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Speaker 1: Hullo, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.

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Let's get into it. Rain hissed and patted the old

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tin roof as ern He laned up beneath the flickering

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security light and slipped his key into the warped metal door.

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It took a grunt and a shove of his shoulder

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to force it open. Hint his shrieking and protest. The

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whole building shuddered as it yielded, and Ernie paused just inside,

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letting the heavy thunk settle through the bones of the floor. Somehow,

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even the weather seemed defended by his return. He set

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his stuffled down, blinking rain from his glasses, and felt

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the musty air crawl over him, moth balls, mildew, a

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trace of something sweeter from years of box candy left behind.

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The stagrant mix had not changed in the fifteen years

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since he last crossed this threshold. His left foot sank

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into rutgudged in the carpet by generations of hurried steps,

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beround him. The ghost of morning newsure and coffee seemed

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to haunt the patch of thenoleum where an old brake

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table had once stood. W RC Ane's narrow lobby led

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straight to the broadcast room irony. His feet found the

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rout instinctively. To his right stretched a row of grimy windows,

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more white with grime than anything outside. Lettering feeded and reversed,

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still declared this was radio for the region. Half the

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letters had peeled, but in the glowing haze of the

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security lamp it was still just legible enough to take

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him back. He ran a hand along the plywood partition

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as he moved, finger tips brushing over a thin spidery crack,

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a quick, useless check. Yes, the power was still on,

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or at least A weather of red light above the

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on air signs still glowed faintly behind plastic It bathed

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the room beyond in an nod fake sunset. You'd think

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a ghost would rattle the chains. He muttered, and his voice,

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dry and corroded, seemed a hum Here the main studio

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beckoned a battered table, two ancient sher microphones, mismatch chairs,

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mismatched everything really the war rack like a battered sentry.

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Housing relics led to real decks, switch panels, analog meters

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twitching at unseen frequencies, Papers and boxes stacked round in

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artless towers made a warren of half forgotten intent. Ernie

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set to work, tugging the heavy canvas over a stack

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of dusty tapes. His hands had study fumbled the velcor

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He dried them on his jeans and let himself settle

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into the battered engineer's chair. The back driff of his scent,

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cold sweat, and fabric soofnal laid itself over the years

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of cigarette smoke already baked into the padding. He breathed

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and measured, and exhaled into the hush all around him.

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Water hammered the roof and ticked at the window frames,

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masking the figned electricity that still ran through the boards

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and consoles. As he began to unwrap the brown papered boxes,

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the faintest were and rising hum came from the deck's pause,

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which a memory sparking into life. Only fiddled with the

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patch cables, mentally tracing their faded taped labels. He reached

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for a reel and slotted it into place with a

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precision bordering on reverence. There was a rhythm to it.

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Feed titan chugged backward a half towest, a cue all

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muscle memory his old bosses would have scoffed. Nobody cues

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a reel anymore. Nobody even listens most days. But that

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was what he was here to do, to listen, to

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thread memory through magnetos tape and hope with every click

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and flutter that something loss would fall into place, some

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salvage of a name, a moment, some filament of what

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he once meant to people before he began the ghost

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in the wires. For a moment, the only sound was

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the gentle feathering static from his headphones. It was familiar,

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soothing in a perverse way. Static was honest. A little

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after nine thirty, the blue disk outside gave way to

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true night through the filmy window, the sullen skeleton and

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ten a tower blink read against the rising fog. He

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hunted through the log books, trailing the faded pen lines

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of midnight news, late night requests, the breakfast show. There

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a tape labeled nine slash fourteen slash ninety seven Evgen's block.

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He lowered the stylus and press play. The tape hissed

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into life, and the syruppy pianos thing tumbled out, the

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signature jingle still echoing with the forced cheerfulness of suburban radio.

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He could almost see Dottie, the night anchor, grinning at

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the mic, her hair always far too high. A brisk

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weather update started, only marked a node and frowned. The

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jingle plate again, sharper fading unusually fast, and then nothing,

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A smothered thunk, then half a breath, then silence, not

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the scrape of dead tape, but a hollow even dead air,

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not recorded, not broadcast, not anything. For nearly a minute,

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Ernie let the headphones squeeze him, listening to nothing. Then abruptly,

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a different voice began reading the news. It was familiar

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and mistakably one of their own, but hollow, mechanical. The

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cadence aggressive, as if the speaker had learned the script

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by wrote, but understood none of it. Shillingly won a pulse,

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feigned at first. When beneath the next few minutes, Ernie

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set down his note bed. He didn't breathe. When the

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segment ended, he grew wound and played it again. There again,

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a stumble in the jingle avoid then voices, as if

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something had shorn away their warmth. A muted shudder threaded

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through him. He leaned forward to the microphone, whispering mentally,

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as he always did on tapeer view nights. Something's not right.

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Even the storm paused for a heartbeat, as if the

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building knew what he'd found. He thumbed his notes twelve

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minutes missing impossible but true. He sat back the cry

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of thunder outside, answering his confusion, and let it growing

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a mistakable chill, settle into his bones. By midnight he

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had the first sensation that he was not alone. That sensation,

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that ache of having intruded, clung to Ernie as he

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trudged back to the motel on the edge of the

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old industrial district. The rain tapered off, leaving only the

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steady drip from every awning and the distance of cows

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on wet, blacked up rivers. Are Town, once the Lancashire

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Steel Hub, now barely managed to keep his street lights

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on at night. The handful of buildings that smoldered with

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some life, usually an all night diner, sometimes a bar,

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never both in the same block, seen to draw back

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in suspicion as he passed his motel was a low affair,

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its faded sign flickering between orests and a nest like

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a stammer. Ernie swung into the lobby, nodded worily at

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the exhausted night clerk, and trudged to his shoe books

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of her room. He hung his jacket over the old heater,

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watched steam carl for a moment, and plugged in his

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battered laptop. It wheezed a life, just as he wiped

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the fog from his glasses and stared at the knot

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of tapes he'd stuffed into an oversized zipluck. Each one,

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he told himself, was a chance. He'd come back to

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w RCN, because there were storers here that wouldn't let

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him go. If he could salvage a few lost hours

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of regional culture, maybe people would remember something besides his

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dismissal and his false accusations at the city station. Maybe

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his own history wouldn't grind him flat every more. Warning

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or perhaps lurking beneath them hope, He just wanted to

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know what really happened the stations clapped in nineteen ninety seven.

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Was the ruin that were shaped every face in his

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old memories. No one, not even the ones who had

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stuck around, really explained where the laughter went. He'd spent

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his days at the station, cranking the ancient boiler and

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coaxing lights to life. Not for a living, no one

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paid for this group, but as a ritual. He digitized

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the old reels, scanned logs, labeled and re labeled, and

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read every half legible, half delusional program guide. Most days

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he hardly spoke up of a murmur to himself to

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the walls, to the squeak of the tape as he

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smoothed it by thumb n index finger. Sometimes near mid day,

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Missus Dross would hobble in her coat, always buttoned up high,

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her cloud of white hair bobbing as she navigated through

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the piles of unsorta correspondence. She'd set her person the

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old receptionist desk and glare at the fax machine as

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if daring it to try again. She'd lost most of

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her hearing, and her memory seemed to come and go

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in bright nervous flashes. The phone rang again, she told

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him once, voice quaking, but I didn't pick up. You

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never know, Rone, It's always for the dead, Why else

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would it rain. He'd offered her tea from their ancient kettle,

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which she accepted with a tiny, perfunctory naw. In exchange,

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she offered half remembered tales of the station's past, most

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of which Ernie already knew. Be Howe of the funders

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of marathon for local charities, Edson ms pronunciation that became

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a running joke the summer of the power outage discut

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when they played staying a live on loop for four

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hours straight. It was all covered in a shifting haze

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of affection, loss and something he couldn't quite name. Other days,

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she only nodded and slipped away, speaking to the security

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guard as it to prove to the world that she

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had spoken to someone alive. The surrounding industrial block felt

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equally haunted once hundreds had clocked in at the war

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factory across the street. Now Patterson Kibbles had collapsed glass

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in every empty window, peering back at Ernie's lone car

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as if offended by his insistence on returning. The only

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sign of life left was the over present baded billboard

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up of the loading dock radio for the region, a

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logo half peeled, the phone line disconnected. Ernie's daily ritual

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became one of absences more than arrivals. The launch eyre

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was a walk around the whee chop perimeter of the

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main conversation with the stray cat, who liked the sun itself,

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even in the filtered light. In the evenings, he returned

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for the second secret half of the day, when the

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old mixing desk was his lifeline. Here he could recalibrate

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the meters, type out careful notes about which tips were stable,

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which were flaking, and which were helplessly mangled. Sometimes, as

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he worked, he found himself talking to no one, the

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way you might keep an argument running in your head

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after all the guests have left party. He apologized to

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the static, tried its silence, thanked the machines for lasting

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the lawn. Guilt was a constant companion, Old gilt for

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not standing up when another staffer was bullied out, and

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new gilt for perhaps never giving up on these hollow relics.

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But always the tape pulled him back. The promise of

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a lost moment, of something just under the trouble hiss

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drove him on. He filled up log after log daytime

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presenter air quality notes on damage. Slow punishing but honest work.

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The first sign things were slipping out of the ordinary

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cane in smaller artifact. The programmed log was wrong. Three

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nights into his digitization run. Sitting in the Marion dusk,

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Ernie was slogging through the September ninety seven aired it

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locks when he found a curious dam typewritten rather than

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pend like the rest twelve minutes an account of for

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contact ops of freakers. He flipped the page, checking signatures. H. L. Walker,

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the operation's manager had initialed it in a shaky hand.

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A later note added confirmed not a timer error, possibly

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automation fault. Ernie held the card up to the lie.

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It looked genuine, exactly like the ear or so he

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started rifling through the stacks for matching tapes. After twenty

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minutes he'd found three label to have news block, all

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showing run times twelve minutes, too short for the logged slot.

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At first he assumed mechanical failure, but the cassettes were whole.

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They spools, tight and unwarped. He keyed each one into

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the deck, fast forwarding rewinding advancing minute by minute. Every

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time the same anomaly, the new segment would play. Normally,

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the jingle would fade, and then not a pop, not

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a drop out, but a chilling gap, not tape noise,

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but a hush, like a roof full of hell breath,

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and after that the voices came back, drained and strange.

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The present sometimes dotty, sometimes ed pronounced words with such

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rigid neutrality it sounded like they were being read by

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a faulty computer. Voice. Jokes didn't land. Music came in

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at strange times. The whole atmosphere shifted from the easy

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camaraderie he remembered, to something riddled with fishers. He paged

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back through the staff rostos for that month. There were

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names Brenda, Rakish Mav who were locked and for one

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shift and gone by the next. The afternoon, after a

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tape with the missing minutes, their signatures vanished from the logs.

