was called. He sniffed the air twice and quickly produced a tube of nasal spray for his terrible sinuses. As he was applying the saline to his nose, he spoke, "Christ on a cracker, can I get some goddamn assistance over here? The Super-Savings Ultra-Discount Card I usually use here ain't workin' and you lazy girls are just layin' around here," he turned to gesture and accidentally knocked a couple of boxes of cake batter all over the floor. "Ugh, and this place is a pig sty!"
"Yuno.I think your sense of humor got eaten by the customer who's been taking everything off the Shelves. Wren replied, before stepping away from her shelves and going to help the customer. "Sir, we do have a limit on sale items, and you've gotten at least twice as many as the limit, so, Unless you absolutely need all these goods, could you come back tomorrow for more? Miss Rand can ring you up, as well." she told the man, pointing to the cash registers, as the man had been trying to make his purchase at the magazine rack.
Lark smacked her gum, looking at the ceiling. The registers did most of the work and her only real job was pushing the right buttons when the red lights would blink. They only blinked when customers were too stupid to live or were trying to cheat the scanner.
They blinked a lot.
The Neko replied to her friend in a dignified manner. "It would appear so, sadly. Though Yuno started restocking the shelves with cake batter, she made sure there was enough room to put back whatever the overweight customer had with him. Chances were, she'd be doing that soon.
"Ab-so-lute-lee? Excuse me, lady, I am a business man." The reply was almost blubbered through saline solution running down the overweight Nepleslian's face and neck. "Honey, do you know how much toilet paper I use at the cattle farm? Them cows ain't gonna wipe their own ass, sister!" The apparent farmer shifted again to retrieve a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wipe the remaining nasal spray from his neck before spitting that from his mouth directly on the floor. "Now how in the name of the Great Free Lighthouse of Never Again am I supposed to ring all this stuff up?!"
Lark helpfully pointed to the instructional sign. "So easy a Spacer could do it."
"When you're done with the batter, Yuno, we need you to clean up a wad of dip from the line at register twenty-two." the ex-Neko informed, blandly. "And I'm fairly certain that you'll need to put back eight boxes of batter from here, as well. thankfully they aren't broken."
"I'm one-sixteenth Spacer on my momma's side-- I take offense to that." The farmer mumbled, gazing at the sign with a look of utter confusion. The instructions seemed simple enough, but at the same time they looked really complicated.
"You can register a complaint at the complaint department over there," the bored cashier replied, pointing to a terminal in the corner, "or chat with my manager on Monday morning between three and four."
"Now just gimme a second here." The fat man interjected, idly squirting more saline into his nose, "What's with the part after 'Remove your items and leave the store' bein' in Yamatai-Go? I don't know Yammie-Go? What in the heck am I supposed to do at this part?!"
"Take all the time in the universe," Lark replied, not even paying attention to the man any more and deciding that now was a perfect time to inspect her nails for any damage. She kept extra nail polish and an emery board were just under the counter for emergencies. Pushing buttons and talking to customers was hazardous to her manicure, after all.
Wren was the one who actually answered the Nepleslian's question. "Sir, all the instructions are repeated in Yamatai-go after they are displayed in Nepleslian, because we have a variety of customers here at Origin-mart." She answered this very politely, with a smile. "Also, Origin has very strong ties with the Yamataian government, so we try to help out its people wherever we can."
It was about at that time that a red haired Origin Employee walked by with a cleaning wand, cleaning up the dip that was spat out, passing in front of Lark and the overweight customer like passing traffic. She then circled back around, and stood behind him out of sight. Yuno gestured for Lark and Wren to move to the side a little in hopes of having the customer shift his gaze to follow them. 'Just enough so he won't see me putting the cake batter boxes back.'
Embarrassed by his lack of forethought, the fat farmer took a second to adjust his tie, making a small 'huh' sound before dragging his cart towards the register. There was the sound of scraping as at least four boxes of cake batter found their way underneath the frame and began spewing a yellow jet-stream across the floor behind him. He grunted and tossed the first case of TP on the register, knocking over a candy stand sitting innocently to one side.
Yuno's patience was starting to wear thin. A voice behind the Nepleslian customer spoke up soon enough; it was brassy, full of character and volume befitting a tall and buxom woman. "Excuse me sir, you'll have to pay for that damaged package." If he bothered to turn around though, he would only find a 5'1" Neko who had just transitioned from green to red hair not too long ago. A Neko who was small in many respects and modest in appearance.
Another puddle of nasal spray was spat on the floor before the plain and simple answer came in a very unfazed; casual tone. "Put it on my tab."
The register commodore hit a button and lo-and-behold, the damage caused by the man below her was added to his bill. Lark didn't often have to hit this particular button, and most didn't notice when she did. She didn't know how the computer knew what to add, but she suspected that it had to do with the cat-stockers and their weird radio-enabled ears.
There was a chuckle followed by an eerie guffaw as the farmer pointed to the display where his current bill was displayed. He smiled and turned back to Yuno, saying "Lookit'at! Ain't that fancy. It just jumps right on there, don't it? Heh, well, I kinda wish the thing'd put everythin' on my tab for me and I could just load it up in the Big Cat and take it on home. It doesn't do that, though does it? Lemme try... 'Put it on my tab.'"
