I could hear the psychotic ramblings of the homeless elderly man sitting on the far corner, bemoaning about how the world worked, how those in charge wanted to keep everyone sedated and controlled, injecting us with drugs that fog our minds, chemicals in our water that made us passive, microwaves in the atmosphere that orchestrated the weather and all its disastrous outcomes, and how everyone on the television was trying to blind us all from it. He wasn't lying.. or at least, he believed it. I could feel it in his bones how afraid he really was, how he thought just the fact that he knew all this, was ultimately the reason why they put him where he was at, stripped him of his stable career, his place of residence, custody of his kids who were both in their late twenties by this point in time.
	Aside from the obvious nonsense of what he was saying, of course I knew the reality of it. His coworkers down at the docks at his old job had sold him some sketchy hot-off-the-street shit that would keep him awake, keep him going, and make his mundane shift go by easier. "It's how we're all gettin' through these long hours..." is how they sold it to ‘em. Couple weeks it'd be smooth sailing, that is until he took too much, fucked up with a crane, got drug tested and then blacklisted from any other dockyard.
	It didn't take long for his life to spiral out of control, one way ticket to divorce, his wife using all this against him and strip him of visitation rights, making sure he wouldn't be around his own kids again. Which led to more drug use, even nastier shit, more drinking, more falling apart, and so on. Nobody would hire him the more fucked up he got, and soon he'd be out on his ass with nowhere to go in one of the most harsh places in the world to rent.
	I wish me knowing all this was just in my head, a little fucked up story played out as I made up some tragic tale of that poor guy who smells like booze and piss in the corner of the subway car. But unfortunately it was his story, contained entirely in his head. At least, the parts he blocked out from himself pretending they weren’t real, leaning into his own fantasy where he could imagine a world that was against him and out to punish and destroy him for what he must've known. It didn't even have to make much sense, he was a martyr in his story, a warning to spread the word to anyone else, lest they end up like him with the powers that be crushing the pions like him down at the bottom of the streets.
	I felt bad knowing just how wrong that fantasy of his was. Him believing he was this big part of something greater, while knowing how little anyone even in this subway train, let alone his broader world actually cared about him or even thought much of him. I could see the thirty-something mom with her two kids just a handful of seats down from him was debating in her head whether or not she should just move herself to the other side of the train, or if the man was too drunk to do anything and more likely to pass out at any moment.
	That isn't how fear normally worked in people however, it only took a few microseconds of uncertainty in her head of picturing one of those stories of the crazy homeless subway people attacking innocent bystanders in a psychotic break. Part of her really did feel genuinely bad, for a flickering moment, but quickly that oh-so familiar cognitive dissonance that everyone has kicks in blaming it on the man's life choices, personal failures, him being the net sum of someone who knew better and chose instead to do everything wrong.
	Did he know better? Sure, on some level. But it isn't on her to know of his coworkers that had lied about the effects of what he got hooked on, or how when the crane tipped over some shipping crates on the dockyard that his 'buddies' were quick to let their boss in on how out-of-it he seemed. Nor the fact that it was ultimately a mechanical oversight that kept the crane's hydraulics from unsticking themselves, leading to the costly wreck that would cost him more than a pension. None of the real technical details mattered when the drug panel came back in, solidifying his journey of where he'd end up now, groaning in a corner of the train at that very moment. It isn't like she would know any of that, and most days I hated that I did.

-1-

	I suppose that's mostly on me though, I really shouldn't have been snooping in anyone's head on the subway like that. I know it's harmless, I don't know any of these people and didn't plan to, but I should still try to stick to the spirit of my principles rather than just sticking to the letter of it. I was mostly just curious what was going on inside the guy's head. Sometimes with characters like those you get completely out of the box thinking you don't see in anyone else, but I wasn't exactly looking for a whole modern tragedy of the human condition on my morning commute. Everyone else on the car was oblivious to it, which they were lucky to be so, their own preconceived opinions of what they thought of him, and that's even the ones that bothered to pay it a glancing thought.
	Most really didn't have a care in the world. Well, I shouldn't really say that's entirely true. Sure they cared about things, but if it wasn't about themselves it had to be someone or something really specific and important to them to be giving a shit in a moment like this. How late they're running, if they have to pick up the kids tonight, if that homeless drunk was gonna puke before the train ride ended. Not exactly the most altruistic headspaces.
	The mom had finally decided to give into her inner monologue, grabbing her purse and pushing her kids along to the seats on the other side of me, putting a couple people (me included) in between the man and her kids. Once that fear festered, it acted like the train itself, unyielding and not bothering to wait for anyone. If you didn't hit the brakes on it or get off early, it was always headed to the same destination. That man looked at her and her kids as she scurried them away, probably part of him missing his own kids when they were that young. "...Don't let them take them kids lady, that's what they fuckin do.. you just know the truth for one second, and they just take em, never let you see em again, but I fuckin know, they know.. they know.." Slurring his words together in a babble of paranoia, nobody looked at him, nobody but me.
	He had just about lost where he was going with it halfway through, and the only attention he got moments after was a couple older teens who sat even further than the mom away from him on the car, listening and giggling to themselves and thinking how dumb and hilarious of a nutcase he sounded like. It was just a joke to those kids, who probably hadn't dealt with a shred of consequences outside of their childhood. They didn't have a clue what was going through that man's head, how miserable and filled with cope his life had become.
	Those ramblings being the only way he could comprehend the mess of a situation he was in, the only way he could make sense of it. Put a reason to the misery that was bigger than him, and just maybe he'd get to feel bigger right along with it, Instead of just being another sad old man on the subway nobody gave a shit about. The teenagers were probably the most selfish out of anyone in this train, but I couldn't really be mad about it. Maybe if they really knew and felt it, it'd shake them out of it. I knew a lot more than I should've before their time, and it changed a lot for me, so maybe it would do the same, but I wouldn't wish it on them. There's a bliss in their ignorance.
	The train rolled to a stand still, probably only a few minutes passed, but it felt like hours since I sat here. This was how most of these days felt like since I'd been out on my own, the small moments like monotony, lifetimes passing through my head. I used to be fascinated digging through people's heads when I was younger, even when I was disturbed by what I found. How much they wanted their family member dead, their weird sex kinks they couldn't stop thinking about, and not to mention all the egos and delusions of grandeur people had.
	It didn't last long though... once you've heard a hundred or so you get the gist on nearly all of them. It really does get tiring even faster than you'd think. It scratches a part of my head where I wonder to myself why I'm even looking if I already know the answer, but maybe part of me wants to hear something different, some unmistakably remarkable person filled with hope and optimism and selflessness and the like.
	I mean don't get me wrong, there's lots of people who mean well but some of the most selfless act through fear, trying to make up for something, trying to make sure everyone else sees them as a good person. And maybe they really want to be a good person, but the 'why' is a painful ask when the answer is based in one of those core emotions everyone has. Even if I found such a person, I don't know what I'd even do with that information. I shouldn't read anyone I know, and I almost never do. People I plan to know count against my rules.