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No resignation, no hand of her ernie. Spine prickled. He

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picked up the old phone by the editing bay, half

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expecting to hit the busy signal, maybe even hoping for

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her own number, just to break the tension. Instead, the

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receiver clicked against his ear, and after a moment of silence,

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then static began faint, with a hissing underlayer. Then if

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he strained the s words barely above a breath winding

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beneath the noise, it sounded like his own name, or

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perhaps just his mind conjuring patterns. Eastpum strucked up his forearm.

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He put the receiver back gingerly. He pushed his work

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aside and paced the hall, his thoughts spinning a million explanations. Malfunction,

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deliberate sabotage, a prank with a shifted voiceoule seem possible

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but unlikely, the precision of the breaks, the imperceptible change

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in the voices, the missing stuff it mapped on to

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something he couldn't decipher. He made a note pattern twelve

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mins miss in staff absence, all after one a m

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voices all is there a master list of technical faults. Then,

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just as he clicked off the desk lamp, the phone

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rang again. He let it rain. No one else was around,

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and some questions, he reminded himself, needed answers only in

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the daylight. Restless only turned to the long list of

234
00:11:27,639 --> 00:11:31,039
ex colleagues, looking for any whom I remember. Most numbers

235
00:11:31,080 --> 00:11:33,559
were disconnected now or are listed to the wrong names.

236
00:11:34,080 --> 00:11:36,120
When he called the handful that still rang, he used

237
00:11:36,120 --> 00:11:39,639
his best radio voice, calm, clipped, not desperate. One by

238
00:11:39,720 --> 00:11:43,279
one they shut him up. Some refused flutley, saying only

239
00:11:43,360 --> 00:11:46,759
best to let it lie Ernie. Others offered polite nothings,

240
00:11:46,879 --> 00:11:49,559
muttering about those days if memories were shrapnel working their

241
00:11:49,600 --> 00:11:52,159
way to the skin. More than one simply hung up

242
00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:54,639
before the question about September ninety seven, even left his

243
00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:58,039
home late that afternoon for like a cloud breakfast counter.

244
00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:00,960
He finally connected with Carol Dawson in the harsh light

245
00:12:00,960 --> 00:12:03,320
of the window. She looked hollow cheeked, brighter hair now,

246
00:12:03,399 --> 00:12:05,080
but the same nervous flick of her hands as in

247
00:12:05,120 --> 00:12:08,240
the staff photo. On his work ide. She listened to

248
00:12:08,279 --> 00:12:10,799
his pitch and guarded silence. I was darting between him

249
00:12:10,840 --> 00:12:13,279
and the rain outside. It's not like I can remember

250
00:12:13,320 --> 00:12:16,840
all the details, she said. But she didn't leave. People left.

251
00:12:16,879 --> 00:12:18,720
There were rumors. None of it made sense to me,

252
00:12:18,759 --> 00:12:22,679
then either. Did you notice anything strange about the broadcast themselves?

253
00:12:23,279 --> 00:12:27,039
Irone pressed, She stared into her coffee. I don't know.

254
00:12:27,200 --> 00:12:29,559
It was just cold. I remember feeling so cold inside

255
00:12:29,559 --> 00:12:31,600
my own voice. I tried to make it sound normal,

256
00:12:31,720 --> 00:12:33,639
but it felt like some one had wrapped I don't know,

257
00:12:33,679 --> 00:12:36,360
plastic or tin around my throw. You get so used

258
00:12:36,360 --> 00:12:38,480
to flow in banter and then nothing feels yours. You

259
00:12:38,559 --> 00:12:40,240
say the same jokes, but people look at you like

260
00:12:40,279 --> 00:12:43,600
your reading their eulogy. They lapsed into silence, broken only

261
00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:45,559
by the sizzle from the kitchen and the scrape of

262
00:12:45,559 --> 00:12:48,919
her spoon. Iony probed gently, but every answer slid away,

263
00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:53,320
growing blurryal with each attempt. Her distress became obvious. After

264
00:12:53,320 --> 00:12:56,000
ten minutes, she excused het herself, mumbling about needing to

265
00:12:56,039 --> 00:12:58,000
check on her mother, and left before her toast was

266
00:12:58,039 --> 00:13:01,360
even served. A kid at the next booth, old enough

267
00:13:01,360 --> 00:13:04,840
to remember the nighties, watched Rownie pack up. He poking

268
00:13:04,840 --> 00:13:08,159
the old station. Ha. The kids said, mar was not there,

269
00:13:08,360 --> 00:13:10,360
not unless the lights are out. My uncle says, some

270
00:13:10,440 --> 00:13:12,639
signals just want to keep sleeping. Ye let em people

271
00:13:12,639 --> 00:13:15,120
who poke at him, they get static in the head an.

272
00:13:15,200 --> 00:13:16,840
He offered a dry nod and left a tip he

273
00:13:16,840 --> 00:13:19,879
couldn't afford. He was drawn to the public library. Next

274
00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:22,600
one of those post wormit rises. Its lower floor now moffled,

275
00:13:22,600 --> 00:13:25,799
but the stacks captain pride for Lorrider. Local newspapers from

276
00:13:25,840 --> 00:13:28,480
nineteen ninety seven filled a drawer, but when Ernie searched

277
00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:31,799
for incident reports surrounding wsc Aid in September, he found nothing.

278
00:13:32,360 --> 00:13:35,639
Back out the paper ran the local parade, a dog's shore,

279
00:13:35,759 --> 00:13:38,639
but no mention of the staff shakeout or strange service interruptions.

280
00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:41,759
A minor note on scheduled maintenance was as close as

281
00:13:41,759 --> 00:13:44,960
anything came to explaining it. He dug deeper, sifting through

282
00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:47,360
his cognation files, marred by water stains and three kinds

283
00:13:47,399 --> 00:13:50,320
of paper clip, but found only a single unsent transfer letter.

284
00:13:50,960 --> 00:13:53,480
It was typed in a nervous, blocky hand with two

285
00:13:53,519 --> 00:13:57,120
lines underlined and shaking pen frequency blead caused incident, never again,

286
00:13:57,200 --> 00:14:01,480
even if they ask, please destroy this evening Preston Throughout

287
00:14:01,519 --> 00:14:04,399
the main station, cassette reels began clicking on seemingly, and

288
00:14:04,399 --> 00:14:08,279
scheduled Anie whipped round to see a player not plugged in, whirring,

289
00:14:08,399 --> 00:14:10,759
spreading out a storm of warped fragments, bits and pieces

290
00:14:10,759 --> 00:14:14,720
of his new digitizations and dispersed with radiostatic, no timer,

291
00:14:14,759 --> 00:14:17,919
no cue. Yeah here it was. Paranoia ran its fingers

292
00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:20,759
up the back of his neck. He shut each machine off,

293
00:14:20,919 --> 00:14:23,120
only to hear one on somewhere deeper in the stacks.

294
00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:26,720
The lamps flickered. He locked the studio, careful to check

295
00:14:26,759 --> 00:14:29,320
each exit. When he got home that night, a new

296
00:14:29,360 --> 00:14:31,320
email blinked at him from an address he'd never seen.

297
00:14:31,440 --> 00:14:34,519
Frequency believed ninety seven. Drop this, you don't want what

298
00:14:34,600 --> 00:14:37,480
we found. For the first time since his return, it

299
00:14:37,600 --> 00:14:40,600
entered his mind to simply walk away. Maybe he done enough.

300
00:14:40,720 --> 00:14:43,080
Maybe some stores wanted nothing more than to rock quietly

301
00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:46,320
in the dark, That something obligation, pride, the old anger's

302
00:14:46,320 --> 00:14:48,840
conviction that every silence was merely waiting for the next worst,

303
00:14:48,879 --> 00:14:51,799
drove him to stay. Rain found him again the next morning.

304
00:14:52,320 --> 00:14:54,120
Instead of the station, he was on the road out

305
00:14:54,120 --> 00:14:56,559
by the river turn of Ware. According to half remembered Scuttle,

306
00:14:56,559 --> 00:14:59,360
but Lenny Grinds had told up after the ninety seven breakdown,

307
00:15:00,080 --> 00:15:02,759
Lennie had ridden the graveyard chief, made sandwiches at three

308
00:15:02,799 --> 00:15:05,200
a m. And played harmonica on the brakes when nobody

309
00:15:05,240 --> 00:15:08,679
was listening. If anyone remembered that night, it would be Lennie.

310
00:15:09,120 --> 00:15:11,240
His trailer looked like it had been part fifteen years

311
00:15:11,240 --> 00:15:14,600
and deliberate defiance of logic, three wheels instead of four,

312
00:15:14,679 --> 00:15:17,080
an upten dish in tenna, propin tanks leaning like in

313
00:15:17,200 --> 00:15:20,440
certain sentinels, and most oddly, fore tuning fork's nail to

314
00:15:20,440 --> 00:15:23,840
the port trail. Lennie answered knock, only after Ernie called

315
00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:26,639
out both his full name and Lennie's. When the door

316
00:15:26,679 --> 00:15:29,480
finally cracked, Lennie's eyes were glassy, his cheeks freathed in

317
00:15:29,519 --> 00:15:32,480
an even beard. The shadows inside were thick. The small

318
00:15:32,559 --> 00:15:34,960
lamp by the stove did little to beat back the gloom.

319
00:15:35,200 --> 00:15:38,679
You're digging up tunes, Lennie opened, voice trembling. I just

320
00:15:38,720 --> 00:15:41,240
want to know what happened, Ernie said, not moving from

321
00:15:41,279 --> 00:15:44,159
the rain slickstep. I know about the tape gaps, about

322
00:15:44,159 --> 00:15:47,120
the resignations. Something happened, Lennie, and it wasn't just stress.

323
00:15:47,759 --> 00:15:51,120
Lennie licked his lips, fingers trembling over the loch. He

324
00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:54,480
talked to Marvillette or Carroll. They refused to talk about it.

325
00:15:54,559 --> 00:15:56,759
You're the only one who hasn't broken off the hook.

326
00:15:57,159 --> 00:15:59,799
For a moment, Ernie thought Lenny would shut him out anyway,

327
00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:02,720
but then the latch fleck in. Ernie was ushered inside.

328
00:16:02,840 --> 00:16:05,720
The door closed softly behind him. There amid stacks of

329
00:16:05,799 --> 00:16:08,279
radio parts in a portable generator. That hunt even went off.

330
00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:11,080
Lennie finally gave in. It wasn't my fault. None of

331
00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:13,080
us should have been there that night the emergency tones

332
00:16:13,120 --> 00:16:15,080
went out, but I didn't send them. No one did.

333
00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:17,480
I checked everything. They were coming in through the overid panel,

334
00:16:17,799 --> 00:16:19,679
but we didn't even have that one until a week after.

335
00:16:19,799 --> 00:16:23,240
It's impossible, but it happened. Ernie nodded, turning his foond's

336
00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:26,799
recorder on. With the faintest movement, A tremor endered Lennie's voice.

337
00:16:27,320 --> 00:16:29,559
When the jingle played, it went all sharp, like metal

338
00:16:29,600 --> 00:16:32,679
in my mouth. Then this fuseshel coded. I couldn't follow it.

