Chrysalis

2

As Susan Chambers walked into the executive conference room, she felt a familiar sense of dread. The crisp, postmodern space was immaculate: the three Rothko paintings were perfectly arrayed along the inside wall; the long glass conference table polished almost to invisibility; the floor-to-ceiling windows opposite freshly cleaned, ensuring the jaw-dropping view of Manhattan’s Central Park remained unobscured by even the smallest splat of pigeon shit. But none of these accounted for her apprehension: it was the chilled bottles of Tasmanian Rain — their seals already cracked, weeping frosted beads of moisture, set atop coasters and placed, with an empty crystal glass, before every chair — that made her mouth go dry. Tasmanian Rain was one of the purest, healthiest, most expensive bottled waters in the world, captured as raindrops and never allowed to touch the ground. It was also the only brand J. Russell Spearman would drink.

So he was coming to the meeting. Shit.

Her boss, Art Wegler, was already at the table, and he gave her a wan smile as she took a seat next to him. As much as she might covet his stature in the entertainment industry, she was glad she wasn’t in his shoes right now. It would be funny if it wasn’t so unsettling. Art Wegler — one of the most promising film directors in decades, a man who’d already won an Oscar and been nominated for another — looking like a schoolboy about to receive a caning. That, in microcosm, was the effect of the shadow cast by Mr. Spearman.

Chrysalis Studios had been fashioned from a series of smaller movie companies and cable television networks into a twenty-first-century media giant. But like every other media giant, it had an Achilles heel. Its cachet, and stock valuation, was only as good as last year’s gross receipts. One or — God forbid — two more flops at the box office, and the new studio’s reputation — an asset beyond price — would come into question.

The studio already had its dog for the year. Stone Cold in Love, a rom-com with top stars and A-list talent behind the camera, the film that couldn’t possibly tank, had done just that. And that meant the lineup for the rest of the year — especially the holiday season — had to perform.

The Christmas before last, Crystal Champions had been a massive hit, one of the few superhero films to gross $2 billion worldwide. A captive comic-book audience had helped launch it into the stratosphere. But that was twenty months ago — a lifetime in the entertainment industry. Crystal Champions II: The Dark Matrix was being fast-tracked for release in December, with Art as director. But problems had slowed development. Integrating digital cameras with the new, cloak-and-dagger Omega virtual technology — supplied by the Chrysalis parent company — was proving harder than expected. Just as troubling were the disagreements over the screenplay. Principal photography was already far along, even though a finished script had yet to be green-lighted. Hence, this meeting.

And the presence of Russell Spearman.

Chambers glanced around the conference table. Everybody had now seated themselves: everybody save one. The meeting had been scheduled for five minutes ago, but the chair at the head of the table remained empty. That, too, was par for the course.

The balance of power had shifted significantly since Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and the rest formed United Artists to ensure creative talent got a say in making films. These days, it was directors who were influential — not the old moguls like Sam Goldwyn or Louis B. Mayer. The exception was Chrysalis Studios and Russell Spearman. He was a producer still capable of striking fear into the heart of the bravest directorial enfant terrible — a man who, through his influence and breadth of industry connections, could make or break a film even before it got off the ground. Like many powerful people, he had his eccentricities — once he’d approved a project, he never revisited his decision. But it was the initial approval process that had strewn the corpses of cinematographers, executive directors, and other auteurs before him, like so many gnawed bones lying outside an ogre’s den.

Suddenly, there was a commotion at the entrance. Chambers looked up to see a young woman move quickly around the table, slipping black folders in front of everyone: the most recent screenplay revision. Half a dozen yellow notes protruded from each. These were the sticking points keeping production from going forward — and Russell Spearman would deal with them all, one way or another.

A brief, collective shudder, rippling through the room, announced the producer’s arrival. He was in his mid-seventies but looked a decade younger, with a tan dark as Cary Grant’s and a thick shock of platinum-white hair. He was thin and fit for his age, and he wore a beautifully tailored suit that gleamed faintly in the artificial light.

