10/17

Episode 2, Chapter 8

"Parker! Mom! Dad!" Penny was yelling as everyone shoved into living room. "Mom, get in here. You have to see this!" She was sitting at the computer wearing a large pair of headphones. So she did not hear the rest of them come up behind her. "Mom, get in here. You have to see this!" Mrs. Carlisle practically snatched the headphones off her daughter's head.

"Penny, what in the world? Why are you screaming and what have I told you about saying crap?"

"Sorry, Mom. But, hang on, y'all have to see this," she said as she unplugged the ear phones and adjusted the sound settings back to the comp speakers. The she clicked on the video she was watching and expanded it so it took up the whole monitor. The video started, showing a tall young man, outside somewhere.

"Is it going?" the guy asked the camera.

"Yeah," someone else, presumably the camera person responded.

"Okay, hey world, Bet Me Chet here and today is October seventeenth, two thousand seventeen. And check this out, it also just so happens to be my seventeenth birthday. Sweet right! Okay and Check this out, check this out world. I am willing to bet more than I ever have before. I am willing to bet anything, you name it, one hundred dollars, a week of salve labor, whatever on this next bet. So come on, do I have any takers?" On the screen beside the picture a chat window started filling up.

"Wait, what are we watching?" Mr. Carlisle asked, his face a mask of confusion and scorn.

"Oh, this guy is called, Bet Me Chet. He live streams that he is going to do some kind of stunt and takes bets about it from people watching," Penny responded. "But this one happened today. This is the replay."

"What?" Mrs. Carlisle said. "What the heck, Penny, why are you watching this?"

"Just watch, Mom, it's important," she pleaded. On screen, the boy and his buddy had responded to the chat and had narrowed down their bets to two people. Chet came back to center frame and started talking again.

"Okay, here's the bet. I will bet you anything that I got the greatest birthday present you could possibly get. I got a birthday present that is better than anything anyone ever got for their birthday. I swear to you, you cannot beat this. Okay, are my betters still in?" Chet looked off camera at his buddy running the chat.

"How is this not underage gambling?" Mrs. Carlisle asked, disapproval blaring in her tone.

"I don't think the bets are real. He just does it as a way of fan interaction to boost his ratings," Parker said. He glanced at the chat. "Yeah, look, he has a bot that posts a disclaimer in his chat every few minutes that all of this is just for entertainment and no actual gambling is taking place," he said, pointing at the lines he described.

"I'm sure something you just said made sense to someone, somewhere, but I'll just take your word for it," his mom said, amused.

"Hang on I'm going to skip ahead a few minutes, this is just them responding to the people in the chat," Penny said, using the mouse to fast forward. "Okay, here it is." When she pressed play, Chet was back to center frame with his hands held out to either side.

"Okay, here goes. This was my freaking birthday present," he said, then he shook his hands once and they burst into flames. He stood there holding his hands out and laughing maniacally as his camera man started swearing.

"Nah, boy this is real. Check it out," he said and with a flick, his hands went out again. He walked over to the camera and showed his hands close up. There wasn't a mark on them. "Check this out, check this out. It's not just my hands either," Chet added as he pointed to a bush beside him. With a flick of his finger, the bush caught fire. He let it burn for a moment while he and his camera man laughed about it, then snapped and put it out. The chat was going crazy with people claiming it was a hoax or something. Chet argued with the chat and proceeded to set several other things on fire at the request of the chat just to prove that his super power was legitimate. The number thing people wanted to know was how this happened to him.