Date: November 1985
Julian had begun to call it the Quiet Harvest.
Each night after the apprentices went home, after Mira stopped fussing over print proofs and Marcus had closed his ledgers, Julian would open his notebook and the window to his secret ability — the Mind Internet.
He searched not for headlines of the day, but for names buried in the future.
Marvel Comics: a struggling publisher in 1985, their films mocked, their finances crumbling. Yet in the frozen section of his mind he knew what they would become — the backbone of a multi-billion-dollar cinematic universe.
New Line Cinema: small, near bankruptcy, saved by one horror hit.
Orion Pictures: prestige, Oscars, but a weak foundation that would collapse in the 90s.
Catalogs of music rights: undervalued songs, forgotten labels, all destined to become streaming gold decades later.
Julian wrote carefully:
Acquire undervalued IPs. Secure distribution. Build a catalog before the world knows its worth.
But catalogues, superheroes, and song rights could not be devoured in one bite. He needed patience. He needed fronts, excuses, opportunities to meet the right people.
And Hollywood was the perfect hunting ground.
---
Lotus Films was already looking for its next project after Shadow Alley. Carl Hughes, now emboldened by their modest success, had brought two scripts: a psychological horror and a youth romance. Both had potential, but Julian knew what mattered more than genre — distribution.
He leaned over the table as Marcus shuffled the contracts. "A film without distribution is a candle in the wind. We cannot rely on rented halls forever."
"So what's the plan?" Marcus asked.
"Relationships," Julian replied. "Producers, distributors, agents. We need to be in their circles, to make them believe we belong."
Sophia smirked faintly. "So you're going to Hollywood parties."
Julian didn't deny it. "Yes. And I will find what we need there."
---
The invitation came a week later — a dinner hosted by a mid-tier talent agency in Beverly Hills. They had heard whispers of Shadow Alley's improbable profit and wanted to see the "boy producer" with their own eyes.
Julian arrived not in ostentation but in quiet confidence: tailored suit, Mira at his side in a simple black dress, Sophia trailing like a shadow. The room glittered with the low hum of ambition: actors too hungry, agents too slick, producers too jaded.
He hated it instantly. But he smiled anyway.
Introductions blurred past him until his attention caught on a young woman across the room. Short dark hair, sharp eyes, a mix of vulnerability and fire. She was laughing at something an agent had said, but there was a stiffness to it, as though she had already grown weary of being underestimated.
Demi Moore.
Julian remembered her name from the frozen archive in his mind. A young actress at the edge of the Brat Pack circle. She would find fame, yes, but also pain — failed marriages, uneven roles, struggles with Hollywood's cruelty.
Not this time, Julian thought.
He maneuvered through the crowd until they stood near the same table. She noticed him before he spoke.
"You're the one they keep whispering about," Demi said, her voice edged with amusement. "The sixteen-year-old producer who made a movie in an alley."
Julian chuckled softly. "Whispers exaggerate. I'm just someone who prefers alleys to palaces. Less noise, more truth."
Her brows arched. "That's not the usual Hollywood line."
"I'm not the usual Hollywood producer."
Something flickered in her eyes — curiosity. She extended a hand. "Demi Moore."
He took it gently, but firmly. "Julian Vanderford."
---
They spoke longer than the noise of the party allowed. She was twenty-three, juggling small roles, frustrated with being cast for her looks more than her skill. He listened, asking sharp questions about scripts she wanted, directors she admired, what kind of career she dreamed of.
Most men she met tried to charm her with promises or flatter her beauty. Julian disarmed her by treating her like a strategist.
"You don't want fame," Julian observed. "You want control. Roles that matter. Stories that last."
Demi blinked, surprised. "How do you know that?"
Julian smiled faintly. "Because that's what I want too."
Her laugh was low, genuine this time. "You're strange, Julian. Strange in a good way."
---
When Mira drifted away to speak with a journalist, Demi leaned closer. "Tell me the truth. Do you really think you can make a place here? You're young, foreign, and Hollywood eats people like you."
