Chapter 85: Explosion

Chapter 85: Chapter 85: Explosion

Harper’s eyes snapped open, determination on her face. She turned back to say to Benjamin: "Director, I am ready."

Benjamin nodded, setting the camera on his shoulder, his body bending slightly into a posture ready to run after the actor. The assistant raised the clapperboard, calling out loudly:

"Scene one thousand two hundred, action!"

Ella, her whole body coated in ice crystals, came forward with her head lolling, a ghostly smile on her ashen white face. Two lines of blood ran down from Ella’s eyes, the smile splitting wide to the ears as well. Sofia Hans waved her hands in panic, retreating step by step while she screamed:

"No... no... do not come here! It was not me! I did not kill you! It was Olivia! It was her! Go and find her! Spare me! Please!"

Sofia Hans backed away faster and faster. She backed into the edge of the railing, turning her head to look down below. In her field of vision, about sixty centimetres below where she stood there was a patch of grass, so without the slightest hesitation she climbed onto the rail and jumped down hoping to escape.

In an instant, the scene changed. Below there was no patch of grass at all, only the ground endlessly far away. Only then did Sofia realise with a shock that this place was not the first floor of the teaching building as she had supposed, but the rooftop of the building!

Sofia’s face was one of terror, her scream echoing across the whole vault of the sky, after which came one dull, heavy "thud"...

"Cut! Wonderful, Harper! You did it!"

Benjamin joyfully lowered the camera, everyone around breaking into thunderous applause at once. Harper’s younger brother ran over to the air cushion, throwing his arms round Harper as she scrambled up.

"Sister, you did it! You are amazing! I am so proud of you!"

Harper’s face was still pale, yet on it was a radiant smile. She held her younger brother, laughing and crying at once as she said: "Yes, I did it."

Waiting until everyone’s emotion had gradually settled, Daniel stepped over to Benjamin, snatching the sound amplifier off him, calling out loudly:

"To celebrate the perfect success of the final scene, today I am standing host for a truly magnificent wrap party. At eight tonight every member of the crew from the director down to the logistics staff will gather at the Luxe Morsel restaurant’s Sirius branch, no gathering, no going home!"

"No gathering, no going home!!!"

Shout after shout rang out in answer following Daniel, Benjamin turned his head to look at him, breaking into an exceedingly gentle smile.

...

Three weeks after the wrap party, post-production was complete.

The print was sent up to the Lumina Galaxy Arts Committee for classification on a Wednesday morning. By the usual rule, an AI film takes only about two hours to get a result, because the review board need only run it through the system and it is done.

This print lay in the review room for four days. On the fifth day, the Committee issued a document the whole Galaxy had never seen before.

#CLASSIFICATION NOTICE AND CONDITIONS FOR SCREENINGS#

Work: [The Love Song on the Rooftop]

Production unit: New Generation Film Producers Studio

Genre: School life, Horror, Revenge

Form: Real human actors (all of the acting, the dialogue and the styling carried out by real people)

Classification: C18 – VIEWERS UNDER EIGHTEEN PROHIBITED

Compulsory conditions for purchasing a ticket:

Viewers must present a valid identity card. The ticket inspection system will automatically refuse any card under eighteen, with no exceptions. NO TICKETS SOLD to persons with a history of cardiovascular disease, cardiac arrhythmia, or stage two hypertension and above. NO TICKETS SOLD to persons currently suffering from gland disease, pheromone disorder, or undergoing a course of gland suppression treatment. The cinema’s linked medical system will cross-check the health code on the identity card. In cases of deliberately using another person’s card to enter, the cinema is exempt from all responsibility. Each screening room will have at least one medical staff member on duty and one mobile medical pod placed right at the exit.#

The moment this document was issued, the whole Lumina Galaxy network froze for ten seconds, then blew up.

[Hold on. Heart disease and gland disease I accept, but why set the age limit that high??? Do all the other films not only restrict under-16s???]

[I read the classification notice and my heart beat faster. What on earth is inside this film? Why do they need medical staff and a medical pod right in the screening room???]

[Mother, I am only seventeen years and eleven months!!! One month left!!! Why can you not wait one month for me?!]

[I have a mild pheromone disorder, I am in the fourth month of treatment. I have just finished crying. The whole Galaxy goes to the cinema while I sit at home.]

[I am going to book a heart examination first. If my heart is strong I will go and watch, if it is not strong I will still go and watch but I will bring medicine.]

