Robert “Bob” MacDuff awoke to find himself in a storage room. This wasn’t too unexpected; he had spent a significant amount of time locked in storage rooms recently, thanks to Oscar’s screw-ups. His first clue that something was amiss was that he couldn’t see Oscar—they had always been locked up together.
Through the fuzziness of having just woken up, memories started to come back to him. He and Oscar had tried to jump the storekeeper. Oscar had managed to slip his cuffs and get them both out, but then they couldn’t catch the storekeeper. Every time they thought they had him, he would disappear behind some shelves and reappear somewhere else in the store. The last thing Bob could remember was someone putting a hand over his mouth, and then he woke up here.
Bob started to take stock of his situation. Surprisingly, he wasn’t shackled to the storage racks anymore and was free to move around. Standing up, it soon became clear that this was not the storage room he had previously been locked in. That storage room had just a few rows of dusty shelves in a dim space with a single door in and out. The place he found himself in now was still obviously a storage room, but it was unlike anything he had ever seen.
The shelving stretched off into the distance, swallowed by the darkness. Looking up, the shelves also reached higher than any building the Scotsman had ever seen, and he had once seen a three-story house.
Beside each shelving rack was a door. Just ordinary-looking doors—wooden, brown, with brass door handles. However, each door had a sign above it with a number. The door he had woken up in front of had number 20,143. The door to the right of it had number 20,145, and the door opposite had number 20,144. As Bob looked down the row, he saw the doors were numbered sequentially as far as he could see.
What Bob could not see was anything that gave an indication that it might be an exit. Having never been one to overthink his actions, Bob decided to go through the door directly in front of him, door number 20,143.
Opening the door and stepping through, Bob found himself in what appeared to be a general store. Several things tipped him off that this wasn’t the Blackwater general store, such as the thick blanket of snow outside. Before Bob could inquire about where he was, he was grabbed and pulled back into the never-ending storeroom.
“Now, Robert, you shouldn’t go wandering. Who knows where you might end up,” said Claus, the Blackwater shopkeep.
“Whaur the bleedin’ hell am I? Wha am I deein’ hee?"
“This, my peccant friend, is the Semper Copia. It is a connection between all the commerce in which I am involved. Time and space work slightly differently here than what you may be used to, but don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. As to why you are here—well, you attempted to engage in some unscrupulous business practices, namely attempting to assault me to gain your freedom rather than bargaining like an honorable man. So, your punishment is to be a runner for me until your debt is paid.”
“Wha’ aboot Oscar? It wis his bleedin’ idea!”
“Oh, I am aware. I assure you that the punishment coming for Oscar is much worse than this. In the end, you’ll be thankful.”
“Ye ain’t no ordinary shopkeep, wha the bleedin’ hell are ye?”
“I did wonder how long it would take you to realize that. Although I go by Claus, my real name is Clauneck. I am what you may refer to as a supernatural entity. A supernatural entity that concerns himself with commerce. A spirit of business, if you will.”
“Spirit o’ yappin', mair like it!”
“You will have to forgive my loquaciousness. You see, when dealing with customers, I always put on the facade that will be most appealing to them. As such, I very rarely get to just be myself.”
“Is listenin’ tae ye speakin’ me bleedin’ punishment?”
“No, you cantankerous buffoon. As I said, you are to be a runner for me. When I need a particular item, I will tell you the location, and you will go and fetch it for me.”
Stolen novel; please report.
Bob looked around at the endless rows of doors and shelves. “It’ll tak’ me an age tae find anythin’ in this place.”
“Yes, it will. But again, time works slightly differently here—in that it doesn’t. It may take you days or weeks to fetch what I need, but very little time will have passed outside. Also, you won’t age here, so don’t worry—when your time is up, you won’t be an old man.”
“Wha’s tae stop me frae jist escapin’ oot o’ ane o’ these doors?”
“Well, you little scofflaw, you don’t know where these doors will lead you, and not all of them open to a general store. In fact, a great many of them open to rather untamed locations where I procure very rare items for sale, and these locations can be exceedingly dangerous.”
