Likeness
Level 5
Judith Chung slid a sealed water bottle across the table toward him, and Frank let it sit.
“We’re not talking about replacement,” she said. “That’s not what this is. What we’re proposing is closer to restoration. Recovery of something that existed and can’t be recreated otherwise.”
The conference room was high up in the Meridian building, all glass on one side, Burbank spread flat and beige below. A screen at the far end. A presenter remote on the table that nobody had touched yet.
“My agent said likeness agreement,” Frank said.
“That’s the instrument, yes. Your performance from *Harbormaster* — the original footage, the screen tests in the archive. We’d train the model on your movement from that period. You’d retain final approval over any project where the likeness appears.”
“Seedance 2.0,” Frank said.
Judith’s expression shifted, careful. “You’ve done some reading.”
“I’ve been doing more reading lately.”
She nodded. She was forty-three, maybe forty-five. When she’d apologized for the room being cold, it was one sentence, no elaboration. *Harbormaster* came out in 1996, which meant she’d been thirteen.
“Do you want to see the demo?” she asked.
He said he did.
The lights dimmed. The screen filled with a rain-slicked pier, cargo lights at the edges, a night-colored harbor behind it. A figure appeared: a man in a wool coat Frank didn’t recognize, moving along the dock with the careful gait of someone who knew that surface. The shoulders were right. The slight pull in the left knee was right, a torn MCL from a pickup game in 1989 that had never fully resolved. The jaw. The way the light caught the line of it at that angle.
The figure stopped near a piling, reached into a coat pocket, produced a cigarette and a lighter. He held the lighter in his left hand.
Frank watched him light it. The gesture was smooth, unhurried, completely wrong.
He’d smoked from 1992 through 1998, Marlboro Reds until 1995, then Lights. He had quit the morning Emma was born. In those six years he had never once held a lighter in his left hand.
The lights came up. Judith was watching him.
“There’s a lot to like,” he said.
“The movement library is quite complete. The archive footage gave us more than we expected.”
He asked about the training methodology, the exit clause, the approval window. She answered each question in order. The exit clause allowed withdrawal from any project within forty-five days of final script approval. The approval window was thirty days from delivery of each generated clip.
When she finished, he stood.
“The man on the pier,” he said. “He lit the cigarette left-handed.”
She waited.
“I’m right-handed. Was, back then. Every take.”
Judith picked up her pen. “I’ll flag that with the technical team.”
“Sure,” Frank said. He reached across and shook her hand. “Thanks for the water.”
He found the Camry on level two. He sat without starting the engine, then took out his phone and called Emma.
She picked up on the third ring. “Dad. I’m at work.”
“I know. Sorry.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” He looked toward the far end of the structure, where the ramp curved down and the afternoon came in white and flat. “Everything’s fine. I’ll call you tonight.”
“Okay.” There was a voice in the background, someone asking her something. “Talk to you then.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Talk to you then.”