"Ah, excellent, finally got us a supervisor!" Jim declared with a smile. "The cart recovery department definitely needs experienced management! The previous supervisor got sucked into a dimensional rift that led to a realm of nothing but expired dairy products. His last words were 'I can smell the cheese from here!'"

"Off you go," Nessy said. "Lot section 49302 desperately needs its shopping carts retrieved from the cart kidnapping gang of toasters. You're authorized to use deadly force if necessary."

"Yes mam," Jim gave Nessy a salute. "I won't fail you, Miss…"

Jim squinted at Nessy's badge.

"Maxima Pawsome," Nessy tapped her badge which had Ms. Nessy Whitepaw crossed out with a black marker, the new name hastily and somewhat lopsided written above it.

Nessy's blue eyes were unnaturally wide, pupils dilated to pinpoints, and her paws constantly shifted and twitched. She looked like a hurricane survivor.

"I'll get right on it, Miss. Pawsome!" Jim rushed off to retrieve more equipment, vanishing in the distance, leaving me alone with the manic-looking, sleep-deprived husky.

"Get to it ASAP!" Nessy yelled at the retreating employee. "If you defeat the dastardly toaster gang there's a promotion in your future!"

She spun back to me. "Hi Alec! You're so cute you know. Did I ever tell you how cute you are? Because I'm telling you this now. The cutest cute cutesicle. I'ma lick you now, kay? Kay."

She licked my face. "Mmmm… Alec flava cutesicle."

A faint sound caught my attention. It sounded like…

"Help!"

The muffled call was barely audible, but distinctly there. I turned from the husky, scanning the equipment room.

My blood froze.

Behind one of the shelving units stood a shopping cart, but not an empty one. Inside, packed tightly together like sardines, were the Strand sisters—Katerina, Kaledoniya, and Kirra—their limbs handcuffed and strapped to the metal frame with hundreds of white zip ties, their snouts stuffed with what looked like dog chew toys secured with mad loops of zip ties connected to zip ties.

And standing beside them, handcuffed to the cart's handlebars, a bone-shaped dog toy strapped to her mouth, was Krysanthea. A dog collar encircled her neck, adorned with a lightning bolt charm that glinted in the fluorescent light. Her amber eyes met mine, wide with desperate urgency.

"Help!" She voiced again through the gag.

"Nessy," I began slowly, "what—"

A metallic clicking sound interrupted me.

I spun back toward Nessy just in time to see something unfolding from her wrist—a calculator watch that suddenly sprouted mechanical legs, transforming into a metal spider. Before I could react, the device leapt from her arm to mine, mechanical legs digging painfully into my flesh.

"Argh, fuck get off!" I yelped, trying to shake it off.

The spider-watch tightened its grip, a needle extending from its underbelly and plunging into my wrist. Pain shot up my arm as it drew blood, red sparks dancing across my vision.

[SAVEPOINT ACTIVE]

The message flashed in red text in my eyes as I staggered backward, still trying to dislodge the mechanical arachnid. It clung stubbornly, its red display flickering with strange, alien symbols.

That's when I noticed what else Nessy was wearing—a familiar compass hanging from a chain around her neck, and on her wrist, a bracelet of glass beads, each containing a tiny blue eye.

Katerina's calculator watch. Kirra's compass. Kaledoniya's eye-glass bracelet.

"Nessy, what the fuck?!" I demanded, unsuccessfully trying to pry the calculator watch off my wrist.

Nessy's expression was unchanged—that same manic, caffeine-fueled grin.

"Sam had to help Frodo!" she declared, her speech slightly disjointed. "We're going to Mount Doom! Well, not really Mount Doom—more like Mount Shelf. That's where we return the artifacts that were never paid for!" She bounced on her toes. "Never will be paid for! Too expensive. Much too expensive. No wages could cover it, no, no, no."

Her rapid rambling was punctuated by twitches and occasional barks of snickering.

"The spider rewinds time!" she continued, pointing at the watch on my wrist. "The compass points to glory! The eyes accelerate! All taken without payment! All must be returned to their rightful shelves!"

I slowly began to understand. The artifacts had never been meant for the sisters to keep—they were meant to be paid for or returned. And since they couldn't be paid for...

"Right, these are their artifacts," I said, gesturing toward the captive raptors. "You took them. Why?"

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"Confiscated!" she corrected, waggling a finger at me. "Am manager! The Superstore doesn't forget. It calculates. It waits. I'm just helping collect some overdue cosmic debts as any Goodly supervisor ought to do! No, no, G-Supercenter employees should not be wielding stolen items willy-nilly. I'm supervising! This is supervisery! The best kind of…"

I ignored the husky and approached Krysanthea. Her amber eyes tracked my movement, communicating silent urgency. As I reached for the zip ties that secured the chew toy to her snout, Nessy ranted on and on about proper supervision behind me.

I realised that there was no way for me to pull off the zip ties to allow Kristi to speak—there were far too many of them.

"Nessy," I turned back to the wild-looking husky. "Why are the raptor sisters bound to a shopping cart?"

"They were far too mouthy," Nessy replied, bending a finger, then another. "Mouthy, obstinate, contrary, defiant, argumentative, combative, confrontational, contentious, fractious, pugnacious, quarrelsome, impossible… MEAN! Do you know what Samwise Gamgee did to Gollum? Well, no, what Sam should have done? Sam should have smacked that little shit to get him in line. Maybe if he did, then Frodo wouldn't be missing a finger at the end of LOTR!"