339
00:16:32,799 --> 00:16:35,639
The room it changed, fuff, crushed like pressure or sound

340
00:16:35,679 --> 00:16:38,240
under order, colors, rum faces melting if he looked too hard.

341
00:16:38,279 --> 00:16:41,039
Next thing, I remember, it was morning, twelve minutes black oat.

342
00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:44,240
He pressed his fist against his brows, shaking. I told

343
00:16:44,279 --> 00:16:46,600
them it's not safe. Something came fridyer. Don't let them

344
00:16:46,639 --> 00:16:48,879
make us try again. I don't remember the drive home.

345
00:16:48,919 --> 00:16:54,039
People change, even myself. Ernie sat frozen. He'd expected exaggeration, panic,

346
00:16:54,159 --> 00:16:57,120
but not this raw terror. What does frequency plead mean?

347
00:16:57,279 --> 00:17:00,399
Is that real? Lennie started, his sowed, knuckles white as

348
00:17:00,399 --> 00:17:02,960
he grabbed the edge of a battered radio. Some suns

349
00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:05,200
he can't put back in the box. The frequency it's

350
00:17:05,240 --> 00:17:07,160
not hires, They never should have tried to use it

351
00:17:07,200 --> 00:17:10,359
for public broadcasts. We were the test. He begged Ernie

352
00:17:10,359 --> 00:17:12,599
to leave. As Ernie stepped off the porch, he saw

353
00:17:12,599 --> 00:17:15,480
the tuning forks again, humming in the wind, all Mars whistling.

354
00:17:16,119 --> 00:17:19,440
Lennie called after him, voice ragged, desperate, stay off the

355
00:17:19,519 --> 00:17:22,839
night frequency. Ernie drove away through sheets of rain, headlights,

356
00:17:22,880 --> 00:17:26,039
catching the uneasy shimmer of water in every ditch. His

357
00:17:26,119 --> 00:17:28,000
mind turned that there had to be an explanation, some

358
00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:31,839
rational path through dis maze, but Lenny's broken, insistent please

359
00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:34,759
echoed in his chest. Back in the stations made Edith

360
00:17:34,759 --> 00:17:37,119
in Bay, Ernie began a new phase of his obsession.

361
00:17:37,599 --> 00:17:39,920
He pulled the September tight and digitized them again, this

362
00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:42,119
time boosting the playback volume to the highest levels the

363
00:17:42,160 --> 00:17:45,559
equipment could stand. Analyzing the dead air periods, he ran

364
00:17:45,599 --> 00:17:48,759
everything through spectral tools, and there it was a pulse,

365
00:17:48,960 --> 00:17:52,240
low and determined, registering far beneath the threshold of human hearing.

366
00:17:52,799 --> 00:17:55,200
No accidental edit, no gap in the date. This was

367
00:17:55,240 --> 00:17:57,839
something encoded, deliberate functioning in a layer meant never to

368
00:17:57,839 --> 00:18:02,279
be heard online. Their research was slow. Frequency Plead turned

369
00:18:02,319 --> 00:18:05,240
up few results, but only drudged up military debriefs on

370
00:18:05,279 --> 00:18:09,000
interrupted public radio, ominous warnings about the emergency allout systems,

371
00:18:09,039 --> 00:18:13,640
and tested psychological tones rumors not facts, but chilling regardless,

372
00:18:14,240 --> 00:18:17,119
there were suggestions, half paranoi, half authoritative, that a local

373
00:18:17,160 --> 00:18:20,599
test might have been ordered for regional response mapping. If true,

374
00:18:20,680 --> 00:18:23,640
it would never have been cleared for civilian use. Marv,

375
00:18:23,759 --> 00:18:27,000
the engineer, still lived in town. Ernie tried twice by

376
00:18:27,039 --> 00:18:29,839
phone and was told with flat finality, leave it lying.

377
00:18:29,960 --> 00:18:32,400
I set my piece of years ago. But the third

378
00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:35,720
time Marve relented, offering a time, come midnight, transmitter shack,

379
00:18:35,799 --> 00:18:38,160
don't be late, don't bring any one. I'll bring the logs.

380
00:18:38,799 --> 00:18:42,119
Word had gotten out late one afternoon at the boulger,

381
00:18:42,240 --> 00:18:45,480
A clerk eyed Ernie's warm badge. They say you're digging

382
00:18:45,519 --> 00:18:49,200
up the station, she said, barely above whisper. My brother wasn't.

383
00:18:49,240 --> 00:18:51,799
Right after that year, Cat screamed all night radio's click

384
00:18:51,799 --> 00:18:53,359
when they were off. He put that back to bed,

385
00:18:53,440 --> 00:18:56,680
mister lng. Ernie left quickly, clutching his groceries and the

386
00:18:56,680 --> 00:18:59,240
weight of her words. As the night for the meeting

387
00:18:59,319 --> 00:19:01,720
drew near, he sat in the editing bay recording his

388
00:19:01,799 --> 00:19:04,680
thoughts by habit as much as for future evidence. I

389
00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:06,440
don't know what's at the bottom of this. Maybe it's

390
00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:08,640
just fear or gill or nothing at all, but I

391
00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:10,759
have to see. I have to know. Maybe the tape

392
00:19:10,839 --> 00:19:12,960
is just broken, maybe it's me that's broken. But if

393
00:19:12,960 --> 00:19:14,519
this is something more, if it was done to us,

394
00:19:14,640 --> 00:19:16,680
not by us, then the story needs telling, doesn't it.

395
00:19:17,279 --> 00:19:19,799
He rewound the tape. His hand shook as he closed

396
00:19:19,799 --> 00:19:23,240
his notebook. The rain resumed, sharp and insistent, as if

397
00:19:23,319 --> 00:19:26,880
marking a warning. The transmitter shack was half collapsed, decades

398
00:19:26,920 --> 00:19:29,640
behind on repairs, and hugged the farthest edge of the property.

399
00:19:30,200 --> 00:19:32,640
At midnight, Ronie parked his car and walked the last

400
00:19:32,759 --> 00:19:35,279
hundred yards through sheeting rain, hot, stumbling at every flash

401
00:19:35,279 --> 00:19:38,240
of lightning inside the machines gave off a trembling the

402
00:19:38,279 --> 00:19:41,000
living ham. He rapped once on the door, then slid

403
00:19:41,079 --> 00:19:44,279
inside as it cracked open. Marv was older, heavier, set,

404
00:19:44,319 --> 00:19:46,240
his jaw shouded by a gray beard, but his eyes

405
00:19:46,279 --> 00:19:49,759
were the same, quick, worry and deeply tired. He checked

406
00:19:49,759 --> 00:19:52,759
the window blinds, glanced at Ernie's digital recorder, and nodded

407
00:19:52,759 --> 00:19:55,960
for him to sit keep your voice down, no phone calls,

408
00:19:56,039 --> 00:19:58,799
and if you hear anything that feels wrong, we stop clearer.

409
00:19:59,359 --> 00:20:03,359
Marv handed it a battered folio, its ches buckled from down. Inside.

410
00:20:03,480 --> 00:20:06,279
Careful notations jotted the timing of every event he'd loved,

411
00:20:06,279 --> 00:20:09,599
every gap, every substitution, every name that dropped from the Rosser. Afterward,

412
00:20:10,319 --> 00:20:14,799
there's an archive, Marv whispered, hand shaking, lockfall, one master reel.

413
00:20:14,880 --> 00:20:17,319
Do not broadcast again? Ever, Only I kept the coat

414
00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:19,680
still in the basement all these years. They wanted to destroy,

415
00:20:19,799 --> 00:20:21,920
but I couldn't bring myself to do. I needed proof

416
00:20:21,960 --> 00:20:25,880
for when someone finally came asking, lightning stuttered. A sudden,

417
00:20:25,880 --> 00:20:29,039
heavy thumping at the door startled them both. Ernie tensed,

418
00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:32,400
expecting a shadow or worse, but instead it was miss

419
00:20:32,519 --> 00:20:35,720
estross Ays wide, breathless and panicked, clutching a batter transistor

420
00:20:35,799 --> 00:20:38,960
radio to her chest. It's back, she gasped, thrusting the

421
00:20:39,039 --> 00:20:41,720
radio at Marv the midnight news. It's coming through, but

422
00:20:41,759 --> 00:20:45,519
the station's off air. Marv twisted the dial. A blast

423
00:20:45,519 --> 00:20:48,880
of static, then underneath the unmistakable signature jingle, the one

424
00:20:48,960 --> 00:20:52,480
Ernie had heard on all those tapes, but warped, elongated

425
00:20:52,599 --> 00:20:57,279
echoing off itself. Then voice is fragmentary, shivering, almost recognizable.

426
00:20:57,839 --> 00:21:01,400
Dotty's pitch flat and mutilated by layers of static, had

427
00:21:01,480 --> 00:21:05,680
lines the weather, and under it all, something that called

428
00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:08,160
through the signal, not spoken at all, but felt a pressure,

429
00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:11,200
a pulse, the same sincision Ernie remembered from Lenny's trailer.

430
00:21:11,799 --> 00:21:14,240
Marv's hands not did as he slowly turned up the volume.

431
00:21:14,799 --> 00:21:18,480
Now in the overlapping signals came Ernie's own, named astored, repeated,

432
00:21:18,559 --> 00:21:21,279
stitched into the mesh of transmission. He felt the pulse

433
00:21:21,319 --> 00:21:25,119
slicing through him, a bone deep vibration. Missestross clamped her

434
00:21:25,119 --> 00:21:28,319
hands over her ears. Is sem again their calling us.

435
00:21:28,359 --> 00:21:31,240
They never stopped. The jingle repeated, then ended with a

436
00:21:31,319 --> 00:21:35,160
violent snap. All three sat stand, but even as thunder

437
00:21:35,200 --> 00:21:37,559
cracked and rain battered the roof, and new realization grew

438
00:21:37,599 --> 00:21:40,359
between them. Whatever had started that night in nineteen ninety

439
00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:42,880
seven had not ended with missing air or staff departures

440
00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:46,960
or government de nails. Something someone was still broadcasting across

441
00:21:46,960 --> 00:21:50,680
a frequency they should never have touched. Electricity stuttered, light

442
00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:54,079
snapping out. The last thing Ernie heard before full darkas

443
00:21:54,079 --> 00:21:56,720
was the jingle again now no longer recorded, now live.

