Dead Air, Dead Eyes

The warmth drains from the station like blood from a wound. The lamp flickers without cause, and the shadows at the room's edges seem to press closer, patient and deliberate. Then the key erupts — not with Greer's halting, mournful rhythm, but something faster, colder, precise as a blade.

It knows about the letter you never sent. The money you pocketed in Carver's Ford. The name you swore you'd forgotten. Each secret arrives in perfect Morse, clinical and merciless, and the implicit threat is unmistakable: comply, or every operator between here and the capital reads your sins by morning.