22. An offer

"Where is the bread?" Anna rubbed her hungry belly and yawned sleepily.

"In your bag." Michelle pointed at her backpack and Anna woke up right away.

"You two didn't eat?" Looking at their lowered heads she tried to control her anger rising up. "I brought the bread for you to eat, not to let it rot. Bring me eggs. Let's fry some eggs and eat with bread."

"Can I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? " Alice was craving such a thing for days.

"Sure." Even though it was late to eat such a sweet thing, but she didn't want to refuse it.

Anna took out the bread that was still luckily soft and cut big slices on a nearby table. Seeing a bunch of bread crumbs she glanced at the door. "Go bring chicks inside. I'll make a cage for them so they don't run around. And I plan to keep them in the shelter in Mrs. Stevenson's house. We can make them feeder and water and let them run around one room where we put to light. Here we can't leave them if we run around and gather things. Tomorrow we must rush. Your duty will be to transport things from Mrs. Stevenson's house to the new storage we got while I will push things from the store to Mrs. Stevenson's house. We will be together in the mall as zombies are owly scattering and we must hurry. When we clean up the house from Mrs. Stevenson, we will connect the gate to our house and to the mall area.

She already knew they got one room.

Just as they spoke, a new notification appeared.

*As you finished your task so fast, you have been granted storage space and four times opening a day.*

Anna happily clapped her hands. "We can then gather more."

She thought about it and made a choice. "When is the new rule starting?"

*Immediately.*

"Does that means we can open the gate to our storage now?"

*Affirmative.*

"How many gates can we today?" Anna had a hunch and suddenly was right.

*You finished your task so it was reset. You can use all four gates right away. The smallest timeline between is thirty minutes.*

So no more one hour?

She was already full and wide awake. She glanced at the two girls and sighed. "We must be careful. From now on you must listen to me or we all might just die, literally..."

The two girls felt sad for what they have done and nodded. "We promise."

"Open the gate to Mrs. Stevenson's house."

The gate opened up and they entered, completely forgetting the chicks.

"Close the gate home and open the gate to the mall and to our new store."

The mall was still somewhat dusky and it was visible, but the other gate showed only darkness.

Anna went inside and gasped.

This place was humongous.

It was the size of the baseball field and was high.

She calmly put a few lights and flashlights inside to make it brighter and started grabbing bags while pointing at the carts in the rooms that were left.

"You two, push carts inside. I'll clean up the bags in the ground. We will bring in as much we can in this one hour and will go to the mall to grab more things. I think it's time we enter the storage area. "

She glanced at the two big carts and realized it's better to gather things in big boxes. Or better said in boxes she could pick up...

She slowly went to the big gate that had a sign that forbids unrelated people from entering.

She slowly pushed the door open and gulped loudly. "Impossible for us to do this on our own."

Alice rolled her eyes. "Sister, we will just get things that we can carry. And other survivors need food as well. I have no intentions eating canned food all my life."

Anna Gale calmly shook her head.

"Canned food has a long shelf life and we can exchange it later for things we need. Gate, if I ask for the next level of fighter, is it possible?"

*Clarify.*

"If the next level of fighter gives me more strength and wisdom, maybe I can move these things faster into our storage." (She is thinking about the skill that gate gave her... don't misunderstand...)

*....*

This time the gate was silent and didn't answer for a long time while they transported everything and went to the store while the gate disappeared.

Anna Gale didn't wait for an answer and started filling various cans from shelves as she saw that boxes were heavy.

She glance at the two girls and thought about it. "Go pack all kinds of socks you can find. Literally all socks."

The two girls were stunned. Why socks?

But they still left and started just grabbing a whole bunch of socks and throwing them into carts.

Anna on other hand went to pickled food and slowly gathered things first that they liked eating.

But then got stunned as she saw all the pickled meat, pickled fish, sausages in jars... even pickled eggs and bacon.

Looking at a whole row of these things she slowly gathered them and saw her sisters coming back with filled carts with socks.

"Sister, why socks?"

"Now all underwear, one cart male and one cart female. But only panties. We need tradable items. Everyone will rush for food and will forget such items."

Suddenly a screen opened.

*After consideration, I have an offer to give you.*

"An offer is always good." Anna already got excited.

* I can transport everything inside the mall into your storage, but... you won't be able to take any of it until you don't open five more cities.*

Anna rubbed her head as she thought of rotten food and such. "What about this? You transport everything that is not perishable or already rotten and I'll agree to your request. But I want to be able to take rest of things to the Mrs. Stevenson house."

*Request accepted. All items that are not rotten or will rot in nearby future will be transported to the storage and will be locked away.*

Suddenly shelves after shelves started disappearing. Fridges and shelves with fruits, eggs, meat and such were still there.

She rushed towards the storage in the back and saw one shelf after the other just disappear.

If she knew this was a possibility...

Authors rambling : ''Sneaky Gate...''