00:00The drug market's never been the same, ever since it went digital.
00:03You don't need all those fancy herbs and powders to get yourself the perfect high anymore.
00:09All that was needed was the right string of code and the special pair of headphones.
00:14Enter the world of Synapse, a digital drug unlike any other.
00:20You don't shoot it up, and you don't sniff it up, you just have to listen up.
00:25All the junkies are getting their ultimate high with the dosage of binaural beats.
00:31Everyone's addicted to the rhythm of this sensual sound.
00:34Those who use Synapse say they can feel their minds wander to whole new galaxies and fantasies.
00:41Synapse can be customized in a multitude of ways.
00:45It can bring color to a monochrome life, or become the serene reprieve in a moment of chaos.
00:53Synapse can provide many things, but at the end of the day, it's still a drug.
00:59Once Synapse hooks you in, it's almost impossible to get free.
01:03Your mind becomes enslaved by manic thoughts, while your body trembles in anticipation for your latest fix.
01:11People seem to forget that drugs are made for the benefit of the supplier, not the user.
01:17A single dosage of Synapse is loaded with a jungle of subliminal messages meticulously crafted to make you an addict.
01:26What beautiful irony it all is.
01:29So many victims chase after drugs to find an escape, only to end up a prisoner.
01:35Whether it be digital or pharmaceutical, society is pumping out a cancerous poison at an alarming rate.
01:44That's where I come in.
01:45The name is Jaden Taylor.
01:47I'm the one dealing up this drug to your neighborhood.
01:50It's not like this is a life I chose to live.
01:54Growing up in Neo New York, I learned from a young age that this city has no room for average
01:59folk like me.
02:01You have to be part of the movers and shakers to see the next day.
02:05I wasn't much for brains or brawn.
02:07I was just some normal guy, part of the same rat race as everyone else.
02:12My high school friend Jason was different though.
02:16He excelled in most things he did, and had a natural charm that made everyone orbit around him.
02:22He promised me one day he was going to run this city after graduation, and he certainly made true of
02:28his words.
02:30Jason started up a gang that specialized in redistributing synapse.
02:35With a crew of well-trained code divers at his side, Jason made some major profit from the drug.
02:41He offered me a spot in his gang since we were so close.
02:45I became his pack mule.
02:47My job was delivering synapse to his clients, and making sure none of it got traced back to him.
02:53Like I said earlier, I don't stand out from a crowd.
02:56The only thing I'm good at is going through life unnoticed.
03:01I know all the best low-traffic areas in the city and stay away from security cameras on every run
03:07I make.
03:08Everyone so caught up in getting the newest car or hoverboard, they never take a moment to get to know
03:13their city.
03:14In the shadows of this neon hellscape, I weave through narrow alleyways and jump over ledges in search of my
03:21clients.
03:22It is the seediest areas of New York that have the most lacked security.
03:27I'm guessing all the bigwigs decided that if something happens to a bunch of good-for-nothing hoodlums, it wouldn't
03:34be worth their time to investigate.
03:37It works in my favor, so you won't hear me complaining.
03:41Getting caught with synapse can get you a pretty hefty jail sentence.
03:45We all know how the government hates unregulated products and anything else they can't put a harsh tax on.
03:52Sending the synapse code line is too risky, so it usually gets delivered in the form of a USB.
03:58It's inconspicuous enough that I can hide it in my sock on the off chance I get stopped by the
04:03police.
04:04I don't know exactly what it feels like to try synapse, but my clients always look so strung out whenever
04:10I meet them.
04:11They'd have heavy eye bags, vacant eyes, and stare off into the distance, with jittery body language that made them
04:19look possessed.
04:21It's hard to believe that sound waves would become the new age version of meth.
04:25Over the past few months, there's been a steady uptick of synapse-related incidents.
04:31The news cluttered with stories of people having hallucinations and psychotic breaks in public.
04:37Junkies were out there, shooting at their inner demons, manifesting in front of them.
04:42Needless to say, a bunch of innocents ended up being killed in the crossfire.
04:46This drug was racking up a serious body count.
04:50The shit weighed on my mind, making me feel that I was playing a hand in all that destruction.
04:55My last straw broke during a drug run gone terribly bad.
05:00I arrived at a client's house in the darkness of the night.
05:04The guy showed up right on time and was about to make the transaction when his brother popped up out
05:09of nowhere.
05:10He had tears in his eyes, pleading with his brother to turn his life around.
