APOCALYPSE LIVESTREAM: I GET RICH ON GLOBAL PANIC

POV: Gideon Vance

The glass doors of the Grand Hyatt shattered outward, spraying clear shards across the slick, violet-stained asphalt.

A heavy boot planted itself between my shoulder blades, driving me face-first into the freezing mud. Rain mixed with ash stung the fresh scrapes on my knees, tearing right through my worn jeans.

"Stay down, Vance," Miller grunted, wiping a layer of luminescent purple spore-dust off his tactical vest. He stood over me, his thumb resting casually on the safety of a heavy shotgun. The golden Apex crest on his shoulder patch gleamed under the eerie glow of the sky. "Or do I need to break a rib to make you understand?"

I spat a mouthful of metallic rainwater into the gutter, pushing myself up onto raw, bloodied palms. "That rig in there is mine, Miller. I built the gyro-mount myself."

"Was yours," Miller sneered, gesturing back toward the lobby with the barrel of his weapon. "Mr. Sterling signed the requisition ten minutes ago. Apex Guild has sole territorial authority over Sector 1. That includes your camera gear, your harness, and every caloric ration in your bag."

Behind him, two other security guards were tossing my leather duffel onto a pile of confiscated civilian supplies near the reinforced barricade. A dozen refugees huddled under the hotel awning, shivering beneath threadbare blankets, their eyes hollowed out by three weeks of planetary extinction. Nobody said a word. Nobody ever spoke up when Victor’s men were around.

"You know what's funny?" I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, leaning my shoulder against a rusted lamp post to hold myself up. "Victor used to send corporate lawyers to steal my property. Now he sends thugs with shotguns. Guess he really cut down on overhead."

Miller stepped forward, his eyes darkening. He planted his heavy combat boot right in the center of my chest, shoving me violently backward. The back of my head cracked against the steel post, sending a sharp spark of white heat behind my eyes.

"You don't get it, do you?" Miller leaned down, his breath smelling like stale coffee and copper. "There aren't any courts anymore, Gideon. Look up at the damn sky! No union reps. No insurance investigators for you to whine to. Mr. Sterling traded our sector's resource rights to the Syndicate. He owns the safe zone. You're just a blacklisted bum cluttering up his doorway."

He brought his boot down on my custom camera rig—the frame I’d hand-welded out of scrapped stunt wires and lithium cells—crushing the wide-angle glass and kicking it straight into the mud.

"Clear out," Miller muttered, turning his back on me. "Before I mark you as a non-productive asset and let the security turrets deal with you."

The heavy steel gates of the Grand Hyatt groaned as they slammed down, locking the lobby off from the dark street.

I sat in the rain, taking slow, deliberate breaths. My pulse sat at fifty-four beats a minute. Flat. Steady. The same rhythm I used to feel right before a hundred-foot incendiary drop back when I still had a crew—before Victor set fire to Studio 4, framed me for the insurance fraud, and blacklisted me from the industry.

A high-pitched, metallic whine vibrated straight through the concrete beneath my knees.

I looked up at the sky, and for a moment, the breath caught in my chest.

Earth's blue atmosphere was gone, torn open like wet paper. Over Midtown, a massive, jagged rift of violet plasma stretched across the horizon. High above the clouds, anchored directly over the ruins of the Empire State Building, sat a colossal, obsidian Syndicate Obelisk—an alien harvester three miles wide, slowly spinning as it cast a suffocating purple twilight across Manhattan.

Floating around it were thousands of translucent crimson eye-orbs, scanning the city below like cosmic camera lenses, searching for entertainment.

Down at the corner of 42nd Street, something screeched. It sounded like metal dragging across glass, followed by the wet thud of heavy scales dragging through the mud. Two Void-Serpents—eight feet long, covered in iridescent, razor-sharp chitin with split jaws—slithered out of an abandoned bus shell. Their pale, milk-white eyes locked straight onto me.

A glowing silver Syndicate Orb dropped out of the purple sky, hovering three feet from my face.

"System Initialization," a cold, synthetic voice echoed directly inside my mind, completely bypassing my ears. "Earth Sector 04 designated for Content Harvesting. Participant selection in progress."

The silver sphere flickered, displaying a dark holographic menu in the rain.

"Select your Class. Option A: Scavenger (Tier-1). Option B: Vanguard (Tier-1). Select within five seconds or face automatic execution."

I didn't reach for their holographic interface. I didn't care about their alien game or their rigged options. I reached down into the freezing mud, my fingers wrapping around the twisted aluminum frame of my broken camera rig.

I dragged the heavy battery pack out of the dirt, clearing the thick grime from the broken power wire, and jammed the bare, sparking connection straight into my tactical chest harness.

SPARK!

A violent arc of purple energy flared between my rigged harness and the floating alien Orb.

The silver sphere twitched erratically. Jagged violet lightning shot down the copper wire, blasting straight into my chest. Pain ripped through my ribs like a red-hot iron rod, locking my jaw so hard my teeth clicked.

"Error," the voice inside my head glitched, warping like an ancient tape drive. "Hardware conflict detected... Biometric interface corrupted by pre-existing broadcast apparatus. Recalibrating..."

The silver Orb flared a deep, bloody crimson.

"Glitch override confirmed," the voice declared, its tone shifting from mechanical coldness to a flat, professional broadcast protocol. "Class assigned: Producer (Tier-0). Conversion parameters locked to 1:1 Psionic Resonance."

The alien interface dissolved, replaced by a dark, customized HUD that hovered over my vision.

[Current Live Viewers: 0]

[Panic System Points (PSP): 0]

[Heart Rate: 54 BPM]

[Status: Optimal for Broadcast]

The Void-Serpents at the end of the block hissed, their split jaws expanding to reveal rows of needle-thin teeth as they lunged, their heavy scales tearing through the asphalt as they closed the distance in seconds.

I looked down at the crushed camera rig strapped to my chest. The small red recording light on the side of the damaged lens flickered once, twice, and burned solid red.

I looked up at the sealed steel gates of the Hyatt, where Victor Sterling sat warm and safe inside, thinking he had erased me.

I wiped the bloody rainwater from my eyes, tightened my grip on the wire, and took a deep breath.

"Alright then," I muttered, my heart rate holding firm at fifty-four beats a minute as the beasts charged. "Let's give the galaxy a show."