Please Place the Item in the Bagging Area!

[Bryony Ferris]

It's the late shift.

Last leg. Almost there. No breaks left to take. The sense of normality on the shop floor has long since faded and now the aisles are dotted sparcely with absolute fething reprobates. A group of teenagers trying to steal energy drinks in aisle seven. An unfathomable tourist asking the well-known busy body for produce only found on a planet at the other end of the galaxy. Silent regulars who never speak, well, expect from their eyes that scream 'I AM ON A LIST'. You know, just the usual.

"Please place the item in the bagging area. "

After a while you just stop hearing it. Like all the beeps and bloops of machines around you, the in-store radio pumping out the same songs for the sixty-seventh time that day. It just fades into the background. Ambient noise that's no doubt causing some kind of serious mental harm.

Bryony watched as an elderly man struggled with the self-service machine, ready to pry her eyes elsewhere should he look upwards in a plea for help. It wasn't that she didn't want to help him...but no, actually, she didn't want to help hi-

"Please place the item in the bagging area."

Katee, the self-service assistant was absent from the scene. No doubt chatting to old Rent-A-Gob half way across the store about what she's going to name her next baby. Something like Jayden, Kayden or...you know, the kind of name you give your child in preparation for their life of petty crime and selling giggledust to his fellow school children.

No, it's fine, Katee, I'll just do your job, shall I?

A transformation suddenly occurs. Tired, hooded eyelids shrink backwards as a genial smile crests upon the face of Bryony Ferris. A glimmer appears in her chestnut eyes, it's welcoming and friendly but upon closer inspection it may actually look more like murder than anything else. Slow, painful murder. Why don't they leave a checkout open for the elderly at night? Why force them to use self-service at all? It's always a disaster. We can travel through space at maddening speeds and eat soup with sonic spoons but we still can't have functioning self-service checkouts? Really? Is this what humanity has come to.

"Please place the item in the bagging area."

"Hello, sir! Having a bit of trouble there?" Bryony asks, all smiles and sunshine, her voice about five hundred octaves higher than normal.

"...oh...it's nah scannin...I should get it fur free!"

This was a joke. A very common joke. One of the most hated jokes.

Bryony laughs, cackles even, as if was the first time she had ever heard such wonderful genius emerge from the mouths of men. You'd think the woman was putting it on a tad too much, but hey, it's the elderly, they don't know any better, do they?

"I wish I could, sir!" Bryony says with false mirth still clinging to her voice, suddenly taking over and taming the upset machine before immediately scanning through the rest of his shopping (which in all actuality was only three items) through, "There we go! I'm afraid you will have to pay however," she joked, in a tone of voice that might have been used upon a toddler.

"...aw...thank ye, darlin, yer a star..."

"That's no bother, sir! These machines are a real nightmare sometimes!"

Just like that, the interaction is over and Bryony returned to considering nipping out for a swift smoke break, her face immediately relaxing back into its more natural position. Gloom and doom. Death and despair.

Retail and nights.

 

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Bryony Ferris"]

Everyone had to go to the grocery store sometimes.

Whether you were a Sith Lord or a lowly smuggler, everyone needed to eat. Alistair was no stranger to this concept, though in truth it was something that he had always hated. Food was, by and large, rather expensive. A part of him wished he could have subsisted on ration bars and bottles of water, but even his harsh taste buds grew sick of that sort of food eventually. It of course didn't really help that his ship, The Mara, had no proper kitchen, but a place like Asco always had plenty of things that were at least decent.

Usually anyway.

His eyes flicked across the shelving, his lips turning to a scowl as he tried to find a particular brand of reheatable torilini that he had always rather enjoyed. When he couldn't find it a loud sigh escaped him, his fingers forming into a fist.

Things hadn't been going well for him at all as of late. Ever since he'd been on his own it seemed that he was stumbling from one problem to the next. First he'd lost that shipment of firegems, then he'd had that run of bad luck at the casino, then his debt got bought out by the Cartel. Of course there had also been that crash a few weeks back, and now he couldn't find his damn tortilini. "Kark."

The swear came without thought as he stalked down the aisle, his eyes searching for one of the shop employees.

"Hey!" He called out to a woman that appeared to hold as much disdain for life as he did. "Can you help me real quick?"

 

[Bryony Ferris]

Just as the woman was going to make a quite exit for a breath of fresh air, Katee returned as if she hadn't been miles away from her actual area of service, hands placed upon her stomach in the aftermath of baby name discussion, as if she was cradling new life within her when it was in fact a hot deli spicy sausage.

