The Digital Core - Job Thread

When A.J. and Patch had exited the train terminal from the human world, the first thing on Patch's mind was that he wanted, no needed, food, or else he would die. A.J sighed and rummaged around in her back, blinking when she came up empty. "I could have sworn I packed some food..." Her cool gaze slid over to the Mikemon who stood there, rubbing his shoulder awkwardly. A.J groaned and dragged her hand down her face, which surprisingly was now covered in a glove. She gazed down at herself, wondering when her clothes had change, but nonetheless they had. And now they were without food and Patch was hungry. Now that she thought about it, she was getting pretty hungry too.

"Well, do they sell food around here or something?"

"Yeah, they do, but you have to have bits, and well...your human money won't work here."

"Great, well I guess we're out of luck, because I only brought some cash from the house back in Shibuya."

"Wait, A.J, look at this!" Mikemon bounded over to a sigh on the wall. At closer inspection, the sign read, "Now Hiring." A.J. ran through a list of the stores and shrugged, glancing back down at her partner. 

"Well, I guess it's worth a try."

They made their way to where the map beside the hiring sign indicated and walked inside. Glancing around, the shop seemed very much in disrepair and almost seemed empty. "Hello?" she called.

A sudden thump answered her call as a Gabumon peered over the glass countertop, visibly shaking. "Please! We've had so many people leave. I can't afford to lose any product. I won't call security if you just leave now."

A.J. blinked and glanced down at her rookie companion before looking back at the Gabumon. "We're not here to rob you. We're here to answer the hiring poster we found in the terminal."

The Gabumon's eyes widened and he scurried out from behind the counter and grasped A.J's hands tightly. "Oh my goodness! Of course! I'm so sorry! Please! Yes, we could use the help. It's just that after the attacks on Terminus, everybody was too afraid to stick around and work. If you don't mind, I've got a few things you can do!" He moved back to the counter top momentarily and returned with a list. A.J took the piece of paper and gave it a once over. This didn't seem to hard. 

"Okay! We're in!" She nodded at Patch.

As the list instructed, a few of the shelves had to be fixed. A.J walked down the aisles of the store, which kind of just mostly sold junk, random books, a few toys, and some snacks at the front. After finding a good spot to began, she removed the items from the shelf and balanced it before screwing it in with the screws and screwdriver the Gabumon had provided. At least he had had the tools. 

There were several of these to be fixed and then the products had to be put back on. After this was complete, she decided she might as well go through and dust all of the shelves. This took about two hours with her removing the products, putting them on a card, dusting the shelves, and replacing the product in a neat and orderly fashion. This allowed her to also space out the product and turn it to the front where customers could quickly look at the brand name.

Next, she set Patch to reorganizing the glass case full of jewelry and random mechanical things while she alphabetized some of the books near the entrance. This didn't take too long, even with Patch getting distracted by all the "shinys." Of course there was still more work to do.

Next, she went through the dated food and drink products at the front, determining if they were still edible or not by the date branded. Many of the items were out of date and so more had to be brought from the back and labeled with the appropriate date.

The Gabumon allowed them a small break where he gave them each a little bit of fruit and some water. A.J. smiled and thanked the Gabumon, but she was determined to get back to work. Actually, this was kind of fun. She had never had to have a job because her father had provided for her, plus since she had moved around so much, she wouldn't have been able to stay for very long. And not to mention since she was only fifteen, maybe places did not hire someone that young.

She returned to what she had previously been doing when Gabumon rounded the corner, announcing they had just receiving a shipment on the Trailmon.  A.J and Patch followed Gabumon to the back where a pile of boxes and crates were splayed on the floor. A.J. and Patch began loading the boxes onto empty carts and wheeling them out to the front of the store. 

Patch used his Neko Scratch technique to crack open the crates and boxes. Stocking was easy enough. A.J. just found the place where the item went and put enough to fill the shelf. If there was anything left over, they put it on a separate cart and wheeled it to the back. Stocking the shelves took about a good four hours and then after that they had to go back to the stock room and reorganize all of the extra products so the next time they could be found easily. 

"Well, I think we also need to make prices, if you don't mind." 

A.J. nodded and took a "gun" and began to "shoot" the items. The screen would display a small price and she would write it on the tag that hung on the shelf in front of the item. Many items were without prices so she went through the whole story pricing the items.

As they finanlly finished up for the day, A.J. took the extra time to sweep the store and clean the glass front. When she was done, she wiped the sweat from her brow and leaned against the wall, smiling at all the hard work they had accomplished. She might even get a job when she got back to the human world. While she was not all that fond of manual labor -no she actually preferred the paper type such as taking notes- today had been very rewarding. The Gabumon offered them some extra snacks and the money as promised. She bowed and she and Patch walked off and towards the city exit.