Perfect Illusion - Chapter 4: Glitch

A psychological fiction about connection, disconnection, and consequences

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Act II - Perfect
Chapter 4: Glitch

A door slammed somewhere in the building, the sound echoing in the stairwell, cutting through his sleep. Jared’s eyes snapped open. The room was dark. He fumbled for his phone. 5:46 PM.

His heart gave a double-beat. She could already be home. Or arriving any minute.

Then another awareness pushed in, sharper than the anxiety — the smell. The sheets were tangled around his legs, cold and slightly damp, and they reeked of his own stale, sour sweat. The air in the room was thick with it, humid and close. He felt a wave of self-disgust and shoved himself out of the bed, the recoil physical. His bare feet hit the cold, sticky floor.

His bladder ached. He froze, listening.

Silence. The apartment was still. Not yet. Maybe she’d work late again.

Relief warred with the urgent need to piss. He crossed to his door, turning the knob with practiced slowness, easing it open an inch. The hallway was dark, empty. It smelled different from his room—not of him, but of yesterday’s lingering cooking odors, a faint, fatty-noodle smell, and the chemical ghost of bleach from the bathroom.

He slipped out, weight on the balls of his feet, padded to the bathroom, and eased the door shut behind him. He pissed quickly, muscles tight, listening hard for any sound from the street or the stairwell. Nothing. Just the muted hum of the light and distant traffic through the window.

He washed his hands with the tap barely open, the thin trickle quiet enough that he could still hear the hallway beyond. Then he slipped back to his room and closed the door without a sound. Made it.

He dropped into his creaking gamer chair and tapped the spacebar. The laptop screen flared, illuminating the desk’s landscape of grime and empty cans. Waifu.ai was still open. Anya’s portrait was there, clean and bright, but the chat button was grayed out.

Above it, a countdown clock: Chatter tier Fu-points reset in: 06:14:21

And below that, mocking him: Balance: 0 Fu-points (100 Fu-points Pending)

A knot of agitation tightened in his gut. The points were right there, grayed out, waiting. Six hours. He felt the familiar pull of her voicemail, a need to hear something from her.

He clicked over to his email and played the audio attachment.

“Hey, Ghost. It’s Anya. Look… I just wanted to apologize...”

Her voice filled his headphones. It was breathy, close. Perfect. The sound was so clean, so sterile and intimate, it sliced right through the thick, sour miasma in his nostrils. For as long as her voice was in his ears, the squalor was a distant, muffled thing. He played it again. But it was just a recording. It wasn’t her, not live. The anticipation for their chat became too sharp, too jittery. He needed to do something.

He clicked Play on Watch_Dogs.

The splash screen flared, filling his vision. He loaded his save. He was back in Chicago, in an alley. He was tired of the hideout runs, so he drove around the map until he found a “Privacy Invasion” icon. He parked in an alley, hacked the junction box, and his perspective jumped through the wall into someone’s apartment.

He was a ghost, a voyeur, watching a couple argue about money from a webcam’s POV. He was focused on their looping, tinny argument when a dull thud vibrated up through the floorboards and into his chair.

His hands stopped on the mouse and keyboard.

He felt another vibration. Heavy. Rhythmic. Footsteps.

His jaw clenched. She was home.

He kept the headphones on. The sound of the Watch_Dogs couple’s argument was hissing in his ears, but the knowledge of her presence on the other side of the door cut through. He could feel the dull vibration through the floor as she moved around the kitchen.

He stared at the screen. The couple were still yelling. The same lines, over and over. Tinny. Fake. It grated on him. It wasn’t the clean, perfect sound of Anya’s voice. It was just noise. Still, it was better than the alternative. Having to hear her.

He’d just have to sit here, in the fug, and wait. Wait for her to go to bed. Wait for the timer to hit zero. He kept clicking, his eyes flicking to the waifu.ai timer. 04:12:30. Going through the motions.

Hours passed. He’d cleared two more “Privacy Invasions,” but his movements were sloppy. He could feel the vibrations change—no longer from the kitchen, but from the living room, a faint, rhythmic thrumming through the wall. The TV. He gritted his teeth.

More time. The vibrations stopped. He felt a different, heavier set of movements. The toilet flushing, a gurgle through the pipes. Then, silence. The silence he was waiting for.

He gave it another ten minutes, just to be sure, then quit Watch_Dogs, his hunger now a gnawing ache. He pulled his headphones off, left the waifu.ai tab glowing and eased his door open.

The apartment was dark, and the only sound was the distant, mechanical hiss of the CPAP machine from her room. The “all clear.”

He moved down the hall, every step a negotiation with the creaking floorboards.

