‘Eli.’ Victor switched the voice-changer off, ‘It’s good to see you.’

My teeth swung open and closed. I shook my head and looked at him – glasses and a mop of curly hair. Victor coughed, ‘Now you’ve seen my face, I’m guessing you know whose debt I want you to pay off.’

‘Astra, Hera.’ Their names tasted sweet on my lips, ‘It’s been a while.’

Victor nodded. I took a deep breath.

‘I’m sorry about your computer screen.’

‘Oh,’ he laughed, ‘I’d forgotten about that.’

‘I bloody smashed it to pieces, what a moron.’

He winced, ‘Yes... that was a rather hard piece of equipment to replace.’ He shook his head, he seemed more relaxed and confident than the Victor I knew, ‘Having anger is not a bad thing Eli. It’s what you do with that anger that’s important.’

I nodded, then slowly I started to laugh, ‘God, you had me so fooled. How – why are you doing this in the first place?’

Victor shrugged, ‘I have my reasons. Maybe one day I’ll let you know, but...’ He held his palms up and winked, ‘For now let’s just focus on the task at hand.’

I nodded, ‘Okay. Two days. Do I need to do anything?’

‘Yes! I need you to post as many chapters as you can between 10am and 1pm. on the day of our launch. The more you can get out. The more views you'll get.’

‘I’ve got a fat stack of chapters saved up.’

‘Good. Add to it. Build that bonfire up!’ Victor leapt from his chair and started to sing, ‘The roof! The roof! The roof is on fire!’

I laughed, and joined him in his song.

‘We don’t need no water, let Crusher Media burn!’

****

Over the next few days, I still felt like shit – but it was a good, wholesome kind of shit. My fingers and mind seemed to be moving in slow motion as I hacked at my keyboard, desperately trying to get more chapters under my belt – but for the first time in months, my heart wasn’t bashing against the side of my chest.

While progress was slow on the word front I was still pulling in a substantial number of reads from my ‘feud’ with Lazy Cultivator.

A Victim of Online Fiction

The One Who Walks Alone

Reads last 24 hours

100,000

10,053

Reads all time

3,500,000

300,000

The other thing that took a little time was a strange request from Victor who asked me to change the function of the on/off button of my computer. Instead of just turning the computer off he showed me how to make the button bring up a rick roll.

At 9.50am two days after my meeting with Victor I was sitting in front of my computer screen finger resting on the button that would start to send my chapters live. I had 45 chapters queued up and my brain was incapable of writing another.

The clock ticked slowly. That was another thing I’d noticed since giving up the pills – life can be incredibly boring and slow when you’re sober.

I was just grabbing some sour cream and chives chips from the cupboard when there was a knock on my door. I looked at the time – it was 9.58am – two minutes until D-Day.

I walked over to my desk and tried to munch on a chip quietly.

‘Eli!’ Manuel’s voice called out, ‘I’ve got a present for you!’

I put another chip in my mouth and crunched it slowly, the clock was at 9.59am.

‘Eli! I know you’re in there you druggo, come on out man. You missed a good party last night!’

The clock flicked over to 10am and I hit publish, one by one my chapters started to upload. I glanced at the door then grabbed a kitchen knife and sat it on my writing desk in front of me.

‘Eli! What are you doing?!’

There was a pounding on the door now, only it sounded like more than one fist. I heard one of my windows smash. Glass tinkled on the floor and a woman swore. I clicked on the live read count button.

A Victim of Online Fiction

The One Who Walks Alone

Reads last 24 hours

500,000

10,070

Reads all time

3,900,000

300,004

‘Holy shit.’ I whispered to myself, ‘It’s working.’

My chapters were still pouring out, I was halfway. The door of my house started to crack and splinter as something heavy pounded against it.

A Victim of Online Fiction

The One Who Walks Alone

Reads last 24 hours

1,000,000

10,100

Reads all time

4,400,000

300,034

The door exploded behind me and a team of black-clad, masked security guards poured in. I grabbed the kitchen knife, raised it above my head, and brought it down on the cords that connected the keyboard and mouse to my computer. No one would be able to stop my reads from pouring in. Manuel sauntered through the door. He had a cruel, angry expression on his face.

‘Eli!’ He screamed.

‘Just a minute,’ I called back as I sawed through the copper wires, ‘They make these things much tougher to cut than you’d think.’

‘Stop him,’ some guy screamed and two pairs of giant hands closed around my shoulders. I was dragged backwards off my seat, but it didn’t matter, the cords lay dead and useless while on the screen my read-count kept ticking up.

A Victim of Online Fiction

The One Who Walks Alone

Reads last 24 hours

3,000,000

20,100

Reads all time

6,400,000

310,034

The last of my chapters finished uploading just as the guards found the on/off button of my computer.

‘Shall I kill the computer boss?’ One of them called.

A grey-haired guy without a mask nodded, ‘Turn it off.’

The guard pressed it and the computer screen blinked, then a tab opened up with Rick Ansley dancing on it – the sound of Never gonna give you up filled my house. I snorted.

The guard pressed the power button again and a second tab of Never gonna give you up opened. Both videos played simultaneously. The guy must’ve been stupid or something because he just kept thumping this power button opening over a hundred tabs of Never gonna give you up on the edges of the screen – meanwhile, in the middle, my read-count was booming.