The small, cat eared woman swept the cleaning instrument over the new puddle on the floor, only to have larger amount of the solution deposited by flapping lips again nearby. Inwardly, she raised an eyebrow at this, and mulled over it for a brief moment. "My, my." she said in a silken voice. "Are you quite alright there?" Yuno asked.
"Naw, damn allergies been acting up ever since I set foot on this rock. Me and the wife are thinkin' of heading back to good old Prime if the cow business don't pick up soon." Came the asshole's response.
"For a nominal fee," Lark droned, "You can have smiling Origin-Mart employees help bring your items to your vehicle." She leaned down over her desk to point down at the scanner where the man was standing. "Just push this button here." Was that a burr on her nail? Goddamnit, she thought, quickly retreating to the safety of her desk where she could grind the shit out of that nail in peace.
"So you run Nepstar Dairies? They supply all the fresh meat for our butcher's department." Wren asked, though she knew he didn't- she had met the actual owner, and he was definitely not the man in front of the Ex-Neko. "This guy's full of more shit than even that amount of toilet paper can clean up." Wren told her friend telepathically. The normally shy blonde was in quite a mood today, probably all of the frustration getting to her from the sheer amount of idiots they had as customers.
Yuno took note of Wren's statement; the other had something else in mind by the looks of things. A smile started to come onto her face. 'Wren, if we bombard him with questions about Nepstar Dairies, he'll either act like a know it all jackass, or be so uncomfortable, he'd leave. What do you say?' the Neko asked.
"Well, hell no I don't!" Fatman replied, "Them suckers across the fence been stealin' all my business since I got here. Oh, sure, I tried to--"
"But, Sir. Nepstar Dairies is the only Legal Dairy in the system. Surely you aren't running a Dairy without a permit?" Wren exclaimed. She tended to read as many of the publicly available legal documents as she could when she was bored, and hadn't seen anything about a second dairy yet.
There was a twinkle in the Neko's eyes as she watched Wren slowly manipulate the situation into a snowball going downhill. It was a fine art that she had never mastered; more...brutal and direct things were her specialty. Still, she relished this. Yuno kept her mouth shut for the time being; no need to hurry, and no need to throw a wrench into the machine. Yet.
"Permit?!" There was a snarl in the farmer's tone now, "I got a license back on Prime, and that's all I ever needed. I don't have to have a high-falootin' permit. What is this, Yammie space?"
"Well, sir, Nepleslia's Legal code requires a new permit whenever you move facilities, whether it be on the same planet or to another one. The Origin-mart had to get twenty eight different permits just to be able to sell it's full stock of items from a single establishment, so we know very well the legal code in this system." Wren explained, as she began to fix the candy rack that had been knocked over previously.
Yuno's 'radio ears' had notified security, and sent them an audio of the conversation. Whatever happened next was up to them. She was looking forward to some more...physical things, despite the entertainment provided by the blustering buffoon.
The stock-cats were keeping this retar-- mentally challen-- customer here longer than he needed to be. Pushing the intracom button, (work was rough!) she spoke into her microphone that blasted her voice over the piped-in music. "Clean-up on Aisle Eight. Clean-up on Aisle Eight. Y'know and Rent please report to Aisle Eight for clean-up. Clean-up on Eight."
"You mean..." the simpleton collected his thoughts, "I paid over thirtah-too thousand deeyay to move sixty cattle all the way out here from Nepleslia Prime and now I gotta get a damn permit to run the poor bastards into the ground?!" Another puddle of nasal spray formed on the floor with a spat.
Wren raised her eyebrows, first looking at Yuno, then at Rand. The Nepleslian cashier could be annoying at times, but she was their superior-- technically-- and so they had no choice but to listen. "Well, it's not our fault, sir." Wren said, suddenly, grabbing armfuls of the toilet paper bags that hadn't been purchased due to the store's limits, and stomped off toward Aisle Eight, where she knew there was nothing to clean up.
"Wait, now! I'll pay for it full price-- I need it for the cows!" Fatman yelled after her, hurriedly ringing up the items he still had.
"Sir, could you please continue out of the store," Lark urged from her golden throne high above the mucky-muck, "It's the last part of the instructions and really, the easiest to follow. There are other customers waiting to be processed." into canned meat, she mentally continued. God she was exhausted. She hated this job.
"Well, I'm sorry that we can't help you sir." Yuno spoke in her most comforting voice. "But look on the bright side; thing's can't get any worse for you, right?" The Neko followed Wren's lead and packed the excess into another nearby cart to ship it back to isle eight; an empty space on the shelf with the perfect room to fit it all awaited these goods.
A solitary, perfect tear formed in the eye of the troubled, overweight, down-trodden working-class Nepleslian. He sniffled a few times and then supplicated his nose with more spray. With a sigh, he jammed his hand stiffly into his pockets and uttered his cry of defeat. "Yup. That's it for me and Mabel and the boys. We're gonna head back to Prime tonight. Well, ya'll been real nice to me. Now if you'll pardon me, I've had it with this dern place. Thank you kindly for helpin' me out." And with that, Fatman moseyed out the door, dragging thirteen packages of toilet paper (presumably just enough to last the cows until they got back to Nepleslia Prime) behind him in a slow scraping symphony of bitterness. He was headed towards the dealership attached to the store. Farewell.
******
Dramatis Personae:
Lark Rand: Revolver
Wren Uharu: Kai
Yuno Kaneko: CadetNewb
The Fatman: Lam
