Chapter 253

On Sparrow, the discussions got heated as Aiden was taking time to answer the question worth 1000 dollars.

The trend with the name #TheMillionDollarGame was getting a lot of tweets every minute.

As the camera zoomed on his face, it was clear that he didn’t know the answer to the question.

Even Nicolas asked if he wanted to take a lifeline, but Aiden shook his head.

[Hard to come up with comments: He’s surely not going to earn more than 1000 dollars. He looks really nervous.]

[Religious Mermaid: He would just get a lifeline and answer it. Oh, he ain’t taking a lifeline. Interesting.]

[Aiden’s wife: You all think that Aiden can’t answer it. You are all fools. He’s smarter than most people and surely knows the answer to this question.]

[Rake’s wife: Hah, he’s dumb. Won’t even reach 50k dollars.]

[Aiden’s wife: Why are you still here? Shouldn’t you be on your way to buy up tissues after Rake lost because of his ego?]

[Waifu wars: I think this is more interesting than the game.]

Like that, the broadcast continued and soon, Aiden was able to answer the question without taking any lifelines.

At this point, people didn’t know that this was just the start of something unexplainable.

***

In the house where Aiden’s fan, Joseph and his bodybuilder friends were watching the show, they were all surprised that Aiden was doing so well in the game suddenly.

After hesitating on the question worth 1000 dollars, he looked much more confident and answered all the questions in a split second.

“He’s doing pretty great suddenly? I’m worried about the bet now.”

One of the friends who had bet that Aiden won’t earn more than 50k dollars said.

“You can’t take it back now,” Joseph muttered and added. “As I said, he’s a very smart guy. Just see it, he’s going to go much higher. That guy became a star after getting rejected in a reality TV show. Do you think anybody could do it?”

“Yeah, we understand that. Like this, you are going to tell us all about your man crush for the next one hour.”

“Shut up.”

As both friends argued, another friend took a sip of the beer and pointed at the TV screen.

“Look, he passed the 50k dollar question easily. Man, is he just guessing? He answered before I could even read out the question.”

“I don’t know. Maybe he studied it and is being lucky.”

“Even then, one would take a breath to think clearly before answering. That guy answered in 5 seconds. It’s so weird.”

Joseph clicked his tongue hearing that.

“Don’t think too much into it. He’s just smart, and that’s showing. He hadn’t even used any of his lifelines till now. You all are going to lose your money to me tonight.”

All the others laughed at him hearing that.

“Even if this Aiden guy does really well, there’s no way he’s going to even attempt the million-dollar question. You made a losing bet, my friend.”

Thirty minutes after saying that, their eyes widened with shock.

***

In a bar, a lot of people were talking and drinking among themselves. The atmosphere was just like what you would find in an average night bar, barring the occasional bar fights for dumb things like ‘How superhero movies are bad now?’ and ‘How remakes of classic animated movies are just cash grabs?’.

Today in the bar, the bartender was keeping his eye on the episode of ‘The Million Dollar Game’ as he served drinks behind the bar table.

“Hey, old man. Change the channel. I don’t want to watch a dumb game show.”

One of the customers shouted, and the bartender glared at him.

“Leave if you don’t like it. The bar won’t miss a customer like you who says things without even paying daily bills.”

The customer shut up after that, but the interaction brought up a lot of tired, drunk eyes on the TV screen.

Almost everyone had watched the show at one point in their life, so all of them were a bit surprised to see that the contestant was playing at 250k dollars.

That didn’t happen every time.

“Hey, I have seen that guy somewhere.”

“Isn’t that an actor? I watched [Disconnected] just last week.”

“That’s Aiden Silvereye. Fuck, he’s on 250k dollars. Look at his lifelines, he hasn’t used any of them.”

“How could that be?”

“Damn! Will he reach a million dollars? Realistically, he could use all of his lifelines from here and easily reach that. Talk about being smart.”

“He answered it correctly!”

As people started discussing it in the bar due to Aiden just reaching the question worth 500k dollars, all of them became curious whether Aiden was going to win a million dollars.

The bartender smiled, seeing people’s attention on his favourite game show. Passing up a cocktail, he kept his gaze at the TV screen.

