บท 76: Chapter 76:

The party was interesting, the atmosphere was different to any other Ace had been part of. People seemed content with merely sitting back with a drink, enjoying the music, and looking at the various people that were doing tricks, or the competitions that had emerged. Of course, some people seemed overtaken by the 'music', and were more focused in gyrating their bodies to the beat of their drug-influenced minds, enjoying a spectacle they had set up for themselves.

As people began to leave, and the party died down, some stayed there to clean up. Ace and the others helped for about 10 minutes before going home. They said goodbye to each other, and walked off in their separate directions. It was winter now, so it was quite cold, but Ace was not feeling it yet, his heart was still pumping with adrenaline, a non-stop tempo that his body did not seem to want to give up on just yet. Ace knew he could force his body to slow the beating if he so wished, but that ability also came with the intrinsic knowledge that it could harm his body. It was better to let it regulate itself, and if it helped him ward away from the cold, then he was all for it.

As he rode home, he realised what they meant. They had ended up talking about good memories, and the three all had a common knowledge, skating together in the middle of the night. The silent roads, and calm atmosphere seemed almost magical, a paradox to the usual hustle and bustle of the city. Ace breathed in the air, it seemed cleaner for some reason. He felt at peace, nothing in his mind.

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Ace woke up the next day at his usual time, feeling refreshed. He went through his morning routine of exercise, then had some breakfast, and read the news. There did not seem to be anything of note happening, which usually meant there was, but it was too shocking for normal media outlets to cover it.

He logged onto his computers and went on a deep web news site. Effectively, there had been a scandal in which the son of a major UN politician had run over a couple. He had been driving young, he read some more, and found out exactly why this had been hidden, yet there seemed nothing. He found the typical stuff: a new regulation about to be voted in, advertisements...

This was slightly strange, and Ace thought over it some more, until he found something that did not seem to fit: there was no identity given to the bodies of the couple. This was strange, since usually, collisions would harm the body but not the face, so they could be identified through a mixture of DNA and facial recognition. It was weird, but did not seem to be too important so he cast the thoughts of conspiracy of his mind.

He had nothing planned for today except streaming, he would play a new game today, merely wanting to try it out, it was a new genre: Battle Royale. A number of players would drop into a map that would get smaller over time, and had to kill each other until only one person or team was remaining. The players would have to loot various areas in order to find ammo, weapons, healing packs… It had come out recently and was a pretty big game right now, so Ace decided to jump on the wagon and stream it for a while. Ace thought he would enjoy the luck aspect of it, since he would be able to overcome odds in order to grab a win.

He shut down the laptop, and walked into the gaming room, where he booted up the stream and explained to his viewers what he was planning on doing when he got a notification on his phone. He had modded it so that specific notifications would also go through his headset so he could hear them. He turned that off when he was in the middle of a game of course, but it was neat to have while waiting, to ensure he did not miss out on an important message.

He looked at his phone, and after reading the message, stared at it in bewilderment. He answered the message with a quick ok, and with his username, which was simply 'Ace'. As he logged into the game, he saw the invitation and accepted.

"Well chat, I have a bit of a surprise for you, I just got a message from someone asking me to play some PUBG with them, and guess who it was?"

He entered the lobby, where there were three other people waiting already. Their usernames were pretty recognisable, some of the biggest names in streaming right now. Dr.Disrespect, Lupo and Shroud, clear on the screen.

His chat went crazy for a bit, spamming emotes like crazy, and Ace had a pretty big smile on his face. He clicked on the link to the voice channel they were using and joined.

"Ah there we go, hey Ace, how's it going?", Shroud greeted him,

"Fine thanks, thank you for inviting me."

"Bha no problem, you don't have to do anything anyways, I will carry you.", Dr.Disrespect's brash voice sounded out, and Ace smiled.

They joined a game, and as they were waiting, Ace asked, "Ok, so how does this work?"

"Easy, we drop, we kill and we dominate, nothing else needed.", Dr.Disrespect said, and Ace laughed, it was a pretty overwhelming personality, that was one of the more eccentric on the platform.

