The LiveStream System: Every Viewer Makes Me Rich

Audience Royalty

By the time the counter stops climbing, there are 214 people in my stream, and not one of them is here to hear me.

Chat moves so fast I cannot read it. The words blur into a river of white and red. I catch pieces as they rush past.

*fat catfish*

*bro really thought he could scam someone*

*I came for the roast where's the voice*

*say something pig*

My jaw is tight. My palms are slick against the desk. Every few seconds a new name pops up, a new insult, a new viewer. And every time the number rises, a thin blue line slides across the corner of my vision.

**[Viewers: 187... 192... 201.]**

**[Payment pending: $20,100.]**

I do not touch the keyboard. I do not type one word back. Nobody told me to stay quiet. It is just that every time I think about answering, my hands start to shake, and I know that if I open my mouth, I will cry. So I sit. I let the river run over me.

Then I do the only thing I know how to do. I lean toward the mic.

"Hey, everybody," I say, and my voice comes out low and steady, which surprises me. "I know why most of you are here. That's okay. I'm not going to fight you. I'm just going to play a game."

Chat explodes.

*LMAO he's gonna PLAY*

*cope*

*after THAT??*

I open Ironbim, the shooter I have played since I was sixteen. Once, back when I was lighter and slept more, I ranked 412th in the world. I load into a match without another word.

For the next forty minutes, I play like nobody is watching. I narrate softly, the way I always do. A man crouches behind a crate and I describe it like a movie trailer. *The corridor is quiet. Too quiet. Somewhere above him, a man who has made several terrible decisions loads a clip.*

The chat does not stop. But slowly, it changes. A few of the loudest names go silent. A few type, *wait, that was clean.* One types, *ok his voice is actually insane.* I do not look at any of it. I just play, and my heart slows down a little with every kill, and for forty minutes I am not the man on the stairs. I am just a voice in a map.

At 1:12 a.m., the match ends. I click off the stream.

The room goes very quiet. My ears ring. I sit with my hands on my knees, waiting for the blue letters to tell me I imagined everything.

**[Settlement complete.]**

**[Qualified viewers: 187. Total: $18,700.]**

I stop breathing.

My phone buzzes on the desk. I grab it. The bank app opens, and I stare at a number so big my brain refuses to read it.

**$18,963.18.**

The deposit line says: *Audience Royalty. Source: Unlisted.*

"No," I whisper. "No, no, no. That's not real."

I tap the number. I refresh. I refresh again. It stays.

I get up and walk to the window and walk back. I press both hands over my face. My heart hammers so hard my fingertips tingle. Eighteen thousand dollars. From strangers calling me a pig.

Then a cold, sharp thought slides in behind the excitement. *Why 187? There were two hundred and fourteen.*

Twenty-seven people did not count. I do not know why. Bots? People who left early? I do not know, and I do not like not knowing. Not after tonight. Not after the way a smile can turn into a bill.

I sit back down and stare at the empty air near my monitor. "Okay," I say out loud, feeling ridiculous. "What are the rules?"

Nothing. Just the hum of my computer.

Whatever this is, it does not explain itself. If I want to understand it, I have to watch it work. And I need to do that with people I trust, because I cannot bet my whole life on something I have only seen once.

I pick up my phone.

My sister answers on the sixth ring.

"Caleb. It is one-thirty in the morning."

"Maya, are you awake enough to do me a favor?"

"Is this about Bree?" Her voice sharpens instantly. "Did she come? Did she see you?"

"She came. She saw me. It was bad. I'll tell you everything. But first, can you join a stream for ten minutes? I'm testing a new setup. The platform changed a few things, and I need warm bodies to check the audio."

"Warm bodies," she says dryly. "Wow. How romantic."

"Please?"

A long pause. I hear her roll over in her dorm bed. Maya is the only person alive who has never asked me to prove anything.

"Send me the link," she says. "You owe me waffles."

"I owe you a lot more than waffles."

I set the stream to unlisted and call Dre. Music thumps behind his voice.

"Yo, what."

"Dre, I need a favor. Can you, Tank, and Eli hop on my stream for a few minutes? Audio check."

"Bro, we're mid-game at Tank's."

"Just leave it running while you play. You don't have to do anything."

I hear him say something low to someone, and Tank's voice rumbles in the background, *he sounds weird.* Then Dre says, "Fine. Two minutes."

At 1:41 a.m., I go live.

**[Viewers: 1.]**

Maya's icon pops up, a cartoon cat in a hoodie.

"Hi," she mumbles. "Why is your picture so bright?"

**[Payment pending: $100.]**

My stomach flips. I do not say a word about it. I just watch the number as Dre, Tank, and Eli join one after another.

**[Viewers: 4. Payment pending: $400.]**

I almost laugh out loud. It works. It really, truly works. Then a line of text slides underneath.

