Chapter 1

A tall man sits in the lobby of a major music executive’s office staring emptily at the photo of a huge pop idol the records signed a couple of years ago. He thinks to himself; “Wow! I can’t believe I’m sitting in the office of one of the biggest label executives this side of Nova Raton.” The man briefly stared over the at the middle of the lobby where the receptionist desk was; he catches sight of the young and beautiful receptionist. She looks up and sees him and gingerly waves with a hesitant smile. He glances back over to the poster in the wall; “I must get this contract for the sake of my career…. but also, because I love to be surrounded by beautiful ladies”. After he begins to dream about what his future will hold if he scores a contract; the door opens and a voice calls out “Mr. Shishijeima, the president will see you now”. The man walks into the brightly lit room and the door shuts slowly behind him.

The city of Nova Raton is teeming with all sorts of movement from its lively and thriving populace. It sits on the border of the coast of the southern Florida region. The towns demographics have changed since many of the residents are descendants of those who escaped the mighty tsunami that flooded parts of Fukuoka. Many of the 2.7 million residents were displaced and have since relocated to Kyushu prefecture. However, 20,000 of those refugees sought a new beginning here in Florida; where they became a huge proponent in the “EV-Idol” circuit and many of the stage production technologies that has made the city billions of dollars in tourism. As a result there are many agents known as “Dolsellers” have come far and wide to make it big in the “EV-Idol” industry; but only few do.

The streets are littered with people from everywhere across the country, looking to see there favorite EV-Idol” perform at the Nova Raton Annual “Dol’ Fest”. The streets are noisy and people are sprawled out as far as the eye can see. Waiting for the main stage to open up around 6:30 pm. For now they quench their excitement buy playing games at the local arcades where the special EV-Specs allow them the ability to view Virtual Reality simulated sprites and the ability to watch any performances that are happening at the smaller stages. In this crowd there is two girls that are sitting at a table eating a special shrimp taco and looking at each other in utter disgust. Both the girls are skinny with abnormally large eyes and are about 5”6 and 5”7 respectively. The one with auburn locks and big circular glasses is drinking her cherry malt soda looking around at all the people who are enraptured in their EV-Specs; too much so that they don’t even notice that their food and drinks have completely become cold and melted. The girl thinks to herself; “Wow! What a bunch of weirdos. I can’t believe that people pay this much to sit for hours and literally never even interact with each other”. As she glances over to her friend she catches her looking back at her with a look of the most pitiable puppy-dog she eyes she ever laid her eyes on. She mourns woefully, “It’s such a shame that we missed Konan Kollou’s welcome back stage”. Then the girl replies “Well; if you didn’t spend all your time trying to talk that vendor down to $50 less than the asking price for the motion script poster. We wouldn’t have missed his stage”. Her friend bashfully replies “Rin; you just don’t get it do you?”, she goes onto say “These are retro posters that aren’t sold in retail stores; if you don’t buy them here you’ll be looking at paying quadruple the price for them”. The girl with the auburn hair then retorts with a “well I guess it was worth it but the entire point we even came was to see Konan Kollou and now that we’ve missed it we’re stuck with the EV-obsessed weirdos. The ones who won’t even give up a seat to let us sit together”. As she finishes speaking a guy lifts up his EV-Specs to tell her “ Hey can you shut up! I’m trying to listen to my sweet Raimi”. The girl looks him up and down. She gets up in disgust and tells her friend “Mari; I’m going to the bathroom. After than we can leave!”. As she gets up from the table she here’s the guy who just told her to shut up yell out “Raimi is going to perform my favorite song!”. She sneakily reaches over on the right side of his head and quickly turns of the power switch on his EV-Specs. His glasses turn black and he begins to yell “OH NO! Raimi NO!” he begins to sob and leaves just enough time for the girl to sneak out of the arcade. He takes off the EV-Specs and fiercely glances at the girls friend for which turns around and acts like nothing happened as she was on the other end of the table.

The girl with the auburn hair runs to a line spanning across .25 of a mile in length. She taps the older women in front of her and asks. “Excuse me mam, do you know where the restroom is ?” The woman replies “Oh Dear, you looking at the line for restrooms; right here.” The girl looks in utter shock and begins thinking “I don’t think I can hold it that much longer”. She peruses the area for another restroom and she begins to become restless”where are the freaking restrooms”. Until she happens upon a huge building with a restroom sign hastily and mutters to herself “ found a potty”. She tries to walk into the building however; she was stopped by a huge man that was about 6”2 and had a buzz cut. He wore a security badge and barked “This a private event. Unless you were invited I can’t let you in.” The auburn haired girl looked up at the big man with tears in her eyes woefully muttering in a sweet baby voice. “ I’m sowwy sir! I need to use the bathwoom.” With eyes big as saucers she gives the man a cherubic glance and says “ now you wouldn’t want a young girl to embarrass herself in front of this cwowd of people? No would you?” The security guard is taken back at this display of cuteness. He then begrudgingly says “Ok. You can come in but only to use the bathroom. It’s down the hall and follow the stairs up to the second level.”The auburn haired girl walks in the building and her face immediately reverts back to her cold and dismissive expression as before she quietly mutters “I can’t believe that worked”. She walks upstairs and sees a huge waiting room full of girls with numbered bibs on their shirts. She is amazed at how pretty and tall they all are. She quickly rushes to the bathroom and catches a glimpse of a hallway filled with more girls wearing numbered bibs. She begins to contemplate what she walked in on but quickly reverting her attention to finding the bathroom.

