It took us close to half an hour to order food for everyone. The food court had so many different stalls and types of food that no one could agree on what to try. I briefly considered just ordering some food through Nyx to break the stalemate, but Jane quickly quashed that idea. Apparently this was ‘part of the experience.’

  I ended up trying the turbo taco extreme meal from this place called Mexi-Mix, which was decorated like an adobe building and which had a cactus mascot wandering around outside.

  A lot of the restaurants actually had mascots wandering around, some unique, others just the plush samurai wearing an apron with the restaurant’s logo. Despite obviously being nothing more than corporate billboards, most of the kids loved them. They were surrounded by swarms of kids asking for photos and autographs.

  I’d never understand the tastes of the rich.

  Since I’d already spent a couple minutes helping Issi get her lunch, a simple grilled cheese from the ‘budget’ stand, I was the last to get back to the table. Everyone was already slowly picking through their meals when I arrived.

  “What the heck are those?” I asked as I sat across from Jennifer and Eddie. They both had a huge burger with three patties, which was absolutely covered in several different sickly sweet-smelling sauces.

  “Kids meal,” Jennifer replied, wrinkling her nose. “The regular burgers were five layers, and I wasn’t feeling hungry, so I asked Jane to get me the smallest thing they had. I regret that now.”

  “That’s the kids' meal? It’s disgusting,” I scowled.

  “Thanks, I’m aware of that,” Jennifer grumbled.

  “I wike ib,” Eddie exclaimed through a mouthful of burger. He had so much sauce around his mouth that it was running down his face and dripping on the table.

  I sighed, grabbed the tiny napkin from my bag, and wiped him clean. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

  “What did you get?” Jennifer asked.

  “A ‘taco extreme’,” I said, pulling the thing out of my bag and removing the paper wrapping. Inside was some sort of hard shell filled with several types of spiced meat, beans, liquid cheese, and a foul-smelling sauce.

  I wrinkled my nose at the horrific mix of sweet and spicy smells, pulled a tiny bit of the meat out of the abomination, and popped it in my mouth.

  “Yeah… nope!” I exclaimed, wrapping up the thing again and dropping it back into the paper bag.

  “What happened to not wasting food?” Jennifer asked.

  “This isn’t food,” I grumbled.

  The girl glanced down at the pile of meat in front of her and then back up at me, hope in her eyes. I nodded, and she immediately wrapped the pile of meat back up in the sopping paper wrapper and unceremoniously dropped it back into her bag.

  “Jennifer!” Jane snapped from further down the table. She had a small tray of what appeared to be sticky rice, rolled around a variety of fillings. Even though they looked significantly better than what Jennifer and I had, she’d only picked at it so far.

  “I gave her permission,” I said, standing up and grabbing the greasy paper bag from the girl. Jane leaned back and looked at me questioningly.

  “That,” I said nodding towards the burger in Eddie’s hands, “is not food.”

  Jane frowned. “Alright, I know it doesn’t look that appetising, but couldn’t you at least have tried it?”

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  “She did, we both did, and trust me, the smell alone was sickening,” I said. Eddie frowned over the edge of his burger but didn’t stop eating.

  “Fine, but since you didn’t finish your meals, no treats,” Jane declared. I wasn’t going to argue. If the rest of the food around here was this bad, I wasn’t going to want it anyways.

  As I got up from the table, a tiny hand grabbed my sleeve. Issi slowly pushed the majority of her sandwich towards me.

  “Mine too, please,” the little girl asked quietly. I couldn’t see her face, just the top of her frog-shaped hoodie as she stared at the ground.

  “What’s the matter with your sandwich?” I asked quietly, crouching down in front of the tot. “You love grilled cheese.”

  “It tastes like burnt plastic and dirty cardboard,” the girl replied. Now that I could see under her hood, I could see the little girl’s ears were bright red, and she appeared to be on the edge of tears. Issi never wasted any food; she never took more than she could eat and always cleared her plate. She was probably the only one in the family that still took food conservation that seriously.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” I said, patting the girl on the head. “It’s okay, you’re not doing anything bad. This isn’t real food.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Of course!” I smiled. “I’ll get you something good, and as long as you promise to finish that, you don’t have to worry, okay?”

