Warm weather melted leftover snow into pools of murky water.

"Avery is adding more guards, and we'll make sure Betsy misses the Christmas rush," Grew-Ella said. "Dot's mother will pick her up, but my ride is here to take me to the auto shop."

Betsy and Grew-Ella left together.

Quig called Betsy daily and volunteered to take her to and from school, but afterward, he'd go to work or sit at home alone.

He often drove the long way to and from the elementary school to Dot's house, and he'd buy Betsy a cheap chickpea hot dog, or he'd pack sandwiches so that they at least could have breakfast and dinner together. Quig always gave her two school lunches, one for his daughter, and one for a young student who wasn't as blessed as Betsy to receive regular meals. However, Grew-Ella funded those extra meals for the hungry preschooler.

Each day blurred together, and the loneliness ached within him. Quig couldn't stand the silence of his apartment, so he called his mother.

"Mom... Avery, please mail me my special nuptial bracelet, so I can offer Grew-Ella a fake engagement to protect her from Zoreon, and so I can look better in court. Can I retrieve it before I leave? I gotta secure my housing and buy groceries, and Dot may or may not meet up with me." He peered into his near-empty kitchen cabinets, and he ended his phone call.

Only sacks of rice and a bag of dried onions remained. Quig needed to supplement his food printer. Hungry cooks didn't rely on them alone; unless their taste buds were partially dead.

He walked to his mother's apartment down the hall, but they couldn't locate it in her sparkly bead and craft room after an hour of searching.

"I'll mail it to you or walk over when I find it," she said.

"It was a stupid and manipulative idea anyway," Quig said.

"No, it's sweet." His mother hugged him.

*

Fourteen Minutes Later:

The campus grocery store was closed as workers repaired the weather-beaten doors and windows.

He kept driving, parked at a Celebrity Pawn Shop, and entered the freshly painted building. Fine art, silks, and celebrity memorabilia covered the walls.

Salesmen polished gold Royal Moth Cars in the center of the showroom floor.

The shop owner waved at him. She stood behind a long steel table, positioned goggles over her bunny ears, and pulled them over her eyes.

Quig slid his ex's nuptial bracelet, a pocket watch, and a ring out of a small bag. "Please, place a third directly into the university's campus housing account, a half to my lawyer, and the rest I need in cash."

She sent the payment via her tablet and handed him the money. "I sold your cabin, sports car, and speedboat as a package deal. After I take my cut, it'll go into your teacher's account in a week."

He walked next door to the government-owned grocery store when the ready button dinged.

Photo-shopped posters of Silvan-Mack covered every inch of the once-gray walls, making the elf man with long, flowing gray and white hair appear younger, and a fur cape flung over his black suit.

Dingy and once-grand chandeliers hung and cast a foggy glow around the store.

Quig bought a similar first grocery box as the elite man and badged woman who stood beside him at the pickup counter.

The tall, cat woman waved her cash, her second badge newly pasted on her fuzzy flesh. She turned into a human.

The unacceptable woman paid double the elite male.

"You haven't paid the extra ugliness tax," the salesman said to her.

She handed him more money. "Why steal from unacceptable women and reject men? The tax drives rejects and unacceptable women to shop in underground markets, but I need toilet paper, and the Workhouse has a monopoly on it."

"You're a creature and deserve to live in the workhouse with other criminals." The salesman pointed to her teeth.

"She isn't a creature," Quig said.

"When she receives her third badge, she will be dressed in orange." The salesman winked at Quig.

Her voice became softer. "You know nothing about the workhouses. They were once sweatshops, and the private prisons ran out of murderers and thieves, so they filled their walls with innocent people."

"Ugly women and offensive rejects are not innocent," the salesman said.

"Sir, I hope you don't earn reject status because no one deserves it for non-criminal offenses." She handed him her money. "Who cares if someone says something stupid online? Intentions should matter." The woman positioned the boxes of groceries inside a pine wagon and dragged the load behind her.

"You'll have to wait for the rest of your order. It'll be packed in less than an hour," the salesman said to Quig.

The woman stared at Quig but said nothing, but stared at the ground when their eyes met.

"Oh...fine." Quig followed the woman. "Are you okay?" he asked the lady. "Hi, I'm Quig Curie-Lock. Well, actually, my full last name is a mouthful."

She trembled as if she was waiting for Quig to strike her, and her entire body stiffened. "Sir, I know who you are. I'm Tiffany G. Hempstead. My ex told me you saved Karen Eliot's life, and everyone at the tent village tells me about how much you donated even after you were canceled. When I was in the workhouse, friends of mine received your care packages." She parked her wagon near a muted green bench, painted with fake roses.

Quig smiled warmly at her as if they were old friends. "Oh, I love your name. I know lots of Tiffanies. Tiffany is my daughter's middle name. It's an Earth 1 name from the Middle Ages, but I have a deep connection to the name."

"Cute." She stopped and shook his hand, waiting for him to flinch. "Why'd you pick it?"

