Chapter 91: The Cold Read Hijack

The Cold Read Hijack

June of 1992 brought a searing, dry heat to the San Fernando Valley. Inside the Sovereign Media headquarters, Elias van Kempen was reviewing the quarterly projections with the grim, unyielding focus of a forensic accountant.

The structural integrity of his empire was sound. The Sovereign Media Duality Statement from the amfAR Gala had generated millions of dollars in free global press for both Cindy Crawford and Winona Ryder. The digital domain names were safely locked in a Swiss safety deposit box, quietly waiting for the Dot-Com explosion.

However, the day-to-day liquidity was hemorrhaging.

"The structural flaw of the entertainment industry is the payment schedule, Paul," Elias murmured, tracing a line on the ledger with his stolen KLM pen. "My ’Creep’ royalties are on a quarterly payout. The Don King Pay-Per-View revenue will not clear escrow for another sixty days. Meanwhile, the operational costs of maintaining this agency, and the... unforeseen daily maintenance taxes of my personal aesthetic ecosystem, are draining our liquid cash."

Paul Rudd, who was currently organizing headshots on the floor, looked up nervously. "Are we going broke, Elias? Should I cancel the sparkletts water delivery? I can drink from the tap. I don’t mind the taste of Los Angeles municipal piping."

"We are not going broke, Paul. We are merely facing a temporary liquidity drought," Elias corrected smoothly, standing up and retrieving his faded vintage leather jacket. "We require a Net-90 cash injection. An upfront booking fee to bridge the gap. Gather the keys to the Civic. We are going to Burbank."

Paul scrambled to his feet. "Burbank? Warner Brothers? Did you secure an audition?"

"I do not secure auditions. I hijack them," Elias stated, checking his Rolex Daytona. "Quentin Tarantino wrote a script called True Romance. Tony Scott is directing it. It is a hyper-violent, stylized crime narrative that will inevitably achieve cult classic status. They are currently casting the role of the mob enforcer. A classic scene-stealer. Minimal days on set, maximum screen time impact. It is the perfect ratio of effort to capital."

Forty-five minutes later, the rusted, violently rattling Honda Civic pulled up to the glittering, palm-tree-lined entrance of the Warner Bros. studio lot.

A valet attendant in a crisp uniform immediately stepped forward to take the keys, gesturing toward the VIP parking zone. "Valet parking is twenty dollars, sir."

Elias looked at the valet, then at the twenty-dollar sign, and finally at Paul.

"Turn the wheel to the left, Paul," Elias commanded flawlessly. "We are parking in the public metered zone three blocks down."

"Elias, it is ninety-five degrees outside!" Paul whimpered, gripping the steering wheel. "We are going to sweat through our shirts before we even reach the casting room!"

"Sweat is merely weakness leaving the body, Paul. Twenty dollars is capital leaving the portfolio. The choice is obvious," Elias dictated, utterly shameless.

They parked three blocks away. Elias dropped exactly eight quarters into the parking meter, a profound look of physical pain crossing his face at the two-dollar expenditure.

[DEDUCTING -$2.00 USD FOR LOGISTICAL INEFFICIENCY.][SYSTEM WARNING: DAILY MAINTENANCE FEE DEDUCTION INITIATED.][DEDUCTING -$50.00 USD FROM LIQUID CASH RESERVE.]

The phantom pain in his chest flared. His balance dropped to $394,748.00. He needed to extract money from this studio today.

They walked back to the lot and navigated the maze of soundstages until they reached the casting building.

The waiting room was packed. The air was thick with the scent of cheap cologne, desperation, and the aggressive posturing of two dozen young actors trying to look like hardened criminals.

Standing in the center of the room, surrounded by a tight-knit entourage of four heavily muscled guys from Boston, was Mark Wahlberg.

Riding the peak of his ’Marky Mark’ era and heavily inflated by his recent Calvin Klein underwear campaign, Wahlberg was practically vibrating with unearned arrogance. He was currently doing loud, aggressive pushups in the middle of the carpet, shadowboxing the air, and grunting to stay in ’character’.

Elias bypassed the spectacle entirely. He walked to the receptionist, gave his name, and took a seat in the corner. He pulled a stapled copy of the True Romance sides from his jacket and began flipping through the pages, his Photographic Memory instantly downloading the dialogue.

