Zara drags Ed to the door. “Buddie, is there a market in the company we can spend our credits at?”

“Of course. The company has both a physical and online marketplace where you can buy things from external merchants or other employees. Anything not provided by the company can be found in the markets. If you are searching for something in particular, just think about the item you want, and the door will take you to a room where it’s being sold.”

“Thanks Buddie. Come on, let’s go.” Zara charges through the door, stepping out into a wide cobbled street, brightly lit market stalls take up the space between storefronts of all different architectural styles. As if they were ripped out of different eras in time and thrown onto this street. “Woah, this place is awesome.” Zara stares wide-eyed at everything on display. The street crowded with vendors hawking their wares, and customers haggling over the prices.

“Why are we here, I thought you were saving up for a kitchen?” Ed says, rubbing his sore wrist after Zara finally let go.

“I am saving up for it, thank you very much. Doesn’t mean I can’t take a look around to see what the market’s like.” She walks up to a stall selling fresh produce, picking up an apple.

I guess that makes sense. It won’t hurt to see what I can find. This place doesn’t look too weird anyways. Ed walks up to the stall as well. He looks at the apple in Zara’s hands, noticing that the colour looks far more vibrant and enticing than a regular apple.

“Excuse me, what kind of apple is this?” Zara asks the old lady running the stall.

“Oh, come closer. Let me see which one you have in your hand.” The lady says, squinting her eyes. Zara steps forward, holding it out in front of her. “That one there is a sleeping apple. Feed it to someone and they will fall into a deep sleep, the length of which depending on their resistance to sleeping curses.”

Ed carefully focuses on everything else at the stall, prepared for if something jumps out at him. Of course it’s cursed. Looks like I have to be careful what I touch here. I might die picking up any random item.

“Cool. I might have a need for this eventually. I’ll come back to buy some later ma’am.” Zara says, putting the apple back in its place.

“Oh, that’s fine dear. You two run along now.”

Zara continues searching through the stalls, looking at different items, from small rings and necklaces to a giant axe longer than she is tall. “Woah, I want to swing that thing around.”

“I don’t think you’ll be able to lift it, much less swing it.” Ed sighs, stopping her from trying to pick it up.

“Fine, let’s go somewhere else. We haven’t checked out the stores yet.” Zara walks from store to store, looking through the windows at what’s inside. “Ooh, clothes.” She pulls Ed inside. The inside of the store is filled with hologram models wearing various outfits. Every once in a while, the models flicker, changing to a different outfit. In front of each model is a screen showing the stores website.

There’s also a single employee in the store, standing behind the counter. I guess they’re the owner.

“Why did we come in here? The company already provides us with free clothes.” Ed says, trying not to disturb the workers.

“The company only gives us clothes identical to what we wore when they hired us. If we want to wear something else, we have to pay for the design ourselves, then it’ll be added to our wardrobe.” Zara says while looking at the outfits.

“How do you know this?”

“It was one of the first things I asked Buddie about when I got home yesterday. Besides, don’t you want to see me in something other than these jeans and this blouse? I’ve been wearing my old work clothes for nearly two weeks now.”

Ed looks away, rubbing the back of his head. I wouldn’t mind that. “I guess you make a fair point.”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Hi, do you need any help?” The owner appears next to Zara, checking in on her.

“Yes please. This is our first time checking out the markets so I’m not sure on a few things. Is this all that your store sells? Also, I’ve seen a few things I might like, how do I get a physical version of them to see If I like them?”

“I’m so glad you chose to come into our store on your first trip here. If you’ll just follow me over to this screen here, I’ll be more than happy to answer your questions. This here is our website, containing everything we have designed. Currently, it is on our homepage, which contains all of our latest and most popular items. Up in this drop-down menu you will find different categories you can separate the clothes into, such as tops, dresses, shorts, accessories, etc. If you’re looking for anything in particular, you can type it into the search bar here and it will show you all of the results.” The worker guides Zara through the different functions of the website. “When you want to see what the item looks like up close, click on this button here and the model will change accordingly. And, when you’ve found something, you like you can add it to your cart, which will make it appear beside you. We have our change rooms over there if you want to see what you look like in them. Is there anything else you want to know?”

“I’m all good, thanks for helping me.”

“Glad I could help. If you need anything, I’ll be just over there.” She points at the front desk where someone identical to her is standing, before turning into a puff of smoke and disappearing. Zara focuses back on the screen, excitedly looking at different clothes.

What just happened? Can that woman clone herself? I guess that’s helpful if she needs to handle multiple things at once. Ed sighs. Looks like I might be here a while. Ed awkwardly stands there during this entire exchange, waiting for Zara to find something she likes. Do they have seats around here?

Eventually a cart appears beside her with a few different items, and she happily take the clothes into the fitting room. A few minutes later she calls out to Ed. “Hey, come here real quick.”

What does she want me for? Ed gets up and walks to stand in front of the fitting room curtain she’s behind. “I’m here. What do you want?”

She reaches her hand out through the curtain, grabbing onto him. “Just get in here.”

Ed stumbles in through the curtains, almost falling on top of her, but he manages to place his hand on the wall, stopping himself from falling. Due to how cramped the space is, the two of them are now pressed against each other.

“Oops, my bad. So, what do you think?” She looks up at him in the mirror excitedly showing off her outfit. She’s wearing a black off-shoulder crop top with thin straps crisscrossing over her shoulders and chest, a black and blue pleated skirt, and a pair of black laced up combat boots.

Woah. Ed stops functioning, staring at Zara in the mirror. He fumbles over his words, before loudly gulping. Calm down Ed. Don’t be weird, she’s just asking for your opinion. “Yeah, it looks good on you.” Ed continues to look her up and down.

The employee knocks on the wall outside. “Please don’t fuck in the fitting rooms. If you want to do that, there are plenty of stores that will let you. Just go to the stores run by succubi, they’re more than welcome to let you do whatever you want.”

Ed feels his face burning up, while Zara breaks out into laughter. “It’s okay, we weren’t planning on doing that here.” She walks out, going to pay for everything at the counter.

What the fuck was that all about? Ed walks out of the room, spending a bit of time to calm himself down.

“The three items come to a total of two credits. Please put your finger here.” Zara confirms the transaction. “Thank you for shopping with us. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.” The woman smiles and waves them goodbye.

Zara walks in front as they walk back to the main door. “I had a lot of fun today. We should do this again sometime. And these clothes are of such good quality. I’ll definitely buy from that store again.”

I’ve got so many questions, but I’m just too tired to ask. “I’m glad you had fun. I think we’ve had a pretty long first day, we should probably go back to our apartments and get some rest.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” The two of them stand in front of the door. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow. Bye.” Zara disappears through the door.

Stepping into his place, Ed drops onto the couch. God that was so awkward. Why did she pull me in there? What was she trying to do? Ugh, I’ve got more important things to be doing. I can’t waste my time thinking about this, I’ll just ask her tomorrow. Ed rubs his face, sitting up on the couch. I need to find a place that’s completely private from the company. Somewhere that even Buddie can’t reach into. There’s no way they’d let me add a room like that to my place. At least not yet. I’ll have to be in a far higher position before they can trust me with something like that. And that’s going to take far too long... Maybe I could go on holiday? Surely, they’re not monitoring everywhere on Earth, right? No, what am I thinking. They’d definitely have the ability to do that... I’ll keep thinking about this. I won’t give up.

Ed washes up before hopping into bed.