Chapter 35
Adrian
The skylights come on early, casting pale shafts of light across the soundstage floor, and the first thing I notice is the monitor station.
It's unattended.
Someone has left a paper coffee cup on the edge of it, which never would have happened before yesterday.
Before yesterday, there was always a laminated call sheet anchoring that corner and a person making sure it functioned.
Now there's a coffee cup sitting on empty space and three crew members standing near the lighting rig, all of them slightly off their marks and waiting for something none of them can name.
I do a slow scan of the floor.
The habit is automatic, built from years of walking onto sets and reading them before anyone speaks. What I'm reading this morning doesn't require any particular skill to interpret.
The floor markers near camera position three are misaligned by roughly six inches.
It's not a crisis, but it's the kind of thing that would have been corrected before anyone arrived if the right person had been here first. Two background actors are blocking themselves into each other in the left-frame staging zone.
The clapperboard operator is standing near the wall with the board resting against his leg, his phone in his hand, and the expression of someone who hasn't received a cue yet and isn't entirely sure when to expect one.
A set has a sound even when it's quiet. Years of working on production floors teach you that whether you want to learn it or not. This one sounds like a held breath. Not the productive tension of a shoot running close to the wire, but something more uncertain, like an engine trying to turn over.
“She set that up Tuesday,” Bash says from somewhere near my left shoulder.
I don't turn. “I know.”
He's looking at the staging zone where the background actors are standing in the wrong positions. He doesn't have to specify which system or which corner. Neither of us does. We've both been doing this all morning, spotting the gaps she used to fill before anyone else knew they existed.
He falls into step beside me, and we walk the perimeter of the floor together.
The lunch truck is twenty minutes late. When the assistant director mentions it, I pull out my radio and spend three minutes tracking down a catering coordinator who has a perfectly reasonable explanation for the delay.
I don't retain most of it because I'm only half listening.
My attention is on the clapperboard operator, who finally receives his cue from a PA who has clearly had to chase the information through two separate people before getting an answer.
Twenty minutes ago, that PA would have already had what she needed.
Near the south wall, the grip team is working through an equipment question.
Their voices are low, and the discussion keeps circling the same question from different angles, the way problems tend to when the person who usually resolves them isn't there.
Even from here, I can see one of them repeatedly glancing toward the area near the prop station.
He's not looking at anything specific.
He's looking at the space where someone used to be.
It's everywhere on the floor.
Small, constant, and unspoken.
That involuntary reach toward a person who isn't there.
I've been watching it happen all morning, and every time I notice it, I think about the phone call Elias mentioned last night.
I think about the director saying we didn't realize, and I think about Maya asleep in her nest while an entire production discovers how much work she was carrying before any of them arrived.
The assistant director appears at my shoulder when we've finished our second loop around the soundstage. “Jordan and Carla are in the production office,” he says, pointing toward the trailer pushed against the far wall. “They'd like a word if you have twenty.”
I look toward the trailer and then at Bash. His expression is neutral, but his chin dips a fraction. From Bash, that translates to: I already know what this is. “Lead the way,” I say.
The walk across the soundstage doesn't take long.
The production office is small enough that every problem in the building eventually passes through it.
Two folding tables pushed together, three monitors, a half-dead plant that has somehow survived eight months of neglect, and the smell of stale coffee embedded so deeply into the recycled air that I suspect it's structural.
Jordan and Carla are seated on the far side of the pushed-together tables when we step into the office. Both of them have the look of people who have already discussed what they're going to say.
Jordan stands first and extends his hand. He's smiling the way people smile when they're about to ask for something and feel reasonably confident about the answer.
The assistant director closes the door behind us on his way out.
“Sit, please,” Carla says, gesturing toward the two chairs on our side of the table.
I take a seat. Bash remains standing slightly behind me with his arms loose at his sides, which is the version of him that looks relaxed but isn't.
The folder comes across the table before anyone says anything about its contents.
It's glossy, the kind of production material that costs enough money to signal confidence.
I open the cover and find concept art on the first page.
The composition is strong, exactly the kind of image you place at the front of a pitch because it establishes mood before the reader has a chance to evaluate anything else.
Script pages sit behind it. A preliminary shooting schedule occupies the middle section, budget breakdowns fill the back, and sticky tabs mark the pages Jordan wants to reference.
“We're already in pre-production on the next one,” Jordan says, leaning forward with both forearms on the table.
