Survival in alternate Earth

06. Shopping

Steven stood with big grin behind her and glanced towards the group of arguing people. "This kind of situation is happening every day. They are unwilling to work for points or do tasks. But they want to eat."

"By the way eat. I found some food that is still edible in my new house. How comes no one took it?" She was curious about such obvious thing.

"It is forbidden to raid houses in the city. Everything in those houses belongs to the ones that rent it. Including food. Whoever tries going into closed apartment is doomed to die." He smiled.

"How would someone know if someone entered those homes? And who?" She couldn't understand.

"That is because our city protector has powers. All buildings are protected by him and you wouldn't be able not even to enter the house without his permission." Steven smiled brightly. "That is why everyone can calmly live in the city and leave for taking without fear that their things would be stolen. And that is as well reason why we have such high walls and protection against zombies."

She suddenly felt slight pain and her belly grumbled loudly. With blush she covered her stomach. "I'm hungry."

"No problem. You earned quite amount of stones. Let's go to exchange office. I have friend and he can give you fair amount of points." He walked to one big building filled with people.

A bank?

The movies and books from past were freely open for everyone to watch. It seems their two world had similar progress, but in her world they had progress faster and at the same time destruction went faster as well.

They found out they destroyed their nature too late to save and the destruction was harsh.

The few wars turned into one big war that caused billions of people to lose life with newly made weapons they made.

She glanced at few people that were uniformed but not military and watched over the crowd do no one would make trouble.

Steven stepped into one line and she followed him. Exchange office was filled but still not loud or bothersome.

What surprises her, there was electricity. "How comes they have light and my house doesn't?"

She whispered and Steven just put his finger on his lips and she realized they are forbidden to speak.

With a smile she stepped back and calmly waited in line behind him. But just as she was about to step forward a female passed her side and pushed her away. "I have no time."

Steven furrowed his eyebrows and just moved Fran aside and motioned at group of men in uniform moving towards woman with furious expression.

Without speaking one word they just cleanly knocked her out and threw on the street. She rolled few times and the group that was arguing outside jumped towards her and robbed her in front everyone.

Fran was astonished by such thing and glanced at Steven that shook his head. It seems there are more things she needs to learn.

Finally it was her turn and she stepped forward and took five pink stones as she assumed it was the lowest kind.

Steven winked at the woman and she rolled her eyes and whispered. "Fine. I'll give her better offer. Ten percent more."

He just rose both thumbs and she got five papers with one hundred and five with ten written on it. She calmly took it and came out.

Pink stone hundred points. Ok.

That means the blue one was thousand points? Only using blue she could pay rent for couple years.

And houses are most expensive. Why is then no one leaving the city?

Fran had thousand questions and walked out behind Steven that relaxed walked with hands filled with those things as he exchanged all his stones for points.

Outside he smiled at her and pointed at nearby store. "You can buy normal food there or come with me to the flea market."

Flea? Those nasty creatures that can give you sicknesses?

She still followed him in wonder. Streets where she lived were rather quiet, but the more they went yo the higher buildings, the louder it became and she realized why.

A free space opened up and she saw whole crowd of people walking around hawkers. Some loudly praised their stuff some calmly sat around.

"On the left side is food market. It's around twenty percent cheaper than in store, but at the same time you must be careful not to buy rotten food. I'm going to the right where I can find weapons. See you around." He rushed to the right and she chuckled.

He was quite fast to escape.

Well, at least he brought her here so she had options. But she realized why prices here are cheaper.

Most canned or bagged food didn't had date of expiration. Then let's think about it. Dried cookies, dried noodles and other died stuff could be eaten even decades later.

She glanced at huge bag of noodles that was still unopened but no one bought it. "Can I see the noodles."

"As long you don't open bag, you can check." The man calmly gave her bag and she looked at it carefully. There was no strange bugs like she found on the ones she threw away.

"How much?" She furrowed her eyebrows and gave him back.

He sighed. "Ten points a bag."

She just nodded and went to other places. He was start do she needed more information.

Next was people with cans without any signs what is inside but sold one can one point.

As it was literally just luck, she bought ten of them and made her way to the next. There she saw strange dried thing that they said it was dried meat, but skipped on it.

She saw many movies and not only that. Out of curiosity she saw many various advertisements as some were funny.

As expected they had same food like her people, but the names were different. That's the only thing.

With sigh she went to next person and saw the same. Looking at few next tables it was similar products so she just skipped over and went to small table where two children were selling stuff.

She saw many people not even looking down, but she saw something she needed.

Pads...