Chapter 181
Chapter 181
“Angel, what are you still doing up here? Come with me, right now!”
Liana, fuming, stormed onto the stage and reached for her daughter’s arm.
“I’m not going,” Angel said, pulling her hand away.
Angel Blair kept Sylvia Blair’s message firmly in mind–Wait five minutes, and the stage will be yours again.
“Angel, you should just go with your mom,” Joanna chimed in, stepping forward.
Her eyes held a hint of gloating, but her tone was a mask of sincere concern. “Look, the sound system is out. You can’t sing. I know you love it, so I’ll take you out for karaoke sometime, okay?”
‘A big stage like this isn’t for you,‘ she was really saying. ‘A karaoke booth is where you belong.
A flash of annoyance crossed Angel’s face. “Joanna, mind your own business! So what if the system is down now? What if it comes back on?”
“Angel, Joanna is just trying to help you avoid standing here looking foolish!” Liana sighed, her frustration giving way to a flicker of pity. “You heard the director. The equipment is broken. It’s not getting fixed.”
Liana just wanted to get her daughter out of the spotlight before she embarrassed herself further.
Joanna smirked to herself.
The sound system was off because Liana had personally called the station president. Without Liana’s permission, it wasn’t coming back on.
At that exact moment, in a control room backstage, Sylvia’s fingers flew across her keyboard. With a final, decisive tap of the enter key, she leaned back.
The powered–down equipment in the room instantly lit up. A moment later, a low hum echoed from the stage as the speakers powered on.
Liana and Joanna froze. They had made sure everything was shut down. How was this possible?
Angel, clutching the microphone, felt a surge of joy. It had been exactly five minutes, just as Sylvia had promised.
Joanna’s mind raced. “So what if the sound is back on, Angel? The audience is gone. There’s no point in singing to an emp. use.”
Joanna was about to say something more cutting when the massive screen behind the stage flickered to life, displaying a high–definition image of Angel standing center stage.
Joanna scoffed, but her expression quickly soured.
The image on the screen shifted, no longer just a view of the stage, but a mosaic of live feeds from dozens of giant billboards across Silverton. On every single one was Angel’s face.
It was more than just billboards. In a terrifying display of power, her image had been pushed to countless broadcasts, televisions, and online platforms taking over the entire city.
On the massive LCD screen of the Silverton Trade Center, there was Angel.
Then on Skyline Tower, over City Park… nearly every skyscraper’s digital facade lit up with her image.
It was as if a spell had been cast over the city. Everyone stopped, their gazes drawn upward. Crowds gathered on sidewalks, staring at the glow screens, holding their breath.
On stage, Angel’s eyes shone with excitement. As the intro music began to play, she took a deep breath and sang from her be
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Her voice was ethereal and clear, yet filled with a raw emotion that seemed to pierce right through to the soul of everyone listening
“What is this song? It’s incredible!” a woman in the crowd below a screen gasped.
“Damn, that voice is heavenly!”
The music swelled, washing over the city, blanketing Silverton in a sea of sound.
At the edge of the stage, Joanna stared in disbelief, her face ashen.
Liana was utterly speechless.
Meanwhile, atop the Blair Group tower, the crown jewel of Silverton’s business empire, the building’s massive screen was also playing Angel’s performance.
Word reached Byron in the middle of a board meeting.
“Do we know who did this? Who patched Angel’s live feed to our building’s screen?” Byron’s voice was low, laced with a tension he couldn’t quite hide.
His assistant replied hurriedly, “It’s a remote Al script, sir. Extremely high–level. We’ve tried everything, but we can’t force a shutdown.”
A glint of understanding flashed in Byron’s sharp eyes. He pursed his lips, his mind racing. He could only think of one person–the legendary Al expert, Shadow.
Only she could pull this off so easily.
“Sir,” the assistant added, his voice full of awe, “it’s not just our building. It’s nearly every major screen in all of Silverton.”
“I know,” Byron said, standing abruptly. He addressed the executives at the table. “This meeting is over.”
He strode out of the conference room. He had a strong hunch that the Al mastermind was at the TV station right now, and he was determined to work
with her.
Byron drove straight to the station and, after a moment’s thought, headed for the backstage area, the nerve center of the broadcast.
Inside one of the control rooms, Sylvia had just closed her laptop. Angel’s song was over, the point had been made, and the broadcast was no longer
necessary.
She was about to leave when she heard urgent footsteps approaching in the hall.
“Ms. Shadow! I know you’re in there!”
Byron’s deep voice echoed from the other side of the door,
Sylvia’s heart leaped into her throat. She instinctively threw the deadbolt. She couldn’t believe he’d figured it out so quickly.
The doorknob rattled. Finding it locked, Byron let out a low chuckle. “Ms. Shadow, I’m serious about working with you. And a little door isn’t going to stop me.”
His tone was a confident, playful mix that made Sylvia’s pulse race.
She couldn’t let him see her. She couldn’t let him know she was the legendary expert he was looking for.
After a few tense moments, Sylvia too
a deep breath and unlocked the door, pulling it open
The woman who stood before Byron was a bizarre sight.
Her face was a mess of garish, theatrical makeup, her hair was teased into a chaotic bird’s nest, and she wore a clashing ensem clothes.
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She looked like a circus performer, and nothing at all like Sylvia.
