It took quite a bit of effort to weave in and out of the crowds, and a number of times Alan accidentally jostled someone. He quickly walked forwards, hoping no one would notice anything. As luck would have it, no one did. In fact, no one even glanced his way, not even the military police wearing some sort of fancy headgear.

As Alan approached the shop he saw the back of a man who had just exited. He looked a lot like Icewolf, but that couldn’t be. Icewolf had told Alan that he’d be off world in a serious quest and thus unavailable in the Game for a while. Also, based upon the data he’d received from the Thought Emporium, the man’s username was IronEagle, not Icewolf.

Another player, an IronBear, opened the door to the store; Alan crept in behind him. There was definitely something up with the store, if the names were any tip-off. The shop looked similar to many of the other equipment stores Alan had browsed, although it was a bit larger. There were racks of various laser rifles and human guns behind safety glass, as well as Kevlar body armor in addition to some rather simplistic power armor, which, if the seal was to be believed, was made in the USA.

IronBear walked up to the counter.

“Hello, I’d like to pick up a special package.” He slid across a coin of some sort.

“Certainly, sir, that will be 2500 credits.” The counter was manned by a loosely humanoid shaped robot on wheels rather than a human being.

“Alright, and remember the extra helping of freedom.”

“God bless Earth.” The robot disappeared into a back room, then reappeared with a large brown crate. What was in it, Alan had no idea, but apparently IronBear wanted to make sure he’d gotten the right item, as he sliced open the top, peeking inside. Alan looked over IronBear’s shoulder, invisible.

There was a bomb inside. Alan scrambled backwards. IronBear suddenly looked about, as though he’d felt Alan's presence. Maybe Alan had stepped a bit too close. IronBear hurriedly strode out of the store.

As Alan let out a sigh of relief, the robot shopkeeper turned and stared directly at him, and said, “And how may I help you today, sir?”

Alan froze. Then, waiting a second to make sure IronBear was far enough away, he darted out the front entrance door, ignoring the robot completely. No doubt it had some sort of advanced technology and had detected him as soon as he entered the shop. Luckily the robot hadn’t noticed anything odd, and assumed he was another customer. Thank god for poor programming.

As he was about to return to the shopkeeper with this new information, he realized that he wasn’t even sure it was illegal to sell a bomb. With people selling weapons of all sorts, what was illegal, anyways?

The bomb will definitely be deemed illegal by the military, Eve told Alan.

Oh, and why is that?