444
00:21:56,839 --> 00:21:59,680
Crawling through the static, the last broadcast's remain on the line,

445
00:21:59,680 --> 00:22:02,359
remained on the He groped in the darkness, his breath

446
00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:04,440
ragged as the world seemed to slip backward into that

447
00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:06,759
ire of dead air, waiting for something final to merge

448
00:22:06,759 --> 00:22:09,839
from the noise. But nothing emerged, not at first, not

449
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:12,440
from the darkness, not from Ernie's lips, not from the

450
00:22:12,519 --> 00:22:15,839
rain that drove even harder overhead. The transmission was gone,

451
00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:17,839
as if it had been yanged from the air. Midward,

452
00:22:18,559 --> 00:22:20,359
the after image of as if he could call it that,

453
00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:24,519
it sound echoed beneath any skin withceestros frantic panting breasts

454
00:22:24,519 --> 00:22:26,480
with the loudest thing in the world. For one hot second,

455
00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:29,599
Marv's hand found a boxy flashlight being trembling with the

456
00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:32,440
tremor in his wrist, and flicked it on. The tiny

457
00:22:32,440 --> 00:22:34,599
pool of yellow light stuttered against a pile of brow

458
00:22:34,599 --> 00:22:39,000
contuining equipment and gathered dusts. Nobody moved, all free, braced

459
00:22:39,039 --> 00:22:41,160
for the next voice or alarmed, but the rain reasserted

460
00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:43,480
its rhythm and the machines went quiet. There hum flattened

461
00:22:43,480 --> 00:22:45,759
by the power loss, It was just the three of

462
00:22:45,799 --> 00:22:48,920
them huddled in a metal box, breeding hard. We're going

463
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:51,880
to the vault, Marv said. At last, his voice had

464
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:54,400
gone host squeezed flat, and for a second scene, Ticko

465
00:22:54,480 --> 00:22:56,319
the saint in foil Thinness that only heard in the

466
00:22:56,400 --> 00:22:59,440
post gap broadcasts that real needs to be found if

467
00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:02,200
it's still there. Missestross mood the front of her wool

468
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:05,160
cut in shaky, absent gestures. He said it would never

469
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:08,440
play again. He promised us. They made you promise. Marve

470
00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:11,240
ignored her. He motioned for Ernie to keep his lights

471
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:13,480
steady and led them out through the puddling mud. Backs

472
00:23:13,519 --> 00:23:16,720
hunched against the spearing rain. Inside the station proper, their

473
00:23:16,720 --> 00:23:19,079
shoes trailed water across tiles that looked even grim out

474
00:23:19,079 --> 00:23:23,039
by flashlight. Most evenings, Ernie barely noticed the hole, but

475
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:26,359
now each inch crawled with shadows, stretching and clutching. Thoughon

476
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:28,799
out light. Dead with up power, looked in comprehensibly bleak,

477
00:23:28,799 --> 00:23:31,799
assigned for a world that no longer existed. Marve led

478
00:23:31,799 --> 00:23:34,559
the way down the storage corridor, muttering under his breath

479
00:23:34,559 --> 00:23:36,519
as he unlocked the battered door to a narrow flight

480
00:23:36,519 --> 00:23:40,279
of stairs. The air changed at the threshold. It was denser, thicker,

481
00:23:40,359 --> 00:23:42,559
each breath rasped by a hint of corrosion, and something

482
00:23:42,599 --> 00:23:46,279
ranked beneath the damp. They descended cautiously, miss estross one

483
00:23:46,279 --> 00:23:49,039
tramping hand in the rail. The banister was sticky with

484
00:23:49,119 --> 00:23:53,160
years of condensation and spilled coffee. At the landing, Ernie's

485
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:55,640
flashlight piked out a steel vault door, its pink curled

486
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:59,000
and flaking in white bistows. The dead bowl oversized an

487
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:02,319
achin required a labrary cranking. Marv produced a key from

488
00:24:02,359 --> 00:24:05,119
around his neck on lanad no newer than the Clinton administration,

489
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:07,279
and forced it in biting off a cause when a

490
00:24:07,279 --> 00:24:10,480
tumble is stuck. It finally yielded doorswaining open with a

491
00:24:10,559 --> 00:24:13,759
drawn out metallic groan. Beyond was a concrete box, barely

492
00:24:13,839 --> 00:24:15,960
larger than a closet, lined and the haphazard way of

493
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:19,440
items meant to be forgotten. Four box files, a broken chair,

494
00:24:19,519 --> 00:24:21,799
a stack of surplus were radio's gun, slick with rust,

495
00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:24,440
and against the back walla wooden cabinet stor fitted for

496
00:24:24,519 --> 00:24:27,880
magnetic reels. Hasn't been touched since the day after Marv

497
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:32,240
muttered manager's orders. Only we had access, but the cabinet

498
00:24:32,279 --> 00:24:34,519
was ajar and a tiny scrap of white taped dangle

499
00:24:34,559 --> 00:24:37,759
from the lock, nearly torn. Mars's face crumpled with something

500
00:24:37,759 --> 00:24:41,240
near panic. No, some one got in. He aanked the

501
00:24:41,279 --> 00:24:44,359
drawer up and the little metal tag Redmaster do not broadcast,

502
00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:47,319
But the slot was empty. He dropped his knees, shuffling

503
00:24:47,319 --> 00:24:49,880
through the drawer in a mess on the floor. No, no, no,

504
00:24:50,279 --> 00:24:53,200
it was here. That has to be something glinted behind

505
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,079
a pile of radios. Ironie snaked his arm back and

506
00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:58,119
came up with a miniature tape Standard nine as my

507
00:24:58,200 --> 00:25:01,319
crooksett black plastic faded to navy. The sticker on it

508
00:25:01,359 --> 00:25:03,920
had worn then with age, the handwriting barely legible test

509
00:25:04,039 --> 00:25:07,480
night nine slash fourteen slash ninety seven. Marv clutched at it,

510
00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:10,559
almost dropped it, then handed it to Ernie. That's not

511
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:14,039
the master, but maybe a copy, maybe something. There wasn't

512
00:25:14,039 --> 00:25:16,000
a player in the vault, but Ernie's woar, he'd seen

513
00:25:16,039 --> 00:25:19,519
one upstairs among the engineer's collection. They retraced those steps,

514
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:21,680
each of them different now, Ernie with the throbbing pulse

515
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:25,240
of anxiety. Marv hollow chested and muttering massesstross trailing as

516
00:25:25,279 --> 00:25:27,759
if regretting ever stepping into this part of the world again.

517
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:30,839
I remember the night, she said, in a thin, walked tone,

518
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:33,319
half way up the stairs. It seemed to come from

519
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:35,039
the bottom of a well, or maybe the bottom of

520
00:25:35,079 --> 00:25:38,000
memory itself. My husband, he was laughing at the news.

521
00:25:38,039 --> 00:25:39,759
Then the sound went wrong. He looked at me, but

522
00:25:39,799 --> 00:25:41,680
it wasn't him. His smell low. I thought he was

523
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:44,240
going to She shivered, cut herself off. Then everything caught

524
00:25:44,279 --> 00:25:46,279
fire inside my own ears, but there was no fire.

525
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:49,160
The words logical as they were hung between them as

526
00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:52,920
they heard upstairs, Marv found the bat of radio shackmacrookcept

527
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:55,319
player jowned new batteries in and thrust the tape into

528
00:25:55,319 --> 00:25:58,000
the slot. He cranked the volume as they huddled together

529
00:25:58,039 --> 00:26:01,480
at the engineer's desk, crowned side by. Some only pressed

530
00:26:01,519 --> 00:26:03,799
record on his digital deck, some part of him, scholarly

531
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:06,720
or just desperate, needed to capture whatever would come next.

532
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:10,119
The tape began with a brief horror, a man's voice, staticky,

533
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:13,200
thin book calm. It was off the Jemison, the station manager,

534
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:16,240
long dead, as Ernie remembered, he was dictating a memo

535
00:26:16,279 --> 00:26:18,319
at the date, a summary of the planned regional eas

536
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:21,440
test explicit mention of being off the books for the

537
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:24,599
purpose of this experiment, Jemison said, staff will follow instructions

538
00:26:24,599 --> 00:26:27,079
posted near the on air booth. No warning will be issued.

539
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:30,000
Do not deviate from automation survey data to follow. Reminder

540
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:32,240
this is confidential and must not be discussed as a

541
00:26:32,279 --> 00:26:35,559
real emergency. For thirty seconds more, the tape chronicled a

542
00:26:35,599 --> 00:26:38,240
flurry of technical steps, checks at a precise clip manner,

543
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:40,640
and then Jemison's force crackton to or shut no, no,

544
00:26:40,839 --> 00:26:43,000
that's too early killed before the rest of the phrase

545
00:26:43,039 --> 00:26:47,359
was lost to chaos. Suddenly the tape felt to mechanical madness, stuttered, shrieks,

546
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:50,359
chair legs scraping, someone sobbing in the background, and then

547
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:53,720
twelve minutes of low, almost subliminal pulsing. The sound was

548
00:26:53,759 --> 00:26:56,960
not music. It was a wharfing, a hythnic rumble, with

549
00:26:57,039 --> 00:27:01,079
almost's voices threading through, always just past recognition. Only realized

550
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:03,519
he'd been holding his breath. It was hard to listen,

551
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:05,599
not because the turt thoe it did some were deep

552
00:27:05,599 --> 00:27:07,559
in his jaw and spine, but because it felt wrong,

553
00:27:07,839 --> 00:27:09,640
like reading words written in your own hand, but in

554
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:12,559
a language you could never speak. The name Lang fizzled

555
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:14,839
up his name or some one else's, then vanished beneath

556
00:27:14,839 --> 00:27:18,039
another folk of static. Marv shut the player off, ashen

557
00:27:18,039 --> 00:27:21,279
and sweating. Missestros shoulders slumped her stare vacant, as if

558
00:27:21,279 --> 00:27:24,119
something vital inside her was farther away. Now we we

559
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:27,720
went the broadcasters, Marv whispered, dizzy. We were to test

560
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:29,880
all of us. It was never about the news or

561
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:31,839
the town. It was training, and they didn't care what

562
00:27:31,839 --> 00:27:33,759
it did to us. Half my crew gone over night.

563
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:36,319
No resignation, no part is just a black van and

564
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,799
empty desks. All three sat silent, the sound of lost

565
00:27:39,839 --> 00:27:41,680
years and the throb of old machines and the stomach

566
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:44,759
churning base of remembered trauma. Beneath it. All Learning could

567
00:27:44,759 --> 00:27:46,799
swear though his rational mind foot back there was a

568
00:27:46,799 --> 00:27:50,079
familiar jingle warded and bear, a deep promising again and again,

569
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:53,839
this is the last broadcast. Remain on the line. In

570
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,680
that dreadful moment, above the storm battering the world outside,

571
00:27:56,880 --> 00:27:59,519
Ronie felt the story's terrible gravity, pulling them further in.

572
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:02,599
Every question opened another cryptic door, and the line between

573
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:05,880
living memory and signal began to dissolve thread by careful threat,

574
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:08,599
a scraping whine off when threaded through every crack in

575
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:11,920
the old day and transmitter Shkismov's flashlight beam wavered uncertain

576
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:14,279
a crossed a row of battered lockers and wide tangles.

577
00:28:14,839 --> 00:28:17,519
Missestross huddled in the nar aisle, one gloved hand white

578
00:28:17,559 --> 00:28:20,200
knuckled around her radio, the other trembling against her chest.

