Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 91: : Small Crimes, Big Gains

Chapter 91: : Small Crimes, Big Gains

The streets were too quiet.

Lucas moved with confidence, boots crunching over sun-bleached gravel as he approached a half-collapsed storefront tucked between two broken buildings. A bent neon sign above the door still barely clung to life. The rest of the building had clearly a lost cause.

Ava stood at the corner, eyes scanning the perimeter.

"This is your target?" she asked, skeptically.

Lucas didn’t look back.

"Small combini. Family-owned. It’s tagged as a minor drop site for East Division runners. They’d stash goods under innocuous businesses. This one didn’t make the cut for military reclaim."

"And you’re sure there’s anything left?"

He ducked under the shattered security gate and kicked aside a pile of warped shelves and melted snack wrappers. The interior was dark, the air stale but breathable. Refrigerators lined one wall, half-crushed but intact. A vending machine had caved inward, its display glass webbed with cracks. Rust dusted everything.

Lucas scanned the ceiling, then made a beeline for the counter.

"Cover the entrance, Beauty."

Ava moved to position automatically, eyes sharp, footsteps silent.

Lucas crouched behind the counter, fingers feeling along the underside. Then—

Click.

A hollow panel popped loose, revealing a metal compartment recessed into the floor.

Lucas grinned.

"Found you."

He pried the hatch open, revealing a sealed box covered in grime and reinforced tape.

[DROP CACHE IDENTIFIED – ENCRYPTED CODE MATCH: 271-SHARD]

[STATUS: INTACT – SEAL PRESERVED]

Ava’s system pinged it as soon as it registered.

Lucas pulled it free and opened the case.

Inside: compact ration packs, two filtered water cylinders, a sealed battery brick, and three strips of raw core lining wrapped in black foil.

His smile widened.

"Jackpot."

He loaded the contents into his bag with practiced speed, leaving only the empty case behind. Then he stood, scanned the rest of the store, and moved toward the far wall.

"Now for the rest."

"You’re looting too?" Ava asked dryly from the doorway.

"No, Beauty. I’m salvaging."

He yanked open the half-buried back storage room and stepped in. Inside were shelves, crooked and caked in dust—but some still held sealed containers. Lucas scanned quickly: condensed meds, preserved glucose packs, a longbox marked "NON-PERISHABLES – TYPE III".

He scooped it all.

Ten minutes later, he stepped out, bag heavier, mood lighter.

"Alright," he said, tossing Ava a sealed water cylinder. "That should keep us going another day. Maybe two, if you stop threatening to stab me every morning."

"No promises."

Lucas pulled his coat tighter and nodded to the street.

"Let’s move. Still one more stop before we rest."

Lucas adjusted his pack and nodded northward. The air had thickened with heat, but he didn’t seem to feel it. He moved with a kind of easy certainty—like every broken street and collapsed sign was part of some invisible blueprint only he could read.

Ava caught up beside him.

"Another scav run?"

"Not just any run." He tapped the side of his temple. "This next stop’s personal."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Personal how?"

Lucas pointed at a fractured billboard in the distance—barely visible through the haze. A cartoon mascot holding a shopping basket and grinning awkwardly. The faded letters underneath barely spelled out: WHITE ELEPHANT – SHOP SMART, LIVE LARGE.

"My father owned that chain."

Ava blinked.

"Seriously?"

Lucas nodded, amused by her reaction.

"Yeah. Back when money still meant something. Real estate, distribution rights, logistics. When he saw the cracks forming, he didn’t sell—he buried contingency plans." He gestured around them. "During the ’renovations’ before the fall? He built hatches into every store. Storage vaults, sealed caches, even low-profile access tunnels."

Ava gave a slow whistle.

"Paranoid or brilliant?"

"Both." He grinned. "But mostly brilliant."

They reached the cracked remains of a White Elephant store, half-swallowed by a sunken parking lot. Despite the external damage, the building stood better than most, its structure reinforced by thick steel supports.

Lucas moved toward a side entrance, brushing aside collapsed signage like it was nothing.

"This location’s one of many. Your system’s map?" He glanced at her. "It already has them marked—but you’d never know unless you had the right keys. Every cache is hidden behind layer-locked security. Biometrics, codes, even password fragments woven into old employee logs."

Ava’s eyes narrowed.

Lucas caught the look and chuckled, already moving deeper into the husk of the supermarket.

"Alright, come on. I’ll show you."

