The Sweeper Chases a Customer, and May Have Awful Job Insurance

   The city’s lights and sounds hid the spirit of unrest.

   Neo Shibuya’s streets began populating with punks and all sorts of rejects donned in ratty clothes and colorful leather outfits, as the more reserved citizens declined in number.

   But for Mitsuo Kuroiwa, it was nothing more than a regular weekday.

   He ran into the city of the night, lights gleaming like crystals, and crowd chatter melding together in cacophonous melody, in search of the girl who had forgotten her purchase.

   Crowds of bright-haired punks and mohawk-bearing gangsters of every shape and size began to converge, amassing in the thoroughfares forming walls of themselves—some even blocking Kuroiwa’s path.

   “Excuse me! Excuse me!” said Kuroiwa, squeezing in between every thug and lowlife, clutching the bag of goods like his life depended on it.

   Dammit. No way she’s gotten too far.

   He closed his eyes and concentrated on the sounds of Neo Shibuya. In his mind’s eye, the crowd’s noise became nothing but shadows to him. He saw through the populace like x-ray, allowing him to pinpoint anything he needed to from sound alone.

   Hypersense. A technique that he gave no name, but one given by those who knew him way back when. The ability to sharpen one’s senses to the utmost limit of human ability, only learned through years of experience.

   But it was to no avail. The streets were too busy, and human footsteps sounded heavier than they used to be.

   Okay, let’s try this.

   Kuroiwa zoomed into a nearby alley. The walls between buildings were closely knit, just enough for Kuroiwa to walk through.

   Perfect, he thought, eyeing each one wall and measuring them up against each other. The sweeper hopped towards one wall, and used his momentum to jump to the other. He zigzagged his way up the walls, his flying strides almost defying the laws of physics.

   Kuroiwa perched on a small veranda, giving him a good bird’s eye view of the street below. He surveyed the crowded, punk-filled streets in search of his target.

   And amongst the crowd of lowlives was a girl. A girl with a black face mask and a weary expression.

   It was her.

   The clumsy girl with the dog-like ears.

   And Kuroiwa had to act quickly before she disappears into the night for good.

   He jumped down to the nearest veranda, his footwork quiet and light, so as to not alert anyone to his presence. He crept down the walls of this building—a humble apartment complex, now that he’s had time to look at it.

   It was then he realized; that the last veranda was still ways up from the ground. He surveyed his surroundings once again, finding the most optimal route to the streets below: A sturdy streetlight, shaped much like the ones from the old world.

   Kuroiwa leaped into the air. He grabbed onto the pole, its metal hinges creaking at the force of his weight. In one swift motion, he slid down the lamppost and onto the ground. The streetlight bent a little, but not enough to break.

   He checked the contents of his plastic bag. Flawless, with no spills or messes—like he hadn’t parkoured through all that.

   Sprinting immediately after, he squeezed through the crowd, hot on the trail of his forgetful customer.

   And there she was.

   Standing amidst a crowd of gathering punks, seemingly unaware of her existence, was the girl Kuroiwa had been pursuing.

   “Excuse me. Miss!”

   She turned in Kuroiwa’s direction. She shrank again at the sight of him, averting any semblance of eye contact.

   “Sorry to bother you on your walk, but you left this at the store.” Kuroiwa said with the same customer-pleasing smile. Kuroiwa lifted the plastic bag and offered it to her.

   The girl peeked from behind her collar. She eyed the package the man had in his hand. She began to calm down and ceased retreating into herself.

   “O-oh… I’m sorry… It must’ve been hard chasing me down.”

   “Don’t worry about it, miss. Only happy to do my job.”

   “Wait.” the girl said, confused. “I’m sorry, but… you could have just pinged me.”

   Kuroiwa chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his head. “Oh. Yeah. That. This may come as a surprise, but I don’t know how to do that.”

   “Ehh? How can that be?” the girl said in astonishment.

   “It’s, uh…”

   The girl stomped towards Kuroiwa, her once shy, withdrawn expression turning into that of deer-eyed curiosity.

   “I’ve never heard of an older model without the ‘ping’. It was one of the first things they installed in the oldest mim models!”

   “Mim? I don't…”

   “Hm. Hm! How can this be…?” said the girl, as she circled Kuroiwa, inspecting and staring at the different parts of his body.

   “Hey now, take it easy.” Kuroiwa dangled the plastic bag, rustling the contents inside.

   “Oh!”

   The girl took a step back and meekly took the package from Kuroiwa’s hands. “Right. Sorry about that.” said the girl.

   She sure apologizes a lot…

   “I tend to get really into it when someone has weird tech in them…”

   Kuroiwa wondered if he should spill the beans. It struck him strange the thought even crossed his mind to divulge the fact he was human to a perfect stranger.