579
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:22,839
Ernie pressed his own hand to the core concrete of

580
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:25,559
the entry wall, struggling to swallow the reverberating pressure that

581
00:28:25,599 --> 00:28:27,839
still polls through the skull left of her. Maybe or

582
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:30,559
something more from the transmission that had justus straaded the silence.

583
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:34,960
No one spoke. The little group, ragged and disjointed, moved

584
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:38,359
on muscle memory alone. Mauf checked the main switch, doubt

585
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:40,720
it would take him time to cook the generator online.

586
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:44,000
The machines, themselves powerful as anything in their day, gave

587
00:28:44,039 --> 00:28:46,599
off a ghostly after hum, barely detectable since more through

588
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:49,559
bone than air. Above the wind batted a loose guttle,

589
00:28:49,599 --> 00:28:52,200
like some demented metronome, keeping time for a history Nun

590
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:55,480
wished to remember. Ernie's first coherent thought was a simple

591
00:28:55,599 --> 00:28:58,039
childish wish that the world outside a certain ruined as

592
00:28:58,039 --> 00:29:00,759
it was, might have shifted since they lost surface, that

593
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:03,240
time or fate would forget them here and move on.

594
00:29:03,839 --> 00:29:06,079
But the storm crushed as violently as ever, and the

595
00:29:06,079 --> 00:29:08,799
sallow filament of massestros flashlight only made the gloom that

596
00:29:08,799 --> 00:29:11,400
crept behind a denser. We should go to the vault,

597
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:14,759
Marv managed, his voice, row as a scrape wire. Whatever

598
00:29:14,799 --> 00:29:16,920
started up again, its coming from here or from something

599
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,880
left behind. We need the master. Ronie could see the

600
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:22,359
strain around MAV's eyes are worry that someone or something

601
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:25,200
had slipped into the vault before them. Massestross seemed to

602
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:26,920
shrink with each step, as if some part of her

603
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:29,440
already remembered what lay in the sub basement, or perhaps

604
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:31,799
felt it now as he did. As a pressure behind

605
00:29:31,799 --> 00:29:35,240
the eyes. The small procession pressed through the rainy station. Marv,

606
00:29:35,359 --> 00:29:38,319
leading the building familiar by day, felt the shape, and

607
00:29:38,319 --> 00:29:41,519
by candlelight, shadows thickened at every turn, Twisted by years

608
00:29:41,559 --> 00:29:45,119
of neglect. The vuon ere signed strewing in darkness, seemed

609
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:48,000
now a warning rather than an invitation. Down the stairs.

610
00:29:48,039 --> 00:29:50,240
Each rise of groaning, each breath laced with the tinne

611
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:53,279
of old steel. They reached the basement vault. MAV's every

612
00:29:53,279 --> 00:29:55,920
motion was rushed and brittle. He fumbled through his reign

613
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:57,759
of keys, and after a moment, forced to open the

614
00:29:57,759 --> 00:30:01,039
great metal door. Inside, the air was frigid, carrying the

615
00:30:01,039 --> 00:30:04,000
scent of aged paper and machine oil. De smote swirled

616
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:07,039
in their light. But something was wrong. The inner safe,

617
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:10,279
once tightly shut, stood cracked. The wooden box meant for

618
00:30:10,319 --> 00:30:12,839
the master of real gaped empty. Marv let slip a

619
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:15,559
muffled cuse and tore through the drawers, panic sharpening every motion.

620
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:18,400
It was here, I checked it last month, he muttered,

621
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:21,559
for his gravel, flecked with fear. I someone's been done here.

622
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:25,160
Ernie scanned the wreckage, ragged folders, a jumble of heap reels,

623
00:30:25,279 --> 00:30:28,720
yellowing locks, and in the debris a tiny glint. He

624
00:30:28,799 --> 00:30:30,839
crouched and drew out of my crook set smaller than

625
00:30:30,839 --> 00:30:33,359
his palm, lebeled and faded ink test night nine slash

626
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,920
fourteen slash ninety seven. The date nearly made his finger spasm.

627
00:30:37,039 --> 00:30:39,640
His hand shook as he passed it over. Marv snatched

628
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:42,599
it up, knuckles blotched and shaking. For a moment. None

629
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,799
of them moved. Miss Estrost still as the dead began

630
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:49,279
to keen softly, a tune flattened by age, wordless and circular.

631
00:30:49,839 --> 00:30:52,839
Ironie felt low subsonic frob beside the safety after image

632
00:30:52,839 --> 00:30:55,119
of some broadcasts that had soaked into the concrete itself.

633
00:30:55,759 --> 00:30:58,400
We play it upstairs, Marv said, at last, eyes locked

634
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,039
on Ernie. If it's what I think, it's all lost chance.

635
00:31:01,119 --> 00:31:04,920
But if the master is loose, he couldn't finish above

636
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:08,599
wood and plaster groaned. Ernie led the others upward, flashlight

637
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:12,640
painting the filthy stairwell. Miss Estraws paused, clutching at the handrail.

638
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:16,000
Do you hear that? She whispered, though no one else responded.

639
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:19,559
On the engineering bench, while slipped the microok set into

640
00:31:19,559 --> 00:31:21,960
a batter player and pressed record on a secondary deck,

641
00:31:22,559 --> 00:31:24,680
the machine spool to life. The hiss of old tape

642
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:27,440
is familiar to Arne as his own heartbeat. A male

643
00:31:27,519 --> 00:31:30,200
voice Jemison, a misickable even through the years, began his

644
00:31:30,279 --> 00:31:35,240
words cackling. Test Memmer WSN nine slash fourteens last ninety

645
00:31:35,279 --> 00:31:38,680
seven Regional eest hone scheduled staff not informed all locks

646
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:41,480
to be secured after monitor subject response for survey repeat

647
00:31:41,559 --> 00:31:44,119
did not reference event on air, and memo wereun tested.

648
00:31:44,559 --> 00:31:47,000
A thin scream, the sound of a microphone tipping flooded

649
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,519
the tape in a sudden chast Desperate voices blurred together,

650
00:31:50,599 --> 00:31:54,039
a woman, a high, sharp bark, Jemison muttering no stop off, off,

651
00:31:54,039 --> 00:31:56,920
its running, Then another sound like metal folding under pressure.

652
00:31:56,960 --> 00:32:00,559
Then quiet. Twelve interminable minutes of sub bass oscillation, almost

653
00:32:00,599 --> 00:32:04,519
below consciousness, ride beneath the silence. Ernie fought the urge

654
00:32:04,519 --> 00:32:07,720
to rip off his headphones. Though barely audible, the pulsing

655
00:32:07,759 --> 00:32:10,400
tone courag its way into him. If he focused, he

656
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:14,000
could almost almost make outstretched syllables, half familiar, grushed by riverb,

657
00:32:14,119 --> 00:32:18,440
names blurring, dreussed, Marvin lying, miss cestraw, swimpered fingers digging

658
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:21,480
into her temples. It's not just as staff, as she stammered.

659
00:32:22,079 --> 00:32:25,160
Everyone who heard that broadcasts somethings inside my head, echoing

660
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:27,359
him my husband's face. That night he stared through me,

661
00:32:27,559 --> 00:32:30,400
then he started crying. Afterwards, he wouldn't talk about it,

662
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:33,119
and then all those weeks gone. Marv wrestled with the

663
00:32:33,119 --> 00:32:36,920
stop button, finally slapping the deck. Silent his arms trembled.

664
00:32:37,519 --> 00:32:39,680
For a beat. All anyone could hear was the tick

665
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:41,640
of rain and the windows, and under that a light

666
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:44,160
clicking from the tuning radio on the desk, flaring then fading.

667
00:32:44,799 --> 00:32:48,160
We never had a chance, did we, Marv breathed. They

668
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:50,720
filled us up with something we couldn't name. He dropped

669
00:32:50,759 --> 00:32:54,119
his forehead into his hands. The government interviewed the threats

670
00:32:54,119 --> 00:32:56,480
to stay quiet, Oliver, is so much for the old world.

671
00:32:57,119 --> 00:33:00,400
Ernie's thoughts careened between pass and present. This is not

672
00:33:00,519 --> 00:33:03,720
just staff, but loved ones. The listenership flitted through his mind.

673
00:33:04,279 --> 00:33:06,640
What had happened here had seeped outwards, bled into countless

674
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:10,799
ordinary lives, even Missus Dross's absent husband. The blank haunted,

675
00:33:10,799 --> 00:33:14,440
staring old photographs seemed marked in retroactive horror. There had

676
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:17,559
been no exercising the signal. It had simply gone dormant,

677
00:33:17,599 --> 00:33:20,480
waiting for someone to tune in again. And now, somewhere

678
00:33:20,519 --> 00:33:23,759
nearby the master reel, whatever itked, was free. The storm

679
00:33:23,759 --> 00:33:27,799
outside abated, were replaced by dense, a natural hush. Somewhere

680
00:33:27,799 --> 00:33:30,680
beyond the reach of their light, a door banged. Ernie's

681
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:33,359
nerves barked, the sense of watchless, returning more acute with

682
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:36,880
each feety second. Somewhere someone moved in the building above,

683
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:42,039
a slow, dragging steps, deliberate missestross, radio whine, fuzzy flapper,

684
00:33:42,119 --> 00:33:45,920
broadcasting something. It was static, not now, but ady echo

685
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,599
of the jingle, stretched by distance, as of pipe from

686
00:33:48,599 --> 00:33:50,440
the other side of a wall, neither sound nor tank

687
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:54,000
of breech. Her mouth twisted in pain, she cranked the

688
00:33:54,079 --> 00:33:56,720
volume with jerky fingers. A slice of silence was followed

689
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,519
by a soft, metallic echo of Ernie's own voice. Stay

690
00:33:59,559 --> 00:34:02,720
tuned for Then the sund collapsed. Ione's skin crawled up

691
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,720
his spine. He scanned the room, Marv hands white on

692
00:34:05,799 --> 00:34:09,400
the deck's edge, and misestrussed, humming again involuntary. The pulse

693
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:12,000
from the broadcast was less a soumn than a gravitational force,

694
00:34:12,039 --> 00:34:14,760
Now impossible to ignore. He had the sense that every

695
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:17,960
second the building held together was a struggle. Yet still

696
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:20,639
beneath all a terror, Ernie recognized in himself a terrible

697
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:22,760
kind of relief, as if the truth, the dreadful though

698
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:25,440
it was, was finally curling open before him. That was

699
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:28,039
when he realized the PA system, long ago declared dead,

700
00:34:28,159 --> 00:34:31,280
had begun to interfere. It issued a pop, then a whine.

701
00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:34,159
Then through the main hallway speaker recited whether forecast, his

702
00:34:34,159 --> 00:34:36,519
own name and place of the town, old slogans corrupted

703
00:34:36,559 --> 00:34:39,519
with during precision, Ernie's hand clamped the table, a world

704
00:34:39,599 --> 00:34:43,239
threatening to reverse itself at the unbedded substitution, A shivering

705
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:45,719
overtook him, and then from the ceiling the building's lights

706
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:48,760
flickered on, just for a moment, bright as a searchlight.

