Infinite Cashback System

“I’m fine,” Kumiko said, her voice muffled behind her palms. “I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine I just need a second because the castle is right there and we’re all here together and my spreadsheet says I’m not supposed to cry until the fireworks but I’m already crying and it’s seven-thirty-two in the morning.”

“You’re two minutes ahead of schedule on the emotional breakdown,” Chloe said.

“That’s because I’m efficient.”

Jordan reached over and settled his hand on top of Kumiko’s head between the pink ribbons, and the effect was instantaneous. Her shoulders dropped. Her breath caught and released in a long, shuddering exhale. Her eyes went half-lidded and her body swayed toward his with the gravity of someone whose nervous system had just been handed a sedative. The Headpat trait pulsed warmth through his palm and into her skull, traveling down her spine and draining the anxiety from her frame until she stood quiet and steady with her forehead pressed against his collarbone.

A woman in her forties wearing a Cinderella Spirit Jersey glanced at them, then at her husband, then back at them with an expression that combined envy and bewilderment.

“Okay,” Jordan said, removing his hand before the trait deepened further into territory that would require explanation in a family-oriented venue. “Phase One. Rope drop. What’s the play.”

Kumiko rebooted in three seconds flat, her brain coming back online with the click of a loading screen resolving. Her hands found her phone, her posture straightened, and the general returned to the battlefield.

“Left through Adventureland. Cut through the back passage behind the Jungle Cruise. Cross the bridge into Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at eight-oh-one. Jordan on phone duty for the virtual queue. I hold bags. Chloe walks at a pace that preserves both dignity and cardiovascular health.”

“Acknowledged,” Chloe said.

The rope dropped at eight o’clock sharp, and the crowd surged forward with the energy of people who had been standing in line since before dawn and were now unleashed upon a theme park with the focused aggression of a Black Friday sale. Jordan moved through the flood with Kumiko latched onto his left arm and Chloe walking two paces behind them at her stated grandma speed, her phone already out and filming a story of the castle for her StellarNote Instagram.

Jordan’s fingers hammered the Disneyland app at exactly eight o’clock, joining the virtual queue for Rise of the Resistance with the reflexes Maya had beaten into him over three weeks of combat training. The app churned for four seconds while forty thousand other people attempted the same thing, and then the green confirmation screen appeared.

“Boarding group seventeen,” Jordan announced.

Kumiko shrieked. Not a scream, not a gasp, a full-body shriek that turned heads in a thirty-foot radius and caused a Cast Member near the Adventureland bridge to reach for her earpiece.

“SEVENTEEN. That’s top twenty. That’s guaranteed boarding. Jordan-kun your fingers are a national treasure and I will protect them with my life.”

“Please don’t scream near Cast Members, they think someone’s hurt.”

“I’M HURT BY HOW GOOD YOU ARE.”

Galaxy’s Edge materialized around them as they crossed into the Star Wars land, and Jordan had to hand it to Disney’s Imagineers. The rockwork towered six stories overhead, and the buildings looked genuinely weathered, and the ambient sound design placed you inside a world that didn’t exist. Kumiko photographed everything with the relentless documentation of an archaeological expedition, narrating her shots in a mixture of Japanese and English that grew more Japanese the more excited she became.

Jordan checked the time. Eight-fourteen. Boarding groups one through twenty would be called within the hour.

He checked his banking app. The seven-hundred-twelve-dollar ticket charge sat in his transaction history alongside the four-thousand-two-hundred-dollar hotel charge, and the rebates from both had already cleared, leaving his balance at just over sixteen thousand dollars. Not bad for a Saturday morning.

His stomach growled.

Food. He needed food, and this was where Disneyland would begin its real assault on his finances.

The nearest option was Docking Bay 7, a Star Wars-themed quick-service restaurant that looked like a hangar bay and served food that looked like props from a science fiction movie. Jordan pulled up the menu on his phone and felt his left eye twitch.

Smoked Kaadu Ribs: twenty-one dollars. Endorian Tip-Yip: eighteen fifty. Felucian Kefta and Hummus Garden Spread: sixteen dollars for what was clearly a fancy plate of falafel with a Star Wars name slapped on it.

A bottle of water: five dollars and fifty cents. Not even sparkling. Flat. Regular water from a municipal source, filtered through Disney’s proprietary pipes and marked up four hundred percent because it came in a cup with a logo.

“Sixteen dollars for falafel,” Jordan said.

“Themed falafel,” Chloe corrected from behind him, scanning the menu with the speed of someone who had already calculated the per-calorie cost of every item. “The branding adds value. People pay for the experience, not the food.”

“The experience of paying sixteen dollars for chickpeas.”

“Welcome to your future as a business owner. You’ll be charging people eighty dollars for bath water in two months.”

She had a point about the onsen and Jordan hated that she had a point about the onsen.

Kumiko appeared at his other side, her phone already displaying a pre-made spreadsheet tab labeled FOOD PRIORITIES, which sorted every restaurant in both parks by a custom scoring formula that weighted taste, price, Instagram aesthetics, proximity to rides, and something she called emotional fulfillment index. Docking Bay 7 scored a six point four out of ten, losing points on value but gaining them on atmosphere and the availability of a blue milk drink that Kumiko had circled in pink highlighter three times.

“Blue milk,” Kumiko said. “I need it.”

Jordan checked the price. Eight dollars for what amounted to a coconut-based smoothie dyed the color of a Smurf.

“Eight dollars for—”

“BLUE MILK, Jordan-kun. I have been dreaming about this since I was twelve years old and my father showed me the original trilogy. Please.”