The spare room of Chase’s apartment had been transformed.
What used to be a guest room for discarded boxes was now the VIM Remote Uplink Station, a high-tech cell of computers, glowing monitors and soundproofing foam.
Amelia adjusted her headset, her fingers fumbling with the plastic. She felt ridiculous in the yellow-and-black striped sweater she’d unearthed from a storage bin. “I look like a bumblebee who joined a hacker collective,” she muttered, catching her reflection in the glass of a dormant monitor.
“You look like a cereal mascot’s edgy reboot,” Chase joked, leaning against the doorframe. He looked steady, but there was a flicker of something guarded in his eyes. He held up a fist, and she bumped it. “Remember the rules. No real life. Just the show.”
Amelia turned to her monitor as the “Go Live” indicator flickered to life. The chat was already a scrolling blur of VIM employees and kids from the Harrison Home. She swallowed hard, forcing a smile. “Hi everyone! I’m ABeeWin. For our first stream, I wanted to go back to my roots with a classic ‘Let’s Watch’ of the anime that started it all for me: Dragon Ball Z.”
She clicked the file labeled DBZ_SAIYAN_SAGA_HD_REMASTER_AB, assuming the initials stood for a copy meant just for her.
On screen, a space pod crashed into a farmer’s field, and Raditz stepped out with his signature scowl. But when the farmer raised his shotgun and shouted, “Protect me, gun!” Amelia’s smile faltered. Raditz flicked the bullet back with a casual, “No one shoots ‘The Raditz,’” and Amelia paused the video.
“Wait. I… maybe the dub is different than I recall?” she asked the camera, trying to remain professional even as the chat began to explode with laughing emojis. She hit play again, only to watch Piccolo claim he was there to “do taxes and kill Goku, and he’s all out of taxes.” Her mouth fell open.
She was watching a parody.
She flustered, clicking frantically to find the right file and accidentally minimizing the video to reveal a desktop photo of a frog in a tiny sombrero. “Oh god, ignore Senior Hoppy!” she scrambled, knocking her microphone askew with a loud, metallic thud. “I thought this was the Funimation dub! Why is Nappa asking for Dairy Queen?”
The chat was a waterfall of bee emojis and “LMAO”s. Amelia stared at the screen, watching Yamcha get blown up while Nappa called his death “disappointing.” She let out a long, defeated sigh and leaned into the mic with a helpless shrug. “Well,” she whispered, “I guess for Yamcha… that’s gotta sting.”
On the other side of the soundproof divider, Chase was fighting a different kind of war. He had booted up Overwatch, determined to showcase his “SilverTongue” persona through the lens of a “classic” team shooter. “It’s about strategy,” he told his growing audience. “You kids want to click heads; you don’t appreciate the symphony of a well-timed ultimate.”
He locked in Reinhardt, the massive, hammer-wielding knight, and marched toward the objective. “Watch this. I am the shield. I am the frontline.” Suddenly, an enemy character, some purple haired floating girl, threw a series of glowing orbs bypassing his barrier entirely. His team was wiped out, with Reinhardt being the last survivor.
“Eliminated” screen flashed.
Chase took his hands off the keyboard and stared at the camera. Then, he leaned in closer, his eyes narrowing. “You know,” he said. “This isn’t a game anymore. It’s a storefront disguised as entertainment.”
He minimized the window and pulled up a blank notepad, his pen gesturing with precision. “Let’s talk about the ‘Live Service’ model. It’s your heated car seats. It’s your printer ink. It’s the predatory idea that you can never truly own anything again; you can only subscribe to the privilege of not being miserable. They broke the ecosystem on purpose so they could sell you a way to exist in the mess they made.”
The chat shifted from mockery to a stunned, frantic engagement. Chase was rolling now, channeling the frustration of the Viento audit and the clinic’s lost hours into a blistering critique of a economy. “They don’t sell you a game anymore,” he ranted, his voice tight. “They give you a cage and call it ‘fun’. And we thank them for the content while they dismantle our freedom.”
Two hours later, Chase slumped in his chair, exhaling a breath. The silence of the apartment rushed back in. He looked at his hands; they were shaking.
Amelia came around the divider, looking exhausted. “I watched a parody for ninety minutes, Chase. I accidentally showed the internet my high school pet frog.”
Chase stood and stretched. “You were great. I heard you laughing from through the wall.”
“And you?” she asked. “I heard rage.”
“I may have accused the entire software industry of crimes against humanity,” he admitted, reaching out to take her hand. They stumbled toward the bathroom. Amelia pulled off the yellow sweater, leaving it crumpled on a chair, while Chase unbuttoned his collar.
Standing side-by-side at the double sink, the harsh fluorescent light highlighted the dark circles under their eyes. Amelia rinsed her mouth and looked at him in the mirror. “Does this feel familiar to you? The performing. The high. The crash.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “It feels like AnimeVerse.”
Chase winced, his toothbrush pausing mid-air. “I had successfully repressed the Homelander incident, Ames.”
“You were so lost in the character,” she said, her voice dropping. “You spent three days strutting around because you had the hots for a Karin Kanzuki cosplayer. All because I went as Storm from the X-Men instead of Storm Front.”
“I remember, the black-face did NOT go over well.” Chase smiled.
She hit his shoulder playfully, “After wiping off the make-up I pretended to be ‘Mrs. Wright’ because the hotel clerk thought we were married, and I was so embarrassed that I didn’t even correct him.”
“I remember,” Chase said softly, setting the brush down. “I remember you throwing a drink in my face in the lobby. I remember telling you that if we were actually married, I’d just be hiding the flirting better. It was a dick thing to say.”
He turned to her. “I remember you crying in that hallway, Amelia. It’s different this time. I promise.”
“How?” she asked.
“Because at AnimeVerse, we wanted to be other people. But tonight? I just wanted to finish the shift so I could come back to this.” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, his thumb grazing her cheek. “This isn’t a bit anymore, Ames. It’s more of an audition for both of us to become the real Mr. and Mrs. Wright.”
Amelia let out a long breath, her shoulders dropping. She leaned into him, the weight of the night finally settling into something manageable. “Good. Because I really don’t have the energy to throw a drink at you tonight.”
“From my recently cleaned face, I appreciate that,” he whispered. They turned off the lights and moved into the bedroom, curling into each other under the heavy duvet.