Chapter 6
***
By Night 94, the broadcast was no longer a radio show; it had become an altar.
The national syndication partners had cleared the entire midnight hour of commercial interruptions, letting Grafton FM run commercial-free as ratings broke every record in late-night broadcasting history.
Bryce sat before the microphone, his tie undone, the top two buttons of his shirt open. His hair was slightly disheveled, but his eyes burned with an intense, predatory brilliance.
“You sounded tired when you answered tonight,” Bryce whispered, his voice curling through the monitors like incense. “Did the nightmares come back?”
“The brakes,” Miles replied softly. His voice came through with staggering presence—every microscopic swallow, every brush of breath against the microphone mesh sounding as if he were lying across Bryce’s lap. “I keep dreaming about the pedal, Bryce. It was so soft. When I pressed it... it didn't bite. It just sank down into the floorboard. Like stepping into wet moss.”
Bryce felt a faint shudder ripple down his spine. “That’s common in front-impact trauma, Miles. The brake booster shatters.”
“No,” Miles said quietly. “Not after the impact. Before.”
Bryce’s hand stopped on the volume trim.
“Before?” Bryce echoed carefully.
“Before the curve,” Miles murmured. His tone was wistful, hypnotic, dragging Bryce toward a cliff edge with effortless gentleness. “I was thinking about Julian’s car. A 2018 sedan, right? Hydraulic lines don't just snap on a dry road, do they? But on a mountain pass... if someone cut the line... the fluid wouldn't drain all at once. It would weep. Drop by drop. You’d take three curves with full pressure, and then on the fourth... nothing.”
The control room behind the glass was dead silent. Teresa was standing frozen, her hand hovering over the kill-switch, her eyes wide as she listened to the bizarre, razor-sharp specificity of the caller’s question.
Bryce felt a drop of cold sweat roll down his ribs. His mind screamed at him to cut to music, to change the subject, to use his therapeutic deflection techniques.
But looking into the dark glass, all he could see was Miles. Miles, who needed him to explain the mechanics of tragedy so he could finally heal.
“It wasn't cut, Miles,” Bryce said, his voice dropping into that deep, tragic rumble, thick with staged sorrow. “The police inspection found corrosion on the copper-nickel fittings. The road salt from the previous winter had degraded the line.”
“Did they?” Miles asked, his voice tilting upward with a child’s curious innocence. “Or did the fluid drain out onto the asphalt of the scenic overlook two miles before the ridge? Where you two stopped to argue?”
Bryce’s breath caught in his throat.
*The scenic overlook.*
No one had known about the stop at the overlook. The police had assumed Julian drove straight from the radio station toward the interstate. The argument—the screaming match where Julian had threatened to expose Bryce’s fraudulent research credentials and end their affair—had happened in the dark gravel turnout beneath the pines.
How did Miles know?
*‘Julian told him,’* Bryce’s mind rationalized frantically, desperately clinging to the illusion. *‘Julian survived long enough to tell someone... no, Julian wrote it down. Miles found Julian’s journal. That’s what this is.’*
“Julian was upset that night,” Bryce admitted over the air, his voice trembling with genuine, unscripted emotion for the first time in his life. The chat feed went wild, listeners sobbing over Bryce’s brave confession. “We both were. We stopped at the overlook. We argued about our future. But when he drove away... I followed him because I was terrified for him. I saw his brake lights glow red before the hairpin, Miles. They glowed, and then they died.”
“Because the pedal sank,” Miles whispered, his voice so full of tender pity that Bryce wanted to weep into the console. “You saw the brake lights die, and you knew he couldn't stop. You knew the car was going through the timber rail.”
“Yes,” Bryce choked out, leaning in, completely oblivious to Teresa pounding on the glass, signaling him to pull back. “I knew. I watched it happen.”
“You followed him all the way to the water,” Miles crooned softly. “You stayed right behind him. Like an angel, Bryce. A dark, beautiful angel who wanted him all to yourself.”
“I wanted to save him,” Bryce whispered, tears burning behind his lids. “Just like I want to save you.”
“Only six nights left, Bryce,” Miles breathed, his voice dissolving into that strange, pristine tape-hiss. “Six nights until you hold me. Don’t be late.”
Line 7 disconnected.
Bryce slumped forward, burying his face in his hands, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He didn't care that he had just admitted to pursuing Julian after an off-the-record argument. He didn't care about the network.
He was drowning in Miles, and he never wanted to come up for air.
***
Night 98 arrived under an oppressive, suffocating heat that had settled over the city after the thaw.
In the hallway outside Studio 4B, Teresa grabbed Bryce by the lapel of his tailored jacket, physically barring him from the door.
“Marcus found the file,” she hissed, her face pale, her pupils blown wide. “I went down to Sub-B myself with the facility director twenty minutes ago. We forced the admin partition on Server 12.”
Bryce looked down at her hand on his chest with icy detachment. “Let go of my coat, Teresa.”
“Listen to me!” she whispered frantically, her voice shaking. “There is no proxy, Bryce! There is no caller! The file running on Line 7 is an automated algorithmic audio reconstruction script created four years ago! It’s Julian Mercer’s voice-bank! Julian built an AI response engine before he died—it’s pulling your voice in real time, processing your questions, and synthesizing responses using his old vocal library!”
Bryce let out a short, pitying laugh. He reached up, peeled Teresa’s fingers from his lapel with effortless strength, and smoothed the wool.
“You’re losing your mind,” Bryce said smoothly. “An AI from four years ago couldn't hold a conversation like this. It couldn't respond to current events. It couldn't laugh the way he laughs.”
“It’s not just an old AI—it’s running on a predictive neural network!” Teresa pleaded, tears of pure panic pooling in her eyes. “It was designed to match your psychological cadence! Julian knew how you talked, Bryce! He knew what you wanted to hear! That thing isn't a person—it’s a script designed to lure you into—”
“Miles is a human being,” Bryce cut her off, his voice dropping into a deadly, quiet rage that made Teresa recoil. “He has a scarred face and broken ribs and he’s waiting for me. If you touch that line tonight, Teresa—if you interrupt this broadcast for one second—I will have your contract terminated before your badge clears the turnstile. Do you understand me?”
Teresa stared at him, horrified, her mouth open in silent shock. She slowly backed away, retreating toward the control booth like someone stepping away from a rabid dog.
Bryce turned, pushed open the soundproof double doors of Studio 4B, and took his seat behind the console.
Midnight struck.
Line 7 flared green.
Bryce patched it in instantly. “Miles.”
“Bryce,” Miles sighed. The voice was impossibly clear tonight. It lacked any trace of telephone compression. It sounded as though someone had placed a high-end condenser microphone directly against Julian’s throat. “You’re angry tonight. I can feel the heat in your chest.”