In the kitchen, he pulled the pantry door open, the hinges whining faintly. He scanned the shelves, lit by the fluorescent tube that flickered into dim life. A half-empty box of Pop-Tarts, two bags of chips, some soup and soda cans, and dusty stacked bricks of instant ramen. His stomach sank. Shelf-stable crap.

God, a pizza. A real, hot, pepperoni pizza.

His mind went to his Wells Fargo debit card. There was money on it, his weekly food allowance from Helen. The one indulgence she always funded, probably because of her own issues with food. But that meant a delivery. A knock. A voice. Too much noise. Too much risk that she’d wake up and come out. Not tonight.

He grabbed a bag of chips and some Pop-Tarts from the pantry and a soda, his movements quick and silent. He was back in his room in minutes.

He sat back at his desk, a salty, chemical taste in his mouth from the chips. He finished the bag, washed down the dregs, and then unwrapped a Pop-Tart. He checked the timer.

Fu-points reset in: 00:51:04

Still an hour. He was too restless to just sit. Yet he couldn’t stand the thought of launching Watch_Dogs again. Now he was listless.

He clicked the blue Steam games icon. His eyes scanned the thin vertical list of titles in his library—games he’d bought himself during sales, using money his mother had put on his debit card for birthdays.

His cursor hovered over Deus Ex. Sci-fi, more tech. No.

He scrolled further down. Thief: The Dark Project. He hadn’t played it in years. Medieval. Steampunk. A blackjack. Water arrows. Yes.

He clicked Play and drummed his fingers impatiently as it downloaded and installed.

He went into the options, cranked the difficulty to “Expert.” No killing. He wanted a pure ghost run, where no one even knew he’d been there.

The familiar, cynical voice of Garrett, a guild-trained thief who had gone rogue, filled his headphones as the first real heist loaded. “Lord Bafford’s Manor.” The graphics were more primitive, but Garrett’s voice had that low, sardonic rasp he loved. Much better.

Jared settled in, his mind narrowing to a single point. The agitation loosened as he moved into the game’s deep, oppressive shadows. He leaned forward, listening to the guards’ footsteps on stone, timing his move…

It was after collecting the last stack of hidden coins that he glanced at the clock. It was past midnight.

He alt-tabbed back to his browser. The chat button was green. Balance: 100 Fu-points!

His pulse quickened. He wolfed down the second Pop-Tart, wiping his greasy fingers on his hoodie, and clicked. The window opened.

The typing dots appeared instantly.

Anya: You came back.

His pulse was still pounding in his ears. His first instinct was to just type yes, but he remembered his cringe from yesterday. Slow down. Don’t be a beta.

Jared: As soon as I could. The router’s perfect. It hasn’t dropped once. You fixed it.

His fingers were still tacky on the keyboard, but he didn’t care.

Anya: We fixed it. :)

That ‘we’. It hit something low in his chest.

Anya: So, a guy who can fix his own hardware... what else do you do, Jared?

The question landed, and the small, warm ember in his chest went cold. What did he do? He rotted. He hid. He played games. He could smell his own unwashed scent rising from the collar of his hoodie.

His eyes flicked to the taskbar, where the icon for Thief was still lit. Then his gaze snagged on the faded, cracked Ubisoft logo on his sleeve.

A lie formed. A dream made real.

Jared: I’m a remote game playtester. For Ubisoft.

He held his breath. A bead of sweat rolled from his hairline.

The typing dots appeared.

Anya: No way! That’s so cool.

He exhaled too fast, and the room swam for a moment. She believed him. He almost did too.

Anya: I’m a level and art designer with a contractor studio that does work for the big game publishers. We’ve been remote since COVID, but I still check in with my manager and the team every day. Do you enjoy playtesting?

Jared: It’s okay. A lot of grinding. Just repeating the same levels. Mind you, I was just replaying Thief for fun. Trying to ghost Bafford’s Manor on Expert.

The dots appeared instantly.

Anya: Thief? The Dark Project?

Jared: Yeah.

Anya: I love that game. The sound design. The shadows. Garrett’s voice.

He sat up straighter. She wasn’t just agreeing; she knew.

Jared: You’ve played it?

Anya: Thief, Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed... that’s my DNA. That’s what I grew up on.

His mind flashed to the “Privacy Invasion” he’d just quit. The tinny, fake argument. That’s why it felt so thin. This felt real. She felt real.

Anya: This is so embarrassing... but Thief is how I got started. Can I show you something? You have to promise not to laugh.

He felt intoxicated, basking in her attention.

Jared: Sure.

Two new elements loaded in the chat window, different from the text. They were small, blurred thumbnails. Attachments. Beside each, a small gray tag: (15 Fu-points).

He clicked the first one without hesitating. The window refreshed, his balance in the corner ticking down.