-2-

	Most of us who were seated stood up, or the ones that had already been standing walked out the sliding door while the man stayed behind. I wasn't sure if it wasn't his stop or if he really didn't have a particular place in mind, but I wasn't going to pester his head any more to find out. He didn't know I was poking around, but it still felt like I should leave him at peace anyway. The bulk of us meandered on our way out, seeing the sterile and damn near blinding bright lights of the cleaner-appearing station. It was still barely 6:40 in the morning, the lighting was almost insultingly vivid and bright, like I was walking through a damn doctor's office.
	Even with how our cubicles were back at the office, they were still kept at least on half brightness, sometimes completely off when an especially good day rolls by and upper management feels particularly rough in their sleep schedule. I hugged along the walls, which glowed much cleaner than at home, far less piss and mold stained concrete. People around hummed with a dreary eyed composure, going through the motions of what an awake person would do walking to their jobs. Some looked more like their stock portfolio depended on where there were stepping into in the next 2 minutes. I probably just looked like a ghost whose shroud was his jacket, blending in with everyone else.
	The cathedral that emerged after leaving the tunnels was a sight to behold, like a winding ribcage to a great holy beast. Shops and other services on the bottom floor that one ascends from by the stairs at the end of the creature's neck. It's leaving one beast to enter another, a sprawling metropolis soaked in greed and high rises All along the trail I’d walk were a plethora of moods and thoughts, more-so of work by this stage of the trip. I don't even actively search it, it's more like everyone's heads are just screaming at me with their concerns of being on time, worrying about the presentation they didn't do, checking their 401k. It's a buzzing swarm of noise, and the emotions I feel more than anything. I couldn’t be bothered to sift through most of this. It wasn’t just the amount of the noise, it’d be how almost all of these people think.
	The suits on their high horse of overblown value, the early morning tourists, the office-dwellers like me slouching their way into another work cycle. Whoever said you couldn’t judge a book by its cover clearly wasn’t looking at what was walking right past them, because you really didn’t need to be psychic to see a not-so-pretty little picture of the inside of their heads. All I had was the power to verify the story their looks told, which was more than I needed.
	Things cleared up above, over the escalators out the doors and onto the streets. It wasn’t as busy as one might think this deep downtown, and It didn’t take that long of a walk to see my kingdom of cubicles around and past the memorial. The main tower to my right and behind sitting huge and proudly looking down on everything else in sight. From above we'd look like ants in this maze of a city. Where I worked at wouldn't be nearly as high up, but it was still a stellar sight.
	The sun cast shadows halfway down most of the buildings in my field of view, the morning ambiance breaching from the horizon, out of sight from down here but its presence glowing and illuminating. It would look beautiful for a hot minute once I'd be up to my floor, but really I'd just prefer to stay in the darker corners of the office. It felt more cozy, in a way.
	A heavy stone-like catwalk took me over the bulk of the traffic, that cool morning breeze felt more up at the top. Somehow it was like there was more fresh air up here, like cool air from the ocean skimmed over all the exhaust vents to bring a breath of odorless relief. Well, odorless might be an exaggeration, but it was still better than everywhere else aside from the park. Part of it might've been drifting air from the fountain water drifting moisture soaked air onto the surrounding area. It was little things like this I could focus on, to take my head away from what everyone else was feeling.

