ACT I

Julliard is impressed by Andy’s musicianship but has no scholarship money for him. The New York Academy of Sciences, on the other hand, gives him a full ride to study quantum computing. He rents a room in Brooklyn in a boardinghouse run by a Hispanic woman named Claudia. Claudia’s daughter Pauline is a painter and reads faces; and she likes Andy. He plays jazz at night at the Blue Note in Greenwich Village to pay the rent. Prof. Shih, his Ph.D supervisor, encourages him to enter the Academy’s algorithm competition, and Andy wins the prize by making a baby grand piano equipped with a quantum chip play remotely on the stage. A student named Arthur introduces him to Christopher, the engineer who designed the chip, and the three men celebrate Andy’s victory at a New York club, where Andy sees Rose for the first time. With his prize money, Andy buys a keyboard and teaches Pauline how to play the piano. Working alone, inspired by his success, he writes the code for a social network for concerts on the Internet, using the quantum sensor to transport audiences into a virtual concert hall. He works in secret, without interruption, for 18 months. His hair grows out. Pauline brings him dinner and supports him when she sells her first painting. Andy names the social network "Roxy” and uses the Academy data center to launch the prototype. Arthur discovers it immediately. So does Rose, the Southern Belle-turned-Influencer. Roxy features a Vanity Meter that measures its users’ popularity, and Rose’s Vanity Meter rises quickly as Andy observes her online. Andy demos Roxy to Arthur, who is wowed. Arthur offers to introduce him to Rose, telling him, “She knows all the money people in town.” Andy gets a haircut and buys a suit. “I’m meeting some new people,” he tells Pauline. “Will you tell me how it turns out?” When Andy insists, Pauline reads his face with her hands and is shocked by what she sees. “The woman you love is going to cause you to die," she tells him unhappily.