1
00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:08,519
Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.

2
00:00:09,160 --> 00:00:12,199
Let's get into it. Twelve minutes past midnight. The city

3
00:00:12,199 --> 00:00:14,640
feels like a dream from which everyone else has already woken.

4
00:00:15,199 --> 00:00:17,640
That's how I open my lock for tonight's episode. Voice

5
00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:19,480
pitched low in the hush of my hybrid's cap or

6
00:00:19,600 --> 00:00:21,679
is dreading through the whisper of ties on wet pavement.

7
00:00:22,199 --> 00:00:24,239
I'm coasting along the northern edge of the river, where

8
00:00:24,280 --> 00:00:27,239
the warehouses and repair shop squat behind chainling fences, the

9
00:00:27,239 --> 00:00:30,239
sodium lights making a wet blat up seem bottomless. The

10
00:00:30,359 --> 00:00:33,840
rain isn't angry, just persistent, streaking off rivers down the windshield.

11
00:00:34,479 --> 00:00:36,799
I don't usually get poetic, but something about this eye,

12
00:00:36,920 --> 00:00:38,759
the hollow where the street lights seem to sparkle for

13
00:00:38,799 --> 00:00:41,000
nobody at all, always makes me talk to myself a

14
00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:44,439
little differently. Some drivers fill their rides with chatter, turning

15
00:00:44,520 --> 00:00:47,000
up the energy for anyone who gets in. I do

16
00:00:47,119 --> 00:00:49,479
my best works of vying the silence, especially up here

17
00:00:49,520 --> 00:00:51,840
close to the old docks, where even the city seems

18
00:00:51,880 --> 00:00:54,359
to hold its breath. I reach for my pahone hit

19
00:00:54,399 --> 00:00:57,520
record on the memo app Hey everyone to night stretched

20
00:00:57,520 --> 00:00:59,560
out quite a single retail light in a dark sea.

21
00:00:59,600 --> 00:01:01,840
I'm waiting on anything at all to happen. There's a

22
00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:03,600
strange kind of comfort to share in this with my

23
00:01:03,640 --> 00:01:06,719
tiny audience, most of whom I'll never meet. The rain

24
00:01:06,799 --> 00:01:08,959
tap dances on the roof, and the only company I

25
00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:10,400
have is the glow of the dash board and a

26
00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:13,480
lingering ache in my lower back. A rider pink cuts

27
00:01:13,480 --> 00:01:16,280
through my reverie. It doesn't quite sound like usual. There's

28
00:01:16,280 --> 00:01:18,319
a warble, a little off key, and that's enough to

29
00:01:18,359 --> 00:01:21,159
draw my attention. I glanced at the screen. You saw

30
00:01:21,200 --> 00:01:24,120
three thousand, eight hundred ninety one no photo pick up

31
00:01:24,120 --> 00:01:26,599
at the back lot by a Westgate market. The place

32
00:01:26,640 --> 00:01:29,560
has been shut out for months, all signs peeling shells

33
00:01:29,599 --> 00:01:31,840
left to gather dust on the other side of blackout windows.

34
00:01:32,439 --> 00:01:34,280
I think for a second that maybe it's a mistake,

35
00:01:34,959 --> 00:01:36,920
but late night rides are my bread and butter, and

36
00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:40,480
beggars can't be juicy. Looks like we pulled an odd one, folks.

37
00:01:40,599 --> 00:01:43,519
I narrate for the recording, half smiling. Here's where did

38
00:01:43,599 --> 00:01:45,760
venture might begin? Or it's some drunkkew tite in the

39
00:01:45,799 --> 00:01:49,280
Rome street. I turn on to Hamilton Avenue. The radio

40
00:01:49,319 --> 00:01:52,239
map stutters as I approach thell receptions always spotty. Near

41
00:01:52,280 --> 00:01:55,799
the old transformer station, I slow as I cushed in headlights,

42
00:01:55,799 --> 00:01:58,760
sweeping over puddles and battered grocery cots abandoned behind the

43
00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:02,280
loading dock. Nobody stands outside the lot breeze with fog,

44
00:02:02,439 --> 00:02:05,599
black as tar glimmering in the wet My phone displaced.

45
00:02:05,599 --> 00:02:07,799
The on arrival protocol time are set wide up to

46
00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:11,719
five minutes. The usual script I hit arrived and settled

47
00:02:11,759 --> 00:02:14,520
back against the seat. Five minutes in a vacant lot

48
00:02:14,520 --> 00:02:17,800
feels like an iron. I leave the engine running. D

49
00:02:17,879 --> 00:02:19,840
Let's cut an oblong pool into the mist, and the

50
00:02:19,919 --> 00:02:22,759
light shivers a little. Every time the wind gusts. A

51
00:02:22,840 --> 00:02:25,439
low beap tells me the clock sticking down two minutes left.

52
00:02:26,080 --> 00:02:29,199
I glance around, no movement, barely eat any sign of life,

53
00:02:29,199 --> 00:02:30,680
but the way rain sizzles on the hold of the

54
00:02:30,680 --> 00:02:33,520
occasional flick of a puddle by the curb. I focus

55
00:02:33,520 --> 00:02:36,000
in the silence, which isn't really silent if you listen

56
00:02:36,039 --> 00:02:38,199
howard enough. It's threaded with the city's distant drowne the

57
00:02:38,199 --> 00:02:40,400
stady tick of break somewhere in the avenue, even a

58
00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:44,199
hallway radio leaking through brick. Nobody's coming. I mutter softly

59
00:02:44,199 --> 00:02:46,800
for the recording, but the air feels like it's holding

60
00:02:46,840 --> 00:02:49,840
its breath, you know. As the timer approaches zero, I

61
00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:52,319
clip my tongue and reach for the shift lever. But

62
00:02:52,439 --> 00:02:54,159
just as I'm about to pull away, the skin at

63
00:02:54,199 --> 00:02:56,960
the nape of my neck prickles. In the rear view mirror,

64
00:02:57,039 --> 00:02:59,639
I notice something strange. The back window, fogged by the weather,

65
00:02:59,719 --> 00:03:01,800
has a faint circle, a soft patch wipe clear in

66
00:03:01,840 --> 00:03:03,240
the shape that could only have been left by a

67
00:03:03,280 --> 00:03:06,840
face leaning close, breathing into the glass. My eyes flickered down.

68
00:03:06,879 --> 00:03:09,599
The rear passenger seatbolt was buckled, silver tombe snapped in

69
00:03:09,639 --> 00:03:12,639
place across warm gray fabric. I could swear. I checked

70
00:03:12,639 --> 00:03:15,479
them before my shift, always due after cleaning, A thin,

71
00:03:15,599 --> 00:03:19,400
unfamiliar scent drifts forward, not perfume I recognized, not sitters

72
00:03:19,479 --> 00:03:21,560
or anything musky, more like floral serp, A ghost of

73
00:03:21,599 --> 00:03:25,800
something delicate and out of place, not mine, not recently.

74
00:03:26,479 --> 00:03:29,560
I shiver. My pulse flutters as I checked the locks,

75
00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:32,639
then glance around the lot again, suddenly desperate for another

76
00:03:32,719 --> 00:03:36,199
living salt to break the spell, the dashboard shops no passenger,

77
00:03:36,599 --> 00:03:40,479
ride canceled for a no show. The moment breaks axhil

78
00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:43,639
and stammer into the recorder. They never seen anything like

79
00:03:43,680 --> 00:03:47,240
that in my whole driving stretch. Seatbolt buckled itself somehow,

80
00:03:47,319 --> 00:03:51,319
fog on the glass, Maybe a prank, maybe I miss something.

81
00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:54,840
But as I drive away, I rolled the back window down,

82
00:03:54,960 --> 00:03:57,000
let the rain and air in, washing out that scent

83
00:03:57,080 --> 00:04:00,960
and whatever it means. Strange knights folk, stranger than we think.

84
00:04:01,639 --> 00:04:04,800
If anyone's listening live, they catch the hesitation in my voice,

85
00:04:05,319 --> 00:04:08,439
Astro askstrous my life before the out pickup is made

86
00:04:08,479 --> 00:04:10,280
up of lines and looked map bright red across the

87
00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:13,960
city's midnight Griditch shift, another quiet cycle, repeated with minor variations.

88
00:04:14,639 --> 00:04:17,120
Driving isn't glamorous, but it's steady and there's a rhythm

89
00:04:17,199 --> 00:04:19,600
to it, especially after sunset, when the city empties and

90
00:04:19,680 --> 00:04:22,199
the usual chaos subsides into a kind of sullen expectation.

91
00:04:22,800 --> 00:04:25,000
I got into this part time at first, hunting for

92
00:04:25,040 --> 00:04:27,639
flexibility after my lost office gig shot its doors for good.

93
00:04:28,240 --> 00:04:30,839
But I stuck around after realizing night's streets didn't ask

94
00:04:30,879 --> 00:04:34,360
anything of me except prisons there's a freedom in being unanchored.

95
00:04:34,879 --> 00:04:36,920
I'm not the sociable type, but that I'll lift out here.

96
00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:39,519
There's nobody to impress, and most of my passengers just

97
00:04:39,560 --> 00:04:42,439
want to disappear into their phones anyway. The ones who

98
00:04:42,480 --> 00:04:44,839
do talk become occurring characters in my will. Lena the

99
00:04:44,879 --> 00:04:46,759
nose climbing and for the slot call to the medical

100
00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:49,160
center as puffy but smile quick, Jeff the fry coock,

101
00:04:49,199 --> 00:04:51,720
smelling of burnt oil, craling a batter take up box

102
00:04:51,759 --> 00:04:54,399
and always apologizing for smelling up the car. Even the

103
00:04:54,439 --> 00:04:57,319
old man from Building eighteen B who says nothing except home, please,

104
00:04:57,360 --> 00:04:59,600
and then stairs out the window as the city calls passed.

105
00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:03,839
Early rides are usually unremarkable. It's only out of midnight,

106
00:05:03,879 --> 00:05:06,240
when most regulars have reached their beds what laid shifts

107
00:05:06,399 --> 00:05:09,680
that the city's core personality emerges. Neon logo is hanging

108
00:05:09,759 --> 00:05:13,319
like moths, sidewalks littered with plastic wrappers, sirens stucking in

109
00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:15,600
and out of air shut I've gotten to know my

110
00:05:15,639 --> 00:05:17,519
customers as well as any one, at least in the

111
00:05:17,519 --> 00:05:20,240
five minutes slices they give me. Nights bleed together in

112
00:05:20,279 --> 00:05:22,319
the edit, but the pattern's matter, both in the road

113
00:05:22,360 --> 00:05:24,439
and afterward, when I string together voice notes at the

114
00:05:24,439 --> 00:05:26,600
little desk in my apartment, curating the best of city

115
00:05:26,639 --> 00:05:29,680
after dark moments for the podcast That's a Ghost. Great

116
00:05:29,839 --> 00:05:32,839
City rides three hundred and twenty four subscribers, most of

117
00:05:32,839 --> 00:05:35,240
whom luck with the kind of eager anonimity I appreciate.

118
00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:37,639
Home is a one bedroom in the straw of Via

119
00:05:37,720 --> 00:05:40,480
high rise, seventh floor NN from the laundro mat below

120
00:05:40,519 --> 00:05:43,360
leaking into the edges of my window blinds. There's never

121
00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:45,720
enough space, but it's safe and cheap, and I measure

122
00:05:45,759 --> 00:05:47,800
time by the thumping of my upstairs neighbor's late night

123
00:05:47,839 --> 00:05:51,720
exercise routines. My friend Emory lives on my floor, always

124
00:05:51,759 --> 00:05:53,680
leaving the door open a crack with news of the building,

125
00:05:53,759 --> 00:05:57,759
leaky pipe, fresh graffiti, and another junk male scam warning buck

126
00:05:57,800 --> 00:06:01,439
already Emerias. One night, a week before things cut strange,

127
00:06:01,959 --> 00:06:03,680
he leaned in the doorway with a mug in hand,

128
00:06:03,879 --> 00:06:06,160
peering at me as I towed off my shoes. It

129
00:06:06,319 --> 00:06:09,879
is stretching my legs. Additing later, I replied, quiet night

130
00:06:09,959 --> 00:06:12,959
so far only had When buccalorett Troup, the City's getting boring,

131
00:06:13,639 --> 00:06:16,680
Emery grinned, that's when it's time to worry. Boring means

132
00:06:16,680 --> 00:06:20,279
something's loading in the background. Stay wearied les. He was right,

133
00:06:20,360 --> 00:06:22,600
of course, but at the time I took it a superstition.

134
00:06:23,199 --> 00:06:26,199
I crack my window, started my edits. There are always

135
00:06:26,199 --> 00:06:28,600
little details to smooth up. Too much background noise, a

136
00:06:28,639 --> 00:06:32,079
groan of the transmission as I break too sharply. Sometimes

137
00:06:32,160 --> 00:06:34,720
I catch out snippets on reblain Kolo's laugh that doesn't

138
00:06:34,720 --> 00:06:37,040
match the crowd static that was noticeable in the moment.

139
00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:40,639
Listener's email are Diyer's notes about strange routes, lost and

140
00:06:40,720 --> 00:06:44,720
found stories. There's a regular screen names shall gain suggesting

141
00:06:44,800 --> 00:06:46,879
urban legends for me to investigate. Did you know the

142
00:06:46,879 --> 00:06:50,279
old Central Library is haunted? Occasionally the message is veher

143
00:06:50,319 --> 00:06:52,399
toward the poetic. The city keeps its own secrets, and

144
00:06:52,519 --> 00:06:54,959
you're one of them. Now. On most nights, I take

145
00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:57,600
the right cheer calendar before bed, picking hotspots to stick

146
00:06:57,639 --> 00:07:00,360
out for work. I have a set of rules for comfort.

147
00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:02,600
Never linger to pick up more than seven minutes. If

148
00:07:02,600 --> 00:07:05,240
a passenger smells of alcohol, but walk straight, let them

149
00:07:05,240 --> 00:07:07,720
have their silence. Always keep the dash and pointed at

150
00:07:07,720 --> 00:07:10,800
both the windshield and backseat. I plug in on my phone,

151
00:07:10,839 --> 00:07:13,519
lets me listen to the police scanner. More curiosity than paranoia.

