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Plenty of the food court stalls are unmanned. The signage displays oversaturated facsimiles of food, but they beat nutrient blocks any day. Shoppers would come here to spend their credits on expensive food, after wasting the rest on luxuries in the mall. Most of the human-owned ones are on discount, signaling where the customer redirection protocol is active. It’s a little insidious, but ultimately kind in intent. The system is meant to manipulate user behavior through thousands of little psychology tricks, until guests check out the struggling human-owned stores first and foremost. It’s the only way people get business, when commerce and retail is a niche hobby all of its own.
Unfortunately, it’s not going to help you here. You only need to be redirected to one thing, and he’s not for sale. You march across the tables and chairs, seeking out your missing Code Cracker.
“Doc! You in here? Doc!”
You don’t hear anything. Each stall has a back room with a kitchen, so you’ll need to search one by one. There’s nothing else in the food court. Just tables, chairs, storefronts and kitchens. No management office or bathroom or cutlery washing area. Neither you, nor anybody in your era thinks this is anything out of the ordinary. It’s how every food court is.
Eventually, as you call for your missing friend, you hear a distant groan from a sushi stall’s back kitchen. You barge past the counter and push the plastic curtain open.
Sitting there on the ground is Doc, chained to a large pipe by red shackles. Some of his Digimon are scattered throughout the room as well. One Kokuwamon, and a very scratched up and damaged Solarmon.
