Rebirth 1991: Keep the Fame, I'll Take the Royalties

[AUTHOR’S NOTE: IMPORTANT!]Dear readers, due to Inkstone’s strict system restrictions on updating Premium Chapters (the 100-word deletion limit bug), I had to use a technical workaround by pasting a previous Chapter here just to bypass the system error.

Please SCROLL DOWN past the old text to read the actual, newly rewritten Chapter 138 at the bottom! I rewrote this Chapter to give you a much better reading experience. Thank you so much for your patience, understanding, and continued support!

Chapter 51: THE CYBER SQUATTER

The smog over Los Angeles was thick enough to chew, but as Elias van Kempen walked out of the Bank of America branch on Sunset Boulevard, the air tasted like vintage champagne.

He paused on the sidewalk, holding a small, dark blue leather folder. Inside was the certified deposit slip for Sovereign Media’s new corporate account.

$150,235.00.

It was an impossible number for a sixteen-year-old walk-in who had been eating garbage bread a week ago.

Paul Rudd practically danced out of the bank behind him, clutching the lapels of his oversized vintage blazer, his face flushed with sheer, unadulterated ecstasy. Owen Wilson trailed out last, looking at the sky and nodding slowly, as if mentally agreeing with the clouds.

”A hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Paul gasped, jumping up and clicking his heels together in a terrible display of physical coordination. He grabbed Elias’s shoulders, shaking him violently. ”Elias! We are rich! We are literally Hollywood royalty! Do you understand what we can do with this?!”

Elias didn’t shake. He allowed Paul to jolt his torso for exactly two seconds before smoothly stepping back, fixing his roommate with an exasperated, deeply theatrical scowl.

”Okay! Okay, I’ve got the itinerary!” Paul shrieked, pacing the pavement, his hands flying wildly. ”First, we buy a Porsche! A red one! A 911 Carrera, because we need to arrive at castings looking like money! Then, we rent a mansion in the Hollywood Hills! Nothing crazy, just like, six bedrooms and a pool with a waterfall! And tonight? Tonight we eat lobster, Elias! I want a lobster so big it has its own zip code!”

Elias stared at Paul. He slowly raised a hand to his forehead, clutching his temples as if Paul’s words were actively, physically causing his brain to hemorrhage. He let out a loud, dramatic groan, swaying slightly on his feet.

”Elias? Are you okay?” Paul asked, pausing his real estate fantasies. ”Did the Harvey Weinstein adrenaline crash finally hit you?”

”No, Paul,” Elias winced, rubbing his eyes aggressively. ”I am suffering from a severe allergic reaction to your complete lack of financial literacy.”

Elias dropped his hand and glared at his roommate, his voice rising in an expressive, exasperated crescendo.

”A Porsche?! A rented mansion?!” Elias shouted, throwing his hands in the air, drawing curious looks from passing pedestrians. ”Paul, what is wrong with you?! Do you think a hundred and fifty grand makes you a billionaire?! If we buy a Porsche, the insurance premiums and maintenance will bleed us dry! If we rent a mansion, we are setting our capital on fire just to impress people who don’t care if we live or die!”

Elias pointed a vicious finger at the blue leather folder.

”Cash is not a trophy, Paul!” Elias practically preached, his eyes wide and manic with capitalist fervor. ”Money that sits in a bank account is money that is actively being eaten alive by inflation! It’s losing value every second! And worse, if the System catches me holding idle liquidity, it will tax me for breathing too heavily near a supermodel! I need to park this money in an asset vehicle before it evaporates!”

”An asset vehicle?” Owen mumbled, scratching his chin. ”Like... a bus?”

Elias let out another theatrical groan, looking toward the heavens for patience. ”Follow me. We are going to UCLA.”

Forty-five minutes later, the glamour of Hollywood felt like a distant fever dream.

Elias had dragged a highly reluctant Paul and a bewildered Owen deep into the subterranean bowels of the UCLA computer science building. The room they entered was a stark, depressing crypt of early 1990s technology. The air conditioning hummed aggressively, battling the heat generated by rows of massive, beige IBM desktop computers. The harsh fluorescent lighting made everyone look slightly jaundiced.

The sound in the room was excruciating. It was a cacophony of clacking mechanical keyboards and the screeching, agonizingly slow wail of 56k dial-up modems connecting to the primitive, text-based precursor of the World Wide Web.

