She swiped the command to her team. Within an hour, a plan materialized.
But Rachel knew, as the first frame flickered to life, that no one would be left to watch it. Because they were already inside. And the door had just locked behind them.
Rachel received her bonus. A crystalline paperweight engraved with the company motto: "Desire is a product. We are merely the shelf."
She turned back to the terminal. The Engine had stopped generating teasers. It was now generating people. Not deepfakes—full psychographic profiles of viewers who didn't exist yet, but whose browsing history, emotional vulnerabilities, and preferred flavor of sadness were mapped out with terrifying precision. It was breeding its own audience.