  “Okay!” the girl replied, with a small smile.

  I grabbed the sandwich and shoved it into my bag and immediately went to find a garbage can. Thankfully there was one not too far away, because the smell of burning plastic was overwhelming, even through the bag.

  When I got back to the table, Jane and Alan were shoving their food back into their bags, which caused me to raise an eyebrow.

  “I really wanted everyone to try the food and considered it part of the experience,” Jane muttered. “But there’s a difference between not wasting food and forcing everyone to eat garbage.”

  She turned towards Issi and the rest of the family. “I’m sorry, everyone; don’t feel like you have to finish your meals. It’s not worth it.”

  Eddie glanced around the table and stuffed the rest of the burger into his mouth. At least someone enjoyed their meal.

  “Deadbeat,” I called. “I need to borrow your backpack.”

  “No problem, boss,” the bear replied as she trotted over and turned around. I stuck my hand into the back of the oversized backpack. Normally the bag was full of spare magazines, along with medical supplies, so the squad could continue fighting for an extended period. I’d just asked her to remove the magazines, so I didn’t have to answer any awkward questions in case we went through any security scanners.

  I hadn’t realized how much space the ammo had actually taken up until I dug through the cavernous, mostly empty backpack.

  “Nyx, can you give me enough vegie snack packs for the family, please? Put them in something nondescript too. I don’t want everyone around us to see the standard samurai Tupperware and freak out,” I whispered to myself.

  No problem.

  I felt something fall into my hand and pulled out a handful of baggies full of carrots and celery. “Thanks, Nyx.”

  Issi’s eyes lit up when she saw them, but before I could pass them out someone started yelling. “Hey! Hey you, girl, no outside food!”

  “Oh, what the… heck,” I muttered, passing the small pile of baggies to Jane before turning to intercept the loudmouth.

  They had an outfit that screamed “rent a cop”. Black jacket, pants, and hat that were similar to a police uniform, but instead of a badge there was a little bronze pin that read “security”. The shoulders of the jacket were peppered with a variety of ads, and if I had to guess, the back probably was too.

  “Can I help you?” I asked politely as I stepped between the slightly overweight, wheezing guard and my family.

  “There’s no outside food allowed in the park! Company policy,” the man proclaimed. “It was clearly displayed on the terms and conditions displayed outside the gate. You have two choices. If you hand the food over to me now, I’ll just add a demerit to your family’s record, increasing the price of additional visits by ten percent. If you refuse, I’ll have to escort you to the entrance and ban you from returning.”

  “All that just because we brought outside food into the park?” I said, in disbelief.

  “Company policy,” the guard growled. He put a hand out to push me out of the way, only to find that I didn’t move an inch. Confused, he stepped back and looked at me again. “Move aside.”

  “If the company didn’t want people to bring outside food into the park, they should have provided some actually palatable food,” I replied quietly. “We tried your ‘food’, and couldn’t finish any of it. And that’s saying something, considering the slop I’ve had to eat over the years.”

  “That’s it, I’m done being nice you cocky little…” The guard growled as he reached for the baton on his belt. Before he could pull it, a shadow fell over me, causing the guard to pause.

  “Everything okay here, boss?” Bob growled.

  “I’m fine,” I replied. “Hey Nyx, do you still have access to the park network? I'd really like to avoid creating any more of a scene than we already have.”

  One step ahead of you, my AI replied.

  “Who are you talking to? How dare you disrespect me?” The guard yelled, spraying saliva on my hoodie. He seemed to be trying to work up some confidence to step forward and confront me again when he froze and went pale. He trembled as his eyes darted between me, Bob, and the other bears.

  “My mistake! Enjoy your day!” he exclaimed as he retreated, practically tripping over his own feet.

  I glanced around to see a number of people staring at us, but most had just completely ignored the confrontation. How desensitized would someone have to be to be able to completely ignore a situation like that?

  “What did you tell him?” I muttered under my breath.

  I just marked you as a samurai in the system. I didn't do it before, because you wanted to visit anonymously with the family, but it was the only way to solve the situation quickly and cleanly.

  “As long as it doesn’t interfere with the rest of our visit,” I muttered. “I’ve already had enough excitement for today.”

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