Forty-five minutes into the broadcast and Smitty had to excuse himself to use the head.

It was the perfect time to take a break because a number of big kills had already ratcheted up the excitement. The news that there were federally convicted players in the game, including “America’s Sweetheart”, serial killer Kathryn Pickford, had shot the streaming numbers back to heights approaching Smitty’s second run.

One of the worst side effects of popping pain pills was being backed up. Sure, there was medication available that could alleviate the issue, but he tried to rely on fiber as a deterrent. The issue was that drinking a bunch of Miralax during the day meant that it could kick in at the worst times. For the last fifteen minutes, Smitty had strained to keep his sphincter clenched. He remembered to take off his headphones because no one wanted to listen to him straining on the shitter.

Smitty had dozens of pills stashed in his pockets. He kept his head level, though, and didn’t dig out any more for the time being. But come the next break, he would need to freshen up his buzz.

The bathroom door banged open, and someone clacked into the bathroom.

“Smitty?” Gretchen called out.

“For fuck’s sake. Can’t a guy have a few minutes of privacy?”

“We don’t have that kind of relationship, Smitty. Remember the two girls at the Belagio?”

Smitty frowned as he thought about that night. There he had been, naked in bed with a girl named Cherry, or Christine, maybe Christy. Or that might have been the other girl’s name. Gretchen had used her room key and entered without knocking, which had led to a lengthy lecture about how Smitty shouldn’t take women for granted, and should, in fact, consider settling down. Smitty, for his part, had been himself, and had invited Gretchen to join in. She had told him to get his shit together, and meet her in the bar in five minutes because Mr. Price, the man who signed his paychecks, needed a word, and when Mr. Price snapped his fingers, people jumped. It turned out it was just a formal drink with the man, but Smitty’d had to endure sour looks from Gretchen for a painful hour and a half.

“Boundaries, Gretch,” Smitty said as he strained.

“You know I’d only be here if I had to. We have a big problem, and they need you in the war room ASAP.”

“What the hell do those losers want?”

“It’s serious, Smitty.”

“Don’t tell me it’s Simmons. I don’t like that guy.”

“It’s Simmons,” Gretchen said.

Smitty rolled his eyes. “Do you think Simmons has ever handled a rifle? I get that we need nerds, but the least they could do would be to employ nerds who understood what Chicken Dinner is all about.”

“Simmons was in the Air Force,” Gretchen said. “I’m pretty sure he held a gun.”

“Yeah,” Smitty smirked. “His own.”

“Don’t be so crude.”

“Hey, Gretch. You know how to tell if there’s an Air Force pilot at a party?”

“Smitty.” Gretchen groaned.

“He’ll fucking tell you.” Smitty roared with laughter.

“Just go see what they want, okay?” Gretchen let out an audible sigh. “I did my job and passed on the message.”

“I’ll go. If they want me to do anything other than my broadcast, I’ll demand a raise.”

“You better get me a raise, too. I deserve one after finding you in the bathroom,” Gretchen said. “Seriously, dude. Did a hamster crawl up your ass and die?”

“I ate too much greasy food last night,” Smitty said.

He flushed the toilet and opened the door. His next stop was to wash his hands, and all under the watchful eye of Gretchen.

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Gretchen said. “Your eyes give it away, but it’s none of my business. I’m your assistant, not your handler. If you want to blast your brain on painkillers, then have at it.”

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Smitty shook off his hands, then turned and pulled a couple of paper towels out of the dispenser. “It’s not that easy. I’m in a lot of pain every day. My body’s been used like a pincushion over the years. I can’t even make my hip start working in the morning until I do a few stretches. Some days it’s like I’m seventy, not thirty-five.”

“Just don’t get too carried away.” Gretchen crossed her arms while she waited. “You should hurry, because they have Millhouse standing by to cover for you.”

Smitty gripped the side of the sink and squeezed until his knuckles turned white. Millhouse wasn’t about to replace Smitty. He could cover for a few minutes, but that asshole didn’t have a clue how to engage the audience. All he did was talk about his game. Big whoop. Until then, Millhouse could go fuck himself.

“Buncha paper pushers. What’s the problem? Not enough kills yet?”

“It’s probably something a little more serious or they would have clued me in. Just get up there.”

Gretchen spun on her heel and left the bathroom.

Smitty frowned at her departing figure. As soon as he got done talking to the nerds, Smitty was going to raise hell with corporate about Millhouse cutting into his camera time.

