We reach Sushi Samurai in the late afternoon. I’m sitting across Alex with a plate of sashimi. She’s pouring me boiled sake flavoured like roses. My mouth waters as I munch down on the platter. This shop has a special place in our hearts: we’ve been going here since highschool, and we’re pretty sure the current owners’ grandparents built it ages ago.

“So, how’s the training going?” I ask Alex.

“Oh my God,” she says excitedly. “You have no idea how much Nexus has helped me with my focus! It’s like the hypnosis gave me superpowers.”

“Hey, that’s awesome! Those newbies you’re up against don’t stand a chance.”

“Hell yeah. How about you? Did you and Ryan patch things up?”

“Fuck no, I dumped that loser ages ago.”

Ryan was a cop I met in college. We’d been going at it for the past year and a half until our relationship was pretty much a coin toss of breaking up but then getting back together almost immediately. Don’t get me wrong, he was fun as hell to go out with and definitely not a bad looking guy. But the motherfucker wouldn’t stop trying to control everything I did.

Every time I wanted to go out with friends, I’d need to send him a selfie proving I wasn’t lying about who I met up with. If I ever had my own opinion on anything, the conversation always ended with me needing to give in and agree with him or else he’d never stop getting pissed about it. He also thinks Elon Musk is a genius so, fuck him.

Final straw was him trying to put a tracking device on my phone. Without my consent. Unlocked my password while I was sleeping and tried to link it up to his computer. Tried defending it once I realized that I wouldn’t be able to even leave his apartment without this prick seeing where I went. So, that was it.

I can tell Alex was waiting for me to say that because she immediately raises her glass.

“To Ryan!” she cheers. “May he be single forever!”

“Hear, hear!”

It’s the evening by the time we leave the shop. Alex calls an uber to head home, but I live like ten minutes from the sushi place so I can just walk. My neighborhood is a double-edged sword to look at. Depending on the angle you pick, it can be the prettiest part of the city. But otherwise, it’s the complete opposite.

The buildings down here are a labyrinth of gray concrete and spiked fences. Roads are always blaring with the sound of cars revving angrily. They drench the airs around us in the stench of diesel. High rise railways cast a deep shadow over the lower streets. Whenever I’m walking back home, I always pass a part under the railway that smells permanently like garbage dipped in vinegar.

But then there’s the hill on the other side. It climbs mountainously well until you can see the skyscrapers. Right now, they’re all blasting orange sunlight from the evening. Each of them are glacier steel-clad towers piercing the air with glass blades. Just as the sun sets, it’s like the whole city turns magic and lights up. It’s definitely one of my favourite spots to get stoned.

I climb a fence at the top of the hill and sit on top. A few folks have joked that I look like a gargoyle whenever I do this but fuck it: this feels comfortable to me. Plus, it’s the tallest view of the skyscrapers from here. Pulling the joint from my pocket, I light it up and inhale. The pungent smoke caresses the inside of my mouth, causing a slight choke. But just as I’m coughing out the constricting airs, that’s when the shift happens.

The skies are shifting from orange into a dark purple. Every skyscraper on the horizon becomes a blasting surge of glass jeweled lights. Next, spinning sways the world and I can feel a healing hearth fire that settles in my chest. All sense of time and consciousness is slowly draining away but everything grows limp and loose. Without thinking, I pull out my phone and plug in my earbuds.

Normally, I’d want to listen to music right now. But…something else is pulling my thoughts. All I can think about is Nexus’ voice and how right it felt. How soothing it was to just let go and fall into their influence. So, I search up their website instead. They have a list of recordings titled ‘Mind Conditioning Series: for beginners.’

“Why hello,” Nexus’ voice speaks in my ears. “So nice of you to succumb. In this file, we’ll be starting your training. Now…just lay back…relax your breathing…focus…”

Yeah…I should just…focus…

I snap awake to see it’s now nighttime. Looking down at my phone, it looks like I’ve reached the end of the list. There are over twenty recordings on that part of the website. Did I listen to all of that? Thought I was just here to smoke some weed and listen to some music. Nexus literally wasn’t even on my mind when I finished lunch with Alex and for no reason at all, I just decided to hypnotize myself all over again without knowing what would happen.

That’s when I look at the time and my heart drops. It has been two hours. What. The. Fuck? I was sitting like a freaking gargoyle for two hours! Shit, my legs have got to be sore after all that time. How come no one warned me?! Crap, I gotta get home now.

It says the recordings were for...Mind Conditioning? What does that even mean? It says it's my training, but doesn't give any details other than that. Maybe there's more info on the website somewhere. I'll need to remember to look that up when I get the chance.

