Stevie's eyes were bloodshot and her fingers were cramped. The past day had consisted of Red Bulls and non-stop music remixing and editing. Stevie knew she was in deep this time. She wasn't usually able to crank out track after track, but the increasing streaming numbers had her hooked and her ideas were crashing violently into one another, each warranting their own space in the form of a song. When Stevie discovered her skill and affinity for creating musical tracks in high school, she didn't have a clear plan of what she wanted to do in life. She wasn't a singer or a traditional musician. She had never been formally trained and didn't envision herself working as a famous DJ on huge, overly theatrical sound stages. Or worse yet, at weddings. Every fame-hungry, streaming junkie would kill for her remixing skills so that they could land a shot at a record deal or a tour contract with one of the industry's top labels. Or better yet, so that they could start their own label someday. But Stevie never thought that way. There was no endgame or career goal. She just loved remixing music. There was something unique about the inherent challenge of working from a thing versus working from scratch. She began DJ-ing for money in college at various underground competitions and parties, earning enough cash to pay for some of her absurdly expensive Stanford tuition. Eventually, she stopped going to class altogether and spent her days at her creation-station, a make-shift keyboard and DJ set in her dorm room. She couldn't get enough. It was fast-paced and energetic. Alcohol was often involved. She loved that the challenge was isolated to transcending a popular track into something entirely new for listeners to enjoy. And then just as quickly it was over, and on to the next. No future planning, no five-year plan, no aspirations of becoming a pop music icon. Stevie couldn't care less about the things that seemed to drive all of her peers into competitive and pointless life-long races with one another.

But after two years, Stevie's absences in class started to become an issue and she was audited by Stanford's admission group. The natural resistance in her to rules and governing bodies had her packing up her bags and leaving before the school could build a formal case against her. She had all the skills she needed and could acquire more on her own. She was her professors' biggest regret: an absolute savant who wasn't interested in curating her gifts for the history books or the stock market. That would simply ruin the music for her.

For the last few years after dropping out of school, Stevie had been DJ-ing full-time. Usually, she only accepted paid gigs from her favorite local venues or charged the lowest rate possible on different streaming platforms, just enough to get by. She wasn't perfect by any means but she had her own brand of moral code when it came to using other artists' music. She knew what she was doing was technically against the law, but for her it was a creative challenge and not a financial endeavor. She always made sure to keep a low digital profile and let the music speak for itself so that she wouldn't risk leaving a trail, any type of breadcrumb, that could lead back to her IP and her identity. That was cardinal rule number one.

But the digital tracks Stevie was currently laying had her convinced that this could be her best single yet. Even more viral, than her remix of Heart of Ice which was nearing 1 billion streams under her username, MarLow. She was a junkie, an addict, and even though her moral code screamed at her from the back of her mind to abort and lay low, her naturally impressive but dangerous curiosity and competitiveness kept her going. Stevie reached for another Red Bull, abstenly opening the lid without looking away from her computer screen when a loud, aggressive pounding came from her front door.

"What the fuck?" Stevie hissed to herself, nearly spilling her Red Bull in surprise. She closed her laptop screen and tiptoed to the front door. She peered through the peep-hole, her heart racing in her chest.

"Stevie Marlowe. It's the FBI. Open the door or we will open it ourselves. You have thirty seconds." A deep, rigid voice yelled through the flimsy barrier of her apartment front door. Stevie felt her hand shake on the knob, her knees locking. She'd gone too far. The awareness flooded to every extremity of her small, petite body, holding her down like a lead weight. She knew she was in trouble and she was scared as hell. But like a cornered cat, she wasn't the type to go down easily. With a shaky breath, she opened the door and fixed the most bored, apathetic face she could muster on her face.

"I think you have the wrong person." Stevie leaned against her door jam, a hand propped on her hip. Four FBI agents stood next to one another like a wall of navy blue clones, not moving. For one moment they looked confused, as if maybe this was the wrong address.

"Are you Stevie Marlowe?"

"Yes."

"And where are the others?" Another agent spoke up, looking between Stevie and his phone.

"Um, what others? I don't have roommates." One of the agents huffed at her response.

"Roommates? That's what you're calling your little band?" He crowded in on Stevie, just inches from her face. "This is some serious shit you've gotten yourself into. The games are over. Jack, Lawrence, get in the apartment and secure every digital and musical device. Martin, call the unit and let them know we are heading to the plane in twenty."

"The plane!? What the hell are you talking about?" Stevie's voice ratched higher, her attempt at remaining bored and annoyed failing. What if these men weren't even really FBI? Would it be better or worse if they weren't?

"Miss Marlowe, my name is Mirian Boznan and I am a federal agent within the Digital Piracy and Intellectual Property division. You are in direct violation of the law and will be taken into custody. You have the right to remain silent, although your life outside of bars will largely depend on what you're willing to tell us. If you don't have the resources to get a lawyer, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand your rights?" The agent drew a pair of shiny handcuffs from his back pocket and Stevie's eyes went wide.

"Olivia is going to kill me."

