Trinitite took her time covering the distance between the library and the Walmart storage facility. Technically, there was a lot to get done, but most of the humans she passed didn't seem in much of a rush, and The Wo-Class was supposed to be relaxing today, anyways.
She passed one of those churches she'd heard about, but wasn't sure what made it so special. Yeah, it was built… oddly, and its vehicle pool was pretty full, meaning it must have had some importance, but she wasn't going to look into it more until she'd gotten to churches on her list. Some of the wording on a temporary sign jammed into the ground in front of the building… it reminded her of the African Port Princess, and that was never a good thing. Even ignoring the poor experiences she'd had with them, that Installation's fleet just hadn't sat well with her and her sisters.
Anyone who thought they were helping humans by killing them wasn't someone you wanted to spend too much time around.
Ugh. Thinking too much about their weird ramblings about angels and crusades was like poking an unexploded shell. It wasn't healthy.
There were plenty of other labeled buildings on the way there, but even more were left mysteriously unmarked. It was uncanny, how many structures stood without much of an obvious purpose. Humans were obviously maintaining them still, but why? The reason was probably obvious to humans, meaning "why are there so many unlabeled buildings" might not get her much of an answer, but until she thought of a better way to ask the question, she'd have to add just that to her list. Until then, The Abyssal would content herself with speculating on what was labeled.
Some buildings, like the Car Wash, were fairly self-explanatory. Plenty of hoses and cleaning equipment, as well as several vehicles getting… well, washed by humans, meant Trinitite didn't have to fill in any blanks. Others had strange names, but their purpose was still fairly easy to determine. A refueling station wasn't called that, instead going by a number she didn't remember, but it was fairly clear the humans pumping a mysterious liquid into their vehicles were doing just that. Most buildings, of course, completely escaped her comprehension, but that was to be expected, really. Not as many things piqued her curiosity as much, now that she had spent a few days here.
Some things certainly warranted investigation later, like the large red arrow pointing at a building with the letters 'GREAT FOOD,' but she was on a schedule, here. If she stopped for every sign that said 'food,' 'bread,' or 'Ice Cream', she wouldn't make it to the Walmart until long after the sun had set. The Abyssal would just have to resist the temptation. While carriers were never truly full, she had just eaten. She should probably wait until ten, at least, before considering a resupply.
The Walmart didn't look all that different from the warehouse she'd raided, and almost exactly like the one she passed on back at Shelton. Trinitite's shoes clunked against the dark asphalt of an astoundingly large vehicle pool, perhaps sixty percent of its marked spaces occupied by human vehicles. It was shared with a handful of other buildings, belonging to different fleets judging by their labeling, but none of them compared to the scale of the massive structure in the center.
Instead of the small hatch Trinitite used to enter during the raid, she now approached an official entry and exit point, the intended flow of guests evident by the streams of people trickling into and out of the building. The entrances themselves were intriguing, two walls of glass forming a small compartment between the outside and the warehouse's interior, reinforced by a steel frame heavier than the rebar she was getting acquainted with, but not comparable to the ribs that held her hull together. There wasn't any obvious way to operate the hatch, however, so the abyssal found herself stopping, observing it from a distance…
Until a trio of humans, seemingly dead-set on walking through the glass, got within a yard of the entrance, and two of the panels slid aside of their own accord to let them in! What kind of mechanism was this? Approaching it herself, Trinitite couldn't feel anything from her RDF equipment, but it still slid open for her. That ruled out any detection system she could think of. Was there an operator, watching her through some kind of advanced camera in that bulge above the hatch, or was human technology even more inconceivable then she'd imagined?
To prevent herself from arousing suspicion, Trinitite walked through the two hatches, returning a lazy smile from a uniformed human standing just inside. It wasn't important, but it had aroused her curiosity, so she was definitely adding the… thing… to her list. What was that even called? 'Sliding hatch that opens when you get close to it' was a very long name, but she couldn't think of anything better.
