Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Five (section)

===I Stocked That Shelf===


Jake set his parent’s aircar down at the edge of the little shopping block in the residential zone of the hab, locking it up.  He glanced up at the sign on the side of the structure towering overhead and beamed.  Keller’s Electronics, it said, underlined with running neon lights.

“Remilia must have funded them pretty well when she bought the card,” Jake said to himself.  “Time to lighten their inventory a bit.”

As he reached the broad walkway between the parking block and the stores, however, he paused.  He glanced down the row to the tiny store on the corner.  He ambled up to the front door and glanced through, noting the broad shelves of random crap he had himself stocked, three months before.  “Why not,” he muttered.  He pushed the door open and walked in.

The store’s noisy fans rattled in their plastic cages as Jake walked up to the magazine racks by the door.  “Heh.  I stacked some of these,” he said to himself.

“Jake!” the man behind the counter said.  “Well, hello there!  Back from vacation?”

Jake looked over to where the elderly proprietor was standing.  “Yep.  For a while.  Then off to school.”

“Well, that’s good,” the old shopkeeper said.  He straightened up behind the counter, nearly invisible over the racks of recycled protein candy and flavored wafers.  “How was it?”

“Wonderful, except the part where I went to the hospital,” Jake said.

The old man stared.  “What?”

“I got hit with a beer bottle in a bar on Nocturne,” Jake said.  “Nearly put me in a box, that did.”

“Shit, Jake, that’s a damn shame,” the old man said.  His crusty ID tag was so faded that Jake had to wonder why he even wore it, but it said ‘Jeff’ under many decades of stains.

“Yeah, that sucked,” Jake said.  “How about you?  Find a new guy?”

“I did,” Jeff said, jerking a thumb in the back.  “And he didn’t run off to bone royalty, either,” he added snidely.

Jake glared at him in disgust.  “Wow, dude, mind your own business.”

“I am, by the way,” Jeff said.  “Think you could get her Highness to get those pushers outside to fuck off?”

Jake nearly snapped at the old man until he remembered just how much those swine had frightened them both.  “If you want me to, I bet I could,” he said instead.

Jeff blinked.  “Really?”

“Why not?” Jake asked.

“Well…thanks,” Jeff said.

“Yeah.”  Jake turned for the door.  “I’ll see you around, Jeff.”

“Yeah.  Thanks for swinging by,” Jeff said, somewhat wrong-footed.

Jake emerged to glare at the back of Slide dealer on the corner before walking down to the electronics shop.  “Count your blessings,” he muttered under his breath.