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"Take Tom Hanks, for example," Marvin continued. "All he has to do is act. He walks onto a set, delivers his lines, and he gets the role. His talent and his box-office draw are his absolute currency. Now, look at Julia Roberts. The open secret in this town is that before she became America's sweetheart and a household name, the fresh-faced nineteen-year-old eagerly slept her way through the entire film crew — sucking cocks in trailers, bending over for producers in dingy hotel rooms, and spreading her legs for anyone with a clipboard or a credit card — just to land one lousy preliminary part and get her foot in the door.
Another example, look at Sharon Stone. The open secret in this town is that before she became the ice-cool seductress who made Basic Instinct explode, she spent the late '80s trading nights on the casting couch with more than a few powerful producers and directors — spreading those long legs in private suites and back rooms just to land the bit parts and keep the callbacks coming. They say the "overnight success" in '92 was built on years of closed-door auditions where talent alone never opened the right doors. The girl who later uncrossed her legs on screen had already learned exactly how the game worked long before the cameras rolled."
"Wow," Jessica breathed, the righteous anger momentarily replaced by intense, morbid intrigue. "Is that really true?"
"Well, whether it is factually true or merely an industry fable isn't the point," Marvin replied smoothly. "The point is about strategic choice and foresight. Julia Roberts took a massive, degrading chance with Pretty Woman, and it paid off massively. Only she can decide, in the quiet of her own mind, if that initial sacrifice was worth the empire she built. But as for the girl who took your role today? I'd say her choice was a catastrophic mistake."
Marvin set his pen down, steepling his fingers. "First, it is not a standout, star-making role. Second, it is just a low-budget indie film, highly unlikely to see any real commercial success or distribution unless it miraculously sweeps the festival awards. And I assume she is around your age?"
"No, she's a year older than me," Jessica muttered defensively.
"But she is still a m¡n*r in the eyes of the law and the press," Marvin pointed out, his tone turning cold and clinical. "Although Hollywood is a terrible, predatory ecosystem, there are absolute bottom lines that you should never cross. Because everything in the past leaves a trace, Jessica. In this industry, secrets are a currency. Some things you do now in the dark may simply become a timed explosive, waiting to detonate your future the second you become famous."
The line fell into a heavy, contemplative silence.
"I understand, Marvin," Jessica said, her voice suddenly becoming conflicted, heavy with the terrifying pressures of her reality. "But... if one day I am backed into a corner? If I feel I have to 'exchange' for a role I really, desperately want... will you look down on me?"
Marvin paused for a fraction of a second, his intellect analyzing the exact psychological weight of her question from her perspective.
"I would not look down on you, Jessica," Marvin said softly, his voice carrying the detached empathy. "After all, it is your choice, and it is your life. I would respect your autonomy. But... I am afraid our relationship could only be limited to that of ordinary friends from that moment forward."
Jessica's breath hitched over the speaker.
"Marvin, if that day ever comes, I will definitely ask for your opinion first," Jessica's voice suddenly became fiercely firm. "If you say 'no,' I will also say 'no.'"
Sitting in her own bedroom miles away, Jessica gripped the phone tightly, a flush rising to her cheeks. She thought to herself with absolute, terrifying clarity: 'Because I don't want to just be ordinary friends with you!'
Marvin smiled slightly, a beautiful, devastating expression that she couldn't see but could undoubtedly feel radiating through the phone line.
"Relax," Marvin commanded gently, his aura wrapping around her through the connection.
"As long as I am around, absolutely no one can force you to do anything you don't want to do."
Marvin was supremely confident in himself.
Even though he didn't technically possess that level of absolute, studio-crushing power in the industry today, he was mathematically certain he would have it in ten years. No. Five years.
Hearing the girl's joyful, profoundly relieved thanks on the other end of the phone, Marvin's smile brightened into something dark and possessive.
'As an Incubus,' Marvin thought to himself, 'how could I possibly allow such beautiful, ambitious girls to be destroyed and consumed by the filthy machinery of this industry?'
'Of course, I would much rather claim them for myself.'
After some lighter, charming chitchat about her family and her upcoming auditions, the clock struck 9:30 PM. They wished each other a warm goodnight, and the call ended.
Marvin picked up his pen, wrote the final, world-altering sentence of the manuscript, and closed the heavy leather notebook. The European recording empire was secured. The literary empire was seeded. He returned to his vast, incredibly comfortable bed, and slept the sound, dreamless sleep of a conqueror.
After all the massive, multi-million-dollar deals were finalized and the ink had dried on the Cheiron Studios acquisition, life in Los Angeles seemed to temporarily return to its original, mundane track.
By day, Marvin played the role of the ultimate prodigy. He went to the elite private middle school, seamlessly blending into the wealthy student body. He came home, spent hours in his room writing screenplays and drawing immaculate storyboards, and reviewed the dense corporate ledgers Amy prepared for him.
He also meticulously maintained his high-level social network. He called Princess Diana daily, ensuring the English Rose remained firmly anchored to his psychological support system as she navigated the vicious British press.
And he managed Jessica, who had become entirely addicted to his counsel. The young actress couldn't let a single day pass without calling him at least twice, feeding his Incubus core with her ambition and adoration.
On the weekends, he played the part of the normal teenager, going out to the Santa Monica Pier or the upscale shopping districts with his school friends. But his presence was a gravitational anomaly. No matter where the group went, the cold war between the two young queens raged on.
