Camilla

21 OCT 34AE, 0730

San Francisco, California

When the plan was first proposed, Camilla thought she'd be safe. After all, her abilities were among the most versatile for combat and establishing a long-term defense, so there was no way she would be assigned any other, high-profile responsibilities. Those crucial roles were more suitable for people like Abby and Luca who were not only likable, natural leaders, but also didn't mind public speaking. And Camilla was none of those things; in fact, any other member of her squad would have been better suited for the job.

Yet when the group was selecting a spokesperson to share their evidence against the Org on live, national television, they voted for Camilla, and nearly unanimously too. Apparently, everyone agreed that Camilla's image would garner the most attention, mainly because she had gone from the Org's beloved mascot to their most hated enemy practically overnight. That, and she was supposed to be dead.

But what was even more unbelievable: Camilla actually accepted, and no one had to twist her arm to do so. She hadn't known what had gotten into her at the time (she had been exhausted and probably just wanted their meeting to be over), but now that she was mere moments away from appearing on camera, she was starting to regret every decision she ever made that led her to that point.

Their group was camped out on the tenth and top floor of a building that was vacated for renovations and conveniently located next to their target. Around her, the others were scattered around as they readied their combat gear, chatted with their friends, or even took quick naps. And absolutely none of them looked as nervous as Camilla felt.

In fact, most of them looked excited, as if they figured all of their problems were going to be magically solved by the end of the day. But of course they weren't worried. They weren't the ones that had to convince the entire country of their innocence and the Org's guilt.

"Wyatt," Minyoung's stern voice suddenly snapped Camilla out of her daze, and she turned to see him jabbing a pencil at her face. "I swear, if you move one more time without me telling you to, I might just stab this in your eye. And it might not be an accident."

Camilla did her best to keep from scowling, since she knew Minyoung would just get more irritated at her ruining his makeup job, but she was only partially successful. As unnecessary as Camilla thought the makeup was, she had already wasted enough time hashing out that argument with Minyoung already. Now, she was more concerned about calming her nerves, and Minyoung's demanding personality wasn't helping.

Thankfully, she at least got a small break from his grumbling when Minyoung was temporarily distracted by the sight of Jordan and Mack as they slipped out into the emergency stairwell hand in hand. He only turned back to Camilla once the door closed gently behind them, and his signature scowl was plastered to his face.

As Minyoung continued with her makeup, Camilla forced herself to stay still just to get it over with. Unfortunately, this left the wide windows facing the adjacent building in clear view.

Just the sight of the towering and sophisticated Denour Plaza was intimidating. While it wasn't the tallest building in downtown San Francisco, it was definitely the most noticeable with its combination of shining gold-tinted windows and matte black frame, along with its distinct spiral shape.

Camilla figured she should have been used to the view by now; after all, she had gone in and out of that building countless times during her early childhood. But maybe it was her connection to that building that made her so reluctant. It was, after all, the home of GEN Studios, whose partial owner and most high-profile employee was the one and only Blaire Wyatt.

And they were about to crash her famous daytime talk show.

"Ten minutes, everyone!" Abby suddenly shouted out to the group.

Minyoung quickly finished his work seconds later, mumbling about needing to go find his brother as he hurried off. That left Camilla by herself with nothing to do but stare at the intimidating Plaza, watch everyone excitedly prepare for a mission that she was far from ready for, look over the script Elsie wrote her for the millionth time, or internally panic in silence. And none of those options were very inviting.

"Elsie!" Abby exclaimed. "You got good news, I hope?"

At the sound of Elsie's name, Camilla stood up so fast that stars flickered in her vision, but she ignored them in favor of stiffly stumbling over to the planning area. There, Abby, Luca, and several other Alliance and Exodos leaders were gathered around a table with the Plaza layout and surrounding area on display between them to review their strategy.

Since their arrival, Camilla had tried to avoid that area since she didn't want to answer any more of their questions about the Plaza than she already had. But at the sight of Elsie approaching them, Camilla was willing to make an exception.

"The directors are more than happy to hear whatever 'big scoop' we have for their show," Elsie reported. When Camilla settled next to her, Elsie took a moment to give her a small smile and wrapped a comforting arm around her waist before she continued. "They'll let us in through the east entrance at eight o'clock."

"Good," Abby said with a nod. "They didn't ask any questions about your situation or what we're going to say, right? They're not going to call the police or the Org or anything?"