   But he found a strange bond with her, not because she was like a dog, but because she was the first and ‘most human’ person he’s had the pleasure of talking to since he thawed out months back.

   “Thing is…” said Kuroiwa, his smile becoming wry. “It’s not tech.”

   “Not tech? What do you mean, if I may ask?”

   “Well, I’m kinda human.”

   “Kinda human? What do you mean? How many body augments do you have installed?”

   “None.”

   “None? How?”

   The girl looked at him pensively. She began making all sorts of theories in her head, but none seem to hit even remotely close to the truth. Kuroiwa noticed this, and imagined that right about now, this girl would be wagging her tail like a dog waiting for their master’s command.

   “Actually, I’m not kinda human. I am human. Full flesh and blood, human. All natural.”

   This gave the girl pause.

   “Wait… You’re human?!”

   “Yeah.”

   The girl grabbed both Kuroiwa’s hands, clasping them firmly in her grasp. Her hands were warm, making the somewhat cold, frigid night melt away for Kuroiwa. Her grip was not like the other people Kuroiwa had encountered, whose grasps were firm and almost robotic, unlike hers.

   Was she the exception, or not?

   “I’ve never seen a real human before! Like, a hundred percent natural! Did you come from outside Neo Shibuya?”

   “It’s a long story. I’m from here, but not… from here?”

   “Oh, oh! Are you some secret government project that I’m not allowed to see?” the girl said, wiggling her body nervously and giddily. “Ooh, should I look away?”

   An odd shift in personality from her usual self.

   “I guess you could say that? B-but anyway, miss, I need to get back to work.”

   The girl released Kuroiwa’s hands and backed away.

   “O-oh, sorry! There I go again!” she said, sticking her tongue out in a playful fashion. “Sorry to keep you.”

   “No worries. It’s nice having someone to talk to that isn’t some weird, unfeeling machine.”

   “Is that how we’ve been treating you? I’m so, so sorry…”

   Kuroiwa waved his hand, dissuading her. “Hey, no need to apologize. I’m the stranger in this whole picture. I’m used to it. Besides, you’re not the same as ‘em.”

   The girl shook her head, while she grunted in refusal.

   “That won’t do at all! If you’re saying that, then that only means you don't feel at home in Neo Shibuya just yet.”

   Kuroiwa’s thoughts raced. He never thought he’d find someone who would show what seemed to be genuine compassion to him in this day and age. Or at all, even before.

   “Right, heh.” said Kuroiwa, chuckling. “Thanks for the concern. But I’ll be fine.”

   The girl shook her head again, making a grunting refusal once more.

   “No! Mister convenience store clerk, is it okay if I see you again? I can’t let this chance pass!”

   “Chance? Chance of what?”

   “The chance to talk with an actual, hundred-percent human! I want to know more about you! Like, your brain. How you think. I wanna learn more about, you know, your body.”

   “Whoa, whoa. Phrasing.” said Kuroiwa, trying to quell this girl’s rabid curiosity.

   Kuroiwa’s initial impression of her began to melt away. From a shy, nervous wreck to a genuinely passionate and curious, hyperactive girl.

   It was a change. But not one he disliked at all.

   She was no pupper—but a fierce, loyal hound!

   “Chigusa.” said the girl.

   “Huh?”

   “That’s my name. Chigusa.”

   “Oh, right.” said Kuroiwa. He puckered his lips as he looked left and right. “Pretty rude of us to not introduce ourselves this far into a conversation, huh?”

   Both he and Chigusa shared a laugh, each of them nervously acknowledging their slight blunder.

   “Kuroiwa. Mitsuo Kuroiwa.”

   “Mitsuo… Kuroiwa? Which one is your name? Which one is your title?”

   “What do you mean? That’s my name. All of it.”

   “Ehhh?” said Chigusa, her eyes narrowing and a finger pushing against her chin. “You have two names…”

   A lightbulb lit in her head. Figuratively, thankfully.

   “Oh! That’s a human name. I read somewhere that Japanese people once had a family name and a given name!”

   “Is that not the case now?”

   “Nope!” said Chigusa. “We register one name in the cyberbrain and that becomes our permanent name! We don’t use family names anymore.”

   “Wouldn’t it be tough if you had to look for someone and you only had one name to go by?”

   Chigusa pursed her lips and pushed a finger against her chin.

   “Really? I don’t see a use for a family name nowadays. Our population doesn’t really go up anymore. We can just look up the cyberbrain in real time if we needed to look for someone.”

   Talk about a totally declined birthrate!

   A statement that bewildered Kuroiwa. He couldn’t fathom how this society without multiple names functioned and identified themselves. It was not as if Neo Shibuya was a small tribe of sub-hundred people—it was a real city, with millions of people existing in one place, all at once.

   “So what happens when you have kids, then? How do you ID family?”

   “Have kids?” wondered Chigusa, becoming increasingly inquisitive. “What does it mean to ‘have kids’?”