The aisles were caved in and buried under warped metal shelving and broken product displays, but Lucas moved with purpose—turning left, stepping over a collapsed freezer unit, brushing past a door labeled "STAFF ONLY."

He crouched beside a scorched wall panel and knocked twice, listening to the echo.

"Loot’s not about what shines. It’s about what responds." He tapped again, fingers searching along the molding. "Most people tear open shelves, flip crates, pray for dumb luck. They miss the patterns."

He glanced back at her.

"Even with your system? Doesn’t matter. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, your scan won’t ask the right questions."

Ava folded her arms but watched closely.

Lucas finally found what he was after—a tiny seam, no wider than a pencil’s width, running along the base of the wall. He slid a blade inside, twisting until something clicked.

[HIDDEN ACCESS DETECTED]

[MATCH FOUND – CODE FRAGMENT: LX-WHIT3-042]

A panel hissed open, revealing a narrow drawer packed tight with vacuum-sealed boxes, old-tech batteries, and two slim vials marked with coded symbols Ava didn’t recognize.

"This is tier-one stock," Lucas said, but there was no glowing interface or high-tech panel involved—just dust, rust, and an old-world drawer disguised as busted wall trim.

He pulled it open with a firm tug, revealing vacuum-sealed packs, a canister of purified water, and what looked like a folded canvas satchel with military stenciling faded from age.

"Nothing fancy about it. No biometric locks. No retinal scans." He grabbed one of the packs and tossed it to Ava. "Just misdirection and good hiding."

Ava turned the packet over in her hand—some kind of high-density protein ration, perfectly preserved.

Lucas leaned against the wall, eyes on the open drawer but not really looking at it.

"You know... I think after Mom died, he went off the rails." His voice had dropped a little. Softer now. Real.

Ava looked up, startled by the sudden shift.

Lucas didn’t meet her gaze. He pulled out the folded satchel and shook the dust from it.

"He was already planning. Always three steps ahead. But once she was gone? It wasn’t about protection anymore. It was about obsession." He shrugged, but there was no grin this time. "He didn’t trust anyone—not the government, not the markets, not his friends. Only structures. Only systems."

He unfolded the satchel slowly. Inside were tools, wrapped in oiled cloth. A simple field kit. Manual. Durable.

"That’s why these places are the way they are. Plain. Easy to miss. He didn’t want to save the world. Just what mattered to him."

Ava ran a hand along the inside of the drawer, feeling the old metal beneath her fingertips."And you?"

Lucas glanced at her then—eyes sharp again."Me?" A ghost of a grin returned. "I just like good investments."

He straightened, slipping the satchel into his pack."Come on. There’s more where this came from."

And just like that, the charm was back—but something else lingered beneath it. Quiet. Personal. Untouched.

"Come on. There’s more where this came from."

Lucas straightened, tightening the straps on his pack as he began picking through the rest of the hidden stash. He worked fast—efficient. Cans, rations, two water cartridges, a compact medkit wrapped in faded white gauze. Everything went into neat compartments. Everything had a place.

"Six days’ worth," he said, glancing over at Ava. "Give or take. Should be enough to get us to Bai Manor if we pace it right."

Ava knelt beside him, grabbing one of the water cartridges and turning it over in her hands.

"Six days walking through half-ruined city sectors."

"If we’re lucky," Lucas said, slipping another ration bar into his side pouch, "William picks us up on day three. He was supposed to loop around after the diversion, assuming the roads held up."

"And if he doesn’t?"

Lucas gave a small shrug.

"Then we walk the whole way. Like peasants."

Ava snorted.

"Wouldn’t be an issue if your butler had a system."

"Don’t even get me started," Lucas muttered, slamming the drawer shut. "Man’s got precision, tactical instinct, an actual war record—and nothing. Not even a tracking function. I keep telling him, he’d be twice as useful if he awakened."

"Maybe he doesn’t need one."

Lucas grinned, standing fully.

"He doesn’t. That’s the worst part. Still outpaces half the shifters I’ve seen. But come on... if the universe handed me Monopoly Appraisal and him nothing? That’s just bad design."

Ava hoisted her pack and moved toward the door.

"Maybe he just doesn’t want to be as dramatic as you."

Lucas followed, grinning as he flicked dust off his coat.

"Impossible. No one’s that boring."

They stepped out into the pale light, the wind tugging at the edges of their gear, and Lucas pointed toward the street ahead—cracked pavement stretching out into silence.

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