Gurl, you're not even pregnant.

"B-ry! Thanks for taking care of that guy, you're a lifesaver!" The girl squawked, the natural pitch of her voice somewhere between shrill and HOLY SHET PLEASE STOP TALKING.

There was a kark somewhere in the background. Ambient noise.

Ugh. Don't call me B-ry, you haven't earned that right, you velcro shoe strap wearing littl-

"Not a problem, Katee," Bryony responded, applying a different layer of fakery to use upon her colleague. Every person that walked through these brightly lit hell-aisles required a different setting. Lies, tailored just for you. Every little helps.

A new customer emerged with a new problem. Another weird night shopper. Eyes flitted upwards to find...

...huh.

Not bad.

Solid seven out of ten if only he didn't look so haunted. It was that small shred of customer service worker's empathy. It's all in the eyes. Dark circles beneath and hooded lids were telltale signs of darker things, that and dealing with people all day without being allowed to assault them (both physically and verbally). Perhaps he worked at another store, not uncommon that employees often avoided shopping at their own digs. Perhaps he was just on a spice bender.

A different expression appeared, somewhere between polite and concerned. It didn't matter how good looking he was, he was still enemy number one. The customer. The real Bryony was only reserved for Bryony, watching middle-class baking shows while eating the saddest cup of instant noodles in the galaxy.

"Sure, sir, what seems to be the problem?" It was polite enough, a touch more casual given that he was her age range and didn't need to be half-shouted at like he was deaf and incompetent.

---

[member="Alistair Fenn"]

 

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Bryony Ferris"]

He had never really liked asking for help inside of a store like this, particularly in a place like Nar Shaddaa. On the smugglers moon you were just as likely to get stabbed as you were to actually receive help. Of course he was standing in a large chain store and they would likely take exception to that sort of thing from their employees, but the thought was still lingering in the back of his mind as he began to ask the woman where he could find his food.

"I'm looking for some Tortilini that used to be sold here." His thoughts died for a moment.

What had they been called again? He'd never really looked at the name on the package, just sort of recognized it when he'd seen it. A frown settled on the smugglers lips and his hands fidgeted for a moment before finally he just began to describe the damn things.

"Multi-colored." He told her. "Black packaging, they were pre-cooked but you have to recook them..."

Alistair trailed off.

Hopefully this woman would know what he was talking about.

 

[Bryony Ferris]

Tortellini. Right. That is definitely a product with a name.

Used to be sold here. Now that's a warning sign and a half. Used to be sold here is a pitfall of a phrase. Used to be sold here can mean anything from the original phrase all the way up to 'I bought it on another planet but I'm just going to pretend I got it here because I want it right now'. You would be surprised at how many people misremembered where they bought their items from, mostly because you probably never thought about it before. It's shopping who cares, right?

"Bogeys!" A teenage voice shouted from the drinks aisle, followed by a gaggle of immature snickering.

Why a man had come in just today asking for nerf shop-style batter mix. His story started out as, 'oh, a colleague said it might be here in this aisle' and when given a confident 'no, we've never sold it before' the story changed to, 'but you used to have it'.

Literally the worst.

"I know exactly what you mean, just follow me and I'll take you to it."

"BOGEYS!" A different teenage voice repeated the same thing, this time louder.

However, when the seven out of ten described the packaging, Bryony knew just the one. Perks of stock control, nobody knew what you did but you at least knew where everything was. Unless it was ineptly filled, of course.

"Should be right here..."

Leading the man to the place where the filled-pasta usually resided, she scanned the shelf once with her eyes, flicking between products and the holo-shelf edge stripping that displayed the prices. Where the goods were supposed to be located had been filled with Bert'ha's All Day Breakfast In A Can. Incompetent filling? Likely. Deliberate facing over to hide how scarce the shelves really were? Also likely.

A PDA was whipped out from a side trouser pocket. There was swift entering of user names and passwords, a couple of stiff, sharp beeps after scanning the shelf-edge barcode and voila.

"Says we've got two cases of the three chee-

"BOOOOOGEEEEEEEEEEEEYS!"

Murder flashed upon Bryony's face. Teeth gritted and eyes-widened, staring off in the vague direction of where the loud teenagers were playing the so-timeless-and-not-completely-fething-stupid game of Bogeys. Little munting losers. Go join a swoop gang and die young. Her face swiftly returned to customer service mode and tortellini was back on the potential menu.