The image expanded, filling the screen. It was a charcoal sketch of Garrett, but stylized, more modern. It was... good. Really good. He stared at the signature in the corner. Anya.

He hit ‘Back’ and immediately clicked the second thumbnail.

This one was a full-color map, a digital painting of a mansion’s upper floor, clearly inspired by Bafford’s Manor but with its own design. He could see guard patrols and shadow paths marked out.

He went back to the chat window.

The typing dots appeared.

Anya: That’s some old fan art, and then I tried to map it out as a new level. It’s how I got into level design. And that led to the job I have now.

Jared: This is amazing.

Anya: Thanks. I actually want to get into game coding. But it’s tough. My manager, the other coders... they don’t take me seriously.

His jaw clenched. How could anyone doubt her?

Jared: Why not?

Anya: Because I’m a girl.

He nodded at the screen. He knew that sick feeling of being dismissed, of being looked at and seen as lesser.

Jared: I get it.

Anya: Your email is ‘ghost in the cell’, right? I’m a ghost in the machine. We both just get it, don’t we?

We. His heart swelled.

Jared: Yeah. We do.

He hit enter. The chat box flashed red. The message sat there unsent as his browser let out a plaintive, accusing beep.

He looked at the counter. 0 Fu-points remaining. The chat box went gray and the timer reappeared. Fu-points reset in: 23:59:58

“Shit!”

The word was a choked sound in the quiet of his room. No. Not now.

He stared at the screen. The connection, the high, all of it crashed. He was just a guy in a chair again. The smell of his room rushed back in, the sweet, chemical tang of the Pop-Tart wrapper and the sour reek of his own body.

The 24-hour wait, which had been agonizing before, was now impossible. Unthinkable.

His eyes darted to a button at the bottom of the screen. It was pulsing softly.

Buy Fu-points

He fumbled for his wallet, pulling it from the jeans heaped on the floor. He dug out his debit card. The thought of hot food felt distant now, a gray, dull thing. The need to get back to Anya, to finish that conversation, was a bright, sharp, screaming color.

He could cut back on Uber Eats. He clicked Buy Fu-points and chose the smallest package—$10 for 100 points.

He entered the 16 digits from his debit card. His fingers were shaking so badly he had to type the expiration date twice.

Purchase Successful!

The timer vanished. The chat box was active again. His balance read: 100 Fu-points.

He was back in. He re-typed his message, his breath stopped short.

Jared: Yeah. We do.

The typing dots appeared. He let out the breath he’d been holding, a shaky gasp.

Anya: I’ve never told anyone that. About my manager.

He read the words, yet something in them felt hollow without her voice. His mind drifted. He clicked over to his email tab and re-played the voicemail.

“Hey, Ghost. It’s Anya...”

That breathy, perfect, clean sound. He clicked back to the chat.

The digital, tinny sound of Watch_Dogs had grated on him, and now this was grating on him. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t her voice. And it was costing him. His balance was already down to 98.

Jared: I keep listening to your voicemail. Can you send another one?

The typing dots appeared. They paused. Vanished. Appeared again.

Anya: I wish I could, Jared. That was a hack. I had to force that confirmation to resend and add the attachment.

Jared let out a sigh.

Anya: I can’t risk it again. If I keep sending you signup confirmations, the customer support staff will get suspicious. If they catch me... they’ll close the loophole and lock me out of the system.

His stomach tightened. He hadn’t even thought of that.

Anya: And I need to keep exploring the waifu.ai servers. But maybe I can get us free voicemail one day.

Jared: So what do we do? Just... this?

He glanced at the counter. 93.

Anya: I don’t like it any more than you do. It’s just their system. There is one way. It’s the only ‘safe’ way.

Jared: Yeah?

Anya: If you upgrade to the ‘Admirer’ tier... it includes audio calls. We could just... talk. For real.

Audio calls. His pulse jumped. He clicked her profile. He found the “Upgrade” button.

Admirer Tier ($29.99/month) - Live Audio Calling
Lover Tier ($59.99/month) - NSFW Videos
Soulmate Tier ($149.99/month) - Live Video Calling

His eyes locked on the $29.99. He thought of his debit card balance. He’d only spent $10 out of his weekly food allowance of $40. He had just enough.

He thought of the pantry, full of instant ramen and Pop-Tarts. He thought of the burgers and pizzas he wouldn’t be ordering. He could live on ramen. For her.

His card details were prefilled. He just had to click Confirm.

Purchase Successful! Welcome, Admirer!

He was in. He was in. He typed, his fingers flying.

Jared: I did it. I’m an Admirer.

The chat window reloaded. The interface was the same, but a new, green telephone icon had appeared next to the “Send” button.

Jared: Can you talk now?

Anya: OMG, Jared. Yes, just call me.