Wahlberg stopped shadowboxing. He spotted Elias. The Boston native’s eyes narrowed instantly, recognizing the exotic, aristocratic face that had been fiercely competing with him in the fashion world.

Wahlberg swaggered over, flanked by his entourage. He looked down at Elias, noting the relaxed posture and the complete lack of aggressive preparation.

"Well, well. Look who decided to grace us with his presence," Wahlberg sneered, crossing his thick arms. "You might have gotten that Calvin Klein campaign because of some lucky lighting, buddy. But this is the big screen. This is a Tony Scott picture. I’ve been doing method acting for three months. I spent two weeks hanging out with actual mobsters in Southie. You think you’re gonna beat me by cold-reading a script for five minutes?"

The entourage snickered, trying to look intimidating.

Paul Rudd, sitting next to Elias, instantly broke out in a cold sweat. He pulled his flannel shirt tight around his neck. "Elias, maybe we should wait in the hall..."

Elias didn’t look up from the script. He slowly, deliberately turned a page, the crisp rustle of the paper silencing the Boston crew’s laughter.

He offered a smile so deeply shameless, so utterly dripping with condescending capitalist superiority, that Wahlberg instinctively took a half-step back.

"Tiga bulan berlatih untuk berteriak seperti preman jalanan adalah inefisiensi modal yang tragis, Mark," Elias murmured, his baritone voice a smooth, lethal blade that cut through the macho posturing of the waiting room. (Three months of training to scream like a street punk is a tragic inefficiency of capital, Mark.)

Elias finally looked up, his dark, mesmerizing eyes pinning Wahlberg to the floor.

"I do not need to train to understand this character," Elias continued flawlessly, tapping the script with one elegant finger. "This character is a hitman who murders for money without a single shred of human emotion. I merely need to visualize my monthly electricity bill, and I am already halfway to an Academy Award. Sekarang diamlah, kau mengganggu margin keuntunganku." (Now be quiet, you are interrupting my profit margins.)

Wahlberg’s face flushed a deep, furious crimson. His mouth opened, but his brain failed to process a comeback to the sheer, terrifying sociopathy of Elias’s statement. He was prepared for an ego battle about acting. He wasn’t prepared for a teenager who treated homicide like a tax audit.

"Elias van Kempen?" the casting assistant called out, opening the heavy wooden door to the audition room.

Elias stood up, adjusting his vintage jacket. He offered Wahlberg a polite, chilling nod and glided into the room.

The audition space was wide and sparsely furnished. Sitting behind a long table was the Casting Director, a sharp-eyed veteran of the industry, and Tony Scott, the legendary director, chewing on a cigar.

"Alright, Elias," the Casting Director said, looking at his resume. "You have an incredible look, but this role requires true menace. Virgil is a killer. He’s interrogating a woman, and he enjoys the process. Show us what you have."

Elias stood on his mark. He didn’t immediately launch into the dialogue. He needed an unfair advantage. He needed to know exactly what the previous actors had done wrong.

He mentally engaged the digital loan shark.

[SYSTEM SHOP ACCESSED.][ACTIVATING: CORPORATE X-RAY SCAN][COST: -10 CP]

[CHA-CHING!][WARNING: SHAMELESS POINTS CRITICALLY LOW. BALANCE AT 5 CP. YOU ARE DANCING ON THE EDGE OF A WARDROBE MALFUNCTION, CAPITALIST.]

Elias ignored the blaring red sirens in his vision. The translucent grid snapped over his eyes, slicing through the air and locking onto the Casting Director’s clipboard hidden behind the desk.

The neon-red text scrolled instantly.

[SCAN COMPLETE. DIRECTOR’S NOTES DECODED.][VULNERABILITY: WAHLBERG AND PREVIOUS ACTORS FAILED DUE TO ’OVERACTING’. DIRECTOR SPECIFICALLY NOTES: "TOO MUCH SHOUTING. LOOKS LIKE A BAR FIGHT. I NEED SOMEONE WHO SMILES WHILE HE BREAKS BONES. I NEED COLD, CORPORATE PSYCHOPATHY."]

Elias deactivated the scan, his eyes returning to their normal, striking darkness.

He didn’t scream. He didn’t try to look tough.

