14. Camille #3
I pull up a second group, then a third.
The cycle repeats. A group rises rapidly. Audience engagement exceeds projections. Emotional-output requirements increase. One or more members begin exhibiting exhaustion, dissociation, compulsive behavior, or unexplained magical instability.
Eon classifies the symptoms as burnout.
The group disappears from public view.
A replacement launches within eighteen months.
Suspicious coincidence.
Not proof of anything, though.
I need the missing files, so I call Kevin.
He answers on the third ring, voice thick with sleep. “Camille?”
“I need archival campaign reports from inactive Eon divisions.”
A pause. “It’s two in the morning.”
“I am aware.”
“Are we pretending you tried to sleep first?”
“Yes.”
He simply sighs. “Which divisions?”
I send him the list.
His breathing changes as he reads it. “These are old.”
“Correct.”
“Some predate the current filing system.”
“You have access to the migration archive.”
The migration archive still uses inherited access groups from before Eon centralized its divisions. Kevin’s role gives him access to records no one has bothered to reclassify because the agents attached to them are no longer active.
“I have access to parts of it,” he says.
“That will be sufficient.”
“It usually isn’t when you say it like that,” he quips.
He begins typing anyway. The quiet sound of keys comes through the call. Kevin does not ask why I am pulling records from groups that no longer exist.
“I found contract summaries,” he says after several minutes. “A lot of the full files were moved to Council storage, strangely enough.”
“Send the summaries.”
“They use different terminology.”
“What terminology?”
“Emotional-performance yield. Audience saturation. Resonance harvesting.”
I stop. “Repeat the last one.”
“Resonance harvesting?”
“Send everything.”
Files begin populating across my screen: campaign plans, medical summaries, crisis reports, and public statements prepared months before the incidents they supposedly address.
That is the first significant anomaly.
I open one. It contains language announcing an artist’s sudden hiatus: exhaustion, private medical concerns, a commitment to recovery.
Then, I realize… the document creation date predates the reported breakdown by eleven weeks.
Another was prepared seven weeks early.
A third was drafted before the group’s final tour began.
The system did not merely respond to burnout.
It anticipated it.
Possibly scheduled it…
“Camille?” Kevin asks.
I realize I have stopped speaking.
“Do you think something happened?” he asks.
“Something always happened.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
I don’t answer.
Another file appears.
VALENCIA DIVISION: INTERNAL CRISIS RESPONSE
My hand stills over the screen.
The room changes without moving.
For several seconds, I hear only Jules breathing faintly in the adjoining room and the quiet hum of the hotel ventilation.
Kevin is still speaking. “This one is restricted. I only got the index page.”
“I see it.”
“Do you want me to request elevated access?”
“No.”
The answer is immediate. Too immediate.
I close the file before the thumbnail can finish loading, and I return to the broader pattern.
The reports describe exhaustion as an unfortunate consequence of visibility. The contracts describe emotional output as a renewable resource. The campaign models increase pressure until performance deteriorates, then classify that deterioration as individual failure.
Burnout cycles.
Except cycles imply natural recurrence.
This looks designed. A lifecycle: create attachment. Intensify output. Sustain engagement. Extract until instability exceeds profitability. Then replace the source.
I look toward the adjoining room.
Jules is not merely attracting the Mouthpieces because she is visible. She is being placed at the center of systems designed to amplify and sustain emotional demand. The music reinforces it. The contracts authorize it. The public strategy I approved expands it.
The bond was presented as protection.
Whether intended or not, it also keeps her functional. Keeps her performing. Keeps the output stable.
The conclusion remains incomplete, but it is no longer avoidable.
Jules is important.
Not only to the tour, but to the system.
And systems do not protect valuable assets out of affection.
They preserve them for use.
“Did you find what you needed?” Kevin asks.
“No.”
A pause. “Did you find something worse?”
I look at the closed Valencia file. “Yes.”
He is quiet for a moment. “What do you need me to do?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Camille.”
“Do not mention the search.”
His hesitation lasts less than a second. “Understood.”
I disconnect the call and sit alone with the darkened screen and Jules’s steady presence through the wall.
The report says the incident was minor.
The Council says the bond exists to keep her safe.
The contracts and discrepancies in the timelines of prior groups say otherwise.
I adjust my watch once, then stop.
The system is functioning.
The model is not incomplete.
It has been concealed.
I simply do not know why.