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

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Let's get into it midnight a kmos he always stays

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faintly of ozen and stale coffee. There's a unique silence

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to radio stations after dark, like you are meant to

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overhear something not intended for you. Sometimes I sit alone

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at my batted sound board and let the studio strip

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lights flicker at the corners, watching the dust spiral, the clocks,

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thick red digits crow past twelve. Time feels different here,

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half submerged, as if the walls forget what I are

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it supposed to be, And whatever voice I used to

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keep company with the cities and sawn the axe weld,

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I don't recognize it as mine. The nightline, this is Tom,

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pull up a chair of the wall's leady's kitchen table.

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What's on your mind? To night? I lean into the mic,

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dry throated my bantle Land's flat. But that's par for

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the course. The expectant hush on the lines is thicker

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than usual. No static, drenched drunk, no haunted broken heart,

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Not even Hank the guy convinced every eight trucker's houling

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uranium to Area fifty one isolation in the wires outside

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the glass. The corridor is a tunnel of dull yellow

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light in stat boxes, no movement, just the sickly glow.

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I drag a finger over the phone line's five circuits,

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all little red lights. Tonight they are darkened in the

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space outside the city, where radio waves run aground in

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the mandins. I sigh. It hid a well worn button

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to roll some anonymous jazz under my muttering and try

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to conjure up astraya listener. And then just as I'm

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about to fill the void with yet another stretch of filler,

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there's a click, the emptiest kind a lion's come alive,

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right in the center position. My hand rasp edged by

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habit and too many nictine patches, twitches. K M, Massie,

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you're speaking to Tom words yours for a harp be

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eat nothing. I wait, let the silence breathe out into

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my earphones, and I am about to prompt again. Then

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comes the voice, flat as the mid Western clipped eleven

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O four two zero one eight zero five thirty fourteen

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dash zero zero. I blink lost for a moment. The

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sound quality is weirdly sharp, the delivery deliberate, yet completely in. Heman,

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not slurred, not unsure, like a numbus station. Then zero

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two six forty one, gene abrupt, hanging pause, dash, dash

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zero zero two one. My mouth moves, intending to break in,

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but my tongue sticks. The voice goes on uttering more fragments,

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some indistinct beneath the mild electroniciss at. Taking a gap

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than a breath, each group is divorced from sense. I

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steal a glance at the monitor. I call no apparent location,

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no collar. ID it ended after barely a minute, anonymous,

47
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If that was a winning lotto ticket, you forgot the

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last digit. I joke the humor automatic, but my hands

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are cold. I listen for the dial turn nothing but

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the steady static. That's a constant in these walls. I

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fill the dead air with an old jazz loop, trying

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to shake off a prickle at least my scalp. Feeling exposed.

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I reach for the machine to replay the tape. I'm

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always recording, always Oockaevin, partly for legal but mostly for habit.

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If I'd been less tired, less cynical, I'd have left

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the whole bit to die quietly in the digital trash

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that something about the call, the voice compelled me. The playback, however,

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is warped, blank patches, odd jump cuts, as if someone

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went an end, deleted pieces before I could touch it.

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At one key moment where the voice lowed on thirty fourteen,

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the old ear was pure white hiss. I master controls,

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half annoyed, half unsettled. That shouldn't be possible with our equipment,

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old as it is. I played again, same skips, the

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entire thing truncated down to a jagged sequence of numbers,

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all meaningless the time stump blog reads did err. Maybe

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it's a prank. Maybe, but I feel compelled, almost against

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my will, to scroll what I remember on to sticky note.

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I glance at my own shaky handwriting odd, though I'm

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steady of hand, even half tired. The ink ron's numbers, slashes,

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bits of coat, night creeps on, and somewhere between one

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and two is swallow dryleie and tell myself there's nothing odd.

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But as a stack can come in calls. I keep

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staring at that slip of paper, its loops and dash

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is itching, as if something on the far end of

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the airwaves just scraped past my life. Every job has

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its patent, even if your radio host to drift at

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the bottom of the market. The years blur at k

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m R S, and I know every trick the clock

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can play, every electrical ghost that lives in old walls. Still,

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not all ghosts are electric, and not every salace is empty.

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My name's Tom Keller. I'm the wakeful voice of three

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a M. The guy whofirs half the city between nightmares

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and sun up. If there's a lonely opost, I haven't

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seen it. I arrived at k m R SI thinking

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I was destined for hard hitting interviews, maybe the national circuit. Instead,

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I wand up here graveyard shift, hard of the city,

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sleeping quarter, slumped in a battered chair. I once tried

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recovering with duct tape. Graveyard is right most nights. It

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feels like being a pointed undertaker for voices mostly dead

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or barely hanging on. The station itself is a time

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capsule everyone stopped carrying for three renovation zegur. The front

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door was glasses improperly laminated, so it sighs against the wind.

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The paint in the foy appeals and riverine lays, revealing

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decades of pale. He's top ones almost the color of

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hospital gowns, despo under the weight of paperbacks, burned out

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surge protectors, sticky notes piled thick as carpet. Here and there,

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a sticky keyboard, a warb mak, a coil of black

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ex a large cable like a garden snake, kmarsies, upper

99
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floors of storage, secking boxes labeled in News nineteen ninety

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two or holiday promos. I only use Studio three, with

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its coffee stain mixing desks and battered on air light

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that still glows a confrontational red when I flip the toggel.

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It's usually just me a few shadows, and if unlucky,

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a passing with a bleach from the cleaner's bucket. Crue.

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Routition's tight by the time I arrive eleven thirty never later.

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That way, the last bus home in the morning is

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almost empty, the previous hostess fled, and a hallway is

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deserted as a shot at bus terminal. I keep an

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inventory of faces the way a man cants the lights

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on a deserted street. There's Benny Artek, who have lives

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in the back room, cursing spaghetti like wiry. He looks

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twenty maybe thirty, maybe sixty, depending on the lighting. Never

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the same hat, ties, always reeking, faintly of mental Sometimes

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he emergers, fiddles with breaker boxes, mutters above gremins in

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the patch bay, fournishes again when questions get pointed. Lorano

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overseas official them from a cramped office plastered with motivation

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Monday's posters that cull at the corners. She takes her

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job with a zeal that seems both resigned and faintly hostile.

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Our interactions are brief. I fill dead air, keep complaints

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off her email, and keep the complaints about her off mine.

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This Maggie who stuck in mid courier limbo heading the

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day side. She's friendly, but I suspects she's always hovering

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one promotion above me. And then there's Danny Cray, who

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hung around longer than he shared, turning up for pre

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dawn slots until he didn't any more. I say harm,

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but Danny vanished a kind of quite that gives station

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staff a new inside joke and leaves a box of

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his old CD in a brake room. Callers come in

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waves or trickles, depending on rain and city stress. Index

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Regular's conspiracy Hank, who spends too much of his pension

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on hammery deo sets, the guy known only as a

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drover who strings together rural ghost stories at quarter past

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every Thursday, a course of lonely women cycling through on

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returned love, some sounding nearer collapse each week, and a

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smattering of kid's midnight eber drivers voices speaking from park

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trucks and the Indo state. Sometimes people share something raw

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confession a sob but PULSI fol you as she could

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reach through the glass. I pretend I'm their friend, the priest,

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the conscience of the city wrapped in a horse baritone.

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Truth is, I don't carry most of it home. I

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learned early on that you only have so much room

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for true stores before the scenes start to tear. But

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to night, under these flickering fluorescence, I find the routine

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want stick Slipping downstairs at four, I run into the

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morning crow of, perpetually chatty, always fresh, never quite looking

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you straight on. The change of her is fast. By

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the time I powered down, someone's always half way into

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my seat. I never feel less of the world than then.

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Home isn't much to step into a studio apartment above

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a failing laundromat, a view of the alley in dunstairs,

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A lamp that buses slightly, casting a hailo that fails

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to reach the corners nets off. I pour cheap whisky

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over melting ice, try to start asses forb could tell

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myself out right one day. A shelf of unfinished draft

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and a row of lick a bottles stand as testament

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to that all lie. Marriage ended two moves and a

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dozen apologies ago. I keep in touch with my grown daughter,

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but only in careful defan texts. She thinks my job

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is a historical curiosity, like a railroad brakeman or a

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telegram operator. I try not to prove her wrong. But

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night after night, as city noise thins and those distant

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hillside sirens become the city's lullaby, all routines feel rigged

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for interruption. Some nights you stare into the glass and

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imagine something looking back. Sometimes, like last night without voice,

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something does. The day after the strange call routine becomes

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a performance I can't quite keep together. I wake at

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three in the afternoon, eat breakfast in the kitchen's twilight,

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and pick my way through the morning papers wreckage to

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see if anything matches that call. I tell myself to

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let it go. Anonymous widows cryptic numbers is part of

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the scenery, but pulling into the station's private lot, there

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is a sleep walking rhythm to my steps. I had

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my jacket clock in, and before the first hour is

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on air, I am already replaying the incident like a

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list tooth. Back at the consol a slot, headphones over

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my ears and try again playing back the troubled recording,

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this time with high volume and slower speed, helping some

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yawns emerges from the digital haze. It's as if somebody's

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gone into the audio and painted over whole sections with

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silence impossible unless you at access and no one does

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accept me and Benny and may be lorn with her

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master keys though she can't tell an MP three from

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a paper clip. I scull the most audible strings, eleve

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them in his foremanas two thousand, eighteen, five thirty fourteen

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and two minus six hundred forty one into my phone's

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notes at because writing them out makes them feel less

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like incantations. My first thought is there times code, secret

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meeting slots and numbers racket for the digital age. I

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laugh it off on air, even if on it inventing

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an underground code ring to amuse the small IROs. When

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the second dire SAgs again, I get restless. Something in

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the way the digit stuck makes my hands fidget. Instead

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of prepping the next break, I pull up the city's

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local news feed and search for stores tied to any

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fragments and nervous pointless exercise dot. As I scroll the

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skin out, the base of my neck goes. Call this

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a headline from last week. A local student reported missing.

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Last seen May thirty, twenty eighteen. That's barely separated from

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the number sequence. There's another two disappearance, continues to puzzle

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woman last heard from April eleven. I double check April eleven,

201
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twenty eighteen and May thirty, twenty eighteen. Not perfect fits,

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but close too close. I show traces my spine as

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if a window opened an inch behind me. I argue

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with myself, a city size disappearances aren't rare. It's midnight rationalizing.

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Still a weird ga feeling clams down. The number groupings

206
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on my note slip match more stores than probability ought

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to allow. I open back dead at incidant reports, stretching

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the web by dodn't know what I'm hoping to find.

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The more I cross reference, the more my brain aches

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from the pressure of coincidence. Stacking up, I stave off

211
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the feeling with routine K M MASSI night line who's

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out there? The board lights up intermittently, mostly regulars, A

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static the ghost of the earl are coal hovers as

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I check of the recent show logs, half on suspicion,

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half on impulse. I scroll through a week's worth of

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save coals, letting the sound whays flicker in time with

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the screens tied blue. One glitchy clip from a few

218
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nights before rings odd. What I've written off is rostatic

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kas on second listen short clip beats almost hidden under bathers,

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as if someone's kying a coat. I jack up the

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gain underneath the noise buried like a bone. Words or numbers,

222
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struggle to surf as snippets busier or five dashed out

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two to one zero. I freeze. It's the same rhythm,

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just less clear, camouflaged as noise. My own archive riggd

225
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against me. The skin pricks up along my arms. I

226
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check coll records load by time and line. The voice

227
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always line three or four, never source, always vanishing a

228
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heartbeat after the message. None of this shows up on

229
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the digitized version, only to patch analog feed. Every radio

230
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hose expects to find patterns. Seat enough faces, run enough

231
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lonely nights, and your brain it routines from randomness. But this,

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this is different. Something slips under my guard, like an

233
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unseen hand pushing through static. Obsession is built for the lonely.

