The shelves were stacked, and the floor littered, with all kinds of life-saving medicine—everything one could imagine.
With resources this abundant, Pei Ran's heartbeat sped up involuntarily.
But much of it was scattered across the ground. Capsules crushed, pills and shards of glass from broken bottles mixed together, trampled and ground to dust.
Pei Ran felt a pang of distress.
As she searched, she instinctively began putting the fallen, precious medicines back onto the shelves. She also grabbed a few common household meds that weren't in her home's first-aid kit.
After making a full round of the pharmacy, though, she still hadn't found the JTN35.
What she did notice was that JTN35's packaging looked nothing like the rest of the meds here.
Everything on the pharmacy shelves had flashy packaging—logos, manufacturers, treatment functions, key ingredients, dosage instructions—all printed in bright, colorful fonts. In contrast, the JTN35 box was plain and austere. Besides that string of letters and numbers, it had nothing on it.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The sudden sound of smashing things echoed through the quiet pharmacy.
Pei Ran looked up and saw, in the corner of the store, a man in his thirties wielding a round stool, slamming it furiously against a cabinet.
He wore a well-tailored overcoat made of fine, slightly glossy fabric. But the front was stained with dark blotches.
No need to guess what the stains were. Right beside him stood a girl, about fourteen or fifteen, wearing a beige short coat similarly marked—with red.
Blood.
Her face was ghostly pale, eyes vacant and unfocused. She stood motionless, clearly in a severely abnormal state.
They looked alike—likely siblings.
After a few hard smashes, the man grabbed the cabinet door and yanked at it.
Pei Ran recognized the cabinet's material instantly—she'd kicked it before.
It was the same as the locked company door she'd encountered when she first arrived. Brown-tinted, semi-transparent, looked like glass but as tough as steel.
Despite the man's violent efforts, the cabinet door remained unscathed—no cracks, not even a scratch.
Frustrated, he began kicking it.
Bang! Bang!
A burly man, probably over 6'3" and 250 pounds, heard the commotion and came over. The moment the man in the coat saw him, he quickly opened the virtual screen on his wristband, enlarged it, and turned it to face the newcomer while typing rapidly.
Pei Ran saw the screen. He wrote:
I'm looking for medicine
My sister has a rare blood disorder called IVO. She needs daily medication to survive. She'll die without it.
The pharmacy locked up the special meds. The staff's gone. I know the meds are in this cabinet. Please help me.
He couldn't speak, but he typed with desperate speed.
The big guy grabbed his arm, indicating he didn't need to type anymore, then picked up the stool the man had dropped.
He stepped back, took a deep breath, muscles bulging as he raised the stool—
CRACK!
The stool couldn't take the force. The seat snapped off, flew across the room, and slammed into the wall.
The big guy grabbed the cabinet door handle and shook it hard.
Still wouldn't budge.
Pei Ran studied the cabinet.
The door's semi-transparent tint revealed boxes of medicine stacked inside. If the man was right about the special meds being locked in here, maybe the JTN35 was inside too.
A small fingerprint scanner was embedded in the door, just like the one on her apartment. Power was out, but the lock still glowed, probably running on backup.
Too bad the staff were gone—either fled or dead, their fingerprints useless now.
The big man kept trying. He gripped the remaining stool leg and began hammering.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Pei Ran stepped forward and gestured for him to move aside.
Both men turned to look at her, surprised by how small she was in comparison. But the big guy stepped back and politely offered her the metal stool leg.
Pei Ran shook her head.
She reached for the cabinet handle with her gloved right hand and yanked.
Snap.
This time, progress—she tore the handle right off the door.
The big guy gaped. He hadn't expected that. His mouth fell open, then quickly shut again.
Pei Ran noticed. Her eyes narrowed slightly.
She looked at him, raised a hand, and fluttered her fingers like a fan.
He got the message and took another step back.
She nodded. One more step. Good.
She didn't want to deal with any screams if things got messy.
Pei Ran turned back to the cabinet, studied it again, then removed her glove—revealing a matte-black mechanical hand.
She curled it into a fist—and punched.
CRACK.
The cabinet door shattered, spiderweb cracks exploding across its surface.
The two men stayed silent.
Same thought crossed their minds: If that punch had hit someone's head, their brains would've splattered.
Without hesitation, Pei Ran threw another punch, blasting a hole through the door. She used her mechanical fingers to widen it, finally exposing the neatly arranged boxes inside.
She took one glance—and was immediately disappointed.
Too flashy. Not plain enough.
She double-checked. No sign of JTN35.
Pei Ran turned to the man in the coat and beckoned.
He had been standing at a distance, but now his eyes lit up—he had spotted the medicine he needed.
He rushed over, mouth opening—
It looked like he wanted to say thank you.
A well-mannered instinct—but potentially fatal.
Pei Ran leapt back, startled.
Luckily, the man caught himself just in time and shut his mouth. He shot her a grateful look instead, reached in, and pulled out two small yellow boxes of pills.
