Chapter 108: The Walkout Anthem Hack

The Walkout Anthem Hack

Mid-November in Las Vegas possessed a uniquely sterile, neon-lit kind of cruelty. The desert air outside the Thomas & Mack Center was frigid, but deep inside the concrete bowels of the arena’s locker rooms, the atmosphere was suffocatingly thick with the smell of wintergreen liniment, stale sweat, and impending violence.

Tonight was the highly anticipated heavyweight clash between Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe. The Pay-Per-View buys were projected to shatter global records. Millions of eyes were locked onto their television screens.

Elias van Kempen sat on a rusted metal folding chair in a cramped dressing room. He was not the main event. He was a late-addition undercard fighter, booked into a four-round cruiserweight bout. He wore simple, unbranded black trunks. His hands were currently being wrapped in gauze and tape by an old, cynical cutman who smelled heavily of bourbon.

Paul Rudd was pacing the length of the small room, hyperventilating so hard his flannel shirt was vibrating.

"Elias, you are going to die," Paul wheezed, adjusting his Anti-Awkwardness Sunglasses, which were currently failing to suppress his sheer terror. "You are a fashion model! You are a corporate executive! You just paid five hundred dollars to the Nevada State Athletic Commission for a medical license so a professional bruiser can scramble your frontal lobe! We have over two million dollars in the bank! Why are we in a boxing ring?!"

"We are not in a boxing ring, Paul. We are standing inside a global broadcasting transmission," Elias corrected smoothly. His baritone voice was a dark, unbothered rumble that completely ignored the violent context of his surroundings. "A thirty-second commercial slot on tonight’s Pay-Per-View broadcast costs approximately two hundred thousand dollars. I refuse to pay corporate retail rates for airtime."

The heavy metal door of the dressing room swung open with a violent, metallic crash.

Stepping into the room was a man who required absolutely no introduction. His hair stood straight up in a gravity-defying, electrified shock of silver and black. He chomped on an unlit cigar, draped in a diamond-studded denim jacket, carrying a clipboard and a booming, aggressively theatrical aura.

Don King.

The legendary, ruthlessly corrupt boxing promoter scanned the tiny room, his eyes landing on Elias. He let out a loud, patronizing laugh that echoed off the concrete walls.

"Only in America!" Don King bellowed, walking over and tossing a thin, incredibly predatory contract onto Elias’s lap. "The Hollywood pretty boy wants to play gladiator! Listen to me, Elias. I got you on this card because the television executives thought your little Vogue face would draw the female demographic. But out there under the lights, beauty doesn’t pay the rent. Blood pays the rent."

King tapped the contract with a heavy gold ring.

"Sepuluh ribu dolar, Nak. Ambil atau tinggalkan," Don King laughed, a sharp, dismissive sound. (Ten thousand dollars, kid. Take it or leave it.) "Kau cuma hiburan sebelum laga utama. You go out there, you take a few hits, you look pretty on the canvas, and you go back to California." (You are just entertainment before the main event.)

Paul Rudd physically winced at the insulting number. Ten thousand dollars for a televised fight was absolute highway robbery.

Elias didn’t blush. He didn’t puff out his chest or defend his masculinity. He looked at the contract with the clinical, apathetic precision of a Wall Street raider looking at a penny stock.

He smoothly picked up his silver fountain pen.

"Aku akan mengambil sepuluh ribu dolarmu, Don," Elias smiled, a dark, deeply shameless expression of pure capitalist manipulation as he signed his name on the dotted line. (I will take your ten thousand dollars, Don.)

He handed the contract back, but kept his long, taped fingers resting on the clipboard.

"Sebagai gantinya, aku hanya meminta kau tidak memotong audio saat aku berjalan ke ring," Elias dictated, his voice a silken, lethal purr. (In exchange, I only ask that you do not cut the audio when I walk to the ring.) "Aku sudah menyiapkan lagu khusus. Anggap saja itu caraku menghibur penontonmu sebelum aku menghancurkan aset petinjumu." (I have prepared a specific track. Consider it my way of entertaining your audience before I destroy your fighter’s asset.)

Don King frowned, chewing his cigar. He snatched the clipboard back. "A walkout song? Kid, I don’t care if you walk out to a church choir. You get three minutes to walk down the aisle. Don’t trip."

King stormed out of the room, entirely unaware that he had just handed over millions of dollars in un-invoiced broadcasting equity.

"Paul," Elias commanded, standing up and rolling his shoulders. "Take the cassette tape to the sound engineer. Tell him to push the master gain on the low-end frequencies. I want the bass to rattle the dental fillings of the executives in the front row."

Twenty minutes later, the lights inside the Thomas & Mack Center plunged into absolute darkness. Eighteen thousand drunken, screaming boxing fans suddenly went quiet, waiting for the next undercard fighter to emerge.

