Chapter 128: Going Forward

When Scott had been contacted by the film crew comprised of some of his college acquaintances to help film a beverage commercial, he hadn’t really given it much thought.

It wasn’t as if there was any work for him anyway, and all the previous auditions he’d applied for had rejected him so it really was a no brainer.

Besides, he’d figured it couldn’t hurt to put a few bucks in his pocket while working his part-time shifts on the side at an auto-repair shop.

At the same time, the script itself had been quite interesting.

It was one of his fictional character--a rockstar jamming on a stage--raising a parodied can of soda with high sugar content to tick off his ambassadorship, only for him to go behind the stage, toss it into a bin and swap it for a can of sparkling water with considerably less amount of sugar from his freezer.

But when he arrived on set, ready to act out the scene and be on his merry way, he could never have expected that it was for the very same beverage he’d taken a lot of liking to in recent memory.

More than that,

"Wait, that’s him?" Scott leaned over and whispered to Trent and Simon, both of whom had been operating the camera and audio recorder respectively at Aiden’s home just yesterday.

"Yep." the duo replied to which Scott remarked, clearly surprised;

"He’s so young, though."

"Same reaction we had yesterday." Trent casually said as he adjusted the camera.

"Nepo baby?" Scott curiously asked as he kept watching the youth discuss with Brian, the director, both individuals staring at the man’s tab as his finger constantly gestured to it.

In response, Aiden nodded, a thoughtful gaze on his features.

"His home was pretty middle-class, so I’d reckon he isn’t." Simon was the one who replied this time, earning a slight tilt of Scott’s head, his curiosity climbing higher.

"Scott! Hey!" Brian called out to him, gesturing with a wave of his hands from across the room.

Briskly, the indie actor walked over, and the director introduced him.

"Scott, meet Aiden North. The creator of Death Wish." he gestured to the coal-haired youth with olive-green irises.

"Aiden, meet Scott Holland. He’s the actor I told you about." Brian extended a palm over to the beige-haired young man who looked to be in his mid-twenties.

With his steel-blue irises reflecting his professionalism, Scott politely extended a handshake.

There was no hell way in hell he was looking down on the one person that brought all this together regardless of his age.

"It’s a pleasure to meet you," he respectfully greeted.

"The pleasure’s all mine." Aiden firmly shook on it and then said, his fingers gesturing briefly to Brian’s tab;

"Brian here was showing me some of your previous works and some scenes you were in,"

"And?" Scott asked, his lips pressed into a thin smile and his tone hopeful.

"I think you’ll do a great job." Aiden simply replied to which the man pumped his fists up in victory;

"Yes!"

He’d been so used to being rejected in recent memory, it was a real confidence and moral boost for him to actually hear that.

No sooner had that interaction happened, Brian promptly called out to everyone on set to get into position in the room they’d rented and rearranged to make it look like the backstage of a small concert.

As that event soon began playing out, SlurpPAK on the other hand were in a meeting of their own with their most trusted employees.

The focus of said meeting, had been none other than if they should go for Aiden’s offer, one that after a lot of back and forth, they finally came to a decision.

"So, we all agree that if Death Wish shows promise at being something big with the sale numbers of the newer batches, we accept the offer?" Nathan looked around the table, his gaze finding and settling on his elder brother’s a moment after.

"Yes," Nolan, alongside the rest of the three other employees whom had been with them through thick and thin replied in the affirmative.

"But we negotiate to have 20% instead of 10%?" he confirmed again.

Yet again, their responses came in the affirmative and the CEO nodded his head.

"Alright then," Nathan packed up the documents on his table, neatly squaring them up and jogging them against the table as he said;

"Let’s hope it does well, for both his and our sakes, because it’s going to be lot of investment."

Aiden’s offer to SlurpPAK had been to have them become the sole distributor of Death Wish, in return for 10% of the gross profit margins.