"I'm sorry, what?" The agent glared at her, another look of confusion washing over his face before he shook his head and proceeded with clasping Stevie's delicate wrists in the handcuffs. She watched as the other agents emerged from her apartment, carrying her phone, her laptops, and a few digital mix tables that she'd cobbled together over the past few years.

"Hey! Watch it with the DJ Controller, that thing is expensive." Stevie couldn't help herself when she saw one of the agents roughly handling her latest mixing gadget. The agent rolled his eyes and carried the supplies out of the apartment, cords trailing behind.

"What the fuck is up with this girl? Is she a plant or something? A decoy to take the fall?" The agent kept his voice low but not quiet enough that Stevie couldn't hear him. Her heart rate spiked higher as she was led down her apartment stairs and saw two large black escalades without plates in the parking lot. As the guy who called himself Mirian put his hand on the top of her head and gently shoved her into the backseat of the vehicle, she turned her body towards him and tipped her chin up stubbornly.

"Did Jelena Kingston personally send you here to arrest me? Is she really as big of a diva as they say? I mean, don't I have a right to know what exactly I'm being charged for?" Her voice was both nervous and excited. The agent rubbed his hand down his face, clearly confused by every comment out of Stevie's doll-shaped mouth.

"You don't have a right to anything right now, Miss Marlowe. And based on the nature of your questions, I think you know exactly what you are being charged with. There are no perks to breaking the law." He started to close the car door and could hear Stevie yelling "c'mon!" before he shut it completely.

"We better not have the wrong suspect. Pacific Records is going to have our assess and our boss will pull us from anything other than traffic violations if we're taking an innocent, twenty-something, strangely hot, anime chick into custody right now." One of the agents, Lawrence, addressed the others before climbing into the driver's side of the Escalade not containing Stevie.

"Look, the information is legit. The IP address is hers. Or, it's at least mapped to a computer found in her apartment. And she had a fair amount of DJ equipment. Maybe the studio is at her apartment and the others live elsewhere." Jack offered an explanation and the others just shrugged.

"We had our orders and we followed through. That's the job. I'm sure the legal team at Pacific Records will be able to verify when they interrogate her." Mirian shut down the conversation and hopped into the Escalade, speeding off with Stevie in the backseat.

Stevie's brain was running a mile a minute. To be fair, it always was, but this time it was in overdrive. She was scared out of her mind and hated the fact that she couldn't even text her family to let them know that she had been taken into custody. But another part of her was thrilled, beyond excited, to think that she'd really done it. She'd flipped one, huge middle finger in the face of the music titans and they couldn't ignore her music's impact any longer. She'd taken on the world's biggest pop star and won, in her own little way. It wasn't like she posted her mega-viral remix for sale, nor did she have any plans to make money off of it. Maybe Stevie could just explain that to these overly brusque and macho agents and everyone could go about their merry way. Right?

The Escalade came to an abrupt stop and Stevie was quickly pulled from the backseat. With her wrists handcuffed behind her back, she was led up a short flight of steps to a US Government branded private plan. She thrashed slightly, peppering the agents with questions but getting no answers in return. Once she was seated in a plush, leather seat, Mirian removed one of her handcuffs from her wrist and fastened it to the armrest.

"I highly doubt that is necessary." Stevie flashed him with some of her trademark sass and he rolled his eyes.

"Not interested in your commentary, Miss Marlowe."

"It's Stevie."

"Yeah, whatever." He took a seat next to her, typing out something on his phone. Stevie wiggled in her seat, a never-ending slew of questions landing on the tip of her tongue. But for once, she decided to keep quiet. It probably was in her best legal interest to do so. She'd have to call her parents and beg them to get her a lawyer. They thought she did freelance video editing and music production work. In a way she did, just not the legal kind.

"Alright, Stevie," Mirian mocked her request as he turned to her, "here's what's going to happen next. We are going to Los Angeles for the next 48 hours. You will be interviewed by several top-level security and legal experts and you will provide however much information you'd like. The more you provide, the lighter your sentence you will be. I'd suggest you forget about any allegiances that you may have with your fellow bandmates and give them up immediately. I'd venture to say they may even have set you up, seeing as your IP address is still the only one that's been identified in the piracy activity thus far."

"There is no band. It's just me. MarLow." It was technically the first time she'd admitted it out loud. The moment was somehow huge to her, yet completely inconsequential on the surface.

"You can't make up your mind about what you want to be called, can you? I'd suggest you think long and hard about going in with that angle when we land." The agent turned back to his phone, frustrated with the stubborn woman beside him. Stevie tried to throw up her hands but the metal of the handcuff cut into the soft skin of her wrist. Stevie started going through as much of her latest track that she could remember in her head. No doubt her work hadn't been saved when the agents brusquely ripped her equipment from her creation-station. Stevie would have to recreate the track once all this shit was over. She didn't talk again during the remainder of the flight to the relief of the no-nonsense federal agents.

"We've landed. Time to go, Miss Marlowe." Great, back to Miss Marlowe, Stevie thought. Mirian unlocked her handcuff from the plane seat and reattached it to her free wrist.