234
00:11:37,279 --> 00:11:39,600
Then I'm well trained in it. That night, for the

235
00:11:39,639 --> 00:11:42,639
first time in years, I don't leave a five. Instead,

236
00:11:42,720 --> 00:11:45,000
I settle in pos shift lights low, the city's garbage

237
00:11:45,039 --> 00:11:48,799
trucks rumbling two floors below. I rifle the show's digital logs,

238
00:11:49,039 --> 00:11:51,759
replaying not just last night's oddity, but digging back weeks.

239
00:11:52,399 --> 00:11:54,799
I scribbled its times and line numbers on the back

240
00:11:54,799 --> 00:11:57,080
of a torn envelope, the stat growing messy the deeper

241
00:11:57,120 --> 00:11:59,960
I go, half the files. Ill find songs, slow, confession,

242
00:12:00,200 --> 00:12:03,519
the odd emergency test bas But in Serdan's lots, late

243
00:12:03,519 --> 00:12:05,960
at night, as the city sleeps and the DJ voice thins,

244
00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:08,399
there's a gobble always brief, always code had always gone

245
00:12:08,399 --> 00:12:11,639
before second pass. When I try isolating these moments, the

246
00:12:11,639 --> 00:12:14,519
software splinters, the files, reporting a buffer under run errors.

247
00:12:14,519 --> 00:12:17,519
I've never seen I pull up the station's agent analog

248
00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:19,799
tape deck, dusting off three or four reels from an

249
00:12:19,879 --> 00:12:23,679
archive box labeled Security Dubs twenty eighteen. Even the far

250
00:12:23,840 --> 00:12:27,799
back patterns echo low, static, rottled signals rising and falling

251
00:12:28,519 --> 00:12:33,080
sometimes among the his and almost human breath dates dashes

252
00:12:33,799 --> 00:12:37,159
minute precise notations. It's as if someone used our own

253
00:12:37,159 --> 00:12:40,240
airtime as background for passing signals. Pickaback messages time to

254
00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:43,399
haunt on the insogni acs and graveyard hosts like me.

255
00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:47,759
By three, my focus sharpens. I jot each corrupted segment

256
00:12:47,799 --> 00:12:51,480
onto a spreadsheet. I note which lines, which dates, which

257
00:12:51,559 --> 00:12:55,759
voice pitch, each time the same mechanical chop code. None

258
00:12:55,799 --> 00:12:59,200
of the affected recordings ever contain a full confession, just Fragman's.

259
00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:02,200
At about three thirty, Benny stumbles in with his ever

260
00:13:02,240 --> 00:13:05,639
prison cherry red toolbooks, muttering about POWs bugs. Again. Our

261
00:13:05,679 --> 00:13:08,360
exchange is typically last under thirty seconds, but I'm keyed

262
00:13:08,440 --> 00:13:11,960
up and corner him in the outer corridor. Hey, Benny, listen,

263
00:13:12,080 --> 00:13:15,240
I say, voice ringing, sharper and intended, been getting some

264
00:13:15,279 --> 00:13:18,799
weird digital glitches. Recordings all punched out, audio sliced up.

265
00:13:19,279 --> 00:13:21,519
He doesn't look at meat eyes on his boots, picking

266
00:13:21,519 --> 00:13:24,519
at a band eight on his thumb. Old building wiring's

267
00:13:24,559 --> 00:13:28,120
junk studio three was supposed to get upgraded years ago. Yeah,

268
00:13:28,240 --> 00:13:30,320
but it's just the same. Two lines, always late at night,

269
00:13:30,440 --> 00:13:34,080
and old tapes. Two. Something's piggybacking our calls. He shrugs,

270
00:13:34,080 --> 00:13:36,480
a twitch in one eyelid. Best I can do is

271
00:13:36,559 --> 00:13:39,039
check the several locks. But were's normal around here, It's

272
00:13:39,159 --> 00:13:42,200
radio right. He edges past, slipping away with the promised

273
00:13:42,200 --> 00:13:45,360
to take a look. The brush off stings more than usual.

274
00:13:46,039 --> 00:13:49,000
A track down lorner whose prepping paper can barely looks up.

275
00:13:49,519 --> 00:13:53,120
Can I ask about these system failures? I say, efforting casual.

276
00:13:53,720 --> 00:13:56,159
She sets down her pen, but doesn't meet my gaze.

277
00:13:56,759 --> 00:13:59,200
If this is about more equipment money, save your breath, Tom,

278
00:13:59,279 --> 00:14:00,960
You've been here long enough to know what can be

279
00:14:00,960 --> 00:14:03,440
fixed with brute force. You live with where you find yourself.

280
00:14:03,480 --> 00:14:06,120
Some dead air pr asflick to mine a little harder

281
00:14:06,120 --> 00:14:09,039
than the joke deserves. We're not inventing drama to fill

282
00:14:09,039 --> 00:14:11,080
your segment. You want to stay on air, keep it light,

283
00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:14,320
keep it moving. No conspiracies, no ghost stores, night lends,

284
00:14:14,320 --> 00:14:17,000
not a police ganner. You get me. I get her,

285
00:14:17,559 --> 00:14:20,240
but not in the way she means. Later, as I

286
00:14:20,320 --> 00:14:23,679
passed the snack machine, Maggie just clocking on, pulls me

287
00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:27,159
aside Tom word as you've been handing Benny and the manager.

288
00:14:27,200 --> 00:14:29,080
You're too smart to pick at old winds. We are

289
00:14:29,120 --> 00:14:31,399
here to entertain, not to dig up dead air. If

290
00:14:31,440 --> 00:14:33,720
folks start tuning up because they are scared, Lorna will

291
00:14:33,799 --> 00:14:36,919
drop the axe. She's trying to sound reasonable, but I

292
00:14:36,960 --> 00:14:39,480
see a flash of warning in her face. Here is

293
00:14:39,519 --> 00:14:41,960
in radio teach you'd spot which smiles her invitations and

294
00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:44,919
which are shields. I nod, promise the bare minimum, and

295
00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:47,519
slip back to my studio. The rest of the night

296
00:14:47,559 --> 00:14:50,000
spins out in cautious silence. But when the iur DIDs

297
00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:53,360
closest to three, one of the station's spattered laptops, usually

298
00:14:53,440 --> 00:14:56,720
left idling, flickers, awake of its own accord. I stably

299
00:14:56,759 --> 00:14:59,519
releads desktop. Sprout's a new folder, mark den falcosa time

300
00:14:59,559 --> 00:15:02,279
sent for Time day two fifty nine. My hand's tense

301
00:15:02,320 --> 00:15:05,679
as I open it inside a string of misnamed audiophiles,

302
00:15:06,360 --> 00:15:08,720
Each one coarse bonds to a song break or commercial

303
00:15:08,720 --> 00:15:10,960
for my own show. Except the file sizes are all wrung,

304
00:15:11,559 --> 00:15:14,360
tightening headphones to my head, A press play. For a

305
00:15:14,360 --> 00:15:16,639
few seconds, there is only background hum of the studio,

306
00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:18,960
the silent, ticking, pained hum of the age fac my

307
00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:22,480
own shifting weight. Then lay just behind my own voice,

308
00:15:22,519 --> 00:15:25,039
someone whispers in a tone pitch below natural human range.

309
00:15:25,120 --> 00:15:27,799
They hear you don't follow, don't trust anyone from the station.

310
00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:31,440
The hairs on my next stand up, I replay, trying

311
00:15:31,440 --> 00:15:34,919
to catch some edge of familiarity, some accidental overlay, and

312
00:15:34,960 --> 00:15:36,679
then it hits all at once. The shape of the

313
00:15:36,720 --> 00:15:39,120
voice is Danny Craze, or some haunted version of it,

314
00:15:39,720 --> 00:15:42,240
Danny who disappeared without saying good bye. He left a

315
00:15:42,279 --> 00:15:45,000
dent in the chair and his entire locker untouched. The

316
00:15:45,080 --> 00:15:47,600
whisper devolves into a garbled chorus, as if a crowd

317
00:15:47,639 --> 00:15:50,360
behind glass is trying to break through. This is not

318
00:15:50,440 --> 00:15:54,039
a warning, it finishes, It's a schedule. Instinctively, I reach

319
00:15:54,080 --> 00:15:56,320
for my cell and tried to call Danny's last known number,

320
00:15:56,440 --> 00:15:59,639
found on an ancient staff contast heat. The number rings

321
00:15:59,639 --> 00:16:02,720
into side dalleance, a digital cut off, then straight to

322
00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:05,159
a chuirpe. The number you have dialed is not in service.

323
00:16:05,840 --> 00:16:09,919
No choice of him. The voicemail box is equally abrupt, full, unavailable,

324
00:16:10,080 --> 00:16:13,399
or purged. Dread seeps in, as if someone poured cold

325
00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:17,200
water through my earphones. I realize, whether through accent or design,

326
00:16:17,240 --> 00:16:20,320
I've cross a boundary. The show isn't just staging weirdness

327
00:16:20,320 --> 00:16:24,279
any longer. It's become a condurate. I print spreadsheet I've

328
00:16:24,279 --> 00:16:26,399
made and skulk back through tawny corridors to the sell

329
00:16:26,440 --> 00:16:29,919
A closet where Benny sometimes doses. He's awake now, wrench

330
00:16:29,919 --> 00:16:32,480
in hand, posture tight as a coil cable. Did you

331
00:16:32,519 --> 00:16:35,559
see this? These coal logs, the tapes. I keep my

332
00:16:35,600 --> 00:16:38,200
voice low, but I sense the strain. It's not just

333
00:16:38,279 --> 00:16:42,159
system errors. Someone's manipulating every show for something. Is he

334
00:16:42,240 --> 00:16:45,240
backs away? Face pale, which pressed together so hard there's

335
00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:48,519
blood in the creases. Dani started with all that paired things.

336
00:16:48,720 --> 00:16:51,480
Nights he worked, started making tip coppers, marking call sheets,

337
00:16:51,480 --> 00:16:53,600
and code got so he wouldn't touch the mic unless

338
00:16:53,639 --> 00:16:56,879
the main studio door was open. I press harder. You

339
00:16:56,960 --> 00:16:59,120
know more? Why did Danny quit? Was it? Did he

340
00:16:59,120 --> 00:17:03,080
hear these messages for a second? Binny's mass cracks, his

341
00:17:03,200 --> 00:17:06,880
voice lowers, choked, Danny left because he couldn't sleep. He thought,

342
00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:09,319
he said, the static was talking, not just dead air.

343
00:17:09,359 --> 00:17:11,319
He thought the station was a signal gate that things

344
00:17:11,319 --> 00:17:14,640
could come through. After he disappeared, we scirped everything or tried,

345
00:17:15,319 --> 00:17:19,000
did you I press feeling my own edge, He shakes

346
00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:21,720
his head. The signal's still in here. It's not just

347
00:17:21,759 --> 00:17:24,920
ghosts in the tape. It wants broadcasters, tom, it wants ears.

348
00:17:25,559 --> 00:17:29,559
The hallway feels colder with every word. Danny grabs his wrench, starling.

349
00:17:30,079 --> 00:17:32,039
He pulled the wire too hard. It bites back. Just

350
00:17:32,119 --> 00:17:34,759
leave it alone, man, before it marks you too. He

351
00:17:34,839 --> 00:17:37,400
leaves me standing under a too bright bulb, hand shaking,

352
00:17:37,960 --> 00:17:40,519
but I don't let it go. I stayed later, still

353
00:17:40,759 --> 00:17:43,200
piecing together every fragment of candate line color at the

354
00:17:43,279 --> 00:17:45,720
timing of each break. When I match up the last

355
00:17:45,759 --> 00:17:48,799
week of numbers, something emerges. Every strange coal falls a

356
00:17:48,880 --> 00:17:52,119
nine or two after a missing person's report. Every corrupted

357
00:17:52,160 --> 00:17:54,279
file times out in the minute after the coal ends.

