I don’t think beer is a good idea.
“You can count on me, Ming, This PTA mom is going to take good care of you!”
Once I had assured her that the prices for everything in the store had not been adjusted, the woman had relaxed quite a bit. I thought she might still not believe everything I had told her, but after hearing what had transpired outside the store, it was understandable hey she had quickly accepted my situation.
There had indeed been a major earthquake, and the damage to many buildings had been severe. The apartment building the woman had been in was still standing, but it was a larger, more expensive type, judging from her description. Still, she had complained about how much damage had been done, inside and outside her home.
It was a very unusual disaster, however. Just as the delinquents had explained, there was no power. That included batteries and even gasoline backup generators. Cars no longer worked. Landline phones were dead. No tools or technology worked at all. This seemed to me to be impossible. Even if there had been an electro-magnet whatever they call it, it shouldn’t affect a gasoline engine. At least I was pretty sure about that. I was starting to suspect that the reason the store had uninterrupted water and power might be actually be related to the total lack of power outside the store.
Not really anything I can do about it. There’s no way to even test things.
For now, she had loaded up her hiker’s rucksack with two large bottles of water, a portable food warmer, the kind that was just a metal can full of flammable gel, several packs of microwavable rice, instant ramen, and two loaves of sliced sandwich bread that had not reached their expiration date yet. I was impressed with her ability to hone in on very practical items until she grabbed a case of beer from the refrigerator.
“Now, explain to me how those rental power bank things work.”
While she had been explaining the happenings outside to me, I had told her about what I had been through, including the story about the three high school kids who had been here the first night. I left out the disappearance of Tanabe, my coworker, however, as well as most of the details I had gleaned about the Wanma AI.
“The thing is, you will need to use a One Mart digital wallet to use one apparently.”
I explained how the app could be installed simply by plugging it into a phone.
“Hmmm, I don’t have one yet, but I suppose I can sign up. It would be great if I could get something that works though. You sure it will get my phone working?”
“Well, it did for those kids. I can’t say for sure, but I think it will. If not, I can probably refund your money.”
She gave me a sly look.
“Sure ya will. You’re a clever one though. Don’t think about tricking this auntie, or I’ll haunt ya to your death.”
I read the details from the display to make sure.
“You’ll also need to have a balance of at least 20,000 yen in your wallet as a security deposit while the rental is active… Oh, and you can come in and hot-swap them in the store whenever you want. And, yeah, I can refund the rental charge if it doesn’t work.”
She nodded along, but kept her eyes locked on the display, with little blue lights on each battery.
“Fine, not like I am using this cash for anything else right now. So how do I use a digital wallet with no phone? I’ve never signed up before.”
“Ah, that’s no problem,” I said, smoothly slipping into my practice scripts.
“I can activate a new wallet with one of these cards. The card will hold the balance and act like a prepaid credit card. You even get a 1% cash-back bonus on most purchases. Once you get your phone charged, you can install the app through the USB cable, and register everything on your phone as well. After you have fully activated your account, you should be able to buy things, even when the store is in unmanned mode. You can just pick up what you want and confirm it on the monitors by the doors.”
I grabbed one of the unregistered cards from a display rack behind the register and scanned it in. Then I gestured to the touch panel where the user registration form was on the screen.
She gave me another look, then smiled. Peeling off five bills from the stack, she laid 50,000 yen on the counter.
“Go ahead and charge the card with this. Then I’ll deduct my purchase from the balance.”
I nodded, then entered the information into the terminal and scanned the card again to deposit the funds.
[New Campaign Alert: Wanma Digital Wallet charge has been registered. A new campaign will start.]
I blinked at the new pop-up that had appeared on the screen. I touched it, and the window closed and a new, larger one, full of text appeared.
[Wanma Digital Wallet Campaign! Level your shopping to the MAX! Charge up digital wallets for prizes and bonuses.]
[Campaign details. 1. Customer rewards. Activating a new digital wallet will automatically credit the account with 500 yen. All One Mart branded products (some exceptions apply) are discounted an additional 2% when purchased using digital wallet funds. Additional prizes and awards will be announced.]
[
- Store incentives. Level up your store. Additional employee benefits and enhanced store services will be made available through store participation. Store point balance will receive 1 point for every 1 yen used to charge any digital wallet in store. 100 points will be added for every new Wanma Digital Wallet activated in-store.
]
[Store #11,512. Current campaign point balance: 50,100]
[Progress to Tier 2, 50,100/1,000,000]
“What is it?” the woman asked. I realized that I had been quietly reading.
“Uhh, sorry. Nothing. It’s a new campaign. Since you have opened a new wallet account, you get an additional 500 yen added to your wallet balance. Also a 3% discount on any One Mart branded products like… this.”