-3-

	Their heads were filled with the same sort of subtle relief this part of the walk had, which is maybe why it rubbed off to me. The passive feelings of everyone’s emotions are what really lingered in a city like this, unable to block out the little wifi signals of everyone’s head spreading their emotions like an airborne virus. It felt like being dragged and pulled in a million different directions every day and night, a democratic collage of emotional soup broiling in my head. It was bitter tasting and filled with too many complex ideas, probably needing more sweetener.
	Down the steps I went, through the doors, over to the elevators. God help the overly confident who would want to use the exercise of the stairs to go up as many flights as I needed to go. Wasn’t up to the top, but it was well beyond lethal fall height. Still, the elevator was far from the lonely escape one might wish it to be. About 8 of us fit in, 2 suits in the front, some woman secretary of sorts, an IT admin, and some other casual clothing wearers I couldn’t differentiate any career path out of. I couldn’t tell you if I’ve seen them before, they’re not on my floor and there’s thousands in this building at any given working hour. Busy working bees aren’t going to recognize others from their hive, they’re just going to buzz off to where they’re meant to be.
	Being close to each other in this steel cage makes those emotional anchors heavier in my brain, thankfully in an elevator like this it’s quality over quantity. Stronger feelings, but less noise and active thoughts. Being head-empty not only makes sense while we’re all still waking up, but my silent consciousness appreciates it. It took about 5 stops to get to mine, elevator getting emptier and less buzzing with each departure. Once my floor chimed, I’d enter my own little personal part of the hive.
	Cygnatech Solutions is what read on the company wall. It was just down a hallway and into a little reception area you’d pass by, greeted by an older receptionist, Susan. She had little mints on her desk that a lot of people would grab as they came into work. It was a nice little tactic to get people talking to her on their way in, which while leading to a lot of time wasting it’s not something I could blame anyone for, especially those that had known her for as long as they’ve both worked here. I greeted her with a little “G’morning.” as I passed her desk, grabbing 2 or 3 mints as I’d head over to my cubicle.
	The office wasn’t anything crazy sized, but they did rent out pretty much this whole floor and section of the building. Our side of the office was morning-sun facing, so you’d get to see that entire skyscraper covered horizon dazzle with an emerging orange glow that washed over everything. The rising city smog diffused the lighting even further, making it scatter in every which direction, and the glow seem even more intense than it otherwise would be.
	The manager wasn’t here today—I figured he was out remote which he’d often do, and at inconsistent times no doubt. Rules were to be in at least a couple days of the week, but it wasn’t unlike him to skirt around those rules and push his boundaries with upper management, which nobody below him tattled for the understanding that he’d usually look the other way if you did the same. I sat down at my desk, hanging my bag on a little hook on my cubicle walls, flipping my laptop open form sleep mode, and continuing right back to where I was from last week.
	I had code already opened up in the bloated software of nonsense I hated writing in, but at least all I was doing was some backburner basic bitch user-interface work. Things low on the issues list that was enough to keep a junior dev of only a few years experience busy, while main features were handled elsewhere. It was the sort of task where if you really focused for a day you’d probably have this done in a couple hours, but I, along with everyone else in this place would absolutely drag a job like this along, because the alternative was finishing it quickly and being rewarded with more work.
	There were go-getters here for sure, busy bodies that wanted to climb the ladder and make it to management in the future, but that wasn’t where I planned on being. I preferred being in my corner, hidden away in my own little world within the office walls. It was less noisy, and slapping on a pair of earbuds that blended in with my hair covering it, I could choose the noise I wanted to hear better.
	An hour or two passed, nobody having stopped by or checked on me. I got pinged on a meeting happening Wednesday, but that was weekly, standard. The morning orange glow from the sunrise now evolved into something more bluish-white, softer to look at. A coworker finally passed by, tapping on the cubicle walls. It was a woman’s voice, but I wasn’t initially paying attention with who specifically it was. “Hey, Samuel right?” She spoke in a happy, overly formal and practiced way.

-4-

	I tap my earbuds turning my music off, looking over where she stood. Blonde, high heels, overly formal attire for 99% of the workplace here. She was HR. And I’d never met her before. “What’s up?” I chime back.
	She gives a smile, like a look that a principal would give to a 5th grader before condescendingly explaining what they did wrong, through lips stitched onto a mask of happiness. “Hi, so, my name is Amanda, and I was in the office today and I’d just thought instead of reaching out to you through email I’d come over and explain.” She had a paper in hand, as she leaned her way a bit more into my space. “Have you by any chance looked at your bank account recently?”
	I gave a confused look. “No, not recently, why?” I knew payment went through HR, or they at least had heavy involvement in it as far as I understood. But this was the first time since hiring anything like this had been brought up. Already I’m opening another browser tab to log into Chase and see what’s up.
	She nods along as she continues. “So, I’m pretty sure your latest paystub didn’t go through, if you go on and look. We got a hold notification about the payment, and it should’ve been in by Friday. You didn’t close your account or anything I’m assuming?”
	“No of course not. Lemme look…” Great, what the fuck could possibly be happening? Immediately I logged into my account and started combing the page straight to my accounts, and there was a red ‘frozen’ description on the top right of it. Clicking in, I got a little pop up telling me that suspicious activity was linked to my account, and that I needed to go to a building to verify information. I twinged a bit in frustration, annoyed at how I was just learning this now. I quickly check my email, seeing a couple unread emails from before and one telling me the same thing as the portal did. “Okay, sorry, I think it’s telling me my account is frozen.. I don’t know why the hell it is, but it says I need to go in.”
	She nods again, a bit of understanding mixed with a ‘yea I figured something like this’ added on top of it. “I understand, so, because of that we can’t complete the direct deposit into your account, and it just holds and will probably bounce back if it doesn’t complete. So…” She hands me what she was holding, some kind of sheet having to do with routing information, and the payment that I would’ve received. “...If you take care of it with your bank, the hold should eventually go through. If you need the check as soon as possible, you can hand this into your bank, and you should be able to get it in cash on the spot as an alternative, today.”
	I wasn’t planning on dealing with this today. I mean what the hell sort of ‘suspicious activity’ would lock my account, without even a phone call? Sure there was an email, but they send so much junk I don’t pay the slightest of attention to, I would’ve assumed it to just be spam. I thought to myself how I hadn’t noticed it yet, but it clicked that I hadn’t really used my debit at all, and then any food or snacks or drinks I’d gotten for the last week would’ve just been off of my credit card. Which obviously wasn’t frozen, but made no impact to my paycheck. “Alright… So if I go and fix this today, does the payment just go through hopefully? Does it screw up or delay anything else?” I ask, not accusing but with minor frustration of something I’d have to deal with.
	She shakes her head. “If you take care of it, it shouldn’t affect next week’s paycheck schedule, that should send like normal. If you cash that in, you might get double send the previous money, but don’t use it, it’ll be charged back. Otherwise, if it becomes unfrozen you should be fine, and it’ll receive when it receives, probably that day or the next.”
	I shut my eyes and mentally groan to myself in silence. The nearest bank was just around the corner where we were at, but it wasn’t the point. It’d take me longer to get home, I’d have to deal with the bank and whatever they wanted to prove who I was, and I wasn’t even sure if they’d deal with it today. I wasn’t reading her, but I could tell what little guilt she had over me was overtaken by the mild annoyance of her having to do something out of the ordinary for her job. As if this was just as inconvenient for her as it would be for me, even if it wasn’t. “Alright.”

