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The meeting with Rostova was exactly what I expected. It was a cascade of polished lies wrapped in revolutionary language, carefully avoiding any real explanation of what Fatal Script actually does. But I smiled and nodded and played the eager producer, and now I am alone in my assigned production office with the door locked.
Time to work.
The office is small but well equipped, with multiple monitors and a workstation that is probably being watched six ways from Sunday. I will not do anything sensitive here. But I can start mapping the facility digitally, understanding the network architecture, and finding vulnerabilities.
My laptop sits in my bag, scrubbed clean of anything incriminating. The encryption is military grade, courtesy of contacts who owe me favors from my previous investigative work. Helios security might be good, but I have spent two years preparing for this operation.
I access the building’s public blueprints first, comparing them to what I have seen during the tour. There are discrepancies immediately. Whole sections do not appear on official documents, spaces that should not exist based on the structural plans. There are hidden rooms, server farms, places where they are doing something they do not want on public record. That is where the evidence will be.
My phone buzzes with an encrypted message from Marcus, my contact at the underground media collective. Confirmed: Helios acquiring neural tech. Details scarce, but source reliable. Be careful.
I type back, Already inside. Seen the facility. It’s worse than we thought.
How bad?
Brain implants. Real time emotion tracking. They’re calling it entertainment, but it’s something else.
Fuck. Can you document?
Working on it. Need more access first.
I delete the thread and review the background file I have compiled on Fatal Script over the past six months. It is thin, frustratingly thin. Helios has been careful about information security. But there have been whispers, fragments of rumors that suggested something unusual was in development.
The neural interface technology came from a medical research company called NeuroSyn that went bankrupt eighteen months ago. Helios acquired its assets quietly, burying the transaction in subsidiary paperwork. I only found it because I have been specifically hunting for unethical tech acquisitions. NeuroSyn’s original research was therapeutic, focused on helping patients with severe emotional disorders. The neural implants were supposed to monitor brain activity and provide feedback to help regulate emotional responses. But therapeutic technology is always one step away from manipulative technology. The same device that helps someone manage depression can be used to induce it. Context and intent make all the difference. Helios has no therapeutic intent.
I open another encrypted file, this one containing everything I know about Director Eva Rostova. She has been with Helios for fifteen years, rising through the ranks with ruthless efficiency. Multiple whistleblowers have accused her of unethical practices, but nothing ever sticks. She has lawyers who make problems disappear and NDAs that silence victims before they can talk.
Claire Davis was her biggest failure. The actress actually got her story public before Helios could shut it down completely. It did not matter in the end because Helios controlled enough media channels to bury the narrative, but it must have embarrassed Rostova significantly.
So why bring Claire back? Why give her this opportunity? Unless Claire is not here for a second chance. Unless she is here because Rostova wants something specific from her. Revenge, maybe. Or a demonstration of absolute control. Look what I can do to someone who defied me. Look how completely I can break them down and rebuild them as my puppet.
I close the laptop and lean back in my chair, thinking about Claire’s sharp eyes and defensive posture in that meeting room. She is scared but hiding it well, drowning but determined not to show weakness.
I came here to expose Helios, to gather evidence of their crimes and leak it to media outlets they cannot control. Claire Davis was supposed to be a variable, another actor caught in their system, maybe someone I could recruit as an inside source. But meeting her changed that calculation. She is not just another victim. She is someone who already tried to fight them and lost everything. She knows what Helios is capable of, knows the price of defiance. And she is here anyway because she has no other choice.
That makes her dangerous. To them and to me. If I recruit her for my mission and she breaks under pressure, she could expose everything. If I do not recruit her and she discovers what I am doing, she could turn me in to protect herself. Either way, she is a complication I did not anticipate.
And then there is the other problem. The one I do not want to acknowledge. That tension between us in the meeting room was real. The chemistry the tour guide mentioned, the thing Rostova smiled about knowingly, it is there. I felt it immediately, that electric charge when two people recognize something in each other.
Normally, I would ignore it or use it strategically. Attraction is just another tool in this kind of work, something to be leveraged and discarded when necessary. But there is something about Claire that makes me uneasy. Maybe it is her intelligence, the way she cut through my bullshit immediately and called me a liar to my face. Maybe it is the defiance in her eyes, that refusal to submit completely even when she is cornered. Or maybe it is simpler than that. Maybe I just recognize a kindred spirit, someone else who is here under false pretenses, playing a role to survive or achieve something bigger.
Either way, it is a distraction I cannot afford. My mission is clear, to document Helios’s crimes, leak the evidence, and bring down this corrupt system. Claire Davis is either an asset or a liability in that mission. Nothing more.
I repeat that to myself like a mantra, trying to make it true.
My phone buzzes again. Any other cast members we should know about?
I type, Just Claire Davis. The blacklisted actress. They’re using her for something specific.
Think she’ll cooperate if you approach her?
Don’t know yet. She’s smart and damaged. Could go either way.
Your call. But remember: mission first. Can’t save everyone.
I delete the thread and stare at my dark laptop screen, seeing my reflection in the black surface. I look tired, older than thirty two. Two years of planning and preparation have aged me. Marcus is right about priorities. The mission has to come first. I have sacrificed too much, burned too many bridges, to let personal complications derail everything now.
But I keep thinking about Claire’s sharp, intelligent eyes, and the fear she is hiding, the desperation that brought her back to the place that destroyed her.
I came here to expose Helios. But now I am wondering if exposure is enough. Maybe what I really want is to burn the whole thing down. And maybe Claire Davis is the perfect person to help me do it.