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SUMMARY: Silver is motivated to sing. Her song "Come" is her best option for gathering her family. The company she has to keep to get it out is the price she has to pay.

As performing artists go, this Silver is very strange. She came out of nowhere with a voice that has perfect pitch and a sensual longing in her performance that makes everybody cry. She is an overnight sensation that promises to be a huge cash cow before her inevitable burnout from overexposure. Everybody at the label is scrambling to milk as much as they can before the crash.

The agent she sent to the label was an old woman, shaky and watery-eyed, but with a cunning determination. She got past reception and got her two minutes with Goldtooth. The staff were pretty sure she blackmailed the big man into hearing the demo. He was angry about it going into his office that first morning with the package under his arm.

Coming out he was a changed man. "Find her," he ordered the staff, handing Carl the introduction letter. "Find her. Sign her, and get her in here."

Where they found her only added to her mystique. They had to wait around with the frail old woman for an hour in a biker bar, while the nasty men got drunker and meaner around them. The three of them were very much fish out of water. They were hipsters and clubbers. They could manage a beer joint for a rock artist, but this very dangerous dive - with what might be a notch for a pole on the stage - was well below their radar. Assurances from the lady that they were protected meant less and less as night moved on. Then she excused herself, slipping behind the curtain for what passed as backstage and the young trio of scouts were left to hide behind their drinks alone.

When Silver finally came out onto the little stage she had no back-up band and only a violin for herself. Clearly, her agent had not worked out the gig very well. She was the only African American in the place and her audience was looking really upset that she was even let in the door. She was dressed in a tight, black body suit with a white, high-collared, sleeveless jacket. On top of everything else, her choice of make-up was to completely cover her exposed skin in silver. Even her hair was done in short silver dreadlocks, most of which stood up from the top of her head. She was wearing silver infused contacts, as well, making her eyes look artificial. Violin aside, she looked like a seventies Detroit pop star.

The label scouts were as doubtful as the bikers about her ability to perform anything worth hearing. They were the only ones who chose not to show this by jeering with racial slurs and throwing stuff at her as she started to play. For a few seconds it looked like she was not going to get the chance to even begin. But she stood in front of the little stool and grinned back at them all with the confidence of a gambler who is about to capture the whole pot.

She pulled the bow across the strings a few times, then slid into a rhythm and the strangeness went to a whole new level. No one there was ever able to describe it well enough later. The best any of them could come up with was that she blew their minds. They were all swept up in a seduction that came innately from her and from what she performed.