Chapter 14: Harmonies of Power
The conference room breathed wealth – not in gold fixtures or ostentatious displays, but in the quiet confidence of its minimalist design. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed Manhattan like album art, while a single massive table of polished walnut dominated the space like a producer's console. Jimmy Iovine sat at its head, his signature cap and glasses forming a silhouette Marcus remembered from a future Grammy afterparty that might never happen now.
"Rico," Jimmy stood, extending his hand. "Your boy better be as good as you say." His eyes, sharp behind those frames, moved past Rico to assess Marcus. In his first timeline, those same eyes had held a different look – regret for opportunities missed, for talent discovered too late.
"Better," Rico said, with the quiet certainty that had made him a legend in both timelines.
Marcus felt his mother tense beside him as Jimmy's gaze shifted to her. But Maria Johnson had raised a son alone in the Bronx – no amount of corporate power could intimidate her. "Mrs. Johnson," Jimmy said, reading the room with decades of practice. "Please, sit. We're all family here."
The words hung in the air like a perfect chord progression, meaningful in multiple octaves. Marcus caught the subtle nod Rico gave Jimmy – his mentor had clearly briefed them on how to handle his mother. In his first life, it had taken years for the industry to learn that lesson.
"Before we start," Jimmy continued, gesturing to his team arranged along one side of the table, "we're waiting on—"
The door opened like a beat drop.
She entered exactly as Marcus remembered from their first meeting – the one that wouldn't happen now for four years. Beyoncé Knowles carried herself with the same grace that had caught his eye in that other future, but here, now, she was younger, hungrier, still in the process of becoming the icon he'd known.
Time seemed to skip like a scratched record. Marcus felt both seventeen and thirty-five, experiencing this moment for the first time and the thousandth. Her eyes met his with none of the recognition he had to force himself to forget, none of the history he couldn't let himself remember.
"Sorry I'm late," she said, and her voice carried memories that hadn't happened yet. "Traffic was—" She stopped, her attention caught by the setup Marcus had already arranged on the table. His modified MPC2000XL sat like a chess piece precisely placed, its custom modifications subtle but visible to anyone who knew what to look for.
"You modified the sampling rate," she said, moving closer to examine the machine. It wasn't a question.
Marcus nodded, hyperaware of every eye in the room. "Doubled it. Changed the filter topology too." In his first timeline, he hadn't figured out these modifications until 2007. "Gives it a warmer sound, especially in the upper frequencies where—"
"Where vocals sit," she finished, and something flickered in her eyes – recognition not of him, but of what he represented. Innovation. Possibility. Change.
Jimmy leaned forward, his casual posture belying the intensity of his attention. "Play something."
Marcus reached for his machine with hands that had done this thousands of times across two lifetimes. But before he could start, his mother's voice cut through the silence.
"Play them the one from last night," Maria said softly. "The one you said was different."
In his first timeline, that track hadn't existed. He'd created it just hours ago, a fusion of everything he'd learned in twenty years distilled into four minutes of sound. It pushed boundaries his seventeen-year-old self shouldn't have known existed, incorporated harmonics that wouldn't be mainstream for a decade.
His fingers found the pads with muscle memory earned through years he hadn't lived yet. The beat emerged like sunrise – subtle at first, building in layers of complexity. He'd structured it around the exact frequencies where Beyoncé's voice would shine, crafted spaces in the mix that seemed to wait for her particular cadence.
The room disappeared into the music. Marcus watched Jimmy's head nod unconsciously to the rhythm, saw his mother's small smile of pride, caught Rico's knowing grin. But it was Beyoncé's reaction he tracked most carefully – the slight widening of her eyes as the harmony shifted into patterns that wouldn't be common until her 2016 album, the way her body moved subtly to rhythms that the industry wouldn't discover for years.
When the track faded, silence filled the room like reverb after a perfect take. Jimmy removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, replaced them with deliberate care. "How old are you again?"
"Seventeen," Marcus said, letting his voice carry just a hint of his younger self's nervousness.
"Seventeen," Jimmy repeated, looking at Rico. "And you found him where?"
"He found me," Rico said simply.
Beyoncé had moved to stand behind Marcus, studying the notes scrawled in his open notebook. Her perfume – the same one she would wear at their wedding in a future he was erasing – clouded his thoughts. "These arrangements," she said, pointing to a particular sequence. "I've never seen anything like this."
"It's just mathematics," Marcus said, the words coming from both his teenage self and his veteran's knowledge. "Music is numbers. Frequencies. Patterns. Once you see the underlying structure—"
"You can build new forms," she finished, and their eyes met in a moment of pure understanding that transcended timelines.
Jimmy was watching this exchange with the same expression Marcus remembered from years of negotiations yet to come. "Here's what we're going to do," he said, but Beyoncé cut him off.
"I want him," she said simply. Every head in the room turned to her. "For the next album. I want these sounds, these patterns. This feeling."
Marcus felt time pivot around this moment like a needle finding the perfect groove. In his first life, their collaboration had come years later, after both their styles had solidified. But now...
"If," Beyoncé continued, looking directly at Marcus, "you think you can handle it."
He met her gaze, remembering their first kiss that hadn't happened yet, their first fight over creative control that might never come, their wedding day that he was rewriting with every choice.
"I was born ready," he said, and in both timelines, it was absolutely true.
Author Note
the novel has been rewriting and edit from chapter 1 to 16
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