For a Friday afternoon, the Gigamart was at its peak activity of the week, mostly due to the congregation of individuals with enough free time on their hands and the deep, almost-hidden drive for some form of social contact with the world they felt within them, who were drawn in and moseyed along the extensive network of labyrinthine aisles, though rarely actually talking to anyone.

In order to shop at this store, each customer’s required to attend to a self-driving smartcart that they followed, whether they purchased anything or not. Some go just to get out and look at brands, subconsciously becoming familiar with hundreds of thousands quirky company names, slogans, and eye-catching product packaging carefully crafted by a team of intellectuals and embraced by millions of their fellow consumers.

“Oh…” a woman said, standing in front a huge display of stacked beer cases in the formation of goalposts for robot football. This elaborate marketing campaign however was not the perception that captivated the woman’s attention, and in fact, it was nothing of the outside world, but instead one of those rare, internal feelings that unfortunately held her in an unclenching grip.

The worry on her face was so apparent to all those passing by, that even the argus system could pick up on her perturbance.

She held her arms and paced behind her halted cart, looking in all directions.

“Is there something I can assist you with?” the chatvoice from her cart said to her.

“No…” was all she could get out, until suddenly her eyes widened up and she sprung forward towards the entrance of the store. Bounding in, a man in a black mask, boots, blue-jeans, and a thick jacket who swiveled his head from side to side.

With tension in her throat, the woman choked “You must be… Plain-Man.”

“Yes, ma’am. How can I help?”

“Oh, you see, it’s my son. He’s only six years old and he wandered off and has been gone for almost a half-hour now. I can’t get in touch with his tracking chip for some reason. There must be something blocking it and I don’t know what to do.” The mother said, finishing her explanation by covering her face and beginning to weep.

“It’ll be alright ma’am, he couldn’t have wandered off too far.” Plain-Man reassured her, “Where was the last time you saw him?”

Jacquelyn M. raised her face from her hands and said, “We were in one of the cereal aisles, and I went to glance at the ingredients on one of the boxes, and then I looked down and he was gone. His name is JoJo. He was wearing a blue hat and a bright, red shirt… He’s usually a good kid, though sometimes rather curious.”

“I’ll go check it out. In the meantime, you stay here and try your best to stay calm. Everything will be fine.”

He nodded towards the lady and turned his back on her, entering into the canned fruit aisle.

Because of the size of the store, Plain-Man increased his pace to a jog in order to get to his destination, passing by row after row of slightly similar food and customers browsing almost everywhere he went. The chip aisle is next to the cracker aisle which is next to the third cereal aisle Plain-Man figured out in quick succession. He passed by each row several times, yet all he could find were adults milling around, deciding what their breakfast of choice, and no kids. He decided to ask one of them if they’ve seen anything.

“A kid, you say? No, can’t say I’ve seen any kids around.” A bigger man said through his mustache as he studied a box of Cosmic Flakes.

“Are you sure it’s a kid, not a cat? I could’ve sworn I saw a cat somewhere around here…” A woman sitting in her electric cart said.

Plain-Man ran through each of the cereal aisles and those in the vicinity, interviewing anyone who was willing, and still nothing. He stopped by the refrigerated kefir, yogurt, and other fermented soybean/artificial milk section to catch his breath and think of his next step.

Stolen novel; please report.

A lady passing by grabbed a bottle of liquid strawberry symbiotic culture, read the label, and then placed it in her smartcart which made the sound of being scanned as it entered.

“Excuse me ma’am. You wouldn’t happen to have seen a…” Plain-Man began to ask, but before he could finish, the woman had turned up her nose at him and quickly followed her cart away.

Alright, time to widen my search, Plain-Man decided. This was a big store and if he was going to search each and every aisle, it would take him all day if he didn’t hurry up. If I was a kid in a grocery store where there was any kind of food that I could think of, where would I go, Plain-Man asked himself. “The candy aisle, of course!”

Facing down the seventh row of soda and energy drinks, he sprinted through like he was running a marathon to the end and turned, passing by the subsequent aisles until he came to the candy section. Then he ran up and down those few rows, checking every nook and cranny he could. He even checked out the edible clothes that were a novelty to some, making sure the kid wasn’t behind the gummywear t-shirts or blueberry jeans.

Just as he was doing, suddenly he was violently knocked over and fell to the floor, dragging down a chocolate one-piece swimsuit with him. A cart full of items had come out of nowhere and stood over him like a predator animal.

“I heard you were harassing my girl,” A man said, who came up behind the handle of the smartcart, “You better stay away from her, if you know what’s good for you.”

Again the cart lurched forward and knocked Plain-Man over as he was rising and fell to the floor. The cart and the man then passed by and quickly glided out of the aisle like nothing had happened. Sure, that was going to cost him some friendly points in the end, but to some people, it was worth it for those fleeting moments of power in exchange for measly credits.

As Plain-Man was picking himself, a couple pushing a cart came up from behind him and he started to overhear their conversation.

“…I’m telling you this store has everything. I saw that you can even buy a real, live kid over in the frozen section!” the man said, and laughed out loud. The woman, his wife presumably, remained expressionless behind her square glasses.

“Did you say there’s a kid in the frozen section?” Plain-Man asked, making eye contact, all excited in anticipation of his answer.

“Yeah, but I was just making a joke. I’m sure he’s not really for sal-“ but before the man was finished, Plain-Man was already on his way.

Huffing and puffing, Plain-Man finished jogging past the fifth row of international food and other imports until finally he came to where all the rows of freezers were located. The temperature dropped noticeably and the hot breath he exhaled through his mask became slightly visible. Immediately he noticed one of the doors was left ajar and a fog of cold air drifted out.

Approaching the frosted glass panes of the display, he wiped himself a circle for him to peer into and tried to discern through. Sitting in between and on top of boxes of garlic bread and giant frozen pretzels, a kid in a in a blue hat and red shirt kicking his legs from boredom, hugging himself to keep warm.

The kid looked up and widened his eyes at the masked man.

“Who are you?” the kid asked in awe.

“My name is Plain-Man. You wouldn’t happen to be JoJo now, would you?”

“Yeah, how do you know?”

“Let’s just say I can read minds…” Plain-Man smiled with his eyes, “Let’s get you out of there and get you back to your mom. She’s real worried about you.”

Just as Plain-Man was helping little JoJo out, by chance a cart pulled up at the entrance of the aisle and a woman called out and ran.

“JoJo!”

Plain-Man handed off the kid to his mother who squeezed him tight and began to help him get warm.

“You’re so cold! What were you doing in there, JoJo? Why did you leave me and run off like that? You had me worried sick!”

“I wanted to make myself frozen so I could go see Daddy and we can play.”

Jacquelyn M. stood up, still clinging to her child, and looked at Plain-Man.

“You see, my husband had a terminal illness last year and we contracted out for one of those frozetoriums for him to incubate until they one day find the cure. I guess he thought he could do the same…” she said, looking down at her son with a hardened expression.

“Anyways, I want to thank you so much for helping me and going through all that trouble...”

“Of course, ma’am. That’s what I’m here for.” Plain-Man said, giving a thumbs-up to her and her kid.

After a few more words of gratitude, the mother and her boy parted ways from Plain-Man who then turned to head for the exit, when suddenly he realized someone else was trying to get his attention.

Standing at the end of the frozen food aisle, a hefty man wearing a pig mask who stood expressionless except for the shouting from under his mask.

“Hey! You!”