Jon shivered a bit as they entered the frozen foods; having a semi-liquid coating on what amounted to about half her body seemed to be improving her heat exchange rate, just like normal human perspiration. Which would be nice if she wanted to reach equilibrium with the temperature of her surroundings, but as it was she hoped they could finish up soon and move on to a warmer area of the store. She paused for a moment to consult the list her mother had given her.
"Hamburger," Mikey said. "I think she wanted the 85% lean."
"Eh?" Jon gave her little brother-turned-sister an inquisitive look. Mikey shrugged. "I looked over the list while we were driving," she said. "I guess I still remember it."
Karyn chuckled. "Hey, nice," she said. "Did you get a look at mine?"
Mikey nodded. "Yeah. Um, Sarah, what do you need?"
Sarah stared at her. "Huh? Why?"
The little gynoid shrugged. "It, um, it affects the shortest route through the store," she replied. "I...how do I know that?" She turned to her older sibling, looking a bit concerned. "Jon, what's going on?"
"Uh, I don't know," Jon said. "Maybe it's just something you can do now? Were you trying to figure out a route?"
She shook her head. "Nuh-uh. I just read the lists and looked at the store map by the door...maybe...oh, it's a path-finding background process? How do I know that? What does it even mean!?"
Jon was a bit lost for words. "I don't know," she said. "I guess that's just something about how your new body works. I don't think it's anything to worry about."
Mikey still seemed a little unnerved, but pulled herself back together with the best smile she could muster. "I guess," she said. "Sarah, what do you need?"
Sarah stared at her. "Um, bread, milk, cream-of-mushroom soup..." She rattled off the rest of her grocery list as best as she could remember it. Mikey listened intently, nodding, and then struck off towards the dairy section, the others following close behind her.
Jon didn't have any real way to know short of breaking out a measuring tape, but Mikey's route certainly did seem efficient. However, that didn't mean that the trip through the store was without incident. With as many other people in the store as there were, most of the aisles were a bit crowded, and the ones furthest from any possible sunlight were downright packed. Not only did this make getting certain things difficult, it meant some of the crowd were getting a bit irritable.
Mostly this manifested in sullen looks when Jon or Mikey had to reach past someone to grab something off a shelf, but one particular incident turned ugly. Jon was in the baking-goods aisle, looking for flour, when she passed a little too close to an older woman who was huddled up against the side of the aisle divider opposite the sun. The woman stared at Jon's slug half and gave a shriek. "Get back, you filthy thing!" she yelped.
Jon nearly jumped out of her skin at the woman's screech, and started to back away, but apparently not fast enough. The woman began to kick at her, then went a step further. She grabbed a small jar of salt off the spice rack, ripped the lid off, and dumped the contents onto Jon's foot, dropping the jar onto the floor, where it crunched into a little heap of glass shards.
Jon winced, expecting the worst, but while it did sting, it didn't seem to be doing any real harm. She continued backing away while she brushed it off of her skin; the area of contact was a little dehydrated compared to the rest of her foot, but otherwise unharmed; Jon supposed that she had her comparatively large body size to thank for that. The crazy lady stared bug-eyed at the apparently invincible monster before her, then bolted and ran for the back of the store. Unfortunately for her, pretty much everybody in the store had heard her screeching, and the ends of the aisle had been blockaded by a crowd of curious and concerned onlookers, not to mention two hefty-looking transformed employees.
The woman swung from one blocked exit to the other a few times, hyperventilating like a trapped animal, before the two employees, a brawny minotaur and an anthropomorphic she-bear, grabbed her by the shoulders. She struggled silently, moving her mouth like she was trying to speak, but apparently her speech centers had abandoned ship. Moments later, the store manager wormed his way through the crowd and into the aisle. He looked at the woman, then at Jon, then at the broken remains of the jar and the little pile of salt next to it. He clapped one hand to his forehead and walked over to the struggling woman.