Julian's eyes sharpened. "Hollywood doesn't eat those who come with their own knife and fork."
She stared at him for a beat, then laughed again — this time with real warmth.
An agent interrupted to drag her toward another group, but before she left, Demi touched Julian's arm lightly. "Let's talk again. Without all this noise."
"Tomorrow," Julian said simply. "My studio in New York. Or if you prefer, the set of our next film."
Her eyes glimmered with something between challenge and intrigue. "Tomorrow then."
---
When she walked away, Sophia slid up beside Julian, arms crossed. "You're moving fast."
Julian's gaze followed Demi across the room. "Not fast. Timely. She has talent. And she needs protection. Both she and the studio will grow stronger together."
Sophia gave him a long look. "And you?"
Julian closed his notebook in his mind. "I will harvest quietly. One seed at a time."
The next afternoon, the loft bustled with noise. Apprentices hammered props, Mira barked instructions over a new textile layout, and Marcus argued with a supplier over the phone. It was the usual chaos of Vanderford Workshop—creativity and commerce tangled together.
Julian stood by the window, waiting.
When Demi Moore arrived, the room stilled for a moment. She was dressed casually—jeans, a leather jacket, no makeup—but her presence drew eyes instantly. Some apprentices whispered, unsure if they should recognize her. Mira gave Julian a questioning glance, but said nothing.
"Welcome to my empire," Julian said softly when Demi reached him.
She looked around with raised brows. "Empire? Looks more like a warehouse."
Julian grinned faintly. "All empires start in warehouses."
He led her through the Workshop, showing her the sets under construction for the next film. Demi ran her hands over a half-finished wooden door. "So this is real. You're not just playing producer at parties."
"Parties are noise," Julian said. "Here is where things breathe."
---
In the recording room downstairs, Urban Echo was mid-session, their beats rattling the walls. Demi listened, her head tilting to the rhythm. "That's… different. Not like anything on the radio."
Julian nodded. "It's the future. Hip hop will shape culture. I intend to shape it with them."
She studied him for a moment. "You talk like you already know the future."
"Perhaps I've read too much history," he replied smoothly.
They spent the afternoon moving between spaces—the Journal's print shop, where apprentices set type; the editing room, where Carl Hughes was cutting Shadow Alley's rough reel; the cramped office where Marcus tried and failed to hide ledgers from view. Demi absorbed it all with quiet amazement.
"This is bigger than I thought," she admitted. "You're not just making movies. You're building… everything."
Julian stopped by the window again, looking at the skyline. "Culture is not a single branch. It is a tree. Film, music, print—each nourishes the other. Alone, they are weak. Together, they endure."
When he turned, Demi was watching him—not with skepticism, but with something softer. Admiration, curiosity, maybe even hunger.
---
As evening approached, Mira gathered her papers and Marcus left muttering about budgets. The Workshop quieted. Demi lingered.
"Tell me, Julian," she said, stepping closer, "where do you see me in this… tree of yours?"
Julian's gaze held hers. "Where you wish to stand. I won't decide for you. But I will not let others cut your branches before they grow."
Her lips parted slightly, as though she hadn't expected the answer. She laughed under her breath. "You really are strange."
"Strange enough to succeed," he said.
The silence between them thickened. Demi reached up, brushing a speck of dust from his shoulder. The gesture lingered longer than it needed to.
"Do you always work surrounded by this much chaos?" she asked.
"Chaos is fertile ground," Julian replied. "It produces surprising things."
Her hand didn't fall. Instead, it slid lightly down his arm. His own hand lifted, steady, tracing her wrist. Neither moved quickly; it wasn't the frantic rush of parties or the shallow heat of Hollywood nights. It was deliberate, like everything Julian did.
She leaned closer, her breath warm. "Maybe I like fertile ground."
Their lips met—not in haste, but in quiet inevitability. A kiss among ink-stained tables and half-built props, in the middle of his empire-in-progress.