358
00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:57,240
Back at my counsul, I scanned the digital sound shape

359
00:17:57,279 --> 00:18:00,000
for anomaly. Spots and static were a different frequency pulses.

360
00:18:00,799 --> 00:18:03,319
Each time it circles my own voice, as if my

361
00:18:03,400 --> 00:18:05,640
mic is the entry point, not just for callers, but

362
00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:08,480
for whoever or whatever is hijacking the air. The more

363
00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:10,759
I stare into the cove, the stronger the headache grows.

364
00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:14,079
My fingers tremble as I realize someone is embedding encrypted

365
00:18:14,079 --> 00:18:18,480
patterns into my chawfeed, using my signals as camouflage. Each message,

366
00:18:18,519 --> 00:18:20,960
each voice, each broken call is a coordinate, a date,

367
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:22,880
a flag left for those who know how to read it.

368
00:18:23,519 --> 00:18:26,640
My clock flash is four forty seven. The city outside

369
00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:29,680
as longs and stopped humming. I kill the light, grab

370
00:18:29,720 --> 00:18:32,240
my bag, and is on halfway across the deserted bullpen.

371
00:18:32,480 --> 00:18:37,359
My phone rings number withheld instinct stops me from picking up. Instead,

372
00:18:37,440 --> 00:18:40,480
I let it go to voicemail, returning to Studio three,

373
00:18:40,640 --> 00:18:42,680
almost out of habit, I, however, about the sound board

374
00:18:42,720 --> 00:18:45,519
sliding on the headhrones one last time when I chanced

375
00:18:45,559 --> 00:18:47,680
the air again after a stretch of burned out jazzds

376
00:18:47,680 --> 00:18:50,160
as comforting as anything can be. Now lined three flickers

377
00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:53,400
read k M r C. This is Tom speaking. Who's this?

378
00:18:54,279 --> 00:18:56,880
The reply is instant, measured and so neutral. A Chilsey

379
00:18:56,920 --> 00:19:00,920
Air transmission scheduled Key fifty three, twenty nine twenty seventeen.

380
00:19:01,559 --> 00:19:06,319
I swallow, who is this? Dead lines, then a static

381
00:19:06,359 --> 00:19:08,759
burn that resolves just as the line dies into the

382
00:19:08,799 --> 00:19:12,559
faintest almost digital echo Tom Keller. There's nothing else left.

383
00:19:13,240 --> 00:19:15,240
My sign off is uneven, and when I finally push

384
00:19:15,279 --> 00:19:17,240
through the narrow lobby light though one is flattening the

385
00:19:17,279 --> 00:19:20,039
city into gray ash. It's not my show any more.

386
00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:23,480
It never was, I realize as I locked the door

387
00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:25,759
behind me, I am no longer just carrying the signal.

388
00:19:26,279 --> 00:19:28,680
I've become the signals come to it. Or maybe it's

389
00:19:28,759 --> 00:19:31,359
necks preach in the static. I drive home with the

390
00:19:31,440 --> 00:19:34,240
radio off, letting the city's pridorna pulse around to car, garbage,

391
00:19:34,240 --> 00:19:37,119
truck shuttering streets, street lights flickering and lazy intervals, the

392
00:19:37,160 --> 00:19:39,920
hollow hush of alleyways closing up the night. I want

393
00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:42,039
to believe I am just sleep deprived. A dreen lies

394
00:19:42,079 --> 00:19:44,319
by weak worth of bad coffee and two close coals.

395
00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:46,680
But the feeling at the edge of my awareness that

396
00:19:46,720 --> 00:19:49,920
shows certainty rides shot gune with me. Static seems to

397
00:19:49,920 --> 00:19:51,759
cling to my clothes like a scent I can't shake.

398
00:19:52,480 --> 00:19:54,400
At every stop light, I glance in the mirrors for

399
00:19:54,400 --> 00:19:57,559
headlights that never appear. Home is unchanged. The weak porch

400
00:19:57,599 --> 00:19:59,880
bull blends the concrete. My mail book stands open, a

401
00:20:00,039 --> 00:20:02,759
always from last male carrier shift that the door knob

402
00:20:02,799 --> 00:20:05,359
feels colder than you shall under my palm. I shoulder

403
00:20:05,480 --> 00:20:07,759
my way into the dim apartment, reading an old upholstery

404
00:20:07,759 --> 00:20:10,200
and detgent, and head to the sink, washing away the

405
00:20:10,279 --> 00:20:12,480
day's sweat with water that runs too long, swirling down

406
00:20:12,519 --> 00:20:15,599
with more determination and uncapable of mustering. I flicken the

407
00:20:15,640 --> 00:20:17,839
lamp beside the ratty arm chair and sit laptop open,

408
00:20:17,880 --> 00:20:20,240
spreadshef front and center in the sake of cold times

409
00:20:20,519 --> 00:20:23,279
that dates fragments of unintelligible words ticked off by a

410
00:20:23,359 --> 00:20:26,839
checkmock system, only I would understand. I stare at the patents,

411
00:20:26,960 --> 00:20:30,839
daring them to mean nothing, to resolve into mere random bleed, tiredness, coincidence,

412
00:20:31,440 --> 00:20:34,599
but pattern breed its own logic. A cluster of coals

413
00:20:34,599 --> 00:20:37,799
always nests a round local disappeared digit clusters bear some

414
00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:41,599
near mirroring to report a town's people, clock, leaving parties, officers, apartments,

415
00:20:41,680 --> 00:20:44,160
never to be seen again. I rub out my eyes.

416
00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:47,160
My phone buzzes with the notification and news alert from

417
00:20:47,200 --> 00:20:50,559
earlier in the day, another missing person, an office worker

418
00:20:50,720 --> 00:20:52,960
lost authenticated checking through a sweat badge at two two

419
00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:56,720
a m no trace since the time stamp too. Two

420
00:20:56,720 --> 00:20:58,559
fits one of the number of syllables that trip through

421
00:20:58,559 --> 00:21:01,839
the coaler's monotone. My stummach empt is itself in a slow,

422
00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:05,039
queasy coil. If I close the laptop, sleep won't come.

423
00:21:05,519 --> 00:21:07,240
So I do what night men do best. I see

424
00:21:07,960 --> 00:21:11,359
the TV stays off, the light hums. My bookshelf stands

425
00:21:11,359 --> 00:21:14,079
a Swiss cheese of unfinished books and lown dead ambitions.

426
00:21:14,799 --> 00:21:17,119
Some time past five, I dragged myself to bed, phone

427
00:21:17,160 --> 00:21:20,319
clutch beneath my pillow, a half believed talisman. Sleep, when

428
00:21:20,359 --> 00:21:23,359
it finds me is piecemeal in one slice of dream,

429
00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:25,359
A field of radios hum in a thunder storm, red

430
00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:28,319
lights blinking out in time with heart beats far off.

431
00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:30,319
I hear numbers winding out in a voice that is

432
00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:33,119
and is not mine. I jerk awake at dawn, skin

433
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:37,279
crawling head aching. The day impossibly resumes. By noon. I

434
00:21:37,279 --> 00:21:39,839
am at the station again, early and shaven, shoulders hunched

435
00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:42,279
as if they could keep suspicion from following me indoors.

436
00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:44,839
No one greets me. I catch the tail end of

437
00:21:44,880 --> 00:21:47,519
Lorna briskly ushering a client door, more likely a deck

438
00:21:47,559 --> 00:21:50,079
collector from her office, eyes flicking briefly my way before

439
00:21:50,079 --> 00:21:52,799
shutting her door with a click. Then he's not around.

440
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:56,759
The cleaner is face anonymous behind herbuds, mop head darting,

441
00:21:56,759 --> 00:22:00,079
and slow, methodical circles down the back corridor. Yesterday d

442
00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:02,480
I might have made a joke, cut the tension with sarcism.

443
00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:05,559
To day, I glide silent past the shadows, aware of

444
00:22:05,599 --> 00:22:08,079
every echo of heel and humming vent. I duck into

445
00:22:08,079 --> 00:22:10,079
Studio three and lock the door behind me, as if

446
00:22:10,079 --> 00:22:13,079
they could keep anything truly out. My first act is

447
00:22:13,119 --> 00:22:16,039
to check all systems loggins are as usual, except some

448
00:22:16,079 --> 00:22:19,000
one's been into my show's daily scripts. I check my

449
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:22,359
back up folders now, then i'll calls folder is gone,

450
00:22:22,480 --> 00:22:25,359
as if a raised by cautious hand. The schedule boards

451
00:22:25,359 --> 00:22:27,519
show nothing odd, but my skin prickles all the same.

452
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:30,799
I press play on the most recent coal lock this

453
00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:35,319
time normal. The static routined the voice's mere echoes for

454
00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:38,359
two hours. I try to function read some news arranged

455
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:40,680
cheerful Why the copy answer a listener email wishing me

456
00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:43,680
a good rest and fewer nightmares. But something stalks the

457
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:45,839
age of my perception, the feeling I am being tuned

458
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:48,119
out by something or someone. In the station's bloodless air.

459
00:22:48,680 --> 00:22:51,839
The day drags to its low arc by twee p M.

460
00:22:52,519 --> 00:22:55,359
Mighty Breeze is by coffee in hand. She keeps her

461
00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:57,640
voice deliberately light, but her eyes scanned my desk as

462
00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:01,720
she asks about tomorrow's plan playlist. Everything's fine, just static

463
00:23:01,759 --> 00:23:04,359
and late Iro blues essay barely bothering to sell it.

464
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:08,039
Maggie stays quiet for a beat. You look rough, tom

465
00:23:08,079 --> 00:23:10,240
burned out the killer. Maybe take a couple shifts off

466
00:23:10,240 --> 00:23:12,039
it to give Benny a reason to fix the mixer.

467
00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:15,039
At least. Her gaze flickers off me at the window.

468
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:18,519
I force a dry chuckle. Somebody's got to keep the

469
00:23:18,559 --> 00:23:22,519
dead air warm. My voice almost breaks undead. She picks

470
00:23:22,519 --> 00:23:25,960
at her cup's sleeve, uncertainty flickering across her features. We

471
00:23:26,039 --> 00:23:28,039
all get moments like this. You just have to tune

472
00:23:28,079 --> 00:23:30,640
out the bad frequencies. You start listening too close and senior,

473
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:34,000
hearing your own echo before I can answer. Lorna merriages

474
00:23:34,079 --> 00:23:36,799
and headed by professional hurry pulls Maggie away for a

475
00:23:36,839 --> 00:23:41,880
conference call. Alone again, my resolve WAPs restlessly. I check

476
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:45,359
the transmitter logs, noting again the engineering notes. Benny's left

477
00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:47,880
to some cables, noted loose, one warning of the signal

478
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:51,079
direct ar six panel Arsi's the same rack station that

479
00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:54,279
pipes my michin overnight signals cross in my head. So

480
00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:56,640
many stores about ghosts in the machine, and I wonder,

481
00:23:56,720 --> 00:23:59,559
now what kind of appetite the ether breeds. I stare

482
00:23:59,559 --> 00:24:01,759
at a screw full of coat, the numbers almost pulsing

483
00:24:01,799 --> 00:24:04,839
hypnotically in rouse, clashing against my own show's familiar script.

484
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:08,839
Restlessness breaks when Benny finally slouches enough to for tillbook's

485
00:24:08,839 --> 00:24:12,240
banging against his thigh. Eyes rimed red as hail lights, Hey,

486
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:14,599
he mutters, then stops as he notices my weld eyed

487
00:24:14,599 --> 00:24:18,440
attention on him. You checked the several logs yet. I

488
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:20,559
try to make a casual but my voice is too eager.

