TV Studio – Live Broadcast
The studio was a cathedral of controlled artifice. Cold halogen lights cast everything in a sterile brilliance—too clean, too bright, too perfect. Rows of audience members sat like smiling mannequins, faces glazed with anticipation, expressions choreographed by the promises of pre-show excitement and camera-ready polish. The pastel-toned stage shimmered like a dream, framed by soft lilacs, pale blues, and white light. Everything was calculated to put the viewer at ease. But beneath that manufactured serenity pulsed something colder.
At center stage sat her.
Morgana Devereux looked as though she had stepped from a renaissance painting—poised, elegant, impossibly serene. Her dark hair fell in waves over her shoulders, framing a face so calm it bordered on unnatural. Every blink, every breath, was deliberate. She wore a gown the color of pearl dust, tailored and modest, yet with an air of authority. She didn't dominate the room by force. She did it with presence.
Opposite her sat the host, Martin Chase, a veteran of the talk show circuit. His smile was a veneer stretched tight over years of exhaustion and manufactured enthusiasm. He shuffled his notes with the practiced flutter of a man who already knew the next answer.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Martin began, his voice smooth and radio-trained, "we are honored tonight to welcome a pioneer in the field of neuro-emotional wellness—a woman whose work is changing lives across the globe. Please give a warm welcome to the founder of the NeuroPeace revolution... Morgana Devereux."
Polite applause rolled through the studio like distant thunder—restrained, synchronized, like a reflex. No whistles. No whoops. Just calm.
Morgana offered a gentle nod, her lips curving into the sort of smile that felt rehearsed yet impossible to doubt. "Thank you, Martin. It's lovely to be here."
Martin leaned in, eyes glittering with stage lights. "Now, Morgana, the NeuroPeace headset—people are calling it the future of emotional health. In just under a year, it's become a household name. Can you walk us through how it works? What exactly does it do?"
Evelyn Nada sat among the audience, blending in like one more face in the crowd. She had come here on a hunch, her disguise perfect, her presence unremarkable. A simple change of clothes, a pair of oversized glasses, and a hair clip in place of her usual ponytail were all she needed to slip unnoticed into the studio. Hidden beneath her coat, a small microphone recorded every word, feeding the audio to Marcus, who was parked in the car just outside the building.
This wasn't just about the broadcast. The show was live, yes—but live didn't mean transparent. Evelyn wasn't recording for the sake of reruns. She was after what the cameras wouldn't catch: tone shifts, unscripted mutters, the subharmonic tells in Morgana's voice when something wasn't rehearsed. Marcus needed the raw data, unfiltered, unedited, before producers could clean it up for the morning headlines.
Her fingers, just slightly trembling, pressed a button on her wristwatch to begin the recording. She leaned forward, eyes narrowed, as Morgana's voice filled the room.
"Of course," Morgana replied, folding her hands delicately on her lap. "The NeuroPeace headset operates through a network of non-invasive neural stimulators. Once worn, it syncs with the user's brainwaves and emits gentle pulses—tuned to regulate the amygdala, stimulate serotonin production, and re-pattern emotional memory centers."
Her voice was soothing, almost musical—like silk sliding across glass.
"It doesn't suppress emotions," she continued. "It aligns them. Think of it as... guiding your consciousness into harmony with your better self. Like teaching the mind to breathe."
Teaching the mind to breathe.
Evelyn's jaw tightened. It was too polished. Too perfect. The phrasing had been carefully engineered, like the product itself.
"And it's safe?" Martin asked, smiling just a little too wide, as if the question was a scripted cue.
Morgana nodded, serene. "Absolutely. Each headset is calibrated uniquely to its user. We use proprietary AI that gently adapts its guidance over time. There's no sedation, no chemical interference. Just... peace."
Behind her glasses, Evelyn's eyes narrowed. She scanned the stage again. Morgana hadn't broken posture once. No twitch. No tick. Just stillness—beautiful, predatory stillness.
Then Marcus's voice crackled softly in her earpiece. "Audio feed's good. This stuff sounds clean on the surface, but there's something underneath. Keep rolling."
