I loaded up my rifle and prepared to search the building. I was going to enter from the rear of the building and proceed through the warehouse. I snuck around the side streets to get closer to the loading bay while avoiding the looters in the area. The sounds of violence could be heard all around me as I inched closer to the store.

Once I got to the loading dock, I checked the doors and it appeared they were locked still. This was a good sign for me, but it created a problem for my entrance. I could break in through force and potentially create additional issues if someone were to hear me. The sound might be covered by the ambient sounds of the current cityscape, but I wasn’t trying to risk it. Luckily, I had downloaded some information on locksmithing and had the information stored in the library.

I quickly created a set of lockpicks and attempted my first formal use of the information since absorbing the information. The picks felt comfortable in my hands as I plucked each one, lining up the lock to get in. After a minute or two of practice, I heard the satisfying sound of the lock giving way and the door popping open.

I inched it clear and peeked into the darkness with my goggles to survey the environment. I wasn’t able to see anyone right off from my point of view, so I stepped into the door and closed it behind me. I wanted to make sure I had a quick exit strategy, so I left the door slightly open, the need for an exit outweighing the worry of someone entering the building behind me.

Once inside, I could see that the warehouse was sufficiently stocked and didn’t look as if it were looted yet. However, assumptions risk your life, so I started towards the right of the warehouse in order to survey the area to make sure no one else was present.

I cleared aisle by aisle of boxed product on pallets, making sure not to miss any areas that someone could be hiding in. I made sure to take into account and make a mental map of any areas that I could use to my advantage in case conflict occurred.

After clearing the warehouse, I went to the store entrance from the warehouse and peered into the store to see what the current situation was. From my view, I had to take my goggles off, as there were multiple bright torches of flame illuminated by the night vision blinding me as I reeled back from the doors. The sudden invasion of light and loss of vision caused me to fall back and make a loud noise.

I heard shouts from inside the store as someone had obviously noticed the sound I made when I fell back. As my vision was recovering, I retreated back into the warehouse using the mental map I had made of defensible positions upon searching the area. Quickly hiding between a few pallets of product tucked into a corner, I watched as 2 people entered through the doors I was looking through just a moment ago.

“I swear I heard someone back here a minute ago, look around and find them. I’m sure they haven’t left yet; they must have been hiding in here already.” The voices escalated in tone as they wandered around the warehouse by torchlight looking for me.

My heart beat faster and faster as one of them drew near, the light from his fire illuminating the boxes around me as the shadows danced around him creating a safe area for me. He walked over to the corner I was hiding in as I slinked behind the boxes as quietly as possible while he was just feet away from me.

“I don’t see anything; they must have left when they heard us coming this way. There are a lot of products here for us to take, but it will be hard to haul a lot of this without any of the trucks to take it out. We will have to come back here after we secure the place and load everything up in the carts. If we can protect this warehouse from the people who wake up in the morning, we should be content for at least a month or two before we run out.”

I heard the two talking back and forth from my position as I held my breath hoping they wouldn’t hear my escalated breathing. I had plenty of protection and wasn’t worried about dying with the gear I had created. However, it would be extremely difficult to loot the area and send products back to the library world while maintaining the confrontation between the looters in the area. I was sure that once fighting broke out, the sounds would draw anyone near to our position and reveal the fight over resources currently going on.

The two left the area through the warehouse doors after searching the area and not finding me. I let out my breath as I calmed down and resumed the normal pace of my breathing. After the scare I just had, I wasn’t trying to risk anything, so I went up to the doors and created a steel beam that I weaved in between the handles of the doors. Hopefully, this would keep any further intruders from entering if they did discover that I was back here again.

I grabbed a pallet jack and lifted up my first pallet of food with it. Once the pallet was sufficiently loaded, I opened the library world and walked it inside. This was a fairly easy process as I could open the doors to the library right in front of my current position, therefore I was able to pull each pallet through within a minute.

I collected nonperishable food such as soups and other canned products first, being the top priority for their shelf life. Having loaded multiple pallets of cans, I moved onto the perishables such as yogurt and meat products. This should provide me with a wide variety of choices as I move into my future plans.

While I was pulling a pallet of milk into the library, I heard the doors I had barred earlier start to shake and loud voices coming from the other side. Licks of light from their torches crept through the gaps in the doors as they pushed against them.

I heard muffled conversations from the other side. “Boss, I swear we just came through here and checked the place out. There wasn’t anyone back here, but there are all kinds of products to choose from back here”

“Well get it open! Obviously, someone else is back there you idiots! Someone go around back and try to get in through the loading bay!”

I remembered I had left the doors open in the back and knew they would be on me soon. I had gathered several pallets of varying products and this would have to do. I wasn’t trying to stick around when they eventually got in here!

Running out of the doors I came in through the rear of the building, I jetted towards the safety of a nearby building. At least, I thought I would. There were already 3 people rounding the side of the building as I exited the door. I jumped behind the cover of a nearby forklift as their torchlight illuminated the alleyway I was in. They must have seen or heard me as they yelled out for me to stop and pulled their guns up to aim at me. Shouts to come out permeated the area while I was thinking of how to proceed in the current situation.

Obviously, this wasn’t going to end peacefully as they pushed towards my vicinity, voices growing louder in their demands for me to come out. I pulled the AK out and pulled the charging handle, prepared for the battle ahead of me. Hoping to use the surprise of my assault to my advantage, I leaned around the side of the forklift with my rifle aimed towards them. I let loose a couple rounds in their direction, hitting a glancing blow to the leg on one of them as he dropped to the ground yelling, which caused the others to drop and scurry to the closest cover available to them.

The screaming of the first guy was interrupted my thoughts as I planned my follow-up shots, so I quickly fired a few more rounds into him to end his blaring. This caused the other two to lose their cool and freak out for a few seconds before returning fire on my position. Luckily the cover of the forklift provided me temporary safety from the hail of bullets.

I waited for them to finish unloading the bullets in their clips before popping up and taking aim towards the guy hiding behind the crates on the left side of the alleyway. The flicks of their dropped torches illuminated the area just as much as the light from my muzzle blasting towards them. I took the first guy down before his friend was able to get aimed back on me and took cover behind the forklift again.

However, I hadn’t thought my plan all the way through as the final guy freaked out from losing two of his buddies within minutes finally got his weapon reloaded. He fired on my position again and hit the propane tank on the forklift, causing a small explosion on my position and launching me hurtling down the alleyway into a few more crates. Luckily the graphene polymer I had created earlier protected me from a large portion of the explosion and debris. I was banged up and concussed as I tried to take account of the situation once again while recovering my hearing.

The final guy had obviously not been prepared for this either when he was firing on me, as he laid out on the ground penetrated by metal from the explosion. I stumbled out of the alleyway towards a nearby building as I saw flicks of light heading our way due to the explosion.

~~Author Note~~

Sorry for the long wait on this chapter. I appreciate all of you for reading this! I have just been in my head a lot lately and couldn't really focus on writing anything further. I have been searching for a job and haven't been able to secure a position anywhere, so I've been really worried about what I'm going to do financially going forward. However, I decided I'm not going to let this novel suffer because of that and will be dumping everything I can into it.

Once again, thanks for your support just by reading this. It encourages me to continue writing, and hopefully, I will get somewhere with it.