Bob had a displeased look on his face but was resigned to his fate. “How long dae I hae tae stay hee?”
“I think about two months of real time should be sufficient, which will be slightly longer for you, but if you keep busy, it will fly by. Now, for your first order, please head down to door number 40,678 and pick up a chronometer. A local surveyor is in desperate need of a replacement, although he doesn’t know it yet.”
Figuring he had no other real option, Bob started on his way. After a couple of steps, he turned back.
“Can ye write the number doon fer me, as weel as the number o’ this door whaur I can meet ye? Or I’m gonnae get lost.”
“Of course I can.”
Bob carried out his task and quickly lost track of time as he ran back and forth for far-flung doors. Oftentimes, the items he needed would be on the shelves next to the door. Other times, he would have to get them from someone on the other side. On the other side of some of those doors, he saw things that he couldn’t imagine: massive triangle-shaped buildings that looked like man-made mountains, a mountain so large that the top seemed to pierce the sky, a sky full of dazzling and dancing lights.
He wasn’t sure when, but at some point, Bob started to become accustomed to the Semper Copia and found navigating it much easier. One day, as he was taking a break by what he considered his home door, Claus stepped through.
“I have a special order for you to... acquire, Bob. I need you to go to door number 6666 and pick up a bottle of fox’s milk. Now, this isn’t going to be your usual run, and if you can complete this, I will reduce some of your time. You are going to need to enter the door and collect the milk yourself. The creature is... placid, but you are going to need to pick something up at door number 10,278 along the way, and you’ll need this,” said Claus, handing over four small glass bottles.
The concept of milking a fox didn’t appeal to Bob, but reducing his time did, so off he went. The idea of a slightly different errand put a slight spring in his step, and the journey to door 10,278 felt much shorter. On the racks outside, he found a costume—a fox costume. It appeared to be made of real fox skin and even had the stink of a fox. A note was attached that said, “put it on.” Figuring he had come this far, Bob did as instructed and donned the costume before heading on his way again. To his surprise, he found that he was moving faster and with more energy, like the suit was giving him a boost.
The excitement of the different task and the physical boost of the strange suit made the doors fly past, and before Bob knew it, he was standing outside 6666. Pushing the door open, Bob was struck by the most repugnant smell he had ever encountered, which was saying something, given his previous job making haggis.
Stepping through the door, he found himself in a dimly lit room made entirely of some kind of green-gray bricks, apart from the back wall, which appeared to be a strange pink color. Approaching the back wall, he began to see more detail: something that looked like veins, sweat pores, hair. It wasn’t a wall—it was some kind of creature. As he stood there, trying to comprehend what he was looking at, a wagon wheel-sized eye moved through the flesh and fixated on him.
Bob froze, captured in the creature's gaze and unsure of what to do. He glanced back at the exit, wondering if he could make the distance before he was killed. As he looked back, he saw the flesh begin to ripple, fur burst out, and the creature started changing shape. The process was the most horrific thing Bob had ever seen. Bones and internal organs began to appear, forcing the flesh sack into shape. The creature let out a high-pitched squeal. Legs forced their way out of the wall of meat. A head formed at one end, pushing forward and tearing the skin, causing a noxious green fluid to spill on the ground. The tear formed into a mouth and snout. By now, the whole beast was covered in thick orange-brown fur. A tail formed at the other end, and it was at this point that Bob finally figured out the creature was mimicking what it thought he was—a fox.
When the transformation was done, the creature lay on its side, panting, obviously exhausted from the change. Despite changing form, it didn’t change size, so now Bob found himself looking at what was possibly the largest fox ever.
Although he was certain he would be mentally scarred from what he had just witnessed, Bob found himself oddly calm. Looking at the fox in front of him, he went about his work. He’d once had a job milking cows, so he wasn’t completely inexperienced at this kind of thing. He just hoped the skills would transfer.
Twenty minutes later, Bob stepped out of the door with four bottles of fresh fox’s milk and life long trauma.