Raven sat in the Ironhowl X4, the last items in Guns R Us swallowed into her system space. The showroom was stripped down to cold, bare tile. Not a trigger lock or shelf bracket left behind. The gun empire her father built on sales, permits, and exploitation was gone in the span of one morning.
Now it was time to feed the next phase.
She tapped her phone screen, brows flicking as she opened one food app after another. Pizza chains, street corner Italian joints, high-end bistros, ghost kitchens—anything that still answered a delivery order in New York or northern New Jersey. COVID had hollowed out the dining scene. Restaurants were desperate to stay afloat. No one questioned a customer dropping ten grand on bulk orders.
Raven didn't just want food. She wanted meals. Hot, decadent, ready-to-eat.
Raven placed the orders in waves for the second time because once was not enough, but to avoid suspicion, she spread the orders out several days apart. This time, Raven ordered many times more food than the first time.
Thin crust pizza. Deep dish. Stuffed crust. Wood-fired margheritas. Pesto. Garlic white pies. Slices stacked ten high. Spaghetti bolognese. Truffle oil alfredo. Ziti. Eggplant parm. Lasagna. Pasta swimming in cream and butter and red wine.
Then came the meats.
Ribeye steaks. Bone-in lamb. Duck confit. BBQ ribs. Gyros dripping in tzatziki. Korean short ribs. Cajun blackened catfish. Rotisserie chickens from every ethnic chain in the metro area.
She hit the side menu next—mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, garlic bread, potstickers, lo mein, steamed rice, street corn, sliders, cheesy potato bites. Anything that could survive thirty minutes in a foil box.
Delivery time: 1–2 hours.
She opened another app. Liquor.
Bulk distributors now shipped direct to doorsteps. Pandemic pivot.
She started filling carts. Bottles by the hundred. Then the thousand. She even bought the rare liquor that has to be harvested from old sunken sea ships that sit inside wood barels that have been sitting in the ocean since the sixteen century. A single ounce cost ten grand she orderd it all.
Whiskey. Bourbon. Aged Scotch. Japanese Suntory bottles. Vodka—flavored and not. Tequila. Absinthe. Spiced mead. Vermouth. Barrels of craft beer. Wine from vineyards she couldn't pronounce. Champagne so expensive she felt obligated to steal it.
She threw in cocktail kits, imported bitters, syrups, glass sets, and cocktail mixers like grenadine to flavor her soda.
And for all of it? She gave a computer generated fake ID. Raven smiled real ID, my ass nothing a word program can't imitate.
They never questioned it. Some of the drivers glanced at her, wide-eyed, but no one dared speak. She was too poised. Too cold. Too striking. And when you're tipped 40% on a multi-thousand-dollar order, you don't ask if the buyer looks a year too young.
The deliveries started rolling in within the hour.
Truck after truck. Vans. Company SUVs. Warehouse couriers and delivery app freelancers. A lot of her warehouse turned into a temporary depot of food and booze it's a good thing she had places to store cold and hot foods before storing it into her system space.
Each time, Raven greeted the driver at the bay door, nodded, helped them stack boxes, and sent them on their way with cash app tips higher than most people's rent.
Then Raven absorbed it all directly into the system space.
Stacks of pizza disappeared the moment they were unloaded. Cases of pasta vanished like smoke. Bottles of liquor blinked into her system space, each one tagged, cataloged, and filed for future indulgence.
The orders kept coming. And Raven kept taking.
As the sun climbed higher, a new projection slid into her mind.
[Apocalypse Ascendancy System Notification:]
Liquor Storage Module Unlocked.
Storage Stabilized.
Fermentation and Brewing Expansion Modules available upon habitat progression.
She stood in the middle of the warehouse, arms crossed, watching a driver wheel in another dolly of pre-packaged lamb skewers and chicken shawarma.
Tens of thousands of bottles. Tens of thousands of meals.
All of it hers.
COVID hadn't killed the liquor business. It made it mobile.
And the food industry?
It adapted—barely.
"People are too grateful for the work to ask questions," Raven said under her breath as another truck rolled away.
By noon, the warehouse floor was empty.
Everything was inside her system. Locked in time. Frozen in peak condition. Stored in a hot nirvana of fresh flavor.
She walked the silent floor, hand brushing the concrete column near the back office. Her boots echoed.
Raven knew there was more to do. But as she stood in the afterglow of this operation, her mind turned to something simpler. She needed more than guns and food to survive.
She needed something to live for.
Entertainment.
She made a new mental note.
Add bookstores to the raid list. Digital drives. Servers. Laptops loaded with movies. TV series. Comics. Manga. Music libraries. Podcasts. Audiobooks. Anime
She wouldn't just stay alive.
She'd have Friday movie nights.
"Killing zombies is fine," she murmured. "But I want my own damn movie nights too."
The warehouse was still. The last truck pulled out. She walked back toward the Ironhowl, her breath visible in the cold air.
She glanced at the street, at the haze over the distant city skyline.
COVID had reshaped everything. Delivery replaced social contact. Apps replaced interaction. Isolation replaced structure. It wasn't just a disease. It was conditioning. A blueprint for control.
"They built a machine to keep people caged," Raven whispered. "And now I'm using it to stock my fridge."
She stepped into the SUV, locked the doors, and sat back.
Another phase complete.
And there was still so much left to take.
Join my patreon today to read up to chapter 64 in advance your support is my inspiration join for only 3 to 5$
patreon.com/everstone