The Apocalypse Contract

CHAPTER 10 - SYDNEY

Sydney ran the first two blocks. She walked another two and feared she might have to crawl the final stretch across the grocery store parking lot. Maybe it was the cancer, maybe the chemo, but her stamina had abandoned her in recent weeks. A shopping cart fought her efforts to extract it from a line of carts. She staggered backwards when it finally sprang free, then leaned against it as she rolled into the store.

"Variety," she mumbled to herself, "a little bit of everything."

This was so unlike how she usually shopped. Usually she used an on-line service and had groceries delivered right to her door. On the rare occasions she did venture out into the archaic world of face to face retail, she always carefully prepared a shopping list to minimize the time spent. She would even organize it sequentially based on her path through the store. Now she was winging it. No list. Not even a mental one.

"Variety," she repeated to herself. "Variety, variety, variety." The mantra occupied the mental space where a list should reside. She rolled her cart into the produce section and swept her eyes across the cornucopia of fruits and vegetables.

She only needed samples. The aliens claimed they could reproduce whatever she provided. A single apple. A single banana. Could she even buy a single grape? Would it register on the scale? She bagged the smallest possible clump of grapes. Kiwis . Did she even like Kiwis? She wasn't sure, but if she failed to buy one, she would be thirty years wondering. It went on like that, grabbing one of whatever looked interesting.

Moving on to the vegetables, she got a single tomato, one carrot, a few mushrooms, the smallest yellow onion, one potato. She picked up a head of broccoli, then thought better of it and broke off a single floret, placing it in its own bag. A few more fresh vegetables and she was on to the dairy case.

A few small packages of specialty cheeses. An eight ounce carton of milk. A single plain yogurt. One stick of butter.

She ran through the soup isle, grabbing a random selection of single serving cans and dry soup mixes. In the spice section she grabbed one of everything. She rounded the corner into the tea section and froze. There was too much to choose from. She wished she could get a single bag of every type, but that was impossible. The boxes didn't weigh much, but they took up space. She chose half a dozen of her favorite black teas and a sampler pack of herbal teas. She ran past the coffee section without looking. She detested coffee.

It went on like that. No real plan or time to consider. Just grabbing things at random. Finally, she checked the time on her phone. How had it gotten so late? She had less than a half hour before she needed to be back.

Sydney careened into the shortest checkout line, then fidgeted as she waited her turn. She endured centuries while the minutes crept away. As soon as space on the conveyor opened up, she began shoveling her groceries onto it.

The teenage boy at the register scanned each item with an impressive lack of enthusiasm. He did display some bewilderment at the wide range of small portions. The single floret of broccoli left him particularly bemused. He just shook his head and continued scanning. The variety made the process slower than usual, and it was becoming obvious that the woman in line behind her was not happy about it. Her exasperated sighs were growing into a new language, a breathy, nuanced communication method for expressing displeasure.

"I'm sorry," Sydney mumbled, glancing at the annoyed woman and then back at the bored grocery clerk. The woman answered with another sigh, the meaning of which was unclear but unmistakably not positive.

"That will be two hundred twenty one dollars and seventy four cents," the clerk finally announced.

Sydney was momentarily taken aback. Her shopping trips were never so expensive. It was the spices, she realized. They were small, but pricey, and she had bought a lot of them. "I'll need to charge it," she replied as she dug her credit card out of her wallet. She inserted it into the card reader.

"It was denied," the clerk announced a moment later.

"What? That can't be right." Then she realized it was. She had charged the new Internet connection to her card as well as other recent purchases, including several four terabyte external storage drives. She was close to maxed out. Sydney did math in her head while the woman behind her sighed a dissertation of displeasure. Finally, she opened her wallet again and removed all her cash. "Here, I've got eighty-four dollars. Split it between that and the card. She held her breath while he ran the card again.

Success. She fled without waiting for the receipt.

It was when she reached the cart return that she realized her mistake. Her original plan was to load up the backpack and at most two more grocery bags, one for each hand as she walked back. She had purchased far more than that. She might be able to stagger home with three bags per hand, but it wouldn't happen quickly. Hell, she'd nearly died running there empty handed.

Call a taxi? An Uber? She doubted she had funds enough for either. Staring at the overloaded grocery cart, she realized the only course open to her. Tightening her grip on the cart's handle, she took off across the parking lot, crossed the street, and headed for her apartment.

She was halfway there when the police officer stopped her.