Chapter 84: Rumours

Chapter 84: Chapter 84: Rumours

After Natalie, Benjamin could not choose anyone else that morning. Luckily, in the afternoon they took on five more people for the roles of the teachers at the school and the victim’s parents.

At the next audition session the following day, the people of the film crew received auditioners they could never have expected.

Among the two hundred and fifty people who came to audition in person that day, as many as six had once been victims of school violence. Yet they had not come to audition for the victim. They had used a large sum of money to buy up the screenplay sections from people who had received the audition pieces for the bully characters.

The terms of the contract did not forbid this, so Benjamin had nothing to catch them out on. When asked the reason for laying out a sum larger even than the fee they would receive just to buy a chance at an audition, every one of them spoke out what was on their mind.

Because they had been victims, they were familiar with the twisted, mismatched expressions of the ones who had bullied them. Among those people was the female doctor mentioned in a comment a month earlier.

The very older sister of that viewer who had suddenly become afraid of heights.

Benjamin and Elijah looked at each other. Liam’s second plan had been thrown out after many days of consultation, who would have thought that those people would come looking of their own accord.

The female doctor smiled bitterly: "I have always kept from my family the reason I suddenly developed a fear of heights. Actually it is not that I could not say it, I simply did not want my parents and my younger brother to worry. Back then, they hung me dangling over the edge of the rooftop, below me there was only the ground impossibly far away without a single thing to cling to. I hung there for a whole day, my mouth sealed shut, staring helplessly at each person passing by beneath my feet without being able to call for help."

Elijah looked at her, then looked at the character she wanted to play, frowning: "Miss, this character will have to stand up high a great deal, what is more there is a scene where she is driven into the corner of the rooftop of a fifty-storey building by the ghost of the dead girl then falls from that height, her whole body smashed to pieces. Your condition is not suited to it..."

"No!" The female doctor planted her hands on the table, looking straight at Elijah and Benjamin: "Let me play this role. I need to step out of the past, I cannot stay sunk in this fear forever. I am a doctor, I know what I am doing, so please, grant me this wish."

Benjamin and Elijah bent their heads to look at each other, after that they asked the female doctor for ten minutes to confer. Everyone went off to a corner with their heads together, saying a great deal, Benjamin and Elijah even disagreed to the point of arguing noisily.

In the end, they decided to let the female doctor join the crew to act a few scenes first, and if they found she was not all right they would replace her at once.

"Miss Voss, we agree to take you on in the role of Sofia Hans. You will act a few sections on trial first, and if nothing is out of the ordinary you will go on acting to the end of the film. But we have a condition, a family member must come with you. It can be one person or it can be the whole family. We will cover part of the travel and accommodation costs, everything else you must arrange yourself."

Harper Voss thought for a moment, after that she agreed: "All right, I will bring my younger brother along. Thank you for agreeing to help me."

"Not at all, mainly it is that the look on your face while playing the bully made me want to charge up and punch you clean out of the meteorite belt." Benjamin shrugged, saying it with humour.

Harper burst into a laugh, after that she took the appointment slip and left. The other five passed as well, with the same conditions laid down as for Harper Voss.

After three days, their film crew finally recruited the full twenty-four actors through the in-person and the online auditions. Those who had registered without getting a chance to audition were promised another occasion later.

During the time spent waiting for the casting, Liam and Leonardo had also helped Benjamin build a film studio right there on the planet Sirius.

The film studio was built on a very large scale, all of the sets using mobile technology. Each time a film finished, they would leave the set standing there, so that tourists coming to visit could take check-in photographs. Besides which, perhaps later on the studio would be put to commercial use if the form of using real people to act in films won acceptance.

Monday came very quickly. The actors who lived far away all had their scenes moved back, with priority given to shooting the scenes of those who lived close by.

To save time, the actors coming to shoot would all stay put on Sirius until the shooting was done. When this announcement was issued, the whole social network rang with unceasing voices of suspicion. Many people even reasoned along conspiracy lines, holding that they were tricking people into going off as sacrificial offerings for the insectoid race or into illegal ore mining.

Faced with these theories, Liam was simply lost for words.

Among the group of actors there were at first many who hesitated, who even meant to withdraw. But after the crew showed them images of the place they would be going to, they immediately threw all that nonsensical advice out of their heads.

