Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

Back of the shop that evening, Bagel was not surprised by seeing the bare shelves. He restocked again, cycling through his hand several times. There were a lot of people waiting but there was only kombucha left. There was something about it that had people leave until the end. The water went first which he understood. Even though everyone sell that water go to their houses. Then went the energy drinks, usually about the same time.

Bagel didn't put it past the humans to figure out a way to buy things and the most interesting way possible to make it so he had to restock five times to get the store back up to a standards. That meant that he kept drawing and drawing for the entire time. It felt good to be restocked.

By the end, he was ready for a quick nap and seeing no one else asking for a favor, he was inclined to take one and that was how he found himself irritated at Paolo showing up to stop him.

"Hey Bagel, I'm just dropping in to make sure that everything's all right. We heard you go to the rodeo. Or at least one of my friends that does that. Let me know that you went there and they were wondering how you liked it and if you couldn't be coming around again because they are, how should I put this... thirsty?"

"Well it's a good thing we had plenty of drinks here in stock," Bagel said. "Damn good thing."

"Still. They said that you left early?"

Bagel sniffed.

"We had gone to inspect the construction. We got sidetracked."

"It happens."

Paolo pulled out a brown bag and opened it up. Inside. There was a little bit of Tupperware with a palm size of chicken strips, prepared just the way he liked it. Bagels eyes bulged.

"Are you doing delivery right now?" He said.

"Liza would have killed me if she didn't have me feed you. She made this for you."

Bagel was taken aback. Food could be delivered to him? The food that he wanted to eat?

This changed so much. But in the end, it was one of the humans have been doing forever. He just hadn't ever thought it was an option for him.

"Thanks for this. I... Appreciate it."

Paolo smiled. "We know about the new cat. You can bring him around whenever you want. Copernicus, right?"

"He is very private. But I'll let him know. He has just been through lot."

Paolo checked Bagel out. He pursed his lips but didn't say anything for a long moment.

Bagel waited. If you waited for long enough, a human would attempt to fill the silence. It would start as an itch, then slowly become and unbearable burden as they became consumed with filling up the dead air. Paolo on the other hand seemed perfectly content to take his time in between statements.

It was own of his better qualities.

"We know about the newsletter," Paolo said. "Liza signed up to the Jellyside Layer newsletter. It sounds like they're not doing well."

Was he fishing? Next to the East River? Bagels heart began racing. He didn't even have anything to say about them.

"What are they saying in there?" Bagel said. "What's a newsletter?"

Paolo grunted. "Now I know that Janet handles most of your stuff and your affairs but jelly side layer is a company and they have a public relations team apparently. And whoever that is knows Copernicus and is really comfortable with that."

"They talk about what they're doing?"

Paolo shook his head a little bit. "It's more like their company goals and stuff. It's pretty clean but they did mention that they were going to be moving their operations up to midtown. I feel like you should know this."

Bagel stuttered. "They did what?"

"They said that they were moving operations up to midtown. We're in midtown east after all."

Bagel's mind word as thought through the implications of what was going on. Around the same time the Copernicus had come to live with them. They had said that they were moving their operations at the midtown. It was true that they were in midtown east, but did that mean that Copernicus was their operations? Was that how they rant things?

He has been kept in the dark so much due to his particular set of skills. They needed him right where he was. It was the same with the TSA. He laid his claim to the place where he stood and this meant that they needed him to be there to maximize its usage and expansion.

The stupid rules about buying up land and the relative scarcity of mantle cards that let one buy up land were a problem. It wasn't insurmountable but now he was wondering what the goals were of the rest of the felines. He was going to need to have some choice words with them sooner rather than later.

"We have a council meeting in two days," Bagel said. "We'll discuss it then."

"That's a good idea. Bring the new cat around for dinner tomorrow then, would you? Liza loves seeing new faces."

With that the human ducked out of the Bodega.

---

Ashley was at the helm of the bright orange ferry. Nothing made sense.

"This usually needs a crew of what, eight people?"

She looked around for her AI but it was deep in thought. Because of course it was. She had asked it to do extra.