Paul clutched his blazer tightly, looking around the room in absolute horror. The only other people in the lab were a few hyper-focused engineering students wearing faded flannels and thick glasses.

”Elias,” Paul whimpered, his voice trembling. ”What is this place? It smells like ozone and virginity. Why aren’t we at a Porsche dealership?”

”Because Porsches depreciate the second you drive them off the lot,” Elias grunted, marching toward an empty terminal in the back corner.

He dropped into the cheap plastic chair and stared at the bulky, convex CRT monitor. The screen was black, filled with blinking green text. To Elias, who vividly remembered the sleek, instantaneous, glass-paneled smartphones of 2025, looking at this machine was physically painful. He actually shuddered, an expression of profound, comical disgust crossing his flawless face as he touched the chunky, beige keyboard.

”It’s like operating a toaster,” Elias complained loudly, typing in a series of commands. ”A very slow, very stupid toaster.”

He navigated through the primitive network protocols. In 1992, the internet was not a commercial space. There were no graphic web browsers, no search engines, and certainly no e-commerce. It was an insular, academic network used primarily by universities and government agencies to share research papers.

But Elias knew the timeline. He knew that in a few short years, the dot-com bubble would inflate, and the digital land grab would begin. Corporations would realize they needed a web presence, and they would pay astronomical sums for the right domain names.

And right now, in 1992, registering a domain name through the central authority—the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and its early registrars—cost almost nothing. It was essentially an administrative fee.

Elias began to type. He didn’t type like a sixteen-year-old taking a computer class. His fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard with brutal, punishing speed, sounding like a machine gun in the quiet lab.

Business.comSex.comCars.comLoans.comInsurance.com

He didn’t stop. He pulled the digital real estate into his cart with the ruthless, sociopathic efficiency of a corporate raider liquidating a rival’s assets.

”Elias, what are you doing?” Owen asked, leaning over Elias’s shoulder, squinting at the green text scrolling rapidly down the black screen. ”Are you hacking the Pentagon? Because I really don’t want to go to federal prison today.”

”I am securing our retirement, Owen,” Elias muttered, not breaking his typing rhythm. Pizza.com. Toys.com. Vodka.com. ”I am buying the digital equivalent of oceanfront property in Malibu before anyone realizes the ocean exists.”

A loud, obnoxious, incredibly condescending snort suddenly interrupted the clacking of the keyboard.

Elias paused. He didn’t turn around. He slowly closed his eyes, an expression of pure, theatrical exasperation washing over his face.

Standing right behind Paul was a senior computer science student. The guy was a perfect archetype of the early 90s Tech-Bro. He wore a faded plaid shirt tucked into high-waisted jeans, thick wire-rimmed glasses, and a smug, greasy smile. He had a lanyard around his neck with a handful of floppy disks attached to it, and he was staring at Elias’s screen as if he were watching a monkey try to do algebra.

”Hey, pretty boy,” the Tech-Bro sneered, his voice loud and incredibly grating. He pushed his glasses up his nose, looking at Elias’s scuffed denim jacket and ridiculously handsome face. ”You lost? The drama department is three buildings over. I think you wandered into the wrong lab.”

Paul instantly panicked, taking a defensive step back. ”Hey man, we’re just using the computer. We have an account.”

The Tech-Bro ignored Paul. He leaned closer to Elias’s monitor, reading the massive list of domains Elias had queued up for registration. The total fee at the bottom of the primitive screen was calculating upward, approaching fifteen thousand dollars.

The Tech-Bro burst into a loud, braying laugh. It echoed through the quiet lab, drawing the attention of several other students.

”Oh my god, you’re actually doing it!” the Tech-Bro wheezed, pointing a finger at the screen. He turned to his lab mates across the room, shouting for maximum public humiliation. ”Hey guys! Check out the Hollwood reject! He’s trying to register commercial domain names! He thinks the internet is a shopping mall!”

A few of the other students chuckled, shaking their heads in pity.

”Listen, kid,” the Tech-Bro said, turning back to Elias, crossing his arms and adopting the tone of a wise, benevolent genius talking to a particularly stupid child. ”I don’t know what kind of scam someone sold you on the street, but you are literally burning your money. The NSFNET Acceptable Use Policy strictly forbids commercial activity on the internet. It’s for academic research. Sending emails to scientists. Nobody is ever going to use a computer to buy a pizza, you absolute moron. You’re registering text on a screen that literally no one will ever type in.”