152
00:07:13,639 --> 00:07:16,759
At first kit stops to find my brakes. Ninety nine

153
00:07:16,839 --> 00:07:19,639
cent coffee it Jaspers all night gas. I show up

154
00:07:19,680 --> 00:07:21,519
so often that they keep my brown travel mud behind

155
00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:25,279
the register Domino. The drive through gives me extra fries. Sometimes,

156
00:07:25,319 --> 00:07:27,959
when nobody's behind me and I leave well worn playlist

157
00:07:28,040 --> 00:07:30,639
running low in the background, the city slids through the

158
00:07:30,680 --> 00:07:33,360
window of films worth of faces and barely contain tension.

159
00:07:33,879 --> 00:07:36,519
There's a personal logic to how I drive avoid to

160
00:07:36,560 --> 00:07:38,920
warehouse blocks after two it and that's when the street

161
00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:42,240
razors roll up and trouble follows. Refuse trips too far

162
00:07:42,360 --> 00:07:44,959
north roads are worse there. Po Hoole's hard to dodge,

163
00:07:45,120 --> 00:07:47,920
lighting unreliable. If that pings me for a pick up

164
00:07:47,959 --> 00:07:50,360
on Warren Lane, always make the customer show a matching

165
00:07:50,399 --> 00:07:53,240
profile VOT before they get in. These codes keep me

166
00:07:53,240 --> 00:07:55,480
in orbit, circling a city that doesn't know my name

167
00:07:55,519 --> 00:07:59,000
but relies on my presence, shadowlike in its after iris veins,

168
00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:02,079
because I I'm always watching, always archiving, even if I

169
00:08:02,120 --> 00:08:05,839
never really expect anything truly ought to happen ostrosk ASTERRSK

170
00:08:06,240 --> 00:08:08,839
a week after the foggy window incident o'clock, the beginning

171
00:08:08,839 --> 00:08:11,560
of a new pattern. It's subtle at first estrange user

172
00:08:11,600 --> 00:08:14,160
name you saw three thousand, eight hundred ninety one with

173
00:08:14,240 --> 00:08:16,439
it a fulk gray cluette instead of a profile pick.

174
00:08:16,639 --> 00:08:19,879
Sending another late night ride request, this time it after

175
00:08:19,920 --> 00:08:22,759
an ordinary drop off on Lehman's tree, just after one.

176
00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:25,439
I notice because it comes almost instantly as I mark

177
00:08:25,480 --> 00:08:28,120
a ride complete. Is barely a breath between ZANKIU have

178
00:08:28,160 --> 00:08:30,959
a good night and the buzz of the next assignment. Again,

179
00:08:31,040 --> 00:08:33,320
the picks and in between place a dark lot beside

180
00:08:33,320 --> 00:08:36,279
a boarded at bar, I accept a curious despite myself

181
00:08:36,879 --> 00:08:39,639
saint drill. I pull up time of starts. No one

182
00:08:39,679 --> 00:08:43,120
sures the street's empty, except for stray cap picking across

183
00:08:43,159 --> 00:08:46,000
trash bags. I make a joke into the recorder. Half

184
00:08:46,080 --> 00:08:48,879
hut of thee another wild goose chase looks like one

185
00:08:48,879 --> 00:08:51,759
star from Mysterious Vanishing Acts. When I flick in the

186
00:08:51,799 --> 00:08:54,000
interior like to check the back, I again noticed the

187
00:08:54,039 --> 00:08:57,159
scent clean, powdery, almost floral. Definitely nothing I've had in

188
00:08:57,159 --> 00:08:59,759
my car. I tug the seat bolth loose this time,

189
00:08:59,799 --> 00:09:02,000
but the plastic buckle is warm, as if it's just

190
00:09:02,039 --> 00:09:05,720
been handled. Shrug it off, I tell myself, but I

191
00:09:05,759 --> 00:09:09,000
mark the time stamp in my notebook. Later, editing audio

192
00:09:09,080 --> 00:09:11,200
at home, I spice in these ghost ride segments for

193
00:09:11,240 --> 00:09:14,799
the podcast clips play back. No shows again, must be

194
00:09:14,879 --> 00:09:17,799
a new urb encrypted. Getting tired of these pranks, my

195
00:09:17,919 --> 00:09:20,600
listener stock commentings Beckie ghost riders in the city, but

196
00:09:20,639 --> 00:09:23,559
the joking is more nervous as time less playful. One

197
00:09:23,600 --> 00:09:26,120
suggests I should install a camera in the passenger area.

198
00:09:26,799 --> 00:09:29,759
Another says, maybe you're being set up for something. I

199
00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:32,320
laugh it off, at least on Mike. Over the next

200
00:09:32,360 --> 00:09:36,440
three shifts, the phenomenon repeats, all with late, always at

201
00:09:36,440 --> 00:09:38,279
the end of a legitimate ride, as if the app

202
00:09:38,320 --> 00:09:41,360
is waiting for a lull. Different locations, but the pattern

203
00:09:41,440 --> 00:09:44,000
is obvious if you're paying attention. Always near somewhere abandoned

204
00:09:44,039 --> 00:09:46,559
or in transition places in the city nobody really wants

205
00:09:46,559 --> 00:09:49,879
to be at night. Sometimes I catch myself losing track

206
00:09:49,919 --> 00:09:51,960
of a minute or two, not daydreaming, but a weird

207
00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:54,399
falseness around when the timer ends and I move to leave.

208
00:09:55,039 --> 00:09:58,000
Once the dash panel trims with rear door open then close.

209
00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:00,759
When I check footage of that moment, the memory is

210
00:10:00,799 --> 00:10:04,039
slivery vague, but the applogs the door vent open and

211
00:10:04,080 --> 00:10:07,639
close with nobody visible on the footage, I convince myself

212
00:10:07,639 --> 00:10:10,399
it's a tech glitch, or maybe I bumped something. On

213
00:10:10,480 --> 00:10:12,840
the audio, there's a brief ludder, like some one whispering

214
00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:16,159
just out of range. Comments from my podcast crew escollete,

215
00:10:16,159 --> 00:10:20,000
get gammas, contact your ride, your safety team. Some listeners

216
00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:22,879
send screenshots of similar app glitches from other cities, but

217
00:10:22,919 --> 00:10:26,000
they are usually debunked. Still, in my own car, the

218
00:10:26,039 --> 00:10:28,399
tension feels heavier every time that goes to camp pings.

219
00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:31,720
The city is a giant net, forever catching fleeting patterns

220
00:10:31,720 --> 00:10:33,480
and then letting them slip. But this one doesn't lit,

221
00:10:34,279 --> 00:10:36,519
but the fifth the ghost fried. After a shift ending

222
00:10:36,559 --> 00:10:38,759
near the river, I pull up confirm the seat belts

223
00:10:38,759 --> 00:10:41,519
are all unbuckled before I park. I even dost the

224
00:10:41,559 --> 00:10:45,000
window with my sleeve. Twenty minutes later, when I check again,

225
00:10:45,039 --> 00:10:47,600
the rear seat belt is snapped in on the window.

226
00:10:47,679 --> 00:10:50,279
Finger Prints four to be exact, smudged and faint pressed

227
00:10:50,279 --> 00:10:52,080
in a row, as if someone shifted in this heat,

228
00:10:52,840 --> 00:10:56,000
my skin crawls. I turn the dat can footage over

229
00:10:56,039 --> 00:10:57,960
and over and at it, but the frames skip around

230
00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:01,360
the crucial seconds. Whatever happens, and that time is invisible

231
00:11:01,360 --> 00:11:04,000
to me or any one. What remains is that bertal

232
00:11:04,039 --> 00:11:06,559
sense of being observed not by ordinary eyes but by

233
00:11:06,559 --> 00:11:09,960
the city itself. A process may be thus running beneath

234
00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:12,519
our routine. The next time I get into the car,

235
00:11:12,600 --> 00:11:14,480
I glance first at the mirror, and I never really

236
00:11:14,519 --> 00:11:18,639
stop Astoris Kustursk. With most mysteries, I try to keep

237
00:11:18,639 --> 00:11:21,399
it attached perspective, this one claws at the walls of

238
00:11:21,440 --> 00:11:24,360
my caution. I start logging every ghost ride ping in

239
00:11:24,399 --> 00:11:27,320
my work notebook, times and locations, notes about the weather,

240
00:11:27,480 --> 00:11:30,879
even stray smells by now a slight dread ride shotgun

241
00:11:30,919 --> 00:11:33,200
on every shift, and the veneer of routine begins to peal.

242
00:11:33,840 --> 00:11:36,120
I purposely take a deedo before when ghost ride. It

243
00:11:36,200 --> 00:11:38,840
drives slowly, drag out the previous drop off, but still

244
00:11:38,919 --> 00:11:41,480
the app pingfalls with the moments of idling empty. The

245
00:11:41,559 --> 00:11:44,480
requests come even if I dried away. Sometimes I find

246
00:11:44,480 --> 00:11:46,879
myself circling blocks I have never meant to enter, as if

247
00:11:46,879 --> 00:11:49,440
the app is correcting itself, pushing me toward its own

248
00:11:49,519 --> 00:11:52,960
choosen destinations. After the seventh ghost ride, I decide to

249
00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:55,840
dig deeper. At home, I transfer footage from my dash

250
00:11:55,879 --> 00:11:58,039
come to an old lavetop, sitting late at the kitchen table,

251
00:11:58,039 --> 00:12:01,360
reindrumming steady outside. I watched the relevant pickup from two

252
00:12:01,440 --> 00:12:04,879
nights before. Timestamp blips forward. Pixelated frames stutter and jump,

253
00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:07,240
then freeze for almost seven seconds when the clock should

254
00:12:07,240 --> 00:12:10,360
be counting down. In that blurry gap, a black streak

255
00:12:10,360 --> 00:12:12,879
shifts across the rear window, almost human in shape, but

256
00:12:12,919 --> 00:12:15,960
dissolving as soon as the clock snapped forward. I play

257
00:12:15,960 --> 00:12:18,720
it back slow motion, frame by frame. There's no one

258
00:12:18,799 --> 00:12:21,559
reel stepping into the cart, but something bends alive, dissorting

259
00:12:21,600 --> 00:12:23,120
the seat for a moment, as if a shadow has

260
00:12:23,120 --> 00:12:26,639
settled itself there. It could all still be explained a

261
00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:29,840
technical failure, a software patch gone wrong, but the seat

262
00:12:29,879 --> 00:12:32,679
belt again moves from hanging slack to snapped in place,

263
00:12:32,799 --> 00:12:35,279
caught only at the end of the skip statement. The

264
00:12:35,360 --> 00:12:38,120
next morning, after a restless sleep, I researched the last

265
00:12:38,120 --> 00:12:41,039
three addresses logged as a ghostwrite pickups. One is a

266
00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:43,120
vacant lot outside a bus depot. The next is the

267
00:12:43,200 --> 00:12:45,639
rear exit of a dollar store, windows dusted with grime,

268
00:12:45,759 --> 00:12:49,200
no clear sign anything's in use. The last though pins

269
00:12:49,240 --> 00:12:51,519
to a street corner I recognize three doors down from

270
00:12:51,559 --> 00:12:54,159
a faded poster for a missing woman. Thin beneath the

271
00:12:54,159 --> 00:12:57,720
telephone pole is a wilted bouquet of wildflowers, wax driped candles,

272
00:12:57,759 --> 00:13:00,600
long snuff by rain. Faded police take it still marks

273
00:13:00,639 --> 00:13:04,159
a crack in the curb. The dates nearly match. Later,

274
00:13:04,480 --> 00:13:07,080
over lunch, I text a fellow right chair driver, Saul,

275
00:13:07,159 --> 00:13:09,840
who works the graveyard shift on the east Side. I

276
00:13:09,879 --> 00:13:12,200
ask if he's noticed anything weird with the app Phantom

277
00:13:12,200 --> 00:13:17,039
Pickup's strange requests in dead zones. He replies almost immediately, Yeah,

278
00:13:17,240 --> 00:13:19,159
I got at least two minus three a month, never

279
00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:22,159
anyone there. At glitches sometimes can't enter up until I

280
00:13:22,279 --> 00:13:25,080
drive a block away. One time my naverw outed itself

281
00:13:25,120 --> 00:13:27,600
mid trip, said destination move, but no passenger in the

282
00:13:27,600 --> 00:13:30,600
car thought I was losing my mind. Breu We trades

283
00:13:30,639 --> 00:13:33,840
Green Jut's timestamps off by several second, rides locked within

284
00:13:33,919 --> 00:13:37,080
correct locations, fairs otto corrected downward by some hidden hand.

