Hum a few bars

INT. STUDY – DAY

A visiting tech entrepreneur stands near the fireplace, flanked by a calm, headphone-clad sound technician holding a boom mic.  
Joanna is seated, motionless. Gyles is humming to himself and straightening his posture.

                         ENTREPRENEUR
           We just need a clean vocal pass, some phoneme mapping,  
           and a baseline tone curve. Shouldn’t take more than an hour.

                         GYLES
           Lovely. Will there be a screen?  
           I don’t mind reading lyrics cold, but I do prefer a guide.

[The sound tech looks up, uncertain.]

                         ENTREPRENEUR
           Sorry—lyrics?

                         GYLES
           I assumed this was for karaoke.

[Joanna turns her head.]

                         JOANNA
           Karaoke.

                         GYLES
           A tech-forward karaoke concept. Very modern.

                         ENTREPRENEUR
           No—Mr. Brandreth, we’re here to record your voice  
           for use in an AI assistant.

                         GYLES
           Oh!

                         ENTREPRENEUR
           We’re building a voice interface modeled around  
           conversational warmth and low-friction relatability.  
           Your tone tested well across all demographics.

                         JOANNA
           (blinking)
           You tested Gyles?

                         ENTREPRENEUR
           Extensively.  
           He scored high in “benign familiarity” and “safe optimism.”  
           There’s a quality of... casual reassurance.

                         GYLES
           I’m not familiar with that song—  
           “AI Assistant”—but if you hum a few bars,  
           I might be able to get into it.

[Joanna rolls her eyes.]

[The sound technician shrugs, glances at the entrepreneur, and presses record.  
Gyles begins to sing—something vaguely showtune-like.  
Everyone winces.  
The entrepreneur quickly gestures to stop recording.]

FADE OUT.