For these men, all that gold was heavy trash that no one would bother keeping in these times of famine; it couldn't be eaten, it was useless for making weapons, and it shone too much, attracting monsters. The only thing that had even minimal value for them were the cores, which were the new currency of exchange they used to get food from the military.
Alexander looked at the loot. On Earth, that pile of pure gold was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe a million. And they had brought it in a grimy backpack. But most interesting to him were the three cores that now rested in his dimensional space for later inspection.
"What do you want for all this?" Alexander asked, maintaining his calm, without the euphoria that others might go through in these moments when they are about to sell stones for thousands of dollars.
Kael swallowed hard. He looked back at the aisles.
"Water," he said, in a hoarse voice. "Clean water. And tasty food, to make us feel as if this apocalypse were only a bad nightmare. Anything. Just... just fill our backpacks. Please".
Alexander nodded slowly. He didn't bother to go and get the products from the shelves himself; he simply made a small vortex suck up water, sausages, noodles, bags of rice, cans of meat… another vortex appeared over the counter, next to the gold, and everything absorbed previously was dumped onto it; the gold also disappeared into another vortex.
Two packs of twenty-four bottles of mineral water—purified, crystalline, and ice-cold. Then, he added ten large packs of instant noodles, five family-sized cans of beef stew, loaves of sliced bread, a couple of jars of peanut butter, and a complete first-aid kit.
The total value of what Alexander had just put on the table did not exceed thirty dollars in his original world. It was a cheap surplus from his warehouse.
The looters looked at the mountain of food and water with wide eyes. They couldn't believe it. They thought the gold would only get them a couple of cans of dog food and maybe a canteen of murky water. This was a feast for kings. It was life itself guaranteed for the next month.
"This is the exchange rate for the amount of gold you brought; the more gold you bring, the more things you can take away; there will be no limit on my part, and the only thing limiting our transactions is the amount of gold or cores you bring," Alexander announced, resting his hands on the cash register, smiling with goodwill—it's not right to make the atmosphere tense when they bring money to your doorstep.
Kael almost fell to his knees. He grabbed a bottle of water, opened it with clumsy fingers, and drank half of it in one desperate gulp, letting the clean liquid spill down his dirty beard. The others began to pack the food frantically into their backpacks, as if fearing that Alexander would change his mind and make it disappear.
"And Valéry," Alexander said, catching the attention of the woman, who was stuffing cans of meat into her bag. "For bringing me my first customers and acting as their tour guide, you get a commission".
Alexander made a huge one-kilogram bar of Swiss chocolate and an extra-large bottle of cola appear, sliding them across the counter toward her. Valéry looked at him as if he had handed her the Holy Grail. She nodded, unable to articulate words, and stored her treasures with reverence.
"One last thing," Alexander said, his tone turning slightly more serious, which made everyone freeze on the spot. "This place is neutral territory. If you fight in here, I'll kill you. If you try to rob other customers who come to buy, I'll kill you. If you intentionally dirty the floor..."—he looked at Kael's mud-caked boots—"well, I will get quite angry, and believe me, you don't want to see me angry. Spread the word. Tell every shelter, every survivor gang, and every lone hunter. The supermarket is open. And I accept gold and cores in exchange for food".
Kael nodded frantically. "We will do it, sir. I swear it. Everyone in Sector Four will know about this place".
In less than two minutes, the thugs had packed every drop of water and every crumb of food. They left through the glass door much faster than they had entered, looking around with paranoia, terrified that someone would steal their new treasure on the way back.
The glass door closed with a hiss, sealing the shop again and leaving hell outside.
Alexander was left alone at the counter. The instrumental music continued playing, soft and relaxing. He looked at the small loot in front of him. The mountain of gold shone under the fluorescent lights, and the three cores...
———————
About five kilometers away, in the bowels of what was once an underground subway station, the air smelled of old blood, dampness, and necrotized meat. This was the territory of the "Iron Dogs," another survivor gang that controlled the southern area of Sector Four. Unlike Alexander's shop, which shone with an almost divine light, this shelter was lit by a few oil torches that flickered, casting grotesque shadows on the broken tile walls.
In the center of the main platform, on a stained mattress that had seen much better days, lay Garek, the leader of the gang. Garek was a man who, before the Black Fog, would probably have been a bodybuilder. Now, his huge torso was covered in cold sweat and trembled uncontrollably. On his right side, an improvised bandage made of dirty rags tried to cover a gruesome wound: the tear caused by the claws of a "Stalker of the H". The veins around the wound had turned a purple-black color, and the infection was spreading toward his chest.
Around him, half a dozen of his men observed him in a tense and somber silence. They knew what that black color meant. The stale herbs and moss they used to treat normal cuts were useless against the mutant venom. Their leader was rotting alive.
It was in this funeral atmosphere that the sound of heavy footsteps resonated on the subway stairs. Garek's men raised their weapons instantly: homemade crossbows, steel spears, and a couple of rusty pistols. But they relaxed slightly, though without lowering their guard, when they saw Kael emerge from the darkness.
Kael did not come with a hostile attitude. In fact, he came chewing something with an expression of almost ridiculous ecstasy.
"Lower that junk, you idiots. I come in peace," Kael said, raising his hands. In one, he held a piece of white, soft, and fluffy sliced bread with a thick layer of peanut butter.
Jace, Garek's second-in-command, a thin guy with an eyepatch, frowned. His eyes were not on Kael's face, but fixed on the slice of bread. Jace's stomach, and that of everyone present, growled in a symphony of hunger upon perceiving the smell of sweet wheat and roasted peanuts.
"What military shelter did you steal that from, Kael?" Jace asked, licking his cracked lips. "You better not have brought the army dogs to our door".