The war room existed as a large circular room on the second story and featured wide-angled windows that looked down on the floor below. It was from there that the rest of the staff worked on keeping the signals up, the streams live, and the all-important tally board up to date and accurate. There were redundant systems that kept the GPS signals from the players updated at all times, and backups to other systems that kept the vitally important streams live.

Racks of computers with countless blue and red cables running from ports made up an entire wall, and there were enough little flashing lights to illuminate an entire town square for Christmas.

From the room, Smitty glanced below to confirm that yet another screen had gone dark. One more kill, and he’d missed it while sitting on the shitter, and would likely miss another if he stayed up here for much longer.

Rowan Simmons sat behind three huge monitors, while a gaggle of techs dashed around the room. A holographic map of the field of battle hovered in the center, and blips, marked in various colors, advanced or retreated. A number of red circles projected onto the center of the map revealed where the zones would appear, as well as where they would eventually merge. An overly complicated mess, which had once been accomplished with a paper map and little markers, had now gone completely high tech.

“Hey Simmons. Where’s the fire?” Smitty announced as he strolled into the room.

A young tech looked up from his workstation and his eyes widened behind a pair of thin-framed designer glasses, but he quickly looked away before he could make eye contact with Smitty.

“Sorry to call you up here. You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, and man, this may be real important.”

“Okay. You have thirty of my fucking seconds,” Smitty said.

“The short version is that we think we have a cheater,” Simmons said.

Smitty paused and let that sink in for a second. Then he threw his head back and laughed. “There is no way there is a cheater. It’s not possible. I’ve been in the game, and there’s no way, not to mention, no time to cheat.”

“Just look at this footage, and then tell me what you think.” Simmons gestured for Smitty to join him at a console.

For the next few minutes, Smitty stared at the screen as Simmons brought up several feeds. At first, Smitty thought the man had luck on his side. A lot of damn luck. But as Simmons replayed the video he began to realize something was off. How could the player, a guy named Dale Furlong, know exactly which direction the two shooters would appear? Sure, he had been stuck inside of a gas station store, but he’d seemed to know that trouble was coming. Not only that, but his face changed as he stared into space. If Smitty were to play poker against this Dale guy, Smitty was sure he’d drain the guy’s bank.

“Prescient son of a bitch,” Smitty said.

Simmons stared at him for a second without speaking.

“What? I can learn two dollar words with the best of them.” Smitty grinned.

“Right,” Simmons said. “What I was going to say was that this guy moves when it’s clear. When there’s another player around, he goes to ground. He’s already taken out three others, and we’re not in the second hour yet.”

“I don’t know. How can anyone cheat? We’ve had problems in the past, but there’s an entire net over the area. A signal can’t get in or out.”

“Except for ours,” Simmons pointed out.

“Right, but it’s super-encrypted or whatever.” Smitty shook his head. “We’ve never had a leaked signal, or a hacker find us.”

“Yet,” Simmons said.

“Nah. You guys are too good for that. You’re like computer gods.” Smitty swept his hand around the room. “Level fifty wizards and shit.”

“It’s true. We have some of the tightest security in the world,” the tech behind one of the computers spoke up.

“See. That guy knows,” Smitty said.

“The guys upstairs are worried so we’ll keep an eye on things, but keep his feed open and tell me, in your expert opinion, if he keeps getting lucky, or if it’s something else.” Simmons nodded.

“You got it,” Smitty said, turned, and headed back towards the door.

“Smitty. They’re worried upstairs, and if they’re worried, then we have something to be worried about. If this game doesn’t go off without a hitch, they’re talking about replacing the entire crew and doing something different next year.”

“I said I got it,” Smitty said in irritation.

But as Smitty left the room, a feeling of unease hit. Was he blowing it off? He didn’t want to say anything in front of the nerds, but Furlong was up to something. The man was good, and from what Smitty remembered of his cursory glance at the man’s statistics, he should, by all rights, be what Smitty liked to call cannon fodder. A quick challenger who met his end early in the game. And yet he had already racked up three kills. The odds in Vegas showed Dale Furlong as a next-to-nobody.

Plus there was the way Furlong’s eyes twitched and glanced up on occasion. It was the way a dog looked when someone called their name.

The bookies must be going nuts as they tried to adjust the odds. Smitty grinned to himself. Maybe he should make a call and get a little money on Furlong. It wasn’t exactly legal for him to bet in Chicken Dinner, but he had a guy who would back him.

Smitty rejoined the broadcast a few minutes later.