Great, now apparently the group would know a new and very useful piece of information. Yeah... It would be better to ignore the fact that if it had been told right away maybe they would have already been able to implement it and gain something from it. But, oh, better late than not... I guess.

"So this thing would be able to store anything we want?" The poor beast named Alex found himself wondering, while at the same time calling up his own Terminal and trying to reproduce what he had just seen Roberto do.

"Yep," the other replied first, even making the 'OK' sign with his fingers, expanding however out of fairness after thinking about it for a moment, "Well, not really but let's say yes. I haven't tried to throw too much stuff in there, but I think there will be a limit to both quantity and size. I doubt they left us a tool with no limitation at all, unless the administrators felt good about it all of a sudden."

His speech made sense and even Alex agreed after a brief analysis. After all, if the world they had been sent to was based on video game-like mechanics, it would have been strange to leave from the beginning of the game with already an end game item in your pocket always ready to be used. However, having more will to live, and time to waste, than Roberto, he used the next few minutes to test his theory while the other guy wiped out the knives.

His targets ended up being the pans and cups, as well as the plates and glasses, which he had been eyeing some time before. Obviously he wasn't going to take everything with him, but in the meantime he grabbed every item that was even realistically useful in uncovering the limits of the dd function.

[Insufficient storage space. Please add a second disk or free up space on the disks already mounted].

Shortly thereafter, in fact, a System alert announced in its usual metallic voice that the boy's experiment had come to an end. Oh well, in the few minutes he had been at work he had still managed to put away enough crockery to open a small store. "Oh... We've got plenty of room. Not bad, eh!" Said Roberto, who in the meantime had kept an eye on him, getting a relatively honest idea of the capabilities of the dd function.

"I can't be surprised anymore..." Alex couldn't help but sigh in spite of it all, getting rid of some of his loot with a hint of concern in his heart. Wherever they were and whatever magic or technology they now had at their fingertips definitely didn't belong in the twenty-first century. And, perhaps, the influence of a certain hardcore smoker who seemed to take things as they came without making a big deal out of it had been to blame; but, the fact that he had been able to so calmly accept such sci-fi sorcery put him in a state of fear.

"I'm going to go find some supplies, maybe we'll get lucky and there's something edible left," he said after getting up from the ground, moving with his head down in the direction of the next aisle. Roberto watched him from the corner of his eye but said nothing to stop him. Getting weapons had priority and, less important, sometimes people needed their own space.

Even though he had been taking the piss out of him since they had left together, he didn't want his mental state to deteriorate to the point where he could be completely useless. Putting a little confusion in his head was a good distraction, but he most of all needed him to be of some use when necessary, so leaving him alone with his own thoughts was the best choice he had at the moment.

"Seeing how dark it is in here you might have been better off taking your flashlight with you or lighting another one... What a moron. Do you want to check by groping?" He began to complain as he went on opening packages and bundles, emptying their contents without ceremony. By now his Terminal was probably nearing its maximum capacity; and, prompted by the example of the other idiot who had put away the pans and cups, he decided to use the space he had left to grab some forks and spoons so that everyone could eat with real utensils.

With that done, the System's communication arrived perfectly on time, giving his handiwork a halt. "Well, well... I'd say this part of the preparations is done. The next step... Well, in the meantime, I'd better go and retrieve the shipwrecked guy, as wandering around the doctor's island alone can get you hurt." He said later while looking around holding his hands behind his head, joking a little but with a certain sympathy towards him.

Observing others had always been his way of navigating the waters trying, whenever possible, to avoid the rocks in particular that hid in the shadows of the light of the lighthouses. Thanks to this way of life, or perhaps it would be better to say because of this choice, his instincts had become trained to distinguish between human beings and defective products. Sure, tolerances couldn't be too strict when weighing information on the scale, but it was generally a workable task.

Since he'd already thrown away far too much of the first day's precious time, however, Roberto did his best to shut up his thoughts and get on with the task at hand, saying as much of that effort was redirected to lighting a new cigarette, "Sometimes I envy idiots." He then walked to the side and picked up what was left of the flashlight that had meanwhile run out of fuel, forcing him to pull new, easily flammable cheap clothes out of the terminal so he could sacrifice them to the dark.

Reviving the flame, he looked in the direction from the beginning of the lane, taking one step after another without much of a hurry, illuminating the lane with a small and a large light source. "Yeah... This kind of silence isn't bad," he then commented in a low voice after turning the corner to walk down the middle aisle of the supermarket.

Here, as he progressed deeper and deeper, he passed a large number of different food departments, ranging from snack foods to dairy products. However, even after stopping to carefully inspect a good number of different products, he found nothing more than already empty and, in some cases, even dusty packages. With beverages he had the same luck, finding himself faced with an unrealistic vision of empty bottles of every type, shape and size, reaching the point of ridicule when even the glass or plastic bottles of olive oil appeared to have been emptied and put back in place.

"Not that I couldn't have imagined it before," he sighed, immediately abandoning the idea of using the supermarket to get by for a few days, but adding in an unsympathetic voice: "Seeing something like this live is not the best. These fucking administrators could have at least cleaned it up. An empty lane is less scary than this stuff here."

