Sarah Smith stirred in her sleep. Song lyrics with a rhythmic beat looped inside her head. The sound got louder and louder, overwhelming, and penetrating her every thought.

She screamed out loud while she opened her eyes.

Once she fully woke up, Sarah brewed coffee and prepared breakfast. She wore headphones to listen to something else, but the hypnotic music returned inside of her mind ...

She wondered, "Did I dream of something to remind me of this? Maybe I should watch the music video to get it out of my head. This is crazy!"

Sarah checked online to a video sharing site and saw lots of upvotes for the music video.

Recent user comments mentioned similar thoughts and feelings:

"Can't get this song out of my head!" "Flashbacks from the past." "What a great song ..." "I listened to this on my first date." "Reminds me of my high school days!" "Pure bliss ..."

Sarah searched around. It turned out all over the Internet. Social media listeners shared the same song with friends, who shared it with other friends, and so forth.

She listened to the music video repeatedly for hours—which satisfied her constant craving for it—then, all of a sudden, the urge stopped.

————

Meanwhile ...

A team of lab engineers at a global Internet LEO satellite research project refreshed music and video sites. The song hit millions of views within hours. The workers clapped.

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"A success for all of us!" CEO John Hammer announced. "Let's give another hand to our Director of Engineering, Eugene Brown, for his remarkable discovery!"

"Speech! Speech!"—One of Eugene's colleagues called him out.

"I don't deserve the praise." Eugene stood up. "It was a lucky discovery, and all of your hard work made it possible."

Susan Watson, a lead programmer, asked, "What's the ratio now, Eugene?"

"About 1 to 100,000, but we're working on shrinking that down. We had no idea our tech could influence so many types of brain patterns. Susan, we're hoping that the new algorithm your team is working on will match more."

Susan nodded.

Eugene patted the shoulder of a colleague sitting nearby him—"Bob, our social media guru here, came up with the idea of going viral with the song."

"How's the patent going? Are we going to license it out?" asked Frank Jones, a senior communications engineer.

"No, we won't!" CEO John interrupted ..." You're thinking too small—instant gratification, quick money, and impatience. In fact, I have another announcement to make." He gestured to his assistant, Marsha Jacobs—"Marsha, please bring in the legal advisory team."

A group of suits wheeled in a couple of carts, stacked with clipboards, and attached to those, paperwork, and pens. They handed over one clipboard to each worker.

John held up a clipboard and spoke again—"I need you all to sign this NDA. We have an opportunity before us much greater than making a mere expedient profit. I don't want to go public with this discovery now, or possibly ever."

Some members of the team shook their heads and sighed while others grumbled.

Frank tapped his pen on his clipboard and stood straight up —"This is disgraceful, we all contributed to this project!"

"You don't understand, Frank." John raised a copy of the paperwork and fanned the pages. "Read through it all and sign the contract. I plan to launch more satellites out there to cover the entire globe. You're all agreeing to equally own private shares of the company in a direct partnership with me. Of course, that'll come with specific responsibilities, and special protections for each of you, in the strictest of confidentiality."

The employees, promoting themselves to a partnership, smiled and nodded while reading through and signing their forms.

John continued speaking, "Let's keep in mind what's really at stake here, folks, there's a big election coming up!"