The Tech-Bro leaned in, his smug grin widening. ”If you actually have that kind of cash, you should buy a sports car. At least you’ll look cool before you go bankrupt.”

The silence in the lab was palpable. The Tech-Bro had clearly established his intellectual dominance over the ’dumb actor’.

Elias didn’t get angry. He didn’t blush with embarrassment.

He let out a slow, deliberate breath. Then, he stood up from the plastic chair.

Elias turned around, facing the Tech-Bro. And then, Elias threw his head back and unleashed a loud, rich, absolutely theatrical villain laugh. It was a laugh so full of arrogant, unapologetic amusement that it actually startled the Tech-Bro, causing him to take a subconscious step backward.

”Oh, this is brilliant,” Elias declared loudly, wiping a fake tear of mirth from his eye. He stepped forward and aggressively threw his arm around the Tech-Bro’s stiff, uncomfortable shoulders, hugging him close like they were old war buddies.

”Guys, look at him,” Elias announced to the entire computer lab, his baritone voice booming with performative joy. He gestured to the sweating student trapped in his grip. ”We are standing in the presence of a visionary! A true pioneer of the digital frontier! He thinks the internet is going to be used exclusively to send PDFs of botany research between professors until the end of time!”

The Tech-Bro tried to squirm out of Elias’s grip, his face flushing a bright, angry red. ”Get your hands off me, you arrogant—”

”Thank you!” Elias interrupted loudly, slapping the Tech-Bro on the back with enough force to make his glasses slide down his nose. ”Thank you for your incredible, ground-breaking insight! I was almost worried I was making a bad investment, but your absolute, unwavering confidence that this is a terrible idea has completely validated my entire business strategy!”

Elias released the stunned student, letting him stumble backward.

Elias’s smile vanished instantly. His expression morphed into the cold, dead-eyed mask of a ruthless corporate predator. He leaned over the keyboard, his fingers hovering above the enter key.

”Now step aside,” Elias ordered softly, the venom in his voice causing the air temperature to drop. ”I need to buy the word ’Pizza’ and the word ’Porn’ before idiots like you realize what a modem is actually capable of.”

The Tech-Bro stood paralyzed, his mouth opening and closing like a stranded fish. The sheer, overwhelming force of Elias’s personality had completely crushed his intellectual superiority complex. He wasn’t dealing with a dumb actor; he was dealing with a psychopath.

Elias turned his attention back to the screen.

Total Registration Fees: $15,000.00.

He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t wince. He didn’t even use a System skill to soften the blow. He manually inputted the newly acquired corporate routing numbers for Sovereign Media’s Pierson, Heldring & Pierson account.

With a loud, decisive THWACK, Elias hit the ’Enter’ key.

The green text blinked.

Transaction Processing...Authorization Confirmed.500 Top-Level Domains Registered to Sovereign Media.

Paul, who had been reading the total on the screen over Elias’s shoulder, let out a high-pitched, strangled sound that sounded like a dying tea kettle.

”Fifteen... fifteen thousand dollars,” Paul wheezed, his legs actually giving out. He slumped against a row of humming servers, sliding down to the floor, clutching his chest. ”You just spent fifteen thousand dollars on words. Not even real words! Words on a screen! Elias, we could have bought a Porsche! We could have bought a house! You just bought ’Sex.com’ for the price of a luxury sedan!”

”I didn’t buy a word, Paul,” Elias said, standing up and grabbing his scuffed denim jacket off the back of the chair. He looked incredibly, profoundly satisfied. ”I bought the future of global advertising.”

The Tech-Bro was staring at the confirmed transaction screen, his face completely pale, sweat pouring down his forehead. He couldn’t comprehend it. Someone had just dropped a fortune on digital nothingness.

Elias walked right past him, giving the frozen student a mock, two-finger salute.

”Enjoy the academic research, buddy,” Elias smirked. ”I’ll make sure to send you a postcard from my private island when the ban on commercial internet lifts.”

Elias strolled out of the dingy, noisy computer lab, leaving behind a room full of stunned nerds and a roommate who was currently hyperventilating on the linoleum floor.