707
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:52,800
Then they died in the darkness. Someone or something water

708
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:56,960
above them, in slow, decisive steps, get the doors open, marveised,

709
00:34:57,079 --> 00:34:58,840
his voice, no louder than the click of the tape.

710
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:02,760
Deck us out now. Missest Ross pressed her hand to

711
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:04,719
the wall, her others still grip in the humming radio,

712
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:08,280
her lips working silently in soil or prayer. Ernie scrambled

713
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:10,360
for the basement exit, but the heavy fire door ab

714
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:12,880
of them banged shut sharply, a finality that rung through

715
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:15,719
the cold stern like a verdict. The speaker above their

716
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:18,199
heads relayed another voice, his own, again warped as if

717
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:20,840
it were how someone else remembered him. Remain on the line,

718
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:23,239
Remain in the line. This was no longer a necko

719
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:26,119
of a pastran's mission, Ernie realized, but a new one,

720
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:29,880
folding memory and voice and fear into a single metronomic broadcast.

721
00:35:30,559 --> 00:35:33,800
Dread thickest, blood pulled in his limbs, yet he found

722
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:35,920
his hands moving with an urgency and bidden the deck

723
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:39,280
still spawn, still captured everything. The three survive as if

724
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:41,599
they could still be called That sat breathless as the

725
00:35:41,599 --> 00:35:44,639
first signs of dawn trickled through the boardroom window. Then

726
00:35:44,679 --> 00:35:46,880
together beneath the buzzing for us and bulbs striving to

727
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:50,239
kick on, they experienced it, a synchronized memory superimposed over

728
00:35:50,239 --> 00:35:53,719
the prisent. Annie was at the news desk reading headlines,

729
00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:56,159
but none of the words seemed to have meaning. He

730
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:59,280
sends Marvet the console, wild eyed, yanking cables and finding

731
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:02,360
only more of the same headache pulse. Miss Estrost hovered

732
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:04,559
at the whole way Fahn, begging someone not to answer,

733
00:36:04,559 --> 00:36:07,960
please just let it ring and ring and ring. Time dielated,

734
00:36:08,599 --> 00:36:10,960
the voice in the pia thrumbed with a thousand overlays,

735
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:13,280
all their own, all versions of them, forced to relive

736
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:15,960
the same twelve minutes, over and over, each word peeling

737
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:18,760
away a measure of their will. Surface world fell away

738
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:21,920
as the PA voice began to listen, names, presenters, operators,

739
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:25,280
texts now new names. Names Ernie didn't recognize, but felt

740
00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:28,719
twisted deep in his gut. The looping jingle, cheerful but warp,

741
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:30,639
poured down on him with the weight of a dentist drill,

742
00:36:30,679 --> 00:36:34,159
impossible to ignore, boring further than hearing should allow. His

743
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:36,480
mind convulsed at the intrusion, the line between n and

744
00:36:36,519 --> 00:36:39,679
now dissolving entirely. Instead of panic, a kind of numb

745
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:43,039
is settled in. He clamped his eyes shut. He remembered

746
00:36:43,159 --> 00:36:45,159
at last what it had felt like in those years

747
00:36:45,199 --> 00:36:47,679
after the station's collapsed, A low level interference, as if

748
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:50,239
every voice on the dial broadcast the same ghostly message.

749
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:53,079
The sub basement became a cocoon of soft static, the

750
00:36:53,079 --> 00:36:56,440
heavy doorub of refusing to budge somewhere the tape still

751
00:36:56,480 --> 00:36:59,239
spun on reels no one had touched, capturing and radiating

752
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:01,079
the signal in his spot siral that would not resolve.

753
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:05,480
Ironie forced himself back into the presence. His forstery all cracked.

754
00:37:05,559 --> 00:37:08,519
Mortal broke the spell. We lived through this, We finish

755
00:37:08,599 --> 00:37:11,119
it with the digital recorder between them, and the bat

756
00:37:11,119 --> 00:37:13,519
of microok set still in his breast pocket only led

757
00:37:13,519 --> 00:37:15,800
Marv and missest Rost, not panicked, but driven by the

758
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:18,079
hard one clarity of the truly desperate, toward the old

759
00:37:18,079 --> 00:37:21,280
supply closet. He remembered there should be a fire axe,

760
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:24,119
maybe even a prie bar. The humm rose beneath their

761
00:37:24,159 --> 00:37:26,800
feet as they moved, the signal pounding forcing gaps into

762
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:29,840
each thought. The station's ghostly memory battered at them with

763
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:32,400
every step, broadcasting not just through the hardware or the

764
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:35,800
air itself, but directly into their minds. Marv was first

765
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:38,760
to the closet. Together they heaved aside a collapse stack

766
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:41,519
of all phone directories, revealing the red handled axe in

767
00:37:41,519 --> 00:37:44,960
its cradle. The air pressed tighter against Ernie Sinus's blood

768
00:37:45,039 --> 00:37:47,199
rising in his ears, a taste of orozen and copper

769
00:37:47,199 --> 00:37:49,960
thick on his tongue. As Marv swon at the heavy door,

770
00:37:50,119 --> 00:37:52,199
Ernie swore he could feel the brook ast itself gnashed

771
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:55,400
with anger, lights flickering, pa blowing with random shouts, the

772
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:59,679
building shuddering in protest. Missestosk cowered, repeating the old jingle

773
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:02,840
under her her breath, as if to contain a radio

774
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:05,679
for the region, Radio for the region. The axeplinted the

775
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:08,320
upper hinge. A gout of cold wind rushed in, not

776
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:10,760
quite outside air stale, but free from the close pat

777
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:13,960
memory of the basement. They collapsed together, panting, and the

778
00:38:14,039 --> 00:38:17,199
landing Irone helped Mauv's shoulder. The drew rig door aside,

779
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:20,280
light finally streaming up from the lobby. The storm outside

780
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:22,840
had passed, were replaced by a bruised, gratdnrain tapering to

781
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:25,440
a prickly drizzle, the distant sound of early delivery trucks

782
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:28,519
growing awake somewhere past the river bank. No one spoke

783
00:38:28,559 --> 00:38:31,360
for a moment. Marv gripped on his shoulder a gesture

784
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:35,239
of gratitude, sorrow, and gills, all mixed. Missestros stumbled into

785
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:37,800
the morning, fog, legs warbling, the radio pressed to her

786
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:40,199
chest as if it were a shield. They left the

787
00:38:40,199 --> 00:38:43,639
building together, all three batter wet and changed in ways

788
00:38:43,639 --> 00:38:46,239
that had nothing to do with age or fear. Irone's

789
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:48,159
voice did not return that day, not the one men

790
00:38:48,199 --> 00:38:51,280
for speaking, not the one tune for the air at all. Instead,

791
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:53,320
he listened for iOS, caught between the hush of the

792
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:55,320
living world and the whine of a frequency only he

793
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:59,159
seemed able to hear. The reconvened wordless in the side lot,

794
00:38:59,679 --> 00:39:01,880
Marv was the first to look back. The task stood

795
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:04,559
stark and silent, red bulbs still blinking in futile warning

796
00:39:04,559 --> 00:39:07,760
against the pale sky. Each of them carried the mock silence,

797
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:11,159
the aftershock of revelation, and the cost paid for knowing. Finally,

798
00:39:11,159 --> 00:39:13,760
Miss Estross set the radio gently in the curb. I

799
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:16,800
won't take it with me, she said, softly. It listens,

800
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:19,679
not just broadcasts, like a hole in the world waiting

801
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:22,599
for you to speak. Marv nodded, then in a raspy,

802
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:25,639
nearly childlike ton, I can't stay this place as a

803
00:39:25,679 --> 00:39:29,119
tuning fork shakes you up inside, sets things loose. Not

804
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:32,519
all of them want fixing. Ernie told them he would

805
00:39:32,519 --> 00:39:35,280
stay one more knife, tidy the archives, back up what mattered.

806
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:38,880
The old anchor's impulse, part duty and part pennance kept

807
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:41,000
him moving. As the others drifted off Marvcha's car and

808
00:39:41,039 --> 00:39:45,039
out of town. Misses Dross into her daughter's waiting arms alone,

809
00:39:45,199 --> 00:39:48,320
Ernie did just as he said, cleaned, cataloged, recorded one

810
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:51,320
last piece for the archive. He double checked padlocks on

811
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:53,679
every door, stowing a robe tape, steep in a box

812
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:56,920
marked only with a question mark. Yet even these rituals

813
00:39:56,920 --> 00:39:59,400
could not dispel the sense that each time he blinked,

814
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:01,400
he wristwack into the gap in the world he'd spent

815
00:40:01,559 --> 00:40:04,320
so long circling in a still dark editing bay, he

816
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:08,000
recorded a final halting ration. It wasn't gorse or numbers

817
00:40:08,159 --> 00:40:09,840
or a curse. That was a test to weapon point

818
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:13,440
to astoriskinward asterisk on us for reasons never meant for explaining.

819
00:40:13,519 --> 00:40:15,480
I can't fix the years we all lost, or the

820
00:40:15,519 --> 00:40:17,760
harm done to every quiet kitchen that tuned into the

821
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:19,719
night news. But now I know I was part of it.

822
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:23,679
May be still, he hesitated. The demptation to delete everything

823
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:27,320
nearly undid him. Who'll believe it, he murmured, When you

824
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:29,800
have a story like this, does it ever end? He

825
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:32,239
clicked off the recorder before the oge to cut the files,

826
00:40:32,239 --> 00:40:35,199
crested past guilt, and circled back to shame. The day

827
00:40:35,199 --> 00:40:39,000
scroll passed, Marv Trouch's word packed and left no dress,

828
00:40:39,159 --> 00:40:42,440
no numbers to call. Ernie found the engineer's locker empty.

829
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:46,159
By sunset, Massestross's daughter came for her. The reunion awkward

830
00:40:46,199 --> 00:40:49,920
and oddly joyful. Before leaving, Massestross called Ernie from her

831
00:40:50,039 --> 00:40:52,440
daughter as Volvo voice of this. She apologized for a

832
00:40:52,519 --> 00:40:56,239
drifting and static He did not correct her, only remained

833
00:40:56,239 --> 00:40:58,840
in Riverside longer than he promised to, swapping the station's

834
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:00,440
keys for bureau keys at a sub but above the

835
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:03,719
corner bakery, watching the billboard club of Patterson cables, the

836
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:06,280
air thick with a sense of unresolved echo. At the

837
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:09,039
station itself, nothing moved. The radio for the regions simply

838
00:41:09,039 --> 00:41:11,800
faded further, one flake of paint at a time. The

839
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:15,519
transmitter was never reactivated, but strange after image is followed

840
00:41:15,559 --> 00:41:18,599
durny for days, some nights through crackling headphones. He caught

841
00:41:18,599 --> 00:41:20,320
a needle with sliver of the station's A bit and

842
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:22,760
jingle throated into the static kiss between drivers on a

843
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:25,679
m or read his own name scrawled almost playfully on

844
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:28,079
receipts and look books that he swore he'd never handled.

