Editing Tales from the Wal (section)

===''Encounter in the Grocery''===

As soon as I stepped into the Fresh Groceries section, I could tell something was wrong. It was the middle of the restock period, so while all the food was gone, I could reasonably expect that nobody would be lying in wait in order to grab produce as soon as it was restocked (or gank anyone trying to do the same).

However, it was completely silent. Normally the sounds of the cartbots pushing chains of carts hundreds-long filled the air. They were beautiful to watch if you had nothing better to do, and a pain to wait for them to cross if you needed to get past them (I will always remember the cry of "NO PLAYING ON THE CARTS" as my childhood friend was immolated by an electrical charge the cartbot emitted onto the cart chain he was trying to clamber over. Only in the most desperate of times have I ever crossed a moving cart-chain, and even then I usually got the edge of the charge numbing my arm for a few hours afterwards).

Looking around a corner, I could see the cart-chain, spilled across the floor, and an overturned and gently smoking cartbot sitting in place, it's center a smoking hole I could see right through. I was immediately on-guard, since the only thing that I'd ever heard of that could do this would have been a rare Sporting Good. However, looking nearby, I noticed that the rafters were better-illuminated than normal, driving away a handful of bats that resided there. I didn't think anything of it as Lighting was adjacent to this area, and they tended to be fairly introspective and private folk.

Then I heard a subtle, audible "clink," as if a shelf of glassware had been gently shook, once. Then I heard the noise again, and again, louder each time. I noticed the glow in the rafters was getting brighter and brighter, but before I could flee, they rounded the corner. One of the Lighting people was in front of me, and had some large elaborate contraption of multiple round panes of glass in his incredibly clean hands (The Lighting people were very odd about keeping clean, cleaner than most outside of Makeup, saying something about "Tiny invisible creatures crawling on you all the time"). Behind him was another Lighting person tugging a generator and a Sporting Good lightstick, one larger than I had ever seen before. 

Upon noticing me he quickly stooped down and yanked the cord, gunning the generator to life and causing the lightstick he held (Attached to the generator by a wire the thickness of my thumb). I dove behind a nearby shelf of canned meat (Long since expired, they were bulged out like balloons I once saw as a boy) just as they fired...whatever it was. A beam of white light so strong it hurt my eyes lanced past and into the linoleum I had just occupied, melting it to bubbling slag in a small explosive pop and pelting me with grubby flooring pieces. The beam swept towards me, following my leap, and as soon as it hit the pallet of cans, there was a series of bangs louder than any I could recall, and something hard struck me in the back of the head. 

As I blacked out, I could only recall the smell of cooked rancid meat, and hearing one of them say "We should truss him up and take him back. The Lensman wants to examine the insides of this one while he's still breathing..."

----