The Scandal-Proof Producer

The celebratory energy in the Aura office began to subside as the night wore on, replaced by a warm, contented exhaustion. The song was a certified hit, rocketing up global charts. The music video was trending at number one worldwide, its comment section a testament to the powerful emotional chord they had struck. The press was universally positive, hailing them as a bold, new voice in the industry. For the first time in a long time, the future felt bright and secure.

Yoo-jin retreated to the quiet of his office, leaving his team to bask in their well-earned victory. He leaned back in his chair, scrolling through the glowing reviews on his monitor, a rare, genuine sense of peace settling over him. He had faced down corporate titans, media manipulators, and violent criminals. He had shielded his artists, healed rifts within his team, and transformed a private shame into a public triumph. He had won.

The door opened without a knock.

Oh Min-ji stepped inside, her usual impassive expression replaced by something else, something grim and urgent that immediately dispelled Yoo-jin's momentary tranquility. The celebratory mood vanished, replaced by the cold reality of their larger, ongoing war.

"The blueprint is fully decrypted and analyzed," she said, her voice low and serious, cutting through the quiet room. "I've cross-referenced the file structures with the data we already have. There's something you need to see."

She walked over to his large wall monitor and connected her tablet. The screen, which had been displaying a glowing Billboard article, was replaced by the stark, functional interface of her analysis software.

"Project Nightingale is further along than we thought," she began, pulling up a complex timeline that looked like a corporate project plan from hell. "We thought they were still in the developmental phase. We were wrong."

She pointed to a series of color-coded sections on the timeline. "Phase 1, 'Data Acquisition,' and Phase 2, 'AI Composition,' are marked as complete. According to their internal logs, they are now officially entering Phase 3: Public Beta Test."

Yoo-jin's blood ran cold. "A beta test?"

"A debut," Min-ji corrected, her voice sharp. "They're planning to launch their first fully virtual artist. They're not waiting. They're coming out now, while the media conversation is about the future of music. They want to hijack the narrative and dominate it."

She zoomed in on the details for Phase 3. The avatar's name was "KAI." The project brief described him as a "next-generation global pop artist." The launch was not a small, quiet affair. The blueprint detailed a massive, multi-million-dollar global media blitz, leveraging OmniCorp's immense corporate power to secure playlist placements, media features, and high-profile digital billboard ads in Times Square and Shibuya Crossing. The target launch window was terrifyingly close: four weeks from now.

"They're moving on us," Yoo-jin said, his mind racing. "They see 'Echo & Roar' as a declaration of war, and this is their response."

"It's worse than that," Min-ji said, her expression growing darker. "They didn't just start this plan now. It's been in motion for months. And to build their first vessel… they needed a template."

She navigated to another folder, one recovered from the data Yoo-jin had asked her to pull from Dr. Thorne's cloud storage, which he had so foolishly granted Chae-rin access to. The folder was labeled "Prospective Asset Analysis - Discarded." Inside was a series of audio files—raw, unmixed demos from an obscure indie artist. Min-ji hit play.

A voice filled the office. It was a man's voice, filled with a unique, captivating mix of raw power and a fragile, breathy falsetto. The melodies were complex, emotional, and hauntingly beautiful. The style was incredibly distinct. And terrifyingly familiar.

A sick feeling of recognition twisted in Yoo-jin's gut. He knew that voice. He closed his eyes, activating his own internal, infallible database, cross-referencing the unique vocal timbre against every artist he had ever scouted, every demo he had ever heard.

A match flashed in his mind's eye, bright and damning.

[Vocal Signature Match Found.]

[Artist: Jin (Real Name: Kim Jin-hyuk).]

[Affiliation: Eclipse (Top Tier Media).]

They were Jin's secret solo demos. The songs he must have written in private, filled with the raw, authentic artistic identity he was forced to suppress as the leader of the formulaic idol group Eclipse. He must have sent them out under a pseudonym to a producer or an indie label he thought he could trust, desperately looking for a way out, a way to be his true self. But the company he sent them to was, undoubtedly, an OmniCorp front.

And they hadn't just rejected him. They had dissected him. They had vivisected his artistic soul, cataloging every unique nuance of his voice, every creative turn of phrase in his melodies. They had stolen his artistic DNA.

"There's one more file," Min-ji said, her voice barely a whisper. "It's from the main Nightingale directory. Labeled 'KAI_Debut_Single_V3_Final.wav'."

She pressed play.

A perfectly produced, undeniably catchy synth-pop track filled the room. The melody was an expert distillation of every current trend, scientifically engineered for mass appeal. And then the voice came in.

Yoo-jin felt a wave of nausea.

It was a chillingly perfect, AI-generated synthesis of Jin's voice. It had his unique, breathy falsetto. It had his powerful, raw belts. It had the same subtle vocal fry he used at the end of his phrases. The AI was singing melodies that were hauntingly similar to those from his own stolen demos, but stripped of all their original pain and vulnerability, polished into a flawless, commercial sheen.

OmniCorp hadn't just been studying artists to learn from them. They were skinning them alive. They were taking the most unique, most human parts of a real artist's soul and using it as a data set to give their empty, digital puppet a voice.

Yoo-jin stared at the wall monitor, at the handsome, smiling, artificial face of "Kai," while the ghost of Jin's voice poured out of the speakers. His former double agent, the young man he had formed a fragile, complicated alliance with, the artist he had watched struggle against the corrupt system, had become the first ghost in their machine. The first soul to be harvested for Project Nightingale.

And the worst part of all? Jin didn't even know it yet. He was about to watch his own artistic essence, his secret, most precious dream, be released to the world, worn by a perfect, smiling stranger.

The war had just become terrifyingly, horrifically personal.