The interior was almost exactly like she'd expected. The structure was a bit taller than the last one, its reds and whites had been replaced by blues and yellows, and now there were humans everywhere. There was just as much activity here as there was on the work site, but instead of fairly similar humans in safety vests and helmets, humans in any kind of uniform were a rare sight. The vast majority of humans she saw displayed a wide variety of hull-forms and clothes, some excitedly chatting with each other as they went about their business, others setting a relatively rapid pace, a grim purpose set into their faces. Those entering were as empty-handed as she was, but hardly anyone was leaving without cradling a bag in their hands or some kind of unpowered vehicle filled with them.
It wouldn't be suspicious if she didn't buy something, would it? Trinitite didn't want to waste any of her money, if she could avoid it. Maybe there was a way to sneak out, if she didn't want anything here.
As she ducked into one of the main travel paths and started scanning the isles, she noticed another difference: The shelves themselves were less like the overflowing plenty she'd seen at Shelton and more like those in the storage warehouse back on Bikini, in less fortunate times. Some items filled their section of the aisle, packages of material Trinitite didn't bother investigating flowing into space set aside for other items. Other shelves, however, only sported a handful of scattered items, arrays of labels with nothing above them a testament to either past fortune or overly-optimistic expectations.
Was the Walmart fleet having trouble keeping their warehouses supplied? She'd thought that managing the supply lines needed to keep over ten thousand installations stocked would be an impossible task, so the idea that their network was just strained came naturally to The Abyssal. However, after further thought, she'd had to discard the idea. If Walmart couldn't fulfil its promise of having available supplies, then humans would instead go to smaller locations like Fred Meyers, or Penang's Market. However, she'd only been in one or two sections of Walmart's rival, so it was quite possible they had the same problem.
A detour into Walmart's food section confirmed it: They were having no problem keeping their shelves stocked with food and clothing, but everything else seemed… lacking. Were humans in general having trouble obtaining certain items?
That didn't make too much sense. Sure, Trinitite had experience protecting long convoys across multiple oceans, and she knew of human equivalents from the occasional submarine, battlecruiser, or carrier she'd overheard or spoken to, but she'd always thought they were just transporting war material. Why would a fleet here rely on a supplier on the opposite side of The Pacific Ocean, perhaps one of the largest and most dangerous areas on earth, when there was plenty of space in America to manufacture and transport it safely. Thinking that The Abyssal Fleets were to blame for this logistics shortfall was wishful thinking, at best.
Although… perhaps not. To say that The Crossroads Fleet burned through more supplies in combat then it ever expected would be stating the obvious, and if The Uniformed Services weren't… engaged before she and ships like her had shown up, they could suddenly be dealing with a logistics problem as well, just like the countless Princesses Trinitite had been ordered to aid. Now that they were fighting, Human fleets like The Navy might be desperate enough to give much more, either in favors or money, then Walmart previously had, meaning this logistics fleet suddenly found itself with suppliers either breaking their agreements completely, or giving them a lower priority to meet The Navy's needs.
That, or another conflict had arisen further inland, disrupting logistics there, as well. She probably would have heard about it by now, but there was still so much about this land that Trinitite didn't know.
She'd found the clothing section while on the way to investigate Walmart's food supplies, meaning finding the shoes section once she'd doubled back wasn't difficult. Now that she was looking for the signs of a supply strain, she could see that the section wasn't quite as stocked as its planners might have hoped it would be. Since the prices were attached to the shoeboxes, instead of the shelf themselves, The Walmart Fleet had frontloaded the shelves, ordering things to give the illusion of plenty, until you removed one of the boxes and found all the empty space behind them.
