Run 01: Above the Line

Mr. Johnson's Pitch#

Who and where. A back booth at Musso & Frank Grill on Hollywood Boulevard: high partitions, waiters who have seen everything and remember none of it, and a room that has been full of people doing exactly this for a century. Fontaine made the introduction and does not attend. He is there first. He has ordered nothing.

What to call him. The brief arrives as a real call sheet and the lot plan that goes with it, and the unit line on it reads second unit. That line is the only name the man behind it ever offers. Asked what to call him, he taps it and says nothing, so he is Mr. Johnson (Second Unit) from here on.

What he asks for, in his own words. There is a simsense master on a lot in Studio City, recorded four days ago, still in the production's custody. He would like it. He would also like something plausible left in the slot it came out of, and he is specific about that being part of the job rather than a nicety. He is not asking them to duplicate the recording: a duplicate would mean the lot still has what he's paying to remove. He gives them the call sheet, the shooting schedule, and the location of the vault. He does not tell them what's on the master and won't be drawn on it.

What it pays#

22,500¥ (7,500 each), half up front, for a job worth about seven. He states the number once and does not present it as generous. When asked why so much, he says the schedule is short.

Scene 1: Onto the lot#

What happened. Two of the crew walked in on the Thursday, the exterior day, when the main unit takes the picture vehicles and four drivers are expected: one as a vehicle expert on the transport call and one as temporary security standing a shift with Tony Salas on the gate. A player was missing, so the pair went in short-handed and the day's own headcount carried it. They skipped Wednesday entirely and went straight at the cartridge.

Scene 2: The vault#

What happened. Hunter broke a rig on purpose, carried it to Denise Okoye at the check-in window and asked to be walked through to the simsense rigs to repair it. She took him back, because that is her job and he had a reason. While she did, Vinnie got past the astral ward on the racks and took day 22 out of its slot. Then they shuffled two entire trays of raws, so the rack does not read as a theft: it reads as somebody misfiling a fortnight's work, and the somebody it reads as is Denise. They never bought a blank at all.

Scene 3: Through the kitchen#

What happened. Before the handoff they took the cartridge to Deadstock, who has the gear, and played the raw themselves at full bandwidth. She zip-tied them into chairs first and stood over them with a first aid kit while both of them seized through it, with two of the arena's security watching and neither of them surprised. So they know what is on it: thirty minutes of the lead actress's nervous system, and a conversation on a garage floor about a man who died on one of their pictures six years ago and the report that was signed to bury it. Then the climb, twenty-four flights up the middle tower at Oceanwide Plaza, through the podium market at the base and the water queue above it, past the Universal Brotherhood's outreach kitchen where Ruth Alcántara fed them, learned their names, invited them to Westwood exactly once and left it there.

Scene 4: Thirty-four#

What happened. Second Unit was waiting on the thirty-fourth floor and had climbed the stairs too. He took the cartridge, did not ask what they knew, and paid. Two people were waiting at the far end of the floor plate with bags at their feet: Honey Brighton in a coat that cost more than the job, pleasant and answering for both of them, and Witt Lipton beside her, losing an argument about his own bag. Lipton asked the crew whether that was the whole of it, and then whether they knew what they had just done. Vinnie told him they did, and named a price for it staying quiet: work, and kickbacks with it. What stood by the time the two of them went down the stairs was a rough agreement, nothing in writing, that carries the crew on the payroll of his picture.

People#

Played in full. The crew dealt with Second Unit at both ends, Fontaine brokering, Deadstock for the blank and the mapping, Denise Okoye at the window, and Tony Salas on the gate.

Ruth Alcántara is in the grid because the crew came up through her kitchen at the bottom of Oceanwide on the way to the handover. Nobody sat down and nobody learned much, but she was there and they know whose counter it is.

Fontaine

The crew's fixer, and has been for years. Takes ten per cent and earns it.

Mr. Johnson (Second Unit)

Not a name, a line on a call sheet. Pays on time, pays in full, and answers every question but one.

Denise Okoye

The vault window on a studio lot. Wants the log to balance, checks the label rather than the contents.

Ruth Alcántara

Brotherhood recruiter. Proud of the work, glad you asked, and better at this than you are.

Deadstock

House simsense engineer at the arena. The unaudited store on the production level is a list, and the list is her.

Tony Salas

Eight years on the same studio gate. Notices everything, cares about very little, and can find you a badge if the conversation goes the right way.

Honey Brighton

The face of simsense in this city, and the only person in it whose nervous system is a commercial product.

Witt Lipton

In the rooms where simsense is really made, he is god. Everywhere else he is a man who rents.