489
00:24:21,039 --> 00:24:24,160
He shrugs, kick the condemn the road. Everything on this

490
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:26,519
circuit's always been squirry, but I ain't seen anything you

491
00:24:26,559 --> 00:24:28,440
couldn't chalk up to years of neglect and a couple

492
00:24:28,519 --> 00:24:32,480
badly grounded boards. I lean forward lowering my voice. Do

493
00:24:32,559 --> 00:24:35,160
you remember if Danny ever mentioned before he left cols

494
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:37,720
coming through that didn't make sense, patterns, dates and times

495
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:41,079
instead of regular talk. Benny blanches, hand tightening on the

496
00:24:41,079 --> 00:24:44,720
handle of his box. Danny saw faces in the static Tom,

497
00:24:44,839 --> 00:24:47,200
started tipping stuff at home, playing it back to himself,

498
00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:50,160
started writing notes nobody could read. Then he just disappeared,

499
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:52,839
cleared his desk during my smoke break, gone before lunch.

500
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:55,119
Ain't nobody talked to him since far as I know?

501
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:58,880
He say why? I press eyes, boring in as though

502
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:02,440
hoping to prive something for sheer intensity. Benny's jowl works,

503
00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:05,519
wrestling with the words said. There was a message in

504
00:25:05,519 --> 00:25:08,079
the dead air, something about signals being doors. Whatever it

505
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:11,759
was he wanted out. He looks away, not everything that

506
00:25:11,799 --> 00:25:15,119
disappears once to be found. He turns, feigning a sadden

507
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:17,519
interest in the tangle of wiring above the control panel,

508
00:25:17,759 --> 00:25:20,119
but has spot a trimmer running up his arm. He

509
00:25:20,279 --> 00:25:25,119
left anything behind? I ask? Benny is silent. At first,

510
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:27,240
I think he'll just walk out, but finally he says,

511
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:30,039
very softly, almost as if to himself, checked the back lockers.

512
00:25:30,039 --> 00:25:32,759
But do it when no one's here? It isn't an answer,

513
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:34,759
but it's the first brick crumb I've had in days.

514
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:38,640
The ires crawl on when my shift ends, I feign

515
00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:41,119
casualness and linger until the station is empty, as if

516
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:44,720
reviewing promos. Finally a ghostand the corridor to the ancient

517
00:25:44,799 --> 00:25:47,400
row staff lock is most rusted. Never locked homes for

518
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:50,039
half finished novels, out of date toe jackets of Ferrol

519
00:25:50,079 --> 00:25:53,519
Sukin of five Danny's I recall is number twelve, the

520
00:25:53,519 --> 00:25:55,839
one with peeling blue taped, shaped like a lightning bolt,

521
00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:59,440
its dial still less, the old code wan's a roominous foremnistry.

522
00:26:00,079 --> 00:26:02,480
My hands hes tape before I spin the dial. The

523
00:26:02,519 --> 00:26:05,200
lock barely resists, clicking open with a sound that echoes

524
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:08,119
too loud in the concrete hallway. The door SAgs wide,

525
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:10,880
revealing chaos inside battered note book of a handful of

526
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:13,519
creased cassette tatees at the bottom, magazine clippings, an old

527
00:26:13,519 --> 00:26:16,319
badge stamp with the k Mrcy host. There's a faint

528
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:18,599
scent to metal and eucolytus, the sort of after shave

529
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:21,400
only men of a certain age. Everwhere I pull out

530
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:24,839
the notebook first, its pages are fitthered with obsessive handwriting,

531
00:26:24,839 --> 00:26:28,039
feverish krub loops, whole weeks of columns filled with single inches,

532
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:30,799
line three, time lost, retrieval, failed, signal, lingered of message

533
00:26:30,839 --> 00:26:34,920
partial two forty one, deadline static static. Later they listen

534
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,759
through me, not to me, transmitters humming louder than voices,

535
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:42,039
each entry paired with numbers, dashes, time stamps, and occasionally

536
00:26:42,039 --> 00:26:44,839
a phrase under line twice. Don't trust the relay. My

537
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:48,519
breath shallows. The tapes are next. Four bat of Maxill cassettes,

538
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:52,519
each marked by hand. April seventeen, d alcohol, May six, static,

539
00:26:52,519 --> 00:26:56,240
twenty two thirty three, denis lash night. I pocket the tapes,

540
00:26:56,279 --> 00:26:58,200
intend on playing them back at home. Nothing in the

541
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:00,880
station feels safe any more. A folded sheet at the

542
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:02,640
very back off as a scroll that makes my skin

543
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:05,359
go cold. Came, I'll see as the key transmitter equals GIT.

544
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:07,880
Too late to warn Tom Keller if found leave, don't

545
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:10,359
let it learn your voice. For a long moment, I

546
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:13,000
just stand there, scowning the rows of empty lockers, half

547
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,319
expecting someone to round the corner. But the corridor holds silent.

548
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:18,759
The only s my shallow breathing in the distant, familiar

549
00:27:18,839 --> 00:27:21,720
hum from the server racks. I stuff the items into

550
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,079
my shoulder back, relocked the door, and returned to the

551
00:27:24,079 --> 00:27:27,119
min floor, heart thumping too loud. On my way out,

552
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:29,480
I catch Benny in the rear garage, smoke curling from

553
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:32,720
his lips. He sees the tapes, nods just once, like

554
00:27:32,759 --> 00:27:35,319
he's both relieved and sorry for me. At home, I

555
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:37,400
crowd around my old tape player about it relic from

556
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:39,960
the nineties, its play button, sticky gears, whining as it

557
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:43,200
accepts the first set. The tape wobbles, crackling to life

558
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:46,400
with a resonance both and canny and heartbreakingly familiar. First

559
00:27:46,519 --> 00:27:49,680
this Danny's voice clear resigned. If you hear this, you're

560
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:52,200
already deep enough to choke. Don't dig further. The calls

561
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:55,160
aren't calls, their signals. The numbers are borrowings, like coordinates

562
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:57,480
for whoever's left listening. That eases to show it needs

563
00:27:57,480 --> 00:28:01,680
a host. He coughs, static overwhelming his words happens most

564
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:05,640
around it. Here Time's slips, voice evolving into garbled binary deadlines.

565
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:08,519
Between the dead lines, the rest of the tape cycles

566
00:28:08,559 --> 00:28:10,599
true white noise, interrupted by what might be snippets of

567
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:13,279
other voices the cadence of plea warning or memory, but

568
00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:16,759
never long enough to follow. The second tape, marked Proof

569
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:19,720
is all clip breathing and background chatter until midway, when

570
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:22,279
a string of numbers is broadcast over a faint jazz tune.

571
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:25,920
Over this, Danny's voice mutters, listened for the shift. Sometimes

572
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,599
a person doesn't leave, they are left behind inside the signal.

573
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:31,279
A cold sweat breaks along my spine as I hit

574
00:28:31,319 --> 00:28:34,279
rewind again and again, searching for words that might ground me.

575
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:38,079
But the implication is clear. Danny left because he feared

576
00:28:38,079 --> 00:28:41,799
he become the relay, and now so have I. The phone,

577
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:43,799
lying to the right of my elbow, amids a chirup

578
00:28:43,799 --> 00:28:47,400
of block number deep into the night. Instinctively, I silence it.

579
00:28:48,079 --> 00:28:51,519
The city outside is still unwaiting. I grabbed the notebook again,

580
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:54,240
flipping through the coated entries, ending on a page earlier

581
00:28:54,279 --> 00:28:57,640
than I expected. Its labeled key fifty three minutes, twenty

582
00:28:57,720 --> 00:28:59,559
nine minutes, two thousand seventeen at the same as to

583
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:03,039
Nights and Nevan call below a nearly i llegible script.

584
00:29:03,079 --> 00:29:06,119
That's the latch. The rest is static. Don't reply, don't answer,

585
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,279
I tried to calm myself logic flick of fading against

586
00:29:09,319 --> 00:29:12,640
the undertold superstition and exhaustion taking root. Maybe it's a

587
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,200
constructed threat of prancre at large over years by someone

588
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:17,920
who knows radio psychic toll. But the shape of my

589
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:21,119
fur is too precise for fabrication. I stand leaning into

590
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:23,559
the glass of my apartment window, watching the night shrink

591
00:29:23,559 --> 00:29:26,480
into dawn. In my faint reflection, I see myself friend

592
00:29:26,519 --> 00:29:30,039
with static. I close my eyes. The dead air is

593
00:29:30,119 --> 00:29:32,839
not empty. All this time I thought I was alone

594
00:29:32,839 --> 00:29:35,640
on the air, but I'm starting to suspect the silence

595
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:40,519
as listening back. I didn't sleep, I couldn't. Instead, I

596
00:29:40,559 --> 00:29:42,880
watched the Little Green Led on my batter tape record,

597
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:45,400
a glow faintly in the dark, the reels occasionally groaning

598
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:48,240
as I reaped the Danny's voice over and over. Dawnsweek

599
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:50,400
blaze did nothing to burn off the static in my skull.

600
00:29:51,039 --> 00:29:53,839
Even pouring boiling water into instant coffee. The kitchen felt

601
00:29:53,839 --> 00:29:56,240
hostile ever reflection, the windows skimming too close to the

602
00:29:56,279 --> 00:29:58,880
motion of some one behind me. By eight, I'd read

603
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:02,359
Danny's notebook cover to twice. I kept coming back to

604
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:04,640
k m RSI as the key transmitter at equals gait,

605
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:07,359
too late to warn Tom Collor. I tapped my fingers

606
00:30:07,359 --> 00:30:10,279
on the page, tracing the underlying phrase, searching fulishly for

607
00:30:10,359 --> 00:30:13,799
some ovel of reversal or explanation. There was none. The

608
00:30:13,799 --> 00:30:17,319
words lay flat, black, accusatory. I took the notebook and

609
00:30:17,359 --> 00:30:19,680
tapes back to my car, glancing up and down the street,

610
00:30:19,799 --> 00:30:24,359
expecting what a watcher the missing knocking for help. Nothing

611
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:26,880
in the familiar shabness of the city gave me a reassurance.

612
00:30:27,519 --> 00:30:29,359
Yet for the first time, there was an edge. Every

613
00:30:29,359 --> 00:30:31,599
passing face seemed part of an audience I couldn't see.

614
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:35,039
Full of knowing reluctance, k m RSI stood silent as

615
00:30:35,039 --> 00:30:37,240
I arrived the entrance. Only light above the service door

616
00:30:37,279 --> 00:30:40,839
flickering as I passed underneath. I paused before swaving my card,

617
00:30:40,839 --> 00:30:43,039
half convinced the system would lock me out, half relish

618
00:30:43,039 --> 00:30:45,599
in a proof I could still enter. The old plastic

619
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:47,599
badge led out a chirp, and the latch buzt it open.

620
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:50,960
The hallway cold as a fridge extended before me, office

621
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:53,759
doors and serve as closet shuts vaults. I kept my

622
00:30:53,799 --> 00:30:56,640
eyes straight ahead, the air inside The building was sire,

623
00:30:56,759 --> 00:30:59,400
full of old coffee ozone and the undertone of too

624
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:01,839
many electris roonyx run too hot for too many hours.

625
00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:04,640
As I pushed through the station towards Studio three, a

626
00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:07,480
Husher Company me not the usual lazy draining of daytime energy,

627
00:31:07,559 --> 00:31:11,240
but something deeper, stifling. There was activity behind closed doors,

628
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:15,079
Maggie's laughter, Lorna's feet, hustling through contract paperwork, Benny's toolbooks clanging,

629
00:31:15,119 --> 00:31:16,960
but all muffled, as if I was moving under water.

630
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:20,119
At my desk, I retraced my movements from the night before,

631
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:22,920
searching with almost religious precision for any evidence that end

632
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:26,359
al Cahals existed. The folder was wiped completely, though the

633
00:31:26,359 --> 00:31:28,640
computer clock showed a system to start at three thirty

634
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:30,480
four a m. A time when only a handful of

635
00:31:30,519 --> 00:31:32,240
people could be present. But I had been locked in.