285
00:13:37,799 --> 00:13:39,759
Some drivers say the pins move if you don't answer

286
00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:43,039
them like a nosewerrier headed soul ads why now I've

287
00:13:43,080 --> 00:13:45,600
built a patchwork of hauntings, tangible in their patterns, if

288
00:13:45,639 --> 00:13:49,639
not their origins. That evening, piecing together audio for the podcast,

289
00:13:49,759 --> 00:13:52,440
my voice stumbles as I lay out the details. I

290
00:13:52,480 --> 00:13:55,519
can't keep my nerves out of the narration. Whatever is happening,

291
00:13:55,559 --> 00:13:58,039
it's not just me. The seats, the digital footprints though,

292
00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:01,120
something being mapped out, riderless in, but it leave marks

293
00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:04,480
all the same. Next shift, I test my theory before

294
00:14:04,480 --> 00:14:06,720
accepting a ghost ride. I snap a photo of the

295
00:14:06,759 --> 00:14:09,639
seat belt and the rear window, both pristine. When the

296
00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:12,120
ride is over five minutes late of all alone, engine

297
00:14:12,200 --> 00:14:14,440
running reiniating a tattoo in the glass. The seat belt

298
00:14:14,519 --> 00:14:16,720
is snapped in, and the faintest smears of finger prints

299
00:14:16,759 --> 00:14:19,639
auc across the lower rear window. No other rides logged

300
00:14:19,679 --> 00:14:23,519
since my check. Something physical is happening. It wants to

301
00:14:23,519 --> 00:14:25,519
be tracked, or at least wants to leave a residue

302
00:14:25,559 --> 00:14:28,200
in my world. I debate turning it all over to

303
00:14:28,240 --> 00:14:31,240
the company or maybe the police, but I keep thinking

304
00:14:31,240 --> 00:14:33,200
of that faded poster, the way the scent link is

305
00:14:33,200 --> 00:14:35,240
after every shift, like something as waiting for me to

306
00:14:35,240 --> 00:14:39,519
see the bigger picture. Ostrous Gasturus. Mid April, during a muggy,

307
00:14:39,600 --> 00:14:42,759
buzzing evening puncture by distant sirens, my phone buzzes with

308
00:14:42,840 --> 00:14:44,639
a call from an unknown ID. I let it rain,

309
00:14:44,759 --> 00:14:48,039
then silence it. A minute later, a voice message lance,

310
00:14:48,720 --> 00:14:50,480
I play through the cow speaker as I sit in

311
00:14:50,519 --> 00:14:53,639
the dashlet duck just outside my building. The caller's voice

312
00:14:53,639 --> 00:14:56,720
is filtered, processed, and metallic, every syllable twisted up but urgent,

313
00:14:56,799 --> 00:15:00,960
all the same. It speaks only a little louder than background. Staf.

314
00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:03,080
You need to stop following those rides. This is not

315
00:15:03,120 --> 00:15:05,360
a game. You are being seen. Those accounts never belong

316
00:15:05,440 --> 00:15:08,200
to real people. Walk away, destroy your ride locks. No

317
00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:11,799
podcast is worth this. There's a pause, a voice flattening,

318
00:15:11,840 --> 00:15:14,879
and then one more message. Search the city's back end database.

319
00:15:14,919 --> 00:15:17,159
It's buried, but it's there. I know you're recording, so

320
00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:20,559
listen carefully. My hot hammer's out a while, thick rhythm.

321
00:15:20,840 --> 00:15:23,039
There's more, but the message ends and a digital click.

322
00:15:23,799 --> 00:15:26,440
I spend the next night off brows and city employment sites,

323
00:15:26,519 --> 00:15:29,919
pages of municipal contracts and it companies. The ride share

324
00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:32,679
vendor is government licensed and arrangement. I'd never thought much

325
00:15:32,720 --> 00:15:36,320
about beyond background checks and annual taxes, but now lines

326
00:15:36,360 --> 00:15:40,360
blur something about system wide access, dated mirroring, enough acronyms

327
00:15:40,399 --> 00:15:43,559
and speck sheets to confuse anyone but a specialist. Still,

328
00:15:43,600 --> 00:15:46,200
I can't quite bring myself to stop. When the pink

329
00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:48,240
comes in the next evening. It's for a ride request

330
00:15:48,279 --> 00:15:51,120
nearly identical to the ones before the pick up points

331
00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:53,559
end's cold fingers crawling down my spy and City Memorial

332
00:15:53,600 --> 00:15:56,759
Hospital now walled up, a hollowed shell with faded eosignage

333
00:15:56,759 --> 00:15:59,519
still clinging to the stonework. It was shut down after

334
00:15:59,559 --> 00:16:02,240
a five four years ago. The place is famous for

335
00:16:02,279 --> 00:16:05,000
being haunted teenager sneak beers in the lot, and private

336
00:16:05,039 --> 00:16:08,799
security usually throws out squatters before dawn. I approach anyway,

337
00:16:08,879 --> 00:16:11,080
checking the address twice, then slow as I ease onto

338
00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:15,879
the cracked entryway. No cars, no movement, just a battered

339
00:16:15,919 --> 00:16:18,919
security camera tilted toward the street in a whiffer burned insulation.

340
00:16:19,600 --> 00:16:21,759
As I swing the car around, my head lights catch

341
00:16:21,799 --> 00:16:24,759
something leaning half visible by the side entrance. It's a

342
00:16:24,759 --> 00:16:27,559
plastic id placard, half hidden in weeds. And debris near

343
00:16:27,600 --> 00:16:30,879
the cub I step out pulse racing and snap a photo.

344
00:16:31,399 --> 00:16:33,480
The last name matches one Etched and the police poster

345
00:16:33,559 --> 00:16:37,480
two days earlier, Hollister. I returned to the car fingers trembling.

346
00:16:37,960 --> 00:16:40,120
I wipe the inside rear window with my sleeve before

347
00:16:40,159 --> 00:16:42,840
sliding back behind a wheel. That's when I spot it.

348
00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:45,519
A neat row of condensation rings perfectly spaced at a

349
00:16:45,519 --> 00:16:48,399
finger tips tap the glass in time. When I get home,

350
00:16:48,440 --> 00:16:51,120
I find another anomaly in my inbox where Rychoir trip

351
00:16:51,120 --> 00:16:53,799
complete receipt total generated ten at two eleven a m.

352
00:16:53,919 --> 00:16:56,399
For my call to the hospital. The sender is the

353
00:16:56,440 --> 00:16:59,519
same ghost account, but the rider's profile image relages briefly

354
00:16:59,519 --> 00:17:01,840
on screen. It flickers from the usual gray blob to

355
00:17:01,879 --> 00:17:04,519
something like a composite portrait, faces laired atop one another

356
00:17:04,559 --> 00:17:07,559
with mismatched dies and mouths. Clearly not a generated error,

357
00:17:07,599 --> 00:17:10,319
but a melt an impossible joining. I saw m the

358
00:17:10,359 --> 00:17:14,079
lap up closed. It's not prank. These ghost rides are

359
00:17:14,079 --> 00:17:16,559
being summoned with accounts belonging to people who vanished from

360
00:17:16,559 --> 00:17:18,880
this city, lost, then a race recycled for use in

361
00:17:18,920 --> 00:17:22,039
the system. The magnitude of elands in my bones makes

362
00:17:22,039 --> 00:17:24,599
my scalp prickle. I peeled back from the desk as

363
00:17:24,599 --> 00:17:27,640
a physically rebelled. The next day, my phone rings from

364
00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:30,920
a number I once gave only for emergencies, a distorted

365
00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:33,240
voice in the line, no trace of words coming from whispers.

366
00:17:33,400 --> 00:17:35,359
You're showing up in the logs now they see you.

367
00:17:35,559 --> 00:17:37,440
Every ride could be the last de letty go home.

368
00:17:38,039 --> 00:17:40,880
Somewhere beneath the city's map routine, something has turned its

369
00:17:40,920 --> 00:17:44,400
gaze my way. Every ride recross pin multiplies, permissions, ghost

370
00:17:44,440 --> 00:17:47,160
my account. Even while I'm off duty, I sense I'm

371
00:17:47,160 --> 00:17:49,240
being trailed, not just followed by acounts, but that I

372
00:17:49,319 --> 00:17:51,880
might soon be the new missing rider. That my name

373
00:17:51,920 --> 00:17:54,759
isn't safe. My time is running on board cycles. For

374
00:17:54,799 --> 00:17:57,160
the first time, I hestate before starting at the car.

375
00:17:57,720 --> 00:17:59,640
For the first time, I wonder if each ride is

376
00:17:59,640 --> 00:18:02,119
an invitation not just into someone else's story, but into

377
00:18:02,119 --> 00:18:04,960
my own erasure. For the first time, I hesitate before

378
00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:07,720
starting out the car. For the first time, I wonder

379
00:18:07,759 --> 00:18:10,440
if Eachturet is an invitation not just into someone else's story,

380
00:18:10,440 --> 00:18:13,799
put into my own erasure. I tell myself I'm being paranoid.

381
00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:16,400
I even say it out loud, hoping the words will

382
00:18:16,400 --> 00:18:18,359
shatter the spell that seems to have tightened round me

383
00:18:18,400 --> 00:18:21,559
over the past weeks. The city outside doesn't look changed,

384
00:18:21,599 --> 00:18:23,880
though still, the flickering neon of the bakery down the block,

385
00:18:24,039 --> 00:18:26,720
the erratic mechanical chain of traffic on the avenue, the

386
00:18:26,759 --> 00:18:30,440
accidental composition of street light drumiss. But to me everything

387
00:18:30,480 --> 00:18:32,599
has gained a brittle edge, as if I'm walking through

388
00:18:32,599 --> 00:18:34,720
a repic of my life designed to trip me into debt.

389
00:18:35,319 --> 00:18:37,119
My phone chap softly where I've left it on the

390
00:18:37,119 --> 00:18:41,599
table beside last night's takeout. I don't immediately reach for it. Instead,

391
00:18:41,599 --> 00:18:43,680
I drift through the apartment, checking the three locks in

392
00:18:43,720 --> 00:18:45,960
the front door, then the windows peering at it, the blank,

393
00:18:45,960 --> 00:18:49,440
correctangles of light that map out the neighboring buildings. I

394
00:18:49,519 --> 00:18:51,599
try to focus on the familiar, the photo strips on

395
00:18:51,640 --> 00:18:54,200
my fridge, the stack of library mysteries, and the candor

396
00:18:54,200 --> 00:18:56,319
at the path of Warren, and spots on my entryway rock.

397
00:18:56,960 --> 00:19:01,000
Yet something has irrevocably shifted. I sense, not constantly, but

398
00:19:01,119 --> 00:19:03,680
enough to rude sleep, a lurking process in invisible tapelu

399
00:19:03,799 --> 00:19:06,359
preplaying the most inexplicable moments of the past several weeks.

400
00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:09,240
There are tangible things I can't explain, the never quite

401
00:19:09,279 --> 00:19:11,920
clean window. The floral scend thus become both more familiar

402
00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:14,519
and harder to pinpoint, an accumulation of small, hard to

403
00:19:14,519 --> 00:19:17,480
ignore details of the same kind. I want proof and

404
00:19:17,559 --> 00:19:20,920
forgetfulness and equal measure to ground myself a score through

405
00:19:20,920 --> 00:19:23,359
my notifications, trying to bring order to an otherwise free

406
00:19:23,359 --> 00:19:27,039
falling situation. The text history with Sulpings again. He's found

407
00:19:27,039 --> 00:19:29,359
another glitch on his locks, this time with the drop

408
00:19:29,359 --> 00:19:31,640
off time running backwards, which he chalks up to bad

409
00:19:31,680 --> 00:19:34,160
code but says still makes the hairs rise on his arm.

410
00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:36,599
I suggest we avoid talking about it to night, but

411
00:19:36,640 --> 00:19:39,680
he sends a laughing emoji. Can and see patterns once

412
00:19:39,680 --> 00:19:42,720
you have them? Nay, he writes, I turn my focus

413
00:19:42,720 --> 00:19:45,279
back to my audiophiles. This comfort in working the controls

414
00:19:45,359 --> 00:19:47,960
and seeing the sundbats march across the screen and colored lines.

415
00:19:48,680 --> 00:19:51,039
I pieced together a short statement for the next episode,

416
00:19:51,079 --> 00:19:53,799
supplice clips from Olow Ghost Rides, A handful of carefully

417
00:19:53,920 --> 00:19:57,039
edited for Smell's snippets of my own nervous self mocking sides.

418
00:19:57,759 --> 00:20:00,160
Editing is my ritual for anxiety. The closest thing I

419
00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:03,279
have to pinning reality beneath my fingers. The episode is

420
00:20:03,319 --> 00:20:05,519
only half done when a new email comes in, subject

421
00:20:05,599 --> 00:20:08,960
lines simply missing. The body contains three lines, my name,

422
00:20:09,039 --> 00:20:11,039
my car, make and plate number, and an address I

423
00:20:11,039 --> 00:20:15,319
haven't visited since childhood. There's no sender, no signature. My

424
00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:17,480
first courage is to slum the laptop shut and fling

425
00:20:17,480 --> 00:20:20,599
it out the window. I pause instead, or calibrate my breathing,

426
00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:23,119
press record and let the feeling poort into the microphone

427
00:20:23,119 --> 00:20:26,559
without analyzing it too closely. Maybe somewhere along the way

428
00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:29,160
looking for ghosts, you start to become one yourself, I

429
00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:32,319
whisper voiced in his newsprint. I keep driving the loops,

430
00:20:32,359 --> 00:20:34,960
delivering strangers into an out of the city's teeth, thinking

431
00:20:34,960 --> 00:20:36,880
I'm safe because I'm the one steering. But I'm not

432
00:20:36,920 --> 00:20:40,319
sure now whether I'm the observer or the subject. Kneading

433
00:20:40,319 --> 00:20:42,519
a face a face touchdown, I slip next door and

434
00:20:42,640 --> 00:20:45,720
knock on Emory's scuff paint peeling door. He's in sweats,

435
00:20:45,759 --> 00:20:48,000
half watching a local drug race on his phone, couch

436
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:50,680
a tangle of blankets, and take up. You look like death.

437
00:20:50,720 --> 00:20:53,759
Warned over, he says squinting over the screen. What did

438
00:20:53,799 --> 00:20:56,799
you catch or did something catch you? I manage a

439
00:20:56,799 --> 00:21:00,359
crooked smile. Just weird work stuff. You ever unnoticed strange

440
00:21:00,359 --> 00:21:03,480
profiles when you're online? I mean all the time. You

441
00:21:03,519 --> 00:21:06,160
ever read the building's Facebook group? Half the accounts there

442
00:21:06,200 --> 00:21:08,759
are ghosts or bots. One recently used a photo of

443
00:21:08,759 --> 00:21:11,920
a literal tombstone as its avatar. He grins, but when

444
00:21:11,960 --> 00:21:14,720
I don't join in, he tosses the phone aside. What

445
00:21:14,880 --> 00:21:17,559
actually happened? When I tell him about the window, the

446
00:21:17,599 --> 00:21:20,119
finger prints, the sepal, the rides with no riders. Some

447
00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:23,839
vestige of skepticism flickers for his usually unruffled demeanor. You

448
00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:26,759
lock your car every night, right, sure nobody's playing a prank?