"I'm curious," Martin said, glancing at his notes. "Some experts say the headset promotes emotional dependency. One critic even said it's creating a culture of 'functional docility.' How do you respond to that?"
For a split second—so fast most would miss it—Morgana's smile froze. Not visibly. Not fully. But to Evelyn, trained to spot tells, it was a crack in the porcelain.
Morgana recovered instantly. "Fear is a natural response to change," she said. "NeuroPeace doesn't eliminate thought. It doesn't lobotomize. It's a tool. And like any tool, it can be used wisely—or poorly. But I believe in empowering people to manage their inner chaos, not medicate it away."
Inner chaos. Manage. Empower. It was corporate poetry, fed through a blender of spiritual language and market-tested compassion.
Evelyn could feel it now. Morgana wasn't selling peace. She was selling control.
As the interview continued, Evelyn's fingers twitched near the mic button again, and she whispered, "She's hiding something. Her calm is weaponized. I'm sure of it."
Marcus responded, voice low. "Copy. Get out when you can. She's dangerous. We'll run everything through the synth decoder later—see if there's any subliminals embedded in her phrasing."
Evelyn's eyes stayed locked on the stage. Morgana Devereux, the Queen of Calm, had just shown the first hint of teeth.
Backstage – After the Show
The cameras blinked off. The audience filtered out, still wearing their polite smiles, already forgetting what they'd clapped for. The stage crew moved like ghosts, dismantling illusions.
Morgana stood gracefully, shaking Martin's hand with a smile as genuine as a porcelain doll. She glided offstage, her heels silent against the floor. An assistant guided her through a hallway and into a private guest lounge painted in soft lavenders and silvers. The lighting was gentle. The furniture designer. There were no sharp angles, no distractions.
The moment the door closed, something shifted.
Her back straightened. Her smile vanished. Her eyes—those calm, ocean-deep eyes—became still pools of ice.
She sat, removing her earrings one at a time, methodically, precisely. Then—
A knock.
Without waiting, the door creaked open. A man entered with the kind of ease reserved for people who didn't need permission.
"Lucien," she said flatly, not turning around.
Lucien Vale was tall, narrow, and dangerous in the way a scalpel is dangerous—refined, clinical, and not the slightest bit messy. His suit was crisp monochrome. His hair tied back in a silk ribbon. The thin glasses on his face made him look almost scholarly.
He gave her a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Still the picture of poise, Morgana. You have them wrapped. I watched from the van. It was... almost religious."
Morgana finally turned, crossing one leg over the other. "Did you come here to flatter me, or to remind me of the leash?"
Lucien chuckled. "There is no leash. Just... interest. Your product is working. You're becoming untouchable. Governments are courting you. Celebrities are endorsing you. You've built a movement, Morgana. But remember—movements are only useful until they start asking questions."
She narrowed her eyes. "I haven't given them a reason to."
"Yet," he said, pacing the room, fingers trailing over a vase like he might knock it over just to watch it fall. "But peace... real peace... doesn't scale. Not without cost. People will notice the side effects eventually."
"There are no side effects," she said, sharp.
Lucien stopped. "Come now. You know that's a lie. You've seen the reports. Some users become passive to the point of catatonia. One woman stood outside in the rain for nine hours. She said she was 'breathing with the world.' Another stopped eating. Said hunger was a distraction."
Morgana's face remained stone.
He leaned in, voice low. "The corpses will start whispering, Morgana. Eventually. And when they do, you'll need to decide if you're a messiah... or just a very pretty gravedigger."
Her mask slipped—but not in fear. In contempt.
"You think I don't know what I'm doing?" she whispered. "I'm not selling calm, Lucien. I'm selling the illusion of calm. People don't want peace. They want permission to stop feeling anything at all. They're tired of rage, sorrow, uncertainty. I'm giving them a way out."
Lucien smiled wider. "Now that's the Morgana I like."
He turned to leave. "Just don't forget—you're not the only one playing a long game. And if HeartEater comes knocking... even illusions bleed."
The door clicked shut behind him.
Morgana stood there in silence. Her eyes slowly turned to the darkening window. Beyond the glass, the city lights glimmered—alive, chaotic, defiant.
She stared into the dark and whispered to no one, "Then let him come."