For a minute, it felt to Chambers as if the air had been sucked out of the room. Then Spearman cleared his throat and opened his folder, and she found she could breathe again.

Without opening pleasantries, he flipped to the first yellow note. Everyone in the room followed along with a subdued rustle of paper.

“Scene twenty-two,” Spearman said, looking at the screenplay. He read quickly through some scribbled notes in the margin. “What exactly is the problem here?”

Colin Wriston, head of Creative, spoke up. “It’s Melissa, sir. The actress portraying Galaxielle.”

“I know damn well who she is. What’s the problem?”

Wriston was a little pale. “It’s the way she — well, it’s her death scene. She thinks it’s too early. She’s holding out for the act two climax.”

“Holding out?” Spearman glared at Wriston as if it was his fault.

“She says she’ll refuse the part if we don’t rewrite her role.”

Spearman glanced back at the page for a minute. Then he abruptly exploded. “But she’s vital to the film! She had the final line in Crystal Champions!”

“I know that, sir. The problem is, she knows it, too. She doesn’t like the direction we’re taking with the character, and wants her role to be expanded to—”

“Ungrateful bitch!” Spearman growled in a low voice. “Crystal Champions fucking made her.” He tore the page out of his binder and shook it at the room. “The answer is simple. The way she dies here — crushed when two battle drones collide — it’s shit. She needs a bigger death: that’s all.”

Susan Chambers knew all the work that had gone into that scene already: the countless hours of choreographing a space battle, the CG prep they’d been working on since the beginning of the month.

“Mr. Spearman,” Wriston said, “excuse me, but I don’t think it’s quite that simple. Melissa’s really put her foot down, and—”

“And I don’t want to hear any more whining! It is that simple. No actress can resist a death scene — if it’s good enough. Have your people write her one: the kind audiences will talk about afterward. Not this drek!” He threw the page at the head of Creative. “Keep it to a page and a half. And up her paycheck by half a million.”

What Spearman just proposed would mean unraveling half a dozen scenes, teams of writers working twenty-four-hour days. But Wriston merely nodded, scribbling notes on his own copy of the screenplay.

Now Spearman unscrewed his bottle of Tasmanian Rain and filled his glass partway. A fizz of carbonation filled the room as half the others did likewise. Spearman took a deep sip and banged the glass down, shivering the tabletop. Chambers noted the producer was even more irritable than usual. He plucked at his collar, adjusted his perfect necktie as if it was askew. He cleared his throat again, louder, almost a bark. Then he flipped the pages of his binder to the next note. There was a tense silence as he read a page, then another. And then he shouted, “Jenkins!”

The head of the digital effects department abruptly jumped to his feet. “Mr. Spearman.”

Spearman looked him up and down with ill-disguised contempt. Then he glanced back at the script. “It says here the kamikaze ship can’t explode.”

Jenkins swallowed painfully. “Well, it’s a little more complicated than that.”

“Complicated? Filmmakers have been blowing up models for a hundred years. Slip a fucking M-80 inside it, light the fuse, and run away. Any chimp can do that.”

“The issue isn’t so much with the explosion, sir, as what triggers it. As written, the ship misses its target, loses control, and plows into a dwarf star. We’re having real problems integrating that particular effect with the Omega tech. In six months, maybe, the platform will be sufficiently robust. But that visual just can’t be done with the tools currently at our disposal, and we were thinking that if instead of a dwarf star, the kamikaze ship was to—”

“Six months,” Spearman said.

Susan had already heard this unwelcome piece of news. Since Omega was a new VR imaging technology, the darling of the conglomerate parent of Chrysalis Studios — and since that conglomerate was the only earthly power Spearman answered to — this wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

Jenkins swallowed again. “That’s what our tech team says. So—”

“So the dwarf star is integral to the whole damned story!” Spearman had jumped to his feet as well, brandishing his rolled-up screenplay like a cudgel. “The birth sequence. The transformation sequence. We can’t wait six months — we’re releasing at Christmas. Are you suggesting we take those sequences out of the film?”

