Vixie was lost. It had been a couple weeks now since she had arrived at the headquarters of the Portal Trading Company. Generally, things were going very well.

Since receiving those injections from the doctor, she had grown quite a bit as her health improved. Additionally, she was learning things that just a few weeks ago she would never have imagined ever learning. She could already now do complex math and had found a passion for reading.

However, today's staff training lesson was on the Stockhouse, and having gotten separated from the group of trainees, she was lost. There was an element of self-study allowed by this lesson, so it was unlikely that her immediate absence from the group would cause concern.

Vixie spotted someone down one of the nearby aisles. Hurriedly, she scampered towards them.

“Excuse me,” she tentatively called out.

The individual, startled by her address, jerked their head up, smacking the back of it hard into the shelf above. A dull ringing reverberated. Vixie winced in pain.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah. Just give me a second,” they replied.

Vixie got a good look at the individual now. He was a large person, both in height and musculature. His slightly green tinged skin and large underbite with a pair of protruding tusks indicated his orcish lineage. He put on a large grin as he turned and glanced down at Vixie.

“Thanks?” she said nervously.

“No problem,” replied the orc, “Name's Vern.”

He put forth one of his large hands that Vixie was certain could cover her entire face. Her own hand looked comically small in his as she shook it.

“Vixie. I'm new,” Vixie admitted, “And it's my first training day here. And I got separated. And… and… can you help me?”

Vern’s smile grew as he nodded in understanding.

“It's easy. Come with me and I can show you what you need to know. You're not the first newbie to get lost. Let me grab this though.”

Vern turned back to the lower shelf, got low, then hoisted a massive bag onto one of his shoulders.

“Lift with your legs!” Vern said as he did.

Vixie was impressed. The bag must have been half the size of Vern and likely weighted a lot. Yet he lifted it as if it weighed almost nothing. Vern set off with a hum as Vixie stared after him. It took a moment for her to remember that he was going to help her and she took off after him.

“So I don't quite understand,” she started, “What's the point of the Stockhouse when customers buy at the Storefronts? They have their own storage.”

“Common question. Since we sell just about everything, we can't display everything. So Storefronts tend to offer a variety catered to their universe, with a catalog of other things the staff can order delivered from the Stockhouse. Also if things are bought in large quantities, it's easier for the Stockhouse to hold onto the large supply.”

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He slapped the bag he was carrying as an example of the latter.

“This flour is being sold through a branch where there's a food shortage right now.”

They were forced to stop at a major throughway as an army of war robots marched by. Vern pointed at them.

“Those, for example, would be difficult to store at a Storefront. See the reasons?”

Vixie nodded. Sometimes seeing a practical example was better than it being explained with just words. Once the robots had passed, Vern carried onwards.

“As you can see, we haven’t even left the area for the numerous foods. That’s just how much variety there is to offer. They keep that closest to our stations, since some products could expire if not handled quickly.”

“Do you know how many products we carry?” Vixie asked.

Vern paused, thinking for a moment.

“Not exactly. It’s far too many for any one person to memorize. I doubt even Mr. A knows everything that’s here. But there’s about two branches opened a month, and they say the estimate is nearly a million products from each branch’s universe. That doesn’t account for duplicate items though, so maybe only about 35% is truly new stuff. And it’s not like any except maybe the oldest of branches are out of new goods to be purchased by the company. It’s a lot though. Well into the hundreds of trillions, if not more. A Coordinator could probably give you the exact number.”

Vixie looked at Vern curiously.

“What?” he asked, “Did I say something weird?”

“No, I just thought that the intellect boosters would make it easier to do that sort of management.”

“Ah. Well, mine didn’t take well.”

“Yours didn’t take well? The doctors are very thorough,” she said, subconsciously rubbing her chest. She was going to need yet another shirt size larger.

“Oh. I’ve been here since before the biomorphs took over the Clinic,” Vern replied casually.

Vixie immediately thought of her brief company history lesson. While indeed the biomorphs joined early in the company’s history, it had been several hundred years since then. Vern looked really good for his age, whatever that was.

“Here we are. This is a station,” Vern said with a proud grin.

It was… not exactly impressive to Vixie. There was a large conveyor belt and a set of tracks next to each other that went led straight into the yellow portal. Vern placed the sack of flour on a table area situated at the near end of the two conveyance methods. A holographically projected screen displayed various pieces of information that made no sense to her untrained eye.

“This is it?” she asked.

“Yea. It isn’t much but it works well.”

“I don’t get it,” she glanced towards the portal where the tracks and belt were, “I didn’t see anyplace to receive items on the other side from such methods.”

“Ah. That’s because of some weird magic thing that the portal itself does. I can’t remember what its official name is, but I just call it Rapid Organized Delivery, or ROD.”

Vern pointed at the display screen.

“Anyways, this tells us which order we’re working on and the details. Such as what we’re getting and where it is here in the stockhouse. Since it checks codes on its own, it’s pretty easy. The physical stuff is the hard part of the job.”

“I see.”

“You probably don’t know your storefront yet, otherwise I’d say we should have you meet who’s likely going to handle most of your orders.”

“Sorry, I don’t. They said that’s something we’ll get at the end of training.”

“Right. It makes sense to do that.”

Vixie shadowed Vern for the next few hours, getting a feel and understanding of how the stockhouse functioned. Occasionally, she would ask a question and Vern would either give the answer or demonstrate the result. It was a thorough lesson for her, since it was a practical learning experience.

“All staff trainees, please report to the orientation rooms,” boomed a voice through some sort of hidden loudspeaker.

“Oh, it looks like I have to go. Thank you very much, Vern!” Vixie said.

“You’re quite welcome. If you want to know anything else, you can come ask me,” he replied with his signature grin.

Vixie turned and took a few steps before stopping.

“Uh, Vern? Which way do I go to get out of here?”

Vern let out a laugh.