The man from earlier is sitting down at a bar in West Nova Raton and a young fresh faced girl with wavy black hair down to her waist. The girl was about 5’10 and was skinny as a rail with tan skin. She had very elusive features such as dark green eyes; the color of a cup of matcha with foxy hooded eyes. Small and slender nose the created a perfect slope down the middle of her face. A very thickly groomed set of eyebrows that were placed perfectly over her hooded eyes, that gave her a look of fierceness yet subtle femininity. Her chest was full but was still proportioned to the size of her frame. Her mouth was curled when she smiled but still held a warm ominous look in her expression. She quaintly asks”So how did the meeting go Mr.Shishijima?, with an inquisitive look leaning into the table. Shishijima answered with an hesitant scowl “I didn’t get it” he murmured lowly. He slowly looked up at the woman in utter embarrassment and her piercing green eyes caused him to get choked up. “See the CEO took a a listen to your demo’s that my friend begged him to listened to while he was at his restaurant” he said. “He told my friend that there was some potential there and told me to schedule an appointment through one of his PR managers who thus sent me to a meeting to pitch to him our act”. Shishijima took a sip of his beer and slouched down in the chair with his head looking up at the ceiling.He continues, “ As I entered his conference room there were the VP and the A&R”. He wasn’t their as he had a prior engagement so they audibly judged the tape. “They gave me a few compliments on how this reminds me of their youth and what they liked to listen to in their formative years”; he said wistfully. He continued to look up at the ceiling recounting the exchange; “It seemed like after I smiled in relief the compliments stopped.” he pauses then looks down at the condensation running down the rim of his freshly opened beer. Shishijima looks at the woman across from the table and notices her smile is gone. He begins to sulkily utter “They think our music is dated and that it is a risk to sign us to their label”. The woman across the table looks over to the couple in the corner smirking and nodding to each other as they fall deeper in conversation. She then asks “When will we ever get a chance to rest ?” she turns her head over to Shishijima. She looks tiredly “I remember your great grandfather working himself to an early grave at your very age.” She follows with “You are my owner and I will follow your lead but we have to be cognizant of your life as well as mine.” Shishijima sits up in the chair reaching for his beer pouting then following up with a “I know, I know.”

The girl with auburn hair comes out the bathroom to a room full of people cheering. The girls in the waiting room are all teeming with excitement as they watch whatever they watch in their EV-Specs. However, the girl notices a hologram screen being projected on the desk of the receptionist. There is short man who is around 5”5 dressed in a suede suit with platinum colored platform shoes and latest iteration of the EV-Specs that have a platinum horned frame and piping. His voice is deep and resounding as it almost carries into this room. Until she recognizes that the voice actually sounds a lot closer than she originally thought. She winces through the hallway right beside the bathroom and as she walks the voice gets deeper and louder. Passing the beautiful girls all though out the hallway she felt self-conscious but her curiousness far outweighed those feelings. She reached the end of the hallway where two large security guards are standing in front of a door with glowing letters saying “Contestant on Stage”flickering”. Not even a second later a short gentleman with light voice and a set of EV-Specs that cover his entire head barrels down the hallway yelling “I can’t believe this girl had the nerve to waste the CEO’s time by showing up late”. He is aggravated looking for every fault in everything that he can see from girls looks to the fact that the reception never messaged him to relay the information of the late participant. “I can’t believe the unprofessionalism of you Ugg-heads around here” he exclaimed. “I was supposed to be made aware that way we could end the show just in time for the main stage performances.” He then made his way down the hall and happened to see the girl standing in the middle of the hall way. He looks her up and down spewing “ Now what is this gangly thing doing in the waiting room” and continues with “everything about this is wrong. From the hair to the shoes to this hideous bifocals. What are we going for 2040’s punk-pauper style?” He chuckles in relief and gives the girl a once over and says “Hey kid! You want to be on TV?”; before she even utters a word he replies; “Great you fit enough of the requirements to not be automatically eliminated. Go waste some time so we end on schedule.” She looks entirely dumbfounded with how the events have taken place with her being totally miserable to her being placed in front of a audience on a TV show. She then goes to refuse his offer but it’s too late to guy with the odd EV-Specs pushes her to the door “Make me proud kid.” He says before the door lights turn from “Contestant on Stage” to “Enter Contestant” and she jolted through the door’s opening to find a film crew with EV-Specs and a microphonic ear piece. The crew tells the girl “Contestant 297 here is your ear piece it helps you hear the back track but uses bluetooth and sound cancellation to hear yourself over the crowd and music.” The girl lunges back in terror but the crew forces her to wear the piece and pushes her delivering a fleeting message of “ go to the mark on the stage”. She reluctantly walks into eyesight of the judges thinking to herself “I might as well get this over with; it’s not like I care what these people think anyway there just a bunch lo—”. “Woooooh” the crowd screams startling the young girl and almost causing her to trip. She regains her composure enough to make it to a colorful lit up mark on the almost glassy stage. There she’s trembling as the three judges sit on podiums dangling from the ceiling. The one judge in the middle, a man with a checkered tapered cut with and glasses asks “Hello There, what is your name ?” he looked unimpressed but yet still friendly enough that he didn’t seem inattentive. He sat back in his oblong seat the glowed a teal shimmer almost like a night light hologram that kids of her generation grew up with. She answered haphazardly “My name is Rin Finsterwald but call me Rin; I guess”. She thought to her self “Did I literally just tell them to call me the name I just told them—DAMNIT!”.