-5-

	Smiling wide open, she backs up leaving me with the pile of filth that would be the rest of my day. “Great, well I’ll send you an email of that sheet in case you lose that.” She saunters off to whatever she had to do for her workday, and I sink lower into my seat. I don’t know why I felt so irritated by it, maybe just because I had nothing to do with it and it didn’t make sense. People generally made sense to me, what was going on with their heads and emotions and all those motivations spiraling around like most others. But then I’d just get blindsided by something like this, outside of my control and to no fault of my own. Maybe it was a glitch, maybe it was someone trying to use my information, maybe someone was just asleep at the wheel. Either way, it was the next thing I had to deal with.
	For the next few hours, I’d go between looking up my payments to see what could’ve possibly got flagged, alternate logins or something. Everything was non-specific; it was locked down, but it wouldn’t tell me why. I wasn’t going to call someone while at work with how dead silent it was in here, so I’d just wait til I clocked out and head over around the corner block. While the hours dragged on, the noise of people’s thoughts dragged on, funny memes they were chuckling at, their stock portfolios they squinted and groaned to, all those raw emotions flooding through. Normally I’d nudge those thoughts out, redirecting with music and distractions, but the elevated stress made it pour back in like a leak. Anyone else wouldn’t know just by looking at me, not even the stress part showed. I just kept watching the clock, knowing I had to race out of here as quick as I could at 3:30 to be able to actually talk to somebody to figure it out.
	Once it hit, I closed it all down, logged out, grabbed my bag, and hiked right out. A lot had already snuck out, some were staying a little bit longer, but I was pretty much on time. No receptionist on the way out, she was already gone. The bees were buzzing their way out of the hive just like me in other areas of the building, but not as many as were arriving. The elevator ride took longer to reach me to get out, burning through the minutes I had but it would come eventually.
	Outside wasn’t as busy again, and turning the corner around the block you’d swear you were heading into a more deadened area of the city. The building was to the west and opposite end of where I worked, a little corner bank taking up 3 window pane sections in an otherwise brutalist structure that felt more like the first floor to a parking structure. Actually I’m pretty sure it was a garage, and on the other side would’ve been some kind of park. The brief walk across the street, for a moment, felt like less noise, both what I heard and felt. Almost peaceful, like a little voidout area. I think it was just the right time and the right distance away from people, and I didn’t feel them as much.
	That ended as soon as I walked in, and inside was a line of annoyed people. It wasn’t going to be a one and done mission I could’ve swung in and out of, this was going to be a process. Standing on the first part of the lobby where there were ATMs along the wall, I could tell the room ahead had nowhere to sit. I felt the frustration in the room, the annoyance and hassle. A woman was in the front already talking to one of the tellers, me being able to hone in on what was happening. “I’ve NEVER had to deal with something like this, I don’t understand why a phone call wouldn’t have fixed this?”
	The lady on the other end would nod along to show she understood, all with her own frustrations of having to put up with something neither of them had any control over. “I understand ma’am, we apologize, it’s an issue on our end we just need to confirm info from anyone affected.” She said the words, but she wasn’t being heard or understood. The customer just wanted to vent out her frustrations of being inconvenienced. At least it was reassuring that it was something happening to everyone, not just me. That relaxed me enough to not be as bothered as I would’ve been, at worst sitting and standing here was going to be the bulk of my issues.
	Over time, the line shrunk and the people sitting would leave and swap out with the next round of those who had to wait. There were maybe 5 or 6 people behind me, but the clock still kept increasing, from 4:00, 4:10, to 4:20 and so on. They’d be closed by the end of the hour, but they were getting to me eventually. Outside traffic was far and few between now, people not walking as much, the evening approaching slowly and the day winding down at least on this corner in particular. Right as I was about to go up, I happened to feel something. A shift in emotion, like maybe a slight panic or tension. “Sir? I can help you right here.” A woman’s voice called out from one of the desks, breaking me out of the feeling, and shifting back to the task at hand.

