Wearing an N95 mask, dark sunglasses, and a Seagulls ballcap, Jack walked up to the counter and handed the scan card with his chosen lottery numbers to the cashier. To help Jack look heavier, Madison had helped him craft an amateur fat suit using old clothes purchased from a thrift store, and he was sweating like a pig under all those layers. He also found it awkward walking around in the pair of platform shoes they found. The shoes made him look taller, but they were several sizes too big for him and even with the five layers of socks, he felt like he was swimming in them. He was going to be so happy to get home and shed this ridiculous outfit.
As Jack watched the cashier feed the scan card to the lottery machine, he noticed that the man's hand was trembling. The cashier was an older gentleman, so Jack just assumed he had the beginnings of palsy. After the machine finished processing the scan card, and spat out a lottery ticket, the cashier fiddled with the cash register, then handed Jack his lottery ticket.
Jack took the ticket, turned and started walking towards the door. Neither he nor the cashier had spoken during the entire transaction. Jack had kept his mouth shut because he didn't want the cashier to remember his voice. He wasn't sure why the cashier had remained silent, but was happy to have avoided the awkwardness of refusing to reply to polite conversation.
As he exited the convenience store, he heard the throaty growl of car engines and the almost squeal of tires. He looked up just in time to see four police cruisers roar into the convenience store parking lot and come to a screeching stop. Before the cars had even fully stopped, cops were pouring out of their vehicles.
The cops were brandishing shotguns and pistols and were all shouting a confusing mix of instructions.
"GET ON THE GROUND!"
"HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!"
"TURN AROUND, HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD!"
"KNEEL, HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD!"
Paralyzed with shock and fear, he did nothing, just stood there frozen.
Several of the cops eventually got on the same frequency and said simultaneously, "HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!"
He was holding his lottery ticket in his right hand, gripped between thumb and forefinger. He felt three competing urges, one to do nothing, two to comply, and three to show them his lottery ticket and say, "look, I'm unarmed". Still discombobulated from having several large, armed men screaming commands at him, these three competing urges resulted in mixed signals going to his arms. His left arm bent at the elbow only and jerked his left hand up to shoulder height, a compromise between doing nothing and putting his arm all the way up. His right arm did the same, but also pushed his hand forward, a compromise between do nothing, hand in the air, and hand all the way forward at shoulder height. The result: it looked a bit like Jack was pointing something at the heavily armed, poorly trained, underpaid, amp'ed on adrenalin, law enforcement officers. No one should be surprised at the result.
The first bullet struck Jack in the left shoulder just under his collarbone. The next struck him just under his ribs on his right side. The third grazed his left hip. And before he could even register that he'd been shot, there was a blinding flash, and he found himself standing in his soul space.
After a few moments of stunned silence, he felt something welling up within him and the pressure built and built until he couldn't take it anymore and he screamed. Then took a deep ragged breath and screamed again. The pressure subsided, and he found he could finally think again.
Fuck me! What. The. Fuck. Was. That!!! He'd always liked to think he would be cool as a cucumber if he ever faced a danger situation, but that belief was lying in crispy, deep fried, little pieces on the floor, along with his pride. Seriously, why did he even think about trying to show the very armed, very excited cops his lottery ticket? He'd read stories about accidental deaths because someone pointed something at a cop and got shot, so he should have known better than to even think about it.
And why were they even there? There's no way they had shown up for him. He wasn't in the store long enough. Even if there was a secret button for the cashier to press, it was less than three minutes from the time he pulled into the parking lot to when the cops showed up. Even if Cedarbrook was a more upscale community, there was no way the cops could have such a fast response time. They must have already been on their way when he arrived. Maybe something had happened just before he got there? The cashier's hand had been trembling. Maybe they got robbed, and the robbers had left just before he arrived.
As he plopped down onto the couch in soul space, he realized he was trembling. When he raised his right hand, he found it was shaking so badly he could have used it as a paint mixer. Fuck! Those last few moments were seared into his mind. He was a little surprised to realize he had barely registered the bullet strikes. The first had felt like a light push, and the rest felt like a weird tug, but from a string that was attached to his insides. He assumed the bright flash at the end was from one of the shotguns, or a direct hit to his brain.
As he sat there trying to calm down, he realized he might have a problem. Was he now going to have flashbacks anytime he tried to enter or leave a gas station convenience store? To give themselves more real-world time, he had stopped continuous memory sync so he could run the simulation at the maximum 10:1 time ratio. So, he could just disable parallel self, thus deleting himself. But then his physical self would be left wondering what happened. He could leave a note on his laptop for his next soul space manifestation, but that felt unsatisfactory. He really didn't like the way he had handled that situation.