636
00:31:32,839 --> 00:31:35,960
Why was stout that late? Was I being watched right now?

637
00:31:36,559 --> 00:31:39,000
The hairs on my arm stood up. I tried to

638
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:41,680
call Downy's disconnected number one more time, as if repetition

639
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:44,200
could draw out a ghost. The line buzzed with a

640
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:47,559
series of sonic art facts and nothing else. No ring,

641
00:31:47,839 --> 00:31:51,519
no operator, just failure of broken connection. Final I got up,

642
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:53,480
checked the outer door, then pressed my ear to the

643
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:56,599
lock staff room where the main server racks lift inside.

644
00:31:56,640 --> 00:32:00,319
I heard Benny cursing quietly. Soon he slouched out, rubbing

645
00:32:00,359 --> 00:32:03,119
sleep grip from his eyes. Two books couched in tense hands.

646
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:06,680
I called after him, Benny, I said, trying to keep

647
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:09,200
my voice. Needral Did you see anything word in the

648
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:12,079
logs last night? Someone poking around? After ires a sudden

649
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:15,039
rebute After three, he stood side whis to me. Jacket

650
00:32:15,039 --> 00:32:18,319
pushed back as if atchinterly Eve powers Spike took down

651
00:32:18,359 --> 00:32:21,039
the rack as six needed a cold bot. Several logs

652
00:32:21,039 --> 00:32:24,599
glitched for three minutes. He sounded irritable but mostly tired.

653
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:27,200
Could have sworn there was an extra audio stream up,

654
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:29,359
like someone was locking your shore from inside the network,

655
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,880
but I didn't get to trace it. His tired gaze

656
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:34,319
flicked toward me, ambiguous, almost pleading for me not to

657
00:32:34,359 --> 00:32:37,599
ask more. He lucked out caller half the outstaff never

658
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:39,599
last through a year on grave Valve day. People have

659
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:43,559
it easy. Nothing in his tone offered answers. I eased away.

660
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:47,000
He knuckled his brow, huddling back toward the racks. The

661
00:32:47,079 --> 00:32:50,039
hindess abrupt retreat lay more truth than any statement. I

662
00:32:50,079 --> 00:32:53,119
could see him trembling. I filled the morning with rud activity,

663
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:56,119
checking y copy, tuning up the playlist, tracking local news,

664
00:32:56,799 --> 00:32:59,519
the interview with the city public Works supervisor at nine

665
00:32:59,559 --> 00:33:02,599
a m. Once merely barely breaking the thickening veil around

666
00:33:02,599 --> 00:33:05,319
my senses. But even in the gentle Friday chain of

667
00:33:05,359 --> 00:33:07,920
phone calls and copy, the servanty built in me something

668
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:11,200
was going to happen. And soon toward noon, I heard

669
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:14,000
the familiar shuffle of Lorna's loafers. Approaching my studio door.

670
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:17,359
She offered a brief Morning Tom, her tone more perfunctory

671
00:33:17,359 --> 00:33:19,960
than friendly. She set her mug down on my desk,

672
00:33:20,079 --> 00:33:22,839
careful to keep it on a coaster. Here shifts walk,

673
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:26,079
next week, day cruse short. Her words were clipped, eyes

674
00:33:26,119 --> 00:33:29,599
moving everywhere except on me. Everything running clean, I hope.

675
00:33:30,119 --> 00:33:33,119
I nodded for now, but Benny mentioned a spike, and

676
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:36,279
my computer logs show another ghost folder might be local system.

677
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:38,960
But it doesn't look like she cut me off tilting

678
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:41,599
her mug. You worried too much. These boards are from

679
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,400
the rigan eer o Tom files. Vanish glitches happened. It's

680
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:46,319
not a court of law when not archiving Mortgate. Just

681
00:33:46,359 --> 00:33:48,920
don't make trouble. Stations had enough atmosphere lately, don't you

682
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:52,720
think sure, I said, just trying to keep things smooth

683
00:33:52,759 --> 00:33:55,480
for you. Her lips compressed tightly, forming a line that

684
00:33:55,519 --> 00:33:57,440
all but said, should have been happier with my resignation

685
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:00,599
than my corperation. She left quick as she come, hipps,

686
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:02,640
working to the measure beat of her own parallel station.

687
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:05,799
I spun in my chair, tapping the battered surface, weighing

688
00:34:05,799 --> 00:34:08,960
my options. The radio show was the city's night'scape, and

689
00:34:09,039 --> 00:34:11,079
I was at point man now apparently also its nerve,

690
00:34:11,159 --> 00:34:14,519
ending for signals I didn't invite, even turning the board off.

691
00:34:14,639 --> 00:34:17,440
Stato A kissed faintly through the console. I pressed two

692
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:19,280
fingers to the mutes, which with a little more force

693
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:22,079
than necessary, just to make it stop. With a kind

694
00:34:22,079 --> 00:34:24,280
of stubborn pragmatism born of too many years doing the

695
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:26,239
job not as a shield but as a hammer, I

696
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:29,920
structured my afternoon around survival. Callers want the only ones

697
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:33,480
desperate to stay anonymous. Sometimes so were the hosts. I

698
00:34:33,519 --> 00:34:36,639
called my daughter, left a message salted with mondanity. She

699
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:40,960
didn't answer. I told myself it was best safer anyway.

700
00:34:41,679 --> 00:34:43,440
By the time I clocked my end of shift at

701
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:46,639
three and knowing fever had replaced hunger. There are moments

702
00:34:46,679 --> 00:34:49,239
when you know you've left the regular world behind, when

703
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:51,239
only the logic of threat and the cold rolls of

704
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:54,239
isolation holds way. That day, I realized how lone I

705
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:57,480
actually was. The anxiety didn't fade when I got home,

706
00:34:58,039 --> 00:35:00,400
The tip sprawled across the living room table, the notebook

707
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:03,079
marked up with the yellow sticky strips. My cell phoned

708
00:35:03,119 --> 00:35:06,119
Inch twice, both notifications not from anyone I knew, but

709
00:35:06,199 --> 00:35:10,760
account security alerts. She mailed location unknown password guests from

710
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:13,760
an IP address I couldn't identify. It doesn't take much

711
00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:16,320
for an already haunted man to redingder in digital static,

712
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:19,039
every pixel out of place, every system anomaly takes in

713
00:35:19,079 --> 00:35:22,159
the sharpest of warning. The apartment seemed to contract around

714
00:35:22,199 --> 00:35:25,000
me as I played the tapes again. Each time Danny's

715
00:35:25,039 --> 00:35:28,079
voice emerged from the fog, more strained, more hurried. It

716
00:35:28,159 --> 00:35:29,880
became less like a friend and more like a room

717
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:31,800
map through a maze that didn't want to be solved.

718
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:36,360
I tried to eat, gave up after three bites. Instead,

719
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:38,880
I got lost in my notes, code states, snippets of numbers.

720
00:35:39,559 --> 00:35:43,119
I searched online for missing persons, matching Danny's times, matching

721
00:35:43,119 --> 00:35:45,239
the coated calls and static breaks in every show lock

722
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:48,559
Each case felt too squarely inside the framework I'd mapped

723
00:35:49,199 --> 00:35:53,599
cherts weeks, sometimes just iro was between the signal and

724
00:35:53,639 --> 00:35:56,719
the event. Where had they gone? Why was only the

725
00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:59,760
radio left echoing them back? When dust pried its way

726
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:02,360
over there. I checked my mailbox, hands braced on its

727
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:05,880
cold metal inside, wedged between bills and a glossy piece

728
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:07,920
of flier, A single slip of paper with a line

729
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:11,400
of blockie, uncertain handwriting. The transmitters, the gate trust, no

730
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:15,400
regular checked Danny's locker, no signature. I cupped it in

731
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:17,320
my hand and stood there, throw it tight as wire.

732
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:20,239
I'd already found Danny's notebook, but now I realized I

733
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:23,000
hadn't fully excavated the locker, hadn't risked opening every pocket,

734
00:36:23,119 --> 00:36:26,280
every zip, side panel. Back in the station after IRS,

735
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:29,159
I ducked stray eyes and hops the cleaning crew had

736
00:36:29,199 --> 00:36:31,320
gone home. There pales glinting in the far end of

737
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:34,079
the hall. The locker stood twelve, and all the battered

738
00:36:34,079 --> 00:36:38,039
blue tape mistakable I unsnapped down as again, deeper this time,

739
00:36:38,159 --> 00:36:40,599
and was rewarded with a false back had taped over Schuberck's.

740
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:45,239
It came apart, reluctantly resisting my search inside a cache

741
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:48,599
of old sets and binder clip polaroids. On the photos,

742
00:36:48,639 --> 00:36:51,119
blout faces circled in pen always at the edge of

743
00:36:51,159 --> 00:36:54,760
broadcast events, night time galas, music marathons, sometimes nothing but

744
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:57,519
rooms of empty microphones or rows of people with averted eyes,

745
00:36:58,199 --> 00:36:59,840
a short wave hand held radio and a slip of

746
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:02,519
paper with compound code d EL channel of fifty three

747
00:37:02,519 --> 00:37:05,440
minutes twenty nine impotent zero or two really only if

748
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:08,440
warmed on the box for next host. If you can

749
00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:11,559
still leave, leave hot pounding. I stuffed the tapes and

750
00:37:11,559 --> 00:37:15,920
photos into my back and slunk out. The station remained hollow, lights, harsh, overhead,

751
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:19,760
digital clocks blinking red, relentless. My life outside had grown

752
00:37:19,840 --> 00:37:21,599
third bare, but it was all I clung to Now.

753
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:24,400
At home, A forced the ancient cassette player again, this

754
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:28,159
time new confessions. The cassette ZEBB with white noise interrupted

755
00:37:28,159 --> 00:37:33,480
by numbers, always spiraling outward, never resolving, never apologizing between sequences,

756
00:37:33,519 --> 00:37:35,679
a whisper to listen to the silence echoed a voice

757
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:37,559
like mine. I may be what I'd sound like after

758
00:37:37,679 --> 00:37:40,559
years of dread. There was another tape halfway through, with

759
00:37:40,599 --> 00:37:43,400
a different hand labeled date, last message, d l org

760
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:48,320
I press play crackling static, then Danny Horse and desperate.

761
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:51,000
It comes from the relay, every missing person, every brooken voice,

762
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:53,199
tied to a frequency. The show just lends it a face.

763
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:55,079
If you hear this and can still turn away, you

764
00:37:55,159 --> 00:37:57,719
it some lines you dunk cross Tom. The rest burned

765
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:01,840
out an indistinguishable sound, a warning send off. Upply. It

766
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:04,199
was almost two a m. When I began plotting my

767
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:07,199
next move. Whatever I had used the station before, it

768
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:10,039
was still running on a schedule. It wanted the same

769
00:38:10,079 --> 00:38:12,960
a host, a line, and message. The question was what

770
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:16,400
happened when someone topped back. Sleep was not in the cards,

771
00:38:17,119 --> 00:38:19,079
not that I would have slept even if I tried.