When they finally drew apart, Demi's eyes glimmered. "You're younger than me. You know that, right?"
Julian smiled faintly. "So was Alexander when he began."
She laughed softly, shaking her head. "God, you're impossible."
"And yet," Julian said, his voice low, "you're still here."
---
The days that followed wove her into his life naturally. Demi began spending hours at the Workshop, watching rehearsals, reading scripts, listening to music sessions. Sometimes she gave suggestions; sometimes she simply leaned against Julian's desk while he worked, her presence a quiet weight of warmth.
The apprentices grew used to her, whispering less. Mira teased Julian once—"You've acquired another division, it seems"—but her eyes softened when she saw how Demi steadied him in moments of stress.
Julian, for his part, did not treat her as decoration. He asked her opinion on scripts, on marketing angles, even on how to reach women audiences better. She offered sharp insights, surprising herself as much as him.
One evening, as they walked out together, Demi asked, "Why me? You could have any actress here."
Julian's answer was simple. "Because you want more than a spotlight. You want control. And I respect that."
For a moment, she stopped, staring at him as though he had touched something deep inside her. Then she smiled slowly. "Then maybe I've found the right man."
The weeks that followed felt like a careful choreography—equal parts business, rehearsal, and something that smelled suspiciously like a private life. Julian kept working the Quiet Harvest on two fronts. One hand scoured the frozen shelves of his Mind Internet for undervalued IPs and distribution weak points; the other hand built a real, breathing studio in the present: people, schedules, reels, contracts.
Demi's first role offer came quietly, like all of Julian's best moves. Lotus Films had the rights to a small script Carl Hughes rewrote after Shadow Alley's modest success—an intimate drama about a woman confronting choices between career and love. Julian read the new draft and thought of Demi in the Workshop days: how she watched rehearsals, how she argued about character choices, how she understood the small economies of a scene. He didn't want to give her a vanity part; he wanted a role that would stretch her and, crucially, protect her reputation.
At a late-night meeting, he called Demi in. The editing room smelled of glue and coffee. Carl had a rough cut waiting; Marcus had the budget spreadsheet open, red and black like an anxious heartbeat. Julian slid the script toward her.
"Honest parts," he said. "Not a vehicle that sells a look. A role that people will remember years from now. You can say no."
She read two pages, then looked up without finishing. "It's quiet. It's honest. It's the kind of part I'd regret not doing." Her voice was steady.
"Good," Julian said. "We'll make it right. I'll make sure the director respects you. And I'll personally handle any contract clauses—no predatory terms, no sudden add-ons. If someone tries to sell you a bad deal because you're new to the room, you tell me and I'll cut their throat on paper." He smiled without malice; it was protection, not threat. "But I won't decide for you. You keep the agency."
That balance—intimacy without control—was deliberate. Demi accepted the role, and the first rehearsal was charged in a different way than Shadow Alley's raw energy. The scenes required patience: long takes, small gestures, conversations that revealed more by what was not said. Julian watched from the back of the room, his presence steady but unobtrusive. Between takes, he offered notes that were never about how she looked and always about what she did: "Let the silence answer the question. Don't force it."
Word got around slowly. A casting director called; an agent made an awkward approach and was politely redirected to Sophia for a humane but firm negotiation. Julian refused the tabloids' easy offers and insisted Vine Street Productions and Lotus Films issue a single approved press line: a focus on craft, nothing salacious. Demi's name circulated in the right circles—not as a gossip headline, but as a performer people might want to work with.
Their private life threaded through the workdays—not separate from it. After a grueling day of rehearsal, she might stay late to talk through a scene while Julian reorganized the next day's shooting schedule. After a recording session, they'd lean close in the cramped control room to listen to a scratch track, heads nearly touching as they argued quietly about a beat. Once, in the middle of a design meeting about promotional materials, Demi laughed at an offhand joke and slipped her hand across Julian's back. He didn't pull away. The intimacy was public only insofar as people saw them together; there were no tabloid spectacles, only the ordinary closeness of two people who shared long hours and hard choices.
