The faces matched missing persons. Aspiring actors. Child prodigies. Poets. All people who’d come to PESP for a "private development meeting" and never left.
PESP had a perfect record. For fifteen years, every film, series, or video game they touched turned to gold. Every. Single. One. Critics called it the "Midas Touch Merger." Competitors whispered about algorithm magic, AI script generators, and neuro-marketing. They were half-right.
The Popularity Engine