Quig shook her hand back. "I chose my daughter's middle name after my friend's Grew-Ella's, bio mom. Tiff made sacrifices to ensure she was safe, and that Karen adopted her instead of rich people who wanted a pet, not a daughter. Tiff helped me adopt my daughter because she went back to school to be a social worker. I felt she needed to be honored as a bio mom." Quig sat on a bench and waited.

Her whole body seemed to relax. "I honestly thought you'd be fake and secretly working for Zoreon. He's worse than anyone knows and has sold women from alternative universes. The temporal watch Phyllis has belongs to him."

"I didn't know you could even use time travel for evil, but I... don't work for Zoreon. He is super creepy... killed my brother and tried to kill me. Just because he bought my publisher doesn't mean I'm his stooge."

"It's weird, but you seem sincere." She smiled at him. "Can I dump my personal issues on you? I lost all my friends with my status change." She sat closer to him. "I need someone to talk to."

He showed off his ID card. "Boy, do I understand; there were people I thought were my friends, but when I almost received reject status, most of them abandoned me."

Tiffany cracked her back over the bench's top. "My best friend betrayed me to the workhouse, and my ex-boyfriend tore my heart out when he married someone else, and I don't know what I was thinking. Why would someone like him ever be interested in me?" Tiffany folded her arms. "I loved him, not because he's attractive, but because he's genuinely good-hearted. Like the sweetest cinnamon roll, and visionary too. So, him marrying a woman who already trashed his heart confused me."

"Sometimes people do stupid things for validation, but sometimes people do things for noble reasons that we don't understand." Quig's broken wing drooped. "Maybe he was interested in you and then let society dictate who he could be with. I was in love with a woman who refused to be with me because of status, or at least that is the lie I tell myself."

Tiffany nodded. "I heard he's divorcing her from that woman who is in charge of marriage laws. What is her... name? Oh, Lana Rake. His ex treated him terribly, and a big part of me wants to tell him that I'll be there for him."

"If he's divorced yes, divorcing no. Divorcing but still married is a drama you don't want. That is how my oldest sister's marriage started, and it is a disaster. They've been married and divorced three times. He's a cheating alcoholic. Also, if he buys elite label merchandise, he's too into the lifestyle."

"You're full of wisdom, and I hope you and your lady love end up with each other," Tiffany said.

The salesman yelled. "Professor Quig, your order is ready!"

"I need to go anyway, or I'll be late for work." Tiffany shook Quig's hand a second time and left.

Quig showed the salesman his identity card along with another order slip, and the man handed him pallets of canned food of all kinds and packages of crunchy peppermint drops.

The elite male purchased an additional box filled with frozen lobsters. Only for elites was written on the packaging.

Elite black and gold-labeled merchandise was a type of bragging, but most elites loved to gloat that they could buy luxuries from government markets.

Quig left to shop at a tent village on Pigeon Street.

Men and women erected multicolored tents in once-abandoned lots, tossing piles of branches into brick fire pits to survive the bitter cold of a record cold autumn. Earthy-scented smoke comforted their surrounding noses.

Quig waved at a few villagers, and he drove on their main road toward their shopping district.

Villagers strung homemade necklaces with tiny lanterns to light their paths.

Men wore muted green clothes with insults sewn into their clothes.

Females wore scratchy wool muted green sack dresses with knit caps. Plastic identity cards dangled around their dominant wrists to signify they were the lowest ranking of acceptable women. If not married, considered ugly, or in debt, they could have a badge glued to their skin at any moment.

Villagers boiled water under a tin-roofed open pavilion for warmth and cleanliness. Some moved jugs or laundry toward their tents.

In another pavilion, shop owners made soap.

Quig drove past a makeshift stone barn erected in the middle of the village.

Sheep bleated and chickens clucked as the smoke lifted from its chimney.

He turned right at a semi-truck labeled: Showers, parked his station wagon, and entered a three-hundred-person-sized tent labeled Pigeon Street Market.

Customers moved in and out with groceries bought from handmade or discarded tables.

Dot approached him.

"I thought I missed you due to that salesman taking forever," Quig said.

Her temporal watch glowed on her wrist. "I knew where you'd be, but don't ask me how, this machine is so complicated. The pawn shop owner says you pawned everything you owned to keep custody of Betsy."

"I didn't wish to burden you, but it wasn't just the lawyer's fees. I spent too much on stupid things that Betsy and I didn't need."

Her eyes softened, and her tail slumped. "Did you feel I was a burden when Zoreon murdered our brother and left me parenting his kid?"

"Of course not."

Dot carried a large crate of groceries and a muted green suit.

Happiness and joy reached her face and eyes, even though she appeared sad at the same time. Conflicting emotions fought each other for the battle within her heart. "I married Ruby this morning, and if you returned my messages, I would've told you."

"Congratulations..." Quig paused. "While I don't understand gay marriage, you know I'll love you forever, but... um... why didn't you invite me? I wouldn't have ignored a message that you were getting married."