Kael let out a hoarse laugh. He took a huge bite of the bread, chewing exaggeratedly so that everyone would see the texture of the food.
"The military? Those bastards eat rehydrated insect paste. This... This is real food. Food from the old world. Fresh".
Kael approached the mattress where Garek groaned in a low voice. He looked at the leader's wound and clicked his tongue.
"It looks bad, Garek. I give you two days before that rot reaches your heart," Kael said naturally. "The Sector's healers have nothing for that".
Garek opened a bloodshot eye, glaring at Kael. "If... if you came to see my corpse... I'll tear out your eyes before I die..." the leader spat, coughing.
"I didn't come to see you die. I came to return a favor from the last time we shared ammunition," Kael replied, lowering his backpack to the floor. The sound of something solid and plastic hitting the concrete resonated on the platform.
Kael opened the zipper and took out a square, white, and immaculate object with a bright red cross stamped in the center. It was the first-aid kit that Alexander had given him. Jace's eyes almost popped out of their orbits.
Kael opened it under the flickering light of the torches. Inside, there were bottles of broad-spectrum antibiotics, antiseptic ointments, vacuum-sealed sterilized syringes, rolls of snow-white gauze, and strong painkillers. It was a medical treasure that had not been seen in those lands after the first looting of all the pharmacies. A single bottle of those antibiotics was worth more than ten human lives in the black markets of the large shelters.
"By all the gods..." Jace murmured, falling to his knees in front of the medical kit, almost afraid to touch it.
Garek tried to sit up; the pain was forgotten for a second at the sight of his salvation. "How...?" Garek gasped. "Kael, I'll give you half of our territory. I'll give you my best women. Give me that".
Kael closed the kit with a snap, pulling it away just as Jace was about to grab it.
"Take it easy. I'll give it to you. But I need you to listen very carefully to where I got it. There is a place. A supermarket. It appeared out of nowhere on Central Avenue," Kael said, his tone becoming serious, almost reverential.
"You're crazy. That's a red zone," Jace interrupted. "There's nothing there but lone zombies and those damn plants".
"Shut up and listen, you're seeing the kit with your own eyes, this is not an illusion, it's real. An entire building without many signs of having been affected by those plants, with lights that blind you and air conditioning. And the owner... The owner is not human. Or if he is, he's a monster with a human appearance," Kael growled at Jace when he interrupted him and continued telling the story.
He paused to make sure everyone, including the dying Garek, paid attention to every one of his words.
"I tried to smash his window with my mace. I hit it with all my weight. Do you know what happened? The force bounced back. It blew my head back without the glass having even a single damn scratch. And my boy, Finn... he shot him at point-blank range with the shotgun".
"Did he kill him?" one of the men in the back asked, clutching his spear.
"The bullets stopped in the air," Kael whispered, still incredulous upon remembering it. "They stayed floating in front of his chest as if he had a damn repellent for bullets. Then, the guy snapped a finger and the bullets returned and shattered the weapon in Finn's hands. He didn't move a muscle, Jace. He's a fucking god of space. He has invisible barriers and makes food and water appear out of nowhere using black vortices".
The platform fell into silence. The idea of a being with such power was terrifying. In the apocalypse, the strong devoured the weak. If someone so powerful was there, why hadn't he annihilated them already?
"What is it that he wants?" Garek asked, his voice trembling for the first time. If that being was asking for human sacrifices, they were finished.
Kael smiled, a wide smile full of incredulity. "There's the madness. He doesn't want our weapons, nor our slaves, nor our territories. He wants gold".
"Gold?" Jace blinked, confused. "Do you mean the heavy yellow junk? Why the hell does he want that useless trash?"
"I don't care why he wants it!" Kael shrugged hard. "He has shelves full of ice-cold mineral water, fresh meat, noodles, medical kits, and medicines. And he exchanges everything for gold and cores. We gave him a couple of necklaces and some Rolexes we found in the bank vault and he gave us enough food for a month. Without limits. He told me to spread the word".
Garek stared at the ceiling of the ruined subway. His mind, clouded by fever, clung to a single bright idea.
"Gold..." Garek began to laugh. It was a wet and painful laugh, but full of insane hope. "Jace... Jace, tell me you didn't throw that trash away".
Jace, understanding instantly what his leader was referring to, opened his eyes wide and turned toward the end of the platform. "Three months ago... when we cleaned out that old jewelry store to use as a temporary shelter," Jace said, his voice rising in tone with emotion. "It was full of that shit. Ingots, rings, diamonds. We thought it was useless, but it was too heavy to throw into the street, so... so we used it".
"You used it for what?" Kael asked, arching an eyebrow.
"We put it in sandbags to reinforce the barricades of the north tunnel. We literally have tons of gold blocking the entrance against mutant rats".
Kael was speechless for a second, and then let out a laugh that echoed throughout the station. "Well, you better start digging, idiots. Because right now, you're using the key to paradise to stop a few rats".
Garek, ignoring the throbbing pain in his side, leaned on one elbow and looked at his men with fierce intensity. "Bring me my medicine," he ordered Kael. "And you..."—he pointed to Jace and the rest. "Dismantle the barricades. Tear open the bags. Collect every damn coin, every ring, and every shiny ingot you find in that tunnel. Fill the backpacks, fill the broken shopping carts, drag it if necessary".
"Boss, we're wounded, and moving all that will tire us..." one of the men tried to say.
"I said dig!" Garek roared, his eyes shining with a new fire. "We're going shopping. And I swear on my life that I'm going to empty that space god's store".
———————
Achuuu
"Which son of a bitch is thinking about me? I hope it's a pretty girl, preferably one with purple hair and who is a masochist".
Alexander sneezed suddenly as he looked at the time on his watch; there were still 40 minutes left before total control over his domain would be lost and he would have to return to his world.