845
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:32,599
Calls and texts from Massestross trickled in. Sometimes there were words,

846
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:36,159
did you hear the forecast? It's getting warm again? Sometimes

847
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:38,599
only silence with the faint exale of someone forgetting for

848
00:41:38,639 --> 00:41:40,400
a moment that nothing on the other end will ever

849
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:43,039
speak back in the right voice. Even in the safety

850
00:41:43,039 --> 00:41:44,800
of the motel, life was a clock or cake of

851
00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:49,119
waking headphones, notes, strange dreams. One rainy midnight, Ernie set

852
00:41:49,199 --> 00:41:51,400
up his batt fields acorder on the motel's end table.

853
00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:53,880
He placed it next to the last set, marked the

854
00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:56,480
dead Air ninety seven, and played the digitized seed men again.

855
00:41:57,039 --> 00:42:00,079
He listened, headphones clamped, heartbeat loud as the subsonic el

856
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:03,280
is worn through him, and he heard, beneath the electrical

857
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:06,079
hiss a pattern distorted but deliberate, a voice faint and far,

858
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:09,400
but inskippably his own. It's not over, stay tuned. His

859
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:12,320
eyes darted to the window, where his reflection doubled in

860
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:14,960
the radio dial grinned back, all shadow, muff moving just

861
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:17,559
before his own lips voic a shade too flat. Two

862
00:42:17,599 --> 00:42:22,079
rehearsed his self, phone buzzed, screen blank. When he pressed answer,

863
00:42:22,199 --> 00:42:25,199
only static responded, then a jingle looping in unbearable clarity.

864
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:28,280
He sat frozen, caught between dreading what would come next

865
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:31,000
and the knowledge that maybe it had already come and gone.

866
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:33,679
As dawn approached, Aknee sat by the dim glow of

867
00:42:33,679 --> 00:42:36,679
the radio. The room remained quiet except for that trace

868
00:42:36,679 --> 00:42:39,360
of old music, and in that hush, he realized he

869
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:41,400
couldn't tell if he was still listening or already part

870
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:44,960
of the broadcast himself. As dawn approached, Ernie sat by

871
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:47,840
the dim glow of the radio. The room remained quiet

872
00:42:47,880 --> 00:42:50,480
except for the trace of old music, and in that hush,

873
00:42:50,599 --> 00:42:52,920
he realized he couldn't tell if he was still listening

874
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:56,639
or already part of the broadcast himself. He sat there, unmoving,

875
00:42:56,880 --> 00:42:59,960
one hand hovering over the recorder in the silence. When

876
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:01,800
near the persistent hum in his ears gave him any

877
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:04,679
sense of time passing. The storm outside faded to a

878
00:43:04,719 --> 00:43:07,119
distant memory, but the memory inside, the pulse that thrombed

879
00:43:07,159 --> 00:43:09,840
on the edge of perception, felt impossible to shake. A

880
00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:12,320
crossed the motel's stained carpet, the edges of shadow met

881
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:15,199
the thin blue light seeking through one curtains. His eyes

882
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:18,159
ached gritty from exhaustion, but sleep clung to the periphery,

883
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:21,480
never settling in. He tried switching off the radio, first

884
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:23,519
by the dial, then by pulling the cord from the wall.

885
00:43:24,119 --> 00:43:26,679
The signal cut out, but the sensation persisted, a pressure

886
00:43:26,679 --> 00:43:29,880
inside the skull, not outside it. He closed his eyes

887
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:32,719
and pressed fingertips to his temples, willing himself back into

888
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:35,239
his own life, his body, his room, the ordinary ache

889
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:38,000
of a night spent and reraveling other people's secrets. The

890
00:43:38,039 --> 00:43:42,159
phone buzzed, he thought twise, then answered, only silence and

891
00:43:42,199 --> 00:43:45,239
static as before, no trace of voice. He hung up

892
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:48,760
and set the phone aside. The fear did not recede. Rather,

893
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:51,960
it settled like humidity. He left the window, crackt from

894
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:54,760
morning air, letting riversides washed out summer stretch into the

895
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:58,800
small sacking space thanon. Fatigue drove him out of the room.

896
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:01,320
He walked to the bakery, lingering at the corner window

897
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:03,880
with a cup of weak coffee. The wall seemed thinner

898
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:06,679
after the vault, The people in line, the staff behind counters,

899
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:09,840
all slightly out of step. Though chatter hethnic. He kept

900
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:12,559
searching for some further sign. A jingle from a passing car,

901
00:44:12,559 --> 00:44:15,000
of voice on a transistor outside, a look of recognition

902
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:19,400
in a stranger's eyes. For once, it was all dull, uneasy, yes,

903
00:44:19,559 --> 00:44:23,360
but ordinary. Back at the station, an ambulance saddled outside.

904
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:27,199
Two meddics moved a stretcher through the front doors. Ernie's

905
00:44:27,199 --> 00:44:30,360
heart dropped until he saw Missestross upright and breathing, sitting

906
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:32,559
on the curb in her raincoat, face toned to the light.

907
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:36,760
She watched the ambulance go without speaking. Marv's car was gone.

908
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:40,280
The building for once seemed truly empty. On air signed

909
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:43,639
dead tarredim. He approached quietly, hands John into his coat.

910
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:47,679
You are right, he asked. Miss Estross looked at him, blinking,

911
00:44:47,679 --> 00:44:49,239
as if she had just woken in a new place.

912
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:52,079
I don't know what day it is, Ione. I keep

913
00:44:52,199 --> 00:44:54,960
dreaming about music in the walls. Sometimes I hear people

914
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:57,320
saying my name from rooms I know are empty. Her

915
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:01,039
voice was smaller, nile, unfocused. But I remember what happened.

916
00:45:01,119 --> 00:45:04,119
That's something. Ernie nodded and sat beside her on the curb.

917
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:06,760
The city, or the part of it that endured, creaked

918
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:11,159
slowly to life around them. The livery trucks rumbled by overhead.

919
00:45:11,159 --> 00:45:13,280
The radio toussed its lack in the fog. A broken

920
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:17,559
metronome counting down years he studded. The building's facade. Yellowed

921
00:45:17,639 --> 00:45:19,679
letters flaked off the station sign, a hint of blue

922
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:22,599
underneath some bread paint from me is forgotten. There was

923
00:45:22,639 --> 00:45:25,519
no hint that anything within it changed, or ever would change,

924
00:45:26,039 --> 00:45:29,880
but Ernie knew it had irrevocably. He offered a hand

925
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:33,400
pulled Missus drassed up, She steadied herself, the radio cut

926
00:45:33,519 --> 00:45:36,360
tightly under her arm. In that moment he saw how

927
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:38,480
old she truly become, the hair Gounsilvo, the way her

928
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:41,079
fingers curled in self protection. I am going to stay

929
00:45:41,119 --> 00:45:43,480
with my daughter a while, she said, not really looking

930
00:45:43,519 --> 00:45:46,880
at him. You call me if anything else happens, I will,

931
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:50,159
he said, not trusting himself to promise. As she left,

932
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:53,960
Erny Linger, he circled the station twice, listening for murmurings

933
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:56,239
and the electrical wires, the scuff of phantom footsteps in

934
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:59,639
the stairwell. Nothing replied, only the hollow echo of door settling,

935
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:02,039
a low drone of a town to multa high, gursefulng.

936
00:46:02,599 --> 00:46:05,320
The vault below sat tightly closed, silled again with Mars's

937
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:08,679
old chain. He did not go inside. With the keys

938
00:46:08,679 --> 00:46:10,920
boxed up, the tape block ark out, he had little

939
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:13,960
excuse to stay, but he wandered upstairs, back to the

940
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:17,440
engineering office, and found only absence Mars's locker cleaned out,

941
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:20,079
the binder's gone, the old battery tester abandoned in the drawer.

942
00:46:20,519 --> 00:46:22,760
He thumbed through the pages one last time, but even

943
00:46:22,760 --> 00:46:25,559
the residue of fear had dulled what power out the station,

944
00:46:25,639 --> 00:46:27,719
once wielded, had leaked await or gune on the ground

945
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:30,199
deeper than bolts and stacks and recal could ever bring

946
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:33,760
it up. Night blared down again. This time there was

947
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:36,599
no rain, only a thin cellular wined rattling stray leaves

948
00:46:36,599 --> 00:46:39,559
against the glass. Ernie stood at the newsroom window that

949
00:46:39,599 --> 00:46:42,360
transmitted tower black against Bruce sky and wondered what it

950
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:44,639
would mean to walk away once and for all. He

951
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:49,480
called misses strawstat dusk. She picked up on the second ring. HULLO,

952
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:52,480
did ye get there safe? There was a pause, distant

953
00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:56,760
clatter in the background, someone laughing faintly. Yes, it's quite here. Quiet,

954
00:46:56,840 --> 00:46:59,239
and I expected. My daughter wants me to sleep in tomorrow,

955
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:03,480
She coughed. Boy's turning odd. Sometimes the static picks up

956
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:05,599
again when it gets dark, but I don't think it

957
00:47:05,639 --> 00:47:10,000
will last. I hope not, Ernie said gently. Mav never called.

958
00:47:10,639 --> 00:47:13,719
His truck's absence was noticed the local dinamensioned, he settled

959
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:16,360
his tap, left his engineering tools for anyone willing to

960
00:47:16,360 --> 00:47:19,880
dig through the closet. A week passed, then another Ernie

961
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:21,920
drove by MAV's lost address, a blue trailer on the

962
00:47:22,039 --> 00:47:24,639
edge of town, blinds tight and to canstat by the porch.

963
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:29,239
No name on the mail box alone. Ernie began recording again,

964
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:33,360
ritual the only salve he made. Duplicate files, copet locks

965
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:36,199
to numbered thumb drives, stash transcripts with no explanation but

966
00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:39,519
a generic do not raise historic. The boxes of tape's

967
00:47:39,519 --> 00:47:43,800
crew lighter, the wrecks more comprehensible, orderly Again, Nearly every night,

968
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:47,280
he caught himself listening for the signal, sometimes in moments

969
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:49,599
just before sleep. The low frequency pulse returned an author

970
00:47:49,599 --> 00:47:52,000
of speakers, but in the base of his skull, he'd

971
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:54,719
grown almost comfortable with it. If this was the price

972
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:58,159
for knowing, he would pay. His hands recovered the microcassette,

973
00:47:58,159 --> 00:48:00,960
the one from the station vault. He considered mailing it

974
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:04,360
to a university, a journalist, even a government archive, but

975
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:07,719
he never wrapped it, never addressed an envelope. In the end,

976
00:48:07,760 --> 00:48:10,559
it sat in his laundry bag for weeks, the mail

977
00:48:10,599 --> 00:48:14,199
brought strange things, junk fliers, bank statements, and unsigned postcoud

978
00:48:14,239 --> 00:48:16,360
featuring the w R c Enter from the mid eighties.

