Chapter 52: Sending Out the Screener
This little bitch is definitely eyeing William.
Katya let out a cold snort in her heart, an inexplicable hostility spreading like wild grass.
Even she found it absurd.
A mafia princess raised in the Siberian frost, feeling territorial over the flock of women orbiting a young Hollywood director?
Ridiculous.
She forcibly suppressed the strange emotion clawing at her chest, tearing her gaze away from Galina and fixing it instead on William's refined yet unfathomable face.
"Ahem."
She cleared her throat to cover the lapse.
"Boss, back to business. Our return is approaching eighty percent. Are we locking in profits… or pushing further?"
"Don't pull out, Katya."
William's eyes were fixed on the red line at the bottom of the report—a near-vertical climb.
There was heat in his gaze.
"The Nikkei hasn't reached its most insane phase yet.
If we exit now, we'll buy a few mansions.
If we stay… I can buy Hollywood's future."
He said it casually, as if discussing breakfast plans.
But the scale of that ambition—calm, unblinking—made Katya's heartbeat skip.
It wasn't the cliché aura of dominance that unsettled her.
It was the instinctive fear one feels standing beside a high-stakes gambler who refuses to step away from the table.
As Umbrella's CFO—formally educated, trained in economics—Katya knew from a professional standpoint that the Nikkei was severely overbought. The bubble's surface was already showing stress fractures. Exiting now would be textbook profit-taking.
If William could hear her thoughts, he might commend her training.
She wasn't wrong.
The Nikkei was indeed nearing the end of its explosive arc.
But Katya lacked one thing.
The vantage point of a time traveler.
It was early August, 1989.
The true crescendo had not yet arrived.
---
A few days later, in Umbrella's post-production office—
The final adjustments to Before I Go to Sleep's rough cut were complete.
William stood before a stack of carefully labeled VHS tapes.
Each copy had been duplicated on high-grade stock, the kind used for professional screeners rather than mass retail distribution.
"This is the one for Sundance," he said calmly.
The Sundance Film Festival submission deadline was approaching. If this film was going to serve as his battering ram, it needed the right battlefield.
Sundance wasn't just a festival.
It was an ideological gatekeeper.
An incubator for prestige.
A place where independent cinema could transform into industry leverage.
Katya leaned against the doorway, watching him seal the padded envelope with deliberate precision.
"You're unusually serious," she observed.
"This isn't a Valley tape," William replied without looking up. "This is reputation."
He printed the submission forms, signed them, double-checked the technical specs—runtime, format, sound mix.
No errors.
No sloppiness.
This wasn't adult-market speed production.
This was a declaration.
Galina stood silently nearby, ever alert, though there was no immediate threat.
William placed the screener into its packaging and pressed the adhesive strip down firmly.
For a moment, he held it in his hands.
A modest VHS tape.
Plastic casing.
Magnetic ribbon.
Yet it carried the weight of his transition—from underground hustler to legitimate filmmaker.
From opportunist to contender.
"Send it out," he said.
---
Later that afternoon, the package was handed over at a private courier counter in Los Angeles.
The clerk stamped the receipt.
Estimated delivery: Utah, within days.
As they stepped back onto the sunlit street, William squinted slightly at the California glare.
The Nikkei was still climbing.
His investment account was still swelling.
The film was now in motion.
Every piece was moving forward.
But unlike the financial markets, where he possessed divine foresight, the festival circuit was chaos.
Judges.
Politics.
Taste.
Bias.
Luck.
That arena had no guaranteed outcome.
Katya watched him in silence.
"You're calm," she finally said.
"I'm not calm," William answered quietly.
"I'm prepared."
Behind them, a courier truck pulled away from the curb.
Inside it, among dozens of anonymous parcels, lay a small black VHS cassette.
Unremarkable to anyone else.
Potentially explosive to the future.
History records it clearly: the most frenzied financial bubble in modern history would continue its manic crescendo for another four months, not collapsing in catastrophic fashion until December.
"This is too aggressive, William."
Katya pressed her lips together, ultimately crossing the invisible line between subordinate and advisor.
"Your net return is approaching eighty percent. That's monstrous—even by financial history standards.
Take the profit. No one ever walks away with the last coin."
William didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he leaned forward slightly, his deep-set eyes studying her with unsettling focus. He examined her sharply carved, marble-like Russian features at close range. The silence carried weight.
"Katya. Trust my instinct."
His voice was low—controlled, authoritative.
"Keep the leverage at maximum. Do exactly as I say."
That near-obsessive certainty left her feeling momentarily powerless. She broke eye contact first, rolling her eyes with irritation before returning to her usual cool detachment.
"Fine. As you wish, boss."
She gathered the financial report, heels clicking against the floor as she walked toward the door.
"Not my money anyway. If you go bankrupt, don't expect me to lend you cab fare back to Santa Monica."
Her sarcasm carried that distinctly Russian strain of dry fatalism.
William merely smiled faintly.
Beside him, Galina said nothing.
But her sharp, predatory eyes followed Katya's retreating figure.
The instincts of a trained operative rarely misfired.
She had sensed it—the flicker of something personal beneath Katya's professional tone.
Interesting.
When she looked back at William, something subtle in her gaze had shifted.
---
The following weeks accelerated as if someone had pressed fast-forward.
William did not slow down.
He lived inside the editing suite.
This was 1989—no nonlinear software, no digital correction, no CGI. Every cut required physical labor. Every frame weighed something.
He personally transferred the final rough cut of Before I Go to Sleep onto high-quality VHS stock.
Then he sat at a typewriter and drafted the submission letter himself—precise, measured, restrained.
The independent circuit had not yet become the global machine it would one day be.
At the time, many still referred to it simply as the "U.S. Film Festival," organized by the Sundance Institute.
It had not fully rebranded under the now-iconic identity of the Sundance Film Festival, but its rebellious spirit was already forming—anti-mainstream, artist-driven, sharp-edged.
William sealed the package carefully.
The first film he had made since awakening to his second life was officially on its way.
A psychological thriller lives or dies by sound.
William needed something invasive—audio that slid beneath the skin.
A faint metallic tremor. A distant mechanical hum. The sonic equivalent of unease.
In 1989, without digital synthesis tools, this meant recording practical sources: scraping steel in abandoned factories, capturing hollow echoes in empty corridors, layering analog distortion manually.
Post-production became a grueling marathon.
Dubbing. Color timing. Reel balancing.
All of it physical. All of it exhausting.
Fortunately, it was only early August.
Five full months remained before the January festival opening.
Plenty of time to polish the stone until it cut like glass.
---
Late that night.
Nicole Kidman paused at her apartment door.
Something was wrong.
At the edge of the welcome mat lay a thick manila envelope, resting under the glow of a motion sensor light.
She bent down and picked it up.
Inside were glossy photographs.
William, dressed impeccably, with Galina on his arm at a high-profile charity gala. Flashbulbs had frozen them in perfect symmetry—her posture poised, his expression confident.
Nicole's brow tightened instinctively.
Her gaze lingered briefly on Galina's slender hand hooked through William's arm.
But the flicker of emotion disappeared almost instantly.
Her mind shifted gears.
Who sent this?
Blackmail?
Provocation?
A political warning?
She shook her head lightly.
Amateur move.
She unlocked the door and stepped inside. The apartment was dark, illuminated only by stray city neon slipping through the blinds.
She removed her coat and walked directly to the telephone.
Sitting in the shadows, she contemplated for a long moment, fingertips resting against the receiver.
Then she dialed William's number.