There wasn't much fun to be had on the ferry. The four parties that had accompanied Ashley were all very happy to be there but most of what they were doing was being available to summon cards. It made sense that the humans were all about the newness of the water bound vehicle.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

It was big enough to transport cars. This meant that there was enough space for shenanigans.

Kate and meatball were lurking around trying to find the best spots for them to rest. Even as Janet 2 was finally pulling the ferry online.

Mechanical sound began call by some clicking.

Meatballs ears perked up. " That sounds like it's starting to work. I've never been on the ferry ride. I'm so excited."

Kid, giggled. " You know they used to be free right? That used to be a big selling point that you could ride to Staten Island Ferry for free and then walk to a bunch of breweries? So maybe we could get a foothold over there at Staten Island work with that."

" Do you really think that any of the breweries still have anything good left? I don't believe it. I'm really skeptical of that. They've got anything worth eating or drinking at this point in time."

Kate shrugged. " Look if if that's the only thing I got going for me then you got to let me have that one. Okay? I'm just dreaming of some big tubs of beer and wine and cheese that we could really have a party with. It's going to take us a while to get Staten Island but I really want it."

"You just want to be able to go to a brewery again. The beer house is still a thing and it's just a block away from my apartment. We can still do that."

"It's not the same thing. Until I get you to where that leader hose in, I am not going to be satisfied."

I actually looked up from the construction manual that had definitely seen better days.

"If you want me to dress up and leave your hose and you're going to have to bring it. I don't have that costume and the costume shop nearby us probably doesn't have that or I'm going to guess is definitely on fire. There's no next day delivery anything right now."

It was another thing that she hadn't expected. Nothing less than a whole apocalypse was able to end that giant sales company.

But without it, the convenience was gone and so many things that that could have made life so much easier in the apocalypse just didn't exist anymore. It wasn't that she was more than the convenience or the ability to just click by now and get something tomorrow. It was just a fact of life that things were going to change.

Meatball and Kate chased each other around the open deck that was supposed to carry cars. Ashley really wanted to enjoy that kind of fun right now, but she was still waiting on if Janet 2 was going to be able to do this. In the meantime, she brought out her forge.

Her forage card allowed her to scavenge things and join them into usable mobs or in the case of Janet too, another AI. Unfortunately, it took almost an entire cars worth of material to make another AI. It was one of the problems that Ashley was realizing that she wanted to spend more time with.

If she just used more of her mantle powers, eventually she could get a fleet of intelligent drones to augment the humans flying drones on behalf of the adventurers guild.

The main reason that they still had humans doing things up there was because humans could actually receive experience points from killing mobs with drones so they would transfer control of the drone to a human and then have the human fire off a laser or a missile.

The AIs couldn't level.

That wasn't a problem. But if she could get someone to level 25 and to their first perk? Just by having them sit back and fire lasers and missiles at mobs?

She was already getting group chat messages from Khaleesi about it.

Khaleesi: Ok the guys have created a little safe landing zone at the normal ferry dock. You should be secure to land there if you ever move.

Ashley: We are going to need a bigger boat, I think.

Khaleesi: I alerted some of the parties and we have ten on standby to take over.

With The sixth parties that she had brought and the support staff, they were hoping to secure the Staten Island side of the ferry. Most of Manhattan was somewhat under control so they were places where the adventurers guild still needed to reach out. Most of the outreach was centered on making sure that the nearby neighborhoods wouldn't overrun them. By this time, the NYPD was now figuring out what they needed to do to win the war in the larger sense. And it was going to take a lot.

It was going to take a lot of time and effort and it felt like it was going to be one of those things that went on for way longer than a scope of the project suggested. It was like one of those nightmares that Ashley was working at some sort of White collar job and was going to need to report in about deliverables or kpis except the deliverables or kpis were just getting America back one block at a time.

She knew that if she was back at the command center she was going to be able to see exactly what Khaleesi meant. It was then that she wished that she could pull up Lougle Maps and see the place. Would that still work?

She checked and...

"Kate! Lougle Street view works!"