   Oh my God! What is this?

   While he had never been invested in matters of state, it wasn’t as if a declining birth rate never bothered him. And whilst it wasn’t of his concern, hearing the words that came out of Chigusa’s mouth didn’t do him any favors of understanding his new world any better.

   Alarm bells rang in his head. But alas, that wasn’t the only alert that sounded.

   Beep, beep. An alarm beeped from Kuroiwa’s watch. He had set a time limit on how much he’d allow himself to be out of the store, and this conversation made it slip his mind. It was time to go.

   “Ah, crap…” muttered Kuroiwa under his breath. He then glanced at the girl in front of him and smiled. “Chigusa, I think I’ll really get in trouble if I stay out any longer.”

   Chigusa jumped. “Oh, I’m sorry! I really got into it…”

   “It’s fine,” said Kuroiwa, reassuring her with a playful shrug. “We can continue this conversation sometime else. When I’m free, you know? You can drop by my store again.”

   “Yeah!”

   Chigusa embraced the bag of goods Kuroiwa had returned to her, then turned the other way. But before she could take the first step, she realized there was one more thing she wanted to ask the sweeper. She turned back to him and said,

   “I almost forgot! Mr. Mitsuo Kuroiwa, which name do you prefer to go by?”

   “Oh…” Kuroiwa thought about it for a second. Mitsuo was his given name, but considering how weird the world around him had become, he thought it might be best to stick with a more ‘unique’ name.

   “Okay. Kuroiwa then.”

   “Kuroiwa….” Chigusa closed her eyes, as sounds of boops and beeps emanated from an internal device deep within her head.

   She opened her eyes and bowed at him.

   “There are at least three Mitsuos in Neo Shibuya. But you’re the only Kuroiwa left.”

   “The way you said that suddenly made me sad…”

   Chigusa gave Kuroiwa a big, sweet smile as she flashed her smartphone at him. She gave off a comforting, welcoming aura; much, much more than any single person had given him since his awakening, even more so than the very scientists who had welcomed him into this new world.

   “Let me welcome you to Neo Shibuya, Mr. Kuroiwa!

   Shall we exchange numbers?”

***

***

   “Dang. I should really head back to work.”

   After exchanging numbers with Chigusa, he realized he had spent a little too much time fraternizing with a customer. It was a pleasing encounter, but he wasn’t ready to jeopardize his employment over a new friendship.

   As he walked the streets of Neo Shibuya’s Chiba Street back in the direction of Poppy’s, he noticed the gathering of punks and lowlives and the absence of other, less-imposing citizens.

   Nip in the air. Something’s weird here.

   Glass shattered in the distance. The sound of rabble-rousing and furious hollering howled from down the 3 Chiba.

   Down the street—where Poppy’s lay.

   No way…

   He rushed through the crowds of unsavory men, weaving through the gaps between each person. He held the pistol hidden within a pouch strapped to his leg close, ready to draw the moment something threatened him.

   Kuroiwa eyed a gathered crowd of punks in front of Poppy’s, around 50 meters away.

   A gathering of about thirty people had amassed in front of the store. Its windows were shattered from the outside. The horde of lowlives threw rocks, bricks, and other sharp objects right into the premises.

   Dammit. They’re messing up the store!

   He drew his revolver and spun the barrel.

   Five rounds.

   Five bullets were all he had left in the barrel. He’d spent one on the robber from a while back, and hadn't found any gun shops that sell ammo for a reasonable price, nor had he found any tools to jury rig ammo himself.

   If he had more ammo, he felt confident he could gun down the entire crowd—or at least enough to scare them off.

   Right now, though, that was out of the question. He couldn’t identify any ringleaders. The best thing to do right now was to find a way into the store and check up on Shinada.

   But before he thought of doing anything else, his Hypersense kicked in. He listened in to the rallying cries and protests of the rioters.

   One man shouted, with dire tone:

   “Bastards! Charging five thousand for a pack of three wieners!”

   And another followed him:

   “Yeah! And how dare you serve mustard with fried chicken? What kind of blasphemy is this?!”

   And then a whole host of other, strange complaints.

   “I wanna put cola in my chicken bucket!”, “There ain’t no SSR cards in your goddamn wafer pack!”, “I want a refund on my 7Gum, I don’t know how it feels to chew!”, and “Dude, why am I even here?”

   Charming.

   Kuroiwa’s anger had turned to confusion, and his eyes drooped in disappointment. Really classy, he thought. Those were truly no reasons to light up a humble establishment. Such riots were uncommon in Japan back in the day, but even when he heard of such chaotic acts plaguing other countries, he was certain people burned neighborhoods for much nobler reasons.

   At least, he hoped so.

   He shook himself awake and back into a more austere one. Kuroiwa stalked into a dingy alleyway and into a network of tight passages that led him to an empty lot right behind Poppy’s.