A Victim of Online Fiction

The One Who Walks Alone

Reads last 24 hours

5,000,000

30,100

Reads all time

8,400,000

320,034

Manuel had grabbed my knife and pointed it at me, ‘You!’ He screamed, ‘You dirt-bag piece of shit.’

‘That’s me.’

One of the guards kicked Manuel, ‘Get out.’ they said, not yelling, just stern, ‘You botched your job.’

Manuel’s face went white, ‘No... I’ve been keeping an eye on him. I swear. I didn’t know...’

Manuel ran.

A Victim of Online Fiction

The One Who Walks Alone

Reads last 24 hours

6,500,000

31,100

Reads all time

9,900,000

321,034

I started to laugh. I laughed and laughed as my read count soared past 10 and then 11 million reads.

The guys were kneeing me in the side of the chest, but I could hardly feel a thing.

‘You can’t touch me,’ I said, ‘You can’t hurt me anymore. because I’m free.’

****

I sat, tied to a chair in Richard Balls’ office. The thin (but incredibly strong) nylon rope cut into my wrists and ankles, but I did have to admit – Balls had quite the view.

In front of his office window was a large grassy courtyard area flanked by giant glass office buildings stretching as far as...

My train of thought was interrupted as Balls strode in. He gave the two goons either side of me a nod and they left.

Balls tapped at the watch on his wrist and a page of holographic charts appeared in the air in front of us. He coughed.

‘Mr Hill. I’m not here to threaten you. I want to make that very clear.’

I jerked my head towards the bonds that held me, ‘So you’re wearing all black... have me tied up... and aren’t here to threaten me. Oh god...’

Balls’ face went red, ‘M-Mr Hill. You are so close to destruction, and yet you’re sitting here making jokes.’

I wrinkled my nose, ‘I thought you weren’t here to make threats.’

He took a step towards me, raised his fist and slapped me across the face, then he dropped to my level and did this weird thing with his eyebrows, ‘Are you going to listen to me?’

I raised my shoulders, ‘Depends on what sick fantasies you have planned.’

He slapped my face again, ‘Mr Hill. I want to show you two graphs.’ He gestured to the hologram and I groaned.

‘The graph on the left – that is Lonely Cultivator, her reads and income increased massively after she hit 10 million reads and decided to stay with us.’

He coughed, ‘The graph on the right-’

‘-hold on, I think I know where you’re headed – that graph on the right – the one where it drops to shit after hitting 10 million – that’s someone who left Prison Crusher, right?’

Balls winced at the word Prison but eventually nodded the bald patch on his head, ‘Maybe there is some hope for you Mr Hill. We will allow you to stay here if you provide us with some information. A few names, passwords, nothing too strenuous.’

‘Anyone in particular?’

He grinned, ‘Q. I want Q.’

‘So you’re offering me... the chance to stay in this shithole in return for dobbing in the only person brave enough to try to take down the modern equivalent of Hitler-Stalin-Magee.’

Balls sat on his desk, ‘We haven’t discussed the alternatives yet Mr Hill – the things that happen to you if we don’t allow you to stay here.’

I snorted, ‘If you don’t, then I walk away free. You can’t break your contract. If you keep me here then other writers are going to realise that this whole buying your freedom thing is a sham. There’d be anarchy.’

Balls shrugged, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a photograph, it was a woman with large round glasses, wavy hair and a laser-like intensity to her eyes, ‘Have you ever seen this woman before?’

I shook my head, tried to think of something smart to reply with – but he beat me to it.

‘This, Mr Hill is Kate Wilder.’

I swallowed and his cold smile showed itself – up close, I could see he had a row of sparkling gold teeth, ‘Ahh, so you’ve heard of her. But never seen her?’

I shook my arms, the ropes held tight. He thrust the photo in my face.

‘The reason you haven’t seen her is because this is the only picture of Miss Wilder that exists. Go online, go to a physical archive, you won’t find anything. I bought every picture of Miss Wilder that existed.’

He smiled, ‘And no-one’s even seen your face Mr Hill.’

I shrugged, ‘Oh yeah...?’ my mind was racing, the dude was a psychopath... I needed to speak his language. I needed to say something that would scare him off... something like... ‘and how about Q?’

A slight frown broke through his triumphant expression, ‘Q?’

‘Yeah. That guy you hate. He’s got photos, he’s got contacts. He’s got the address of your barber.’

‘My barber?’ Now Balls was looking really worried. I decided to push my luck and keep bullshitting.

‘Yeah, that’s right. Do any of the photos out in the media show your bald patch? Huh?’

Balls slapped my face again, ‘Shut up.’

I shook my head, ‘For a tyrant you’re so insecure man.’

He slapped me good the next time – I could feel a hot, stinging handprint across my cheek.

‘Kill me,’ I gritted my teeth to stop the pain, ‘I’m not writing another word for you.’

Balls went nuts, his arms and legs pounded into me – and let me tell you that guy’s form was bad. Most of them didn’t even hurt, one time he missed me and kicked the chair I was tied to, then started screaming like a little baby. I tried to laugh at him, but he lost his balance and fell accidentally bashing the back of his head against my nose. I heard the cartilage snap and tears flooded my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. The only decent hit he landed was on accident.

After that some guards stormed in and started yelling at me for injuring their boss. I was yelling back, telling them that the guy couldn’t kick for shit.

Then I was pushed into the back of a truck – the sort I’d first been brought to the cells in. The door locked and I was left there, alone.