The game began.

Jude stood up. He didn’t celebrate. He walked to the duffel bag, unzipped it, and took out a single stack of notes. Then he pushed the rest back toward Zen.

Jude stared into the camera. He thought of his mum, who’d taken a double shift to buy him the PS5. He thought of his little sister, Keisha, who believed he was invincible. And he thought of the move Zen had used. The one that broke the laws of the game’s own physics.