“No, Mr. Spearman, of course not.” Jenkins reached into his case, pulled out a sheet of paper. “My team has a couple of ideas, strong ideas, that would work just as well and not push the existing technology past the—”

“Get out!” Spearman said in a voice that was almost a scream. His face had gone beet red. “Get the hell out! You know what you can do with your ‘strong ideas’! I don’t want to see or hear of them again. Or you — until you’ve figured out how to solve this.”

Spearman walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and stared out, hands clasped behind him. Susan Chambers could see the tailored cloth covering his shoulders moving up and down as he breathed, trying to control an anger that could never, it seemed, be fully tamed. Jenkins wouldn’t be back. And at the next meeting, there would be somebody else sitting in the digital effects chair.

Now Spearman swiveled away from the window. His face had returned to its normal color, and he walked back to the table and sat down, smoothing the screenplay in front of him. He turned to the next flag, tore it away, read for a moment. Then he said quietly, without looking up: “Art.”

Susan could sense her boss freeze in his chair.

She knew that Spearman — as much as he liked anybody — liked Art Wegler. Spearman admired the director’s wits and guts. He was one of the few people Spearman called by their first name. But none of that mattered right now. The sequel was everything, and anyone was expendable.

Spearman took a gulp of his Tasmanian Rain. “It says here you want to do the martial arts sequence outside the capital ship in seventy millimeter.”

“That’s right.”

“In fact, you’ve started filming in seventy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But those green-screen effects won’t work with this Omega shit — and Chrysalis can’t very well be the conglomerate that takes virtual reality mainstream if its own movies don’t leverage the technology.” Spearman plucked at his collar again.

“But this approach might help Jenkins with his visual issues. It could really stand out. Like the way we undercranked the dream montage in Crystal I.”

Spearman took another gulp, put down his glass. “I admire your vision. To be honest, I agree with it. But we just don’t have the time. We’re already going to get killed in postproduction; we’ll barely make deadline.”

“Sir, I’ve calculated that if we—”

“Art!” Spearman rose once more, his gaze locking with that of his director. The mogul cleared his throat yet again, smoothed his tie. Then he turned and walked back to the wall of windows.

Susan snuck a glance at her boss. He looked committed. Stricken, but committed — like a finalist in a game of Russian roulette.

“Sir,” he said in a steady voice, “without this approach, we won’t make the deadline.”

But Spearman didn’t seem to notice.

Susan heard Wegler take in a breath. “The fact is, we haven’t just started filming. Yesterday we wrapped photography on the sequence.”

For a moment, the entire table sat in shock. There was a strangled silence. In Spearman’s productions, this was heretical, unheard of: a director, taking such a decision on himself.

Spearman continued to look out the window. At last, he spoke. “You finished the sequence.”

“Yes.”

“In seventy mil.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Knowing full well it was a red-flag item for today’s meeting.”

“Yes,” Susan’s boss whispered.

Abruptly, Spearman whirled around. Once again, his gaze was locked on Wegler. But the producer’s expression was different now. Instead of fury, it was more like panic — pleading, beseeching. One hand reached toward Wegler. His mouth opened, but no sound came. Murmurs began to circle the table. As Susan watched, the whites of Spearman’s eyes suddenly blossomed crimson, like blotting paper dipped in ink.

And then, with an inarticulate cry, Spearman fell heavily across the table, shattering it into a thousand shards.

In an instant, pandemonium. People screaming, running to get away, grabbing their phones to dial 911. Susan stared, frozen in horror, as J. Russell Spearman lay impaled, jerking like a marionette gone mad. Daggers of glass blossomed in the air, followed by expensive arcs of Tasmanian Rain, and then — inevitably — blood that rose in gouts of awful regularity, staining everything in sight and clashing with the Rothkos that hung, oblivious, on the inner wall of the room.