A/N: Sorry for the long wait. I hope there are still some Dark Matter fans out there!
X – X – X – X
"Don't take the large packs." THREE pointed to the smaller single-units one row down. "Take 50 of those instead of 5 big-packs."
FIVE stared at him like he had lost his mind. "Why?"
"It's cheaper."
"What?" She stared at the price-tags with a frown, which deepened when she figured they would indeed save eight bars. "You are right."
"Of course I am." He smirked. "You have to beat the system with the system, girls."
Little Irena nodded vigorously, not really understanding anything aside from taking a ton of the smaller packages was the way to go. FIVE on the other hand was busy comparing the prices of various big units with their single counterpart. "Damn, it works for all!"
"Bad word!" scolded the small blond.
"Yeah, sorry."
"And it makes the cashier crazy to ring up so many things." His devilish smirk coaxed similar smiles from the girls. "But keep in mind, this doesn't work for meat and cheese."
The couple next to them pressed the erase-button on their hand-scanner and began to scan the single units barcodes repeatedly following their example.
When they had worked their way through the labyrinth of shelves and were closing in to where they could collect their goods before paying, the teenager checked the list on her small palm-size tablet one last time. "We got everything on TWO's list."
"Now we get to the important stuff, TWO always forgets about." He saw that the older girl was about to protest, but when he pulled them into the next corridor, both their eyes widened in awe. Instead of the product-pictures with price-tags, there were the real fresh products lined up and stapled in seemingly endless colorful rows. He ripped two transparent biodegradable bags from a hook and handed each girl one. "Fill those up."
With squeals of delight both girls dashed forward and began to spoon the countless sweets of gummy-animals, jelly-beans, bubblegum, bonbons and lollys into their bags. THREE leaned against one rack, subconsciously rotated one of the hand-scanners like he usually did with his guns and watched the girls' delight with chuckles of joy of his own. And he ignored the pointed and angry glares of the parents, whose children were whining to also get the allowance to get loose in this paradise.
He suddenly felt one of the lines tug on his belt. Irena had already figured that she could use it to her advantage. "What's up there, THREE?"
Passing by the crying boy on the floor and his enraged parents, he picked the little blond up and helped her pull a one-meter-gummy-snake from another compartment. The girl held the sweets out towards the teenager with a priceless expression. "Look, sis!"
The green-haired head of FIVE looked up from the rainbow-flavor jelly-beans. "Wow! I want one, too!" Immediately she held her bag up and the younger girl dropped the sweet snake in. "Thanks."
THREE navigated Irena to the various sweets, telling her every now and then that she should take one more for him to taste and soon they had closed the distance to his older charge, who stared doubtfully at some metallic looking black orbs. "I wonder what those are…"
"Take some." The man encouraged her and held Irena's bag for her to also drop a few items into it.
"Okay!"
Next to the last rack of sweets, the shelves with cookies and across from those the ones with chocolate began. FIVE's face glowed with joy. "THREE, they have a 15% discount on chocolates!"
X – X – X – X – X
FIVE pushed her overfilled shopping cart over the ramp into the Raza and up the corridors leading to the galley and the adjoined food storages, closely followed by THREE pushing another cart with little Irena sitting on top of a crate. When they came past the open door to the mess, the little girl spotted her mother and slid rather recklessly down the groceries and ran over to the brunette. "Moooooommyyyyyyyyy!" The leash that chained her to THREE stretched longer and longer until she stopped in front on their leader and presented the open bag of sweets to her mother proudly. "Look what THREE bought me!" She took another bite from her sweet snake and pointed onto gummy-drops inside the bag. "The purple ones taste like clouds!"
The brunette crouched down in front of her daughter, not missing the tether, and smiled amused at the hyper girl, jumping up and down on the same spot. "You had fun, sweetie?" A vigorous nod followed and another bite of the incredible long gummy-snake, TWO furrowed her forehead about. When she had decided that THREE would take care of both girls today, so she had her daughter and her lover out of her hair and the teenager to supervise them, she had known that he would spoil them with sweet food. But seeing this huge bag and the even longer snake - just how long had this thing originally been? - she doubt her decision in hindsight.
She watched the other two also enter the mess, after being caught up by the green chain that had caught up in the groceries shortly. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know the story behind that. "How much sweets did you buy them?" Her eyes locked with the man in question, her hands on her hips as she stood up again. She didn't miss the now-you-are-in-trouble-expressions of the other two men in the room.
