After walking inside, Troy looked up. A ceiling came into his sights.

Around him, it looked like what one could call a shopping district. A stone-tiled floor, lined with a few trees, and an uncountable number of shops to the sides.

"This", Charlie said. "Is what Dr Hale wouldn't be able to show you."

Troy was flabbergasted. He was supposed to be in a secret, government facility. Why on earth was there a shopping district? And, on a more important note, why was it so colourful?

This question was attempted to be conveyed verbally.

"Oh, ah, eh, w-why", Troy said. He had never had a problem with stammering, but this looked like a perfect time to start.

"Don't worry, newcomer. I know exactly what you're thinking", Charlie said, too confident than what should be allowed. "You must be thinking, 'why is this place streets ahead of, what should be here?' To that I say; unionize. It's worth it."

"But, why this?" Troy said. Was he even confused? Could that describe those current feelings? Because calling him confused was understating the whole thing by a whole measurement. "Why would you unionize to get an underground shopping district?"

Charlie gave Troy a knowing look. He had just known, what words Troy would use, and was purely squealing inside. That's what Troy got out of his facial expressions at least.

"First off, calling this place 'underground' is a bit of a stretch. Or maybe, it isn't. I don't know. But you don't know either, so don't act as if you do," Charlie said, showcasing his expertise in not getting to the point. "But, for your information, this was not the original goal of that little union of ours. This-" Charlie spun in a circle, arms wide. "- just solved the problems, which we had needed a solution for."

Troy did himself a favour, by ignoring Charlie's weirdly high levels of eccentricity, and focusing on the words said.

"Then, what was the union's goal?"

A nearly-comical sigh was exhaled, and a far-off stare was held for approximately too long.

"Our goal was an important one," Charlie stated. He was totally laying on the drama side of the island, with that overly-serious tone of his. "We, the people at this prestigious place of learning and discovery, decided that we were getting the short end of the stick. Most worked nearly twelve hours a day, every day, every week, every month, for the whole year. Suffice it to say, we weren't too happy about that. It was said that one could just take some free time, but, what were we supposed to do? Any outside connection has to be for official business, few have those fancy tablets to play on, and not all of us can create our own entertainment. Some games turn old real quick when it's all you do.

Getting the people to strike was oh so easy. Our demands were simple. We wanted entertainment. We didn't care how it was done. We just wanted it now. It was that, or get weekly outings to the major cities."

Troy could see how their demands were seen.

"It is amazing, what striking researchers can do," Charlie said. "We proved, with statistics and all that jazz, that it was best for them to meet our demands. And, the idiots- I mean, sophisticated superiors- listened instantly. Even a government can't take a large hole in their budget.

But, the weekly outings were outright denied. A 'severe security risk', they called. A bunch of jabbers, if you ask me. But, they compromised, by getting us this fancy thing. A whole bunch of excuses were made, to make this the best shopping-street one could ever dream of."

Charlie extended his arm for Troy to take.

"Shall we?" he asked.

Troy did the sensible thing and took a wide step around the outreached arm.

"Let's", Troy said, walking at a forced, relaxed pace.

Charlie just laughed.

"Then let's get this tour of ours started!"

----------------------------------------

They walked for a bit, down the street. The place just seemed to get bigger and bigger, to Troy. When first walking inside, he had been expecting something the size of a small, indoor street, but a street nonetheless.

Yet, this was so much more than that. They had already walked over a hundred meters, and new buildings just kept coming into view.

This was likely a good time to explain that the street was, in fact, slightly curved. You could still see far, but after about a hundred meters, you would only see the side of the buildings.

Ignoring the gaping size of the place, Troy put their actions into focus.

Charlie was supposed to be showing him around, but they were just walking past the shops, with no commentary about them. There was commentary, of course. But it wasn't exactly about the landscape design.

"And then she said 'I just don't think we should ever see each other again', which did perplex me. I had been such a gentleman for the whole afternoon," Charlie said, never stopping for a breath of air. How somebody could portray such feelings at hearing themselves speak, Troy would never understand. "Alas, when I put myself in her perspective of the whole ideal, I did see where I may have gone wrong in my actions. Blast the social views! I believed it was perfectly fine to trick her grandfather into-"

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Before, during the testing, it had seemed so hard to tune something out. Now, with all that was on the line, Troy could easily ignore whatever inane story Charlie was trying to tell. The make-believe one-man sword fight was interesting to see, though, at the very least.

Charlie stopped walking and made a small twirl on his heels.

"And, for the first stop of today", Charlie said, not looking at Troy, but on an entirely bland shop. "We have the Nowhere Emporium."

Was it called that, due to non-existent marketing? Things to wonder.

The front walls were a classic, low-budget design of plain, red bricks. A look that may have seemed hip, if they had ever stopped being used in common construction.

"Other than the mildly interesting naming-scheme, what's so special about this?" Troy asked, not even bothering to hide his lack of fascination.

Luckily, Charlie was not one to be offended by anything and simply laughed. At him or with him, was a good question.

"Oh, you have misunderstood me", Charlie said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

If Troy was being played, he had half a mind to just walk away. He knew the way back, and there could always be another to show him the way.

"What, as you say, did I misinterpret?" Troy asked.

"Don't worry now,'' Charlie said like he was talking to a small child. Troy, as a self-proclaimed pacifist, wanted to throw away his ideals, and try his hand at kicking one's midsection. "The fault lies with me. I was the one who said it in the wrong way."

"How about you say it the correct way now then?"

"But, that would take half of my comebacks out of the realm of possibility!", Charlie quickly said.

"And me walking away, will put them all away", Troy calmly retorted.

To Troy's surprise, this actually seemed to put Charlie's personality down by a notch.

