Well, what do you know, all of my problems did not end up fixing themselves in my sleep. Funny how that works.

I couldn’t remember at this point whether I had a day off or not. I had to double-check to see that I was working. I was— how horrible.

But I showered and changed and got dressed in my slave garb. Outside I heard some commotion. People opening and closing doors rapidly. I didn’t know what that was about, but I figured someone was either moving or having a fight. In either case, I decided to stay out of it.

“Felix?” I asked. But he was gone off again. Where? No idea. I did wonder what that strange creature was up to when not hanging about on my shoulders. Activist stuff, I imagine.

As I sat down with my iced coffee— the position of sitting and drinking beginning to feel a tad more natural— I thought about everything that was happening to me: I becoming aware of the under-reality after smoking that roll-up, wandering around with Felix and eventually becoming bonded to him, and now my training with Full Time— training that may or may not be linked to conspiracy bullshit within the organisation. Oh, and who could forget that strange computer voice in the base telling me to learn weapons training. In fact, where did that glove go? The one with the strange hoops and shit on it?

I looked at my hand and didn’t see it. I juggled a finger— click-clak.

It was there, still on my hand. Focusing on it, the strange webbed glove suddenly appeared. There it was in all of its mesh glory. Evidently, I had never taken it off. Letting my mind wander, I noticed that the glove faded into the background of my skin, appearing invisible again. A glove that acted all camouflaged-like? Weird.

Getting up to take care of my drinking glass, I noticed that the mental graph was not in my mind. Damn, I cursed at myself. If Kush knew, he would . . . well, not yell, per se, but probably not be terribly impressed. But I was training, so who cares?

I squinted my mind for a second and blam, the graph popped back up into my headspace. Soon, it, like the glove, faded into the background of my bodily space like a screensaver.

Time for work. Yay.

Work was, well, work.

And by the end of it, still no sign of either Kush or Felix. But plenty of my regulars— co-workers, volunteers helping to find that kid, customers, and general oddballs.

Now clocked out, I could go home, but did not. Instead, I was a good little student and I followed the dictates of my teacher as I went to the candy aisle and practiced making shit move without touching it.

As I walked to the oft deserted candy aisle on the other side of the store, I thought about the graph in my headspace and how today, as opposed to every other day, it moved with me in real time as I worked; throughout my shift, I could actually see the magical energy generate and the ebbs and flows of its movements within my body; sudden jags, flat lines, steady bumps. It was actually interesting to watch.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

For, like, five minutes.

Truthfully, it would have been far more interesting if I knew what any of the line movements meant. A sudden jag, for example, meant what? I figured that part of Kush’s training was to have me explore for myself the meaning of the graph, but still, I would have appreciated a more direct legend to the ever-deepening mystery of my life.

Now in the candy aisle, I set my sights on a bag of sugar-free caramel chocolate bites.

I set my sights on the dietary bites and did not break eye contact for any reason. Like the previous two times, I thought about the packaging, in this case, the look of the bag as it proudly displayed a “Sugar Free” label in all capital letters. Obviously, it was geared toward a specific demographic of people— diabetes folk and parents buying sweets for their kids (whom they clearly hate). Other people I am sure also bought the sugar free product for their own reasons, but to think about that madness now would mean derailing everything. So, instead, I continued to stare at the product and make connections, probably looking like a loon to anyone passing by the aisle, not that, that happened too often, weirdly enough.

As I concentrated, I kept the graph in my mind— clearly visible as I made, at this point, somewhat intimate contact with the candy as my vision bordered on romantic feelings of lust for its deformed, cringle package, and not-so-sweet interior.

Then, as suddenly as it occurred with the other two candies— poot.

The bag “leaped” from its place on the shelf and hit my leg.

In the graph, meanwhile, a third data point appeared. Focusing on it, some basic information about the third dot materialized, such as the date and time. As I expected, it appeared just after the previous two dots and this dot was, just by the tiniest of margins, ever-so-slightly lower on the graph than the other two. This meant that I was using my magical energy efficiently— more so than the previous two attempts which, like this attempt, completely drained me of my magical energy— represented on the graph by a red line which gradually went up as I labored— but it did so this time with just less waste. Focusing on all of the data points and doing some simple math, I found that this data entry meant I was more effectively using my magic by a margin of half-of-a-half percent. Woot for me! And although it was just for a moment, I saw in the background of the graph that the bolded words which read “Magical Quality:” now read (still) “Strange.” But now the bold lettering was glimmering, as if something was to happen or change the lettering. What did that mean?

Fact is, though, I would never know., or not for a long while yet. So I returned to trying to imagine what it would mean for my powers as a budding wizard if I improved at a rate of point-five percent everyday, but I gave up half-way through a percentage of trying; realistically, after all, my improvement would slow due to finessing, right? Like when a video game increases the amount of experience you need to level up and before you know it— bam!— half of your week-long vacation is gone from trying to grind out one single fucking level.

But who knows, maybe this is different? Attributing arbitrary video game logic to reality, after all, has some insane logic to it . . . even though the world is not two-dimensional and people talk to me with text boxes. Still.

But then, something snapped me out of it— “Sir, sir?!”

I looked to my right and saw a woman. Unfortunate.

“Sir,” she again asked, “could you tell me where the shampoo is?”

It was a close call between telling her off and being useful, especially since my shift had already ended, but in the end, I told her where the shampoo was . . . despite the fact that I should not have since I was off the clock.

As she went away, however, I noticed on my graph a blink. A tiny, little increase in the gauge that represented my magical accumulation. From nearly zero, it shot up just a tiny smidge.

“But, I wasn’t working . . . I wasn’t on the clock.” I asked myself the same questions as I did when I made the transaction but no answers came to me.

Answers or no answers, I needed to leave this fluorescent tomb. I placed the candy back on the shelf and I walked home.