Chapter 3 – (Just Like) Starting Over (2)

Madison Avenue.

Midtown East, New York.

At the birthplace of the Mad Men, on lot 550, stood the Sony Belmont Building, a brutalist rectangle in pink limestone, flanked by evergreen arcades and a picture-perfect atrium. The year was 2007, the month was March, and for the moment, the masters that reside below the “ugliest pediment” in New York were on top of the world.

Sony Entertainment Corporation, EMC for short, had recently completed an M&A with BMG that shook the entertainment industry. Under a singular and gargantuan eye-sore of a roof, its board flaunted its largess, having already acquired Columbia, RCA, Epic Records, Arista, CBS, America Records and others.

And this was merely the US branch, a profitable arm of Sony Japan, a sprawling conglomerate that, if graphically tabulated, would look like a WWI anti-Sino propaganda poster of a hairy funnel-web perched over a map of the world.

On the thirty-seventh floor, a group of men with full heads of voluminous hair sat in a circle, watching an aide play a video from a Sony laptop.

After the third loop, Trent Davis, CEO, did his best to immerse himself.

“Who owns this?” he asked his aide with the ruined makeup.

“No one, for now. It’s the girl’s original song, as far as the rumour mill goes,” answered a man to her right.

Davis shifted his focus to this man, his right-hand man, his Vice President of Creative Control, Frederick Curon, the overseer of Data Science and Analytics, the bone marrow of Sony America.

“I want to own it.”

“So buy her out,” Davis shrugged. “Unproven, no followers, no media presence, underage, low-social economic household. $500 should be enough.”

“Trent, you’re taking this too lightly,” the creative in the loose shirt shook his shaggy head. “I had Legal make some calls to LA. The original video came from one of the LA Times reporters, who received it from St Marten’s Children’s. The girl’s a patient there. The story goes that she was bullied, tried to end it all, and this song was her dirge.”

Davis leaned back. He understood why Tiffany was in tears, and now he felt a little uneasy. Still, it was a good story. Good songs needed good stories.

“Does she have a guardian?”

“She’s a state ward. The Journalist says DCFS can’t be trusted. LAPA, the school she was boarding at, probably paid the caseworker to bury the bullying. From my understanding, there are receipts.”

“Urgh…” Davis grunted. “Do we need this song? It sounds like a legal nightmare.”

“Trent—” His DSA director leaned in with a passion usually reserved for chart-toppers. “I want the song. My guts are telling me that if I miss this… whatever it is, I’ll be regretting it for the rest of my days.”

Trent Davis regarded his friend, partner and colleague with a penchant for boho hair products. Over the years, Davis and his predecessors had learned to trust Curon because, after Sony America acquired him from American Records, the firm saw a Renaissance.

Davis had built his career on the backs of pop ensembles, G-Sync, Blockstreet Boys, Relish Girls… But the biggest earners in the last half-decade were Curon’s picks. His artists’ stable included Idol winners, R&B artists, something called Trap-Rap, electronica, old country blues, and a Canadian skater with pink, punk hair. Unlike his contemporaries, Curon had a way of stripping tracks down to their bone, creating clean melodies, vocals, and basslines that were immediately iconic.

“I just don’t see it on radio play,” Trent fired back at his director. “You know this as well as I do.”

“Who said I wanted it for radio play?” Curon gestured toward the video on the laptop. “Film, TV series, shorts, children’s programs, social media. It’s a whole new world out there, Trent. Besides, we can sell it as a single, digitally.”

“I don’t know.” Davis considered the worst-case scenario. “Your time is precious. This song is ten thousand at the most. 50k, tops, maybe, if we include legal.”

“Glad you agree. Now, I would like to see her myself.” It was then that Davis realised his partner of a decade was wholly serious. “Tell Kenneth to give me jurisdiction on this. I’ve got someone at Sony Pictures who can use this, but we can’t use it without the rights.”

“You’re that serious?” Sony’s head honcho finally sat upright. “You are serious.”

“Let me put it this way,” his Creative Control raised his hands in a gesture that resembled a noose. “If Universal gets their grubby hands on her because of a mere five-figure budget, I am going to defenestrate Kenneth over there. Try explaining that to HR.”

Their VP of Finance and Operations finally looked up from his laptop with a wild expression of alarm.

“Well.” Davis had to relent, because his Director of Data was right. No matter how much they overpaid for the no-name with the flaxen mop, there was no greater shame than losing a good song to god damned Universal Music.

Lana Zacanissian had grown numb to the incessant notifications at the edge of her eye after the fourth day.

After breakfast, she exercised for half an hour with Dr Hughes, then wandered around St Marten’s, trying to make sense of her present world.

In the hospital library, she found only children’s books, some YA fiction, and came at last to the conclusion that indeed, she now lived on a parallel earth. For one, there was no Harry Potter in the library. There was another series, though, something more Percy Jackson than Potter that seemed to have taken its place, though it seemed that The Baby Sitters’ Club was a series that transcended cosmological constants.

One gobsmacking piece of information she did find was a children’s book on United States Presidents from the past to the present.

Until the year 2000, EVERYTHING was in order, except for one Y2K glitch in the singularity matrix.

Albert Arnold Gore Jr was the 43rd President of the United States. The Supreme Court was mum on the validity of the Florida recount. Consequently, Gore won 271 votes with a popular vote margin of over 500,000.

In 2008, there would be another election to find the 44th President, but for now, Gore was sitting on the laurels of his historical accomplishment—the phasing out of fossil fuels for green energy, at least within the USA. What this meant for the world Lana was once familiar with, she had no idea, but the children’s library was certainly not the place to speculate. She had wanted to tease out more information from her physicians, but they found her interest in politics and economics cute and gave only vague, ambiguous answers.

As such, given that there was nothing else she could do, she decided on self-improvement.

“[Potential]”.

[Crippled] and [Silenced] were obviously gone. She had grown tired of being tired all the time, so she had shored up [Vitality] by another 2 points, which gave her more [Health]. The resulting increase apparently healed her negative [Strength] and other associated statistics, as well as her overall sickly appearance.

This was, of course, another example of a medical miracle, and Dr Harper was seen carrying a Bible after her latest biomedical examinations had made their rounds around the conference room.

Nurse Bessey seemed over the moon, interrupted only by a general air of melancholy, which seemed to stem from her impending discharge, a sentiment shared by Dr Hughes.

Lana’s worry, however, was over [Dasein]. Originally, she had over 1000 [Causality]. She had spent 10 to 1 for [Dasein], then wrongly assumed this was the flat rate, until her store dropped to 500 after she commanded the system to give her another month or so of borrowed time.

The cost is exponential, compounded by circumstances, was her conclusion. There was no hard math here, because who could truly quantify human potential? Well, according to the [System], she certainly could, but the rules were forever changing.