772
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:22,280
The following night, I returned to the station early, carrying

773
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:24,840
my shoulder bag with the tapes, Danny's notebook, and an

774
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:27,480
old pocket sized digital record of spare batteries and all

775
00:38:28,039 --> 00:38:30,280
if I was going to catch the next scheduled deadline

776
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:32,400
call to be with as much redundant hardware as I

777
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:35,360
could muster. The building was nearly empty, but in the

778
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:37,800
gloomy hallway some one had propped open studio be the

779
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:41,760
old emergency broadcasting studio almost never used now, their one

780
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:44,239
air at light was dark, but the computer screens inside

781
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:48,000
glowed faint blue. Inside, the smell was both antiseptic and stay,

782
00:38:48,039 --> 00:38:51,599
a paradox i'd come to associate with institutional neglect. I

783
00:38:51,639 --> 00:38:54,000
set up my back plugging the recorder into an unused

784
00:38:54,039 --> 00:38:56,519
audio feed, making certain the streams would loop to both

785
00:38:56,519 --> 00:38:59,599
my personal device and the station's digital console. If the

786
00:38:59,599 --> 00:39:01,920
net were went down, one of these would finally catch

787
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:04,920
the coals clean. As the clock crept closer to the ir,

788
00:39:05,079 --> 00:39:08,519
the eight grew thick electric. Each passing minute felt lean

789
00:39:08,599 --> 00:39:11,719
and compress, fraught with the potential of intrusion. Then at

790
00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:15,119
exactly two two a m my phone buzzed lock number.

791
00:39:15,159 --> 00:39:18,440
It declared the font two bull to ignore. Instead of answering,

792
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:20,639
I pressed wreckers on everything, then picked up the live

793
00:39:20,679 --> 00:39:23,559
studios call interface, muting my own outgoing mike to keep

794
00:39:23,599 --> 00:39:26,679
the line privately. Two way go ahead, I said, my voice,

795
00:39:26,679 --> 00:39:29,400
barely a whisper. There was a hump, far more pronounced

796
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:31,639
than previous coals are gathering glow drone, as if the

797
00:39:31,679 --> 00:39:34,599
station itself was giving off a feed bacal. The next

798
00:39:34,599 --> 00:39:37,920
sound was a distortive voice, sometimes flat, sometimes slurred, pitching

799
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:40,519
between my own keddens and Danny's, but never fully either.

800
00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:45,039
Studio be confirmed transmission, Await relay. I sat rigid as

801
00:39:45,039 --> 00:39:48,079
the voice continued its words, arriving in clipp batches. Choice

802
00:39:48,119 --> 00:39:50,639
play through or end signal. He heard the relay pass

803
00:39:50,639 --> 00:39:53,599
and disappear or become the next link. A cold spot

804
00:39:53,599 --> 00:39:55,920
bloomed at the base of my spine. What does the

805
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:59,079
relay mean? I choked up through it? Raw. There was

806
00:39:59,119 --> 00:40:01,599
a harmonic in the staf, a course of smothered speech,

807
00:40:01,679 --> 00:40:04,480
so much like a roomful of breaths, all inhaling at once.

808
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:08,039
My voice pined back through the speakers, walked them reversed,

809
00:40:08,119 --> 00:40:10,440
as if being played for an audience just out of range.

810
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:12,719
Here are the voice. Now you keep the line open.

811
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:14,760
They listen, we listen. Stop and you will follow the

812
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:18,519
others except and carry the call. My mouth worked. What

813
00:40:18,639 --> 00:40:20,599
whose theay? Are you? People from the station? Is this

814
00:40:20,679 --> 00:40:23,679
a society? Or is this here? Are on the dead lines?

815
00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:27,400
Beyond the lines? No cul goes unanswered. I flexed my hand,

816
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:30,960
finding a recorder. It was still running that the audio

817
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:33,119
boss bazened wild in a way no voice as static

818
00:40:33,119 --> 00:40:36,440
could account for. Then from somewhere just behind me, impossible

819
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:39,159
in the sealed studio, or breath ahush, and the unmisakable

820
00:40:39,199 --> 00:40:42,400
scrape of her chair like on tile. I spun wild eyed,

821
00:40:43,119 --> 00:40:46,000
no one else, only the echo of my own movement.

822
00:40:46,599 --> 00:40:50,519
But the noise didn't fade. Instead, it harmonized with the static,

823
00:40:50,599 --> 00:40:53,280
becoming words. Whereas that piled under the audio like a

824
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:56,840
choir of ghosts. You are broadcasting for us, A couldread

825
00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:00,119
washed over me confusion and terror, straining and equal parts.

826
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:03,440
The air shimmered for a moment, just faintly above the console.

827
00:41:04,119 --> 00:41:06,119
Later I tried to explain it away, but right then

828
00:41:06,159 --> 00:41:08,960
all I could do was watch. Then, as suddenly as

829
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:11,440
it began to console doken, the studio lights flickered, and

830
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:14,199
the digital clock ticked over to two four, my phone

831
00:41:14,199 --> 00:41:17,320
buzzed again, this time attacks of to night studio be

832
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:20,440
bring nothing else. It was already too late for escape,

833
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:23,000
already too late to call anyone for help. I felt

834
00:41:23,039 --> 00:41:26,159
the careful order of my universe unravel. I found outside

835
00:41:26,199 --> 00:41:29,639
the door snapped me awake. My hot caught. I flipped

836
00:41:29,639 --> 00:41:31,559
off the board, tried to gather my things fast without

837
00:41:31,559 --> 00:41:34,920
making sound, but the footsteps were already moving up the corridor.

838
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:38,480
Confident measured, the door eased open, and three figures ended

839
00:41:38,519 --> 00:41:42,280
in quick succession. Lorna at the lead, ice hooded lipped first,

840
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:45,679
then the next, Torbalk's clutch, trying badly to hide the concern,

841
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:49,280
twisting his mouth. Maggie hung behind them, arms folded skin

842
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:52,519
pail as copy paper. They closed the door, quietly, locking

843
00:41:52,599 --> 00:41:55,679
it from the inside. No one spoke at first. The

844
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:59,599
silence was thick charged. Lawna broke it. We didn't want

845
00:41:59,639 --> 00:42:01,559
you to go far. Tom Dead has been part of

846
00:42:01,559 --> 00:42:04,119
this place longer than any of us. I looked at

847
00:42:04,159 --> 00:42:06,400
each of them, waiting, pulse hammering so loud I could

848
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:08,960
almost hear it over the failing lights and whispering electronics.

849
00:42:09,559 --> 00:42:11,960
And he tried shows a relay. Tom signal wants a

850
00:42:12,039 --> 00:42:14,639
conduit always has goes back to day one of broadcast.

851
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:17,679
Every missing person you found, they're not missing, they're relayed

852
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:21,320
part of the network. Now what does that mean? I demanded,

853
00:42:22,039 --> 00:42:23,960
are you threatening me? This is just a freak show

854
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:27,840
of intimidation. He shook his head, face crumpling. He think

855
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:29,840
I want this. Danny thought he could warn you, so

856
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:32,000
did the guy before him. No one ever gets out

857
00:42:32,039 --> 00:42:35,280
unless the signal lets them. Maggie lean forward, voice low

858
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:38,679
but urgent. Every time you try to find it, things escalate,

859
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:41,320
people vanish, tips, fry calls come through the static with

860
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:43,960
your own vustisted up the audiences and people any more.

861
00:42:44,559 --> 00:42:47,960
Larna braced her hands on the soundboard, her gaze steady,

862
00:42:48,039 --> 00:42:50,679
weighed me. Play a law on Tom, Just ride out

863
00:42:50,719 --> 00:42:52,719
your shift, Keep the signal open to you. What's always

864
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:54,639
been done. It works when we don't pick at this gap.

865
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:56,960
That's the deal. Try anything, go outside the routine. You'll

866
00:42:56,960 --> 00:42:59,199
see what it can do. They all watched me, three

867
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:02,159
distinct faces get her resignation, fear, and something else, moving

868
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:05,159
quietly in their shared expression relief, maybe or hope The

869
00:43:05,159 --> 00:43:08,360
problem would soon be someone else's. I sitched each face,

870
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:10,800
searching for a flicker of humanity, assigned the person I

871
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:13,760
had known still lived under the relay. For the first time,

872
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:16,760
I realized none of them were fully present. They too

873
00:43:17,159 --> 00:43:19,559
were half in, half outcalled something larger and older than

874
00:43:19,599 --> 00:43:22,440
any conspiracy, I reached for my back up, her corder

875
00:43:22,519 --> 00:43:25,440
still running. You're not going to scare me off. I'll

876
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:27,960
take this public stream, the call about everything. There's got

877
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:30,079
to be someone who can crack this wide open. A

878
00:43:30,119 --> 00:43:33,280
mirthless laugh broke from Maggie. Many have tried. Some of

879
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:35,519
your best evidence never makes it out, the coal gets

880
00:43:35,519 --> 00:43:38,400
lost on upload, the sound files won't play, or she shrugged?

881
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:40,239
Are the ones who try hard to join the cycle?

882
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:44,760
Asked Danny. Suddenly her voice changed on the overhead. A

883
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:47,280
new signal bursts through feedback, howling, then resolving into the

884
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,519
familiar monotone, now speaking as if from the station's walls. Deadlines,

885
00:43:50,599 --> 00:43:54,239
tom Keller relay open relay received, The lights jettered, the

886
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:57,559
boards all flickering, random data. I tried to wrote my

887
00:43:57,599 --> 00:43:59,639
stream for a spare wireless device, anything to push the

888
00:43:59,639 --> 00:44:03,079
audio out beyond the station's failing firewall. In that moment,

889
00:44:03,119 --> 00:44:06,519
from the phone system, the callers started coming through. At first,

890
00:44:06,639 --> 00:44:08,880
I hoped for a regular conspiracy Hank or one of

891
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:12,079
the lonely hearts, but the voices were all wrong, speaking

892
00:44:12,079 --> 00:44:14,280
in a new rhythm. Fifty three really now two one

893
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:17,719
sevent channel live transmission accepted. I stared at the last thing.

894
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:20,119
I could my own wavering reflection in the glass, now

895
00:44:20,119 --> 00:44:23,760
strobing in the pulsing studio light. I masked the broadcast button,

896
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:26,320
patching the audio directly to a ramschical Wi Fi stream

897
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:29,639
I prepared at home voice jagget with desperation. This is

898
00:44:29,679 --> 00:44:32,480
Tom Keller Keamosi. If you're hearing this, help, There's something

899
00:44:32,519 --> 00:44:35,480
in the station, something living in the lines. My words

900
00:44:35,519 --> 00:44:39,239
twisted midstream into another voice warped, digitized, distorted with layer

901
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:43,440
de eckoes, really stable voice ockaved deadlines continue. In that moment,

902
00:44:43,519 --> 00:44:45,880
Benny lunged for the recorder, but it was too late.

903
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,320
His serage from the console spats box, knocking him back.

904
00:44:50,039 --> 00:44:52,440
I heard his breath hissing and panic, the other shutting

905
00:44:52,559 --> 00:44:55,960
the sound system shrieking. I yanked the recorder free, slammed

906
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:58,000
it into my jacket, and bolted for the nearest take

907
00:44:58,119 --> 00:45:02,039
it All around panel's flashed and alarm screamed, but the recordings,

908
00:45:02,039 --> 00:45:04,119
both live and back, were still running in my pocket.

909
00:45:04,599 --> 00:45:06,880
I ran down the corridor, my own footsteps overlaid with

910
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:09,519
dozens of phuntom echoes, calling and answering, as if my

911
00:45:09,639 --> 00:45:12,320
very movement was being looped in some impossible auditory circuit.

912
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:15,280
I made the outer doors the magnetic clock fail, kicked

913
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:17,599
it open and spilled out into the rain streaked alley.

914
00:45:18,159 --> 00:45:21,440
Nobody pursued behind me. The building went dark. The station

915
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:23,960
enough for the first time I could remember, gave itself

916
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:26,440
over to the storm on the street. The world seemed

917
00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:30,360
shifted too, quiet, flickering and reel. My teeth rattled with aftershocks,

918
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:33,960
my head throbbed, my hands tangled in wires and tape,

919
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:37,039
and the coal clutched bag couldn't stop shaking. But I

920
00:45:37,079 --> 00:45:40,639
had the tapes, I had the notebook, and somewhere some

921
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:43,760
one outside was listening. The next night, I returned to

922
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:47,280
the station, but all was changed. My card had been revoked,

923
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:50,519
The reader, blinking mute, read a fresh devat, cleaned on

924
00:45:50,559 --> 00:45:54,079
Studio three's door, papernses pasted, and the wall listed me

925
00:45:54,079 --> 00:45:57,320
as on sabbatical staff faces. Those few present turned away

926
00:45:57,360 --> 00:45:59,400
without meeting my eyes, shuffling out in silence, as if

927
00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:01,639
I was contagious or had already vanished with the others.

