Re: Life - Business & Technology

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California was blessed with almost never-ending beautiful weather and sunshine. Alice, a young 20-year-old blonde caucasian woman, was hard at work livestreaming on Twitch while entertaining her rapidly growing online audience.

For apparent reasons, her computer of choice was the Infinity Workstation, which could seamlessly stream 4K video while running Everlife on max video settings.

Wonder Alice's chat was as busy as usual because of the more than 100,000 concurrent viewers she attracts daily.

As a result, her variety stream had been highly lucrative, with Future Tech as her primary sponsor to the tune of $2 million a year, based on her performance metrics.

Future Studios provided less significant streamers on Instagram Live and Twitch with contracts but ones more appropriate to their level of success.

Wonder Alice was one of the many modern media personalities who've had breakout successes since Future Tech popularized the utilization of online platforms to promote their products effectively.

"I'll be continuing my no-death run of Everlife's campaign. Thank you all for being the first ones to log into my stream today!" Wonder Alice said to her live viewers over her Shure SM7B microphone.

Everlife single-player was no walk in the park for most gamers, and a few journalists from Polygon couldn't even get past the starting area with only street thugs to defeat.

Every time the player dies, their character would be revived back at the upgradeable base, but without any of their previous gear like weapons, armor, and a large portion of experience points, hence the title Everlife.

The game city was open-world, but the player could quickly tell if their character wasn't strong enough to explore specific map areas by getting one-shot by a boss crime lord's security operators.

A game mechanic meant to help awful players was the upgrades for the player's base that could be purchased while progressing through the campaign, which doesn't reset even if the player dies.

Wonder Alice had done well so far by reaching the first boss without dying, which should unlock Dwayne Johnson's NPC after beating it, opening various sidequests meant to upgrade her base.

Due to still being in the early game, Wonder Alice's female main character had no access to powerful guns, cybernetics, or armor and only had a combat knife and Glock 19 with almost zero penetration power.

"Wish me luck, guys!" Alice said before attempting to overrun the first boss' base of operations.

Alice noticed her chat going nuts after successfully saving Dwayne Johnson's character in the story and watching the detailed cutscene.

"Wonder Alice, you need to check out this new music video that Future Tech posted on their channels. POGGERS." the text-to-speech bot said over her stream due to a donation.

Alice paused the game and alt-tabbed to watch what her viewers were raving about in chat.

"Oh, these boys are cute." She commented while watching the intro to Hailee's "Starving" music video on YouTube.

She didn't worry about copyright claims or DMCA because Future Tech legally protected their content creators via Kemp-Jacobs, included in their contracts.

This situation was in stark contrast to Twitch and YouTube in 2021, when creators struggled with using certain content on their channels in fear of copyright strikes. 

Some viewers who were well-informed of K-Pop culture quickly pointed out the background dancers as the new and upcoming group, BTS, in the chat.

Alice went crazy when Hailee started singing and went even crazier when she noticed Vince dancing in the music video.

"I can't believe this! Jaden, come here. You gotta watch this!" Alice shouted to get her boyfriend's attention in the room next door.

Jaden quickly saved the video he was editing on Infinity Unreal Engine for his YouTube and Twitch channels and went towards Alice's streaming office.

"Oh my god, is that Vince dancing shirtless?" Jaden asked, dumbfounded.

"Yeah! Jaden, when will you get a six-pack like that?" Alice asked while still streaming live to so many people.

Alice's chat started spamming PepeSad when Jaden just stood there comically, thinking of a reply to Alice's question.

A Twitch clip of the humor that ensued on Wonder Alice's channel was shared by her fans on the TwitchFails subreddit and social media platforms, adding another reason for Hailee's music video going viral on the internet.

BTS and Hailee worked together the rest of the week while Vince and his friends were busy during the day and couldn't hang out.

The overnight success of their first music video inspired them to write, record, and produce more music videos to capitalize on their early achievements online.

Future Tech knew precisely how well the video was doing due to the recent implementation of the digital media unique tags, or DMUT for short.

An automated system introduced by NetServ counted every time a user tag interacted with a piece of media like the music video on the internet.

The system assisted with statistics and metrics tracking with the added benefit of enforcing proprietary anti-piracy methods for interested parties such as music labels and even video game developers using Infinity Unreal Engine.

Hailee shot her second music video for Love Myself in downtown Austin with a few of the locals joining in and she also appeared on a BTS music video as a featured artist, singing the chorus with the K-Pop group.

Throughout the week, Future Studios produced a total of two videos for Hailee and three for BTS' first studio album with the help of its professional staff.

During a Friday evening of the second week of August, Vince received a notification on his Infinity Watch while he was signing documents from Kandahar, which he usually did towards the end of the workday.

"BTS and Hailee want to celebrate their productive work week and wanted to visit my dad's spot downtown. Let's meet up at the Digital Den around 6 pm tonight when you're done with signing autographs." Kyle messaged through NetServ.

[Approving initiatives and programs for dozens of Future Tech divisions and sub-divisions isn't as easy as "signing autographs".] Vince pondered as he shook his head and digitally signed the last few documents on his Infinity Tablet.

He summoned Aiya by pressing a button on his Infinity Watch interface.

Vince's dutiful android butler entered his office a few moments after, asking what her boss needed.

"I'll be taking the Flyga to Sixth Street tonight. Please have my security detail prepared for departure and remind them of our trip to LA tomorrow morning." Vince instructed as he changed into the more appropriate attire from Future Couture's Nightlife collection with a matching pair of Chelsea-styled boots.

It was Friday night at Sixth Street so it was only natural for so many people to enjoy the nightlife, especially the local university students.

The Digital Den's first and second floors were packed with people enjoying drinks while consuming media such as livestreams being broadcasted on video displays hanging from the ceiling.

Vince didn't have to walk through the main entrance and instead used the AV pad access meant for Future Tech clientele.

He found the table with the most amount of young people but ordered a drink for himself beforehand at the bar.

It was technically illegal for the Digital Den to serve alcohol to minors under 21 but the bartender didn't even flinch and started mixing Vince's order without question.

Hailee noticed Vince waiting for his drink at the bar and decided to join him for a moment.

"What are you drinking tonight?" Haiz asked as she sat down.

"A Moscow Mule. What would you like?" Vince replied.

"Hmmm. I'll get a Cosmopolitan." Haiz decided.

The bartender didn't have to be told and started mixing Hailee's drink too as he overheard their conversation.

The couple made their way towards the table after a few minutes of waiting for the drinks at the bar.

"I'd like to thank Pdogg and the rest of BTS for supporting me through my first week of becoming a musical artist. My agent watched the music video and immediately shared it with Universal Pictures, which landed me my next big role on Pitch Perfect 2! That's our little secret, guys." Hailee explained genuinely.

"Congrats, sis!" Jessica commented with a huge smile on her face.

"We should thank you, Hailee. Our music videos had been popping here in the States because of your collaboration with us." Pdogg replied in gratitude.

"I'm proud of what all of you have achieved the past few days, so drinks and food are on me tonight!" Vince declared before everyone started ordering like crazy.

(Stats the same as Chapter 94)