Unfortunately, his complaint was not heard by anyone and the world continued to turn as nothing happened, as was to be expected. In any case, having no other interests in that place, he did his best to ignore his own annoyances and resumed to search for his companion, finding him a couple of aisles ahead, huddled on his knees in front of the candles and such section.

Concentrated in choosing which fragrance could be the best or which was the best candelabra to steal and helped in the choice only by the light of one of his trophies already lit, the boy had not even noticed the arrival of Roberto. So, from the height of his politeness and elegance, the new arrival on the scene of the crime came up behind him without making a sound, and then asked all of a sudden with seriousness: "Do you have to shit? Or did it bother you to put your knees down?"

Of course, and I'd like to see given the circumstances, Alex felt his poor little heart stop suddenly, not allowing him to inhale as he would have wished and making him fall with his ass on the ground, accompanying everything among other things with a: "Ah!" later improved by a spontaneous profanity as few.

"Do you want to give me a stroke!? What are you, you total asshole?" Shouted Alex angrily as soon as he had the chance, lashing out without reservation. The poor soul continued with the insults and curses for a few more waves of genuine nastiness, until he saw that Roberto was finding his behavior more amusing than rude, and then he ended it. What the hell... Even telling him to fuck off wouldn't take that fucking smile off his face! He thought at the same time with defeat in his heart, feeling taunted again by his companion.

"So no poop?" Retorted Roberto, then wiping the grin off his face and saying more calmly, "Then I'd say it's time to go. The candles are a great idea, but you've probably taken enough already and I'd like to take a tour of the facility if you'll allow. Otherwise when darkness falls it will be a mess for us," managing, among other things, to get Alex bad blood and find his consent at the exact same time. An ability borderline magical, at least as far as Alex was concerned.

"Yes... We can go," he replied in fact after getting up without even picking up the last candles left on the ground and walking instead in the direction of the exit. He too of course had seen the strange condition of the food and drink, but avoided talking about it. He knew that Roberto had already noticed it and had no logical explanation for it, so he might as well save his breath and tell the rest of the gang about it.

In any case, between curses and seriousness, the two of them finally left the supermarket and ventured through the rest of the second floor. Their first stop was a half-destroyed clothing store where they spent little time and only used it to briefly restock their flashlight. After that, as they pushed further down, they indulged in testing how loud an unloaded tablet could sound when it fell to the floor in an electronics store, using the profitable opportunity to borrow a good handful of batteries and flashlights, and then veering off to inspect the fast food restaurant and lady's bar nearby.

Nothing useful or noteworthy came out of those places, leaving them free to move around again in their circumnavigation of the mall, using the suspended connecting corridor on the second floor to change sides. Unfortunately for them, there wasn't much to find or discover there either, leaving them happy only when in a small hunting and fishing store they got their hands on a portable cooking stove, the kind that ran on gas cans. After stealing the delicious loot, along with all the gas bottles they managed to grab and a duffel bag to comfortably hold everything, they decided to take the plunge and go back down to the first floor.

Up to that moment they hadn't found a living soul and, therefore, not even a danger. However, although unlikely, there was always the possibility that everything would suddenly get worse. However, when they began to explore the ground floor, it was more a feeling of bewilderment and a certain disappointment that took hold of our two heroes, rather than a primordial terror of the unknown.

"Actually finding a supermarket on the second floor did seem to me to be a bullshit..." Roberto muttered some time after checking half the floor, already realizing that they might as well end it there and go straight outside. In fact, just to remind them of the strange scene of empty packages and bottles in the supermarket, that floor had a huge oddity too.

Actually, maybe saying it was that floor specifically that was abnormal would be a mistake, but from their perspective it remained the most logical conclusion to follow. Store by store, indeed, the entire floor looked like a rearranged copy of its twin brother a few feet above. Only the order and location of the rooms sometimes changed, but even what they sold seemed to have been duplicated.

It was as if those clothes or batteries were the little monsters they had fun duplicating when they were kids, exploiting a programming error in the end game of a video game with a serpentine dragon on the cover. Oh god wait, maybe it wasn't a dragon type, but it knew how to use 'Outrage' so fuck it.

In any case, after the ritual tour, Roberto lit another cigarette thinking about all the information he had managed to put together until that moment. He had a lot to think about and little time to do it. One cigarette would never be enough and Alex, there beside him, had started to go a little crazy since they had discovered the strange nature of the plans.

So, putting aside his own inconclusive analysis, he gave his companion a light slap and then motioned for him to follow in the direction of the exit. He, hesitant and once again guarded by the blow he had received, followed, keeping his distance, caring little about the fact that he was about to leave the facility.

"Ah... This is bad. This is so bad." Was Roberto's comment as soon as he stepped outside, even taking the cigarette out of his mouth for fear of dropping it on the ground. What in fact he could see at that moment did not resemble at all what he had seen that very morning.

The only thing he found was a vast spread of concrete, asphalt and crumbling buildings where there should have been a road, a traffic circle, daughter of Satan himself, and a small park where junkies usually went to meet to celebrate their pagan gods. A landscape that really didn't have anything to do with it. Wonderful, really wonderful.

Although, to be honest, the detail that interested Roberto the most in those first few seconds was Alex's poorly reactive response, who almost didn't even change his expression in front of that absurdity despite the fact that he had lost his sanity until a few moments before because of the issue concerning the first floor.