"Yep. Got several formulations of birth control so people can use what works best for them."

"Good." Riley starts walking down with a small pile of meds in her arms.

Anna follows.

"There were prescription meds," Riley announces. "How goes the search down here?"

"I think we managed to put together a good first aid kit," says Alex.

"Found the condoms, also got a good stock of various toiletries."

"Alright, where to next Emily?"

"The grocery store is the next closest. There's other food stores though and maybe it'd be better to stop there on the way back. If we're doing that the only specialty stores left are the pretzel shop and the one with the satellite phones. The pretzel shop is in a couple more kilometers but the satellite phone place is a full fifteen."

"And there's nowhere closer?" Alex asks.

"At least it's not one of the one-off shops. There are some of those and the furthest of those is something like a hundred forty kilometers."

"Yeah it makes more sense to get food on the way back, especially if we're going that far. We're mostly getting things that need refrigerating or freezing."

"It's pretzel time then." Emily mounts her bike and waits while everyone else gets situated before setting off again.

More biking then.

"Well we're getting good exercise."

"Getting exercise was not my plan for today," says Claire

Emily giggles. "You never plan on getting exercise Claire."

"Wasn't really my plan either. I've done my gym time for the week."

There are conversations about various trivialities. It turns out that Alex, Claire and Emily are all working on their Master's degrees. Alex is studying physics, Claire library science, and Emily computer science.

Soon enough they arrive at the pretzel shop. Emily sets her bike down and rushes inside to get a pretzel. Here the cabinets seem heated and the pretzel is toasty warm as she pulls it out and starts eating. She pauses between bites to say "So good."

"Ooo."

Linda grabs one too.

"We should get a bunch of these."

Claire and Alex both each take one. "Definitely," says Claire.

"I wonder how this works, is the mall self-refilling somehow or are these pretzels going to go bad if they're left here long enough. Or is something weirder going on," wonders Riley.

"I was reading that physics textbook. I wouldn't bet against something weirder going on," answers Alex between bites of soft chewy pretzel.

"Like what?"

"I think I was starting to see the basis for the teleportation but around the edges, I think I also saw the tools to control time. Not in the sense of time travel but perhaps in controlling how fast time passes in an area."

Emily looks up. "How is that possible?"

"I'm not quite sure yet, and I'm a long way from understanding how the engineering works but there were the outlines of a unified field theory in that book."

"Wow. I only know a little physics myself, but from what I know that's a really big deal."

"Yeah, that book almost makes it worth it, even if I can never go home, and I expect there's deeper books and engineering practicalities here to find."

"We haven't even seen what's outside yet."

"It's exciting isn't it," says Riley.

"It is," agrees Emily, "I'll miss my parents if we can't go home though."

"I'll miss my grandmother Jen," Alex agrees. "She's the one who raised me."

"Clinton, my little brother, and my parents," Claire says completing the pattern.

Riley sighs, "Don't be such a downer, I bet we'll find a way to get home and then we'll have all sorts of new tools for solving the world's problems."

"I have three brothers and a sister. And my parents of course."

"My parents, and my sister."

"Um, are all of you similarly low on friends? Or did I just set the tone in a weird way by only referring to family?"

"Alex, you know Emily and I don't really have other friends."

"I'm a bit of a workaholic," says Riley.

"I've got lots of casual friends but not a lot of close ones. I'll miss having all my friends around, but it's not that important compared to my family."

"Linda's my only close friend, I've got a few study buddies as well but I don't really have a lot of time for social things."