Obviously, that wasn’t exactly a good deal for them by any stretch of the imagination, especially since standard distributor fees went for 20% to 30% in the industry and they would literally have to start a new distribution branch solely for Death Wish from the ground up.

By that metric, it meant he would be getting about 50% to 40% of all the revenue, which wasn’t unheard of, but was so rare, only the elites of the elites could manage to pull it off given they could simply just buy the whole damn operation and recuperate their investments eventually.

And this would’ve still being under exceptional working conditions.

That said, it wasn’t as if Aiden hadn’t known this.

He’d just purposely decided to leave it at 10%, knowing fully well that if they did decide to accept his offer, they would come back with demands to increase it.

The only upside to that, was that they wouldn’t come swinging for all 30%, but would settle for a more realistic percentage... which was exactly what had happened.

Now, all that Aiden needed to do, was market the product enough that it would be a big hit and all the pieces for his plans of automation would finally start settling into place.

*

The next few days passed and it didn’t take long before the crew Aiden had hired was done filming all the ads for Death Wish.

The last ad especially, had perhaps being the most humorously unhinged of them all.

It was one of a couple elementary schoolers drinking Death Wish whilst playing wildly at a park as they jammed to heavy-metal music they had no right listening to.

As for their parents whom were seated to the side, they simply cheered to their kids as they downed Death Wish cans of their own.

During that same time, Aiden, asides having made the website for his beverage’s DTC structure, had finally began creating social media accounts specifically tailored for them.

So, when the first week of July came and it was finally time to debut the ads, he didn’t hesitate to flood each and every handle with them.

As at the moment, he had only uploaded that of Clarissa’s, one that was simply titled;

DEATH WISH – A Bad Idea in A Bottle.

Granted it had started picking up views in the high tens across each platform literally a minute after he’d uploaded them, Aiden knew it would still take a while before it actually took off.

More than that, it wasn’t as if the new batch of Death Wish had arrived, and it would still take a week before they eventually did.

The ones that they had actually used in the commercials, had all being from the early samples SlurpPAK had sent to him two weeks after he’d contacted them to begin producing the new batch.

Safe to say, Aiden wanted to generate enough buzz around the product before he began selling them out.

That aside, Aiden hadn’t been the only one whom had been busy.

His buddies too had well, Hi-Fi Radio especially spending most of their time filming their own music video.

And although Aiden originally had plans to have his product included in some way shape or form in said video, he hadn’t exactly been chanced to find a worthwhile opportunity to do so.

Casper on the other hand, had spent a lot of his time working on the draft for his new book whilst also gearing up to leave the place he’d called home for good.

As for Theo, he had been crunching codes for the past couple weeks now, working doggedly on the game engine that he was building.

Speaking of crunching codes though, Aiden casually tugged on his system as he leaned onto the counter, a cup of coffee in his hands.

Unaware of the phenomenon, his Pop’s body casually phased through the panel as he walked past, the man whistling a tune from a popular 90’s song whilst dishing himself some breakfast.

To that, Aiden quietly chuckled as he raised the cup to his lips, a bit amused by how normal the entire thing seemed to him.

-

{Programming - A}

└ Upgrade to {Advanced} using 10 LP?

-

Having accumulated 3.5LPs over the last two weeks, in addition to the 6.815LPs he’d previously had, Aiden had just about enough LPs to finally upgrade his {Programming} skill to the Advanced tier.

And that was exactly what he did as a surge of information flooded his brain, enough that he genuinely believed there wasn’t any software he couldn’t build as long as he put his mind to it.

Yet, all of that erudition and enlightenment, came with a simple sip of his coffee and a pleasant smile on his lips, a stark contrast to how he’d have previously felt without his maxed attribute.

No sooner had he downed the last of the mug’s contents, Aiden heard the doorbell ring. Casually placing the mug into the sink, he made his way over to the door.

Without having to ask, he already knew whom was there. Afterall, they had all made plans to meet up today.

One, to watch all the ads he had made for his beverage brand.

Two, because they had something important they needed to discuss regarding their small indie game development team going forward.