In the production truck parked outside the arena, the television executives were casually monitoring the broadcast, waiting for the Hollywood pretty boy to make his walk.

Then, the audio dropped.

BUM... BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM... BUM... BUM...

A heavy, distorted, agonizingly rhythmic bassline erupted from the stadium’s massive line-array speakers. It wasn’t a standard 1990s hip-hop track or a classic rock anthem. It was a stripped-down, aggressive, marching, blues-rock riff that sounded like an invading army crossing a desert. It was Seven Nation Army. A song that would not exist in the real world for another eleven years.

The visceral impact of the frequency was immediate. The bass actually vibrated the concrete floor of the arena. The crowd, confused at first, instantly synchronized with the infectious, stomping rhythm.

The spotlight snapped to the entrance tunnel.

Elias van Kempen stepped out. He didn’t wear a flashy, sequined robe. He wore a simple, tailored black silk robe with a subtle, gold Sovereign Media crest stitched onto the left breast.

He didn’t jog. He didn’t pump his fists. He glided down the aisle with the slow, terrifying, deeply arrogant presence of a billionaire sociopath marching to an execution. The camera zoomed in tightly on his striking, exotic face, capturing the absolute, deadpan emptiness in his dark eyes.

In the TV production truck, the Senior Broadcast Executive spilled his coffee.

"What the hell is that song?!" the executive yelled, staring at the monitor. The crowd in the arena was literally stomping their feet in unison to the heavy bass. "It’s incredible! Have we cleared the ASCAP licenses for this track?! Who owns it?!"

"I’m checking the manifest!" an assistant screamed over the audio feed. "It says... it says the Master and Publishing rights are owned entirely by Sovereign Media! The kid owns the track!"

The executive’s face turned the color of wet cement. A massive, comical sweatdrop rolled down his temple. He suddenly realized he was currently broadcasting a three-minute, uncensored, un-invoiced music commercial to four million paying Pay-Per-View subscribers.

"Cut the audio!" the executive panicked. "He’s stealing our airtime!"

"I can’t! The crowd is going insane! If we cut it, it looks like a technical failure!"

Elias stepped through the ropes and entered the ring. He smoothly shrugged off the black silk robe, handing it to a terrified Paul Rudd. Under the harsh ring lights, Elias’s physique was lean, sharp, and terrifyingly symmetrical. He lacked the bulky, bloated muscle of a traditional heavyweight, but he radiated a coiled, dangerous kinetic energy.

Standing across the ring was his opponent: ’Iron’ Mike Vance, a heavily muscled, undefeated cruiserweight prospect who was notorious for his brutal, brawling style. Vance was pacing aggressively, glaring at Elias, pounding his gloves together.

"You’re dead meat, pretty boy!" Vance roared over the fading bassline. "I’m gonna rearrange that million-dollar face!"

Elias didn’t react. He walked to the center of the ring as the referee delivered the instructions.

Elias mentally engaged the digital loan shark. He needed this transaction finalized quickly.

[SYSTEM SHOP ACCESSED.][ACTIVATING: REFLEKS MIKE TYSON & PUKULAN K.O (MIKE TYSON REFLEXES & KO PUNCH)][COST: -25 CP][CURRENT BALANCE: 80 CP]

[CHA-CHING!]

The biological shift was violently absolute. Elias’s central nervous system flooded with the hyper-calibrated, split-second kinetic awareness of a prime heavyweight champion. His vision sharpened, breaking down the spatial geometry of the ring into a clinical grid.

The bell rang.

Vance didn’t box. He charged. He lunged forward with a massive, overhand right designed to knock Elias’s head into the third row. It was a wild, aggressive street-brawl tactic.

Elias did not flinch. He didn’t raise his guard to block. Blocking absorbed kinetic energy and wasted stamina.

With a movement so smooth and impossibly fast it looked like a camera glitch, Elias executed a flawless, microscopic slip to the inside. The heavy leather glove whizzed past his cheek, the wind ruffling his hair.

Vance, entirely off-balance from missing the haymaker, stumbled forward, his entire left flank exposed.

Elias stepped into the pocket. He didn’t unleash a flurry. He leaned in, his lips hovering mere inches from Vance’s sweating ear.

"Pukulanmu mengalami inflasi, kawan," Elias whispered, his baritone voice a cold, terrifying razor blade cutting through the roar of the arena. (Your punches are suffering from inflation, friend.) "Nilainya turun empat puluh persen sejak ronde pertama." (Their value has dropped forty percent since the first round.)

Vance’s eyes widened in sheer, bewildered horror. He tried to pull back, his brain struggling to comprehend the financial trash-talk.

He never got the chance.

Elias planted his lead foot, generated torque from his hips, and delivered a surgically precise, devastating left hook directly to the point of Vance’s jaw.

