CHAPTER 7 – Workin’ for a Livin’

She was still alive, but now she was less alive.

Seeing the number [8], which had been [47] before, was enough to have her suddenly double over in regret. For the first few seconds, the experience was wholly out of body in the literal sense, as her consciousness had been ejected from the seat of her [Persona], leaving her wholly incapable of commanding herself to get up.

“Eppie? EPPIE?” Her coach shook herself from the revelry of the snow capped alps. “Shit. Johan, call the first aid team! I think she’s passed out!”

Like the ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge, she watched Eric, Mueller, Smith and Cass move her insensible body so she wouldn’t choke on her own tongue.

Was this the consequence of… karmic intellectual rights? At least she knew now that if she ever wanted to die quickly and instantly, all she had to do was sing the opening line of Imagine to an attentive crowd. The clap-back would probably turn her into a blazing supernova, leaving behind only the legend of the self-combusting popstar.

Naturally, it was the precise moment that the concierge medical team arrived that control was returned to her, and she sat back up in perfect [Health].

“I am alright!” she told a truth as truthful as any undead body piloted by [Causality] could. “Just… low blood sugar, I guess. I am a bit anaemic as well.”

“She had the all clear from St Marten’s,” Eric clarified. “We ate well yesterday as well. We did have a light breakfast, though.”

The corporate medics ran the usual anyway, reporting that indeed, her blood oxygen and heart rate were all perfectly acceptable.

“Gosh, that was terrifying…” Yaleena mopped the sweat from her brow. “I don’t mean to pry, but that song…”

“The… song? You mean… Deer-re-mi?”

“Did you write this song?”

I sure as hell didn’t. Eppie groaned. But I sure as hell paid the deposit.

“It came to me,” she replied to her Vocal Coach with absolute authenticity, fully leveraging the power of her hypnotic eyes. “In a fever dream, just like Whatever will Be.”

“I see,” the one who replied was Mueller. “Well. You’ve just shown us something wholly original and incredible. I’ll get Director Curon down here and have a listen. Eppie, this is a very good, very important song. Not for the charts, but for almost everything else. Do you understand what you’ve managed to hum out? It’s a nursery rhyme for teaching the scales. My God…”

Yaleena Cass had caught on as well. “Eppie, when the director comes, tell him you want the money. All the money. I don’t care. This is more important than money. He’s your suit, right? Get him to ask for it.”

“Er… actually,” Eppie was sympathetic to the sweating Canadian, because the man was now in dire need of a new shirt. “I am Sony’s lawyer…”

“Ergh—” Mueller gave him a look of disgust. “We’re shortchanging kids now? She’s thirteen…”

“Fifteen,” Eppie protested her youth. “Eric is my chaperone, from Sony West Coast. He’s Canadian.”

Mueller gave the man a curt nod. “Fine. Just don’t ever trust pro bono lawyers from New Jersey.”

While they waited, the group gathered around the long leather couch, upping her sugar levels and chatting and trying to figure out her life story until the Big Man himself, Director Frederick Curon, was summoned from his private suites.

“I heard the news,” Curon closed the door behind him, shutting out prying eyes. “Skip the small talk. Roll tape.”

Mueller’s fingers tap-danced across the SSL deck. “I’ve made a few clarifications already. Check this out.”

The song played. Or rather, the scales did.
Her voice, somehow more refined, controlled, and timeless, played out from the man-sized speakers facing the couch.

The deer, the Alps, the threads of music that glided through each and every note filled the room.

“Again.”

Her creative director listened with eyes open.

With eyes closed.

With eyes squinted, staring at Eppie.

She smiled back.

He listened to it again while staring at her forehead, like he could crack it and see what other songs oozed forth.

“Alright, how much?” Frederick Curon made a motion to sign a chequebook. “If you don’t know, then I’ll decide. I’ll make you a generous offer that’ll stand up in any court of law.”

“It’s not so much a matter of how much,” Eppie said awkwardly. She dared not even dream of profiteering when her lifeline was so low. “But… how… charitable…”

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“You’re KIDDING?!” Curon’s eyes went wide. “REALLY?”

“Ya, really.” Eppie moaned. Her whole body was shaking with frustration. “Eric knows the drill.”

“Er… Label owns Master? 25% Royalty for media purposes? 75% for streaming? Absorption of production costs, $30,000 advance, Conditional Creative Control… 15% to your Coogan account, 50% to St Marten’s.”

“You’re giving 50% to St Marten’s again?” Curon protested by throwing his hands in the air. “This is going to be a lot of money, Eppie, over time, I mean. You could buy a house by the sea, by the time you’re 25, surely? You do realise you’re homeless.”