Chapter 2

The first tape had been a simple error, she told herself, an echo caught in the heads from some earlier session. By the third she stopped bothering with that story. Each reel arrived from the same shuttered wing, each carried the same narrow corridor of silence before her own voice arrived, younger than the calendar allowed, asking questions she had never spoken into any microphone. The questions were ordinary: “Is anyone there?” “Can you hear me?” “Why won’t you answer?” They were recorded on machines that had been sealed in 1978.

She worked alone because the contractor who had hired her disliked the sound of breathing in the same room. His name was Rourke. He paid on time, left the boxes on the loading dock, and never asked why the restorations were taking longer than estimated. She kept the lights low, kept the monitors at conversation volume, and kept a notebook open beside the deck so the dates would stay straight in her head. The dates refused to behave. Every label that read 1967 now carried a second date written in her own hand: the day she had first heard that particular question on that particular tape.

On the fifth night the power flickered and the deck kept turning. When the lights steadied she heard two voices instead of one. Hers, and a man’s she did not recognize, answering. The exchange lasted eleven seconds. She rewound, played it again, and the man’s answer had changed. The second time he said her name. The third time he said it differently, as if he were tasting the syllables for the first time. She labeled the reel with yesterday’s date and locked the editing suite behind her.

Rourke called the next morning. He asked whether she had found anything unusual. She said the usual things about tape hiss and oxide shedding. He listened without interrupting, then asked the same question again. She told him the work was moving slowly because some reels required multiple passes. He thanked her and hung up. She realized she had never heard him breathe on the phone.

The sixth reel began with the sound of a door closing. Footsteps approached the microphone, stopped, and her voice said, “I’m not supposed to be here.” The sentence was followed by the scrape of a metal chair and then nothing for forty-three minutes. She left the deck running while she made coffee. When she returned the tape had reached its end and the take-up reel was turning against nothing. She threaded a new reel without checking the label. It was blank except for a single line recorded at very low level: her voice again, this time saying, “Rourke told me you would come.”

She stopped going home. The building had a couch in the storage alcove and the bathrooms still worked. At three in the morning she heard the corridor lights click on by themselves. She walked the length of the hallway and found every switch already in the down position. On the way back she passed the editing suite and saw the red recording light glowing through the frosted glass. Inside, the deck was turning. No tape was loaded. She unplugged the machine at the wall and the light stayed on until she covered it with her palm.

The contractor’s next visit was unannounced. He arrived after midnight carrying two more boxes. He set them on the bench without removing his coat. She asked him how he had gotten through the outer door. He said the door had been open. She knew it had not been. He watched her load the first reel. When her voice appeared again he did not react. Instead he asked whether she had noticed any change in the questions. She said the questions were always the same. He corrected her. The questions were the same until the sixth reel. After that they began to include instructions. She asked what kind of instructions. He said she would recognize them when they arrived.

He left without taking the empty boxes. She opened the second carton and found only one reel inside. The box was otherwise empty except for a single sheet of paper that had been folded to fit the interior dimensions. The paper contained a list of dates written in her handwriting. The last date on the list was three days in the future. Beside it someone had written, in the same hand, “Bring the answer.”

She threaded the reel. The recording began with the usual corridor silence, then her voice asked the man’s name. There was no answer. The silence stretched until the tape reached its physical end and the machine kept turning, the pinch roller pressing against nothing. She reached for the stop button and her own hand on the machine hesitated, as if the motion belonged to someone else. The deck continued to turn. From the monitors came the sound of a door closing at the far end of the corridor outside the suite. Footsteps approached. They stopped directly behind her chair.

Her voice on the tape said, “Now you have to stay until he answers.”