This was part of Julian's method: make relationships ordinary so they are unremarkable to predators. He taught Demi how to read a contract clause for hidden obligations. He taught her to negotiate billing order, residual percentages, and approval rights for trailers. He used the group's modest legal muscle—Sophia's careful drafting—to place safe, creator-friendly terms into her agreement. He steered her away from a tempting glossy-comedy offer which, he knew from his frozen research, would typecast her. She took his counsel not as a cage but as a shield.
Meanwhile, the Quiet Harvest continued. Julian's Mind Internet lists grew: small comic imprints with characters ignored by their owners; obscure music catalogs whose royalty lines were poorly accounted; regional distributors who relied on last-century deals and could be bought or partnered with cheaply. He learned the names of middle managers at distribution firms, the partners at little banks who lent against film receivables, and the producers who had left franchisable IP to wither. He wrote down acquisition thresholds, acceptable debt levels, and the minimal concessions he would offer creative founders—earn-outs tied to milestones, not vague promises.
One night, after a long board review where Sophia argued for conservative pacing and Marcus plotted cash cushions, Julian walked Demi to a small diner across the street. The city hummed; the Workshop's neon blinked in their rearview. Demi asked, quietly, "Are you ever afraid?"
He considered this. "Of course. Fear is a map. It shows where to step lightly." He reached for her hand in the booth, a public touch in the middle of a work night. "But fear isn't a reason to stop. It's a reason to protect what matters."
She squeezed his hand. "And what matters?"
He smiled. "Not titles. Not headlines. People who do the work and don't deserve to be eaten by the machine."
Her laugh was sudden and real. "Then keep protecting people," she said. "And keep me out of the machine." Her voice had a small, intimate challenge inside it.
He did. He kept her out of the machine by building around her: better scripts, better directors, careful PR. He also used the Workshop and the Journal to curate her image in a way that emphasized craft—feature interviews about her process, essays that positioned her as an actor rather than a body on a poster. At premieres, when photographers leaned toward easy angles, Julian arranged dinner seating and guest lists so the conversations in view were about scenes, not dresses.
Business and personal success fed each other. Lotus Films' second production—the one Demi starred in—finished on time and under budget. Early festival screenings gave it quiet praise: notes about performance, direction, and restraint rather than starry declarations. The film didn't explode at box office the way Shadow Alley had, but it achieved the other kind of currency Julian wanted: credibility. Critics began to name Demi as someone with real range. The Journal ran a cover story that examined the film's aesthetic, interweaving apprentice sketches with production stills. Raga Records provided a bittersweet theme song that radio programmers liked enough to play on late-night shows.
Julian's Quiet Harvest notes filled: a small distribution partner receptive to nuanced films flagged for contact; a midwestern cinema chain under-financed but with loyal subscribers marked as acquisition targets; a local indie label with a lax accounting department now on a watchlist for publishing negotiation.
He continued to temper ambition with patience. He refused to turn Demi into a commodity. He refused to sell Lotus Films' soul for quick expansion. And he continued to stitch his network slowly, building a distribution backbone as he went—first through barter deals with regional houses, then via revenue-share experiments that taught him how to keep more of each ticket's returns. Each small lesson was a thread in a larger loom.
When winter came, the Workshop smelled of sawdust and hot metal and ink. Demi's film had premiered at a modest festival and the reviews had started to circle. Julian sat in his study, the ledger open but not the only thing on his mind. He had a list of comics publishers to call, a small indie distributor to woo, and a contract clause to tighten for Demi's next script. He also had a woman who had become woven into the very fabric of his life—someone who was both companion and collaborator.
He closed his notebook and wrote another rule for the ledger: Protect talent as you would protect an asset; the two are inseparable.
Outside, the city continued its work. Inside, the Quiet Harvest kept gathering fruit—slow, methodical, and guarded. The empire's roots went deeper, and Julian tended them one careful decision at a time.
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