But THREE being THREE flopped down in the next chair available, a smile on his face. "The Little One about 1.9 pound and the Kid almost 3 pounds. The Little One needs to work on her stuffing things tighter together." Looting stuff seems to be in the girl's blood, but she really needed to figure out how to get the most out of things yet. But he was sure, she was a quick learner in this field.
TWO eyed her daughter's bag suspiciously and took it from the girl's sticky fingers, determining the weight. "Just how much did you already eat?" This was no good. Her eyes fell onto the bag of the other girl. This really was not good. "I think you had enough today, Irena." She dropped the blond's sweets into her bag with wrapped presents on the large table of the mess.
This was not fair. "But Mommy, why is sis allowed to keep her sweets and me not?" The blond pouted, the once one meter snake hanging from one corner of her mouth.
FIVE watched her leader sigh and handed her the bag of sweets, wordlessly, knowing that she would get them back once Irena was in bed. And until then she had a few pounds of chocolate in countless variants.
"Thank you." At least she could count on the tech wiz to help her and keep the chaos minimal.
Meanwhile SIX had started to inspect their purchases with the help of their android. "Why did you take tons of single-packs? This is so much expensive!"
FIVE shook her head and wiped onto her small tablet to bring their bill onto the monitor hanging in the mess. "No, it isn't. We saved this way 104 bars, we then could spent on the important things, you forgot on your list, TWO."
TWO didn't miss that those were the exact words, THREE usually used. "Like?" By now she had crossed her arms about her chest and was listening carefully.
"Like several ponds of sweets, chocolate and booze." TWO marveled if that bright smile of the teenager originated from her joy or from the sugar rushing through her veins. Most likely both.
"We actually had six bars left, but I bought each girl another scoop of ice-cream."
"Another?" TWO repeated aghast.
THREE ignored the woman and grinned at their two youngest crewmembers. "What's the motto, girls?"
"Beat the system with the system." cited Irena while chewing on the last 20 centimeters of her one meter gummy-snake. If her mother had confiscated her other sweets, she would see to it that she wouldn't get this wonderful thing, too.
"Seriously?" SIX stared baffled at the three. Next time he would volunteer to baby-sit the girls and going by TWO's expression she would take his offer gratefully.
FIVE faced her friend and lifted her hand with the cuff up. "THREE, we are back home, safe and sound. Can you remove those leashes now?"
The man opened his belt and pulled his ends of the plastic-lines out before buckling his belt again. He then removed the other end from Irena's wrist and gave the green leash-spiral to the teenager. "Here you go."
The teenager looked at the plastic spiral hanging from her wrist with a frown. "And the code?"
THREE pushed himself to his feet with a shrug. "I have no idea."
"What?!" The girl's outraged eyes burned into him, but he kept his cool with another shrug.
"You are the hacker. Have fun!" and off he was.
After FIVE had recovered from the initial shock, she ran to the doorway and screamed after the man. "THREEEEE!" Annoyed she turned around and stared upset at the lock. "Those are 10000 combinations. And I'm not even at 500 yet…" She whined and sank down on the now vacant chair.
"There is still the option to cut through the plastic." FOUR offered and inspected the leash, stretching it by doing so.
"It would be easier to cut through the metal of the lock than through the plastic." On the puzzled looks of the others, FIVE explained. "It's nano-carbon enhanced plastic fiber. Similar stuff is used to fasten cargo during lifting it in high-G-atmospheres." A heavy sigh escaped her lips as she resumed the combinations while FOUR helped SIX and the android to unload their carts.
X – X – X – X – X
Good thing was that they had one more day to Irena's birthday, because the birthday-girl and her mother spent almost the entire night in the bathroom or rubbing the girl's upset stomach. TWO was sure she had heard the Android bring a cup of fresh water to FIVE's quarters, too. She had seen this coming when THREE had told them that he had taken the girls to sundaes, then gave them the sweets and afterwards, or rather in between, gifted them again each with a scoop.
Gritting her teeth slightly the brunette tabbed her comm. "Android, please wake THREE and tell him I want to see him." She would make him to take care of FIVE and maybe, just maybe, he would learn to not feed the girls only sweet stuff in uncontrolled amounts.
"On my way, TWO."
X – X – X – X – X
A/N: One of my favorite episodes is the one where FIVE is kidnapped and THREE is on his own to safe her.
Comments are really appreciated!