   He cautiously opened a door behind the convenience store, keeping his gun to his chest. He crept into the store’s storage rooms, careful not to knock over any goods amongst the mountain of boxes within.

   He made his way into the staff room, where he finally spotted his boss, Shinada.

   Thunderous, indistinct cries roared from the front porch, as sounds of more glass shattered from the store’s main area. And strangely enough, Shinada simply sat in the staff room, cigar in mouth, and reclined on a cheap plastic chair.

   “Boss.” whispered Kuroiwa.

   “Oh, Kuroiwa. Did you go in through the back? I told you entering there is a no-no.”

   “There’s a riot outside, boss. You really shouldn’t be here!”

   Shinada puffed his cigar away from Kuroiwa. He dug its burning tip on an ashtray and set it down.

   “I know.” he said calmly.

   “You know? Then let’s do something about it.”

   Kuroiwa opened the door leading to the cashier just a little, peeking at the situation outside. The riot has gotten worse. From a crowd of thirty, it seemed to grow every minute. The protestors’ violence had also begun to escalate, as they pulled out bats, steel pipes, and other blunt weaponry.

   “Time to employ a little castle doctrine.” said Kuroiwa, pulling on the hammer of his trusty M206 38 Revolver.

   “Boy, stop.” said Shinada sternly. “I wouldn’t shoot ‘em up, if I were you.”

   “But boss, they’re smashing up the store!” he protested. At that point, an intense fear began to consume him, but not quite of an existential kind. It was dawning on him that his job was at stake. It was a subtle realization that, perhaps, he may have awful job security at the end of it all.

   “Yes, I know that. Let them. It’s a peaceful protest.”

   The smell of oil began to permeate from outside—a blend of motor oil and alcohol, pungent and strong, invading Kuroiwa’s senses.

   Molotovs. Two men in front of the crowd lit two beer bottles with rags hanging from within.

   “You call this peaceful?!” said Kuroiwa, his calm composure turning into one of frustration. “They’re gonna light us up!”

   “Yep,” agreed Shinada. “And if you shoot ‘em, I’m gonna have to pay for the replacements.”

   “What, why? That doesn’t seem fair to you.”

   “It’s not. But it is what it is.”

   Shinada hopped from the chair onto his feet. He took in a deep whiff and flinched from the unpleasant burning odor.

   “Anyway. Smell that? Grenades. That’s our cue to go. Can’t say if you’re just in time or too late.”

   Kuroiwa was bewildered by his manager’s behavior; how calm he was, how accepting of the store’s fate he was…it made no sense. But if his employer says something—

   —then all Kuroiwa had to do was to comply, like usual.

   He sheathed his gun. He clenched his teeth as he watched a band of brigands lay waste to the only workplace he had. Shinada led him out, and up through some emergency ladders leading up onto a distant rooftop. From there, they witnessed Poppy’s set on fire. A few embers grew into a blaze in almost no time at all, and black smoke puffed from its burning body.

   They stood in silence as they watched it all go to smoke.

   “Don’t worry about it, boy.” said Shinada, clambering onto a stack of boxes to pat Kuroiwa’s shoulders at head level. “It was a scheduled riot.”

   “A… what now?” said Kuroiwa, his eyes widened.

   “Oh. That’s the price we pay for owning corporate franchises. A rival corporation pays a bunch of thugs to ruin another store, tanking property prices. Then another corp buys out the land. It’s all very organized. They even schedule these incidents.

   Sorry. Forgot to tell you earlier.”

   Kuroiwa flailed his arms, pointing at Poppy’s ruins.

   “That sounds miserable.”

   “Yes it is. But thankfully, it was nothing but a peaceful riot.”

   “T-that’s the opposite of peaceful!”

   “Boy…” said Shinada, massaging Kuroiwa’s shoulders. “If it were a violent protest, the store and I would be nothing but stains on the ground by now.”

   Kuroiwa steadied his heart, and took a deep breath.

   “This stuff’s raising more questions than answers…”

   Shinada sighed as he pulled one more cigar from his pocket, and lit it up. “No worries. I can pay for a redo of my franchise. And you get to have an extended vacation. No more overtime for you.”

   “Well…” said Kuroiwa sheepishly. “Am I getting paid?”

   “Of course not.”

   “Then what do I do now? I need that money, boss. I don’t want to go back to eating rice crackers in the morning, afternoon, and dinner… well okay, not like I don’t already do that. But it would be nice to afford a piping hot meal every now and then.”

   Shinada looked up to the night sky and the billowing black smoke. Sirens echoed from the distance, heralding the eventual arrival of the fire department.

   “Okay. You’re a good guy, Kuroiwa. There may be something for you to do.”

   He puffed his cigar up into the night and away from his sole coworker.

   “I know a guy.”