449
00:21:27,319 --> 00:21:30,440
I shake my head. I've checked at ashgam. It skips

450
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:33,279
the crucial moments, like something sapping the whole record. And

451
00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:36,480
this has happened? What four or five times? I can't

452
00:21:36,559 --> 00:21:39,119
silently talling up every one of you saw three thousand,

453
00:21:39,279 --> 00:21:42,319
eight hundred ninety one, so requests every inexplicable shift or

454
00:21:42,319 --> 00:21:45,079
open slash, close alert, every subtle invasion of my supposed

455
00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:48,000
barrier between Knight and home way. More than that, I

456
00:21:48,079 --> 00:21:51,000
admit an addresses. There's at least one for every missing

457
00:21:51,039 --> 00:21:53,200
person post I've seen these past few weeks. Some of

458
00:21:53,240 --> 00:21:56,119
the places still of shrines, wax flowers. It's like the

459
00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:59,279
app as using deleted people. He rubbed his temples, shrugs

460
00:21:59,319 --> 00:22:02,119
one shoulder. Maybe talk to some one at the company.

461
00:22:02,279 --> 00:22:04,519
I mean, worse case, you take a break, let it

462
00:22:04,599 --> 00:22:07,200
cool off. But the idea of giving up control, of

463
00:22:07,279 --> 00:22:09,480
leaving them after the patterns of traced night after night,

464
00:22:09,559 --> 00:22:12,359
is even worse than facing them. Even now, I feel

465
00:22:12,359 --> 00:22:16,000
something like anticipation to king beneath my weariness coming this far.

466
00:22:16,279 --> 00:22:18,559
Not following the next step, even if only digitally, would

467
00:22:18,559 --> 00:22:21,200
mean surrender into a blank space on the route back

468
00:22:21,240 --> 00:22:23,759
in my apartment. Long after Emery's door click shot, I

469
00:22:23,839 --> 00:22:25,880
decide to act as though logic can still shield me.

470
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,400
I lay out a map digital screenche's layered on screenschets

471
00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:31,240
of every ghost ride request, pick up, drop off the

472
00:22:31,279 --> 00:22:33,440
city balloons on my tablet as a web of small,

473
00:22:33,519 --> 00:22:36,759
bright reminders spots behind strip malls, out of service bus terminals,

474
00:22:36,799 --> 00:22:39,440
dead ends by the river, and the deeper I look,

475
00:22:39,519 --> 00:22:42,119
the more it's obvious each location connects to a cluster

476
00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:45,160
of missing persons alerts of the ephemeral remains of roadside shrines.

477
00:22:45,759 --> 00:22:48,279
The pins map together create their own path, a circuit

478
00:22:48,279 --> 00:22:50,559
built not for efficiency, as the app claims, but for

479
00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:54,200
recurse of looping, not random at all. I work late

480
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:57,240
into the night, searching for workive, city news, missing persons,

481
00:22:57,319 --> 00:23:01,039
date buses, forms were gig worker's trade rumors. Each time

482
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:03,720
there's some clue, Rumors about drivers who stop showing up,

483
00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:06,519
about support tickets disappearing from the company's in books, about

484
00:23:06,559 --> 00:23:09,960
ride routed through accounts long since deactivated. Some posts are

485
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:12,920
quickly deleted, a lot by moderators, which only presses the

486
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:15,720
dread further in. In my haze, I forget to check

487
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:18,480
the time, only registering morning when the city's noise returns,

488
00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:21,559
garbage trucks, groaning birds, clattering on metal vents, the crumble

489
00:23:21,599 --> 00:23:24,960
of delivery vans. I get up, stretch, aching limbs, splash

490
00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:28,119
water on my face. I avoid the mirror, half expecting

491
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:30,279
my own image to stutter or blair or reflection. WoT

492
00:23:30,319 --> 00:23:33,279
by the digital strangeness have been courting that day. I

493
00:23:33,319 --> 00:23:36,200
don't drive. I don't even leave the apartment, except to

494
00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:38,400
collect the livery left at my door. Plastic wrap seep

495
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:41,720
containers that feel oddly prequeous in my trembling hands. I

496
00:23:41,799 --> 00:23:43,880
keep meaning to delete the ride locks, to wipe the app,

497
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:46,960
but I never quite do. Instead, I contact the city

498
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:50,640
ride share office. The automated faun tree runs me in circles.

499
00:23:50,759 --> 00:23:53,000
Press one to report ryde do misconduct, pressed to you

500
00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:56,720
for lost property. There's no menu option for haunting. I

501
00:23:56,799 --> 00:23:59,200
hang up. Send an anonymous tip through the online portal,

502
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:02,559
carefully worded impressions buried beneath jarged about system clutches and

503
00:24:02,559 --> 00:24:07,240
at vulnerabilities. No reply our late afternoon. I'm restless. My

504
00:24:07,319 --> 00:24:11,039
knee for ants are scraping through fatigue. Sol Sand's another message, bro.

505
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:13,400
Some one from support called me about my route anomalies,

506
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:15,000
but hung up where I press for their tech ID.

507
00:24:15,759 --> 00:24:19,759
He spooked. I'm taking a week off, he adds through

508
00:24:19,759 --> 00:24:21,519
the buzz in my skull and in my chest. I

509
00:24:21,599 --> 00:24:24,839
realization and Daun's. If I'm to get answers, it won't

510
00:24:24,839 --> 00:24:27,400
be from the company or the city support line. I'll

511
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:29,000
have to look for someone who knows how to read

512
00:24:29,039 --> 00:24:32,160
the city's digital skeleton. A quick roll through tech forums

513
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:34,160
in Write Your message Boards turns up and name a

514
00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:37,000
local activist known as Orchid, reputed to know everything about

515
00:24:37,039 --> 00:24:39,480
the Ryja industries back hand, and whose poster full of

516
00:24:39,519 --> 00:24:42,759
quiet warnings. I messaged them through an increted app, half

517
00:24:42,799 --> 00:24:45,480
certain no answer will follow, but an hour or later,

518
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:47,599
a blinking I can tells me I have a response.

519
00:24:48,319 --> 00:24:52,400
Prove your local. Orchid writes name two intersections where recent

520
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:54,440
ghost rides tagged you in the last three digits of

521
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:58,240
your car's registration. I reply with the info Lehman and Holly.

522
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:00,720
It grow of behind the glad supply yard and send

523
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:04,039
the numbers. Within five minutes, I receive a block of text.

524
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:07,799
Here are not the first forward logs, all apscreen recordings.

525
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:11,960
I package everything up and transmit finger is nervy. Orchid

526
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:14,240
promises are replied by Dawn, and all I can do

527
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:17,200
is try to rest. I collapse on that I made bed.

528
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:19,440
The artificial light from the whole were pulling beneath my door,

529
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:22,559
city static coming behind the walls. I dream in fits

530
00:25:22,559 --> 00:25:26,119
of rerouded pickups, cursed applications, entire city blocks vanishing into

531
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:29,599
a mirage of digital fog. I waked two emails, one

532
00:25:29,599 --> 00:25:32,680
from Orchid subject line found something, and another from the companies,

533
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:36,880
no reply, division marked administrative reviews started. I open orchids first.

534
00:25:37,599 --> 00:25:40,240
It's dense with code and dato, which I skim for substance.

535
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:43,519
But the opening lines tell me too much. Already. Major

536
00:25:43,559 --> 00:25:45,359
accounts from my list were set to an act of

537
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,480
nearly simultaneously right after their owners were reported missing. But

538
00:25:48,559 --> 00:25:51,160
every time you get a ghost ride, the account briefly reanimates,

539
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:53,680
pings the network then vanishes into an enlisted nerd in

540
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:56,200
the city's systems. You being routed through something outside the

541
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:59,640
normal ride flow, could beside servers, maybe even something municipal.

542
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:02,200
No information yet, but your driver LUG is now pulled

543
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:05,319
into the same system. I read and reread the final sentence.

544
00:26:06,039 --> 00:26:08,640
Overlay your pick of coordinates with the city's called case map.

545
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:11,200
See what matches. There is a secondary process LUG in

546
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:13,599
each event, separate from your visible history, and it's not

547
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:16,839
just passengers drivers slowly being added track your own status.

548
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:20,200
Someone or something is feeding the sleop. The company email

549
00:26:20,279 --> 00:26:22,359
is more we big legal ease about a routine compliance

550
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:25,279
reviews in a warning not to discuss support interactions publicly.

551
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:28,279
My handshake as I plot my right against public missing

552
00:26:28,319 --> 00:26:31,599
persons maps and What emerges is undeniable, a nearly perfect

553
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:35,160
match every outliert. Each ghost ride fits into a circuit,

554
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:37,640
wending its way through the unsolved disappearances reported in the

555
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:40,359
city over the past year. I expand the dates further,

556
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:43,480
older reports it too, though with fuzzer data. Something is

557
00:26:43,519 --> 00:26:45,759
operating under the digital framework of the city, the shadow

558
00:26:45,839 --> 00:26:49,680
process camouflaged as error, misdirection, or chance, and I am

559
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:53,240
caught inside it. I slip on shoes, pocket my pawning keys,

560
00:26:53,319 --> 00:26:55,759
and to send the long hallway past Emery's silent door

561
00:26:55,839 --> 00:26:58,759
and into the elevator. As I ride down, a thought

562
00:26:58,799 --> 00:27:01,119
gnaws at me. If I simply stop driving, breaking my

563
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:03,799
coat and never answering another pang, would this be over?

564
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:06,680
Or would the pattern find me some other way, repurposing

565
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:09,880
me fully into a tracursive net. Outside, the air is damp,

566
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:12,960
floating with either late rain or early mist. For a moment,

567
00:27:13,039 --> 00:27:15,839
I consider doing something radical, smashing the app, tossing the phone,

568
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:18,839
abandoning my car, even leaving the city for good. But

569
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:21,680
I hesitate, inertire and curiosity winning out, as they often do.

570
00:27:22,319 --> 00:27:24,559
I reach my car, popped in its regular spot, beneath

571
00:27:24,559 --> 00:27:28,200
the flickering sodium lamp. I pause, look around, nobody about,

572
00:27:28,319 --> 00:27:30,160
only the dull wher of a passing cleaning crew on

573
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:33,000
the avenue. I slide into the driver's seat, heart rapid

574
00:27:33,039 --> 00:27:35,960
in my chest. The rear view mirror shows the car empty.

575
00:27:36,599 --> 00:27:38,880
I checked the back seat, running a nervous hand over

576
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,759
the seabolt and buckle to clean. I start the engine,

577
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:43,920
letting it idle, goading myself to watch the app and

578
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:46,519
see what comes next. Its be my rule, never to

579
00:27:46,559 --> 00:27:48,640
wait too long in one spot for anything, but to night.

580
00:27:48,799 --> 00:27:51,440
For the first time, I break it. I linger, as

581
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,759
if daring the ghost pattern to bring first minutes pass.

582
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:58,240
My phone lights up. The ghost ride request peers same

583
00:27:58,279 --> 00:28:00,759
as always, no profile picture, just the hollow use a name,

584
00:28:01,279 --> 00:28:03,680
But this time the pick up location is impossibly close.

585
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,400
Six hundred suffield lot be it's my own building, the

586
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:10,960
lot where I'm parked. I swallow, reading it twice. The

587
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:13,640
app statters my own profile. Pick flickers for a second

588
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:15,920
to just a glitch, but something about the pixel smear

589
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:18,519
and settles me. I accept the ride, break my silent coat,

590
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:20,839
and turn in a dash cam, aiming it at both seats.

591
00:28:21,559 --> 00:28:24,920
Another ride into the unknown, I think, another invitation to

592
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:28,240
participate in an ongoing erasure. The pattern is closing in,

593
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:31,000
or I am closing it around myself, eat away. I

594
00:28:31,079 --> 00:28:34,079
can't turn away from what's coming next. It takes several

595
00:28:34,079 --> 00:28:36,519
seconds of the ride request details to resolve on my phone,

596
00:28:36,599 --> 00:28:39,039
as though the city's network itself hesitates. Then there it

597
00:28:39,079 --> 00:28:43,000
is pick up six hundred suffield lot BE. I stare

598
00:28:43,039 --> 00:28:45,880
at the screen, the address repeating shop and insistent against

599
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:48,960
the cottilage, deep chill settling over my skin, lot B,

600
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:52,200
my building, My car is already parked in the precise spot,

601
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:54,400
the waprant marks on the little blue map, the concentric

602
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,039
pulse rippling from my own icon. For a moment, I

603
00:28:57,079 --> 00:28:59,559
do nothing, noticing the odd way my breeding echoes in

604
00:28:59,599 --> 00:29:02,000
my chest. You hollow, stuttering, like the dead air of

605
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:06,240
a studio between broadcasts. I could power off the phone. Instead,

606
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:09,440
I watched the raftimer begin its parade of slow glacial seconds.

607
00:29:10,079 --> 00:29:12,240
The demp city night presses, and through the crack window.

608
00:29:12,359 --> 00:29:15,640
Even with the engine off, the interior feels cocooned, oddly, muffled,

609
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:18,440
as if the world beyond the glasses receding. I hit

610
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:20,440
for record by pure instinct. Now my own voice more

611
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:23,200
brittle than I mean. Ride requests logged, but I haven't moved,

612
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:26,079
and my own passenger Apparently, if anything's listening, this is

613
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:28,720
lex and something is actively feeding me my own route

614
00:29:28,799 --> 00:29:30,720
right here. I don't know if this is some sick

615
00:29:30,759 --> 00:29:34,160
trick or the phone vibrates harder than before, rattling against

616
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:37,559
the dash. I check the rear view mirror. At first

617
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:40,400
only the sodium larm stained shadows ripple in the empty seat,

618
00:29:41,079 --> 00:29:43,799
but then, with excruciating slowness, the sea belt drivers I've

619
00:29:43,839 --> 00:29:47,759
rear snaps across by itself. My scalp tingles on the

620
00:29:47,799 --> 00:29:50,240
inside of the back window. A faint oval of fog blooms,

621
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:52,880
ereased by small movement, like a hand wipe in condensation.