[You up there, pull a trick like that and if anything happens you bear the responsibility yourself!]

...

Tickets for the screenings went on sale at eight that evening.

The Committee licensed three thousand screenings for the first day across the whole Galaxy, the level given to a film from a newly founded studio with no box-office precedent, carrying a C18 label besides.

Three thousand screenings sold out in eleven minutes.

In those eleven minutes, the ticketing systems of three major star systems jammed, the Committee’s home page went down twice, and a switchboard operator on the Capital planet later recounted that he took one thousand four hundred calls within a single hour, of which more than half were people calling just to scream.

At nine in the evening, the cinema chains all sent in applications to increase the number of screenings.

At ten, the Committee raised it to twenty thousand screenings. Burnt out in twenty-six minutes.

At midnight, raised to eighty thousand screenings, including the three in the morning and five in the morning slots, two time brackets that for all these years no cinema had ever opened, because a film can be watched at any time and nobody is mad enough to crawl out of the house at three in the morning.

Eighty thousand screenings burnt out in fifty minutes. Among them the three in the morning slots burnt out first.

[I just got a 3:15am slot on the planet Vega. I live on Lyra. I am still going.]

[The black market is reselling tickets at twenty-eight times the price. Twenty-eight times!!! And people are still buying!!!]

[I have taken three days of unpaid leave to fly to another star system to watch the film. My mother asked me what was wrong with me, I did not know how to answer.]

[There are four in my family, my father has stage two hypertension, my mother is undergoing gland treatment, my younger brother is fifteen. In the end only I can go. I will go for the whole family. I will tell the whole family about it afterwards. I promise.]

[Uncle, I beg you, do not tell them. If you tell them you are breaking the contract... ah no, you did not sign a contract. Go on and tell them, uncle.]

Liam sat in his office on Sirius, one hand resting on a belly that now stood out clearly, one hand propping up his chin, scrolling through line after line of comments.

Nirvana jumped out to sit on the edge of the screen, its tail swaying: "Host, I have worked it out. Counting the three in the morning slots as well, more than two hundred million people will be in the cinemas on the first day."

"Mm."

"Are you not pleased? Why do you keep reading these comments on and on?"

Liam did not answer. He scrolled up, stopping at the line from the person whose household of four had only one who could go.

"I am counting how many people are shut out simply because their bodies cannot stand one film."

Nirvana went blank: "What for?"

"Nirvana, a level 3 stall can trade for grade-B medicines, which includes products that support genetic defects, am I right?"

Nirvana’s tail stood straight up, a flickering spark of light in both its eyes: "Did you not have no interest in playing the saviour? Why have you suddenly thought of trading for products that support genetic defects?"

Liam lowered his eyes, looking down at his own belly: "I am only worried that man will not hold out to the end. Even with Grass Worms helping to stabilise the pheromones, the child born still has a 3% chance of genetic illness, I am only guarding against it in advance."

Nirvana swayed its tail, comforting him: "Only 3%, you will not be that unlucky. What is more, I bet that once the tourist tickets go on sale, you will rise to a level 3 stall very quickly."

It went into specifics:

"You have seen how much the crew and the actors who came to Sirius liked it. Even when their own scenes were finished, several of them asked to stay two days longer, just to relax for two more days.

You prepared psychological doctors, but look, although they were a little disturbed for a moment they came back to normal after picking up a hoe to turn the soil, feeding the chickens, fishing, or simply lifting a cup of tea then sprawling in a chair to sun themselves beside the flower garden.

Even those people with psychological problems from school bullying, their condition improved markedly. If this news gets out, you tell me how many people will come pouring in?"

Liam burst into a laugh: "I can see that much for myself. I have simply turned sentimental all of a sudden. I do not know why either... Out of nowhere I feel terribly sorry for myself..."

Nirvana climbed onto its own host’s head, rubbing his head with a claw: "That is the reaction to the psychological and physiological changes of pregnancy. Every pregnant person has to go through it, bit by bit it will be fine."

Liam smiled, raising a hand to his head meaning to give Nirvana a rub, only to find he could rub nothing but his own head: "That is not fair in the least, you can touch me yet I cannot lay a finger on a single hair of yours. How about I go and order a pet Robot made, then you move into it?"

Nirvana let out a hiss: "No! Never! I am not going to shut myself up in that heap of low-grade components!"

Liam shrugged, resolving that he had to earn a great deal more money. He truly was longing to stroke Nirvana by now!