Michelle Tate pushed through the glass door of the Burbank conference room, the custody deadline calendar clutched tight against her chest, its edges pressing into her palm skin and leaving faint red traces. Sunlight slid across the long oak table, gliding over the chrome legs and flaring into sharp reflected glares that made her eyes narrow involuntarily. Her tailored blazer felt too warm already, but she kept it buttoned; the silk lining of her blouse clung to the sweat-dampened skin of her back while the leather chair’s chill seeped through her suit fabric. Emotional armor locked in place. She had thirty days. That was the number that mattered.

“I want full script control from day one,” she said, voice steady as she took the seat at the head of the table. “No AI drafts without my sign-off. No rewrites pulled from anything I didn’t give you myself.”

Audrey Lane sat opposite, laptop open, the first stack of pages already printed and waiting. She slid them across the polished wood without a word at first, just the faint rustle of paper. Each page carried the faint scent of fresh toner and the jasmine drifting in from the open window two stories below; beneath it, the bitter aftertaste of Tyler’s coffee drifted into Michelle’s nostrils. The room hummed with something quieter than the air-conditioning—hidden cameras, Michelle knew, the kind that fed Audrey’s system in real time.

“Read the first scene,” Audrey said. Her tone was even, contractual. “Page three, the kitchen argument.”

Michelle’s fingers hesitated on the corner of the top page; the edge curled slightly under her touch, and a tiny friction rasp sounded as tension tightened her fingertips. She flipped it open. The dialogue hit her like a remembered slap:

“You think I don’t see what you’re doing? You smile for the cameras and then you lock the door like I’m the one who’s dangerous. I gave up everything for this house, for her, and you still look at me like I’m the affair that never ended.”

The words were exact. Ten years ago. The night after the custody papers had first been served. Michelle had said them to an empty kitchen, alone, after her daughter had already been taken for the weekend. She had never repeated them to anyone.

Her pulse spiked, hot and immediate. First her stomach contracted cold and tight, then her throat constricted, and only then did her voice rise, edged with uncontrolled anger. “Where did you get this?”

Audrey leaned back, fingers steepled. “You know, Michelle, our system never wastes any usable material. The contract gives the system access to public records, interviews, and any footage the studio has archived. The AI fills the gaps with probability. It’s not sabotage. It’s synthesis.”

“That line isn’t probability.” Michelle’s voice rose. “That’s private. That’s mine. You mined it.”

“I mined what the reel already suggests,” Audrey answered. “Your grandmother’s affair wasn’t the only secret in the family. The 1950s footage is the spine. The rest is connective tissue. The studio wants the connective tissue to feel lived-in.”

Frank Ellison, slouched two chairs down with a half-empty espresso, turned the cup half a circle on its saucer before muttering, “Here we go again—this goddamn reality show hasn’t even started shooting yet.”

Tyler Briggs, the studio executive, first tapped the leather folder’s edge once with his index finger, then cleared his throat and opened it. “Clause seven-B. Real-time capture rights remain with the production for the duration of the thirty-day window. Any dialogue generated during this meeting, any emotional spike the system records, becomes part of the working draft. You signed it, Michelle.”

The jasmine scent thickened as a breeze moved the curtains. Michelle felt the hum of the cameras like a second heartbeat in her ears. She forced her shoulders down, yet they first shrugged upward unconsciously; her finger joints whitened against the pages, and the memory tore through the inner defense like claws rending fabric. The armor was already cracking at the edges.

She read the next line aloud, voice lower now. “I can’t lose her twice. Not because some algorithm decided the ending.”