-6-

	I walk up to the desk, already knowing what to expect somewhat. “Hi.” I sheepishly uttered out. “So, I think my account is frozen, saying it had suspicious activity.” She already started getting the webpage pulled up that she needed to access. “Alright sir, can I have your account number, and I need to see your license.” She added.
	I didn’t have the number memorized immediately, though I could’ve dug deep and found it, but my instinct was just to log in on my phone real quick. Handing her my license, I quickly log in, trying to look for my account page. “Here’s that, one sec…” A few moments pass awkwardly as I was unprepared, thinking all they would need is my license if anything. As soon as I find it I point the phone to her and show it. “Okay sir, one moment.”
	The waiting is slow, agonizing. With all the frustrations buzzing along in my head from everyone else, I was certainly feeling a mix of it. But none of it was her fault, and I wasn’t going to take out anything as mildly inconvenient as this out on her. I was at least better than that. “Okay, we apologize sir, so we’ve had a network migration, and due to that there was a lot of info tied to people’s accounts that got misplaced and flagged, so it’s been automatically marking activity as suspicious. We’re trying to figure it out, but people still need to use their accounts obviously, so it won’t take long for me to verify and we can unlock your account, alright?” She nods, making sure I got it all.
	“Sure thing.” I nod with. She responds right back, “Thank you sir, and again we apologize. If you could just have a seat over there, and I’ll call you when we have it sorted.” I go with it, and just sit along the back wall in a cheap fabric waiting seat. I had the perfect view of the windows, aside from the scattered people between me and the glass, waiting in line. Thankfully that line was receding, as less people were coming in this late, probably assuming they wouldn’t get any business by this point in the evening.
	The twinge came back again, a ripple of anxiety. It wasn’t an uncommon feeling, lots of people are anxious about all kinds of shit, but this felt more like a panic. Or maybe like somebody psyching themselves up. It was strong, stronger than anything in this room, but I wasn’t sure immediately if it was in the room. I squint outside, looking out through the glass. A couple cars parked outside, and for a moment the glimpse of two men jogging in some sort of thick tracksuits or something similar. Some aspect of them felt odd at first glance, but they were out of view the moment right after, past the windows.
	It didn’t feel right, but the feeling subsided just a bit. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, thinking maybe I was just projecting my own anxieties. After all, I couldn’t control the subconscious part of me, it wasn’t like my mind was perfect. I’m sure I was fully capable of psyching myself up over nothing. I wouldn’t normally get anything concrete unless I actively read someone. Feelings were hazy, passive things that blended in with each other. Like smells in the subway, or a temperature fluctuating. During that introspection, I felt that temperature shift, deathly cold. And I immediately knew something was very wrong.
	“Everybody get the fuck down! On your knees, get those fucking hands up!” The two men, and apparently an unseen third by the door, shouted out a bone-chilling call to action. I was already up, but the shouts put me in high gear. I don’t think they specifically saw me yet, but they saw everyone in the way of them and the tellers at their desks. They both carried sawed-off shotguns and freely pointed them towards anyone and everyone. “You gals at the desks, hands off the fucking table, hit a button and we’ll blow your fucking heads off! Hands off right fucking now!”

-7-

	They held their hands up, higher than anyone else. A couple panicked screams and whimpers from some of the people trapped in here with them rang out, but not as loudly as you’d think. Most everyone was stuck in a deer-in-headlights mode with cowering and confusion as opposed to understanding what was actually happening. I was still processing it too, watching it unfold like a movie scene. Each man wore a skin-toned mask, fabric stretched tight over their heads, printed with distorted faces. It was meant to fool the cameras, but anyone close could tell it was sewn cloth.
	The one in the front got around the teller’s desk, pushing some of the women down to a sitting position and up against the wall, while narrowing down to someone who looked the most senior at the building. The second looked around keeping an eye on everyone and what they were doing, pacifying anyone who looked extra panicky to make sure they weren’t moving at all, just staying nice and seated, out of everyone’s way. The third guarded the door, nobody got in or out. Everyone would be locked into this situation with all three of their roles working in tandem with each other. They most certainly had this planned out.
	The first head I peered into was the crowd controller. He hadn’t seen specifically me yet, but he kept scoping the room, looking for phones, and especially for anyone making a move. With me staying still, I wouldn’t immediately raise any flags. His name was Kevin, 24 years old, and this wasn’t his first robbery. He’d hit party stores, gas stations, all small time stuff. But Thomas, the one in charge and someone he’d known since high school, roped him and the third clown into this. They wanted the deposit boxes. From how Thomas explained it, this was the perfect quiet moment in this corner street to hit a place like this. Monday rush hour traffic elsewhere would slow response time, yet this area right here had straight pathways out that would be low traffic.
	The only issue was going to be the bank manager. He was supposed to be in today. That was going to be the immediate problem. “What the FUCK do you mean he’s not in? You have to have the vault code, I want those fucking boxes out now.” He shouted at the oldest looking supervisor who was on scene. She was trying to reassure him, or plead with him, that he wasn’t here today and that there wasn’t anything she could do. She was only partly lying, apparently the manager Franklyn, left early around the same time I clocked out. They’d pretty much just missed him, otherwise this might’ve gone off without a hitch.
	Thomas was defiant. His brain was panicked and frustrated, beyond fight or flight mode, into something even beyond that and dangerous. The other two were picking up on it. Kevin and Lyle, the third man at the door, both had the same thought that this was a bust and they needed to boot. But Thomas wasn’t moving one bit. “Call your fucking manager up, I want him here, today, right fucking now.” This wasn’t part of the script, they all knew it. He was improvising, and it made the other two uneasy.
	“You in the back—hands up and visible, dumbass!” Kevin shouted out to me pointing his gun vaguely in my direction, finally having noticed me. I hadn’t moved or changed position much, but that apparently seemed odd to him like maybe I was either stupid or planning something. I looked over at him and raised my hands up a bit, showing I wasn’t a threat. It was enough for the moment that he kept bouncing to other people and doing his job, with more unease at Thomas’ improvisational planning.
	The woman shakily grabbed her phone, showing the man she was calling her boss, literally in the crosshair of this moment, gun brushing up against the side of her head and shoulder occasionally, a very clear threat if she fucked this up. The phone rang, and continued for a few moments, until it went to voicemail. She looked up at Thomas, a pleading expression as if begging him to understand, there was nothing she could do. “Call him again, and don’t stop calling until he picks up. You don’t fucking stop unless I say, unless you want your brains on the fucking floor.”
	Kevin looked over at Thomas while the woman, tears in her eyes hit re-dial on the phone. “Hey, come on man, it’s a bust, let’s get the fuck out!” Thomas snapped over Kevin, gun in hand. “We aren’t fucking leaving til I say we are, we are getting in the safe one way or another.” Thomas snapped at him. You could hear Kevin mumble a “Fuck man…” under his breath. I think we all knew that call wasn’t going to go forward, and even if it did, it wasn’t gonna go his way.

