Monroe

Chapter Four Hundred and Twelve. Stories of the resupply.

Harv was bored.

Elli, Wayna, Eddi, Bailli, and Erick had all gone shopping once he'd been told that he wasn't going to be deported after all. Everyone was eager to resupply one favorite or another that they'd run short of during the trip.

One of the things that Harv had been fascinated by on Earth was the internet. Everyone used it, but it seemed that few people really appreciated how miraculous it was.

He'd never expected that, even with access to the internet, that he would be bored, but there it was. He had even resorted to going through two years worth of emails, feeling grateful that Amanda had shown him how to setup his filters before they'd left.

When his armband buzzed, indicating an incoming call, Harv had answered it quickly, hoping for something to distract himself.

"Mr. Eilodon, this Special Agent Johnson, we spoke a few days ago," the caller identified himself.

Harv didn't have any trouble recalling that conversation. "Good afternoon, Special Agent Johnson," he replied. "What can I do for you today?"

"I'm happy to report that you're no longer considered Persona Non Grata by the United States of America," Johnson said, and Harv thought that he actually did sound happy about it.

"The State Department has completed an inquiry through the State of California, which had conducted an investigation of the events that occurred at the Johnson and Johnson headquarters and determined that you were justified in defending yourself," his voice lowered. "There was a degree of corruption and collusion between the police and the corporation that took a good bit of work to unravel. If you have ever felt that your actions went too far, you can rest your fears knowing that the police on the scene were all involved and had decided ahead of time that they would use deadly force if you didn't comply."

"Thank you," Harv said quietly. "Hindsight being what it is, I'll always regret not having taken other steps to avoid the actions I took, but I always knew that those men were planning on killing me, else my curse wouldn't have activated."

There was a pause on the line. "That's... I'm sorry you have that affliction, but at the same time, I'm glad it isn't likely to be triggered if you get pulled over for speeding. You're free to move about the country as you see fit, with our government's apologies that it took this long to resolve the issue. On a personal note, I'd like to thank you. My daughter had leukemia, and while she was in remission, your cure lifted a weight from my family that we thought we'd never escape." His voice broke slightly. "While remission is a blessing, you always know that the cancer will be back, and no one should have to see their child suffer like that. So thank you, Mr. Eilodon, for persevering through the worst of us so that you could save the best."

"You're welcome," Harv replied warmly. "I was happy to help."

Johnson chuckled in the way that men do when they're struggling to control their emotions. "Because that's what Adventurers do."

Harv nodded. "That's what Adventurers do," he agreed.

Daquan was, by and large, grateful to have a job.

A lot of companies hadn't made it through the integration, and it had been surprising to almost everyone that it was the huge multinational corporations that folded first.

Daquan was one of the people who hadn't been surprised. He'd been sixteen when the integration happened and had loved two things about school: Basketball and history. Well, three things if you counted girls, but he'd been too socially awkward to have much success in that arena.

He'd seen the writing on the wall. Supply chains were going to vanish like smoke because a steady flow of money was what kept them moving, and with Mana Crystals becoming the new currency and no one having any to spend, the conclusion was inevitable. The days of 'Just in time' inventory were going to come to an end.

He was working for the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company and had decided that someone needed to speak up. So, he'd written a letter to the store manager, where in five single-spaced pages, he outlined the difficulties the company was likely to face after the arrival of the System, as well as the steps they could potentially take to stay in business.

That letter had been passed from his supervisor to the store manager, and then it had gone up the corporate ladder, where it ended up in the hands of the COO. Daquan hadn't known it at the time, but his letter had contributed to the shit storm that was rampaging through the upper echelons of the company. The COO had argued that if a sixteen-year-old kid could see what was coming, the rest of the board needed to pull their heads out of the sand.

A week after he'd written the letter and twelve weeks before the integration, the Ghirardelli Corporation implemented a massive reorganization. They eliminated thousands of positions, stating that after the integration, they wouldn't be needed, while at the same time restructuring the remaining positions and adding new ones. The changes were all made under the assumption that people would be expected to use their System skills to perform their new duties. Everything was being switched over to the local stores.

Daquan had received a letter from the COO the day after the directive came down, thanking him for his foresight and outlining the positions they expected to be available at his store post-integration, as well as the skills they'd expected would suit those positions best.

Ultimately, his life had changed even more than he'd expected. His last year of High School had been wildly different than those that had become before it, with all of the classes focusing on the System. The close-quarters combat classes had been particularly disturbing to some parents, including his father, who had served in Afghanistan and didn't want his son to ever see combat.

Daquan knew that if he wanted to succeed in the new world, he was going to have to run Dungeons, but he also wanted to have something else to fall back on.

He'd chosen to become a sort of druid, reasoning that he could use his magic in combat, as well as for the company that had promised him a full-time job once he was out of High School.

Almost five years later, he was level fifteen, and the store manager.

Now he was alternating between staring at the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, who was also the largest, and the list the guy running the front of the store had handed to him.

"Look, I can see you're a big girl," he began, then paused, wincing as he heard his own words. "I mean, you're really tall," he quickly corrected himself. "But this is," he scanned the list again, "Nine thousand, four hundred and ninety pounds of chocolate." He shook his head. "That's almost five tons of chocolate."

Daquan didn't have to check his inventory. As the person responsible for making sure that every aspect of the store, from the greenhouses to the ovens to the kitchen, were staffed and working properly, he knew to within a few pounds how much chocolate he had on hand.

