CHAPTER 4 — YOU WILL REGRET LAUGHING AT ME

By 2:00 PM, the parking lot of the suburban Wholesale Giant store was packed with suburban shoppers, but nobody was shopping quite like I was.

I was currently steering a train of three heavy steel flatbed carts chained together, stacked eight feet high with industrial generators, heavy solar panels, lead-acid batteries, and high-capacity water purification units.

"Ma'am, please! You can't chain three carts together!" a terrified teenage floor associate yelled, jogging alongside me with a clipboard. "It's a safety hazard! And those heavy-duty 5,000-watt diesel generators are limit two per customer!"

"I bought four," I said, not slowing my stride. "I also bought every single box of MREs, thermal blankets, and 200-amp lithium battery banks in Aisle 12. Where is your shift manager?"

"I'm right here!" A burly man with a red vest rushed around the corner, holding a megaphone for some unknown reason. "Miss, are you preparing for a hurricane? There's no storm warning on the news!"

"There's a storm coming, alright," I replied, pulling out my black titanium card and handing it to him. "Ring up all three carts, plus the twelve 55-gallon steel fuel drums waiting in the outdoor garden supply bay."

The manager stared at the titanium card, then at the mountain of hardware. "Twelve... drums of diesel? Miss, how are you going to get all this home in a regular SUV?"

"Don't worry about my SUV," I said, pointing toward the shaded, empty loading zone behind the store. "Just have your team push the carts behind the dumpster wall in Bay B once paid. I'll load them into my 'delivery trailer' myself."

Before the manager could process my answer, a familiar, loud, obnoxious laugh echoed from the main entrance aisle.

"Oh my god! Look at her, Jason! Look at what she's doing!"

I turned around slowly.

Sabrina stood near the customer service desk wearing huge sunglasses, holding a iced caramel macchiato, her phone out and recording a video. Beside her, Jason was slumping against a shopping cart, his nose still heavily bandaged, wearing an oversized hoodie to hide his bruised face.

"Is she... is she buying generators?!" Jason wheezed, his voice nasal and shrill through his bandaged nose. "Mia, have you completely lost your mind?! You sold your entire company for cash, and now you're wasting thousands of dollars on literal prep-trash?!"

Sabrina turned her phone camera directly onto my face, cackling wildly. "Live update, everyone! The 'genius' female CEO Mia Carter just got dumped, sold her company in a manic episode, and is now hoarding water tanks and batteries like a tin-foil hat conspiracy nut! Say hi to the camera, Mia!"

"Sabrina, turn that off before I shove that phone down your throat," I said mildly, grabbing a heavy 10-pound steel crowbar off my top cart and testing its weight in my hand.

Jason flinched, instinctively ducking behind Sabrina. "Careful! She's violent! She hit me with a phone yesterday! Look at my nose!"

"You deserve a broken nose, Jason," I said, taking a step toward them. "And Sabrina, if you think posting videos of me online is going to save your bank account after I froze your allowance, you're dumber than you look."

Sabrina's face twitched, but she puffed out her chest, trying to act confident. "We don't need your stupid money! Jason's firm is giving him a promotion next month! And my mom is going to drag you to court to get back my rightful share of the Carter family estate!"

"Your mom married my dad six months before he died, Sabrina," I chuckled, tapping the steel crowbar against the concrete floor with a loud CLANG. "She didn't get a dime, and neither will you. Now, aren't you two supposed to be at the emergency clinic getting Jason's nose checked?"

"We just came from St. Jude's Hospital!" Jason spat angrily, shaking his fist. "The whole place is in lockdown because of some psycho biting people in the ER! We had to wait three hours in the lobby without air conditioning! Do you have any idea what I went through?!"

I froze for a split second. St. Jude's. The outbreak center.

I glanced at Jason's exposed neck and wrists. No bite marks yet. But his shirt was splattered with tiny specks of dried, dark blood that definitely didn't belong to him.

"Jason," I said, dropping my playful tone, my eyes narrowing. "Did anyone at St. Jude's touch you?"

"Why do you care?!" Jason snapped defensively. "Some crazy homeless guy in the waiting room tried to grab my arm and got tackled by security! His blood got on my hoodie! It ruined my brand-new designer jacket!"

A cold realization swept through me. He was exposed. Even if he hadn't been bitten directly yet, he had been in direct physical contact with the first-generation strain vector.

"Good to know," I said, stepping back three paces and raising my crowbar between us. "Now get out of my way."

"You think you're so smart, Mia!" Sabrina yelled as I pushed my heavy cart train past them toward the loading bay. "When the news exposes you as a lunatic tomorrow, nobody is going to buy your crazy story! You'll be broke, alone, and laughing stock of the whole city!"

"Keep laughing, Sabrina," I called back without turning around. "Make sure you hold onto Jason tight. You two deserve each other."

Five minutes later, behind the high brick wall of Bay B, the store manager and three floor workers parked the three loaded flatbeds and walked back inside to grab the remaining fuel receipts.

The second the heavy steel door clicked shut behind them, I stepped up to the mountain of hardware.

I laid my palm flat against the cold steel frame of the 5,000-watt diesel generator.

"System," I whispered. "Store everything."

POP! POP! POP! POP!

In a fraction of a second, four giant generators, ten high-capacity solar arrays, twenty battery banks, twelve steel drums of diesel fuel, and fifty cases of emergency supplies vanished into thin air, leaving behind three completely empty flatbed carts.

DING!

A brilliant, golden chime resonated deep inside my skull, vibrating through my entire body.

[System Inventory Limit Threshold Reached!]

[Host Stockpile Assessment: Comprehensive Energy, Power, Fuel, and Survival Equipment Secured.]

[System Level 2 Upgrade Activated!]

[Sub-dimension Space Capacity Expanded!]

[50 Cubic Meters ➔ 100 Cubic Meters!]

[New Ability Unlocked: Passive Biological Scan (Detects infected/mutated viral presence within a 10-meter radius).]

My mind's eye expanded into a vast, cavernous dimension—now the size of a massive multi-car garage with twenty-foot ceilings. Stacks of clean water barrels, rows of shining generators, mountains of dry food, and steel fuel drums sat neatly categorized in pristine, climate-controlled isolation.

WAAAIL! WAAAIL! WAAAIL!

Suddenly, the loud, piercing blare of emergency sirens echoed across the city skyline.

I whipped out my phone. A high-priority red alert banner covered the screen, accompanied by an ear-splitting emergency broadcast tone:

[CRITICAL EMERGENCY ALERT — CITY-WIDE QUARANTINE]

[ALL RESIDENTS ARE ORDERED TO IMMEDIATELY SEEK INDOOR SHELTER.]

[UNCONFIRMED BIOLOGICAL OUTBREAK REPORTED ACROSS MULTIPLE DISTRICTS.]

[DO NOT APPROACH INDIVIDUALS DISPLAYING SEVERE AGGRESSION OR DISORIENTATION.]

In the distance toward the city center, thick plumes of black smoke began rising into the clear blue afternoon sky. Distant screams, screeching tires, and crashing metal echoed down the highway.

The outbreak wasn't coming tomorrow.

It was here.

I tossed my crowbar into the front seat of my heavy SUV, hopped into the driver's side, and slammed the door shut.

"Fifty cubic meters upgraded to one hundred," I murmured, stepping hard on the gas pedal as the engine roared to life. "Time to head to the bunker and watch the show."