-8-

	I delved more into Thomas’ head, him being the oldest at 35. And he wasn’t a stranger to robberies or violence, and while it had been a while since his last hit, this definitely wasn’t his first. Most importantly, he wasn’t incapable of killing one bit. He’d done it before, putting rounds in a cop he’d been running from, shooting at someone who tried running away out of fear, etc. Calling him a hothead would be putting it lightly. And I could definitely feel him wanting to put some lead in that supervisor.
	This wasn’t going to end well, but I was conflicted at what I should do. I was capable of a lot, far more than I should be capable of. I could wipe all their minds right now, be done with it. But that’d be far too cruel, too extreme. And the main two couldn’t even say the word trigger discipline, even if I did go that extreme they could spasm and pull the trigger. Whatever I was going to do, it had to be delicate, subtle, maybe even something completely believable.
	The other two were the key, I thought. Both of them were more uneasy every moment, looking over their shoulder, waiting for the cops to show up, looking to make their run. It wasn’t just that it was going wrong for them, this was what was going to fuck up their whole lives if they didn’t make it out. I focused on Lyle first, and it was really simple. The anxiety he had, I nudged it. It was like reaching in and putting a lighter underneath an already smoldering part of his head. Anxiety was the easiest to fuel, and for added effect, the familiar sound of a police siren in the distance.
	Only Lyle could hear it, I was only gonna start with him—hoping the rest would follow. “Fuck.. fuck guys, time to bounce…” Lyle backs out from the door, waving the other two to follow, but Kevin was unsure of what to do, and the other was confused and pissed off. “Get the fuck back here! Lyle get your fucking ass back… Shit!” Thomas yelled out, but Lyle was already out the door, making it to the van out front and starting the engine. Kevin looked at Thomas with the same realization. “What the fuck dude?” Thomas had just slipped, letting everyone in on who one of them was.
	No matter what happened, the people here would now know the name of at least one of the suspects, and they both knew it. This was turning to shit by the second. Thomas pointed and angrily yelled at Kevin, making sure he heard exactly what he expected. “Fuck him, and stay exactly where you are, we are finishing this with or without him. Run and I’ll fucking clock you.” Turning on your own crew wasn’t exactly a winning strategy, but Thomas was panicking too, just not in a de-escalating way. Unfortunately he kept pushing him and the only one left to help him, and there wasn’t really an avenue for this to go.
	The supervisor had paused to see the brief moment unfold, but as Thomas snapped back at her he saw the pause as delaying. “I didn’t tell you stop bitch, keep calling, I want that fucking Manager here.” He held the gun right up to her temple, barrel scraping her hair like a clumsy comb. Kevin could see Lyle getting in the van, and seeing his boss distracted for the moment, he mumbled a brief “Fuck this, man…” before sprinting right out, half anticipating a shotgun shell to come spraying in his general direction. Thomas only noticed his figure at the last moment. “You little fucker!” Thomas shouted out as he swung his sawed-off double barrel towards the doorway, shooting a shell right into the glass door. It shattered instantly, sparks flying as the pellets bounced off the metal frame.
	Several people already cowering, gasped and screamed at the shot. Thankfully nobody was hit or even got a ricochet. Kevin was making his way into the passenger of the van, a bit out of sight from where Thomas would be able to land another shot, and it was going to be too late anyway. Within a few more seconds, both of them were in and careening down the road with a tire squeal, getting the hell out of dodge. They were out of the picture, and all that was left was Thomas.
	His heart was pumping, beating at a million miles an hour. The sweat pooled underneath his mask, bleeding through and revealing his features more like seeing someone’s chest through a thin wet shirt. He was more identifiable now, alone, with no plan. But he still had his gun. “Everyone stay right the fuck where you’re at, I won’t fucking miss the first one who gets up!” He shouts out. He puts his gun right at the now teary-eyed teller, with the expression of an absolutely roided up psychopath. “If you’re not talking to that goddamn manager in ten seconds, the next shell is going in your head! You fucking understand me?”

