The shock of it ran right through Ronan. It wasn’t just that the room had rebuilt itself around him — the change had gotten into his body too. He’d have sworn on everything he owned he was standing on the deck of a ship, out on open water.
’What the hell is happening to me right now? Is somebody up there having a laugh at my expense?’ He widened his stance and fought to keep himself upright.
Jenny caught the sway and set her pen down. "Ronan — hey, are you doing okay over there? You’ve gone a little green on us." She nodded at the chair behind him. "There’s no rush. If you want to sit down a second and pull yourself together before we read, go ahead and take it."
"He’s probably just nervous, is all," Hill said, leaning back and folding his arms. "First read for a network thing does that to people."
Off to the side, Felix stayed on his feet, loose and ready, watching in case the kid actually went down.
Ronan swallowed hard and forced the seasickness back down his throat. "No, no, I’m fine, I promise. It’s just — I’m getting into the character, that’s all. The scene’s set on a ship, right, out on the open ocean, so I put myself out there on the deck, and the whole thing started rolling and pitching under my feet. It caught me off guard, and I grabbed for my balance."
He heard exactly how that landed and pushed through it anyway. "In my head, I mean. All of it in my head."
It wasn’t really a lie. It was more that he was reaching for any words that might cover whatever was happening to him. Something with no name and no explanation had dropped him straight into the world of «Castaway in Time», and ’I’m getting into the character’ was about as close to the truth as he could land without sounding like he’d come unglued.
And as far as he could tell, he was the only one of them it was touching. The deck heaved and fell away under his own feet, but the three of them across the table weren’t feeling a bit of it — not one of them so much as shifted in their seat.
"Okay, so let me make sure I’ve got this." Jenny sat back, a laugh tugging at the corner of her mouth. "You’re so far into it that you genuinely feel like you’re standing on a ship right now — riding out the swells, fighting to keep your feet under you." She’d made up her mind about him already: nervous kid, a little lightheaded, grabbing for the first excuse that came out sounding halfway respectable.
Hill wasn’t buying it either, and he didn’t put any effort into hiding it. A short laugh got loose before he could rein it back in. "Hey, you know what — whatever gets you there, keep it up, man. That is one hell of an imagination you’ve got on you." He tipped his chin toward Felix. "Felix, go ahead. Put the man in the water."
"On it, boss." Felix flipped through his sides, running a finger down the page to find his first line.
Ronan didn’t need it spelled out — not one of them believed what he’d said. And the thing was, he couldn’t even hold it against them. Sitting on their side of the table, watching some no-name extra sway around like the floor was tilting under him, he wouldn’t have believed himself either.
He let his eyes travel over the deck. The sailors, the passengers, the pirates — every last figure stood locked dead still while the ship went on rolling underneath them. ’They’re frozen. Every one of them, like extras planted on a set, waiting on the director to call action before anybody so much as breathes.’
That was the detail he held onto. He still had no idea what had been done to him. But one thing kept dragging his eye back: a pane of glowing text, hanging right there in the air in front of him, one line printed brighter than the rest —
[IMMERSION SYSTEM]
Whatever had remade the whole world around him, that was the thing behind it. And it had gone ahead and given itself a name.
’I don’t know what this thing is,’ Ronan thought, ’but whatever it is, it isn’t fighting me — it’s helping. It built me a whole ship. The people, the wind, the deck under my boots, all of it straight out of the 1700s and real enough to turn my stomach.’
He set his feet against the roll of the deck and breathed in deeply, tasting the sea salt carried on the wind.
’So fine. I don’t care where it came from or why it picked me. It’s handing me the part on a plate — and this is the last shot my old agency is ever going to give me. No way I walk out of here without it. I take this, whatever it takes.’
The truth was, Ronan had never had much of a gift for acting. Memory, sure — that one he could count on. Hand him a script and by morning he’d have every line cold, word for word, clean as if he were reading it straight off the page.
But knowing the words and living them were two different animals, and the living had always been the part that slipped through his hands.
He could take any script and hand it back letter-perfect, every line clean off his tongue. What he’d never once managed was to vanish into the part — to stop reciting a character and actually become him.
Five years of background work was all the proof anybody needed.
Maybe, though — maybe that was about to change. Maybe inside this impossible illusion he could finally stop reciting a man and start standing in his skin.
And the strange part was that the world had already begun doing the work for him.
Little by little, the salt in the air and the pitch of the deck were pulling him down into Thomas — into the way Thomas held himself, the way he watched the horizon, and underneath all of it, the one thing Thomas carried everywhere and never once said out loud.
What he felt for Rose.
She stood a few steps off, near the rail, her dress snapping and flowing in the wind.
Ronan’s chest tightened, and it wasn’t only Thomas doing it. He knew that face. He’d know it anywhere. She was the very image of Jane Kingsley — the pure gem of Hollywood herself, lifted straight out of «Futility» and set down here on the deck in front of him.
And in that one held breath of a moment, the last of the distance between them closed. He wasn’t a jittery extra faking his way through a casting room anymore.
He was Thomas.
Across the room, Felix caught the shift. The kid had stopped swaying. He’d gone quiet and steady, settled into something, and the look on his face said ready.
Felix glanced down at his sides, cleared his throat, and started to read the pirate’s lines in his flat, casting-room voice.
And the moment the words left him, the ship drew its first breath. Every figure that had stood frozen a heartbeat before lurched into motion all at once — sailors hauling lines, passengers scattering, a knot of pirates crowding in across the boards.
The pirate squared up in front of Ronan opened his mouth, and out came Felix’s line word for word — only now it rode on a voice like a rusted hinge.
"So the pretty lad fancies himself a gallant, does he — sworn to guard his lady fair." He grinned, all bad teeth. "Come on, boy. Let’s see what you’re truly made of."
He came on slow, in no hurry at all, savoring it, and the rest of the crew fanned out and took up a chant that rolled across the deck like surf breaking.
"Cap-tain! Cap-tain! Cap-tain!"
So this one was the captain. He turned and threw his arms wide to his men, drinking down the noise, then lifted a hand for quiet.
"A fair fight, lads — I’ll not draw steel on a green boy." He hauled his cutlass free and sent it skidding away across the boards, then dropped into a crouch with his fists up, still grinning at Ronan. "Come on, my boy. You wanted to play the hero for your lass, aye? Then show me what you’ve got."