622
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,680
After stepping in from the cold, I grit the wheel

623
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:58,480
for the first time. The silence inside the cough feels

624
00:29:58,599 --> 00:30:02,279
entirely inhabited. The scent, faint but distinctive, floats forward on

625
00:30:02,319 --> 00:30:05,960
the air. Not cut flowers this time, but crushed greenery, stems,

626
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:08,799
bruised leaves, and beneath that, the uncanny memory of some

627
00:30:08,839 --> 00:30:12,079
one else's soap. It's as real and abrupt as being slapped.

628
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:14,480
My heart is beating so loudly. I can hear it

629
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,839
in my ears from elsewhere in the car seat spurring perhaps,

630
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:20,119
or the plastic buckle settling, I hear a soft click.

631
00:30:20,799 --> 00:30:23,119
I sink back, let the second shut her by, and

632
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:25,519
somewhere between minute two and three, I realize I can't

633
00:30:25,559 --> 00:30:29,000
counsel the ride. The APT interfaces grayed out, a single

634
00:30:29,119 --> 00:30:32,720
featureless bar leaping beneath the words in progress. I try

635
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:35,359
to rationalize it, to explain, but the spiral of evidence

636
00:30:35,359 --> 00:30:38,559
and furls inside me. All the times the ghostride arrived

637
00:30:38,599 --> 00:30:42,160
at Lemino, in between city locations, all the missing persons,

638
00:30:42,799 --> 00:30:44,680
all the pings I chaste that seem to anticipate my

639
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:47,400
own motion. Now the system has leaped a map back

640
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:49,240
to where I started, no longer a ride but a

641
00:30:49,279 --> 00:30:53,160
closing statement. It nook rattles the driver's side window. The

642
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:56,200
southern contact jolts me bodily, A flare of burning adrenaline

643
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:59,920
dammer back. I twist hands up, ready to show, but

644
00:31:00,039 --> 00:31:02,160
when I look, I see only my own warp reflection

645
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:04,799
in the stuttering, rippled outline of a neighbor, hunch in

646
00:31:04,839 --> 00:31:08,519
a hooded sweatshirt, rushing past through the building's entrance the knock,

647
00:31:08,839 --> 00:31:11,519
then a coincidence, except my phone's time or blinks out

648
00:31:11,519 --> 00:31:14,400
of sink, and when it returns, three additional minutes have elapsed.

649
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:18,279
Heat rises in my face. I breathe deliberately until my

650
00:31:18,319 --> 00:31:21,680
heart finds a manageable rhythm. Pulling myself together, I clicked

651
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:24,200
the window closed. I forced a seep up free with

652
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:27,279
the trembling hand, setting it to hang slack. Only then

653
00:31:27,319 --> 00:31:30,160
does the app at last flash ride end it. There

654
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:33,359
is no tip option, no rating, no common field. The

655
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:36,119
car feels as though something has exhaled. I say it,

656
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:38,440
scanning the pucking loft for any other movement. The city

657
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:41,480
is damped, near mixed with after image constellations behind my eyelids.

658
00:31:42,119 --> 00:31:44,160
In the sep beside me, the phone is still recording

659
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:46,440
in a row open file. My own voice now fainter,

660
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:49,160
sapped with bravado. Something here is using the city as

661
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:51,200
its shell. It knows the addresses that matter. It can

662
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:55,079
make me the destination. Street lights buzsordably above, every sound sharp,

663
00:31:55,119 --> 00:31:57,440
as though the thin barrier between interior and well grows

664
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:01,039
tissue paper thin. I breathe the air again, want in reassurance,

665
00:32:01,079 --> 00:32:04,240
but the floral and green sendlingers too intimate ignore. The

666
00:32:04,319 --> 00:32:07,160
ride might have ended technically, but I can feel, not

667
00:32:07,279 --> 00:32:10,240
just imagine the city's gaze spectral and calculating through every

668
00:32:10,279 --> 00:32:14,720
faded lens asturiscstrous. I forced myself to function through the

669
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:18,279
following day. I have to, if only because pretending normality

670
00:32:18,279 --> 00:32:20,799
burns off some of the fretful panic. I pushed through

671
00:32:20,799 --> 00:32:23,079
my morning, which will shower at coffee, scanned the news

672
00:32:23,079 --> 00:32:25,759
on my phone, pausing only its headlines blow before my eyes.

673
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:28,920
I can't help but screen from missing persons and notices,

674
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:31,720
noticing their cadence as familiar now as my own name.

675
00:32:32,319 --> 00:32:34,839
I show up at Jaspers Gas, lated thunusual, the morning

676
00:32:34,839 --> 00:32:37,240
clerk frowning in confusion as I grabbed my travel mark

677
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:41,079
for rough night. The kid calls, half mocking bad dreams.

678
00:32:41,119 --> 00:32:43,359
I reply, and I'm not sure if he gets the joke.

679
00:32:44,319 --> 00:32:46,920
On impulse, I drive to a car wash, running the

680
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:50,119
hybrid for twice. I disinfect the back seat, scrubbing at

681
00:32:50,119 --> 00:32:52,480
the sea but buckle and the window. There are faint

682
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:56,079
smudges barely visible along the bottom paned, four round fingerprints

683
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:59,240
curling as if someone leaned close from inside. I debate

684
00:32:59,279 --> 00:33:01,640
taking a car in a wiring check, then abandon the

685
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:05,720
notion whatever is happening is not mechanical. In the afternoon,

686
00:33:05,759 --> 00:33:07,960
I messaged all again, letting him know about the righte

687
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:12,400
request map to my own location. He doesn't reply, Orchid does, though,

688
00:33:12,519 --> 00:33:14,960
sending a link to a new map overlay. Every operator

689
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,039
flag by ghost rides in the last two years and

690
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:20,359
expanding Spider were banquered on missing persons, data and unexplainable

691
00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:23,279
ride locks. At the center a slowly spinning bright dart

692
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,920
labeled only active. I power the phone off, I wipe

693
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:30,920
the ride app, reinstall it, run diagnostics. Nothing changes, the

694
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:34,680
profile restores itself, memories and ride locks still dangerously intact.

695
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:37,960
By early evening, Droid is knowing so sharply I can't

696
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,839
ignore it any longer. I throttle up the podcast app,

697
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:43,119
rehearsing a segment in my head about digital haunted houses,

698
00:33:43,119 --> 00:33:46,799
how patterns can confess software, not just buildings. My voice

699
00:33:46,799 --> 00:33:50,319
comes up flat. I try again, softer, but the words

700
00:33:50,359 --> 00:33:53,240
feel imp It's Saturday and the city has a strange

701
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:55,720
point hushuver casp but dry, as if the weather itself

702
00:33:55,759 --> 00:33:58,759
is reserving judgment rather than drive. That evening, I take

703
00:33:58,759 --> 00:34:02,559
the elevator down. Clutched tightly in my pocket, my kneesic

704
00:34:02,559 --> 00:34:04,839
as I cross the lot to Emory's building, desperate for

705
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:08,000
the friction of ordinary conversation. He opens the door before

706
00:34:08,039 --> 00:34:10,760
I can knock, as if expecting me. You look worse,

707
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,440
he says, and gestures for me to come in. I

708
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:16,239
set my phone on the kitchen counter. The ride requests

709
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:19,679
are mapping to my location. A saquietly like there, folding

710
00:34:19,679 --> 00:34:22,280
the city back on to me among their logs. Now apparently,

711
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:27,000
Orchid confirmed his brow furrows. Were you scared? I open

712
00:34:27,079 --> 00:34:30,920
my palms, not scared, more displaced as a Stopping wouldn't

713
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:32,760
change anything, like I'm just as much a part of

714
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:36,119
the system now as every missing name. Emory sits head tilted.

715
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:38,719
You still want to dick Sometimes you chase things so

716
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:41,280
deep you forget there's nowhere else to go, his words

717
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:43,480
sting more than I want to admit, but he doesn't press.

718
00:34:44,039 --> 00:34:46,159
He puts on the kettle and changes the subject, rambling

719
00:34:46,159 --> 00:34:49,199
about a neighbor's dog renovations in the next building. For

720
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:52,000
a few minutes nor most he stitches itself back into place.

721
00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:55,440
When I step outside, dusk is falling, and the parking

722
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:58,079
lot is failed in sodim fog on a trash can

723
00:34:58,119 --> 00:35:00,440
close by. A ride chair sticker ripples, half torn, is

724
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:03,519
contactless logo blinking in the half light. A new message

725
00:35:03,559 --> 00:35:06,880
brings on my phone. Another ride request goes to count again,

726
00:35:07,039 --> 00:35:09,320
but this time the drop off is an ended. It

727
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:14,400
simply reads destination unlisted. My stomach flips. I thumb the screen,

728
00:35:14,559 --> 00:35:18,400
pulse jack hammering, no time given, no route mapped, just

729
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:22,039
a blinking except button. I stare and blinking until the

730
00:35:22,079 --> 00:35:24,519
screen dims and the city resumes its indifferent churn around

731
00:35:24,519 --> 00:35:28,480
me astros casters. I begin to opt for movement, even

732
00:35:28,519 --> 00:35:31,320
when rest would be easier. I tell myself it's about

733
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:33,639
taking control of choosing one and how to drive, instead

734
00:35:33,639 --> 00:35:37,039
of seating the initiative to whatever's animating the system. In truth,

735
00:35:37,159 --> 00:35:39,719
every hour behind a wheel deepens the fault line inside me.

736
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:42,519
Night after night, the city feels more like a circuit

737
00:35:42,559 --> 00:35:46,239
than a landscape. I drive, checking every mirror, each street sign,

738
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:49,320
confirming repeatedly that the cars empty before and after each ride,

739
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:52,239
at least in appearance. I avoid the old picket spots

740
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:54,599
at first, but the request throughout me once to a

741
00:35:54,639 --> 00:35:57,360
maintenance deeper sandwich between dormant train tracks, another to a

742
00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:00,760
recycling plant whose only visitor is a blinking fox. I

743
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:03,840
refuse ghost rides at first, but refusal seems only to delay,

744
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:07,159
never to erase the inevitable new request. They wait patient,

745
00:36:07,239 --> 00:36:08,920
then nudge my up again the moment I drop a

746
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:11,199
passenger near any of the ghost net addresses orchard cent

747
00:36:12,119 --> 00:36:14,719
twice on the way to drop off real fairs. My

748
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:17,440
applelitch is hard reads mid trip, snapping the gpspen a

749
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:20,760
block beyond the passengers intended stop. Each time I have

750
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:22,800
to argue with the fair logga process that leaves my

751
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:25,760
real passengers baffled or irritated. AMMI sweating where that the

752
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:29,000
system is folding its patterns more public each time. The

753
00:36:29,119 --> 00:36:33,119
ride history is She's another phantom notification, Ride completed, ride failed,

754
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:36,960
rider scheduled on one run. Dropping a hospital nurse named

755
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:39,320
Priya just outside her apartment. I check the rear view.

756
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:42,679
The sea belt is buckled again. Her eyes meet mine

757
00:36:42,679 --> 00:36:45,400
in the mirror. She thanks me and she frowns. You

758
00:36:45,519 --> 00:36:47,840
or I lax. You look like you've seen a ghost.

759
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:51,000
I don't know how to answer. I take to sleeping

760
00:36:51,039 --> 00:36:53,880
with my phone on appline mode, But in the mornings

761
00:36:54,039 --> 00:36:56,320
I find new notifications queued in the app and finished

762
00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:59,880
rides request pining to addresses I've never entered. One request

763
00:36:59,880 --> 00:37:02,000
is time stamp three forty one a m. The time

764
00:37:02,039 --> 00:37:04,239
I'm certain I was at home, locked in my own room,

765
00:37:04,679 --> 00:37:07,159
Yet the ride lock shows my car and motion cord in.

766
00:37:07,199 --> 00:37:09,519
It's off by only a single digit from my parking space.

767
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:13,000
Late warm evening, as rain returns in thin curtains, I

768
00:37:13,039 --> 00:37:15,280
decide against my better judgment to take a direct run

769
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:18,199
at whatever force is trailing me. I open the podcast software,

770
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:20,760
this time live broadcasting with only a slight delay to

771
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:23,400
the subscribers who are started tuning in for the weird stuff.

772
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:27,199
To night is the experiment, I say. I'm accepting every

773
00:37:27,199 --> 00:37:30,039
ping following every ghost ride. If anything happens, if you

774
00:37:30,079 --> 00:37:32,519
hear anything strange, send a message. Maybe If enough eyes

775
00:37:32,519 --> 00:37:35,559
are on this, it breaks the spell. Within thirty minutes.

776
00:37:35,599 --> 00:37:39,199
The first request pings pick up an anonymous Lodden industrial

777
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:41,679
south end behind a city vehicle deeper whose lights are

778
00:37:41,679 --> 00:37:44,639
never fully dark. This time, as I park, I keep

779
00:37:44,679 --> 00:37:47,920
every camera rolling, windshield rear, even a small mobile calm

780
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:50,960
looping audio in the backseat. I narrate my own checklist,

781
00:37:51,039 --> 00:37:53,039
feeling less like a driver and more like a scientist

782
00:37:53,039 --> 00:37:57,360
monitoring a dumed experiment. All seats empty, darkham rolling engine idling,

783
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:02,079
sent mild, earthy with a chemical undertone. Four minutes pass. Then,

784
00:38:02,199 --> 00:38:05,159
with abrupt certainty, I sense the cow shift suspension flexing,

785
00:38:05,199 --> 00:38:08,119
as if Waight has moved across the back row. Instinctively,

786
00:38:08,199 --> 00:38:11,320
I check every window, the driver lotting's rear right door

787
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,039
opened then closed. But the camera review and I check

788
00:38:14,039 --> 00:38:17,320
it live, shows nothing, no shadow, no form, no breeze,

789
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:20,880
not even distortion. The ride log shows passenger on board

790
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:25,039
destination maintenance yard north loop. A voice, tiny and tinny

791
00:38:25,119 --> 00:38:27,679
breaks through the static of my back seat. Audio erees

792
00:38:27,760 --> 00:38:30,679
me I finch hard enough to jolt the will sideways.