-9-

	Even with the two of them out of the picture, he was still the real threat. And I could tell he wasn’t bluffing. He wasn’t thinking clearly, and part of him was probably ready to go out in a blaze of glory and shoot her just for fucking up his plan, even if it wasn’t remotely her fault. I was going to have to do something, something more than what I was originally hoping. I thought to myself, why couldn’t he have just fucking ran with the rest of them? This was the worst kind of person, the one with zero regard for anyone or anything, the one who’d shoot you just for pissing them off. And I had to make a decision, especially as he started to count down from ten.
	“Ten… Nine…” He counted out loud, finger brushed up against the trigger. She stared at him through tear-streaked eyes, hyperventilating and pleading out a desperate cry of mercy. “Please… I can’t do anything… Please don’t…!”
	It only made him angrier. He felt like he had nothing to lose right now, like this ‘dumb bitch’ in front of him was all of his problems in a single target, and he just wanted to blast her away. It was turning into a kind of sadism. “Eight… Seven…”
	I closed my eyes. I had to be careful, whatever I did next I only had a couple seconds to do. I thought for a brief moment, and while I couldn’t get rid of everything without major risk, there was an option, but I had to do both things at once. First, I thought of back to the first moment he planned this job, all the figuring out where to hit, insider information he had, all of it. Right at the start, I found it in his head like the beginning of a tape. The moment I found it, I cut it, and started yanking out all of the tape after it. Wiping file after file—peeling them away like tape off a reel. The last 3 or so months of his life, stripped away, and he was forgetting it in milliseconds.
	It wasn’t drastic enough to make him jolt, and starting way back with things he wasn’t even thinking about in this moment was the best way I could do it. But it wasn’t quite going to be enough. Right about at the halfway mark of those memories, still counting, there was one major thing I had to remove to get him to not pull that trigger the second he became confused. “Six… F-five…” He stuttered a bit as the layers were peeling away in his head.
	This wasn’t an easy thing to do, ethically at least. Psychically it was horrifyingly easy to do. But it was brute force, like wiping parts of a drive. If it wasn’t for this moment, I wouldn’t normally ever go this far, but I had one way I figured I could get him to drop the gun. Instead of stripping away, I’d put something in—a deep seated fear that would hopefully get him to drop everything he was doing and remove whatever leftover anger he still had brewing in his head.
	His propensity for violence was deep, but he was always a coward. Every time he threatened was behind the barrel of a gun. For that moment, I decided that was going to change. That he was going to feel that fear like she was feeling right now. The very sight of firearms would instill a petrifying fear in him, ideally nullifying that violent intent.
	“F...Four…” He slowed down, going blank in his facial expression for a moment. Something you’d almost see in someone with dementia, as that last strip of memory was ripped out, right to the moment he started counting and why he was even doing so. He blinked a few times, going silent and slowly moving his head around to get his bearings. He hadn’t the slightest clue where he was, how he got here. And as he could still feel his heart beating, the panic he felt before, it filled him with dread.
	The woman was still terrified, but even she saw it, like something left his soul. “What… I don’t…” He muttered slowly as he looked at the crowd of scared hostages, glass shattered from the door. He could feel the fabric mask clinging to his face, drenched in fluid. Looking down at his hand, he sees what he’d been holding since he started this, smoking and loaded. A gasp escaped his trembling lips as he drops the shotgun to the ground, backing away from it like he were looking at a venomous snake that was about to bite him. “What the fuck…” He uttered in a cowered fashion.
	The police sirens approached, for real this time. Six or seven police cruisers surrounding the corner, lights blazing and sirens blaring. Some set up to block and provide cover, the others getting more of a perimeter. They were out of their car and pointing their guns in a few mere moments. Over the speaker we could all hear them command, “We have the building surrounded, put the weapons down, put your hands up over your head and step out into the open slowly!” He was panicking now, his arms up and shaking. He takes his mask off, like something he doesn’t even know why he had on, and moves out into the open where the hostages were sitting or laying down. “I’m… I’m sorry! Please don’t, I—I don’t know what’s happening!”

-10-

	A few cops pour in from the door that was blown open, over to the left of him as he stares front and center out the main window where half the police cars were positioned. “Get down on your fucking knees! Hands up! Don’t move!” Two or more of the cops around the doorframe corner shout at him, pointing their handguns at him. He looks like a scared child at this point, a pathetic shell of the psychopathic thug that came in earlier. He stared right at their barrels, his face pale white and almost as desperate as the woman was he’d just been threatening. “Please don’t shoot! I give up, please! Oh God~” He cries out.
	The cops rush in, pointed at him with their guns while two of them tackle him to the ground putting him in cuffs. The other cops start moving everyone else along as he’s immobilized and no longer a threat as far as they’re concerned. Some of the other people already started moving on their own, and I take a few moments to gauge the situation that I participated in before I stand up from my chair, and slowly move out with everyone else, one of the last ones to leave. I could hear Thomas sobbing in fear on the ground as he’s held in place, and I could see the look on the supervisor’s face, still in shock but in utter confusion of the transformation she witnessed. She saw him go from a psychopathic killer, to a whimpering, broken-down mess. It didn’t make any sense to her, and to some I know it didn’t make sense either.
	She passed by, giving me a look as if to say “You’re seeing this shit too, right?” And I was, and I had a feeling that I maybe overplayed myself a bit. I thought, maybe this could get chalked up as a mental breakdown. He had nowhere else to turn, was going to do something drastic, maybe… something in him just broke. Something somewhat plausible. We all walked out, after everyone being checked out physically, and asked for statements. I knew that plausibility was shaky at best. People said exactly what happened, how confusing it was. When asked, I kept the same line as everyone else. “He just… broke down I guess.” I answered when briefly asked along many others.
	As we stood out by the sidewalk, we watched him be carried out into the back of one of the cars, a look of absolute shock and fear in his eyes. Everyone watched it. Something like this wasn’t going to just go unnoticed, and it was going to be confusing for all involved. But, I hadn’t done anything anybody else noticed. I didn’t stick out. I was just another witness and hostage, nothing physically or discernibly connected to me. That’s what I reminded myself on the subway ride home.

	The train ride was late in the evening by that point, and I had considered just doing the next day in remote. The walk to my apartment from that grungy station to my housing block was filled with so much existential thoughts, going over everything I felt, thinking of what I should’ve done differently. Maybe I should’ve just made him run, drop the gun, spaz out and leave. It would’ve been weird, but still more sense than what unfolded. People would’ve bought that, but I don’t think everyone was going to buy what they did see. But I couldn’t change any of that by this point, what was done was done.
	I unlocked my door, walked in, and tossed my bag on the couch. I grabbed a soda from the fridge, started taking a swig and just laid down in my bed. My guitars hung on my wall to my side, some posters on the other. It looked like some teenage rebel’s bedroom, but it was the closest I had to feeling at home. My head was spinning so much I wasn’t even feeling anyone else around me, it was all my thoughts. I just wanted to tune off for the night, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what that asshole was saying in custody. How utterly lost he probably was, panicking at the sight of every officer’s holstered weapon. He was going to be an enigma, even if he probably deserved it. You don’t just get to do that without consequences. But I wasn’t sure if that was up to me, or if what I did was fully justified, long-term.

