The room smelled of cold coffee and printed paper.
Min-Ji closed her laptop with a dry click. Conner still had the pen in his hand, even though he hadn't written anything for ten minutes. Clara kept staring at the final page of the script as if she expected it to change.
"I'll start."
Min-Ji opened her notebook to the evaluation page.
"The first one delivered the material. No surprises. The second overloaded every pause."
She ran her finger along her notes.
"Leo Vance is the closest thing to Jack I saw today. Truth without technique. That can be worked on during filming."
"And Adler?"
Clara looked up from the script.
Min-Ji didn't answer immediately.
Conner placed the pen on the table.
"That's not Jack," Min-Ji finally said.
"No."
Clara closed the script.
"But what Kein did in the first act is exactly what someone like Jack would do in that room. The same feeling. Like watching something that already existed before I wrote it."
Silence.
Min-Ji tapped the table once with her finger.
"The gestures were minimal. Almost rigid. On camera that shows."
"It can be worked on," Conner said.
Both women looked at him.
Conner leaned back in his chair and tried to find the right way to say it.
"When he said the first line, something changed in the room."
He paused.
"Not in the acting. In the space. Like opening a door that shouldn't be open."
Min-Ji waited.
"Jax has blue eyes." Conner pointed to his own eye. "Adler looked at me before speaking."
He lowered his hand.
"And for a few seconds I forgot my next line."
"You forgot?"
"I forgot." The word came out drier than he intended. "Not as an actor. I forgot as Jax. The room was real. The threat was real. It took me a few seconds to remember I was in an audition."
Clara's eyes were fixed on him.
Min-Ji didn't write anything down, for the first time all afternoon.
"Then it's Adler," she finally said.
"It's Adler."
———
1:28 PM — Aldrich Theater. Exterior corridor.
The conversation with Leo Vance had lasted exactly eleven minutes.
Kein stepped outside. The afternoon light hit his eyes directly; he stopped for a second, let his vision adjust, then began walking west.
The interface appeared on the right edge of his field of vision.
[78 Units]
'Enough margin. Tomorrow is Viktor. Tonight, the material.'
The script for Ceniza was in the apartment. Three scenes pending analysis. Viktor wasn't Claudio; he was closer to something Kein didn't want to name directly, but knew too well from the inside.
He turned onto the first street with a steady pace, unhurried.
Two blocks later, something didn't add up.
It wasn't a threat. Too slow for that, too irregular. But constant.
Kein didn't look back. He checked indirectly, almost automatically: the side mirror of a passing car, the reflection in a window when turning a corner, the dark glass of a closed shop. Through those small fragments he registered a figure.
'Interesting.'
He turned north, a completely unnecessary block away from his route. He kept walking with the same cadence. He crossed to the opposite sidewalk for no apparent reason.
The pattern remained.
Approximate distance: forty-five meters. Too far for a professional tail. Too close to be coincidence.
'I shouldn't have enemies here.'
He thought it with the same coldness he would use to check inventory.
It was a simple fact. No one from his world was in this city. The investigation into Kein Adler's life had also revealed no enemies, debts, or conflicts that justified surveillance.
He took a second unnecessary turn.
Then a third.
On the third, the follower lost him.
Kein knew it from the change in footsteps. First faster. Then a brief pause. Then lateral movement, as if searching for an angle to recover the line of sight.
'Amateur.'
He kept walking a few more meters before choosing the doorway of a gray building halfway down the block. He entered without changing pace and pressed himself against the interior wall, outside the angle of view from the street.
He waited.
Thirty seconds.
The footsteps returned. This time quicker and without rhythm. The person had lost the target and was compensating with speed.
The figure passed the doorway.
Kein stepped out and placed a hand on his shoulder.
The sound that came from the follower was not an adult scream.
It was high-pitched, brief, and involuntary.
A couple across the street turned their heads at the same time.
The figure turned around.
Leo Vance.
With his heartbeat visible in his neck and his eyes twice as wide as normal.
Kein looked at him.
'Ah.'
He observed him for another second.
'That explains the inexperience.'
———
Leo had had better ideas.
Not many, but some.
He left the theater two minutes after Kein. Enough that it wouldn't look obvious. He saw him turn the corner and quickened his pace.
At the first corner there was a tree.
Leo stood behind it.
Kein didn't look back.
Leo waited behind the tree for ten seconds without anyone watching him. A woman with a shopping cart passed beside him, saw him pressed against the trunk, and crossed the street.
Kein kept walking.
Leo followed him.
On the next block he saw a kiosk. He grabbed the first newspaper he found, opened it in front of his face, and walked. It worked for about four seconds, until he bumped into a trash can that made a loud metallic noise. The newspaper flew, and he had to crouch to pick it up while Kein crossed the street.
He lost sight of him for eight seconds.
His heart skipped.
Then he saw him again, straight back, not looking behind, forty meters ahead. Leo dropped the newspaper and hurried.
'Good. Still in the game.'
Kein turned right.
Leo turned right.
Kein turned left.
Leo turned left.
Kein turned right again.
Leo turned and stopped for a second.
He looked down the street.
He looked back.
They had taken four zigzag turns and he no longer recognized the block. Kein kept walking exactly the same as before — same rhythm, same posture — as if he were taking a completely normal walk.
Leo had the thought that maybe this was strange.
He followed anyway.
Then Kein disappeared.
He didn't turn. He didn't enter anywhere. He simply stopped being at the end of the block when Leo crossed it.
Leo stood on the sidewalk.
He looked left.
Right.
Two pigeons. A trash can. An elderly woman with a small dog looking at him suspiciously.
No Kein.
He began walking quickly toward where he thought he had gone. He stretched his neck. Looked between people. Passed in front of a gray doorway without looking at it because he was completely focused on the other side of the street —
A hand landed on his shoulder.
"¡¡KYAAAAAAAA!!"
The sound that came from Leo was not an adult scream.
It was sharp. Brief. The couple across the street turned their heads at the same time.
Leo turned around.
Kein Adler. With exactly the same face as always.
No particular expression.
Leo opened his mouth.
"I… there's a dog I lost around here, and I thought—"
Kein waited.
"—I'm also looking for a phone case that fell before the audition, in case you saw it—"
Kein kept waiting.
"—the bus stops on this street."
Silence.
Leo exhaled.
His shoulders dropped two centimeters.
"I wanted to see what you did."
He said it to the ground more than to Kein.
"See what I did? You say it as if you didn't have eyesight."
Leo went silent, not knowing how to explain it.
"Let's go to a café and I'll explain."