He shoved them into his coat and turned to leave, but then paused.
He opened his wristband again and typed:
You're looking for medicine too? Which one?
Pei Ran took out her empty JTN35 box.
He studied it for a moment, then typed:
Meds labeled only with codes like this are specialty drugs from Volin Pharmaceuticals. You can't get them elsewhere. Even their chain stores don't keep them stocked. They're only shipped from the main store if someone preorders.
Did you preorder it? If you did, and this branch doesn't have it, then it's probably still at Volin's headquarters.
That made sense.
The original host had been taking the meds regularly—she might've ordered them, but the outbreak happened before the delivery.
Pei Ran typed:
Where is their headquarters?
He responded:
On Hank Street.
Pei Ran had no idea where that was.
She opened the map on her wristband. It flashed:
Please check your network signal.
No signal. No map.
So she asked:
How do I get to Hank Street?
The man frowned.
It's a major street downtown. You don't know it?
I just got to Whiteport. I don't know anything.
Understanding dawned. He paused, fingers hovering above the screen.
The burly man beside him got impatient and typed:
I know the way! It's a bit of a hike…
But the coat man shook his head and looked at his sister, then typed:
I have a car. I'll take you.
Pei Ran asked immediately:
A hovercar?
Those were all down right now.
Don't worry. It's an antique—no AI. That's how we got here.
He took his sister's hand, nodded toward the pharmacy door, and led the way.
The girl followed in silence, like her body was here but her soul had drifted somewhere else, showing no response to anything around her.
Outside, Pei Ran glanced toward the supermarket.
She'd forgotten to get the black-coat girl's contact info.
But the spot she'd stood in was now empty. No sign of her. No blood, at least.
They walked down the street, and the man pointed to a parked vehicle up ahead.
It looked nothing like the hovercars Pei Ran had seen—no sleek curves, just sharp, intricate lines. But it was in perfect condition, polished black paint gleaming, not even dust on the wheels. Clearly a collector's piece.
Problem was, a thug was standing next to it—swinging a metal pipe.
Crash.
The side window shattered.
In times like these, any working vehicle was a prize. Everyone wanted one.
The coat man immediately let go of his sister's hand and rushed over.
He didn't shout. Just tapped the thug on the shoulder, gestured to the car, then to himself, as if saying: That's my car.
Pei Ran: "…"
The guy was being way too polite. He just gave up the chance to smack the thug from behind.
Sure enough, the thug glanced at him, raised the pipe, and swung.
The man dodged just in time, then punched back, landing a clean hit to the thug's jaw.
The thug staggered, took a second look—this was some rich guy with two girls, holding what looked like an antique car key.
He'd been wondering how to start the car—now the key was being handed to him.
Delighted, he attacked again.
No words. No sound. Just a brutal fight.
Pei Ran could tell at a glance: the thug was going for the kill. Every swing aimed at the man's head.
If even one landed, the man would be dead.
He fought like a boxer—good technique, decent reflexes—but too clean. No dirty moves. No eye gouges, groin kicks, or chokeholds.
This wasn't a match. It was a street fight.
And the thug had the upper hand.
He found an opening, wound up for a deadly swing—
And tripped.
He went sprawling, face-first into the curb.
He twisted to look back—only to see the older of the two girls standing behind him.
She had silently crept up, one knee on his back, pinning him down, one hand gripping his pipe-wielding arm—
CRACK.
His arm twisted into an unnatural angle.
Pei Ran's move had been silent, sudden, and terrifyingly efficient.
The man froze. He had never seen someone break another person so casually, so precisely—as if she'd done it hundreds of times before.
Before he could react, someone yanked his arm, pulling him back.
A second later, the thug let out a blood-curdling scream—
That was abruptly cut off.
Thud. Silence.
People nearby had noticed the fight. In this chaos, it wasn't unusual. But no one had seen how Pei Ran moved. One second the thug was attacking, the next he was dead.
Even the younger girl snapped out of her trance and stared at Pei Ran in shock.
And Pei Ran…
She felt something strange.
Someone was watching her.
Not the siblings. Not the bystanders.
It was the feeling of being tracked, like back in the bunker—right before an ambush. Hair standing on end. A chill down her spine.
She turned her head.
And saw it.
Across the street, near the rubble of the collapsed Federal Library, something hovered in the air.
A silver sphere. White letters painted on its side: DOD.
Half-shaded by the neighboring building, the sphere glimmered faintly. It hovered in silence, one single black eye fixed coldly on her.
She remembered what people on the bus had said:
This was the Federation's new AI, recently activated by the Department of Defense to handle all national security matters.
A voice echoed in her memory:
"I can guarantee that every law-abiding citizen is absolutely safe."
Pei Ran had just ripped open a pharmacy's secure cabinet, dislocated someone's arm, and—indirectly—killed a man.
She wasn't sure if she still counted as a "law-abiding citizen" in this world.