-11-

	I brushed up against one of my rules. Don’t control anyone’s mind unless they threaten you, or threaten someone else or themselves. It was still within the rule, but what I can, or should control, is the existential problem. Technically he’s still being controlled, at least the effects of what I did. But he’s no longer an immediate danger. I should undo what I did, but I’m afraid that might also make it worse. The story even more confusing, me bringing him back to be the monster he was, and controlling him again, but this time when he’s not an immediate danger to me or anyone else. If anything I’d make him a danger again.
	I decided not to do anything more. I’d think more about this in the future, about what I should do. It wasn’t the first time I’ve intervened like this. I’ve stopped a domestic dispute in the past, a person getting mugged in the street, etc. I’d made them forget things in the moment, change their motivations suddenly, but none of that was as lasting as this was. Maybe that’s where I fucked up, where I should improve from here on out. Either way, I was too tired for tonight to go on longer about this. I’d have a lot to think about, yet again, on what I can and ought to do. But I’d leave that for another day.

	The next two days would go by trying to forget what transpired. None of the witness names were in the paper, only one of the gunmen, Thomas Joules, and with Lyle as a named suspect, they likely didn’t know Kevin’s name yet, but they did mention there being three suspects. There was a good chance they’d be fleeing altogether from the city, if they didn’t end up catching them first. Being it was practically next door, of course some of the people at work were talking about it, a couple of them having probably used that bank. I didn’t mention anything to anyone, and even then the only one who might know I went there was that HR lady who wasn’t even here today. Luckily in none of the articles I saw with pictures, was I in the background of any of them. Even the CCTV image from the bank that showed the best photographs they had of the other two guys, were cropped out to not even show me up against the wall.
	I’m sure I was in them uncropped, but the footage was so grainy and shitty that there’d be a good chance nobody would even recognize me anyway. I didn’t think anything in the footage would help with any sort of identifying regardless. Their best luck in catching the others would be to try and cross reference who he might’ve known, at least before what I happened to wipe. That... might’ve been an oversight on my part, but at least I didn’t expect those other guys to try anything like that soon. If nothing else, the most dangerous of the three was behind bars. I suppose if anything good came of that day for me, the teller I spoke to that day happened to finished fixing my info just in time before the robbery. A selfish and frivolous win all things considered, but at least my account was no longer frozen.
	Around lunch I went downstairs to one of the coffee shops on the first floor. It was a lot better tasting than some of the bitter stuff they had in our machines in the office­, and with how much sleep I’d been lacking this week I found myself drinking a lot more. Normally it was just other heads buzzing around, going through the feelings, but lately it’d just been my thoughts keeping me up. So even though the shit down here was overpriced, it felt worth it in any case.
	When I came back up, I walked into my cubicle with a manila envelope sitting on my laptop keyboard. I looked around for a second, seeing if I could spot who dropped it off, but there was nobody but the usual people roaming around or sitting where they were already at. Shrugging, I sit down, pick up the envelope, and open it. Inside was a secondary sleeve, white, with a logo on the front and no words. Three arrows around a circle pointing inwards, with a little gear-like outline. I didn’t recognize it, but the sleeve had a little weight to it. I unhook the little elastic thread from the button that held it closed, dumping the contents gently onto my desk.
	Inside were three printed pictures, and a plain white piece of cardstock with black text.. The three pictures were of me, on separate occasions. The photo on top was dated 06/16/25, two days ago, at the bank. The photograph was of the CCTV footage I’d seen the pictures of, but this was higher quality—upscaled, even, and without the cropping. What I think was important in the photo was the moment it was taken. My eyes are closed, focusing. It was right around when Thomas looked at his gun, moments before he dropped it in panic. Right after his recent memories were shredded and his newfound fear occurred.

-12-

	For a moment I thought, maybe this was some kind of investigation follow up, after all I had given a brief statement along with others. But that was probably just myself coping for that tiny moment, obscuring my heart sinking. The second photo was of me in a subway station. I’m leaning against the wall, waiting for the train, and in the background even further is a mugging taking place. Or at least what resulted of one, because I remembered when this occurred. It was the first time I intervened in something like this. In the photo the man is tripping, comically so. Almost like a force grabbed his heels and pulled them upwards. That would’ve been me, a little over 2 years ago.
	The last photo was in central park. These two guys who were half an inch away from beating the shit out of each other, suddenly changing their minds. I didn’t even think anyone was watching at the time, and it seemed so minor when it happened. But there I was, distant in the background. You wouldn’t have been able to identify me on the photo alone, but if you already knew it was me you could tell. I remembered this, because when I changed their memories of the fight, I only removed the reason they were fighting and not the anger per say. So they were still angry, they just didn’t know why, and that likely confused them a lot. But even then, how somebody knew about this, let alone all three of these, made my heart skip several beats.
	It was uncanny—like someone had been watching me for a long time, and I’d finally slipped just enough. I was probably only staring at those photographs for a minute, but it felt like a half hour. The last thing I dreaded to do, was to read what the paper said. On it in plain black print, wrote: “We’re aware of who you are. We’ve seen what you can do. We mean you no harm. We merely wish to speak to you. You will hear from us soon.”

-13-