I picked up the can of food-warming gel. It had the One Mart brand and a picture of Wanma on the side of the can.
“Discounts? You do know how to talk to housewives after all.” She said with a wink as a chill went down my back.
I checked the time. The warning timer had already appeared on the register. She had less than ten minutes before the store evicted her onto the street.
It was still daytime, and she had confirmed that the monsters seemed to avoid the sun, although she said they did it by breaking into buildings and hiding inside. They were still out there, and the streets were dangerous, even now.
“Luckily this auntie was a track star. Those kappa are dead slow, but if they get a hand on you, it’s all over.” She had explained grimly.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“The way they get ya is numbers. They move in big groups. If they can surround ya, there is nothing you can do. It doesn’t look so bad here, but the streets down the block… it’s pretty bad.”
I went over to the fresh food section and grabbed a bunch of the rice balls. I scanned them in and registered them for disposal. Before she said anything, I ran into the back and dropped them all into the return crate. I shoved them into an old plastic bag, one of the ones we used as trash bags in the break room. Hopefully, Wanma wouldn’t pick up on anything fishy going on. Giving away food bought with an employee discount was another big no-no, so I wasn’t sure what giving away the rice balls would do. I brought them out and quickly shoved the bag into her rucksack, putting my finger to my lips.
Everything except for the beer fit into her bag, so I double-bagged the case, though I had to charge her 10 yen for a shopping bag.
“It’s worth it. Hubby will be grateful he’s getting cold beer. I think he’ll be more happy about this than the water.” She said with a smirk.
The total came to 4,963 yen, including tax and discounts. That wasn’t too bad, all things considered. The most expensive thing apart from the beer was the food warmer at 800 yen. There were only three left in the store, and I was considering putting one or two aside for myself. Once the power went out, cooking food might be a problem outside. Then again, we didn’t stock any pots or pans, so maybe it wasn’t such a benefit. Winter was still months away, so lugging around a heater wasn’t the most practical thing either.
With all that she had told me, I was surprised at how calm the woman was. She did seem a bit eccentric, but who wouldn’t be in these conditions? I was just relieved that she accepted my explanations so easily. I couldn’t imagine what kind of difficulties people outside were going through right now. Perhaps that might have helped her be more open to strange things and occurrences.
“Ummm. You can tell people… Outside. You can tell them about this store.”
I avoided eye contact as I swiped her card and charged it for the total.
“I don’t need everything here, obviously. If people need things… They can come… You too, of course. Bring back the empty bottles and I’ll fill them in the sink…”
I wasn’t sure why this was getting awkward. Other than I knew she had to leave in a minute, and I wasn’t enjoying the solitude as much as I might have imagined a few days ago.
“Just stay away at night. Those frogs… kappa? They keep guard all night long, but I haven’t seen any during the day.”
“Don’t worry about me! They don’t call me the blue lightning of Urawa Vocational High for nothin. I’ll be back. You can count on it.”
Then, to my surprise, she reached out over the counter and hugged me. It was awkward, and I stiffened like a board.
I escorted her to the door, not something anyone normally did in a convenience store, but I was nervous.
What if the frogs were outside right now? She can’t stay inside or the timer will run out.
After looking around and seeing nothing, she stepped on the entrance mat and the door slid open. True to her word, she was fast on her feet, and a moment later I was all alone again.
I went back to the register to check to see if I had gotten hit with any new penalties. Surprisingly, everything looked fine. If anything, the animated Wanma mascot on the screen seemed to be pleased, smiling and wagging its tail.
“What’s this about the digital wallet campaign?”
[The Wanma Digital Wallet campaign is a promotional award program, benefiting both customers and stores for using the Wanma Digital Wallet for purchases.]
“Yes, I got that. But what is this thing about tiers?”
The point counter for store tier was now a persistent readout on the register terminal.
[Progress to Tier 2, 50,100/1,000,000]
[Increasing the level of the store tier during the campaign will earn rewards for the store, including increased product selection, store upgrades, and additional promotions. In addition, after raising the store level, employees will be eligible for special bonus payments.]
“Bonus? How much?” I asked without thinking. I didn’t really need a lot of cash at the moment. Just enough to buy what I needed from the store.
[That will depend on the level, and the employment status. For temporary part-time employees, cash bonuses are not allowed. In lieu of monetary awards, temporary employees will receive merit points.]
That was both helpful and a little bit insulting. In a rational world, the cash would have been the only award worth shooting for, but the points were surprisingly attractive now.
What am I even thinking? How am I going to get a million yen in charges anyway?