It took a while for Trinitite to figure out the multiple systems behind the shoebox's strange labeling, and the abyssal had to take off her current shoes to remember her foot size, but eventually she stumbled upon the pair of boots she'd been looking for. Unfortunately, only four different pairs were available, and The Wo-Class was forced to settle for something acceptable, instead of perfect. The closest fit was a size too large for her, but it seemed alright when she tried it on, so it couldn't be that much of an issue, could it? Worst case, the Wo-class could wear a few extra pairs of socks to ensure she wasn't sliding around inside of them, although it didn't feel like that was going to happen.
What she really worried about was that the pair she'd found was black. It looked nothing like her own shoes, of course, but that didn't mean humans wouldn't draw a parallel between them and an abyssal's attire anyways. She would try to offset this by wearing colorful clothing, but if she was the only one at the worksite with black boots, it might draw attention anyways.
Might. She couldn't remember what color everyone else's boots had been. Dan had been wearing tan, like her improvised pair had been, but beyond that, she wasn't so sure.
"Well, it's better then nothing…"
Switching back to her regular shoes, Trinitite tucked the box under her arm. Now that she had what she wanted, she might be able to explore this warehouse a bit more. That being said, she only had today before she had to focus back on working, so she needed to use her time wisely.
One of Walmart's humans had been wandering around the shoe section, occasionally glancing at Trinitite as the abyssal removed her own shoes and tried the boots on. Looking out from the aisle, Trinitite met the employee's eyes, the human stopping as the abyssal approached him.
"Find everything you need?"
"Yeah." Trinitite supplied, more focused on her upcoming question. "Uh, when does this place close?"
"Ah." The human replied, giving Trinitite a smile she wasn't entirely sure had been at her expense. "We don't. You can come in at any time."
Any time? She guessed it made sense, since the Walmart at Shelton had seemed pretty active, and that had been pretty late, by human standards.
"I see! Thank you." The abyssal smiled, turning away.
"Have a nice day!" The human called after her, but Trinitite was already leaving.
In some way, it was relieving to see a fleet that stayed alert the entire time, but something about the human's smile hadn't rubbed her right. Was Walmart's constant operations common knowledge, or something she could have learned in the library?
The Wo-class did a little math in her head, resisting the urge to rub her brow in frustration. She'd taken 40 minutes to walk here from the library. If she ran back, she'd still have to wait to cross the roads at safe times, meaning it would be about twenty minutes on the way back. Since she could have visited this walmart after the library had closed, she'd wasted an hour of valuable time to gather intelligence!
Stupid, stupid Wo! By rushing through important information, who knows how much she could have learned in that hour she'd just thrown overboard! At least she could partially rectify it. She needed to make the best possible time back to the Mill Creek Library, and come back to investigate this place after everywhere else had shut down.
As the abyssal traded the eighty-two dollars for the new pair of boots, leaving with it in a rather redundant paper bag, Trinitite started a light jog. She wasn't going to tuck the large box into her hold until she was alone, probably in that 'park' she'd passed, and beyond that, she didn't want to destroy her clothing by running too hard, again. Trinitite would put more strength into her movement, slowly, to make sure her voyage back to the library was controllable, at least.
So, I wanted to skip over the next library segment and jump cut to Trinitite returning to the Walmart, but that would mean we couldn't see Trinitite learning about Racism or the Birds and the Bees, and that would be doing y'all a great injustice. Thus, this will be one chapter, Library III: Return of Wikipedia will be another chapter, then I'm going to skip to the start of Monday, giving some bare details on how her full Walmart Visit went. I think that's the best way to keep this story from becoming too slow.
Obviously, most weekends won't be like this. Since I'm establishing a routine for Trinitite, I'll be able to focus more on the plot again, soon. Anyways, Writing on monday again means I get to reintroduce the PI from forever ago, as well as some other fun plotlines to keep things varied.
Also, guess what? Thanks to SB user Allard-Liao, this fic has a TvTropes page! Big thanks to him, and all of you guys for supporting this fic, as well. It's just begun, but I'm just blown away that it exists in the first place. To confirm, it's bad form to edit one of your own work's tvtropes page, right? I never thought I'd have to think about that kind of etiquette.