As the heavy doors to the basement swung shut, the System interface detonated in his vision.

Cha-Ching!

[HUSTLE QUEST COMPLETE: THE DIGITAL LAND GRAB.][EVALUATION: UNBELIEVABLE. YOU JUST LAUGHED IN THE FACE OF 1990S CONVENTIONAL WISDOM AND DUMPED YOUR HARD-EARNED EXTORTION MONEY INTO THE GREATEST CYBER-SQUATTING HEIST IN HUMAN HISTORY. YOU ARE OFFICIALLY A DIGITAL WARLORD. CAPITALISM BOWS TO YOUR FORESIGHT.][REWARD: 10 SHAMELESS POINTS (CP) DEPOSITED.]

Elias stepped out of the building and back into the harsh, smoggy Los Angeles sunlight.

He was broke again. His physical cash reserve was practically nonexistent. He was going back to sleep on a saggy motel mattress in a room guarded by giant roaches.

But as he looked up at the sky, Elias couldn’t stop smiling. He owned the words. He owned the real estate of the future. The world just didn’t know it yet.

Chapter 138: The Music Video Catfight

The second week of June 1993 found Elias van Kempen standing in the center of a cavernous, state-of-the-art soundstage in Burbank, California.

The facility was breathtakingly expensive. Massive, sweeping camera cranes loomed in the shadows. Dozens of union grips and lighting technicians hustled across the polished concrete floor, adjusting diffusion gels and running thick black cables. The craft service table in the corner was a lavish spread of imported cheeses, fresh artisan breads, and chilled sparkling water.

Every single cent of it—from the Panavision camera lenses to the smoked gouda—was being billed directly to the Wieden+Kennedy advertising agency in New York under the intentionally vague operational code: Multimedia Synergy Initiative.

Elias stood near the director’s monitors, wearing a tailored, dark plum suit over a black silk shirt, projecting the serene, untouchable aura of a man who had successfully extorted a Fortune 500 company.

Paul Rudd, however, was currently vibrating at a frequency that could shatter glass.

Paul was clutching a clipboard to his chest, his eyes darting toward the massive steel rolling doors of the soundstage. ”Elias, I am going to prison. We are both going to federal prison. You cannot just casually invite the most famous women on the planet to a music video shoot without clearing it through their agents! Do you have any idea what John Casablancas or the sharks at CAA are going to do when they find out Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell are working for a sovereign, independent label today? They are going to send armed men to my apartment!”

Elias took a slow, deeply appreciative sip of a freshly pulled espresso.

”The agents are entirely neutralized, Paul,” Elias murmured, his baritone voice a smooth, calming current of absolute capitalist supremacy. ”I did not ask the agencies for permission. I bypassed the middlemen and went directly to the apex of the food chain.”

Paul blinked, aggressively pushing his glasses up his sweating nose. ”The apex? What does that mean?!”

”It means I sent a facsimile to the executive marketing boards of Versace, Chanel, and Dior,” Elias explained, a dark, incredibly shameless smirk playing on his lips. ”I informed them that I was producing a globally syndicated music video with guaranteed, heavy-rotation airtime on MTV. I offered to let their contracted muses wear their unreleased Fall/Winter haute couture collections on camera. A global product placement, valued at millions of dollars, for the exceptionally low price of zero dollars.”

Paul’s jaw slowly dropped.

”In exchange,” Elias continued seamlessly, ”the fashion houses simply had to leverage their massive corporate weight to force the modeling agencies to waive all appearance fees. On paper, this is not a commercial music video. This is a ’Global Fashion Editorial Vignette’. John Casablancas is currently sitting in his office, weeping over his lost twenty percent commission, and he cannot do a single thing about it because he cannot afford to anger Versace.”

Paul stared at Elias as if the teenager had just invented fire. It was a flawless, terrifying execution of the Win-Win Parasite strategy. Elias had weaponized the greed of massive corporations against the greed of the agencies.

”That covers the Runway Mafia,” Paul gulped, looking toward the dressing rooms. ”But what about Charlize? She’s an actress. She is bound by the Screen Actors Guild. SAG doesn’t care about fashion editorials! If a union rep walks onto this lot and sees an actress working for free, they will shut down the entire production and fine us into oblivion!”