Her words tumbled out in a manic flood, her body vibrating with nervous energy as she paced in a circle around me like a fluffy shark.

"Do you know how long they've been awful to me? YEARS!" She threw her paws up dramatically. "Years and years and years of bullying and torment! The gum they put in my fur before the formal that had to be cut out! The time they spread rumors I ate cat poop! The fake birthday party invitation that sent me to the wrong address where I sat alone for two hours in a restaurant before realizing no one was coming!"

She was practically foaming at the mouth now, years of bottled resentment pouring out in a caffeine-fueled tirade.

"Their stupid raptor friends tripping me in the hallway! The fake love letter they wrote to humiliate me at the winter dance! Slashing my bike tires! Putting rotting meat in my locker! Spreading rumors that I had fleas! The 'anonymous' emails to Ferguson High admin claiming I cheated on tests and was selling drugs!"

Her claws flexed and unflexed as she continued. "And oh, let's not forget Kristi, their ringleader! 'Too good' to bully me directly, but never stopped her sisters, did she? No! Just stood by and WATCHED while they made my life MISERABLE!"

Nessy spun to face the bound raptors, pointing an accusing finger at them.

"And now? NOW? When I'm trying to SAVE THEM from themselves, trying to get their souls back, do they listen? NO! They argue and fight and call me 'stupid mutt' and 'brain-dead canine' and tell me my plan is ridiculous! Even after I proved I was right about EVERYTHING! MY IQ ISN'T SEVEN, BY THE WAY!"

She pulled the nail studded bat from a strap on her backpack and tapped the raptor-packed shopping cart making it wobble and making its occupants wince and stare at her with hatred and panic in their eyes.

"Nessy…" I began.

She turned back to me.

"They wouldn't LISTEN, Alec! They were going to keep fighting the store, doing a terrible job, getting low performance rates, and keep getting deeper in debt! Keep LOSING more soul fragments until there was nothing left of em! So I had to MAKE them listen! I HAD TO!"

Her voice cracked slightly, a hint of desperation breaking through the mania.

"I'm SAVING them! Don't you see? They've always been mean to me, but I'm still saving them because that's what good dogs DO! We protect people even when they are MEAN LIZARDS who steal my pack mates and mock our intelligence and call us STUPID!"

She panted heavily after her outburst, fur standing on end. Five and a half weeks without sleep had clearly pushed her over an edge I hadn't realized was there.

"The artifacts have to go back," she continued. "They're stealing souls. Can't pay the price. Too high. Wages not enough. Must return to Mount Shelf. Must fix this. Even if they hate me more. Even if they never thank me. I'm saving their ungrateful, scaly butts."

I approached her slowly, hands raised in a placating gesture. "Nessy, I understand. You're trying to help. But this isn't the way. Let me help you think this through. You clearly need sleep, and they need to be untied."

"What, so they can call me more names and be obstinate fucks? Yeah, I don't think so! I've had enough of their shit. Enough, enough, enough! I'm not going to put up with it! They don't want to be in a pack with me. They never did. Especially not now. They're raptors, Alec. They see everything as prey, property or competition that needs to be eliminated or pushed out of their territory!"

"Nessy," I said softly, "you need to rest. This isn't you talking—it's no sleep and whatever was in those coffees."

"NO!" she barked, jabbing the nail-studded bat toward me. "I don't need sleep! Sleep is for the WEAK! I'm STRONG! Strong enough to fix everything! Strong enough to save these stupid lizards from themselves! Strong enough to protect you from everything bad here!"

She began pacing in tight circles around me again, her tail stiff behind her.

"You know what happened after you left for university, Alec? After you abandoned me?" She didn't wait for a response. "They got WORSE. So much worse."

Her voice took on a haunted quality as she continued. "Kristi wouldn't even look at me anymore. Just walked past like I was invisible. But her sisters? They made sure I knew I existed. Oh yes."

The bat thumped against the shopping-cart bound raptors rhythmically as she spoke, punctuating her words.

"Katerina started rumors I was mentally unstable. Said I was obsessed with you. That I had built a shrine to worship you. That I slept with your clothes." She laughed bitterly.

I looked at her pointedly.

"Okay, those last three are technically true, but that's not the point!" She huffed.

I glanced at Katerina in the cart, who couldn't respond with the bone-shaped toy gagging her, but whose eyes blazed with hostility.

"Four years, Alec. FOUR YEARS without you to make me feel less alone, and they never stopped. Never got bored. Never found a new target!"

I approached Nessy carefully, recognizing the dangerous state she was in. Sleep deprivation mixed with what appeared to be weeks of bottled rage and years of raptor-related trauma had transformed the usually cheerful husky into a ball of spiky rage.

She began pacing in tight circles again.

"Kirra organized a 'Whitepaw Appreciation Day' at the auto shop where I worked. Convinced a bunch of their friends to bring in their cars and demand I fix them for free because 'dogs work for treats, not money.'" Nessy's voice cracked. "Will chased them off, but the damage was done. We lost three clients who believed the lies that I was an incompetent drunkard who can't fix anything and will sabotage cars I work on!"

She pointed the bat at Kaledoniya. "This one used to drive by Will's garage every day in her Mustang just to throw trash on our property. She'd speed off before I could even get out the door."

The youngest Strand sister had the decency to look slightly ashamed despite her current predicament.

"Das right, feel shame for your diresome deeds, you devious creatures!" Nessy grinned and started humming something softly under her breath.

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