**[Viewer "Maya_Cat_44" is inactive. Attention below threshold.]**

**[Payment adjusted: $300.]**

The smile dies on my face. "Maya? Are you listening?"

"Yeah."

"Is your volume on?"

A pause. Fumbling. "Oh. I put my phone on my pillow with the sound off. My roommate is asleep."

"Could you turn it up a little?"

Her voice suddenly comes through bright and close, and the blue line flickers.

**[Attention restored. Payment updated: $400.]**

I sit very still. So the system does not pay for names on a list. It pays for people actually listening.

I try another thing. "Eli, are you logged in on the laptop too?"

"Uh, yeah?" Eli says. "Same account on my phone. Why?"

**[Duplicate human detected. Viewer "EliPlays_Alt." Payment disallowed.]**

I almost laugh again. Tank has wandered off to the kitchen for a snack, and I hear his big footsteps and the opening of a refrigerator door.

**[Viewer "TankTheTank" is away. Attention below threshold.]**

**[Payment adjusted: $300.]**

A minute later he comes back, and it climbs to $400 again.

I let out a long breath. It is all clear now, every piece of it. The system pays for real people, with real ears, giving real attention. No bots. No alts. No one who wanders off. Nobody can fake it.

Nobody else knows. Nobody else can see it. And I am not going to tell them. Whatever this is, it is mine, and I understand, in a quiet way, that it would fall apart if I handed it to anybody else.

"Okay," I say. My voice comes out thick. "Thanks, everyone. That's all I needed."

"That's it?" Dre says. "Bro, you woke up Eli for that."

"I'm awake," Eli says miserably from somewhere. "I'll never be asleep again."

"Caleb," Maya says, and her sleepy voice has gone very soft. "You sound like you've been crying."

I did not know it showed. I wipe my face on my sleeve.

"Bree came," I say.

Silence. Then all four of them start talking at once.

So I tell them. Not about the money. Not about the blue letters. I tell them about the stairs, the pink suitcase, the fifteen thousand dollars, and the message from Ty Blaze. I tell them about the post. I try to make it sound like a story about somebody else.

Dre is the first to speak. "Bro."

"Yeah."

"I'm going to find that girl."

"Don't."

"I'll say something very rude. Politely."

I laugh, but it cracks in the middle.

Tank is quiet for a moment. When he speaks, it is slow and heavy, like a boulder rolling downhill. "You want to know the thing that bothers me most, man?"

"What?"

"She called you disgusting, and you just stood there. You didn't say one cruel thing back."

"I didn't want to be someone who does that."

"That's not weakness," Tank says. "That's the opposite."

I do not know what to say, so I do not say anything. In the pause, I hear Eli sniffle loudly.

"Are you crying?" Dre asks.

"It's allergies."

"In January?"

"Cold allergies!"

Maya laughs, a wet, tired little laugh, and something tight in my chest loosens that I did not even know was clenched.

"Caleb," she says. "Play me something."

"What?"

"You used to. When we were kids. In the living room, with Dad's guitar."

My face goes warm. My eyes slide to the corner of the room, to the black case under my bed.

"I don't play anymore."

"You hum. You hum in your sleep, you know. You hummed all through Thanksgiving."

"That's not the same."

"It's the same to me."

I look at the case. The four little dots of my viewers glow green on the screen, patient, waiting.

"Not tonight," I say.

"Okay." She is quiet. "But soon?"

"Soon," I say. I do not know whether I mean it.

I end the stream. The room goes still again, but it is a different kind of still. For the first time in twelve hours, I feel something that is not shame or fear. It sits in my chest like a seed, small and hard. Hope, maybe. A stubborn little bit of it.

I pick up my phone to check the bank app one more time.

It will not load.

I tap it. A spinning wheel. I tap again. A red banner slides down from the top of the screen.

**Account Restricted.**

**Due to unusual large deposits, your account has been temporarily frozen pending security review. Please contact our fraud department within 48 hours.**

I try the login again. Same banner. I try the debit card app. Same thing. Eighteen thousand dollars, and I cannot touch a single cent.

My phone buzzes. Not the bank. A text from an unknown number.

*Saw your name trending, Caleb. Funny how people with money forget who they owe. I'll see you Friday. Bring the full amount. - D.P.*

D.P. Dominic Pike, from QuickBridge. The man who calls on the first of every month in a voice like warm oil.

Then it buzzes again, a private message this time. The name at the top makes my skin go tight.

**Ty Blaze:** *Nice little stream, fat boy. Enjoy the fame. It won't be yours for long.*

I look up at the dark window. My own reflection looks back at me, tired and big and pale, with wet eyes.

Behind my reflection, in the cold glass, a faint blue light flickers.

**[Warning: Host has attracted attention.]**

**[Rule Two will be revealed at the next livestream.]**