As he turned to face her, the power of speech returned, and she immediately began raving about how she didn't do it and the jar had fallen on the floor by itself. The manager drew himself up to his full height, stared daggers at her, and held up a hand for her to stop; amazingly, she did. "Really," he said. "The jar fell off the shelf and the contents ended up in a pile a foot away? That's an interesting story." The woman's lip began to trembled as he continued. "I almost might have let you off with a warning, you know that? But you didn't just get violent. You tried to kill this poor girl. Stupidly, yes, and lucky for her it didn't work, but you tried to kill her. Really, I ought to turn you over to the cops, but I don't know if they're able to come out here yet." He turned to the impromptu bouncers. "Take her outside."
They lifted her clean off the floor and carried her, none too gently, towards the registers at the front of the store. She began to shriek and thrash, but a forty-something woman was simply no match for a bear and a bull. The manager turned to Jon. "I'm terribly sorry," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I'm afraid times like this tend to bring out the worst in people. Are you hurt?"
Jon shook her head. "No, I'm fine, thanks. It only stung a bit, and none of the glass got over to me. Are they really going to...?"
The manager nodded sadly. "I hate having to do it, but when people get crazy like that, they're going to end up hurting even more people if we don't remove them from the equation."
Jon almost considered going to watch, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Even if the crazy bitch did try to kill her, she didn't think she wanted to watch her lose her humanity (though she couldn't deny she'd get a certain amount of schadenfreude from it.) She grabbed a bag of flour as the manager started to sweep up the spilled salt and broken glass, then headed back towards Mikey and the rest to finish the shopping.
They got everything else on Mikey's mental list without further incident, then headed up to the registers. Fortunately, they came in slightly under their cas pool (although the three older girls had debit cards on them, if they had needed them.) Getting everything out to the van was a bit of a chore, but they managed. Jon looked around outside the store, but whatever her attacker had become, she had apparantly vacated the premises.
Amazingly, Sarah claimed to have walked to the store all the way from her house out past the suburbs; it had taken her most of the morning, she said. Needless to say, her legs were pretty tired, and she accepted the offer of a ride home a lot less grudgingly than she'd accepted the offer of help in the grocery store.
The ride was pretty quiet; Jon was still a bit shaken from her experience, and nobody else had much to say, until Mikey piped up. "Why didn't you fly?" she asked.
"Um," Sarah stammered, "um, I didn't know if I could? How would I know how to fly when I've never learned?"
Mikey shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "But you could try!"
Sarah shook her head. "I don't want to break something," she said. "It'd be bad enough if I knew the hospitals wouldn't be burned by looters or something, but now? Who knows?"
The robot-girl smiled. "Oh, come on!" she said. "I think you could! Jon knows how to move around with her foot-thing, Karyn knows how to use her tentacles for stuff, and I know how to...know the things I know? I bet you already know how to fly, if you'd just try!"
Sarah gave her a look. "Look," she said, "maybe, but...not now, okay? Maybe someday, but not today." Mikey looked a little disappointed, but refrained from pushing the point.
Which was just as well, since they had just pulled up in front of the McMillan house. It was a surprisingly tasteful house, more early-20th century elegance than modern McMansion, though the sunken garage built into the hill it sat on top of was definitely modern. Sarah got out and, after a few awkward attempts, managed to get one talon high enough to enter the passcode for the garage door. Jon pulled in as it opened, then shut after them. She, Mikey, and Karyn got out as Sarah opened the door into the house.
"MOM! DAD!" she shouted, in a commanding tone neither Jon nor Karyn had heard before. "I GOT THE GROCERIES! GET DOWN HERE AND HELP ME WITH THEM!" She waited a moment, listening, then sighed disgustedly. "They're probably hiding," she said. "You can just leave my stuff here; I'll go find them."
Jon shook her head. "No, it's no big deal. Besides, if they're in some kind of trouble, it'd be good to have someone who can still drive on hand." She and the other two unloaded Sarah's supplies from the back of the van, carried them up into the kitchen, and unpacked them at the harpy's direction.
"Look, um, thanks," Sarah said. "But you'd seriously better get going. You've got places to be, I've gotta check on my parents, and my mom would freak if she saw you leaving a slime trail on her floor, Jon."
Jon nodded. "Okay. But your parents...if they really do start getting crazy, give us a call, okay?" Sarah nodded, and gave just a hint of a smile. Jon, Karyn, and Mikey piled back into the van, pulled out of the garage, and headed back home.