"Yeah, two cases of the three cheese and one of the bantha and red wine. I'll just go through the back and grab them for you, alright? I'll be two minutes."

Turning on her heel, Bryony marched off like a woman on a mission. Which for all intents and purposes, was actually true. It was only when she had gotten into the safety of the warehouse that Ferris actually realised the errors of her ways.

Feth.

She had told the man that they had the stock. Now she would actually have to find it.

Meanwhile, upon the shop floor, a gang of four not-at-all-imtimidating teenagers rounded the aisle that Alistair had been left in. Their jackets already obviously bulging with goods that they were planning on stealing. Like acne-ridden prey animals they uniformly looked over the man as if to determine some kind of threat level. Teenage boys only felt invincible in numbers.

They got closer, not looking like they would cause any trouble with the man after all. Well, until they were in direct earshot and then the earth-shattering, broken-voiced cry came screeching so loud that Bryony heard it in the depths of the warehouse.

"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYS!!!!!!!!!!!"

---

[member="Alistair Fenn"]

 

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Bryony Ferris"]

Alistair's hand immediately went to the blaster that rested on his hip.

The act was more out of reaction than anything else. A lifetime of growing up and moving through rough and unsteady places had made Alistair a little bit jumpy, and someone screaming at the top of their lungs was usually rather unwelcome in a place like Tatooine.

Generally it precluded someone getting shot.

So it was with no surprise that Alistair whipped around drew his blaster. There was a slight noise as the weapon left the confines of it's holster, and then the sound of the powerpack instantly charging up as the smugglers finger gently lapsed against the trigger guard. The action was so immediate and quick that Alistair didn't even really think about where he was, which would of course be a rather big problem given that they were in the middle of a grocery store.

Maybe it would help that this was Nar Shaddaa.

"HOLY SHIT!"​

One of the boys shouted the instant they saw Alistair.

 

[Bryony Ferris]

One boy shouted, one boy screamed, and one boy ran away. Guess teenagers aren't great pack hunters when faced with actual threat. Wait, there were four, weren't there? Well, yes, you're right but we're changing the scene right now as to keep you in unlimited suspense. Oh yes, grocery store hi-jinks are just oh-so-thrilling, aren't they?

Meanwhile, in the backstock for aisle eleven Bryony grumbled. The old faithful employee that had filled this aisle for 23 years had finally packed it in and quit after the company announced that they would no longer be paying time and a half on Benduday. Everybody bar the managers cheered the now ex-employee's decision right up until the moment they realised that nobody had been filling eleven in her absence and that it was a shambolic hellscape of an aisle filled with everything and everything.

Tortellini included.

Bryony rooted through the roll-cages, searching through leaning towers of curry sauce and bolognaise, sifting through the spices and rooting through rice, pasta and noodles. After not too long both varities of tortellini were found, conveniantly being squashed under boxes of industrial-sized cooking oil.

Whatevs, doesn't change the flavour.

A box of three cheese under one arm and a box of bantha and red wine under the other, Ferris returned to the top of the aisle just as the fourth boy jerked backwards in the face of a blaster, knocking hard into the shelf behind him.

The left bracket, old and knackered had held Shelf D, on the left side of Mod Fifteen up for many moons. He was old and rusted and so decided that this was his time, breaking off the wall and causing an entertaining chain rection. The other bracket couldn't hold all of the weight at one side and jumped out in sympathy with its comrade, sending the entire shelf and the products contained upon it at the frightened teenager.

Curry sauce. Specifically from the Gamorrean range of cuisine. Pungent. Spicy. No, I mean like, really pungent. Jars exploded around them, mostly clarting the remaining teens in Uncle Bork's finest authentic sauces (although Alistair's shoes were likely not safe either).

Katee was now watching at the opposite end of the aisle behind a stack of overly sugary children's cereal.

Something inside Bryony broke. The janitor had already gone home. She would have to clean it up. I AM NOT CLEANING THIS UP. She would have to, though. Unless she was planning on using unruly teenagers as living mops.

"What!? YOU LITTLE SHYTS!"

She stormed over to the scene, internal biases kicking in. The tortellini man wasn't bad looking and around her age, he less liable for the blame in her mind. These kids on the other hand were obviously stealing, really annoying and just in general useless for the progress of society, even on Nar Shaddaa.

"You gonna clean this up?" Ferris sniped, poking a harsh finger into the chest of one of the trembling boys, "You gonna pay for it?"