If Lindsay RSVP'd to a weekend movie outing, Dorothy would miraculously, fiercely join in, glaring daggers at the red-haired girl. If Dorothy managed to corner Marvin by the arcade machines, Lindsay would suddenly appear, linking her arm through his with territorial defiance. Marvin managed them effortlessly, deploying his charm to keep the teenage hormones constantly simmering, making both girls blush furiously and bashfully vie for his attention, deepening their infatuation with every passing Saturday.
But while he entertained the girls, he was actively molding the boy.
Much of his free time at school was spent with Mark. While the other boys talked about sports or video games, Marvin and Mark sat on the shaded courtyard benches, intensely discussing the architecture of internet websites, database server loads, and digital communication networks.
Marvin instilled terrifyingly massive, futuristic ideas into the curly-haired boy's mind, feeding him the concepts of social media algorithms years before the technology could even support them. To Mark, Marvin wasn't just the kid the pretty girls fought over; he had become a genuine hero and an intellectual deity.
While Marvin was managing his schoolyard, Amy Adams was commanding the Zenith Trust's temporary recruitment office in Century City.
The twenty-two-year-old Midwesterner sat behind a massive desk, nursing her third cup of coffee, staring at the stack of resumes in front of her. She was currently running a highly specific, aggressive hiring campaign.
Per Marvin's explicit, non-negotiable instructions, Amy had published a series of discreet but lucrative job advertisements in local Los Angeles financial papers. She was interviewing American-Chinese, American-Japanese, and American-Korean candidates on a daily basis.
The requirements Marvin had handed her were bafflingly specific: Must be perfectly bilingual.
Must possess an understanding of East Asian markets, commercial real estate, entertainment and distressed corporate law. Must be willing to relocate to Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Taiwan on a Zenith Trust expense account.
"Thank you for coming in, Mr. Park," Amy said with a polite, highly practiced smile, shaking the hand of a sharp, thirty-year-old Wharton graduate. "We will be in touch by the end of the week."
As the man left the office, Amy slumped back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. She didn't know why her little man was suddenly hyper-fixated on recruiting an army of Asian-American people. But having watched him casually buy a Swedish record label for twenty million dollars, her Midwestern pragmatism told her not to question the genius.
She didn't know that Marvin, utilizing his knowledge of the future, was quietly positioning his chess pieces for the catastrophic Asian Financial Crisis of 1997.
When the Thai baht collapsed and the eastern markets burned, Marvin intended to have boots on the ground, ready to scoop up entire corporate sectors, real estate blocks, and most importantly Share Market for pennies on the dollar, planting a permanent, unbreakable foot in the Asian economy.
By late February, the true financial architecture of Marvin's came into staggering focus.
Sitting in the home office, Marvin pulled up the secure Zenith Trust brokerage terminal. He tapped his pen against the desk, a slow, deeply satisfied smile spreading across his face as he reviewed the execution reports from Andrew Cohen.
The three-month long bullish play on Yahoo! had been a masterclass in aggressive options trading.
Back in late 1996, Marvin had allocated $120,000 to three-month call options, specifically aimed at capturing the short-term, explosive acceleration of the burgeoning tech stock.
It was a highly leveraged, high-risk play.
But the transmigrator knew the timeline. By the time the expiry date hit in late January 1997, the Yahoo stock had surged perfectly into the $24 to $26 range.
With approximately $5 of intrinsic value on calls that had originally cost roughly $2 to $3 in premium, Marvin had locked in a massive 2.2x return on the options.
The math was beautiful: $120,000 multiplied by 2.2 resulted in roughly $264,000 in pure profit. The total payout for that single, short-term gamble was $384,000.
But Marvin did not let the capital rest. The moment the funds cleared the tax escrows, he ordered Andrew to violently reinvest the entire sum right back into another set of three-month long calls.
Now, by the end of February, the Yahoo share price had continued its aggressive, unstoppable climb, hitting a high of $28.
Marvin looked at his total equity summary. His original, foundational $599,950 equity position in the tech company was now worth a staggering $884,000. It was a gain of roughly $284,000—a massive 47% increase in just four short months.
And as Marvin looked at the charts, his blue eyes gleaming with absolute, predatory anticipation, he knew this was merely the prologue. That staggering return was calculated before the real, historical 1997 dot-com explosion even kicked into its highest gear.
And that's before the real 1997 explosion kicks in. The six-month calls he's still holding 'things are about to get very interesting.'
Marvin thought to himself, closing the computer with a satisfying click.
---
As the warm, golden days of May bled into June.
The $384,000 that had been recycled out of the January three-month payout — the capital Marvin had redeployed in late February with the cold efficiency of a man who already knew the scoreboard — had just finished its own run.
Those calls had been structured differently.
Tighter. Faster. Struck near $30 when the stock was hovering around $28, purchased at a premium of three to four dollars with a late May expiry. Where the six-month play was architecture, this had been opportunism — a shorter fuse wired into the same explosive.
By the time May closed out, Yahoo! had pushed decisively into the upper thirties. The intrinsic value sitting inside those contracts had swelled to seven, eight dollars above the strike. A 2.3x return on $384,000.
Total payout: $883,200. Nearly half a million dollars in profit extracted from a position that hadn't even existed three months prior.
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