In the agent’s office, Ronan sat still while Robert laid the whole thing out. The agreement to tear up his contract. The agency’s decision not to renew him at all.
For a second the words didn’t seem to reach him. Then the color drained from his face. "You— you’re trying to ditch me?"
"Hey, hey, now." Robert lifted both hands. "It’s nothing like that. I’m only asking you, cooperatively, to part ways with the agency and go find yourself a home somewhere else. I promise you there are other agencies out there that would be glad to take you on—"
"It’s the same thing." Ronan was trembling now, something hot and furious rising up under his skin. "Is this why you’ve been ducking my calls? Why every role suddenly dried up this last month? I knew something smelled wrong. No way I sit a whole month with nothing, not when I’ve got extra offers coming in all the time."
Robert watched the frustration spill over, and shifted his footing. "Listen to me a second. I’ll get you one last role. Think of it as a farewell gift, from me and from the agency both. What do you say?"
"A last role?"
"That’s right. And this one’s not your usual extra work, either. This part’s actually got lines. Screen time, even. It’s small, sure, but it’s real."
Ronan went still. The truth of it was, whether he said yes or no, the agency was putting him out the door regardless. "What’s the project?"
"It’s with NBS, one of the big networks. A twelve-episode series, «Castaway in Time». And the word going around is that Jane Kingsley’s set to play the female lead."
"Jane Kingsley?" Ronan’s head came up. "The one from «Futility»?"
Robert caught the interest and leaned straight into it. "The very same. You know what kind of name she is. They call her the pure gem of Hollywood. Debuted only three years ago, and here she is at twenty-three, known all over the world. The girl is the definition of a rising star."
The more he said it, the more he warmed to it; he couldn’t quite hide how badly he envied whatever agency had her signed.
Ronan let all that enthusiasm slide right past him. "Fine. I’ll take it."
"Excellent." Robert was already reaching for the paperwork. "Then let’s get that release of yours signed and filed, nice and clean."
Ronan hesitated, then gave a single nod and went through with it. And once every last line was signed, Robert didn’t spare him so much as a flicker of pity. He just waved him toward the door, shooing him out like a stray dog.
Despite the humiliation of it, Ronan wasn’t ungrateful. He knew that as harsh as his agent could be, there had been plenty of times Robert had been good to him. He got to his feet and bowed. "Thank you, really. For everything you’ve done for me over the years."
Robert didn’t seem to appreciate the gesture. "Kid, would you just go already? I’m swamped here. And knock it off with the bowing, you do it every single time you see me. You’re not in Japan. This is the land of the free, remember?"
"You know I’m half-Japanese, half-American, right?" Ronan said.
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Robert waved a hand at him. "But last I checked, you’re standing in America, the land of the almighty dollar. So go on, get out of here. I’m not walking you out."
Ronan looked at him for a long moment. Then he nodded and left.
Robert watched his back disappear through the door and shook his head. "Chalk it up to bad luck, kid," he muttered. "Who’d have ever guessed the agency would go and pull a whole roster purge?"
The pity lasted about that long. Then he turned back to his desk and fired off a message to Ken, letting him know it was handled.
* * *
Two days later, in the afternoon, Ronan sat in the waiting hall of Seventh Pictures. A line of people waited their turn to audition, almost all of them poring over the scripts in their hands.
’Two days,’ he thought. ’And I’ve already got all of it down cold. The lines, the way I want to play him, all of it.’
Being the Circle Agency’s Forever Extra had at least given him this much. Memorizing a script and slipping into a part on short notice were second nature by now. Years of background work had drilled the skill into him, and it was the reason casting people still tossed extra roles his way even when they’d never hand him anything bigger.
The time crept by. At last, they called him in.
Inside the casting office, the people seated across from him watched him, their faces indifferent.
The blond man in the middle pushed his glasses up and narrowed his eyes at Ronan. "I’m the director on this project. Director Henry Hill." He tipped his head toward the woman beside him, a striking Korean-American in her thirties. "And this woman sitting beside me is the writer of «Castaway in Time», Jenny Lee."
"The two of us will be the ones deciding on your read today," Jenny said.
Ronan bowed his head, polite and low. "Thank you, both of you. My name is Ronan Mercer, and I’m still just a beginner in this business, but I promise you I’ll do my very best in this performance."
Hill gave a short nod. "All right. The part you’re reading for is Thomas. He’s a close friend of our female lead, Rose, and from the very start he’s been quietly in love with her, though he never lets it show or breathes a single word of it. He’s got real scenes with her, actual lines too, this is nothing like background work." He added, "Now, when a crew of pirates boards the ship they’re all sailing on, the one they’re really after is Rose. Thomas is the one who steps into their path. He holds them off, fights to buy her the time she needs to get clear of the ship, and he goes down doing it. He lays his life down so she can escape. An honorable death."
"Thomas doesn’t get long in the story," Jenny put in, "but the part carries a lot more weight than the screen time makes it look. That’s exactly why we’re being so choosy about who plays him. His death is what cracks the heroine wide open, it shapes everything she does from that point on. The more real you make it, the harder it’s going to land on the audience."
Ronan understood well enough that the sacrifice was the character’s exit, and his own, straight out of the show. But so what? He’d take it, the way he took every scrap of a chance that ever came his way. "I understand."
Hill waved a hand toward a staffer off to the side. "Felix, you’ll read the pirate opposite him. No point dragging this out, so let’s get going."
Felix nodded and shuffled through his pages. "Sure thing. I’ll be your nasty, bloodthirsty pirate today. Ready when you are. Three, two, one—"
Ronan drew a slow breath and readied himself to step into the scene. But just as he began to sink into the character, the whole room dropped into a dead standstill.
"What... what’s going on?"
The color drained out of everything, washed over in a cold blue, and time itself seemed to hang frozen in place.
While he stood there bewildered, a pane of transparent light slid into being in front of him.
[Project detected: «Castaway in Time».]
[Assessing project potential... Potential Grade: B (Breakout) — a hit in the making.]
[Assessing role demand... Method Grade: C (Featured) — real craft required.]
[Immersion difficulty is set by Method Grade. Higher grade, harsher simulation.]
[Commencing scenario at Method C.]
"...The hell?"
[Immersion System engaged.]
[Loading scenario: «Castaway in Time».]
[Era: 1700s | Location: ship at open sea | Time: afternoon.]
[Immersion begins now.]
And then the world remade itself around him. Hill, Jenny, and Felix stayed exactly where they sat, but the office fell away and became the deck of a ship rolling over open water, figures springing up on every side. The clothing was all old, cut straight out of the 1700s.
One figure formed directly in front of him, squared up and radiating plain, ugly menace. His face was Felix’s, down to the last detail.
The moment everything finished taking shape, the frozen room snapped back into motion.
But now the deck was pitching under Ronan’s feet, and the sudden roll of the ship threw him off balance. He staggered, arms out, fighting to stay on his feet.
Hill, Jenny, and Felix all narrowed their eyes at him, the same question written on every face. What on earth is he doing?