"HE DID IT!" The one covered in most curry sauce cried out, pointing a gangly finger at Alistair in rabid accusation.

---

[member="Alistair Fenn"]

 

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Bryony Ferris"]

By the time the boy pointed Alistair had already replaced the blaster in his hand back into it's holster. They would still be able to catch him drawing it on Camera of course, but he hoped to be long gone by the time any of that actually happened.

Who were they going to believe? Him or a bunch of teenagers who were clearing up to no good. "That's ridiculous."

Alistair very pointedly did not shout. This wasn't about being louder than the boys, nor was it necessarily about winning any sort of argument. He just had to make the store employee believe that these little shits were the ones who had done the wrong, which technically they had. Sure he'd drawn a gun on them, but that had only been because of their annoying little games. One shouldn't yell inside of a grocery store, that was just rude. Especially near others.

"These idiots were bouncing around and shouting." Alistair shrugged. "I was just waiting for you to get back."

The smuggler tugged at his jacket, pulling the end of it over his blaster just in case. "Honestly, what else can you expect?"

Damn teenagers.

 

[Bryony Ferris]

Poor teenagers. Although they did technically instigate everything via their irritating hollering, nobody was going to believe them. That was the way of life, teenagers lied to escape blame and adults were responsible and admitted their own faults. Naturally the older you got the less true that logic became, but still...

...teenagers, man. When you dress like fourth-rate gangster rappers, are stealing cans of sugar and caffeine while being a general nuisance, you're pretty much instantly implicated.

"H-he pulled a blaster on us!"

"IT'S IN MY EYES! THEY'RE BURNING!"

Bryony turned at that statement, staring at the one that suggested that the seven out of ten tortellini man pulled a blaster on them. Her eyes narrowed, looking at the boy as if he has just taken a steaming dump on the floor and used it to draw a picture of Jabba the Hutt.

"Yeah, and I'm a champion swoop racer, you little bastard."

Time to turn on the heat. She would get them cleaning their mess up or she would bloody well kill them. Stepping into shards of glass and luminous sludge, Bryony approached the closest boy, pinching him by the ear and pulling him close to her now seething features.

"Lemme go!"

"You're cleaning this up. Right here. Right no-"

"But!"

"NAH, SON. YOU ARE GOING TO CLEAN THIS UP AND THEN YOU'RE GONNA PUT BACK THE SHET UNDER YOUR JACKET THAT YOU WERE PLANNING ON STEALING, AND THEN, THEN, FINALLY YOU ARE GOING TO LEAV-"

"OI!"

A voice rang at the top of the aisle. Booming. Angry. Male. Probably not Katee. Approximately six foot seven and made of bricks stood a much older, and very grizzled looking man, blasters equipped and with six friends in tow, all wearing the same swoop gang colours.

"GET YER MITTS OFF MY LITTLE BRUVVA."

Behind them the smug face of the fourth teenager who had ran peered around a shoulder. Turns out he had ran across the street to the shady cantina where conveniently enough the teenage boys had friends, or family as it was in this case.

"That's the guy that pulled the blaster on us!" the teen behind the entourage squealed, pointing directly at Alistair.

Bryony looked down at the boy she had been bullying, only to find him studying her name badge and smirking. Oh no. Not like this! I have so much to give! The customer service assistant let go of the boy and took a step back, before giving the tortellini man a look. A certain look which could have said only one thing:

KARK!

---

[member="Alistair Fenn"]

 

[Alistair Fenn]

[member="Bryony Ferris"]

Decisions decisions.

The smart thing would have been just to run away and ditch this entire situation. He didn't really owe the shop assistant girl anything and he was in enough trouble with the Cartel that throwing a biker gang on top of that just didn't make any sense. Alistair was far from a hero, he didn't particularly care about anyone but himself and this? This looked like it was going to be nothing but trouble no matter what angle he approached it from. An unfortunate fact really.

His lips thinned, fingers tightened.

On the other hand...he really didn't like those teenagers, and he doubted that they would separate him too far from the woman anyway. He frowned for a moment, eyes wandering across the group as they stalked closer. He knew that a fight would be stupid, beyond stupid, but...he glanced upward.

Without much thought Alistair pulled the blaster resting on his hip, the weapon swinging up as he let his finger fall onto the trigger. He fired twice, and then the bright luminescent above their heads exploded in a flurry of sparks and falling shards of glass. "Run!"

She'd probably get fired for this.