Who Gave The Best Keynote At Comic-Con?

Cassandra Johnson is Pixie. Pixie is Cassandra Johnson. She's the same girl who's leading two extremely different lives. Nobody would suspect the school's nerd as Pixie. 'Cause Pixie's a street fighter badass and the nerd does not have a single badass bone in her body. The chances of people discovering this peculiar secret is close to none but of course this is where fate inserts the certified new boy into the equation and makes an exception for him. Warning: heavy flow of profanities ahead. - and tears - or so I've heard.

Gideon Hart, a man known for keeping every woman at arm's length, gets drugged and wakes up in a hotel with me lying beside him. Afterward, he comes to me and offers ten million as compensation. When I remain silent, my best friend, Lena Quimby, jumps in like she's been waiting for her cue. She snaps that money can't buy everything, trying to reject the offer on my behalf. Before I can say a word, comments start flashing before me like a live stream chat. "Here we go! The male lead, the female lead, and the side character are all on screen together!" "Lena's so classy. Way better than that gold-digger Evelyn." "Watch Evelyn reject the money and still get clowned!" "Who wouldn't pick the sweet, innocent heroine?" Glancing at Lena's flushed cheeks and the way her eyes stick to Gideon, I almost let out a cold laugh. Then, I turn to the man in front of me and hold up my Venmo QR code. "Sure. Wire it!"

My contract with the company is about to come to an end, and I'm already planning to renew it. But a few days before that, my boss, Dustin Kline, requested that I lower the percentage of my bonus in the project. The reason he gave is that I'm still young. Even if I were to take over other projects, I'd also do a good job. Dustin even made empty promises to me just so he could get me to give the projects I'm in charge of to Sandy Richmond, the new department manager in the company. When I refused to do so, he threatened to not give me my salary in order to get me to comply. The next day, the company is reduced to a laughing stock at the product launch event. Our client thinks the company's technological skills are too weak to back up the big talk, so they refuse to pay the remainder of the contracted sum. When Dustin begs me for help, I just look at him in amusement. "I refuse to get manipulated by anyone in this workplace. You're more than capable of dealing with your own problems. I believe in you, Mr. Kline."

On a stormy night during the apocalypse, my own mother threw me out of the house while I was burning with fever, along with my husky, so my little brother would have a better chance of surviving. She shouted through the crack in the door, “Take that useless mutt and go die somewhere. Stop wasting your brother’s food!” I huddled in a pile of trash with my dog in my arms, convinced I was going to die. Then my husky suddenly spoke. “Host’s vital signs critically low. Infinite Supply Search System activated.” “Supermarket warehouse one hundred meters ahead. Three thousand freeze-dried meals detected.” “Pharmacy five hundred meters to the left. Five hundred boxes of antibiotics detected.” Three days later, I’d built a fortress with packs of dogs and mountains of supplies. I sat inside eating steak and watching the show. Outside the barbed wire, my mother and brother were on their knees, fighting each other over half a piece of moldy bread. I smiled. “Mom, even dogs wouldn’t eat that. Better savor it.”

On our third wedding anniversary, Kent gave me a gift. A black metal wristband. Cold. Sleek. He called it a new product from his company—a pain-sharing system. The other user was Violet. His "girl bro." The person he was closer to than his own sister. Kent brushed a hand over my cheek, his gaze soft. "Clara, you're too coddled. You should learn from Violet. She's tough." Then he snapped the wristband onto my wrist. So while Violet got a full-back tattoo and an entire sleeve, I felt every single needle. When Violet went wingsuit flying, I collapsed at home. Every bone in my body felt shattered. I threw up blood. While she soaked up attention online as the "extreme sports queen," I was drowning in nonstop pain. Kent sat beside me, holding my hand as he cared. "Just hang in there. Violet's just being herself. As my wife, you should be more understanding." To finally push me over the edge, Violet decided to livestream herself jumping into the ocean to make me die in her place. Their friends couldn't wait to watch. Later, I watched calmly from a hospital room as the system slowly drained the life out of her. Kent looked deranged as he demanded to know why I wasn't dead. Because I had already reversed the system. All her vitality had become the nourishment that sustained me.

I was in the office bathroom stall when I heard them trash-talking me. The intern I'd trained for three months whined, "She's a heartless witch—like a robot with zero brain cells." I was about to swing the door open when another voice jumped in, laughing. "Documents incomplete." "Receipts don't match." "No signature? Denied." "Seriously, we've all memorized the freaking rulebot's script!" Once they were gone, I headed back to my desk. The intern stormed in and slammed a fat stack of reimbursement forms in front of me. "Don't go on another power trip and block everyone's claims." I skimmed the obviously fake receipts. Normally, I'd tear into her. But this time, I just smiled. "My head's killing me. Can't read the fine print."