928
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:05,079
I called Laura from the cup. Her voicemail brisket and personal.

929
00:46:05,199 --> 00:46:08,239
This is Laura. If you're calling about programming. Please contact Benny.

930
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:11,440
If this is Tom, you have officially resigned. Her tone

931
00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:13,639
held no hint of our confrontation, a coal gas lighting,

932
00:46:13,679 --> 00:46:16,280
as if nothing ought had ever occurred between us. On

933
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:18,960
the news that night, a single line sawy caught my notice.

934
00:46:19,119 --> 00:46:22,119
Second year student to Bithelotton missing since may reappeared at

935
00:46:22,119 --> 00:46:24,960
local shelter, no memory of absence reported in stable condition.

936
00:46:25,519 --> 00:46:27,840
Her name was on one of Danny's polaroids, her face

937
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:30,599
circled in frantic pen report a voice of her no

938
00:46:30,679 --> 00:46:34,800
signs of trauma. Experts baffled another unexplained return. The implication

939
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:36,559
called like a question in my mind as I read

940
00:46:36,559 --> 00:46:39,480
the coded log for the fifteenth time, whoever or whatever

941
00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:41,599
controlled the reader could let people go as easily as

942
00:46:41,599 --> 00:46:44,199
they slipped them away. I had it only enough proof

943
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:46,280
to know the pattern, not enough for the world outside

944
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:49,000
the radio blast to listen. My emails to the police

945
00:46:49,039 --> 00:46:51,599
were ignored, lost in a pile of digital complaints about

946
00:46:51,639 --> 00:46:55,760
frequency hacking and disgruntled DJAY detectives I contacted were brisk

947
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:58,519
and distracted, friendly only until the moment and mentioned the

948
00:46:58,599 --> 00:47:02,880
radio station, the tapes, the peating signals. After that, conversations

949
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:06,400
cut short or never returned. Desperate, I visited Danny's old

950
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:10,000
walk up apartment near the University. No answer, the male

951
00:47:10,079 --> 00:47:12,639
slot round with dust, the box empty but for circulars.

952
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:15,039
Through the thin sliver under the door, I caught a

953
00:47:15,079 --> 00:47:18,360
glimpse strip walls, bare floor, no evidence of occupancy save

954
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:20,760
for the faint trace of Eucolytus in the air. The

955
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:22,639
wall had swallowed him up, as if he'd never been

956
00:47:22,679 --> 00:47:24,880
part of the city at all. When I tried to

957
00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:27,760
upload my files one by one to every obscure podcast

958
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:30,039
board in call case audio cyberdet I could find, the

959
00:47:30,039 --> 00:47:33,559
connection failed. Each time. The upwards truncated of the audio

960
00:47:33,559 --> 00:47:35,519
played back as white noise, with none of the sinister

961
00:47:35,599 --> 00:47:38,639
and occurrents intact. Whatever force lived in the relay was

962
00:47:38,639 --> 00:47:42,119
still intercepting, still steering its own evidence. My own life

963
00:47:42,199 --> 00:47:46,000
unraveled by half measures, I wandered the city, afraid of both,

964
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:49,599
returned to normalcy and deeper inquiry. At my apartment, I

965
00:47:49,639 --> 00:47:51,960
took to record in every thought, every anomaly. The thread

966
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:54,000
of my own voices had cracked and circled the clock.

967
00:47:54,639 --> 00:47:57,559
Each taping felt less like broadcast, a more like final testament,

968
00:47:57,639 --> 00:48:00,440
a desperate hope that someone somewhere would catch the signal

969
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:02,639
and rescue me from my own echo. The in saw

970
00:48:02,719 --> 00:48:05,920
near reached new heights. I found myself staring for long

971
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:08,119
stretches into the empty band with on my hum radio.

972
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:11,559
At midnight, static rolled through the cheap speakers, a rush

973
00:48:11,599 --> 00:48:15,360
of sound that sometimes seemed almost to carry meaning. Sometimes

974
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:17,519
I'd listened so long the gats between hiss has began

975
00:48:17,679 --> 00:48:20,440
slowly to resemble words like a memory or a warning

976
00:48:20,599 --> 00:48:23,840
of the fractured cadence of my own internal monologue. One night,

977
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:25,960
in particular, as the rain tapped against the window and

978
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:29,760
the city slept, the static found its pitch low, even insistent,

979
00:48:30,559 --> 00:48:32,199
and threw it with the surety of a voice he

980
00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:34,639
recognized but haven't heard in years. Came a monoitor, and

981
00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:39,480
I knew too well. Tom Keller reelid transmission continues. I

982
00:48:39,519 --> 00:48:42,159
fumbled for the recorder, breath shortened, ragged, but the radio

983
00:48:42,199 --> 00:48:45,760
SALIDI just blinked green, looping the same phrase fifty three

984
00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:49,840
twenty nine, dead lines, dead lines, dead lines. My own voice,

985
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:53,239
surfacing at the edges, mocking, imitated, echoed an impossible frequency.

986
00:48:53,920 --> 00:48:56,519
That night, half afraid and half resigned, I pressed myself

987
00:48:56,559 --> 00:48:59,000
to sleep, the city humming around me, the radios hissed,

988
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:00,840
neither louder nor soft time, and the old ghosts I'd

989
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:03,920
nursed all these years. I dreamed not of the answers,

990
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:07,000
but of relate repetition. Each time I spoke the words

991
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:10,360
aarked out and returned slightly changed. In the morning, I

992
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:12,400
woke to find a slip of paper press under the door,

993
00:49:13,159 --> 00:49:17,400
just a single line. Silence means consent. The handwriting was

994
00:49:17,400 --> 00:49:21,039
my own. I didn't leave my apartment that day. Instead,

995
00:49:21,119 --> 00:49:23,840
I paced curtains, drawn a roster of polaroids, and taped

996
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:27,280
segments scattered on every flask surface. Shadows from the blinds

997
00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:30,639
kept replicating, multiplying as the light shifted. It was as

998
00:49:30,679 --> 00:49:33,199
if the city itself was receding, pulling back from a

999
00:49:33,199 --> 00:49:36,880
person moped for broadcast. I sat down, hands against hard

1000
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:39,239
table top and resolved to try a last transmission, a

1001
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:42,039
final gesture. I would fill the air with a story

1002
00:49:42,079 --> 00:49:44,840
no one else seemed interested in hearing, maybe even one

1003
00:49:44,880 --> 00:49:46,960
simple enough for the ghost in the tape to understand.

1004
00:49:47,639 --> 00:49:49,760
I powered up the batter tape deck, keyed of Danny's

1005
00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:52,280
last recording, and began to read aloud. The entries from

1006
00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:56,199
his notebook, dates, numbers, warnings. I spoke into the silence,

1007
00:49:56,239 --> 00:49:58,639
as if the city was waiting to answer. As the

1008
00:49:58,679 --> 00:50:01,159
static outain flowed, the foot rang, not the cell but

1009
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:04,119
the land line I'd barely used in years. I answered,

1010
00:50:04,119 --> 00:50:07,320
out of refects. The voice was my own and Annie's,

1011
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:10,440
and the flattened monitum from all those impossible calls. It

1012
00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:13,719
didn't ask for permission. It just said, the relay is open.

1013
00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:16,760
You may speak at that. Every radio in the apartment

1014
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:20,480
turned itself on their dial, cycling through stations, Each produced

1015
00:50:20,519 --> 00:50:23,719
the same message, words winding back on themselves, climbing toward

1016
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:26,760
meaning and falling away. On the whiteboard. By the fridge,

1017
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:30,760
condensation formed numbers fifty three, twenty nine, twenty seventeen. Cycling

1018
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:33,719
again and again, the cocks all froze two two a m.

1019
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:37,159
Blinking in unison. I wasn't speaking to an audience anymore.

1020
00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:41,239
I was being spoken through. The ultimate broadcast is horror.

1021
00:50:41,800 --> 00:50:44,079
I lunged to the window, peering out across rain, wet

1022
00:50:44,119 --> 00:50:47,199
roofs and empty lots, the city indifferent, unaware, every and

1023
00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:49,920
tennye bristling in the dark. The first of the new

1024
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:52,519
calls arrived just then, invisible and insistent, a voice I

1025
00:50:52,559 --> 00:50:55,480
didn't recognize, or perhaps had known all along, asking for

1026
00:50:55,519 --> 00:50:57,800
the time, the date, repeating their own echo back to me.

1027
00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:00,440
It's Tom Keller, I said, unsure of the truth of it,

1028
00:51:00,559 --> 00:51:03,400
but sure it would carry somewhere beyond the dead lines.

1029
00:51:04,079 --> 00:51:06,039
I took the recorder and every scrap of paper I

1030
00:51:06,079 --> 00:51:08,679
could carry, left the dates behind, and made for the stairwell,

1031
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:11,719
determined at least to keep moving. Every step was accompanied

1032
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:13,599
by sense of pursuit, but only the echo of my

1033
00:51:13,639 --> 00:51:16,239
own breathing, my own voice finding its way down through

1034
00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:20,400
concrete and wire. Outside, I found dawn breaking gently, hestiedly,

1035
00:51:21,079 --> 00:51:23,760
I turned the recorder on hip record and walked until

1036
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:26,719
the city brightened into memory. That was the last transmission

1037
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:29,079
I ever made. Even years later, I have I'll let

1038
00:51:29,079 --> 00:51:31,199
myself DRYFTNI asleep the glow of the little radio on

1039
00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:33,400
my nights and flares at midnight, whispering in my own

1040
00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:36,239
voice answer, slooping back before I can ask the question,

1041
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:40,000
the dead lines persist started coming in deep, measured intervals.

1042
00:51:40,639 --> 00:51:43,880
I realized some signals once received and never quite switched off,

1043
00:51:44,519 --> 00:51:46,880
even years later. If I let myself DRYFNI asleep, the

1044
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:48,760
glow of the little radio on my nights and flares

1045
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,639
at midnight, whispering in my own voice, answers looping back

1046
00:51:51,679 --> 00:51:54,480
before I can ask the question. The dead lines persist

1047
00:51:54,599 --> 00:51:58,440
started coming in deep measured intervals. I realized some signals,

1048
00:51:58,559 --> 00:52:01,559
once received, are never quite so witched off. The days

1049
00:52:01,599 --> 00:52:03,800
there followed settled into a sort of pallid rhythm, but

1050
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:06,559
nothing returned to Howard had been. I spent hours at

1051
00:52:06,559 --> 00:52:09,280
my faded kitchen table, coffee cooling and half empty marks,

1052
00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:11,480
scanning every news feed and a m frequency for a

1053
00:52:11,519 --> 00:52:13,679
hint as some one else was struggling with the same puzzle.

1054
00:52:14,239 --> 00:52:17,280
Silence ned every effort, no word from the station, no

1055
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:20,280
reply to my message boor confessions, not even spam. An

1056
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:23,960
email account had set up for anonymous tips. My social circle,

1057
00:52:24,039 --> 00:52:26,679
never wide, seemed to evaporate. Overnight, texts from my daughter

1058
00:52:26,719 --> 00:52:29,239
went unopened or on sand. Neighbors barely nodded in the hall.