Lupo clarified, "Ok, so we drop from a plane into an island, there are various places like factories, houses and so on. We loot as much as we can, and then make our way toward the safe zone. The map gets smaller every time, and the safe zone is the section of the map that will remain safe, this gets smaller over time. We kill other players as we go along, and we can also take their loot. The goal is to be the last team standing."

"Ok, I get it. I'll probably have to try different guns first though, to see which ones I like. You can have multiple ones right?"

"Yeah, you can have primary guns, a secondary, and a melee.", Shroud explained.

"Got it, I'll follow you from the start."

They dropped into an area with quite a few houses, they seemed to know what to do, so Ace followed their example and ran into a house, equipping himself with what he could find. He found a backpack and various other miscellaneous items, like ammo and some pills. In the top floor, he also found a shotgun with some more ammo.

"Ok, I have a shotgun."

"I have an SMG, so I'm good.", Lupo said, they went through houses, calling out various pieces of loot that could be useful to others. The area was deserted, but they were still careful, something that proved useful when Shroud spotted a team below them, going through a forest, and up to the hill where they were.

"Wait until they come out fully, then we shoot. You all have something mid to long-range right?", Lupo said,

"Yep"

"Got an AR so I'm also good."

They set up, Ace had also found a sniper, and with his shotgun and a pistol, he was equipped. He kept his scope trailed on the other team, and called out. "I have a shot, tell me when to take it."

They did not seem to be carrying armour, so if he shot them in the head he would most likely kill them.

"Ok, whenever they come out fully out of the treeline we shoot."

Ace waited, and as soon as the last one came out, he shot at him, a single shot to the head was enough to down him, and he swivelled to the next one and also shot at him in the chest. He was low so he also dropped. The other two also died soon, they had tried to run into cover, only shooting a small number of bullets. They had wiped the whole team, and only Lupo and Disrespect seemed to have taken small amounts of damage, which they quickly healed with some medicine.

They then went down the hill, and killed the ones that were downed. And then proceeded to loot the corpses. Ace found an AK without any modifications, and took it after dropping the shotgun.

"I have an AK, the shotgun I dropped. I also restocked on meds, ammo and even a grenade, so I am all set."

"Yeah we were pretty lucky, these guys were stacked. Now, all we need to find are mags and scopes for the guns. Should we move or should we wait?"

"Nah, let's play aggressive, let's push down the middle, and get some more kills, mowing down these noobs.", Dr.Disrespect let his opinion be heard, and they agreed on playing aggressively.

It ended up being that playing aggressive won them the game, Ace had five kills, and the others had between four and six. Ace had loved the sniper, and was a dead shot with it, something Dr.Disrespect had no shame commenting on.

"Well, Ace, you ain't bad. But can you compare to the Two-Time? You gotta do better than that if you want to become a true master."

Ace and the others laughed, and as they booted up into a new game, Ace noticed that his viewer count was higher than it had ever been.

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"Hello Ace, I just wanted to call you to let you know that we were invited to a gala."

"What? Where?"

"A friend of mine, a director, is throwing a charity gala, and wanted me to come. He told me that there would be a lot of child actors, so you would not be bored."

"Well, sh*t. You know I never really followed up on childhood shows."

"I know, that is why I am telling you."

"Ok, do we have a list?"

"Of course."

"I'm on it right now, when is the gala?"

"Tomorrow."

"Ok, how are you doing by the way?"

"Good as always, why do you ask?"

"No reason, just curious.", Ace had tried a small probe, but he had gotten nothing, not even a reaction, Samantha was good.

Ace received the list, and it seemed to contain pretty much every child star of the last five years. Well, I have a job to do now.

Ace spent the whole night reading through information. He read through every famous show they had been part of, and watched the most memorable moments for each one. He also had some people finding dirt, which was surprisingly easy, these guys were pretty crazy. There were lawsuits, underage drinking, drug abuse, you name it, these guys seemed to have partaken in every petty felony one could think off. They were wiped of their records of course, but the files were pretty easy to find.

Ace worked through the night, and by the time dawn arrived, he knew as much about these shows as the average viewer, and then some more. He did not want to be caught off-guard with any random questions.

Most of these actors were between his age, and early twenties. They all had considerable followings, some more than others. It would be interesting to interact with them, and Ace already had a few ideas on how to do so.