APOCALYPSE LIVESTREAM: I GET RICH ON GLOBAL PANIC

Chapter 2: Fifty Story freefall

POV: Gideon Vance

My legs burned as I pounded up the concrete stairwell of the abandoned commercial tower across from the Hyatt. Behind me, the metallic scraping of armored scales ringing off the steel risers kept my boots moving.

I couldn't fight two eight-foot Void-Serpents with a crushed camera frame and a pocket knife. I knew that. My pulse sat flat at fifty-six beats a minute—not because I was fearless, but because of the numb, icy stillness that always took over when my back hit a wall. The same stillness I felt three years ago when Victor stood over me in the rain while the paramedics loaded my stunt crew into ambulances.

I kicked open the heavy fire door at the top of the stairwell, bursting out onto the rain-slicked rooftop deck.

The wind howled fifty stories above Manhattan, smelling heavily of ozone and alien bio-luminescence. Below, the grid of the city was drowning in purple smoke, dominated by the colossal Syndicate Obelisk spinning silently over Midtown. Translucent alien Orbs hovered in the sky like floating, unblinking eyes.

I slammed the heavy steel door shut, throwing the emergency iron crossbar into place. A second later, something slammed into the metal with brutal force. The steel frame groaned, popping out of the drywall in a spray of white plaster dust.

They were going to tear through in less than ninety seconds.

I backed away toward the edge of the roof, wiping rainwater and purple spore-dust out of my eyes. My floating camera Orb drifted alongside me, its red light burning bright in the dark.

"System Alert," Nova’s flat, formal broadcast voice echoed inside my skull. "Global Syndicate feed synchronized. Regional Sector 1 Channel activated."

A dark blue, semi-translucent interface materialized in my field of vision. On the left side, a picture-in-picture stream displayed a live transmission from inside the Grand Hyatt's reinforced command room.

Victor Sterling sat behind a polished glass desk, sipping espresso from a white porcelain cup. He looked dry. Immaculate. His official Apex camera Orb was broadcasting his smooth, corporate face to every survivor screen and shelter terminal in Sector 1.

"Rest assured," Victor's voice came through the interface speaker, warm and practiced. "Apex Security has the situation under full operational control. We are clearing Sector 1 quadrant by quadrant. Anyone who cooperates with our logistics protocol will receive water, rations, and safe passage."

On the right side of my HUD, the live chat split into two separate columns: Human Survivors and Alien Syndicate Viewers.

User_104 (Human): "Thank God for Apex! Is Sector 1 safe?"

Syndicate_Watcher_99 (Alien): "Boring livestock presentation. Where is the blood?"

User_882 (Human): "Help! Monsters in the alley on 41st!"

Then, my glitched Producer interface force-hijacked a portion of Victor's stream, locking my high-risk camera feed right into the upper corner of his primary broadcast.

In his plush command room, Victor paused mid-sip. His eyes drifted to the smaller window on his monitor showing me standing on a storm-lashed rooftop, bleeding, cornered against a fifty-story drop.

For a fraction of a second, his smug, corporate composure completely shattered. He recognized me.

"Gideon?" Victor muttered under his breath, his voice leaking straight through the shared audio channel. "What is that blacklisted trash doing on my feed?"

The comment section froze, then exploded twice as fast.

User_402: "Who is that guy on the roof?"

Apex_Guard_4: "That's the bum Miller threw into the street ten minutes ago!"

Syndicate_Betting_Bot: "Odds updated! Participant Vance survival probability: 0.02%."

The steel door behind me tore off its hinges with a violent screech. The two Void-Serpents lunged out onto the gravel rooftop, their split jaws dripping corrosive green foam that hissed as it hit the concrete. They spread out, blocking the stairwell exit.

There was no way past them. No weapons. No rescue squad coming.

I looked over my shoulder at the fifty-story drop into the violet-tinted fog below. Then I looked straight into Victor’s face on the screen.

He was watching me die. He had stolen my studio, framed me for arson, blacklisted my name, thrown me out into the street to be eaten, and now he got to sit in a warm lobby drinking coffee while alien monsters finished the job on live air.

A hot, sharp heat flared in my chest—not panic, but pure, unadulterated spite.

"You want a show, Victor?" I whispered, my voice cutting through the wind. "Let's give them something worth watching."

I reached into my leather jacket and pulled out a small, steel bottle of chemical stunt-flare fluid I’d kept in my tool pouch since my filming days. I popped the cap with my teeth and poured the thick, alcohol-based gel straight down my left arm, thoroughly soaking my jacket sleeve.

User_303: "WHAT IS HE DOING?!"

User_712: "IS HE CRAZY?!"

Admin_Xylar (Syndicate): "Anomalous behavioral spike detected. Channel priority increased."

I pulled out my brass lighter, flicked the flint wheel, and touched the flame to my wet cuff.

FOOM!

A roaring orange flame engulfed my entire left arm. The intense heat seared straight through the leather, biting sharp into my skin. Pain flared white-hot behind my eyes, but my pulse held its flat, steady baseline. Fifty-six beats a minute.

"Gideon, stop!" Victor's voice rang through the comms, his corporate polish completely evaporating into panic. "Cut his channel! Miller, turn off his feed!"

[Current Live Viewers: 45,000]

[Panic System Points: +80,000]

[Panic System Points: +180,000]

The Void-Serpents hissed, recoiling a step as the sudden burst of fire blinded their pale eyes.

I held my burning arm high in the air, looking directly into my camera Orb so all forty-five thousand viewers—and Victor Sterling—could see every single flame.

"You told them to crawl into your lobby, Victor," I said, my voice cold and steady over the roar of the storm. "You told them there was no other way."

I took three steps backward, right up to the wet concrete ledge.

"You were wrong."

I stepped off the roof.

The ground disappeared. Gravity yanked me downward into open air, fifty stories above the pavement. The wind roared in my ears like a jet engine, tearing at my clothes and fanning the flames on my arm into a blinding streak of fire against the dark, violet sky.

The global system interface went completely wild.

[Current Live Viewers: 250,000... 600,000!]

[Panic System Points: +500,000 (CRITICAL EMOTIONAL SPIKE)]

User_901: "HOLY SHIT HE JUMPED!"

User_112: "HE'S ON FIRE!"

Syndicate_Watcher_12: "EXCELLENT PRIMITIVE ENTERTAINMENT!"

In the corner picture-in-picture, I saw Victor Sterling stand up so fast he knocked his porcelain cup off his desk, shattering it against the floor. His face was deathly pale, his eyes wide in absolute horror.

Thirty stories. Twenty stories. The concrete street was rushing up to meet me at a hundred miles an hour.

I reached for my hip, unclipped my heavy pneumatic stunt winch, and aimed the steel grapple line straight at the iron frame of a third-floor billboard across the street.

I squeezed the trigger.

The steel cable snapped taut.