1059
00:52:29,880 --> 00:52:31,840
Even the mail th end jumped, drying up as if

1060
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:34,559
I no longer registered as part of the city. There

1061
00:52:34,599 --> 00:52:37,679
was no true reprieve from the insomnia. NED stretched some

1062
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:40,920
heavi as wet wool, others brittle with anxiety. The city's

1063
00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:43,159
distant sirens and the tick of the hallway radiate offered

1064
00:52:43,159 --> 00:52:45,719
the only company. But even those Familian noises seen together,

1065
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:48,639
meaning under the dead hush of midnight. When I did sleep,

1066
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:51,159
my rest broke against dreams full of buzz and repetition,

1067
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:55,400
dial spinning lights, flickering voices, echoing cod Once I riske,

1068
00:52:55,440 --> 00:52:59,039
venturing downtown, I passed the station, staring at K Marcie's

1069
00:52:59,119 --> 00:53:02,119
neon sign. One letter in R blinked in certainly the

1070
00:53:02,159 --> 00:53:04,880
rest stady Benny came up for a smoke, saw me

1071
00:53:05,039 --> 00:53:08,039
and paused. We stood on opposite sides of the lot,

1072
00:53:08,039 --> 00:53:11,159
a single glance enough to communicate the measureless distance between us.

1073
00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:14,960
He didn't wave, just finished his cigarette as heavy and

1074
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:17,760
slipped away. He moved with all the wary carefulness of

1075
00:53:17,760 --> 00:53:19,320
a man who knew what it was to be watched,

1076
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:22,119
or at least haunted by circuits older than trust. I

1077
00:53:22,159 --> 00:53:24,480
didn't try going inside the station, locked up tight behind

1078
00:53:24,559 --> 00:53:28,280
re enforced glass. Returning home, I noticed subtle shifts and routine.

1079
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:30,400
The elevator waited at my floor before I pressed The

1080
00:53:30,400 --> 00:53:32,599
botton lights in the hallway flickered on exactly as my

1081
00:53:32,599 --> 00:53:36,280
foot crossed each threshold. Nothing overert nothing the building super

1082
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:39,000
couldn't blame on tining or a lucky guess, but the

1083
00:53:39,039 --> 00:53:41,440
co ordination the rhythm reminded me of the signal the

1084
00:53:41,480 --> 00:53:45,559
way anticipated wererouted adapted a kind of algorithm, content, small

1085
00:53:45,599 --> 00:53:49,400
but persistent, following me into my most private moments. My phone,

1086
00:53:49,599 --> 00:53:52,280
once overloaded with robe calls and spam, now rang only

1087
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:54,760
once a day, a blank sy id, never a voicemail.

1088
00:53:55,400 --> 00:53:59,960
I answered once, only static. Still it nodded at my result,

1089
00:54:00,199 --> 00:54:03,519
whittling away whatever resistance I had left. I checked my

1090
00:54:03,559 --> 00:54:06,760
recording equipment obsessively, rand diagnostics that always showed the mics

1091
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:09,840
open even when power cables were unplugged. The truth I

1092
00:54:09,840 --> 00:54:12,800
had uncovered or stolen really from Danny and those like him,

1093
00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:16,840
grew into something unmanageable. I started to notice irregularities everywhere.

1094
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:20,599
Stopped clocks, radios glitched, two tier and cab numbers mirrored

1095
00:54:20,599 --> 00:54:22,440
those in the coded calls. My own name showing up

1096
00:54:22,440 --> 00:54:25,320
in graffiti on subway tiles. I didn't dare draw a

1097
00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:29,239
line between calls and effect. I simply cataloged, made lists,

1098
00:54:29,239 --> 00:54:31,400
for comfort, for order, for the chance that one day

1099
00:54:31,440 --> 00:54:33,360
I could explain this to myself or some one else.

1100
00:54:34,079 --> 00:54:36,960
One morning, even as sunlight led through my blinds, I

1101
00:54:37,000 --> 00:54:39,480
found every piece of paper in my apartment had been reshuffled.

1102
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:42,840
The notebook, the polaroid from Danny's locker, even the slips

1103
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:44,639
of code had stashed in a lock drawer roll out

1104
00:54:44,719 --> 00:54:48,360
scattered across counter and floor. Equal Pot's invitation and threat

1105
00:54:48,440 --> 00:54:50,960
proved that my home was not in violate. I was

1106
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:55,440
being counted, indexed. Sometimes watching feels worse than up freight harm.

1107
00:54:56,000 --> 00:54:58,239
That evening, the radio in the kitchen moved on its own,

1108
00:54:58,280 --> 00:55:00,599
shifted half a foot across the countertop, else switching from

1109
00:55:00,639 --> 00:55:04,119
news to static. Through the haze. Just within hearing came

1110
00:55:04,199 --> 00:55:07,000
three steady beaps, like a test pattern, but slower, insistent.

1111
00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:09,960
I turned the volume down. The beeps pressed through the

1112
00:55:09,960 --> 00:55:12,960
mechanical limit, audible even after I hit the power. I

1113
00:55:12,960 --> 00:55:15,480
stared at the black window glass, convinced that with the

1114
00:55:15,559 --> 00:55:17,639
right angle and enough courage, I might glimpse not by

1115
00:55:17,679 --> 00:55:20,079
reflection but the conscious of the faceless presence behind me.

1116
00:55:20,760 --> 00:55:23,480
I took to leaving the apartment, Wandering the city after dark,

1117
00:55:24,199 --> 00:55:26,920
each intersection felt like a note. Traffic lamps blinking head

1118
00:55:26,960 --> 00:55:30,079
ANDCE headlights cuss in the puddles in backlots, the shush

1119
00:55:30,079 --> 00:55:32,639
of f M static filtered from iiding work vans, snippets

1120
00:55:32,639 --> 00:55:35,920
of numbers beneath the music scrambled. Once I passed up

1121
00:55:35,920 --> 00:55:38,760
handed box, TV screen chatter and power, somehow running a

1122
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:41,599
single green bar along the top fifty three twenty nine,

1123
00:55:41,639 --> 00:55:45,320
twenty seventeen, the date code from the call. I didn't

1124
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:49,960
linger the final week. It escalated again. One afternoon, every

1125
00:55:50,039 --> 00:55:52,199
radio station on my dial, the all Rocket one hundred

1126
00:55:52,239 --> 00:55:54,480
four point three public Radio at eighty eight point nine.

1127
00:55:54,599 --> 00:55:57,039
Even the sports chatter on NAM flushed to static, then

1128
00:55:57,079 --> 00:55:59,360
to my own late night shows, pumper music looping a

1129
00:55:59,400 --> 00:56:02,239
fracture tune note interval. I heard my voice in the mix,

1130
00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:05,199
pitching with a copy, odd copy, then numbers, then silence.

1131
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:09,280
After five full minutes of this programming resumed. No one

1132
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:13,159
seemed to notice. The news never mentioned the event. I

1133
00:56:13,239 --> 00:56:16,199
found brief posts on local forums any one else's radio

1134
00:56:16,199 --> 00:56:20,119
freaka this morning, But the posts vanished by the ire, scrapped,

1135
00:56:20,119 --> 00:56:24,280
were retracted or consumed by some wider mechanism. My world

1136
00:56:24,280 --> 00:56:27,760
grew smaller, feverish. I lost track of the days living

1137
00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:30,960
by the rhythm of the signals. I let myself grow careless,

1138
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:35,079
tuning in writing everything in, increasing the fragmentary bursts. My

1139
00:56:35,119 --> 00:56:38,000
handwriting began to sprawl, numbers leaking into every margin, my

1140
00:56:38,079 --> 00:56:41,039
dreams closing around the whisper of the relay. One night,

1141
00:56:41,199 --> 00:56:43,760
the old land line rang after midnight. The voice that

1142
00:56:43,800 --> 00:56:46,079
answerved was my own. But then I drawn down to

1143
00:56:46,119 --> 00:56:48,840
an opt vie'd only here in the deepest sleep, ready

1144
00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:52,400
for relate, it said, Then, clear as church bells, step outside,

1145
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:56,079
Tom Keller. My body responded before my mind dud. I

1146
00:56:56,119 --> 00:56:59,280
opened the front door, barefoot, jacket clutched tight, cassette recorder

1147
00:56:59,280 --> 00:57:01,760
in hand. The hallway was empty but for the hush

1148
00:57:01,760 --> 00:57:04,719
of the building's pulse refrigerate, a hum distant elevator chime,

1149
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:07,320
then the faint pressure behind my ear, the warmth of

1150
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:11,000
breathless speech. I moved toward the stairwell, every nerve hot

1151
00:57:11,079 --> 00:57:13,840
and nunned. As I rounded the landing, I caught in

1152
00:57:13,880 --> 00:57:15,960
the stairwell mirror a shape standing on the next floor,

1153
00:57:15,960 --> 00:57:18,079
done a man or a negative of one face gun

1154
00:57:18,159 --> 00:57:21,480
to static suit, indistinct posture, familiar. He raised a hand.

1155
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:23,480
For a moment it looked like he was holding a mic.

1156
00:57:24,159 --> 00:57:27,800
I staggered, clutching the recorder tighter, and he vanished. Only

1157
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:29,960
static kiss in my ears. But now it did Kedon's

1158
00:57:30,039 --> 00:57:33,840
mechanism approof. I understood finally what no one at the

1159
00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:36,079
station could ever say. Afright. The dead lines are not

1160
00:57:36,199 --> 00:57:40,400
about absence, but intercession. Something reaches through the apparatus, seeking

1161
00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:43,960
a voice, a pair of hands, and name. I stepped backwards, dizzy,

1162
00:57:44,039 --> 00:57:46,960
anchoring myself by the wall. My own breathing doubled in

1163
00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:50,320
my ears, reverberating like a feedback loop. You can go back,

1164
00:57:50,440 --> 00:57:53,559
hissed the static, where you can broadcast forward, Only the

1165
00:57:53,599 --> 00:57:57,159
really persists. I returned to my apartment without conscious decision.

1166
00:57:57,199 --> 00:57:59,719
Threadburron rattled and pushed the recorder, already running on to

1167
00:57:59,760 --> 00:58:02,800
the t. I whispered into it. If you are listening,

1168
00:58:02,960 --> 00:58:05,039
know that the voice is borrowed, that the message continues

1169
00:58:05,039 --> 00:58:07,840
with or without the host. As morning crept up through

1170
00:58:07,840 --> 00:58:10,639
the ragged blinds, I realized I'd said nothing that changed

1171
00:58:10,679 --> 00:58:14,719
the facts. The relay was open. My only proof was experienced,

1172
00:58:14,760 --> 00:58:17,679
fluid and translatable, alive for a moment in the transmission,

1173
00:58:17,679 --> 00:58:20,719
and then gone. I tried the radio one last time,

1174
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:22,880
tuning it to the now intended ninety seven point one

1175
00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:26,440
f M. Only music greeted me, a gentle, easy jazz.

1176
00:58:27,079 --> 00:58:30,280
The call and lines were dark, no code, no number,

1177
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:33,519
no invitation, but in the windows faint reflection, the cities

1178
00:58:33,559 --> 00:58:36,119
living static, the web of stores caught, half heard, half remembered,

1179
00:58:36,119 --> 00:58:37,960
and the signal twisted into a shape that looked for

1180
00:58:38,079 --> 00:58:41,880
just a breath, like me, then like Danny, then only

1181
00:58:41,920 --> 00:58:43,880
the suggestion of some one holding a microphone in the

1182
00:58:43,960 --> 00:58:46,960
darkened room, and in the hush that followed, I understood

1183
00:58:47,119 --> 00:58:49,679
some stories can only be told once, on a frequency

1184
00:58:49,719 --> 00:58:52,360
nobody means to find, running out across the night, hoping

1185
00:58:52,360 --> 00:58:54,239
against hope that just one soul is still awake to

1186
00:58:54,239 --> 00:58:58,960
hear them. And that is the end. Thank you for listening,

1187
00:58:59,000 --> 00:59:06,719
and I will see you in the next this one