CRACK.

The sound of leather hitting bone was sickeningly loud, echoing across the silent arena.

The kinetic transfer was absolute. Vance’s brain rattled against his skull, instantly short-circuiting his motor functions. The heavy, muscular brawler’s eyes rolled backward, and he collapsed to the canvas like a demolished building. He hit the floor with a heavy, lifeless thud.

The digital clock on the screen read: Round 1. 0:14.

Fourteen seconds.

The Thomas & Mack Center plunged into a stunned, absolute silence. Eighteen thousand people stared at the canvas, trying to process the fact that the male model had just flatlined an undefeated prospect with a single, invisible punch.

Elias van Kempen did not raise his arms in victory. He didn’t jump on the turnbuckles. He calmly turned around, walked back to his corner, and extended a hand toward Paul Rudd.

"My robe, Paul," Elias requested, entirely unbothered, not a single drop of sweat on his brow. "The ambient temperature is unacceptably low."

Paul, trembling so violently he could barely hold the fabric, draped the silk robe over Elias’s shoulders.

Then, the arena exploded. The crowd erupted into a deafening, chaotic roar of absolute frenzy. The commentators at ringside were screaming into their microphones, completely losing their minds over the fourteen-second knockout.

Elias casually slipped through the ropes and walked down the steps.

An hour later, the backstage corridors of the MGM Grand were a chaotic swarm of journalists and executives.

Don King was standing near the media barricades, chewing his cigar, looking at Elias with a mixture of profound shock and immense, greedy calculation.

"Kid!" King bellowed, rushing over, attempting to throw a heavy arm around Elias’s shoulders. "You are a revelation! A killer in a silk robe! I can get you a title eliminator by spring! We’re gonna make millions!"

Elias smoothly evaded the promoter’s grasp, stepping back with aristocratic grace.

"We are not making anything, Don. I signed a one-fight contract. My combat services are currently off the market," Elias stated, pulling a folded, watermarked invoice from his jacket pocket.

He didn’t hand it to Don King. He walked directly past the promoter and handed the paper to the Senior Broadcast Executive from Showtime, who had just rushed down from the production truck.

The executive took the paper, his face still pale from the Walkout Anthem stunt. He looked at the invoice.

"What is this?" the executive stammered.

"That is a retroactive invoice for Sync Licensing and Broadcast Royalties," Elias smiled, a dark, utterly shameless expression. "You utilized three minutes and twenty seconds of my proprietary audio asset, ’Seven Nation Army’, across a Pay-Per-View network reaching four million households. The industry standard rate for unauthorized global sports broadcasting is fifty thousand dollars. Payable to Sovereign Media."

The executive’s jaw dropped. A massive sweatdrop rolled down his cheek. "You... you walked out to your own song so you could bill us for it?!"

"I monetized my own entrance," Elias corrected flawlessly. "You received a highly engaging audio-visual product that kept your viewers from changing the channel. I expect the check to clear by Monday."

Don King stared at Elias, his cigar falling out of his mouth. The legendary, corrupt promoter suddenly realized he had been entirely out-hustled by a sixteen-year-old kid.

"You’re a sociopath," the TV executive hissed, clutching the invoice.

"I am a multi-platform corporate entity," Elias replied politely.

As Elias turned and walked down the hallway, the digital loan shark inside his cerebral cortex erupted in a symphony of golden, mechanical applause.

[CHA-CHING!][SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: THE WALKOUT ANTHEM HACK & VISCERAL DOMINATION EXECUTED FLAWLESSLY!][EVALUATION: YOU TURNED A BRUTAL COMBAT SPORT INTO A FREE GLOBAL ADVERTISEMENT FOR YOUR RECORD LABEL, THEN INVOICED THE NETWORK FOR THE PRIVILEGE. THE SYSTEM IS PROFOUNDLY DISTURBED BY YOUR LACK OF DIGNITY, YET IMMENSELY PROUD.][REWARD: +30 SHAMELESS POINTS (CP) DEPOSITED.]

Elias felt the warm surge of power as his CP balance hit a highly secure 110.

The daily toll followed silently in the background.

[SYSTEM WARNING: DAILY MAINTENANCE FEE DEDUCTION INITIATED.][DEDUCTING -$50.00 USD FROM LIQUID CASH RESERVE.]

He mentally balanced his ledger. The medical license and the daily tax were deducted, but the ten-thousand-dollar purse had cleared. His liquid cash sat at $2,214,138.00.

He walked out into the cold Las Vegas night, the distant roar of the casino floor echoing behind him.

The music industry thought they could lock him out. He had just created a global sports anthem that would echo in stadiums for the next thirty years, and he hadn’t spent a single dollar on marketing.

The Pop Dictators were officially bleeding.