793
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:34,519
In the sound file later it becomes clear warped cranulal whisper,

794
00:38:34,639 --> 00:38:37,000
not my own, clearly not my voice, repeating the same

795
00:38:37,039 --> 00:38:40,519
two words you erase me. I'm out of rational explanations.

796
00:38:41,159 --> 00:38:43,440
I narrate everything as I drive, the rolling darkness, the

797
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:46,199
saudie glow stroked by my passage, the flickers of city

798
00:38:46,199 --> 00:38:49,239
equipment at the periphery, My foam pings with a series

799
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:51,719
of back to back messages, first from the rycher helped desk,

800
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:54,280
then from Orchid. Your route is being mirrored live, shut

801
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:56,280
off day and now if you want privacy or keep

802
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:59,960
going if you want answers. I choose answers. The dry

803
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,840
after the maintenance yard feels infinite, but time compresses inside

804
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:06,199
all the repetition. When I finally arrive, the place is deserted.

805
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:08,679
Only a scatter of croustotle into motion as I glide

806
00:39:08,679 --> 00:39:10,840
into the single working lamp stock. I cut the engine,

807
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:13,199
leaves Spotify running low enough that any other sound will

808
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:17,880
stand out. The temperature inside the car drops, not metaphorically coal,

809
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:20,159
sharp enough to fog the windows and make my finger

810
00:39:20,159 --> 00:39:23,440
tipstick against the steering wheel. The worthy mirror first shows

811
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:26,599
only myself, then, like a ripple through still pond, the faint,

812
00:39:26,599 --> 00:39:30,000
impossible shape, a suggestion of a body, blurred and gray

813
00:39:30,039 --> 00:39:31,679
as the mist in the glass. Seated in the back

814
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:34,599
right corner, the seat belt sets flush across nothing, the

815
00:39:34,639 --> 00:39:38,159
buckle perfectly settled. I open my mouth to speak, barely

816
00:39:38,199 --> 00:39:40,800
trusting any sound to escape. Are you are you one

817
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:44,719
of the missing? No answer? Then again, the voice fractured

818
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,920
between analog and digital eraise me elongated in the syllable,

819
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:51,800
almost broken by static. As sudden pressure invades the car,

820
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:55,719
the dashboard controls strobe, every radio presept vanishes. The panel

821
00:39:55,719 --> 00:39:59,800
clock scrambles wildly. The phone, haphazardly propped in the console tray,

822
00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:01,960
f ashes to life an icon I've never seen before,

823
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:05,199
a blank face, blurring morphing overlaid with multiple features and

824
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:08,159
shifting haze. The app opens a sub many labeled and

825
00:40:08,199 --> 00:40:12,559
faint block letters, city Operations, Ghost Node. Hundreds thousands of

826
00:40:12,599 --> 00:40:15,199
ride logs scroll by, each taggered with an operage ID

827
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,400
a passenger, most with names I recognize from missing personless,

828
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:21,559
some marked only by strings of random digits. Mine is

829
00:40:21,599 --> 00:40:25,440
there too, l e XCB forty one logged in active,

830
00:40:26,079 --> 00:40:29,480
the implication lands with the gut punch the system, the city,

831
00:40:29,559 --> 00:40:32,760
the app, some unwholesome partnership has automated not just the deletion,

832
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:36,119
but the very memory of the missing. When accounts go inactive,

833
00:40:36,119 --> 00:40:38,679
their digital ghost is eroded. Use again and again to

834
00:40:38,719 --> 00:40:42,079
occupy the city's transit system for on scheduled journals to nowhere, forever,

835
00:40:42,159 --> 00:40:45,079
looping through the infrastructure, recruiting new interest at the edges,

836
00:40:45,679 --> 00:40:47,800
the passenger if that's what it is, leans forward, the

837
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:51,039
faintest warble of glass and cold in its motion, erase me.

838
00:40:51,119 --> 00:40:53,559
It repeats, this time layered with the trailing limono echo.

839
00:40:54,119 --> 00:40:57,159
It's not just you, is it? I whisper was catching

840
00:40:57,199 --> 00:41:00,000
in my throat. It's everyone who vanished, And the city

841
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:04,519
or machinery fills in the blanks again spectral silence. Then

842
00:41:04,559 --> 00:41:08,039
something more intelligible sneaks through the static erasure isn't the end,

843
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:11,079
it's new memory. Ride the circuit, fill the seed forget.

844
00:41:11,679 --> 00:41:13,840
I want a bowl to throttle, the engine to screaming

845
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:16,880
and leave nothing but tire marks behind. But I can't

846
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:18,880
move for the cold inside the car presses me flat,

847
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:21,599
the kind that's carved its place in the mirror. Then,

848
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:24,440
in one dazzlingly final glitch, the app logs me out

849
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:27,000
except where my driver profile once sat. Now there's only

850
00:41:27,039 --> 00:41:29,519
the same compulsite face, glassy eyed and open, waiting for

851
00:41:29,519 --> 00:41:32,559
permission to ride. A city vehicle passes, but a lot

852
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:36,559
public safety logo gleaming wetly under the lamps. It pauses,

853
00:41:36,639 --> 00:41:39,880
slowing as if inspecting each slot, but never stops. I

854
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:42,000
watch as a glides out of sight its own dash cam,

855
00:41:42,039 --> 00:41:44,880
I gunting predatorily. I can hear my own heart again.

856
00:41:45,039 --> 00:41:47,400
It is knocking out a frantic code, spelling warnings in

857
00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:50,360
the speech. No one else here will understand. I whisper

858
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:52,480
into the recorder if you are hearing this, if you're

859
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:54,239
recording this, I think they have me. I think have

860
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:58,360
become one of the circuits astrisk astrurisk. There inside the car,

861
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:00,960
titans with the feeling of something that loose. His circuit complete,

862
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:04,880
A ride concluded, but I don't feel relief. I stiffly

863
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:07,039
pull the key step out into the knife cold night,

864
00:42:07,199 --> 00:42:09,880
barely managing my limbs. This a t hang of drid.

865
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:13,280
That image lingers behind me, clinging like aftershave lights in

866
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:16,239
the maintenance yard, flick sequentchly, as if acknowledging my presence.

867
00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:19,559
The city's engine of the razor is not metaphor not rumor.

868
00:42:20,159 --> 00:42:22,440
I can hear its teeth grinding, feel its process, and

869
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:24,920
the laid cables and flickering signals that run beneath every

870
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:27,880
street Somewhere in the car behind me, the seat belt

871
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:30,960
snaps back, inaudible material click, and the faintest shaped collapses

872
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:33,800
into itself, leaving only the after image of waiting cushions

873
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:36,719
and the forced mudged fingerprints on the window. My phone,

874
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:39,599
even on applane mode, pings with the final arrival notification,

875
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:42,519
thank you for completing your journey. Please wait your passenger.

876
00:42:43,119 --> 00:42:45,039
It chill rides me all the way back to the lot.

877
00:42:45,679 --> 00:42:48,360
I keep glancing over my shoulder, half expecting to see

878
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:51,840
myself following seat belt buckle, waiting for pickup. I reach

879
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:53,800
home and stare at the building, my own trap mapped

880
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:57,039
into digital memory. The pattern isn't just a set of journeys.

881
00:42:57,599 --> 00:42:59,679
It's a living thing, a system build into the bones

882
00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:04,119
of the sun Astroskasturisk. The next day, consim waves, each moment,

883
00:43:04,159 --> 00:43:06,639
buffered by the frictionness, uncanny sense of being half there.

884
00:43:07,239 --> 00:43:09,880
I fumble for ordinary routines, but they failed to ground me.

885
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:14,039
The podcast fee wants a comfort now feels intrusive. I

886
00:43:14,119 --> 00:43:17,639
review my subscriber statistics, but dozens of new faceless profiles

887
00:43:17,639 --> 00:43:21,159
have joined overnight. Some match the username's orchid had flagged.

888
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:24,079
Others seemed to be echoing fragment of my own messages

889
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:26,920
copied word for word, then newploaded a strange still to

890
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:31,239
sound bets Ockett's lost message simple and damning pattern confirmed,

891
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:34,039
He wrote, A shadowed public infrastructure is complicit. Dater is

892
00:43:34,039 --> 00:43:36,639
lost at the source, raised after every loop. The only

893
00:43:36,679 --> 00:43:38,440
way out is to break the note. Don't take any

894
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:41,800
more rides, but outside pot beneath the bare sycamores, my

895
00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:45,639
carcituating dash display, flickering phone, vibrating intermidtently though the screen

896
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:48,760
is black. Sometimes when I look out at it, I

897
00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:50,840
catch the briefest reflection of a face not my own,

898
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:53,679
watching me from the back seat. I lose track of

899
00:43:53,719 --> 00:43:56,519
my steps, find myself standing by the window, fingers pressed

900
00:43:56,519 --> 00:43:59,360
to glass. It's only an after effect, I tell myself,

901
00:44:00,039 --> 00:44:03,320
only nerves, But every time I blink, the feeling returns

902
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:06,760
more persistent than before. Friends stop bound turing, my calls,

903
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:10,119
even memory. When I knock, there's no reply, only the

904
00:44:10,119 --> 00:44:12,039
distant of an air conditioner in the echo of my

905
00:44:12,079 --> 00:44:15,400
own footsteps in the dim corridor. Online messages go and

906
00:44:15,519 --> 00:44:18,039
red posts I make about the glitching, rid locks or

907
00:44:18,039 --> 00:44:21,440
shadow band. In minutes. In forums, I become a non entity.

908
00:44:22,159 --> 00:44:25,159
Users reference the pattern, but never by my name. Don't

909
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:27,559
ride at night South of the River. One couple posts

910
00:44:28,159 --> 00:44:30,639
too many drivers, not enough passengers, But the app keeps

911
00:44:30,639 --> 00:44:33,920
filling the seats. One afternoon, a police officer knocks at

912
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:36,559
my door. He's young, I is hollow with borne but

913
00:44:36,639 --> 00:44:41,760
mouth poll taught, mister Burgen. He asks, we're investigating some

914
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:45,440
missing persons, including drivers affiliated with the ryejay network. Mind

915
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:48,119
if I ask you? He trails off eyem me over

916
00:44:48,159 --> 00:44:51,159
a clipboard, and the questions become less specific, more wrote,

917
00:44:51,199 --> 00:44:53,679
as though reading from a script written for a different disappearance.

918
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:58,239
I answer each voys controlled. He leaves behind a business card.

919
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:00,800
I watch through the peep holes. He lingers by my car,

920
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:03,119
hit cocked, jotting something in his notes before moving off

921
00:45:03,119 --> 00:45:06,880
toward the stairwell. I lock every door, I unplug every

922
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:10,039
device I do not absolutely need. That night, my ride

923
00:45:10,119 --> 00:45:13,159
up lights up one last time, only two options pick

924
00:45:13,199 --> 00:45:16,199
up home or drop off unknown. My finger hover is

925
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:19,480
trembling over the screen. The city outside is quiet, but

926
00:45:19,519 --> 00:45:21,519
that charge tushes back the feeling that it is not

927
00:45:21,599 --> 00:45:24,840
absence but a kind of attention process and watchful bristling

928
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:28,800
from every conduit and camera. Asterisk asturisque. The weak is

929
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:31,519
a blur of avoidance rituals. I drive less, edit less,

930
00:45:31,559 --> 00:45:33,559
shrink away from any pattern that might make me easy

931
00:45:33,559 --> 00:45:36,199
to track, but there is no rest in anonymity. The

932
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:38,320
system is too deep to in mesh, growing in the

933
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:41,920
patterns of absence mapped against my own shadow. Sometimes the

934
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:44,039
sensation of a presence in the car is so palpable

935
00:45:44,039 --> 00:45:46,559
that I catch myself speaking aloud to it, softly asking,

936
00:45:46,599 --> 00:45:48,840
though I know not who listens, what are you after?

937
00:45:49,079 --> 00:45:52,239
How do I stop this? The answer never arrives, except

938
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:54,840
as another pin rode in progress, seepult buckling ghost in

939
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:57,800
the machine. One evening, on an arrow run through route

940
00:45:57,800 --> 00:45:59,800
by the river, a public safety van follows at a

941
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:03,800
newly identical pace. Each time I change lanes. It mimics

942
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:06,440
when I stop. It stops, always at a polite distant

943
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:10,079
but never further than two car lights. I circle the block,

944
00:46:10,159 --> 00:46:13,599
testing the pattern. The van continues. My phone lights up

945
00:46:13,599 --> 00:46:16,239
with a new notification of routes merged, thank you for

946
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:20,239
your participation. I accelerate recklessly, desperate to shake the tail,

947
00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:21,920
but each time I look in the mirror, the van

948
00:46:22,039 --> 00:46:25,159
is there. I realize with bleak clarity that this part

949
00:46:25,199 --> 00:46:27,320
of the process is not about fear, but about letting

950
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:30,199
me know, unmistakably, unanniwably that the system isn't hunting, it

951
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:33,079
is harvesting. Back at home, I find my own driver

952
00:46:33,199 --> 00:46:36,039
profile duplicated in a formed wed for missing persons, my

953
00:46:36,119 --> 00:46:39,239
stats listed as an active loss scene in NAPSE status

954
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:42,639
pending removal. I stare at the thread until my vision burns.

955
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:45,599
In these moments, I understand the real cost each ride,

956
00:46:45,639 --> 00:46:48,880
Each account is a digit, a digital eco. The erasure

957
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:52,760
is both administrative and metaphysical. Lost in paperwork, lost in memory,

958
00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:55,239
lost in the city's endless recurse of need for movement

959
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:59,280
and emptiness asterisk astorsk. The drop comes in the middle

960
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:02,519
of an ordinary shape, ironically enough, I'm driving lean in

961
00:47:02,519 --> 00:47:05,199
the nurse home, herself humming, filling the gap between street lights.

962
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:09,000
As she steps out, she lingers by my window. Stay safe,

963
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:11,719
flex don't work so late. Her eyes look through me

964
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:14,079
as if there's something she means to say and cannot.