My legs feel like they’ve been turned into pudding by the time I’m rushing back to my apartment. Luckily, I live on the first floor, so I won’t need to run that far to get back. Rushing through the lobby, Greg the janitor (and the guy who sells me weed) waves at me. I slip him that ten bucks I owe him before stepping into the hallway and unlocking the door to my apartment. The walls of my place aren’t the best. Actually, they’re pretty fucking shitty.

The wallpaper is peeling off and there’s a bunch of black spots on the ceiling. Sometimes water drips through and I need to call someone to take care of it. But I make for that dreariness by decorating the place. There’s a bunch of neon purple LED lights attached to a thread that I stick on all the corners of the walls to make the place look all pretty. Along with em, posters of horror movies, animes and my favourite video games are pinned to all the walls. Then there’s the spray-painted graffiti I added myself.

It’s got some pretty killer designs: Spongebob missing his eyeballs, a guy dissecting his own brain and tons of other stuff I thought of while I was doing acid back in college. My ex said my paintings always creeped him out but fuck him, you know? Most of my money goes into the Playstation set up I made.

I use a cushioned, tall chair that looks like the sort of thing a James Bond villain would sit in. With it, a headset with a microphone and a separate lamp so the lighting looks better on me when I’m filming videos. After microwaving some leftover pizza from the over night, I get the headset on and turn on my Playstation.

That’s when I get a phone that will start a whole mountain of chaos.

“Hello,” says the voice of a woman. “Is this Zara Aziz?”

“Who’s asking?” I say flatly.

“Our team at GameSurge received your request to work with us. We’d like you to know that you have been cleared for an interview.”

Holy. Shit.

They actually responded! Fuck yes! Okay, okay I’m gonna calm down for a moment so I can explain what this means. I’m a gaming youtuber and I barely get any income from that alone. People donate to my Patreon and obviously, I get revenue but shit’s expensive these days. If it weren’t for my day job, I’d never be able to afford this apartment.

So, I’ve been contacting gaming companies to see if any of them would be interested in hiring me as an influencer. Basically, they send me games to broadcast and play as a means of advertising them. Then I get paid. A lot. If I can land a job with a good enough company, I’ll be able to quit my day job and be fully set up here.

Months have gone by and I’ve been sending out email after email without any responses. For a company as big as GameSurge to call me back is like winning the freaking lottery to me.

“I uhhh,” I stutter like an idiot. “I don’t know what to say! Thank you! Thank you so much! I’m absolutely interested.”

The lady on the other side of the call laughs lightly.

“We were hoping you’d say that,” she says. “Our company could use someone of your energy for our streams. It’s exactly what we’re looking for. You made quite an impression at that stage hypnosis show earlier.”

“You all saw that?!”

“Check your channel information. You’ve gained…a good number of followers in the past few hours. We’re looking forward to speaking with you again.”

I do as she says and check my channel. Like she said, I’ve gained at least twenty thousand subscribers in less than a day. There had to have been a ton of people watching that stage show. Glancing back at Nexus’ channel, I see they have a little over one million subscribers, so it makes sense they were drawn to my socials.

Okay. I really do not care how supervillainy Nexus seems. They just got me the biggest interview of my life and twenty thousand new fans. This evil hypnotist has officially become my best friend. I’m smiling so widely, my muscles almost hurt. Tears drift from my eyes.

“Thank you so much.”

*****

The next day, I’m at my day job. It’s the grocery store in my neighbourhood. I work as cashier near the front of the store. They usually have me up here since I got just the right amount of social energy for this job. But usually, I’m much more polite than when I’m streaming. Always smiling, speaking at a fair volume and being as nice as I can to folks.

Whenever a shitty customer is giving me a hard time, I bottle my rage for a little bit and then save it for gaming. Makes me extra competitive.

Hours go by into the shift. It feels so boring, I swear I’m being hypnotized again. Except with that, at least I had some cool experiences with it. More items packed into bags. Cards making that beeping noise as they go through the machines. Sometimes I like to pretend I’m playing Tetris and that helps a little bit. My day brightens when three girls light up as they approach.

“Hey,” one of them says. “Are you Three-Z?”

“Oh no,” I say dramatically. “They found my secret identity!”

We share a laugh.

“We love your channel!” Another says. “I’ve been watching you for years now! I got my friends hooked on it too.”

“Hey thanks!” I say more cheerfully than usual. “Stay tuned, I might have some new games to play soon. But I can’t really give more info on that.”

I really wish I could tell them about the job interview but that would be breaking confidentiality. Can’t risk losing a potential spot with this job. One of them pauses for a moment with a shy smile. Then she continues.

“Hey, we just wanted to say we really appreciate your channel. I don’t really feel comfortable gaming as a lot of guys are always sexist assholes in online spaces. So, watching you kick ass everyday is really inspiring.”