”An astute observation, Paul,” Elias nodded politely. ”Which is why Charlize is not working for free. We are operating under the SAG Ultra-Low Budget Short Film Waiver. We are legally required to pay her the absolute minimum daily rate of fifty dollars.”

Elias held out an elegant, expectant hand.

”What?” Paul asked, confused.

”Fifty dollars, Paul. Cash,” Elias demanded smoothly.

”You want my money?!” Paul shrieked, his voice cracking into a high pitch of sheer indignation. ”You have over six hundred thousand dollars sitting in a bank account! You just bought a warehouse! And you want fifty bucks from my wallet?!”

”My capital is currently allocated for macro-level logistical warfare,” Elias reasoned with shameless, sociopathic calm. ”Your capital is currently sitting in your back pocket doing nothing. Consider it an investment in Sovereign Media’s human resources.”

With a tragic, defeated groan, Paul pulled out his worn leather wallet. He fished out a crumpled fifty-dollar bill and handed it over just as Charlize Theron emerged from the makeup trailer.

Charlize looked absolutely breathtaking. She was wearing a minimalist, sharply tailored black Dior slip dress that clung perfectly to her statuesque frame. She radiated the fierce, undeniable gravity of future Hollywood royalty.

Elias stepped forward and smoothly pressed the crumpled fifty-dollar bill into her palm.

”Your union-mandated compensation, Empress,” Elias murmured, his eyes glinting with dark amusement.

Charlize looked at the fifty dollars, then looked at the sprawling, million-dollar soundstage surrounding them. She let out a sharp, genuine laugh, shaking her head at the sheer, unadulterated cheapness of the man standing before her.

”You extorted a multi-national advertising firm to pay for the cameras, and you paid your lead actress with your assistant’s lunch money,” Charlize summarized, folding the bill and sliding it into the neckline of her Dior dress with a defiant smirk. ”You are a disease, Elias van Kempen.”

”I am a heavily regulated employer,” Elias corrected softly.

Before Charlize could deliver another devastating remark, the heavy soundstage doors slid open.

The temperature in the room immediately spiked.

Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell walked onto the set. They did not walk; they marched. It was a synchronized, predatory glide that commanded the absolute attention of every single grip and lighting technician in the room. Cindy was draped in a sleek, silver Armani gown that caught the studio lights like liquid mercury. Naomi wore a blood-red, custom Versace dress with a daring slit that screamed danger.

The Runway Mafia had arrived.

And they immediately locked eyes with Charlize Theron.

The air pressure in the room visibly warped. The generational war between the established titans of fashion and the rising queen of Hollywood ignited instantly.

”Elias, darling,” Cindy purred, her voice loud enough to carry across the set. She walked straight past Charlize without looking at her, placing a manicured hand flat against Elias’s chest. ”The lighting in the secondary dressing room is completely unacceptable. And who exactly is standing in my key light for the wide shot?”

”It’s an ensemble piece, Cindy,” Charlize countered, her South African accent clipping sharply. She didn’t yield an inch of ground, stepping closer to Elias. ”The narrative focus requires a central anchor. I believe the director blocked me in the foreground.”

”Background extras do not dictate blocking,” Naomi hissed, her dark eyes flashing as she adjusted the strap of her Versace gown. She looked Charlize up and down with practiced, terrifying condescension. ”Elias, tell your little friend to step to the left. The red silk needs to catch the rim light, or Donatella will be furious.”

Paul Rudd let out a whimpering sound and slowly backed away, hiding behind a heavy C-stand. The sheer concentration of ego, beauty, and territorial aggression in a ten-foot radius was enough to trigger an actual heart attack.

Elias sighed. He was standing in the center of a Category 5 hurricane of feminine dominance. They were fighting over screen time, fighting over lighting, and most importantly, fighting over him.

He didn’t have time to play therapist. He had a schedule to keep.

He mentally engaged the digital loan shark, sacrificing his capital to violently enforce order on the set.

[SYSTEM SHOP ACCESSED.][ACTIVATING: PITA SUARA BARITON HIPNOTIS / MIKRO-EKSPRESI (HYPNOTIC BARITONE / MICRO-EXPRESSION - DURATION: 10 MINUTES)][COST: -20 CP][CURRENT BALANCE: 275 CP]

[CHA-CHING!]

”Ladies,” Elias commanded.

His voice didn’t rise in volume, but the hypnotic baritone frequency resonated directly in their chest cavities. It was a sound that demanded absolute, terrifying obedience.