"We're monitoring their outgoing communications," an Alliance meta assured from where they sat off to the side with several others, each with a laptop and headphones. "Nothing suspicious so far."

"I think they were more concerned that their scoop wouldn't be exclusively for them than they were about my wellbeing," Elsie added, actually seeming slightly disappointed. "I mean, I know I'm not actually a hostage, but I still thought they'd be a little concerned."

"So they won't risk losing their opportunity for high ratings," Luca summarized with a shrug. "Works for us."

"We still need to be ready to take over the broadcast in case they or someone else decides to cut it short," Abby said. She glanced around the group until she spotted Hitomi who had joined them shortly after Camilla had. "Are we ready for that? And will we be able to broadcast over other networks?"

"'Hopefully' is the best answer I can give," Hitomi answered honestly. "I will not know for sure until I access the studios' system directly. The only thing I can guarantee will get through are our social media livestreams."

"That'll have to be good enough," Abby said with a sigh. Then, she turned towards the rest of the room. "Alright everyone, let's move!"

While everyone began assembling into their assigned groups, Camilla couldn't move. She was frozen in place, her mind unable to stop thinking about standing in front of multiple cameras, knowing that the nation was watching her, judging her. She had been in front of cameras before; her mother welcomed the paparazzi when she was younger, and the Org was the same, as long as Camilla was properly under the influence.

But this time would be different. This time, everyone would be seeing the real her, not some version cooked up by someone else. Sure, the words she would say were written by Elsie, but Camilla had some input. And there was a high chance that the public wouldn't like the real her, or what she had to say.

Didn't the Org call her a traitor? If they were up to no good, how could she have let their illegal activity run rampant for so long? How could she have let this happen to her? Wasn't she supposed to be strong? Shouldn't she have known better? Why wasn't she doing enough? What good were her abilities if she wasn't going to use them properly? Why should they listen to her, when she was so obviously failing at her job to protect them?

"Milla," Elsie whispered, just loud enough for Camilla to hear.

Her hand at Camilla's waist squeezed gently, and Camilla tried to be discreet at how much that simple touch meant to her. It didn't work, judging by how shaky her next breath was, and Camilla forced herself to take another deep breath to steady herself before she turned to Elsie.

"Everything's going to be okay," Elsie assured, her voice soothing and calm, despite the storm in Camilla's mind. "I'll be right there if you need me."

Camilla felt herself stiffly nod, temporarily comforted by Elsie's promise.

But at some point between then and when their small Studio Team, comprised solely of Camilla and Elsie's friends, headed out to the alley on the Plaza's east side, an inkling of doubt in Camilla's mind began to grow again. And as their group was led by a staff member through the Plaza's hidden hallways, Camilla did her best to follow as if nothing was wrong. But even though she had her baseball cap low enough to hide her face, she couldn't help but feel like everyone they passed was looking at her in particular.

What are you doing here? What more do you think you can accomplish? Haven't you done enough harm already? Just face it: you can't win, and there's nothing more you can do.

Camilla forced herself to ignore her doubts and pushed on.

They arrived at the studio a few minutes later, stopping just outside a side door to the set, and the staff member left them in search of one of the directors. Everything looked just as Camilla remembered it, from the overly bright lights, the impersonal decor, and the cookie-cutter members of the live studio audience. Absolutely nothing had changed, and at the sound of Blaire's piercing laughter, Camilla realized that maybe she hadn't either.

"So..." the floor director began as soon as they approached their group, looking over them all with a skeptical expression. "Are you all going up there? Wearing... that?"

"Just this one," AJ said, pointing a thumb in Camilla's direction. Aside from Elsie, AJ was the only other member of their group who didn't bother hiding her identity since no one was actually looking for her likeness, with her being technically dead for almost ten years. "Thanks for helping us out with this, by the way."

When AJ stuck out her hand, the floor director looked at it dubiously for a moment before hesitantly shaking it.

"I just hope whatever you people have to say is good," the floor director replied, glancing again at their slightly worn uniforms, then at Elsie. "I trust you're not trying to sabotage us, Miss Bates."

"Where's your control room at?" AJ interrupted, still shaking the floor director's hand. "The production control room."

The floor director raised an eyebrow, bewildered by AJ's question. "Why do you need to know that?"

But AJ didn't answer, and a second later, the floor director's eyes glossed over.

