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Marlon was perfectly comfortable with his depression; it was everybody else that kept pissing him off about it. Their constant need to touch him, their advice about what he should do to be happy, their need to treat him with kiddy gloves. His only defence was to combat them with his most feral of instincts: passive aggressiveness.

Of course, as soon as this message was conveyed he immediately resented the fact that nobody wanted to ask him how he was or were not doing anything to improve his situation.

And so, to deal with this, he logged into his video diversion. Classic escapism where he had built himself into a level twenty–nine Sweeper Servicer. This was a radical new move away from the Broker Recruiter, a field he had become, by and large, disenchanted with.

It was, for level twenty-nines, a difficult time. For too long the level sixty-fives and seventies had spent time ganking the lower levels in their rackets; camping them and keeping them from bettering their positions in life.

But he logged on nonetheless to run a quick instance and try to level some of his skills in hopes to make himself look more appealing. Maybe, just maybe, hit on some new vibe that would allow him to better himself into a more appealing version of everything he wanted to be.

This slash hast to beat reality.