05:15He begged him to come back home, but my client wasn't hearing any of it.
05:20He cursed his brother out, and when that wasn't enough, he started punching his lights out.
05:25I have never seen a fiend look so possessed.
05:28He was attacking his own family like he was on the battlefield fighting for his life.
05:32A dude's getting batted right in front of me, and what do I do?
05:36My coward ass booked it out of there.
05:38As soon as I made it back home, I made an anonymous call to the police and tried washing away
05:44the memory from my mind.
05:46The whole situation was seriously fucked up.
05:49The next morning, social media was abuzz with the news of last night's tragedy.
05:54A drug addict killed his younger brother, all because he wanted him to go clean.
05:59The reporter said he was completely out of it during the attack.
06:03Reading that shit made me sick to my soul.
06:06A man was dead, and I was partially to blame.
06:10Death was never something I gave much mind.
06:12You can hardly go a week in the city without seeing someone get sent away in a body bag.
06:18What made this different was that it felt like I had blood on my hands.
06:22All because I was such a coward.
06:24I had to call this whole thing off.
06:26All this drama was seriously messing with my mind.
06:29I told Jason that I was done riding with his crew.
06:33Big mistake.
06:35He flipped the fuck out on me, talking about how he did so much for me and lined up my
06:39pockets.
06:40He wasn't wrong, but that didn't change the fact that my mind was made up.
06:45I tried leaving his eye out, but his boys circled around me with their guns at the ready.
06:50Turns out that my life was under Jason's license.
06:54I had to pump his drugs into whatever neighborhood he wanted or else I'd end up dead in a gutter
06:59somewhere.
07:00It's crazy how much this city changes people.
07:04The same people you used to ride with are the same ones who will lay you down in a coffin.
07:10I continued selling drugs for Jason, even though all the guilt was eating away at me.
07:15It was hot in the streets, and the police were cracking down real hard on guys like us.
07:20Cops began patrolling around the meetup points I usually went to.
07:24This meant I had to start selling farther away from home to play it safe.
07:29It was a chilly Friday afternoon when I walked into a dark alleyway to meet up with a buyer.
07:35I was surprised when an androgynous looking guy walked up to me with his sapphire blue hair.
07:41His face was so smooth and clean, almost like a doll's.
07:45He didn't at all look like the usual drug addict I met up with.
07:49That's because he wasn't.
07:51The whole thing was a setup.
07:52He told me about how he knew who I was, and that how I'd be turned in to the police
07:57unless I gave him whatever intel he wanted.
08:00I would have bolted it out of there, but he fired off a neon laser at the ground a few
08:04inches in front of me.
08:06He was packing a neon flex.
08:08An energy-based gun that fired a blast of neon at the target.
08:12It was less fatal than actual bullets, so it was perfect for taking down your ops without adding another body
08:18to the morgue.
08:19What confused me was why someone would handicap themselves like that.
08:24People were out here with live ammunition in their pockets and were waiting for any reason at all to pump
08:30someone full of lead.
08:31A snitch is the last thing I would ever call myself, but I sure as hell didn't mind throwing Jason
08:37under the bus to get me out of jail.
08:40In exchange for my intel, this guy was going to take Jason's gang off the streets and make sure my
08:46name never came up in any reports.
08:48I asked this guy who the hell he was.
08:51Nobody in this city is ever that charitable.
08:54He told me his name was Imani, and to go to the dragon's head bar if I ever wanted a
09:00new job.
09:01What choice did I have but to take him up on his offer?
09:04He saved me from a life of servitude to that one-eyed snake, Jason.
09:10Turns out Imani wasn't some random good Samaritan.
09:13He was part of a gang of rebels called BTB, Beyond the Binary, who clean the streets of local street
09:20thugs and redistribute the wealth back to the common folk.
09:24The scant amount of homeless shelters and food pantries in the city are apparently founded by them.
09:30I don't know if these dudes can be considered heroes or whatever, but they're the closest thing the city has
09:36to them.
09:37I ride with them now.
09:38They've been teaching me the ropes of hacking past firewalls and how to handle myself in a fight.
09:44Nowadays, I'm hacking into megacorp databases to give knowledge to the people and transporting food and medicine to those in
09:52need.
09:52I'm so grateful for all that they've done for me.
09:55They've saved me at my darkest hour, and now I'm repaying the favor by keeping the streets clean.
10:01To anyone reading this, your current situation doesn't have to determine your future.
10:05You can always turn your life around with the help of the right people.
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