I smile. Not a polite one but a genuine, shit eating grin. When my channel first started, a lot of the guys I played with would constantly try to hit on me if I was just remotely nice to them. Most would try to blame me anytime their team lost so they could pin the blame on a girl because obviously fighting isn’t meant for us. At first it made me want to quit.

But I really fucking hate losing.

Quitting what I love just to avoid being shit on felt like it was surrendering. Like I was admitting defeat for some assholes who weren’t worth me feeling bad about myself. So instead of quitting, I locked the fuck in. I spent ass loads of time practicing so I could outperform everyone else and used all that pent up rage to trash talk every guy who disrespected me.

Eventually, it was so much fun that I started recording myself whenever I went online. Then started streaming and when that got enough followers, I started my YouTube channel. Yeah, that’s pretty much my origin story.

“I’m really glad to help out,” I say proudly. “You girls have a good day! Thanks for the support!”

They leave and the next one in line completely ruins every nice feeling I just had. He’s an older guy with eyes that are constantly wide and bloodshot. I can smell him from a mile away and can already tell that garbage bins are probably nicer than this dude’s house. His shirt says, “I LUV HENTAI” and it’s full of stains that I really don’t want to know where they came from. There’s just something creepy about his glare. It feels like his eyes are crawling all over me when he approaches.

“I love your channel too,” he speaks in a voice that sounds like broken glass. “Can I take a selfie?”

“Uhhh sure?” I say trying to get this over with. “But first can you get your groceries out? There’s a line up.”

He doesn’t listen. Instead, he comes to the opposite side of the cash register and puts his arm around me. I can feel his sweat sticking to the back of my neck, and I want to fucking vomit. Pulling out his phone, he smiles a crooked smile. The smile I give his picture is a polite one that I give all the customers. He frowns at that.

“Stick your tongue out,” he demands.

“No,” I say, finding my courage.

“Come on, stick your tongue out!” His voice is getting whinier.

I push him away from me, freeing myself from his arm. Then I use the same tone when I’m trash talking people online. There’s just something about shit talking in person that feels just so fulfilling.

“Look Gollum, I really don’t care if you’re my fan. I don’t care if you build a fucking shrine for me and jerk off over it every night. There’s a line up here and I said I’m not interested. So, get your groceries out and FUCK RIGHT OFF!”

With his back hunched over, he walks miserably back to the other side of the cash register. Then he turns around with a flash of rage. His face contorts hideously. He mutters something incoherent and snot dribbles out his nose. Then I see him racing back like a hungry ass wolf. Except if the wolf was less cool looking and looked more like a pervert.

I see him trying to grab at my throat. No way I’m letting that slide, dipshit. Just as he tries to grab me, I duck, slide up close and take a swing at him. Then, I smash my fist right into the motherfucker’s jaw breaking his tooth. He goes down easily, spitting out blood.

Being best friends with a boxer has its advantages. I’m no Lara Croft but I can hold my own in a fight. Especially against weirdos like this guy. Spitting on the ground, I turn to the old woman next in line.

“Okay, you’re turn,” I say. But before she can do anything, security already has me on the ground.

*****

I’m sitting in my manager’s office on a small stool while he fills out the incident report. This place is a white room with a dim lamp on the ceiling, and a bulletin board filled with lists of our shifts. It’s never hot or cold in here. Just…sterile. It creeps me out.

Phil is amicable enough. He can be a bit of a hard ass for the rules, but I’ve never had an issue with him. That’s about to change today though.

“This isn’t looking too good,” he sighs. “I’m sorry, Zara.”

“Sorry for what?” I ask. “I was defending myself; no rules were broken.”

“You screamed at a customer and broke his jaw.”

Wait, I broke his jaw too?! Holy crap, I thought it was just his tooth. Damn, I’m impressed with myself. Nice one, Zara!

“He was sexually harassing me,” I yell. “Went where he wasn’t supposed to!”

“It doesn’t matter,” says Phil. “You should have called security as soon as he went to the other side at the beginning. Then none of this would have happened.”

I don’t fucking believe this. So, self defense is against the rules now? What if this was Phil’s daughter? I guarantee he wouldn’t be crying a river for that creep. But whatever, I guess it’s all my fault now that he got what he deserved. Prick should be grateful I wasn’t aiming for his balls.

“Fine,” I groan. “What’s it looking like, then?”

“There will be an investigation,” Phil says professionally. “We’ll talk to the man and get his side of the story. Then we’ll come to an unbiased decision.”

“In other words, I’m fired, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

My walk back to the subway station is as miserable as you’d think. This job was my freaking lifeline. Then the fear sets in as I realize the situation I’m in: there’s literally nothing keeping me in that apartment anymore. My channel doesn’t cover the cost of rent or my groceries. If I can pass this interview and land a job with GameSurge then I’ll be fine. But otherwise, I’m done for.

“Okay,” I remind myself. “I’m gonna get that fucking job. I hate losing.”