I was scared, Darla. I was so scared. I was certain I’d been set up, that they wouldn’t be returning. I turned to leave, hoping I could get back to the TMA feed but then the program began to speak from where it was trapped in the computer.
It was their voices. It was Jon and Martin's voices. I know you won’t believe me but they read the stories and I know it was their voices. I froze in place.
They grew clearer, and as the distortion faded from the recording for a moment I could make out the mechanical tones, the off-putting cadence. They spoke slowly, intoning the incident reports with steady, measured voices. Something was speaking through them, from inside the machine.
I said the only thing I could think: “Jon? Martin? Is that you?”
And those voices I have loved for eight years answered: “Some of them.”
And then they laughed.