On a given day, the store would easily clear several million yen in revenue, but that counted on a lot of lunch sales. Nearly all of those sales were done via cash or credit card, and almost none were made using One Mart’s beleaguered homegrown virtual money. In fact, the 50,000 yen that I had helped the woman charge was more money than I had ever collected for the store wallet, combined.
Maybe if the local PTA shows up and buys out everything in the store, then I can maybe reach that goal…
Setting aside the campaign information, I thought about what else I had learned from the customer.
Crap. I didn’t get her name though. That’s kind of embarrassing.
I had noticed when she had called me by my first name. It would have been odd if it weren’t for the fact that it happened quite often in the store. After all, my first name was printed on the name tag on my uniform. Not getting a customer’s name was normal, since we weren’t ever supposed to use an informal mode of address anyway.
What I had learned from… PTA mom, was mostly just confirmation of what I suspected from my limited view out the front windows, and the short interaction I had with the delinquents.
The damage to Tokyo must have been severe, perhaps one of the largest in history, but that was just part of the problem. It was also unlike any disaster the world had ever seen before. No electricity, no engines, no batteries, no working form of technology at all, seemingly anywhere. How far that extended, there was no way to know yet, but it at least went well beyond the block that this store was located on.
There had been no observed movement by the government to retake control. No troops moving, or police organizing. No disaster management department or rescue squads. Instead, the people had been attacked by monsters. PTA Mom had mentioned that the kappas had broken into many buildings, and that the ones that were safe had set up barricades, and had people guarding the entrances. No one had any firearms, of course, and noting that cars didn’t work, maybe guns didn’t work anyway. That might explain why there was no sign of the military.
For now, people seemed to be hiding in their homes, as the streets were deemed too dangerous.
That won’t last for long, not with water and food shortages. Without phones, people weren’t able to communicate and get organized. Sooner or later, people would need to go out, probably in groups, or gangs.
I imagined the post-apocalyptic scenarios I had read about in books and seen in movies when I was a kid. It was hard to imagine the tired-looking office workers I saw on the trains turning into wild, savage hooligans. At least not overnight. Who knows what will happen in the weeks to come?
The rules seemed to imply that the store would protect itself, and me as well, from anyone attempting to do violence inside the store. It had managed to toss that one kid onto the street for trying to steal cigarettes, so maybe things could be managed for a while. At least until all the supplies in the store were gone. Even if theft and looting were ruled out, it wouldn’t be long until the supplies in the store were depleted.
For now, I had decided to keep the bottles of water and boxes of drinks stored in the back as a reserve supply. Wanma might get upset if I didn’t maintain the stock in the front of the store, but it would be beyond foolish to squander what might become the most valuable resource in the area. Then again, there were a dozen more convenience stores within walking distance. Maybe some of them had also been converted into a SAFE ZONE too, whatever that meant.
I walked through the aisles, looking for things I should buy and pack into an emergency escape kit. At least one of the food-warming cans seemed like a good idea. Since there were only a few left, and nothing in the back, I decided to grab one before they disappeared. The instant microwave rice packs were also attractive, although expensive. At 300 yen each, they cost double what a single rice ball cost, but they were shelf-stable, and could be eaten cold. Candy, like chocolate bars, might be good, portable, high-sugar rations. There were also the energy bars and pouches of energy gel drinks that were popular with the office workers. Those were also pricey, but there was some stock of this type of product in the back, so I would sort through what I could and put together enough, based on what I could carry.
The thing I needed most was some type of large bag. My little messenger bag wouldn’t hold much, and there weren’t any backpacks or suitcases in the store. I knew we sold them online, and had customers order them for pickup before, but the closest thing we had in stock were some cloth shopping bags that were even smaller than my messenger bag. Maybe I could trade with someone, once customers started showing up. I was pretty sure not everyone would have a wallet full of cash like PTA Mom. I had to be careful not to use my employee discount for everything, since I wasn’t allowed to sell anything I used the discount on. It was a pain that I couldn’t even leave the store to do some shady deals outside the view of the AI’s cameras. That would make it easier to make use of what I bought.
I put together a list in my head with the things that I needed to buy. Making a spreadsheet with inventories of critical items, setting a budget based on estimated income, and keeping a cash reserve. It was the kind of task that I could do in my sleep.
Finding the skills I had relied on during my business education useful in this post-disaster Tokyo was a situation full of twisted irony, as was the feeling of safety and opportunity I was getting from my humiliating, pointless temp job.
Despite myself, I was starting to get excited, and more motivated than I had been in months, ever since I had crashed and burned in all of my job interviews. It was a perverse sense of renewed purpose, solidifying around the idea that my actions going forward might have some meaning.
Maybe this is my time to make a comeback.
I thought to myself.
I think I can handle this.