Chapter 5
FIVE
Zia
The user interface of my phone looked different when you viewed it through the lens of a panic attack. The icons were too sharp, the backlight too blue. I had just sent the text to Rowan.
Can't do it. Cancel the contract
Then, with hands that felt like they belonged to someone else, I had systematically blocked every number associated with Riot Theory.
Rowan Quill. Blocked.
Alfred King. Blocked.
Euan Onyx. Blocked.
Kit Wilde. Blocked.
Even the official band account. Blocked.
Then I threw the phone onto the duvet like it was a live grenade and curled into the smallest ball physics would allow in the corner of my loft.
Four in. Six out.
Rain lashed against the warehouse windows, the familiar Seattle percussion that usually soothed me. Tonight, it sounded like static interference. Like a signal trying to punch through a noise floor that was too high.
I had just walked away from the biggest payday of my career. I had walked away from a contract that offered me protections I hadn't even known how to ask for.
First clause kills, second clause cures.
Rowan’s words echoed in the empty space of my apartment.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to banish the memory of the green room.
The way Euan had looked at the mixing board, like he was memorizing it.
The way Kit had made himself small in the doorway.
The way Alfie had looked at me with that devastating, open-wound hope.
They had been perfect. That was the problem.
If they had been assholes, if they had postured and demanded and tried to scent-mark the air around me, I could have handled it. I had a script for assholes. I had a folder full of polite refusals and a lawyer on retainer for harassment suits.
I didn't have a script for three Alphas who looked at me like I was the frequency they’d been trying to tune in their whole lives, and then backed off.
My brain kept replaying the moment in the hallway. The citrus-ozone scent I couldn't smell but clearly they could. The medical reality of my scent-blindness colliding with their biological imperative.
They’re terrified of contaminating you, Rowan had said.
What did that even mean?
There was too much uncertainty.
It was unsafe. It was a variable I couldn't control with a fader or a compressor. So I ran. It was what I did. It was how I stayed Zia, the ghost producer, instead of Zia, the Omega statistic.
My computer pinged.
Not a text. A server notification.
I tried to ignore it. I listened to the ferry horns on the Sound. I counted the beats of the rain. Four in, six out.
Ping.
Ping.
Ping.
The rhythm accelerated. A notification cascade. That only happened when something went viral, or when a system failed catastrophically.
I crawled across the mattress and woke my laptop.
Some random social media site was open in a side tab. My mentions, usually a quiet stream of tech queries and V-tuber fans, were scrolling so fast I couldn't read individual names.
@RiotGrrrl99: wait is this about the engineer?? #FoxTailProducer
@BassSlut4Cal: The lyrics. Oh my god the lyrics. "I won't chase / I won't take." I am SOBBING.
@TechNerd88: Someone identify the mix on this track. It’s raw but that vocal chain is clean. Did Z do this?
My stomach dropped through the floorboards.
I opened SoundCloud.
Top of the feed. Released twenty minutes ago.
Riot Theory - For the Engineer Who Ran (Demo)
I stared at the title. The cursor hovered over the play button, trembling.
He wrote a song. In twenty minutes, he wrote a song about me running away. This was it. This was the chase. The public call-out. The weaponization of their massive fanbase to drag me back into the spotlight I’d just escaped. Come back, little Omega, look what you did to our poor Alpha singer.
I grabbed my noise-canceling headphones, my shield, my safety, and slid them over my ears.
I hit play.
The sound was stripped back. No drums, no loops. Just the ambient hum of a room, I recognized the noise floor, the specific dull hiss of the vocal booth on their bus. I’d seen the specs. Small room, dead sound.
Then Alfie’s voice.
It wasn’t the polished, arena-ready roar I was used to mixing. It was rough. Scraped raw. It sounded like rust and gold leaf. It sounded like the color of a bruised plum.
I saw the lightning strike the ground
But you didn't hear the thunder sound.
I saw the color of the noise
You saw three terrified boys.
I won't chase you down the street
Won't ask for what you cannot meet.
We want to learn, not take
We want to build, not break.
The synesthesia hit me hard. Waves of deep, resonant indigo and jagged, bright silver lines. His voice wasn't accusing. It wasn't angry. It was a surrender.
