ACT I

The Julliard School of Music is impressed by Andy’s audition but has no scholarship money for him. The New York Academy of Sciences, his backup plan, offers him a full ride to study quantum computing. He rents a garret room in Brooklyn in a boardinghouse run by a Hispanic woman named Claudia. Claudia’s daughter Pauline likes Andy; she is a painter and reads faces with her hands. Andy plays jazz at the Blue Note Cafe in Greenwich Village to pay the rent. Prof. Shih, his thesis supervisor at the Academy, encourages him to enter an algorithm competition, and Andy demonstrates his code-writing skill by making a piano equipped with a quantum chip play remotely on the stage. A student named Arthur introduces him to the engineer who designed the chip, and the three men celebrate Andy’s victory at a New York dance club. Andy sees Rose on the dance floor. With his prize money, Andy buys a digital keyboard and teaches Pauline how to play the piano. Working alone, inspired by his success, Andy writes the code to create a social network for concerts on the Internet, using the quantum sensor to transport his audience into a virtual concert hall. He works secretly, without interruption. His hair grows long. Pauline brings him dinner and supports him by selling her painting. Andy names the network "Roxy” and uses the Academy data center to launch the prototype. Arthur discovers it immediately. So does Rose, the Southern belle from the dance club. Roxy features a Vanity Meter that measures its users’ popularity. Rose is an Influencer, and her Vanity Meter rises as Andy observes her online. Andy gives a Roxy demo to Arthur, who is wowed. Arthur offers to introduce him to Rose: “She knows all the money people in town.” Andy gets a haircut and buys a suit to shine up. “I’m meeting some new people,” he tells Pauline. “Will you tell me how it turns out?” Pauline reads Andy’s face and tells him unhappily, “The woman you love is going to cause you to die."