965
00:47:14,639 --> 00:47:17,639
On the next run, the out glitches my phone forces

966
00:47:17,679 --> 00:47:20,199
open the ghost snow portal code flashing too fast to

967
00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:24,280
re remove entry confirm measure. There's a confirmation slider, then

968
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:27,679
print required. My own glossy profile image now over lay's

969
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:31,480
four faint faces beneath layered pleading eyes conveniently blurred. My

970
00:47:31,559 --> 00:47:34,599
message pops on my audio recorder, not my own voice. Lex,

971
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:37,760
you are at the final circuit. Prepare for transfer, desperation

972
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:40,800
rears up. I pull over, breathing, rapid swept beating in

973
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:44,039
still car. The seat belt beside me uncoils with the slow,

974
00:47:44,119 --> 00:47:47,760
deliberate snap. The review fills with condensation, the outline of

975
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:50,840
a passenger even more distinct. Now one eye, luminous, mouth

976
00:47:50,840 --> 00:47:54,840
potted erase me at the same voice rasps or erase you.

977
00:47:55,440 --> 00:48:00,760
I clutch the wheel paralyzed, astriisk astrurisk immediate followed the

978
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:03,199
air flashes with static, as the dashboard and my phone

979
00:48:03,239 --> 00:48:06,000
pulse in unison. The shape and the mirror leans forward,

980
00:48:06,079 --> 00:48:08,760
now more detailed them before a compositive eyes, lips, hair,

981
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:11,800
none of it matching, all of it pleading. Something cold

982
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:15,079
brushes my neck with ut conscious thought. My hand hovers

983
00:48:15,079 --> 00:48:18,119
over the confirmation slider on the app. The tension shreads.

984
00:48:18,119 --> 00:48:20,400
If I accept, I know what will happen if I

985
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:23,559
refuse the ride woo lip begin somewhere else, some other night.

986
00:48:24,199 --> 00:48:26,559
I wrench my gaze away from the going screen, the figure,

987
00:48:26,679 --> 00:48:29,440
everything that wants me to look. I brace myself and

988
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:33,119
snapped the phone's power entirely disconnecting from data, shattering the connection.

989
00:48:33,199 --> 00:48:38,679
With a single desperate gesture astoriskustres final action, I've throte

990
00:48:38,679 --> 00:48:41,119
a phone on to the passenger seat, reaching beneath the

991
00:48:41,159 --> 00:48:44,159
emergency battery disconnect and stalled. After my first cost started

992
00:48:44,199 --> 00:48:47,119
acting up and trembling, I yanked the kils, which every

993
00:48:47,119 --> 00:48:50,559
circuit and the vehicle dies at once. That board stereo

994
00:48:50,679 --> 00:48:53,360
lights everything. The city slips out of my skull for

995
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:57,119
a moment, replaced by genuine, unfakable darkness. I opened the

996
00:48:57,159 --> 00:48:59,480
rear doors, leaned fully inside, and pressed my pond to

997
00:48:59,519 --> 00:49:03,440
the back window. The coal prickles then fades. I strip

998
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:06,119
every cord from my dash cam, pocket the memory cards,

999
00:49:06,199 --> 00:49:08,199
and slam the doors one by one, Echoing into the

1000
00:49:08,199 --> 00:49:11,159
empty lot. With the car dark, powerless, I walk away

1001
00:49:11,159 --> 00:49:13,960
without looking back, passing beneath the street lights. Stuff flicker,

1002
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:16,239
but do not bone out. I'll leave the fawn and

1003
00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:19,000
car behind, refusing to grant them my likeness one more time.

1004
00:49:19,599 --> 00:49:21,519
Hot loud in my throat, I crossed to the faintly

1005
00:49:21,559 --> 00:49:23,800
glowing door of my building, deciding for now that no

1006
00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:27,400
route will include me again unless I choose it. Astro risksturisk.

1007
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:31,039
The lobby is empty, the city oddly silent beyond the doors.

1008
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:33,920
I glanced through the glass, half expecting to see the

1009
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:36,960
car alive again, lights blinking, phonms, green aglow, But there

1010
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:38,840
is only the suggestion of fog and a barely there

1011
00:49:38,840 --> 00:49:41,800
in print in the rear window. I realize the emptiest,

1012
00:49:41,840 --> 00:49:44,079
most chilling pot is not the threat of being erased,

1013
00:49:44,079 --> 00:49:46,079
but the certainty that if I vanished, the city would

1014
00:49:46,079 --> 00:49:48,559
simply fill the seat again and again, never once looking back.

1015
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:51,559
I realized the emptiest, most chilling pot is not the

1016
00:49:51,559 --> 00:49:54,159
threat of being erased, but the certainty that if I vanished,

1017
00:49:54,199 --> 00:49:56,119
the city would simply fill the seat again and again,

1018
00:49:56,119 --> 00:49:59,000
never once looking back. My mouth feels dry as I

1019
00:49:59,079 --> 00:50:00,760
lap myself into the law be The swipe of my

1020
00:50:00,800 --> 00:50:03,320
key card slightly delayed, as though even the building's lock

1021
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:06,400
estates before admitting me. Now, I hold my breath, crossing

1022
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:08,760
the faded marble, and embarrassed by away my steps echo.

1023
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:12,079
At this hour, even the elevators seem to move reluctantly,

1024
00:50:12,119 --> 00:50:15,480
the click and grind softer, more surreptitious than usual. As

1025
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:17,480
I ride up in a shedding glore, I keep expecting

1026
00:50:17,519 --> 00:50:19,440
the lights to stutter just long enough for a knee

1027
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:22,400
overlapping reflection to appear behind me, some left of a passenger,

1028
00:50:22,559 --> 00:50:26,159
barely visible except in edgendsmere. When I step into the corridor,

1029
00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:30,360
the hushest total Emery's door remains closed, no friendly music,

1030
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:33,559
no herd footsteps within. For a blink, I wonder if

1031
00:50:33,599 --> 00:50:35,639
anyone at all lives on this floor, or if, by

1032
00:50:35,639 --> 00:50:37,639
some silent process, all of us have been severed from

1033
00:50:37,719 --> 00:50:41,280
ordinary time, residents and riders, apartments and routes, folded into

1034
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:44,440
folders somewhere far beyond our choosing. Inside my own unit,

1035
00:50:44,519 --> 00:50:47,119
the world feels fragile, a life too easily written over.

1036
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:50,239
I shed all three locks, then wage a chair under

1037
00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:53,280
the knob. Though I haven't eaten since lunch, my appetite

1038
00:50:53,320 --> 00:50:57,159
has evaporated. I pays to the window. At first just

1039
00:50:57,199 --> 00:50:59,239
the old street and familiar part cause, But as my

1040
00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:01,679
eyes adjust I see a figure lingering in a far lot,

1041
00:51:02,199 --> 00:51:04,519
hoody hands and pockets standing at the margins of the

1042
00:51:04,599 --> 00:51:07,960
last working lamplight. I squint, pressing my nose to the glass,

1043
00:51:08,079 --> 00:51:10,519
willing them to look up to proof flash and human scale.

1044
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:14,159
Then never do. When I blink again, they are simply gone.

1045
00:51:14,639 --> 00:51:18,480
My laptop ping's orchid, leaving a new encrypted message since

1046
00:51:18,519 --> 00:51:21,440
you disconnected last night, Your drive a profile has been flagged.

1047
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:23,960
Network shows a curse of hits pending removal status. Your

1048
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:26,360
access notes of shrunk system is closing in. Do not

1049
00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:28,880
respond to ride prompts if possible, leave the city full

1050
00:51:28,880 --> 00:51:31,760
white may not be possible. Now I try replying what

1051
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:34,119
happens if I leave that? But my email bounce is back,

1052
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:37,800
mail books uncoverable, half my contacts vanished from the messenger's

1053
00:51:37,800 --> 00:51:40,920
side bar, graying out in rapid sequence. I toggle my

1054
00:51:40,960 --> 00:51:44,199
service Wi Fi Cellula, then finally disconnect the Internet completely.

1055
00:51:44,760 --> 00:51:47,719
Yet even offline, the ride jap reappears a ghost of itself,

1056
00:51:47,760 --> 00:51:51,000
graded up but pulsing faintly. Ride and progress, hovering always

1057
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:54,440
at ninety nine percent completed, never quite done. A sad

1058
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:56,920
to memory overtakes me a snippet of podcasts audio from

1059
00:51:56,960 --> 00:51:59,639
weeks ago, a kind of accidental self prediction. Some time

1060
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:01,840
to one and if the real haunted house is the network,

1061
00:52:01,960 --> 00:52:04,199
not the city. Sometimes I think it learns your name

1062
00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:06,880
as soon as you start caring about who's missing. I

1063
00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:08,840
hear my own voice and for a split second, I

1064
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:11,559
do not recognize it. I throwe the phone in the freezer,

1065
00:52:11,639 --> 00:52:14,280
as if cold might stop what day account The act

1066
00:52:14,360 --> 00:52:17,960
is laughable, desperate. Not ten minutes later, my laptop vibrants

1067
00:52:17,960 --> 00:52:20,559
a pop up crowding across every window and complete ride

1068
00:52:20,639 --> 00:52:24,320
confirmed status up they require. I paced the tiny rectangle

1069
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:27,239
of my apartment, running for every escape route and plausible denial.

1070
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:31,280
Each seems thinner than the last. I open and reclose

1071
00:52:31,320 --> 00:52:33,800
the bedroom door, flick every light, searching for some trace,

1072
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:36,079
residual floorals and a buckle left crossed on the futon,

1073
00:52:36,199 --> 00:52:37,920
finger prints at the edge of the glass, anything to

1074
00:52:37,960 --> 00:52:41,400
convince myself the haunting hasn't crossed over the threshold. Another

1075
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:44,880
ping interrupts my spiral. This time is a push notification

1076
00:52:45,239 --> 00:52:47,880
slight an official from the city's or own public safety department.

1077
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:50,039
We regret to inform you, eu Reggia, a count is

1078
00:52:50,079 --> 00:52:54,119
under administrative review. Please remain accessible until contacted. I shet

1079
00:52:54,119 --> 00:52:56,480
the phone off completely, but the message says into my mind,

1080
00:52:56,559 --> 00:52:59,960
remain accessible. Each time I passed the mirror, I'm unsettled

1081
00:53:00,039 --> 00:53:02,599
by the suspicion that my reflection doesn't quite match my motion.

1082
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:04,920
Always off by a single blink of slow to turnoy.

1083
00:53:05,559 --> 00:53:08,320
My mouth split sethin smile. I shake out my limbs

1084
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:11,639
to dispel the chill, but nothing warmer turns. I spend

1085
00:53:11,639 --> 00:53:14,719
the night on the couch, fitful, half ale. At each

1086
00:53:14,760 --> 00:53:17,320
passing car light makes me twitch, convinced some vehicle is

1087
00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:19,679
slowing just beneath the window for reasons linked only to me.

1088
00:53:20,119 --> 00:53:23,039
It's only after dawn, with the city resuming its metallic drawing,

1089
00:53:23,239 --> 00:53:26,000
that edge of immediate panic dolls, replaced by trichy resolve.

1090
00:53:26,559 --> 00:53:29,760
I will not ride, I will refuse whatever comes next.

1091
00:53:30,440 --> 00:53:33,039
But the city's manifold loops and digital appetites does not

1092
00:53:33,079 --> 00:53:36,239
care about my declarations. By the middle of the next day,

1093
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:40,000
the podcast subscriber Liss doubles. Only a few names are familiar,

1094
00:53:40,599 --> 00:53:43,599
the rest all ecocos, holo, eusenames, blank, profile, I can

1095
00:53:43,639 --> 00:53:47,760
stack like headstands. Each subscribes an order of succession sickens apart,

1096
00:53:48,559 --> 00:53:51,679
some sanshort can messages, repeats of things I've said, clipped

1097
00:53:51,679 --> 00:53:55,519
and reassembled, Punctuations slightly wrong, but the underlying meaning unmistakable.

1098
00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:58,920
You are next seat must be felled, Padden cycle, I

1099
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:01,719
drop the recorder hand clare me it lands in the

1100
00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:03,719
arm of the couch, but keeps rolling, picking up the

1101
00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:06,199
ordinary city hub, a distant sirron, the elevator bell, the

1102
00:54:06,239 --> 00:54:09,639
spray of water from the next apartment shower. Nothing supernatural

1103
00:54:09,679 --> 00:54:12,559
bleeds through that for a minute is more menacing than

1104
00:54:12,599 --> 00:54:16,440
if it had. The pattern endures that evening. My car

1105
00:54:16,519 --> 00:54:20,760
shirts outside, alarm blaring, lights pulsing twice, then once. When

1106
00:54:20,800 --> 00:54:23,639
I gather my courage to investigate, I find nothing disturbed,

1107
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:26,639
and yet the interior is chill, the rear view mirror

1108
00:54:26,639 --> 00:54:29,320
tilted as if someone much shorter had been driving on

1109
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:32,559
the seat, a righteous dickert perfectly new, as if freshly issued.

1110
00:54:33,159 --> 00:54:36,000
I appeal without checking underneath for residue, but find only

1111
00:54:36,039 --> 00:54:39,480
four feigt Imprince crescents, likely from someone's finger nails or

1112
00:54:39,519 --> 00:54:43,320
some approximation of the gesture returning upstairs. I call every

1113
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:45,760
helpline company, city, even a friend of a friend I

1114
00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:48,800
once knew, who wereked t TEA for municipal transport. Each

1115
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:51,440
goes to voicemail or to a wary operator who assures me, no,

1116
00:54:51,719 --> 00:54:54,199
there is no actual person monitoring the after iOS lyne,

1117
00:54:54,239 --> 00:54:57,159
but your complaint will be process. The word ering hollow

1118
00:54:57,199 --> 00:54:59,320
the practice script of a razor already in effect even

1119
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:02,599
as they speak. During another sleepless stretch before dawn, I

1120
00:55:02,639 --> 00:55:05,480
reluctantly look into the podcast hosting portal, hoping to set

1121
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:07,920
a warning on the feed. I try to upload a

1122
00:55:07,920 --> 00:55:10,880
statement file, but the server times out after nineteen nine percent.

