The air on the soundstage was a thick, manufactured atmosphere, a toxic cocktail of conflicting sensory information. It smelled of hot tungsten lights, the sweet, cloying vapor of a fog machine, the burnt plastic scent of overheating electronics, and the faint, ever-present aroma of craft services coffee. The space itself was a cavernous, cathedral-like void, its ceiling a complex galaxy of metal scaffolding, thick black cables, and grids of powerful lights. Dozens of crew members in black t-shirts and headsets moved with a brisk, ant-like purpose, their voices a low, urgent murmur of technical jargon that was occasionally punctuated by a sharp, authoritative shout.
At the center of this controlled corporate chaos, Alex stood, feeling profoundly and deeply out of place. He was an alien on a hostile planet, observing a set of bizarre, incomprehensible rituals. He had agreed to this. He had signed the contract. He had walked willingly into the belly of the beast. And he hated every second of it.
He was here to star in a high-profile, global-launch commercial for Synapse, a massive tech company whose products were as ubiquitous as they were soulless. It was a strategic, calculated move, a necessary evil. The ghost in his head had run the numbers a hundred times, its voice a cool, clinical justification for the artistic compromise he was making.
The fee funds Echo Chamber's entire Q4 operations and provides a substantial marketing budget for Billie's official debut EP, the ghost's internal monologue recited, a soothing balm of pure logic. It allows us to remain fully independent for another fiscal year. It buys us freedom. It's a calculated trade. The commercial is temporary. The independence is permanent.
But the sixteen-year-old boy, the one standing in the middle of the soundstage in a pair of painfully new, artfully distressed jeans, felt like a complete and utter sellout. The ghost's logic was sound, but it couldn't silence the quiet, insistent voice that whispered he was betraying the very principles he had built his label upon. He was using his art, his story, his pain, to sell tablets.
The set itself was an offensive, pastel-colored parody of his own life. It was a hyper-stylized, brightly lit recreation of a "creative teen's bedroom," designed by a committee of marketing executives who had likely never set foot in a room that wasn't a boardroom. A perfectly curated collection of vintage vinyl—all unplayed, their shrink-wrap still intact—was artfully arranged on a shelf next to a pristine, brand-new electric guitar that had been deliberately scuffed to look "authentic." The walls were covered in posters for indie bands so obscure they were probably fake, generated by an algorithm to appeal to a target demographic. He was surrounded by the props and symbols of creativity while participating in the least creative, most manufactured process imaginable. The irony was so thick it was almost suffocating.
A man in a ridiculously expensive-looking blazer and bright red sneakers approached him, a wide, artificial smile plastered on his face. It was the director.
"Alex! My man!" he said, his voice a booming, over-caffeinated projection. "So glad you could do this. The energy you're bringing is just… electric. We're going for a real sense of synergy here, you know? The seamless integration of organic creativity and intuitive technology. We want the audience to feel your passion, to feel that spark of inspiration, and to associate that spark with the Synapse Pro."
Alex just nodded, his own face a mask of polite neutrality. The ghost handled the interaction, supplying the appropriate non-committal murmurs and agreeable nods. The boy just wanted to disappear. He felt like one of the props, a carefully selected object meant to signify "authenticity" to the viewers at home.
The director was quickly replaced by two clients from Synapse, a man and a woman in matching dark gray suits who looked at him with the cool, appraising gaze of investors examining a valuable asset they had just acquired. They shook his hand, their grips firm and proprietary. They didn't talk about his music. They talked about his "brand engagement metrics" and his "cross-platform appeal to the Gen-Z demographic." They were not speaking to him; they were speaking to a spreadsheet.
He escaped to the wardrobe trailer, a small, cramped space that smelled of new clothes and desperation. A stylist handed him a painfully generic "cool teen" outfit—a soft, vintage-style band t-shirt (for a band that didn't exist), a layered flannel, and the aforementioned distressed jeans. As he was shrugging on the flannel, he glanced out the trailer's small window, back toward the brightly lit set.
And that's when he first saw her.
A girl, about his age, walked onto the soundstage, a whirlwind of kinetic, unapologetic energy. She was talking animatedly to a production assistant, her hands gesturing wildly as she told a story, her laugh a bright, loud, genuine sound that seemed to momentarily cut through the set's artificial hum. She was a splash of real, vibrant color in the carefully curated pastel environment. She was the other "youth influencer" they had hired for the ad. Her name, according to the call sheet, was Olivia Rodrigo.
He had a vague awareness of her from the ghost's memory—a child actress from some popular kids' TV show. Here, in this timeline, she was in a similar position, a rising star with a massive, dedicated young fanbase, a perfect, brand-safe counterpart to his own more melancholic, indie persona.
A few minutes later, they were brought together by the director in the center of the offensively perfect bedroom set.
"Okay, kids, let's block this out," the director said, clapping his hands together. "Super simple, super real. Alex, you're on the bed with the Synapse Pro. You're working on a new track, you're in the zone. Olivia, you come in, you're curious, you sit down next to him. You listen. You're blown away. We capture that moment of shared, spontaneous creation."
The concept was so cheesy it was almost physically painful. They were instructed to "collaborate" on a non-existent song using the brand's new tablet. Alex was supposed to look "intensely inspired" while Olivia "reacted with joyful awe."
He sat on the edge of the perfectly made bed, the sleek, cold tablet in his lap. Olivia sat down next to him, leaving a professional, respectful distance between them. Up close, he could see the slight nervousness in her eyes. He was the Grammy-winning enigma; she was the TV star. They were from different worlds, and the only thing connecting them was this sterile, corporate space.
"Okay," the director said from behind a monitor. "Let's just run the lines. Action."
The interaction was as stilted and professional as a business transaction. Alex was fully retreated into his ghost-like shell, a polite, functional automaton just trying to get through the day.
"Hey," Olivia said, her voice delivering the scripted line with a practiced, on-camera brightness. "Whatcha working on?"
Alex looked up from the tablet, summoning a look of mild, creative surprise. "Oh, hey. Just a new idea I'm messing with. A new chord progression."
"Can I hear it?" she asked, leaning in with a look of wide-eyed, scripted curiosity.
He tapped the screen. A generic, pre-loaded synth loop began to play from the tablet's speakers. It was bland, soulless, and utterly devoid of any human feeling.
He was instructed to watch her face for her reaction. She was a good actress. Her eyes lit up, her mouth formed a perfect 'O' of joyful awe. "Whoa," she breathed, her voice full of a wonder she was clearly not feeling. "That's… that's beautiful."
"Cut!" the director yelled, his voice booming with satisfaction. "Perfect! That was perfect! The chemistry is incredible! Let's get ready to shoot it for real."
Alex just wanted it to be over. He gave Olivia a small, polite, and distant smile. She returned it, equally professional, a silent acknowledgment of the shared absurdity of their situation. They were two creative people pretending to have a moment of spontaneous creation in order to sell a piece of technology to millions of other creative people. The ghost found the whole thing grimly, predictably transactional. The boy just felt a profound, soul-deep sense of exhaustion. He was a long, long way from the quiet, sacred honesty of his bedroom studio.