979
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:19,280
The postmark was blowed, the messy simple the line is

980
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:23,280
still open, keep listening, no signature. His breath hitched, but

981
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:25,159
he tucked it away, pretending for a time that it

982
00:48:25,159 --> 00:48:27,920
had simply been forwarded here by chance, an old friend

983
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:31,079
cleaning out at desk. After several weeks, the story shape

984
00:48:31,159 --> 00:48:34,599
changed again. The local newspaper emailed blandly interested, and he

985
00:48:34,639 --> 00:48:38,159
looked back at regional media. Ernie did not reply. He

986
00:48:38,239 --> 00:48:41,639
began to haunt the city library, scanning faces. Sometimes certain

987
00:48:41,639 --> 00:48:43,800
he spotted an next staff member slinking through non fiction

988
00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:46,559
Carol Dawson by the silhouette of Lenny Grinds, hunched over

989
00:48:46,599 --> 00:48:49,920
a periodical stable. He thought to interview them, finished the

990
00:48:50,039 --> 00:48:53,119
archive rye, but shied away. Some things were best left

991
00:48:53,119 --> 00:48:56,400
at rests, their outlines blowed by time and distance. Yet

992
00:48:56,400 --> 00:48:59,360
every so often a headline would surface referencing short weave

993
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:02,480
outages or new public test of the emergency alert system,

994
00:49:02,559 --> 00:49:05,000
and Ernie would stiffen, nots her returning in a way

995
00:49:05,039 --> 00:49:08,320
of cold and sickly the radio station faded from chatter.

996
00:49:09,039 --> 00:49:11,239
No one bought the property, no one tried to launch

997
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:14,599
a w or's ear. Locals passing the site heard their steps,

998
00:49:14,639 --> 00:49:17,760
crossing themselves in reflective habit. They were Radio for the

999
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:21,320
Region's slogan vanished as the billboard weathered, flaking to bare aluminum.

1000
00:49:21,639 --> 00:49:24,280
All that remained after all the interviews, the taped logs,

1001
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:27,719
the sleepless nights, was growing stillness inside Ernie. But in

1002
00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:29,840
that quiet he became aware of how much had changed

1003
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:33,079
for the town, for the station. For himself, it was

1004
00:49:33,119 --> 00:49:36,280
in peace. It was simply ann or something close to it.

1005
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:39,719
Then one night, as he scanned between frequencies in an

1006
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:42,280
aimless search for static, a thin slice of voice stuttered

1007
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:44,480
through his headphones. Remained on the line. Not the old

1008
00:49:44,559 --> 00:49:47,880
jingle this time, but an inversion, crooked yet intimate, as

1009
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:49,920
if some one behind his own eyes waited for permission

1010
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:52,480
to keep going. He took off the headphones and placed

1011
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:55,280
them on the window sill. They buzzed faintly of vibration,

1012
00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:58,719
chasing down the cord like a haunted telephone line. That evening,

1013
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:00,840
unable to sleep, he ran through the last of the

1014
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:04,280
digitized dead air segments, looping the microcassette into his field deck.

1015
00:50:04,960 --> 00:50:07,119
This time his focus narrowed the rest of his life,

1016
00:50:07,159 --> 00:50:09,920
Shrinking around the sound. He slowed the playback, scanned the

1017
00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:14,239
spectral analysis frame by frame. A new pulse resolved underneath

1018
00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:18,000
the routine. His pacoda phrase emerged by fractions, test and progress, then,

1019
00:50:18,079 --> 00:50:20,840
with a sigh, his own voice undeniably in accadence. He

1020
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:25,599
never recorded final survey, reporting for Judy stand by. He

1021
00:50:25,679 --> 00:50:29,119
recoiled from the deck. The voice continued metallic and thin,

1022
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:32,199
until the phone at the bedside rattled with static. The

1023
00:50:32,239 --> 00:50:36,039
machinery of a world tape whire ere memory had encircled him.

1024
00:50:36,039 --> 00:50:39,159
At processes old as the station itself. He let the

1025
00:50:39,159 --> 00:50:43,239
recorder run, documenting every fragment, numbering each take. Each time

1026
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:46,320
the phrase mutated, delayed, layered with his own infliction. It

1027
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:48,320
began to feel as though the line between listener and

1028
00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:52,400
speaker had gone, leaving only the old news unca cadence downstairs.

1029
00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:55,320
Someone knock once at his door, gentle rap. He waited,

1030
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:57,599
hot knifing his chest, but no one called his name.

1031
00:50:57,679 --> 00:51:00,920
No selware creased the frosted class. He did not answer.

1032
00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:03,480
He fell asleep with his shoes on. The headphones still

1033
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:07,000
around his neck were corridor blinking red. In his dreams,

1034
00:51:07,159 --> 00:51:09,440
he saw the transmitted tower rise from the earth, its

1035
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:12,559
cables twining out through every house, every earpiece, every second,

1036
00:51:12,599 --> 00:51:15,199
old kitchen with a lane. News still played. There was

1037
00:51:15,199 --> 00:51:19,039
no center, no safe place, only the broadcasts leaping aiming

1038
00:51:19,039 --> 00:51:23,440
for a response. Morning came raw and overcast. The world

1039
00:51:23,679 --> 00:51:27,360
reluctantly carried on. Ernie shower dressed, made another week cup

1040
00:51:27,400 --> 00:51:30,159
of coffee in the motel's rickety kitchenette. He checked the

1041
00:51:30,199 --> 00:51:32,920
morning news, but the segment was blunted on familiar voices

1042
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:35,480
where his would have been the same headlines, but somehow colder.

1043
00:51:36,079 --> 00:51:39,559
Out on the street, traffic resumed and remarkable reel, but

1044
00:51:39,679 --> 00:51:42,119
only stepped carefully, as though the ground itself could shift

1045
00:51:42,119 --> 00:51:45,320
with a single tone broadcast from some visible source. The

1046
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:48,599
persistent hum became simply another form of company, never trustible,

1047
00:51:48,719 --> 00:51:53,320
never gone. He rarely entered calls. Sometimes the display showed

1048
00:51:53,320 --> 00:51:54,880
only a strain of zeros or the name of a

1049
00:51:54,880 --> 00:51:59,559
staff member he'd lost. Sometimes silence. Occasionally he picked up

1050
00:51:59,599 --> 00:52:01,639
in time to catch the loop remain on the line.

1051
00:52:01,639 --> 00:52:04,559
Broadcast continues it. He started talking back at first bit,

1052
00:52:04,639 --> 00:52:07,199
and then resign finally, with the broken humor of the survivor.

1053
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:10,559
You have the story, he said one night. That's all

1054
00:52:10,599 --> 00:52:13,239
I've got left, Now let me go. The reply was

1055
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:15,760
a dial tone, but the feeling state of pulse softer,

1056
00:52:16,079 --> 00:52:18,960
not done with him. All Throughout these days he continued

1057
00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:22,360
to record, continued to listen. Each time he finished a tape,

1058
00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:24,880
he copied a thumb drive, stash it in a new envelope,

1059
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:28,239
labeled them in careful block letters, archives, last control, slash, instant.

1060
00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:31,360
He mailed some to himself at new addresses, or hid

1061
00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:33,960
them beneath foe boards at different motels, as if dispersing

1062
00:52:33,960 --> 00:52:37,400
the evidence could plunge its impact. He alternated between dread

1063
00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:40,800
and a strange comfort. Well, Once the static promised only fear,

1064
00:52:41,039 --> 00:52:44,239
Now it promised continuity, a persistence of memory, however violated.

1065
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:47,920
He visited the old station grounds at dusk. No one

1066
00:52:47,920 --> 00:52:51,480
else lingered. The stull tasted faintly metallic, and a towers

1067
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:54,679
becon blinked at intervals that felt, for the most part random,

1068
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:57,400
but sometimes, if he counted carefully, if he let himself

1069
00:52:57,400 --> 00:52:59,679
fall into the rhythm, the light match impossibly the old

1070
00:52:59,719 --> 00:53:03,000
jingle phrase endings. He walked until his feet eight, then

1071
00:53:03,039 --> 00:53:06,559
returned to the motel. There he'd sometimes catch missus Dross

1072
00:53:06,599 --> 00:53:08,280
in the line. She always seemed to know when he'd

1073
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:11,239
been back. Her voice was in or now, more like

1074
00:53:11,239 --> 00:53:14,199
a water mark than a live signal. Any news from Marv,

1075
00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:17,679
she asked him. Last time, No, Ernie replied, But I

1076
00:53:17,719 --> 00:53:20,559
think he'd want it that way. I keep thinking I'll forget,

1077
00:53:20,599 --> 00:53:23,440
she said softly. But then the radio comes on and

1078
00:53:23,519 --> 00:53:26,639
there's my husband's laugh somewhere between channels. It's not quite right,

1079
00:53:26,800 --> 00:53:29,480
but it's close, and I listen, even though I shouldn't.

1080
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:32,719
They'd say good night, not quite comforted, not quite alone.

1081
00:53:33,159 --> 00:53:36,159
So the days ticked by. The story he chased was over,

1082
00:53:36,360 --> 00:53:38,639
but the signal that name was pressure orbiting. The silence

1083
00:53:38,679 --> 00:53:41,480
remained a living thing. He doubted it would ever die.

1084
00:53:41,599 --> 00:53:44,840
Not really. It had slipped out of the frequency into them,

1085
00:53:45,039 --> 00:53:48,440
and now it weighed, patient, whirling whatever came next. One

1086
00:53:48,559 --> 00:53:50,920
last time, Ernie set the recorder down. In the hush

1087
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:54,119
of his room, he pressed record, watching the red light blink.

1088
00:53:54,760 --> 00:53:56,679
He did not speak, nor did he play the tape.

1089
00:53:57,239 --> 00:53:59,800
He simply sat breathing with a low level hum feeling

1090
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:02,440
the room shape itself around the possibility that even now

1091
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:06,199
at the broadcast was waiting for its cue. Outside Riverside

1092
00:54:06,239 --> 00:54:09,400
resumed its little routines. Letters slid through doors, newsby's Lord

1093
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:12,480
of Bacorno stores, the sky rotating toward another in different night.

1094
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:15,440
He finally turned off the radio, but nothing in him

1095
00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:18,360
believed it was gone for good. He waited and listened

1096
00:54:18,400 --> 00:54:21,000
and let silence frighten him, not because it threatened, but

1097
00:54:21,039 --> 00:54:22,920
because a promised memory could return with the flick of

1098
00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:25,719
a dial of voice, his owner or another's echoing. We

1099
00:54:25,840 --> 00:54:28,440
now return you to regular programming. But if you hear us,

1100
00:54:28,639 --> 00:54:30,599
if the signal slips through, remain in the line, the

1101
00:54:30,599 --> 00:54:35,440
broadcast never really ends. And that is the end. Thank

1102
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:37,039
you for listening, and I will see you in the

1103
00:54:37,079 --> 00:54:41,679
next one.