1123
00:55:10,920 --> 00:55:13,400
The spinning will becomes nearly hypnotic, the pattern of near

1124
00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:16,679
completion matching the AP's infinite ride. I hear myself mutter

1125
00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:19,159
it won't let me finish, it won't let me leave. Undone,

1126
00:55:19,519 --> 00:55:22,079
the knock jolts me. Three quick crafts insistent at my door,

1127
00:55:22,719 --> 00:55:24,920
heart slugging the inside of my robes. I inch to

1128
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:27,440
the peep hole, terrified it will be an officer or worse,

1129
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:29,960
some private fleetage, and cun to tidy up whatever I'm becoming.

1130
00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:33,320
But outside stands only a delivery courier shuffling a brown

1131
00:55:33,360 --> 00:55:36,400
paper bag and checking their phone before opening the door.

1132
00:55:36,440 --> 00:55:39,199
I double check every lock, checkful listeners, then step into

1133
00:55:39,199 --> 00:55:41,440
the hallway, just far enough to sign a digital receipt.

1134
00:55:42,039 --> 00:55:45,519
The device's screen first split second shows my own profile image,

1135
00:55:45,599 --> 00:55:49,519
then flickers blank. Before looking at the courier, oblivious hands

1136
00:55:49,519 --> 00:55:51,679
me the bag with a nod and vanishes down the stairs.

1137
00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:54,440
I tear open the takeout in a panic, all correct,

1138
00:55:54,519 --> 00:55:58,519
still warm, no note inside. Relief comes and goes. I

1139
00:55:58,559 --> 00:56:00,480
have become some one who checks every day tale, who

1140
00:56:00,519 --> 00:56:03,880
expects the digital and the uncannyter affused. In a days

1141
00:56:03,880 --> 00:56:07,199
that follow my household world contracts, I delete or power

1142
00:56:07,239 --> 00:56:09,920
down every device, no phone, no lap up, no car,

1143
00:56:09,960 --> 00:56:13,559
keys left exposed. Instead, I listen to the city's pure

1144
00:56:13,599 --> 00:56:16,119
and controlled hum a background, always hungering for a focus.

1145
00:56:16,800 --> 00:56:19,800
I keep the recorder on just in case, not that

1146
00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:21,599
it will ward off what is coming, but to mark

1147
00:56:21,639 --> 00:56:24,840
the progression. If not for rescue, then for record. Yet,

1148
00:56:24,840 --> 00:56:26,719
the world, or at least some part of it, is

1149
00:56:26,719 --> 00:56:30,519
still creeping in at unexpected intervals. My TV, left and plugged,

1150
00:56:30,519 --> 00:56:33,199
crackles itself to buzzing life, the screen flushing and complete

1151
00:56:33,280 --> 00:56:36,639
ride before blanking out again. My radio catches signals that

1152
00:56:36,679 --> 00:56:39,360
dissolve into broken scents and fragments of the podcast aess

1153
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:42,760
where I haven't released. I consider fleeing upright, abandoning the

1154
00:56:42,760 --> 00:56:44,920
city for a borrowed room in another state. But I sense,

1155
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:47,559
with the fatigue deepening awareness, that the circuit is not local,

1156
00:56:47,639 --> 00:56:51,880
not escapable, Eventually enough time passes that numbness becomes my armor.

1157
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:55,719
The building grows, anonymous, neighbors gone are never seen. My

1158
00:56:55,840 --> 00:56:59,079
face in the mirror looks dinner, but unchanged. Each day

1159
00:56:59,079 --> 00:57:00,960
I count neu know offa kiss and the poach phone

1160
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:04,000
from nowhere For no rides. I've taken the dread instead

1161
00:57:04,039 --> 00:57:06,599
of peaking, spreads wide and the nubiquitous, the cities and

1162
00:57:06,679 --> 00:57:09,639
zide mapped onto my bones. I wake from dreams of

1163
00:57:09,639 --> 00:57:12,599
recursive journeys, each route folding me outward, then back into

1164
00:57:12,679 --> 00:57:15,719
pulsing dark noe at the center of the grid. I'm

1165
00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:18,840
both driver and passenger now, and the ride never quite finishes.

1166
00:57:19,440 --> 00:57:22,880
I slip through routines, but avoidance is an illusion. The

1167
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:24,960
next wave arrives not with an appaint, but in the

1168
00:57:25,079 --> 00:57:27,760
very fabric of the city. A fleet of city service

1169
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:29,880
hands take to parking in rouse beneath my building. The

1170
00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:34,440
windows are tinted, unreadable, licensed plates partially obscured. At night,

1171
00:57:34,599 --> 00:57:36,960
A low vehicle idols just out of sight, headlights left on,

1172
00:57:37,320 --> 00:57:39,519
radio humming a channel that only plays the stacatdo of

1173
00:57:39,559 --> 00:57:42,440
data pulses. When I walk the block, its shadow folds

1174
00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:46,119
itself recalibrating its presence with every step I take. I

1175
00:57:46,159 --> 00:57:48,079
see posters tiped to lumpus with the photo of a

1176
00:57:48,079 --> 00:57:51,800
face that looks increasingly like mine. The digital versions glitching

1177
00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:54,639
on traffic. Kiosks flicker through versions of names until they

1178
00:57:54,679 --> 00:57:57,920
periodically land on lux burg in missing slash pending review.

1179
00:57:58,519 --> 00:58:01,320
Once someone from the property management slips a note beneath

1180
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:04,760
my door about an authorised recording equipment anonymously signed ink blood,

1181
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:07,280
as if phote copied one time too often. The day

1182
00:58:07,280 --> 00:58:09,920
before everything breaks, the write cho app boots itself when

1183
00:58:09,920 --> 00:58:12,239
I try to check my emails, skipping the passwords green,

1184
00:58:12,320 --> 00:58:15,559
the little C icon spiraling around the message your destination

1185
00:58:15,639 --> 00:58:19,039
is being calculated a preparing route. I try to force

1186
00:58:19,039 --> 00:58:22,719
shutdowns to lead accounts block connections, but every attempt restores

1187
00:58:22,760 --> 00:58:25,239
itself from encrypted back up, the phone functioning by some

1188
00:58:25,239 --> 00:58:28,760
ghost protocol it absolutely should not support. A final test.

1189
00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:31,599
I pulled the battery horver set. The moment the device

1190
00:58:31,679 --> 00:58:35,239
powers back, it's there, riding shotgun on my own digital prisons.

1191
00:58:35,880 --> 00:58:38,920
The system, it seems, has primordial access deeper than mere

1192
00:58:38,920 --> 00:58:41,760
insulation or registration. It is coded into the city and

1193
00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:44,519
now into me. My last full day behind the wheel.

1194
00:58:44,559 --> 00:58:47,239
I drive inlessly, every route, doubling back towards some nexus

1195
00:58:47,239 --> 00:58:50,119
of early pickups, a circuit not of choice but of inevitability.

1196
00:58:50,719 --> 00:58:53,880
The streets are familiar, but junctions feel displaced, Every linemark

1197
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:56,800
a little too symmetrical with another checkerboard reality, the borders

1198
00:58:56,800 --> 00:58:59,920
growing indistinct. At a late yellow light on Seventh Street,

1199
00:59:00,119 --> 00:59:03,360
a fleet van draws up beside me. The driver glances over,

1200
00:59:03,480 --> 00:59:05,960
his cap pulled low face, an ordinary shadow except for

1201
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:07,960
a brief glint that catches me full in the eye.

1202
00:59:08,400 --> 00:59:11,079
He mouths something impossible to hear, but the catins are mistakable.

1203
00:59:11,119 --> 00:59:14,199
It's your turn. The light flips green, the vent sweeped ahead,

1204
00:59:14,199 --> 00:59:16,239
and for a moment, the entire city grid seems to

1205
00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:19,599
thrum in anticipation. A final rite comes in and prompted

1206
00:59:19,719 --> 00:59:21,920
while I'm parked by the river where so many original

1207
00:59:21,920 --> 00:59:24,840
pickups occurred. It's not a request so much as a statement.

1208
00:59:25,000 --> 00:59:28,840
Final circuit, confirm journey. The app refuses cancelation, the poone

1209
00:59:28,880 --> 00:59:32,239
refuses power off the air against shells, the car's interior

1210
00:59:32,280 --> 00:59:35,599
fogs and long glossy breaths. In the rear view. Some

1211
00:59:35,719 --> 00:59:38,559
one sits the shape is more defined than ever. I

1212
00:59:38,639 --> 00:59:41,760
stark convergence of all the faces and the missing persons. Posters,

1213
00:59:41,800 --> 00:59:44,920
thou composite mouthmouthing that one familiar phrase over and over

1214
00:59:45,000 --> 00:59:48,199
erase me. I stare at the apscreen confirm erasire your

1215
00:59:48,239 --> 00:59:51,480
account as the next record completion required. This is the

1216
00:59:51,519 --> 00:59:55,079
confrontation I can no longer avoid hand shaking. I slowly

1217
00:59:55,079 --> 00:59:57,440
moved to shot off the engine, the action refusing to register,

1218
00:59:57,559 --> 01:00:01,000
the dashboard flickering uselessly, the only only thing that will respond,

1219
01:00:01,039 --> 01:00:04,239
as the slider across the AP's greenlit confirm erasure. For

1220
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:07,760
one suspended moment, I freeze, neither driver nor driven, but

1221
01:00:07,800 --> 01:00:09,639
the presence in the back seat leans so close. I

1222
01:00:09,639 --> 01:00:11,280
feel ice on the nape of my neck, and the

1223
01:00:11,280 --> 01:00:15,079
network itself seems to murmur in a thousand overlapping voices, commands, appeals,

1224
01:00:15,159 --> 01:00:17,960
silent waiting behind my eyes, I see the notes I'd

1225
01:00:17,960 --> 01:00:20,119
mapped over weeks and months, now pulsing as a network

1226
01:00:20,159 --> 01:00:23,119
full of voices, all saying complete the route. I turn

1227
01:00:23,159 --> 01:00:25,400
my face to the window, scanning for any chance exit,

1228
01:00:25,960 --> 01:00:28,320
and through the glass for a second, I spot every

1229
01:00:28,320 --> 01:00:31,960
other missing driver, every ghosted rider watching from curbs crosswalks,

1230
01:00:31,960 --> 01:00:34,920
buses visible only because I now share their code. The

1231
01:00:35,079 --> 01:00:37,760
route is inescapable. The route always bends back to its

1232
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:42,199
initiator immediate fallout. With a single desperate breath, I dropped

1233
01:00:42,199 --> 01:00:44,159
the device on to the seat and press the emergency

1234
01:00:44,159 --> 01:00:46,519
battery kill as hard as I can, Plunging the cabin

1235
01:00:46,599 --> 01:00:49,480
into blackness. The air alight ins a fraction. The voice

1236
01:00:49,480 --> 01:00:52,199
in the back seat breaks up into particulate static. The

1237
01:00:52,239 --> 01:00:55,679
grocy presence receives, or at least dissolves into background, just

1238
01:00:55,719 --> 01:00:57,480
long enough for me to wrench open the car door

1239
01:00:57,519 --> 01:01:00,960
and stagger out beneath city sodium lights. I look back, once,

1240
01:01:01,039 --> 01:01:03,960
expecting pursuit, but the carsets are moved, the dull hulk back,

1241
01:01:03,960 --> 01:01:06,519
windows streaked and prints. I don't remember touching See bull

1242
01:01:06,559 --> 01:01:08,920
that should cost nothing at all. For now, the circuit

1243
01:01:09,000 --> 01:01:11,039
is open and finish, and I'm neither fully rider nor

1244
01:01:11,039 --> 01:01:15,840
fully erased final action. I leave everything behind, fall and car,

1245
01:01:15,880 --> 01:01:18,920
even the keys flung side on into the trash. I

1246
01:01:19,039 --> 01:01:21,360
enter the building with nothing but a fistful of receipts

1247
01:01:21,360 --> 01:01:23,400
in a single box of memory cards. I will never

1248
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:26,440
know how to explain. As I step into the elevator,

1249
01:01:26,519 --> 01:01:28,960
the lobbys came attracts my rival, lingering a little too

1250
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:32,199
long before letting the doors close. My image bounces back

1251
01:01:32,199 --> 01:01:34,880
at me from the brushed metal ballad, but changed, no

1252
01:01:35,000 --> 01:01:37,119
longer anchoring me to the world. I once drove through

1253
01:01:37,119 --> 01:01:40,239
a marked up stairs. I wedged two chairs under the

1254
01:01:40,280 --> 01:01:43,360
door and draw the shades. My apartment stills fragile. Is

1255
01:01:43,360 --> 01:01:45,960
a last page, and turned in the dark. I start

1256
01:01:46,000 --> 01:01:48,159
a final recording, speaking in a hush meant more for

1257
01:01:48,159 --> 01:01:50,519
our absence than for any audience. If you are hearing this,

1258
01:01:50,800 --> 01:01:52,840
the rides may have found some one you. Maybe it's you.

1259
01:01:53,079 --> 01:01:55,239
Maybe it's the next driver who just wanted a quiet

1260
01:01:55,239 --> 01:01:58,159
stretch with only the city for company. My voice shakes,

1261
01:01:58,199 --> 01:02:00,760
but stead is with the last words erase only echoes,

1262
01:02:00,920 --> 01:02:03,960
leave one seed empty. Let that be the memory close

1263
01:02:04,000 --> 01:02:06,599
in this appalls the kind of silence that hums with

1264
01:02:06,599 --> 01:02:09,000
the weight of everything left and written through the faint

1265
01:02:09,000 --> 01:02:11,639
crack between curtains. City lights draw needles across the night,

1266
01:02:11,679 --> 01:02:14,719
the motion outside endless, the road always circling. I wait,

1267
01:02:14,840 --> 01:02:17,400
listening for another pang. That all I hear now is

1268
01:02:17,480 --> 01:02:19,360
the hush of my own breath, And in that space

1269
01:02:19,480 --> 01:02:21,760
I hope that for once the empty sea will simply

1270
01:02:21,800 --> 01:02:26,079
stay empty, and that is the end. Thank you for listening,

1271
01:02:26,119 --> 01:02:35,519
and I will see you in the next one.