Damn it all! Anyone who is afraid should not go, but do not even think of stopping this gentleman/this lady from going off to enjoy life!

Because they had signed an absolute confidentiality contract until the film’s release, the actors, however much they itched to show off their luxurious lives, had to grit their teeth and swallow it back down. They were only permitted to show off a few character looks from certain scenes the crew allowed, nor were they to reveal too much to outsiders.

There were a few news-hunting groups along with curious network dwellers who looked for ways to break into the planet Sirius to spy, but they were immediately frightened back by a whole line of battleships, military craft and Mecha bearing the Hall family’s eagle crest.

After returning, they put this news out. Yet more conspiracy theories appeared on the network. Some people even said, might the Hall family have grown tired of being number two, wanting to trample the Royal family down and climb to number one themselves? Was the planet Sirius in fact a military planet, dedicated to raising the Hall family’s retainers?

Baseless rumours such as these, and yet there were a few in the political system on the Capital planet who took them for truth, these people even hinted at it repeatedly in front of Mr. Hall, but he simply batted it back with one line, "the children of my house are only out having fun".

Nobody could dig any news out of the mouths of Mr. Hall or the people of the Hall clan, so anxious that a few blisters came up inside their mouths.

Mr. Hall clicked his tongue, saying to Mrs. Hall: "A pack of people with full bellies and too much time on their hands!"

Mrs. Hall leaned over to look at him, saying with a smile: "Why not take the chance and travel ourselves? I miss the children so much."

Mr. Hall sighed: "Would you believe that the moment we leave the Capital planet that pack of old men will start jumping about? That old man on the throne has worn a scowl ever since Noah went missing, as though somebody owed him a few hundred million billion silver stars."

Mrs. Hall knitted her brows tightly, asking in a low voice: "Does Noah’s business really have anything to do with Louis?"

Mr. Hall shook his head: "Nothing can be concluded yet. It is not convenient for us to interfere too much, let them settle their own family’s affairs. So long as it does not touch the Hall family’s interests and the children’s safety, I will keep one eye shut and one eye open and leave them to play among themselves."

Mrs. Hall said nothing more, only sighing as she nestled into Mr. Hall’s arms, worry showing in her eyes. Luckily Liam and Elijah had already left the Capital planet, so for the time being they would not have to face the troubles of this place.

"Atchoo! Atchoo!" The two Omegas being spoken of sneezed at the same moment. They rubbed their noses looking at each other, breaking into smiles: "It must be Father and Mother missing us."

Having said that they turned their heads back, concentrating on the performance over on the other side.

"Is she really all right? The doctor has said her mind is on the verge of collapse, that she needs to stop immediately!" Daniel asked Elijah and Liam anxiously.

Elijah sighed: "I see it the other way round, if we really do not let Harper go on acting, that is when she truly will collapse..."

Today was Harper’s final scene, the passage where Sofia is drawn into an illusion by Ella’s ghost, after which she missteps of her own accord and falls from the rooftop of the fifty-storey teaching building.

In fact this setting was for post-production to handle, the real height of that rooftop was exactly three metres, with the newest model of protective air cushion below. But perhaps because she had sunk too deeply into the screenplay, Harper’s mind took it for granted that the place was fifty storeys high, so she could not get past it.

Harper had shot this scene five times, and every time, the moment she stepped up to the edge of the railing she shrank back in panic, screaming without stopping.

Benjamin had already decided to have her stop and shoot this scene no further, intending to use AI in place of a real person, but Harper absolutely refused. She kept saying: "Only one step more! Only this one last step. Please let me shoot this scene to the end."

Benjamin was softened by her pleading, agreeing to let her act.

Down below, Harper’s younger brother watched his sister tensely. This was already the sixth time, and his sister’s face no longer had a drop of blood in it. He was afraid she would break.

Harper stood up on the rooftop, closing her eyes to settle her state of mind. She kept suggesting to herself: I am not Harper Voss, I am Sofia Hans, I am the ringleader of the school bullying, I am the one who directly caused Ella’s death. This is the ending I deserve to receive.

And then, the image of Sofia Hans came to overlap the image of the ringleader who had bullied her all those years ago, while Ella became her own self. Harper broke into a crazed smile.

Bullies all have to die, they deserve to have their bones broken and their flesh torn, they deserve to be gnawed by insects down to rotted bone!