“It's a larger project than this. Studio backing is already confirmed, and the conversation about who we want at the center of it has been very short.” He looks at me with the confidence of someone delivering news he expects to be well received.
“You two,” Carla says. Her gaze moves between us, and I can already see the marketing portion of the conversation waiting behind her eyes.
“You’re marquee talent. We're in negotiations with two other names, but honestly, the project is built around what you bring. The reach. The credibility. The audience.” She smooths a page in the folder. “Marketing has already run preliminary projections, and the numbers are extraordinary.”
Jordan flips to the budget breakdown and slides the folder farther across the table. There are numbers in the right-hand column that most people would look at first.
I close the folder without reading them.
I make sure my face is blank and my posture is relaxed. Neither of them needs to know that I’ve known what this conversation was going to be since I walked through the door.
“The timeline works,” Jordan continues. “Six months from now, prep starting in the spring. We’d want you locked in before the premiere cycle for this one. Strike while the momentum is there.” He leans back. “So. Can we count on you for the next project?”
The question sits in the air.
I inhale through my nose before exhaling deeply. “No, thank you.”
The energy in the room changes. Jordan’s expression doesn’t collapse — he’s too professional for that — but something behind it shifts, recalibrates. Carla goes slightly still.
“We’ll pass,” Bash says from behind me with no inflection.
Jordan looks between us. “I’m sorry, is there something that needs adjusting? The terms are flexible, we haven’t even gotten to—“
“It’s not the terms,” I say.
I glance at the folder on the table before looking back at them.
“We're more selective about the teams we work with than we used to be.” My voice stays even. “We work with people who evaluate others on their competence, their professionalism, and the quality of their work. Not their designation.”
A beat passes before Bash adds. “We stand by that.”
Carla shifts in her chair. She takes a moment to compose her reaction, but not quickly enough to hide her discomfort.
“Obviously, we value everyone on our productions,” she says.
“Maya Collins is an extremely talented coordinator, and I want you to know that if she'd like to come back for the next project, we'd welcome her. We could double her previous rate.”
Her words settle the last of the tension I'd been carrying about how to say this.
“That's not how it works,” I say. I look at her as I speak, keeping my voice even.
“You already made the decision. The morning her designation became visible, you reviewed eight months of performance and decided she needed to be managed rather than trusted. She received an apology, and the offer is generous, but neither of those things changes the fact that the decision had already been made.” I hold her gaze for a moment before looking at Jordan.
“You're treating this like a negotiation, and it isn't. She's not a problem you solve with a higher number.”
Jordan opens his mouth.
Bash speaks before he can.
“She isn't a problem at all.”
The silence that follows is the kind that settles over a conversation when there is nowhere left for it to go.
Jordan tries anyway. He reframes, begins something about the industry moving forward and the project's commitment to inclusive practices, and reaches for a middle ground that doesn't exist.
I stand.
“We'll fulfill everything on the current project,” I say. “All contractual obligations through the premiere and the press cycle. We take those seriously.” I pick up my copy of the schedule from the corner of the table where I'd left it when I came in. “We'll see you at the premiere.”
I say it the same way I'd confirm any logistical detail.
Then I turn toward the door.
Bash is already there, pulling it open, and we walk out.
The hallway between the production office and the stage smells like recycled air and industrial cleaner. Set noise filters through the far door.
I stop for a moment and take a deep breath. I hadn't realized I was carrying any tension until now.
Bash turns and reads my face, then his fist comes up, and I knock mine against it in a fist bump.
He’s smiling. “Double rate,” he says, dry.
“Very generous,” I say flatly.
He barks out a laugh.
We look at each other for a moment, and I realize there's nothing left to discuss. We made the same call. We both know it was the right one.
“Four more hours and we're done,” he says.
“Four more hours,” I agree.
We go back through the stage door. The floor is louder than when we left, the mid-morning energy building as the first setup locks into place.
From twenty feet away, I can see that the monitor station still has the coffee cup on it, the staging zone still isn't quite right, and the crew is still operating at about sixty percent of the coordination it should have.
Bash moves to the staging zone without being asked and spends forty-five seconds repositioning two of the background actors.
A PA appears at the monitor station carrying what looks like a printed schedule and begins setting up the corner with the brisk focus of someone doing their best to fill a gap.
It isn't Maya's system, but it doesn't need to be. The production only has four hours left to get through, and what they're building now will hold long enough to finish the job.
Four more hours to go.
Then we can go home to our omega.