Cindy, Naomi, and Charlize instantly stopped arguing. They turned to him, their breath catching slightly at the sudden, overwhelming wave of authority radiating from the teenager.

”We are not compromising the visual fidelity of this production for a territorial dispute,” Elias stated, his face locking into a mask of cold, flawless, directorial perfection. He weaponized technical jargon to mask his utter refusal to deal with their feelings. ”Cindy, the silver Armani is reflecting the ambient bounce light and blowing out the white balance on camera two. Take two steps back into the negative fill. Naomi, the red Versace is bleeding into the color spectrum. Angle your shoulders forty-five degrees away from the primary lens. Charlize, hold the center, but drop your chin. You are catching a glare.”

The three women blinked, completely disarmed by the clinical, passionless instructions. Elias wasn’t treating them like goddesses fighting for his affection; he was treating them like highly expensive, slightly malfunctioning props.

”Now,” Elias murmured, his dark eyes sweeping over the silenced harem. ”Take your marks.”

They obeyed. The sheer, shameless dominance of his tone left no room for negotiation.

Elias stepped back and walked toward the center microphone stand. The set plunged into darkness. A single, moody spotlight snapped on, illuminating Elias in his dark plum suit.

The commercial director, a highly paid professional from New York, nervously cleared his throat and yelled, ”Playback rolling... and, action!”

The heavy, melancholic, instantly recognizable guitar chords of ”Creep” began to play over the massive studio speakers.

Elias grabbed the microphone stand. The comedy of the morning, the stressful logistics, the squabbling over fifty-dollar bills—all of it vanished in a microsecond.

He closed his eyes. He didn’t just sing the song; he channeled the agonizing, suffocating weight of thirty-four wasted years. He channeled the memory of dying alone in a cheap Milan apartment, buried under debt for a song he never owned.

”When you were here before...”

His hypnotic baritone voice wrapped around the lyrics, dragging the melody out with a raw, visceral intensity that made the hair on the back of the crew members’ necks stand up. It wasn’t the polished, over-produced pop sound of the 90s. It was a sonic virus. It was pure, unadulterated alienation packaged in an acoustic frequency.

”Couldn’t look you in the eye...”

Elias opened his eyes and looked directly into the primary camera lens. The Micro-Expression skill locked into place. His face conveyed a terrifying mixture of predatory hunger and profound, agonizing isolation. He looked like an angel that had been violently thrown out of heaven and was currently assessing the value of the pavement.

Behind the cameras, Cindy Crawford’s breath hitched. Naomi Campbell stared, completely transfixed, the anger from the lobby entirely forgotten. Charlize Theron stood perfectly still, her heart pounding.

They weren’t looking at a teenage model playing a musician. They were looking at a titan.

As the chorus hit, the heavy distortion of the guitars kicked in, and Elias’s voice soared, tearing through the studio with a violent, beautiful agony.

”But I’m a creep... I’m a weirdo...”

The director behind the monitor was sweating, realizing he was capturing something generational. The lighting technicians forgot to adjust their flags. The entire million-dollar soundstage, paid for by the extortion of an ad agency and populated by the royalty of two different industries, ground to an absolute, spellbound halt.

Elias van Kempen owned the room. He owned the song. And very soon, he would own the world.

Deep within his mind, the system roared in rapturous, capitalist joy.

[CHA-CHING!][SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: SITCOM SURVIVAL & UNION HACK EXECUTED WITH VISCERAL SHOWMANSHIP!][EVALUATION: YOU MANIPULATED GLOBAL BRANDS TO BYPASS AGENCY FEES, EXTORTED YOUR OWN ASSISTANT TO SATISFY FEDERAL LABOR LAWS, SILENCED A CLASH OF TITANS WITH TECHNICAL JARGON, AND DELIVERED A VOCAL PERFORMANCE THAT WILL BREAK THE BILLBOARD CHARTS. YOU ARE A MONSTER OF THE LENS. THE SYSTEM REJOICES.][REWARD: +25 SHAMELESS POINTS (CP) DEPOSITED.]

Elias held the final note, staring down the camera lens until the red recording light blinked off.

The silence that followed was deafening.

”Cut,” the director whispered, his voice trembling slightly. ”That was... print that. We don’t need another take.”