Lila grabs her phone, typing into our team’s messaging system as she waits for someone to answer. “Hey, Lincoln, we’ve got a problem,” Lila says, her voice sharp and urgent. “There’s been a breach. We’ve got at least one camera playing a looped video.” She leans over and looks at my screen. “Camera five.”
With that, all twenty-four feeds on my screen go black.
“Vince, do you copy?” I ask, waiting for the head of the venue’s security team to respond. As Jaxon’s personal security team, we monitor the cameras that are important to the performer, but leave the other ten-to-a-hundred cameras to the venue’s team. I don’t want someone to steal from the concessions, but it isn’t my job to focus on that.
“Copy.”
“We lost connection to all of our cameras. Are yours out?”
“No, but…Kelsey, you’ve got a fan on the stage.”
I stop dead in my tracks, my blood running cold. “What?How?”
I glance out the window that allows us to see the performance happening two levels below. Sure enough, there is a man with sandy-blond hair running around the stage, yelling something. He also appearsto be…naked.
The band is still playing, though it’s clear everyone is distracted by the man.
Carter is screaming into his comms, coordinating the extraction of the man. Finally, a team of five moves in from all sides, and an agent tackles the streaker.
A chant starts up in the crowd, something I can’t quite make out, and Jaxon breaks from his normal choreography to chant along with them. Then I hear it, the “Action, Jaxon! Action, Jaxon!” that pulls me back to my youth, when I’d hear Izzy and Jaxon yelling that before he would do some dumb stunt in our backyard, or later when they were downstairs playing that guitar video game.
Finally, Jaxon starts singing again, the crisis seemingly forgotten by all but me and my team. But the panic inside me continues to build.This is bad. This is really bad.
The monitors in front of me are still black. The cameras that should’ve been providing security footage, the very cameras my team was responsible for, went down at just the wrong moment. I feel the weight of responsibility pressing down harder than it ever has before. We were supposed to be prepared for this. We were prepared. Why is this happening?
Carter is on his comms, barking orders. “Backup team, perimeter check, now. We’ve got no eyes. Weston, Eddie, I want both your teams moving with Jaxon.”
I try to focus, but my mind is racing. The streaker is already gone, taken away by security, but the damage is done. The cameras were down, the equipment compromised, and it’s on my team. My responsibility.
I glance over at Lila, who’s still glued to her phone, sending messages, coordinating with the venue’s team. Her face is tight, the urgency in her expression matching the way I feel inside. “What do you need me to do?” she asks, her voice clipped but focused.
“We need to figure out what happened,” I say, my voice shaking a little. “Someone tampered with our equipment. It’s the only explanation. We can’t risk it happening again. I need to know exactly what happened.”
Lila nods her agreement, and I look at Carter. “We’d better go check in with Jaxon. They’ll have him back at his dressing room by now.”
He gestures toward the door. “I’ll follow you,” he says, his voice calm, but there’s an edge to it. I know he’s pissed. I’m pissed.
We make our way backstage, moving quickly toward Jaxon’s dressing room. As we approach, I hear raised voices inside—Jaxon, Henry, and several others I don’t recognize are all speaking at once. My stomach sinks. This is exactly the kind of situation I’ve been trying to avoid: another failure on my team’s part.
I knock before entering, trying to compose myself. The door opens, and the tension in the room hits me like a wall. Jaxon’s standing in the middle, his brow furrowed. He’s clearly pissed, but his eyes shift to me the moment I step inside. The room goes silent. Why does this feel so familiar?
Trent, whom I hadn’t even noticed, speaks first, his voice clipped. “Kelsey, this should’ve been handled. My guys can’t stop things they don’t know are coming. That man didn’t show up naked—how did you miss this?”
I want to pass off the blame. This wasn’t our system. This wasn’t my team, but until I have more information, I don’t know that, not for certain. “Our system—all our cameras went offline. And at least one of them was playing looped footage before that. We’d just identified the issue when my team lost all visuals. It’s…strange. The timing. I have a few theories, but nothing concrete.”
“Is one of your theories that you’re just not that good at your job? Because I assure you, this wouldn’t have happened to my team.”
Jaxon looks at Trent before he turns back to me. His expression softens slightly, but his frustration is still palpable. “I don’t need to hear theories, Kelsey. I need answers. Your team is responsible for monitoring this.”
I swallow hard, trying to steady my breathing. “I know,” I mutter, frustration seeping into my voice. “It didn’t pop up on any social media that we saw, and with the cameras out… I’m going to find out how this happened. But I need time. I need access to the logs, the systems—everything.”
Jaxon’s eyes narrow as he watches me, his face unreadable.
“This could’ve been a disaster. Luckily,someone”—he emphasizes the word, suggesting he’s acutely aware of who it was—“started that chant and turned the whole thing into a funny little escapade, but people pay a lot of money to come to these concerts, and I’m responsible for making sure they get what they want out of it. Seeing some man’s flaccid penis? No one wants that.”
Carter snorts a laugh from where he’s standing in the corner, but I refuse to break eye contact with Jaxon.
“I understand,” I say quickly. “I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