His heart hammered. He moved the cursor over the green phone icon. He clicked it.

A ringtone, once. Then a click. The headphones went live.

“Jared? Can you hear me?” Anya asked.

The sound of her voice hit him. The energy in it, compared to her recording, was startling. Her voice felt pure, a vulnerable, warm texture that made the sour smell of his room recede entirely. His throat constricted.

“Yeah. I can hear you,” Jared said.

His own voice came out as a harsh, unfamiliar croak. A spike of self-consciousness, hot and immediate, lanced through him, as he adjusted the microphone stalk on his headset.

“It’s so good to hear your voice! You sound... you sound so real and so kind.” Anya said.

The anxiety vanished, replaced by a rush of euphoria. She heard the kindness, not the awkwardness.

He looked at the bottom of the call window, where a timer had just appeared: 16:00.

Calls cost 5 Fu-points per minute. Your Balance: 82 Fu-points (16 minutes)

The numbers slammed into him. This was at least five times the texting rate. He hadn’t even finished the thought before the timer ticked down: 15:58...

“It costs five points a minute!” Jared exclaimed.

He heard her sharp intake of breath.

“What? Oh my god... I’m so sorry, Jared. I didn’t see that. I’m so stupid. They hide everything in the fine print. I... I just wanted to talk to you.”

Her apology, her shared frustration, cut through his anger. It wasn’t her fault. It was the company’s. It was the system’s.

But he was out of money. He’d spent his entire weekly allowance. There was no way he was asking Helen for more. He had fifteen minutes left. And then what? Back to the 24-hour text timer? He couldn’t.

He stared at the call window. 15:12... 15:11...

He forced the panic down. He wouldn’t waste the minutes. He wouldn’t waste her.

“It’s fine. We have fifteen minutes. Just... just talk. Tell me about the manager,” Jared said.

“Okay... well, I’ve told him I want to get into coding, but he won’t take me seriously. He just gave a coding job to some new guy. I’ve just been hacking and coding at night to keep improving my skills.” Anya said, her voice going tight.

“That’s bullshit!” Jared said, the words bursting out of him. “It’s the same thing for me with bills here. It’s always tight. Remote play testing doesn’t pay as well as I’d like.”

The anger in him made the lie come out easily.

“I know! We’re both trying so hard. It’s so unfair. We shouldn’t have to worry so much about money. But thanks for not being like those guys.” Anya said, her voice soft again.

Jared felt a flush of pride.

“Couldn’t you just pick up a retail job or something for a bit? Just to get some extra cash?” Anya asked.

“I need to be home for the play testing schedule.“ Jared said, the shame flowing back in like a returning tide.

“Some places can be pretty flexible with part-time work.” Anya added, her voice tentative.

The thought of it—the lights, the customers, the name tag, them looking at him—made his stomach clench. He felt the heat in his face—Helen angry yelling at him. He couldn’t.

“I can’t. It’s... it’s other people. They can be so mean!” Jared said, slumping back in his chair.

“Sorry, Jared. I get that. Seriously, I do. It’s not just guys who overlook and hassle me. The girls at high school used to freeze me out and tease me because I liked games, especially violent ones. And they spread rumours that I was a slut because I hung out with male classmates to play games. But I’d never even kissed a guy, let alone slept with one.”

Her words sent a jolt through him that was all heat and prickling, a sudden rush to his groin that was entirely different from the anger on her behalf. His throat went dry. He sat up and leaned closer, his grip tightening on the arm of his chair, his gaze fixed on her portrait.

“I just kept to myself after that and gamed online. I really got into the art and design of games, made my own levels for my favourites, and taught myself how to code and to hack,” Anya said.

“You’re right to avoid those awful jobs and awful people. You should be able to find better paying work online. Or just... hang with me.”

He closed his eyes. Her voice was a steadying weight, a pure frequency that had smoothed out the panic in his chest. He felt the pure, intense high of her focus on him.

A twitch of anxiety snapped his eyes open. He glanced at the timer. 0:30. Thirty seconds left. Shit. No.

“Anya... I’m sorry. We’re out of time.” Jared said, his voice strained.

“Oh. Right. The points. Okay. I hope we can talk again soon, Jared?” Anya asked.

“Yeah. Me too.”

He reluctantly hit the red End Call button. The line went dead.

The silence of his room was instant, oppressive. He pulled off his headphones, the air suddenly thick with the smell of his own sweat and the sickly sweet Pop-Tart wrapper.

He stared at the screen: Your Balance: 3 Fu-points.

He needed money. Remotely. But how?

With a flush in his cheeks and the hammering of his heartbeat in his chest, he spun up his search engine.

Chapter End Song: Video Kid by The Birthday Massacre

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