Chapter 3: Cyber-Credits and Kings

Chapter 3: Cyber-Credits and Kings

Months passed. The disastrous "Mandatory Upsell Mandate" was a fading, traumatic memory, spoken of only in hushed, mocking tones by the veteran staff. After the checkout apocalypse, where customer complaints had reached such a crescendo that the District Manager himself had to field angry calls, Jeff’s initiative was quietly euthanized. He had tried to blame Alex’s "overly literal interpretation," but the paper trail of his own mandate was undeniable. The victory had been total, and a period of blessed, efficient normalcy had returned to Store #734, much to Jeff’s simmering resentment. He now haunted the store's periphery, his clipboard a useless appendage, watching Alex’s front-end hum with the quiet confidence of a well-oiled machine.

But peace in the retail world is a fleeting thing. The new catalyst for chaos arrived not with a drone of corporatese, but with the beaming, desperate-to-be-loved smile of Tim Donaldson.

"Alright team, gather 'round, gather 'round!" Tim announced at a mandatory all-hands meeting, his voice echoing slightly in the cavernous main aisle. He stood beside a large easel draped with a sheet. "As you know, Q3 is upon us, and we need a way to supercharge our motivation!"

With a theatrical flourish, he whipped the sheet away, revealing a poster adorned with a massive, poorly photoshopped picture of his own grinning face on a fake dollar bill. The text above it read: "GET YOUR TIM BUCKS!"

A collective groan, quickly stifled, rippled through the staff.

"Now, I know what you're thinking," Tim continued, oblivious. "But this is a game-changer! From now until the end of the quarter, you'll have the chance to earn 'Tim Bucks' for stellar performance! Each Tim Buck is worth one dollar in store credit. You can save 'em up, spend 'em on anything in the store! A new game, a TV, whatever you want!"

He laid out the rules. Five Bucks for every new credit card approval. Two for every Total Tech Protection Plan sold. One for every positive customer survey that mentioned an employee by name.

It was, on its face, a transparent and slightly pathetic motivational tool, designed to squeeze a few more percentage points out of a weary staff. Most of the employees saw it as a minor perk, a chance to maybe get a free DVD or a discount on a new mouse.

Alex Rider saw a new game. And the first rule of any game is to understand the system better than its creator.

That afternoon, he pulled his front-end team aside. Mike Chen, whose tech department was adjacent, leaned against a rack of memory sticks, listening in with interest.

"Okay, forget what Tim said. Here's how we're going to win this," Alex said, his tone shifting from manager to strategist. He held up a copy of the rules. "Look at the points system. Five for a credit card, two for a protection plan. High value, low probability. The rejection rate on those is over 90%. We'd spend all day pitching for a handful of bucks. It's a trap for the sales guys. They'll burn themselves out on it."

He tapped a different line on the paper. "But this... one Buck for a positive survey mention. This is the goldmine. It's low value, but it has a near-infinite ceiling and a high probability of success if we do it right."

He laid out the plan with the precision of a military briefing. "At the end of every transaction, you do two things. First, you take a highlighter and circle your name on the printed receipt. Second, you look the customer in the eye, smile, hand them the receipt and a pen, and say, 'I really enjoyed helping you today. If you have thirty seconds to fill out the survey at the bottom, it helps me out personally.' Don't say it helps the store. Don't say it helps the company. Make it about you."

He looked at Sarah, the cashier who had questioned him during the M.U.M. crisis. "Sarah, you're helping a mom find the right educational software for her kid. You build a rapport. At the end, you circle your name. She's not filling out a survey for CyberCorp anymore; she's doing a favor for Sarah, the nice young woman who helped her."

A light of understanding dawned on his team's faces. It wasn't about selling. It was about connection. It was a simple, elegant hack of human psychology.

The effect was immediate and profound. The front-end of Store #734 transformed. The script was simple, the action took less than five seconds per customer, but it worked like a charm. The store's survey response rate tripled overnight. And the comments section, usually a wasteland of complaints about price or stock, became a stream of praise for Alex's cashiers.

"Kevin was so polite and helpful!" "Maria made the checkout process a breeze. Give her a raise!" "That kid Josh deserves a bonus!"

Each comment was another Tim Buck in the bank.

A weekly management meeting two weeks later told the story. Tim stood proudly by the projector, clicking through a PowerPoint of the results.

"Our sales floor team, great effort, pulled in 212 Tim Bucks!" he announced. A smattering of applause.

"Our tech department, keeping our customers' gear running, an awesome 280 Bucks!" Mike gave a small, self-deprecating bow from his seat.

"And our operations team..." Tim's voice faltered for a second as he clicked to the next slide. "A solid 65 Bucks. Good work, Jeff."

Jeff Morgan, who had been staring daggers at Alex, offered a tight, forced smile that didn't reach his beady eyes. His department, responsible for logistics and stock, had few customer-facing roles, and the paltry number was a public humiliation.

"And now," Tim said, his showman's grin returning, "for our front-end superstars!"

He clicked the slide. The number that appeared on the screen sucked the air out of the room.

FRONT END: 2,475 TIM BUCKS

A stunned silence fell over the boardroom, broken only by Tim’s ecstatic, "WOO! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!"

Alex felt Jeff’s stare boring into the side of his head, hot with a jealousy so potent it was almost tangible. Alex hadn't just won; he had dominated. He had changed the rules of the game and made everyone else look like amateurs.

Later that week, Alex was on the sales floor with Mike, gazing at the store's crown jewel. It was the Aegis X-Caliber, a pre-built gaming PC that was the epitome of early-2000s excess. It was housed in a massive silver tower with enough neon blue lights to guide a ship to port, and its specs were ludicrous, far beyond what any consumer actually needed. Its price tag was equally ludicrous: $1,599.99.

"You gonna do it?" Mike asked, nodding towards the glowing monstrosity.

Alex checked a small notebook he kept in his pocket, a simple ledger where he tracked his team’s earnings and his personal cut. "After my share from this week's tally, I'll have just over fifteen hundred," he said with a satisfied smirk. "One more week, and that beautiful, overpriced beast is mine. For a grand total of zero dollars and zero cents."

He was so focused on his prize, he didn’t notice Jeff Morgan watching him from the end of the aisle, partially hidden behind a display of floppy disks. Jeff wasn’t just looking at Alex. He was looking at the PC, then back at Alex, then at the price tag. A slow, venomous thought began to coalesce in the dark corners of his mind.

Fifteen hundred dollars in store credit. A transaction for $0.00. To a man like Jeff, steeped in suspicion and desperate for revenge, it didn't look like a victory. It looked like theft. And he knew, with a surge of malicious glee, that he had finally found the weapon he needed to destroy Alex Rider for good.