Every Stuffer Shack looks just the same, exactly like every other- a handy design gimmick from your friends at
Aztechnology (
Your Friends in the Business... TM).
These places in Denver are exactly the same as the ones in Seattle, or in New York, or any other hole that needs 24-hour coffee and sim supply. You could walk the isles of any Stuffer Shack blindfolded, and if it wasn't for the shoddy matrix connection to this place, probably caused by local hackers stealing signal, you would just order from home and have a drone deliver it to your dive. Hell, given the amount of nuyen you've dropped into this place, you should probably own stock.
The sky is gray with clouds, lit by the street lights of the city. The air is cold and crisp, with that bite you really only get in the mile high city. The snow is caught in little flurries of wind, gathering on the pack that barely melted from the sun yesterday. You wipe your nose and push through it, looking forward to the lukewarm reception at the store; anything is better than freezing in the street.
The parking lot in front of the store is almost completely empty- a Ford Americar with a broken window is parked crooked on the Handicapped spot directly in front of the store. You snicker at the broken window; Denver's weather of choice this season, snow, is unforgiving to car interiors, even synthetic ones. Anyone who's ever smelled rotting synth-pleather is not eager to repeat the experience. There's a ten year old Honda Spirit that could probably use three new tires, parked in the 'employee reserved' parking spot with half a foot of snow piled on top of it.
Someone is making the big nuyen. </sarcastic smiley emoticon>
As Eric approaches the front door of the Shack, the automated doors slide aside, and he's assaulted by a wave of AROs.
"Welcome back to the Shack, Mister Dubois!" The cheerfully impersonated voice says.
"It says here in our records that you recently purchased World of Shadowcraft! Were you aware that you can purchase in-game items using your credit account? Click here to link your credstick to the game!There are AROs for Neil the Ork Barbarian, recently remade by Horizon; for Nutrisoy, all of your daily vitamins and minerals in one edibile package; For a bunraku sim you downloaded once as a teenager; For mixed drinks and hangover cures; for candies, sorted by your color preferences and past purchases.
Among the hail of messages, each items helpfully asks in a cheerful voice,
"Was this item helpful to you?" Lemmings.Off to your left, just on the other side of the credit transfer station, is a small 'fresh fruit' stand. You stand in front of the holographic representation of fruit in the display, drooling as he thought of the taste of grapes. Wouldn't it be great if Stuffer Shack sold stuff like that? Sadly, this is an ordering kiosk for straight-to-home delivery, where the voice narrates that
"Estimated delivery would be in just __Error. >>Address unknown. >>File new address with Corporate office >>Address necessary to generate delivery estimate." A small screen pops up, where you can punch in your address, using street numbers or a GPS estimate.
As Sly enters the building, the LAN hits off his commlink, set to silent, and then defaults to the RFID in his fake liscense.
"Welcome, Mister Dante Inferno!" The helpful voice chimes in, continuing
"We show that you have never shopped here before, and we are grateful to have you as a new customer!" As you glance around, the layout of the store pops up in your display, although you don't really need it; nearby product on the shelves, identified by RFID tags, begin playing advertisements. The Horizon ads are the hardest to ignore- they're so hot that some groups claim they're psychotropic.
"Please, take a moment to fill out our customer satisfaction survey!" The jolly voice continues
"We can notify you of incoming products that fit your requirements for diet and nutrition! Your feedback is very important to us!"Half of the products that pop up in the AR window have ARO warnings that tell you these products have no nutritional value, or a (much smaller) warning that the products have passed their expiration dates. Each product has an ARO logo pop up, and the following drop-down menu:
Purchase this item, Purchase this item online for home delivery, check local markets for pricing, and shop related items.As a first time customer, a list of the 'freshest' products and a special one-time only discount pops up, advertising their most popular items.
Near the back of the store, there's the mecca of Stuffer Shack- the soykaf machine.
It warms up as you approach, like an old friend seeing you come in on the security scanner. AROs throw out a menu of possible drinks. Coffee with something called selective-serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, called
"Happy Caffee" was the top seller this week, with new nicotine-added soykaf
"Jittery Java" a close second. Beyond that were your
Euro-vanilla roast, your basic "
Black Kaf," and "
Weak Sauce," the new re-branded decaf soykaf, for the extreme impaired.
The ork behind the counter, an overweight teenage guy with a bad complexion, ignores an equally unappealing dwarven girl chattering at him as she reads through her beauty magazine. The employee is reading through his Horizon SimStarlet guide, watching short clips as his eyes check the timestamp for the end of his shift.
Outside in the street, Sundance shivers against the cold, trudging through the snow and finally giving up and moving to the slush in the street. There's not much worse than walking in brown and yellow slush, but walking in knee-deep drifts of snow and refrozen ice make the list.