He simply stood perfectly still, letting his hands rest casually in the pockets of his leather jacket. He channeled the exact, terrifying calm he felt when he was reading a fraudulent contract. He looked directly at the reader—a young assistant sitting in a chair—and unleashed a smile of absolute, deadpan terror.

He delivered the Tarantino dialogue not as a threat, but as a polite, inevitable business transaction. Every word was precise. Every pause was calculated. He didn’t raise his voice once. He sounded like a demon explaining a spreadsheet.

When he delivered the final, brutal line, the silence in the audition room was absolute.

The reader was visibly shaking. The Casting Director had stopped taking notes. Tony Scott’s cigar had gone out.

Elias broke character seamlessly, clapping his hands together once. "I believe that sufficiently covers the dramatic requirements. Shall we discuss the compensation parameters?"

Tony Scott blinked, pulling the cigar from his mouth. "Kid... that was... that was horrifying. You didn’t even blink. You’re exactly what I’ve been looking for. You’re hired."

The Casting Director quickly recovered, pulling out a standard deal memo. "We can offer you the SAG minimum daily rate for a supporting role, plus a standard ten percent agency bump—"

"I decline," Elias interrupted smoothly, taking a seat opposite the table without being offered one.

The Casting Director frowned. "Excuse me? You just got the part. This is a major studio picture."

"I am aware of the studio, and I am aware of the script’s potential," Elias stated, leaning forward, deploying his capitalist dominance. "You are not hiring a standard character actor. You are hiring the current face of Calvin Klein. My presence in this film will guarantee a massive demographic crossover. Teenage girls will buy tickets to a hyper-violent crime movie simply to see my face on a fifty-foot screen. I am providing you with a marketing subsidy."

Tony Scott leaned forward, a grin spreading across his face. He loved the sheer, unadulterated balls of the kid.

"I am not working for scale," Elias dictated, pushing the deal memo back across the table. "I require two percent of the backend gross. From the first dollar."

The Casting Director nearly choked. "Two percent gross?! For a scene-stealer role?! That’s leading man territory! Tom Cruise gets gross points! You’re a sixteen-year-old kid!"

"A sixteen-year-old kid who just gave you the only performance that didn’t look like a high school theater production," Elias countered flawlessly, his eyes locking onto the casting director’s. "You have twenty guys in that waiting room trying to act tough. You and I both know they are useless to you. Two percent. Or I walk out that door, and you can cast Mark Wahlberg to yell at a chair for three minutes."

Tony Scott laughed aloud, slamming his hand on the table. "Give it to him! The kid is a monster. Give him the two percent!"

The Casting Director, thoroughly defeated by the director’s override and the undeniable logic of Elias’s leverage, crossed out the standard rate and scribbled the new terms onto the contract.

Elias signed it with his stolen pen, tucked the document into his jacket, and offered a polite bow.

"Sovereign Media looks forward to the production schedule," Elias murmured.

He glided out of the audition room and back into the waiting area.

Mark Wahlberg immediately stood up, puffing out his chest. "So? Did you choke, pretty boy? Did they tell you to go back to modeling?"

Elias didn’t stop walking. He simply held up the signed Warner Bros. contract, letting it flutter in the air-conditioned breeze as he walked past the Boston crew.

"You can stop doing pushups, Mark," Elias stated without looking back, his voice echoing in the silent room. "The role has been liquidated."

Wahlberg stared at the contract. His face crumpled. He kicked a plastic waiting room chair, letting out a roar of absolute, frustrated fury that echoed down the hallway.

Paul Rudd scrambled out the door behind Elias, his eyes wide.

"Elias! You did it!" Paul cheered as they walked out into the blazing Burbank sun. "We have a movie! We have a paycheck coming!"

"We have a Net-90 receivable, Paul," Elias corrected, his internal alarms flashing a violent, critical crimson. "But our immediate operational liquidity is still in mortal danger. We need to harvest Shameless Points before the system forcefully unzips my trousers in public."

Elias looked around the sprawling studio lot. Executives in golf carts, producers in tailored suits, and highly paid actors were everywhere. It was a target-rich environment.

"Come along, Paul," Elias smiled, a dark, predatory gleam in his eye. "We are going to find a VIP luncheon, and we are going to steal their caviar."