You’re the ghost in the machine
The clearest sound I’ve ever seen.
Run if you need, run if it saves
I’ll stand still while you brave the waves.
The track ended with a sudden cut, breathy and unpolished.
I sat there, silence rushing back into the headphones, feeling like I’d been physically struck in the chest.
He wasn't chasing. He was staying put. He was broadcasting a signal that said you are safe to run.
I looked at the description box below the track.
To the anonymous engineer who fixed the Showbox meltdown,
Your lungs saved my voice. We want to learn, not take. You’re credited, fox-tail and all.
He credited me. He didn't name me, didn't doxx me, didn't drop a link to my socials. He referenced the fox-tail, the watermark in my audio, the tattoo on my wrist, signaling to the industry that I existed, that I was real, that I had value, without exposing my throat.
My phone buzzed again. A text from Callie.
Bitch.
BITCH.
Are you seeing this? Did Alfie Riot just drop a consent anthem about you ghosting him?
I blocked them.
Well unblock them and look at Instagram. Look at Cal’s post. Right now.
I hesitated. My thumb hovered over the apps. Opening the door felt dangerous. But the song... the indigo and silver of his voice was still rattling in my ribcage. We want to learn, not take.
I opened Instagram on my laptop, using a burner account I used to monitor trends.
The official Riot Theory account stood at the top of the feed.
It wasn't a picture of Alfie looking sad and hot. It wasn't a picture of the band looking cool.
It was a grainy Polaroid of a door. A backstage door. Tape across it.
@RiotCal: Backstage isn't for afterparties tonight. It's for boundaries. Respect the quiet zones. Also, the new track is strictly for listening, not for hunting. Anyone requesting personal info on our collaborators gets blocked. Cheers. #BoundariesArePunk
I read the caption twice. Three times.
Strictly for listening, not for hunting.
They were actively telling their fanbase, millions of rabid, obsessive fans, to back off. They were using their platform to build a wall around me, even after I’d slammed the door in their faces.
I looked at the comments.
@Fan1: Policy king Cal strikes again. Respect the engineer.
@RiotTheoryFan: Okay so we respect the engineer's privacy. Copy that.
@BrittanyT: If they want privacy, we give them privacy. That’s the Riot way.
"What are you doing?" I whispered to the empty room. "Why are you doing this?"
It didn't make sense. The industry standard was to leverage everything. If an Omega ran, you spun it as a tragedy or a scandal. You used the mystery to sell tickets. You didn't establish "quiet zones" and block fans who asked questions.
Unless they meant it.
We want to learn, not take.
I pulled up the metadata on the SoundCloud file. Habit. I wanted to see the bitrate, the encoder.
I froze.
The file metadata usually contained location tags, upload IP, basic origin info.
This file was scrubbed clean.
Encoder: Riot_Secure_Server_v4
Location: [REDACTED/ROUTED_NULL]
Comment: Z_Safe_Protocol
Euan.
The quiet one. The systems brain. He had routed the upload through a dead-end server so no one could trace them to find me. He had tagged the file metadata with Z_Safe_Protocol.
He was protecting me even while I was hiding from him.
I fell back onto the pillows, the laptop warm on my stomach. The tears came sudden and hot, stinging my eyes. Not fear tears. Confusion tears. Relief tears. The overwhelming, terrifying sensation of having my reality glitched.
I had spent ten years building a fortress. I had triply-locked doors and white noise machines and exit strategies. I had suppressants that cost a fortune and a contract rulebook that kept everyone at arm's length.
And in less than twenty-four hours, three Alphas and a Beta had looked at my fortress, nodded respectfully, and started patrolling the perimeter to make sure no one else got in.
I grabbed my phone. Navigation was difficult through the blur of tears.
I went to my block list.
Rowan Quill. Unblock.
The action felt huge. Irrevocable.
I stared at her contact name. Manager. The woman who had deleted wellness clauses like they were trash.
I couldn't just say "I'm sorry." Sorry was weak. Sorry was personal.
I needed to be professional. I needed to be the engineer who fixed the board, not the Omega who panicked.