Milk and varying degrees of dark chocolate were his best sellers and thus compromised the majority of his inventory. Specialty flavors, those with fruits or nuts, were now considered to be 'made to order' items, with the extra ingredients kept in stasis boxes, and added to the next pour.

He had just over eight hundred pounds of chocolate in his store at the moment.

"We don't need it today," the beautiful blonde, who had introduced herself as Bailli, replied.

"Oh, we need some of it today," another woman, who was nearly as beautiful, although she had curly brown hair and hazel eyes, interjected.

"Yes, but that's on top of the main order," Bailli shook her head. "This is for the ship."

"For a ship?" Daquan asked, seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. "Is this a company order?"

"Yes, it's for our ship, the Freedom," Bailli replied. "We aren't a part of any company, though. We just need to resupply our ship, and this time, we aren't going to run out of chocolate six months into the trip," she finished firmly.

Daquan rubbed the bridge of his nose. Technically, he could submit an order through the company to have other stores ramp up their production a little bit to help him fill the order. He would rather keep the business at his store, where the profits would fill the pockets of the people who worked for him, as well as his own. Corporate would get the same slice of the pie, regardless.

Under normal circumstances, his store produced about five hundred pounds of chocolate each day, eighty percent of which went to local businesses that offered his products as a convenience for their customers. If he could convince his people to lock in another ten points of mana, each, he could increase the power of the spells that hastened the growth of the cocoa plants, although it would require him taking the current spells down and recasting them, then repeating the process again after the order had been completed.

He nodded to himself. He could do it. An order this size would have to be paid for in Mana Crystals, and he was certain that none of his employees would say no to that.

"Ok, so I can fill this order, but it's going to take me a week and a half," he offered the two women a smile.

"That's fine, I know we are staying for two weeks, at least," Bailli replied.

"You do know that this is going to be pricey, right?" Daquan asked cautiously. "I sell a three and a half ounce bar for a hundred mana. Your order is a hundred and fifty one thousand eight hundred and forty ounces, so before the bulk discount, which will be substantial, you're looking at four point three million mana." He shook his head. "Obviously we don't have that kind of capacity, even if we use our own crystals to store it, so you'll have to pay with actual Mana Crystals, and a bit over four thousand of them at that."

"Worth it," Bailli said flatly, and proceeded to pull four bags out of what had to be a personal inventory space. "There are a thousand crystals in each of those."

Daquan blinked as his jaw dropped, then closed his mouth. "Ok then," he said quietly. "Ok, let me get you a receipt for the order and your contact information, and then I'll get to work."

"Are you sure you want Maxwell House?"

"Kid, I just want coffee. Basic, simple coffee. If you've got a house brand or something, I'll give it a taste, but as long as it ain't that fancy shit they try to pass off as coffee at Starbucks, I'll take it," Mike replied.

The kid, whose name tag said 'Ali' rolled his eyes when Mike had called him a kid, but Mike didn't care. Reincarnation may have given him a young body, but he still had the mind and soul of a Marine who had then spent almost twenty years on the job.

"The thing is, I'm pretty sure we don't have much Maxwell House," Ali said. "I'm the one who stocks the shelves, you know? Coffee is one of the things we don't grow on-site or source from a local greenhouse. I'm pretty sure we're getting it from a place west of Bakersfield but don't hold me to that. I think I've got a pallet and a half of Maxwell House, and I just got two pallets of Folgers a couple of days ago. Let me go check it out?"

Mike nodded, and the kid scurried off.

They needed a logistics officer for the ship. Hell, they needed a command structure for the ship.

He sighed as he tapped his armband and pulled up his shopping list. The fact of the matter was that none of his friends aboard the Freedom had ever served, and they lacked the mindset to appreciate the benefits a defined command structure could provide.

Except Amanda. That woman had Gunnery Sergeant written all over her.

He checked his list, which wasn't terribly long. He'd already picked up a pallet of A-1 sauce and a few cases of razor blades. He winced as he remembered the annoyance of having to ask someone to summon up a razor blade for him every day for the last eight months of the trip. Bob apparently shaved with a red hot obsidian razorblade. He'd tried it for himself, and while the shave was incredibly smooth, and the single knick he'd given himself hadn't bled at all, the blade cauterizing it instantly, his face had felt like he was getting over a bad sunburn for the rest of the day.

He rubbed his cheek absently as Ali returned with a grin.

"You're in luck, I've got three pallets of Folgers, and if I pull four cases from the shelves, two pallets of Maxwell house," he reported. "We'll be out of coffee for a few days until we can get some more, but nobody ever told me I couldn't sell stuff by pallet."

"Great, let's add a pallet of shampoo to the bill, and ring me up," Mike ordered.

"What kind of shampoo?" The kid asked.

"What does it matter, it's shampoo, kid. Cheapest you've got, Sauve or whatever, I don't care. It just has to wash the blood and guts and sweat off my scalp," Mike replied, shaking his head.

"Are you in the Army?" Ali asked curiously. "That's exactly what my dad tells my mom, minus the blood and guts stuff."

Mike snorted. "Marines, son. We're the ones who kick open the door and get all the fighting out of the way so that the Army can come in and start working on the plumbing and the electricity."

Ali shook his head. "Dad says Marines are all crayon-eating Jarheads," he replied.

"Your old man sounds like a solid grunt," Mike grinned. "You planning on following in his footsteps?"

"I surrender myself in two months," Ali said proudly.

"While they won't do as good a job as the Corp," Mike winked, "the Army will make a man out of you. Listen to your sergeants, and take every opportunity they give you. I'm sure you'll make your dad proud."

"Army strong, can't go wrong!" Ali agreed with a brilliant smile.

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