***

On Sparrow, people were suddenly going crazy over Aiden as out of nowhere, Aiden had reached 500k. It had happened in a blink of an eye as he was answering every question in a split second.

A long stream of tweets appeared every minute, with more and more people from Aiden’s fan group joining the trend.

[Oscars are Local awards: Holy shit! I was out for five minutes for a bathroom break. How did he go from 50k to 500k so suddenly? Are my eyes finally giving me illusions?]

[Holy Sheep: He’s answering like he has all the knowledge in the world? His confident smile is giving me anxiety now. How’s he answering everything right?]

[That Meme guy: When Aiden answers, the choice immediately becomes the right one. He’s the type of guy who gets tipped when he goes to dine at a restaurant.]

[Hollywood Insider: He’s sure a smart guy. I thought Hollywood stopped producing them a long time ago. #FeelingDumb watching.]

[Moaning Frodo: Aiden’s the guy who makes a girl moan by a touch. He’s the guy who thanked his parents and drove them home after being born. When he comes to class late, the teacher punishes him for coming early. A true savage guy, making a mockery of a show.]

[Rake’s wife: How could it be? How’s he answering everything right? He’s not even getting the chance to think before he’s answering. Ain’t it cheating? I call it cheating?]

[Aiden’s wife: Just suck it, bitch. You people always blame the game when someone you don’t like is winning. See Rake’s face on the back; he’s petrified. Hahahaha.]

[Wimpy Kid: That laugh is really like a yandere. Are you also the owner of a knife collection?]

***

“Damn! He gave the correct answer to the 500k question. He’s surely going to beat the million-dollar question.”

“Don’t say that now. He might just not know it.”

“He has lifelines.”

“I doubt it would help at a million dollars question.”

The old couple who were watching the game show discussed as the studio audience were clapping due to Aiden reaching the million-dollar question.

Both of them had not expected anything and the normal evening had suddenly turned into something exciting, a chance to witness a big moment.

At that moment, they suddenly heard the sound of a car outside, and after a few seconds, the door to the house opened and a girl walked in.

She was their daughter.

“Emma, you came home late.” The wife asked, looking back at her teenage daughter.

“I was with my boyfriend, mom. We were studying at his house.” Everyone knew what that meant, but they ignored it as the daughter walked toward them. “What are you two watching?”

“The Million Dollar Game. Aiden Silvereye is attempting the million-dollar question. I’m seeing it after years. It has been iconic till now.”

“What??”

The daughter shouted and quickly sat down on the sofa in between both of them as Nicolas finally asked the million-dollar question.

“I’m a huge fan of his. I didn’t know he was going to appear on the show.”

***

“For fuck sake, is he really going to win?”

“How is it even possible?”

“He’s making it look like a toddler’s play. Is it really that easy? Should I register for it too?”

“Just watch. We are seeing history.”

The bodybuilder friends talked in excited tones as they looked at the screen where Aiden was reading out the final question.

Until now, whatever they watched had been something that they had never felt before. Aiden had completely baffled everyone as he answered so quickly.

He even had all the lifelines.

Something similar to this had never happened in the history of the game before.

[Which insect shorted out an early supercomputer and inspired the term ‘Computer bug’?]

Reading the question again, one of the guys asked, unable to take in suspense.

“Do any of you know the answer?”

“Do you think we would be like this if we knew?”

“No shit Sherlock.”

“There’s no way I would know anything about it. I’m still using the computer I bought in 2009.”

As they discussed, Aiden already had his answer ready.

[The answer is Moth.]

Hearing that, they all wondered whether Aiden had a train to catch. Why was he answering so quickly? Was he really that sure?

Even Nicolas asked him to reconsider and think more, but Aiden was firm in his answer.

“What do you think? Is it correct?”

“I don’t know—”

As Joseph muttered, Nicolas announced with a loud voice.

[If you have locked down a roach, then you would have lost out on a million dollars. Congratulations! Moth is the correct answer! You won!]

“He won.”

“He fucking won.”

“He really, really won.”

“Wait! I won the bet too. Haha, I’m rich. Thank you, Aiden!”