I typed, deleted, retyped.
The booth on the bus.
I stared at the words. Too abrupt? No. Technical.
What are the dimensions? And do you have schematics for the isolation shielding?
It was a breadcrumb. A tiny, technical breadcrumb. I am here. I am listening. I am considering.
I hit send before I could vomit.
Three ellipses appeared immediately. She hadn't been sleeping. She’d been waiting.
1.2m x 1.5m. Isolated floating floor. Euan has already uploaded the full schematics to a secure Dropbox for you. Link below.
He says he can modify the airflow if the pressure differential is too high.
Also, Cal says the kettle is on, metaphorically speaking.
I let out a breath that shuddered through my whole frame.
They weren't pushing. She didn't ask "Are you coming?" She didn't ask "Why did you run?" She answered the technical question. She offered a modification. She offered tea.
I clicked the Dropbox link.
It wasn't just schematics. It was a folder system.
> BUS_SPECS
> VENUE_TECH_RIDERS
> Z_WORKSPACE_PROPOSAL
I opened the workspace proposal.
It was a 3D render of the back lounge of the bus. But modified.
The monitors were positioned exactly where I liked them (how did they know?). The chair was the specific ergonomic model I used on long streams (had they looked at my V-tube setup that closely?).
And there drawn in the corner, labeled in Euan's precise, architectural font: NEUTRAL ZONE / SENSORY brEAK.
It was a small nook with heavy curtains and dimmable lights. No gear. Just quiet.
A note was attached to the file PDF.
Z,
We cannot change the size of the bus, but we can change the physics of the space. Airflow adjusted to 6 changes per hour (HEPA). No Alpha entry to this zone without digital keycard access, which only you control.
We want the mix. We do not require the engineer to be visible if she prefers invisibility.
- E.
I closed my eyes.
We do not require the engineer to be visible.
They were lying. They wanted me visible.
I had seen it in their eyes in that hallway, the hunger, the shock, the recognition.
Alfie wanted to sing to me. Kit wanted to.
.. God, looking at his arms, he probably wanted to build a house around me.
Euan wanted to organize my entire life into efficient happiness.
But they were putting the job first because they knew that was the only language I spoke safely.
I navigated back to the text thread with Rowan.
That vocal track on SoundCloud.
Yes?
The compression on the vocal is sloppy. Attack is too fast. It's crushing the transients on the consonants.
A beat.
I'll tell Alfie.
Don't tell him. Send me the stem.
The bubbles appeared and disappeared for a long moment. I could imagine her smile. That sharp, terrifying, victorious smile.
Sent.
A file popped up in the chat. ForTheEngineer_VOCAL_RAW.wav
I walked over to my desk. The rain was still hammering the windows, but the static in my head had cleared, replaced by the familiar, comforting itch of a problem that needed fixing.
I opened Pro Tools. I dragged the file in.
The waveform appeared. jagged, raw, blue.
I put my headphones back on. I isolated the frequency range where the harshness lived, that burnt-sugar rasp of his voice that was too sharp, too eager.
"I'm not coming back for you," I whispered to the waveform, to the digital ghost of the Alpha who had sung a surrender song to the void. "I'm coming back because the attack time on this compressor is criminal."
I adjusted the ratio. I smoothed the curve. I painted the sound with violet and deep, warm amber until it stopped hurting and started singing.
My phone buzzed with a message from Callie.
Did you text them?
I’m mixing.
Is that code for sex?
It's code for I'm fixing their garbage audio.
So... sex.
I ignored her. I focused on the mix.
Four in. Six out.
I wasn't safe yet. But looking at the session file, looking at the workspace render Euan had built, knowing Cal had metaphorically put the kettle on...
I put the Exit Card on the desk next to my keyboard. It was still there. Valid. Potent.
I could leave anytime.
But for tonight, I had a mix to finish.
And maybe, just maybe, I had a bus to catch.
I saved the file.
ForTheEngineer_Z_Mix_v1.wav
The fox-tail watermark embedded itself in the high frequencies, invisible, indelible.
Ball's in your court, fox, he'd said.
I hit upload.
Game on.