"Fine, fine", Charlie said, with a slightly less degree of eccentricity. "I'm not gonna show you many different places. I'm not sure I've ever been in more than four shops, in all my time here.

What I can tell you, is small, utterly unneeded details about it all, while just walking through the place."

So, that's how it was. No specific showings about any special shops, but a more general view of it all, as a whole.

…

Troy could go with that.

"That's all you needed to say", Troy said. "Now, what fascinating snippet will you tell me about this place?"

And Charlie was upon his regular levels, his grin making him look younger than Troy was comfortable with.

"Absolutely fantastic," Charlie exclaimed.

He coughed a few times and took a pose, which, in some contemporary fashion, could be called serious.

"This shop is not so important. Nearly nobody ever goes inside it. Some say it's a trinket shop, and some say they focus on authentic, Chinese, dinner plates. All of that doesn't matter. What matters is the history behind this store. And, why exactly it still stands today."

It was now that Troy noted a specific detail of the store. Or, the lack of one detail.

The Nowhere Emporium had no windows to speak of. And the door was made of wood, letting nothing inside be seen.

The Nowhere Emporium… had Troy heard that before?

"Quick question", Troy said, taking Charlie out of his storyteller stance.

"Shoot… with your question, and not your gun, of course."

"Why is this place called The Nowhere Emporium? Who chose that?" Troy asked.

"Oh, that's easy. We did," Charlie explained. "With the whole confidential location thing, we couldn't really bring any real brands inside. So, we simply made some up. Every single name inside was chosen by the workers here. That's why some have these ambiguous names and others… Others have some creative names. Let's just leave it at that."

With most crowd-thinking being censored, Troy could see why the naming sense could have been seen as unique.

"Let's get back on track", Charlie said, right back into the not-so-serious pose. "After the first year quarter of this place being built, two things were noticed. First off, people loved this place. They just wanted more of it. But, pretty much everything in here cost money. A lot of money. There was good reason for this. It had cost a lot to make into a reality, and it wasn't gonna just pay for itself. So, the prices may have been a little inflated. Who cared about that.

Nearly everyone, it would seem. They wanted those prices to be set to standard market values.

Newsalert, they didn't get lowered. Yet… people stopped complaining. This wasn't due to anything, which the superiors had done. They had still been in the planning stages of even making a statement about it.

No, this was the work of one crafty opportunist, who often resided inside the doors, of that fine establishment." That sentence ended with a light smack to the walls of the shop.

"Don't bother asking me for his name, because I can't remember it," Charlie said. "For the sake of convenience, though, let's call him… how about Naidu? Yeah, that seems fine. Naidu was a sneaky little one, with a rather extravagant business model.

The Fanatici system, Naidu called it. It had some stupid Latin word. Doesn't matter. What matters is how this system of his worked.

The premise was simple. The system introduced a new currency to this whole debacle. Credits, Merit points, Sods. Call it, what you will.

At the start of each month, where you got your paycheck, you could choose to exchange a few dollars into credits. Doesn't sound incredibly much like new ground, yet? Here's the fun part.

Any amount that was put in, Naidu would double the amount in credits. Double the budget for leisure spending, for no payment other than minor effort.

All the shops accepted these credits as a valid payment method. Nobody had any reason to not take the opportunity!"

"That doesn't make any sense", Troy cut in. "Why would the shops see the credit as valid?"

"Perfect question", Charlie exclaimed. "As the obvious states, Naidu was an employee of this place. Specifically, he was hired to maintain this place's infrastructure. Anything from cleanliness to paint colours or even the code to the door. And, of course, the pricing of the wares.

Now, Naidu had some few rules set in stone for him. Access couldn't be restricted, no violent actions by Automations, and no changing the pricing of items.

Nowhere on the rules did it say that he couldn't make a whole new currency. And, if it isn't explicitly stated, nothing stops him from doing it."

A reminiscent sigh came from Charlie.

"Oh, the days were so good back then. Nobody constantly looking over your shoulder. Your actions had time to actually unfold into negative consequences… good times."

"Do continue," Troy reminded Charlie, who seemed all too happy to stare into space. It was getting too interesting.

"Of course," Charlie said, smoothing out his non-existent wrinkles in his white, lab-coat.

"Who could have guessed that the actions of Naidu would have consequences? Everyone did. Did they care? No. They were getting the long end of it all.

It all came to the end, though, when Naidu was relocated to another position. And, with him, went The Fanatici system.

Trust me, when I say this. If you want your workplace to stay clear of anarchy, don't take away the good things in life.

Oh, the things I'm not legally allowed to tell you. That day will go down in the history books, as the day of chaos… if it ever gets unclassified, of course.

Suffice to say, though, the actions showed the opinions of the people, and The Fanatici system was put back, under some new rules.

They were simple. A hard max on how much could get converted, an inability to trade the credits to others, and a way to trade the credits back into regular money."

Fascinating. One thing missing though…

"So… that didn't really explain why this shop is still standing," Troy pointed out. "The story is great and all, but you didn't tell me why it hasn't been replaced yet.

Charlie looked at Troy. Then at the building. Then back at Troy.

"Guess I didn't," Charlie stated, shrugging with both shoulders... "No matter. We have much more to see."

"Are you sure, you're not just-"

"Onwards!"

Did Charlie just completely waste Troy's time? Yes, he was pretty sure Charlie did just that.

Did that mean that Troy was leaving? No, the sunk-cost fallacy was something that existed. Troy was proof of that, as he stupidly followed.

And, to be fair, it was interesting to hear such a hedonist talking.

----------------------------------------

'Adam,` Dr Fidelis sent.

'Yes?'

'Would you mind, if we talked for a bit?'