Every winner had the option to bring a plus one with them on vacation if they wished. The rooms had a king-sized bed, and the resort was willing to cover the extra ten people as part of the prize they had provided.
Most of the winners had plans to immediately begin a fan lottery, to bring someone who could be here within the next three days along on their vacation of a lifetime. That’s how long they had before they had to go to the resort. It wasn’t much, but for most of them, it wouldn’t be an issue. There was one exception, the tenth place player, Ming, had brought her mom with her to Comor, not expecting to win. Her mom was also a regular feature on her stream, after walking into the room where she was streaming early in her career to call her for dinner and becoming an instant hit.
“Who should we bring? Maybe put it up as a prize for the unit?” Max asked Nico, not sure what they should do with the two extra places.
“Well, it’s the top luxury resort on the planet, I’m not sure that any of them could actually behave well enough to not get kicked out the first day.” Nico laughed.
“You have a point.” Max agreed, right before his wrist device started going insane. The stream that they thought was aired live was actually on a thirteen-hour time delay, and it had just started airing on the Station and the Abraham Kepler.
Nobody expected their response for a long time now, since nobody else knew that the stream wasn’t live, but they were sending out congratulations and messages of goodwill already..
“Since they don’t know that we won yet, why don’t we play a game with them? They clearly recognized us during the fashion show, so let’s have them bet on the final outcome, and the closest to top score can have the extra spots?” Nico suggested.
That was an excellent idea. They had won two rooms, and giving one to the unit would give Max a good excuse to share a room with Nico for the week-long stay at the resort. Pure Genius.
Nico sent out the message as a Unit wide alert, making it flash on everyone’s wrist devices.
[The member of the Special Tactics Unit who guesses closest to your Commanding Officer’s final score will receive a special prize after the tournament. Don’t forget to place your bet, we will give you until five minutes after the match starts, and the prize will make it worth your time.]
That way she didn’t violate the nondisclosure clauses of their contract, and they could give away the prize without upsetting anyone or being accused of favoritism.
They were about ten minutes into the stream now, so the soldiers had been given a vague idea of the way the game was scored, but were still watching the fashion show entry and had not yet seen the first few kills to have a proper idea of what the kill rate would be during the match.
Once the game started, the bets started rolling in steadily. Both to Nico’s inbox and written in a group chat so that nobody could try to falsify or send multiple bets. So far none of them were even close to how things had actually gone for Max, they were greatly underestimating his virtual reality gaming powers, and the effect of his efforts working with Nico later.
But they also only got to see the highlight reel. That was the only version that was publicly broadcast all over the Empire. To get the other views you had to watch one of the streamer’s feeds or manage to get one of the incredibly fast-selling tickets to watch the event live in the arena.
Five minutes into the actual battle, the last bets were placed and it only took Max and Nico a few minutes to see who was the winner. Captain Catan was only off by a few percentage points from Max’s final score.
“Should we tell him a little bit in advance, or wait until they are celebrating after the broadcast?” Max asked, double-checking the bids.
“They will have more fun if we don’t tell them who won right away. Let them cheer all night and we can tell them in the morning.” Nico suggested, looking down at her device again.
“Uncle Lu is outside the building when we’re done with the interviews. He has a place arranged for us until the vacation starts if you don’t want to stay in the arena hotel.”
“Thank the Emperor for him. I was not looking forward to going back to that room for longer than it takes to gather my clothes.” Max sighed, then turned to the staff member who was ready to bring them to their post-event interviews.
“We don’t need anything too personal. Just a little about your experience with the game, a quick promo spot for the company, and that should be it.” The employee informed them, leading them to separate rooms where there were different interviewers ready, and a holographic background of the game set to base the interview on, without having to edit the background later.
They weren’t joking, the whole process was completed in fifteen minutes, even with the retakes that Nico needed after they realized her face couldn’t properly do emotional expressions. They had been hoping for her to play the cute loli character and give a cutesy interview, but Nico proved entirely incapable of it, so they ended up going with the scary and emotionless Vampire that she was cosplaying.
On Max’s side, they had spent more time getting him to pose than speak. “Appealing to the segment of the audience that is drawn in by handsome characters,” they said.
“If you have a ride waiting, we won’t hold you any longer. But we would like to verify that your transport is secure, you know how obsessive fans can get about famous figures.” The security officer that led them to the hotel to grab their clothes informed them.
“I don’t think that will be an issue. Lu Chen, of the Chen family, is waiting outside for us.” Max informed him.
“The great scientist of the Chen family? How did you manage to befriend such a reclusive celebrity?” The guard asked, startled.
“We ran into him at the engagement announcement between the Chen family and the Cygnus Royal family.” Max shrugged and the big man just shook his head.
“Famous people really do live in a different world.” He muttered, making Nico laugh.
“I suppose that phrase is a bit too true, isn’t it? Since you’re actually from other worlds.” The guard said, realizing the double meaning behind his phrasing.
“Comor still has its own celebrities though. Two of the top ten are local streamers, so the Comor celebrity contingent wasn’t locked out of the podium.” Nico pointed out.
They quickly gathered their things and changed into casual wear, then waved goodbye to the few people they recognized here, and headed for the street, accompanied by the event security. Even while changed back into casual clothes they were still pretty recognizable though, and a lot of spectators were waiting outside to greet them.
“Sign some autographs and shake some hands, pet some puppies, kiss some babies, you know the routine,” Max whispered to Nico, greeting the crowd and moving forward to sign a bunch of event memorabilia with a silver paint pen provided by the nearby event staff.
It was only thirty meters to the street where the car was waiting, but it took them almost an hour to deal with the closest portion of the spectators and finish enough autographs that they could leave without upsetting too many people.
“Thank you all for coming. We have signed posters from the winners for everyone who wants one. Only 5 credits with proof of event entry.” The staffers called out, bringing out tables full of posters hastily printed with the winners’ images and the game’s official logo on them.
That was enough to let Max and Nico escape into the Limo, where Uncle Lu was smirking at all the attention they were getting.
“You’re just getting more and more famous. It’s like you’re destined to end up in the spotlight no matter where you go.” The old scientist laughed, then motioned for his driver to leave, headed for his own villa in the city.
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