"Down the hall, second door on your left," AJ answered her own question, nodding further down the hall to their right.

"Excellent," Hitomi replied, then glanced at Camilla. "Break a... neck? Is that right?"

Mack sighed. "We'll go with that."

He offered Camilla an apologetic smile before he, Hitomi, the Songs, and Finn continued down the hall in search of the control room.

Shortly after, AJ let go of the floor director's hand, and their vision sharpened once more. While they looked over their noticeably smaller group with just Camilla, Elsie, AJ, Nakia, and Bev, AJ cleared her throat.

"No reason, just curious," AJ replied innocently.

"Right," the floor director said, slightly suspicious. They shook their head a little before looking at the tablet in their hand. "They'll be wrapping up this segment in a few minutes, then we'll go to a commercial break for three minutes, and then it'll be you folks. Blaire will introduce you as a special guest with an exclusive surprise announcement, then I'll have one of our staff wave you on. Sounds good?"

The floor director only waited a beat for a response, then nodded and left, muttering something in their headset as they walked back inside the studio. Shortly after, a different staff member joined them, glancing over them once before turning their attention solely towards the set.

"You okay?" Elsie whispered as the audience laughed overenthusiastically at something one of the cast members said.

"Yeah," Camilla forced herself to say, even though she felt a second away from hyperventilating. "Just nervous."

Elsie hummed in understanding, then held a hand out to Camilla. Camilla stiffly accepted it, then did her best to focus on the feeling of Elsie tightly gripping her hand, rather than worry about the inevitable outcome of the public's impending scorn over her actions.

"You'll do great," Elsie assured. "And even if you forget the script, Hitomi should have it loaded onto the teleprompter by then."

"It's great, by the way," Camilla quickly latched onto the opportunity to think about anything besides how the staff members were now hurrying around the set, preparing to use the commercial break to tend to the small details. "I know you never intended to use your scriptwriting knowledge for something like this..."

"It did seem more like I was writing my senior thesis than a movie," Elsie admitted, then chuckled softly. "I'm just glad I can help out somehow, even if it isn't much."

Camilla returned her words with a stiff smile, but she couldn't bring herself to do much else just then. Because at that moment, the commercial break started, and their group began garnering more attention from the other staff members and even some individuals from the audience. Camilla turned her head downwards just as one of the cast members began turning to look in their direction, and Camilla wasn't ready to see if Blaire would follow suit.

It seemed like only a few seconds passed before the commercial break came to a close, and the cast members dove into their spiel.

"And speaking about unexpected surprises," Blaire neatly segued. "Our next guests contacted us just a few minutes ago, promising us to be the first to hear their mysterious special announcement. Please join me in welcoming them and their very exciting news."

"You're up," the staff member ordered briskly, waving Camilla on as the audience applauded.

Elsie squeezed her hand once more, but Camilla could hardly feel it when her entire body felt numb. It's just another mission, she forced herself to think as she took a step forward, then another. She repeated that thought in her head over and over as she got closer and closer to the set, and she briefly worried that she forgot everything she was supposed to say.

But that became the least of her problems as soon as she stepped in front of the studio lights, and she immediately felt thousands of piercing eyes looking directly into her soul, dissecting her every movement. She already felt as if she was trudging through a storm of judgements and critiques, and it was taking all of her willpower just to keep herself from drowning in it. She couldn't do this. She wasn't ready for this.

"And I thought I had a rough morning," Blaire commented offhandedly, and the audience chuckled lightly in response. "So, mystery guest, could you introduce yourself and tell us what special announcement you have to share?

Camilla wasn't sure when she had made it to the middle of the set, but she suddenly didn't care about that anymore. The sound of Blaire's distinct work voice had snapped her out of her trance, and for a brief moment, Camilla could see hope in her future.

She saw a future where Blaire—her mom—would be relieved to see her daughter safe and sound, and they would wrap each other in tight embraces. Her mom would help Camilla get the word out, not letting anyone, not even the Org, stand in their way. Her mom would welcome Camilla back into her childhood home with open arms, then listen with intrigue to all of Camilla's stories. Her mom would be there when Camilla would falter under agonizing memories, and she would offer consoling words of comfort to soothe Camilla's pain. And Camilla couldn't pass up on that chance.

So she took a deep breath, then slowly lifted her gaze from the ground, removing her hat as she did.

---

Thank you for reading, voting, and commenting!