My Secret TikTok Life: Family Disgrace to Global Kingmaker

Chapter 17: The Secret Weapon

The darkness didn't last as long this time. Perhaps the Heart of Ice was getting better at managing my failing biological systems, or perhaps the sheer high of the sabotage had acted as a digital stimulant. I opened my eyes to find the brick alleyway bathed in a strange, flickering glow.

I wasn't alone.

"You look like you're dying," a voice said. It was Elara. She was standing over me, her battered guitar case slung over her shoulder. She looked different than she had in the subway; she looked like someone who had spent the last six hours watching her own face explode across every social media platform in the city. Her phone was clutched in her hand, the screen glowing with a constant stream of notifications.

"I'm... managing," I rasped, pushing myself up against the damp bricks.

"I went to the library," she said, her voice a mix of anger and relief. "The librarian said a 'vagrant' had been hauled out by security. I figured it was you. I found you because of those stupid green shoes sticking out of the alley."

I looked down at the neon shoes. They were covered in mud now, but they had served their purpose as a beacon. "Did you see the views?"

"Five million, Salim," she whispered, leaning against the opposite wall. Her hands were shaking. "It's not just a video anymore. People are calling for those guys to be arrested. They're calling me the 'Siren of the Sidewalk.' But I don't have a manager. I just have a guy who sleeps on park benches."

I reached for my phone. It was dead, but the System didn't need the battery to show me what it had done. A ghostly, translucent HUD hovered in the air before my eyes—invisible to her, but vivid to me.

[Algorithm Sabotage: Active.] [Status: Re-routing Attention...]

"I need to explain something to you, Elara," I said, my voice gaining a bit of strength. "I didn't 'hack' the internet. I didn't break into Marcus's servers. I used a 'Secret Weapon.' I call it re-routing."

I gestured toward the mouth of the alley, where Marcus’s multi-million dollar set was still visible. They were struggling. The director was screaming at the social media coordinator. The "perfect light" had arrived, but their live-stream feeds were flatlining. Their "Luxury" keywords were being buried by the algorithm as if they were toxic.

"The internet is a river," I explained, my eyes tracking the data streams only I could see. "Most people try to build a dam to stop it or a boat to ride it. My skill just changes the slope of the land. I made the 'Luxury' path for the Bakar Group look like an uphill climb. And I made the 'Authentic' path—your path—the only way for the water to flow."

[System Explanation: Viral Rerouting]

I stood up, my legs trembling. "Now, we’re going to use their own gold to buy our iron."

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Look at that set," I pointed. "They have fifty thousand dollars worth of lighting rigs out there. They have a closed street. They have the best cinematographers in the country. And right now, they're waiting for Marcus to stop throwing a tantrum so they can shoot a ten-second clip."

I pulled out my phone. The System flickered, siphoning a tiny bit of my remaining "Influence" to kickstart the device for one last burst of recording.

"Stand right there," I commanded. "In the mouth of the alley. Just enough so that the light from their reflectors hits your face, but the shadow of this brick wall stays behind you."

Elara hesitated, then stepped into position. The contrast was breathtaking. In the background, thirty feet away, Marcus was being pampered by a makeup artist, framed by artificial luxury. In the foreground, Elara stood in the raw, cold shadows, the stolen light from Marcus’s set catching the edge of her dark curls and the sharp, beautiful line of her birthmark.

"Sing," I said. "The song about the cage. No guitar. Just the voice."

She didn't ask questions this time. She sang. Without the acoustics of the subway, her voice felt even more intimate, a low, soulful thrum that cut through the noise of the production crew’s bickering.

I recorded it all. I used the System to split the screen in real-time.

On the left side of the frame: THE FAKE. Marcus Bakar, pouting in a $30,000 suit, surrounded by people he paid to be there, lit by a hundred thousand dollars of equipment that was currently reaching zero people.

On the right side of the frame: THE REAL. Elara Vance, standing in a muddy alley, wearing a thrift-store jacket, lit by the "waste" of the elite, singing a song that five million people were already humming.

I didn't need a library to edit this. The System did it as I recorded. It analyzed the "Visual Irony" and maximized the "Spite Metric." It was the ultimate "Raw vs. Fake" comparison—a digital execution.

[Final Render: 'The Stolen Light'] [Estimated Virality: Explosive.]

"Is it done?" Elara asked, her voice trailing off as a security guard started walking toward our alley.

"It’s done," I said.

I didn't wait for the algorithm to breathe this time. I used the last of my Heart of Ice focus to force the upload. I tagged it with every single keyword Marcus’s team was using for their luxury launch. I linked it directly to his "Exclusivity" campaign.

I hit 'Send.'

[Upload Complete.]

The security guard reached the mouth of the alley. "Hey! I told you kids to move along! This is a closed—"

He stopped. He looked at his own phone, which had just vibrated in his pocket. Then he looked at us. Then he looked back at the phone.

Across the street, I saw Marcus’s social media manager scream. "What the hell is this?! Why is she trending on OUR tag?!"

I looked at Elara and gave her a bloody, tired grin.

"Check your phone, Elara. We aren't rumors anymore."

The video hadn't just uploaded; it was catching fire like a match dropped in a pool of gasoline. In sixty seconds, it had ten thousand shares. The comments were a battlefield of people mocking Marcus and praising the "Alley Siren."

The "Secret Weapon" had fired. And the explosion was beautiful.