Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
BAILEY
Fight Week
Four days before the fight, I know what I have to do.
Training is sharp. My body is moving the way Fallon’s been rebuilding it—efficient, economical, the wasted motion burned out over nine days of fight camp.
Villarreal’s tell is locked in my muscle memory now.
The right collar tie before every takedown.
The snap-down counter drilled until it’s automatic, until the neural pathway fires without conscious thought required. My body knows. That part is settled.
The other part—the part that lives in my chest, the part that’s been burning since I walked into Fallon’s gym and realized I could refuse—that part still needs resolution.
It’s kept me awake the last four nights.
It’s the reason I’m not sleeping more than three hours at a time.
It’s the reason I know what I have to do.
The other part isn’t.
I’m in the holding area between morning and evening sessions, wrapping my hands alone, and I’m running the scenario: the post-fight chaos, the recordings playing through the broadcast system, the moment security realizes the source and has to isolate it, the recordings hitting fifteen thousand people simultaneously and going digital before they can shut it down.
It depends on timing. On access. On understanding the arena’s broadcast architecture in a way that only someone intimate with the technical infrastructure could exploit.
I’ve been listening to conversations around the coalition’s planning—the careful coded language they use in Fallon’s office when they think I’m not processing.
Derek has sources in federal law enforcement who will move simultaneously.
Sullivan has coordination with the athletic commission.
But the actual deployment mechanism, the technical piece of how the recordings get deployed through the backup feed without triggering alarms on the primary console, that part stays deliberately vague.
I know why it stays vague. It’s for protection. If the plan fails, if federal agents start investigating, they want everyone to be able to claim ignorance. Everyone except the person who executes it. That person carries all the risk. That person makes the independent choice.
That’s what I’ve been waiting for.
I know the arena. I’ve fought there twice.
I know how the broadcast system works because I spent two hours before one of those fights talking to a technician named Daniel—not strategically, just because he was in the tunnel explaining to another fighter how the PA system integrated with the Jumbotron setup and the backup feed infrastructure that runs parallel to the primary broadcast console.
I filed it away the way I file everything.
Environmental data. Exit routes. Infrastructure.
The useful details that accumulate when you’re paying attention to how systems actually work.
Daniel was fired six months ago. I know that because Rogan mentioned it once in passing—someone from the old guard who got cut when Brennan realized the technical crew might have documentation of illegal broadcasts.
Brennan destroyed a lot of evidence before Sullivan’s investigation started.
But he didn’t destroy everything. Some people kept copies.
Some people kept anger. Some people kept the access codes.
I find Daniel’s number through a fighter who knew a fighter who knew someone at his current job.
Takes forty minutes of searching through contacts and old social media profiles.
I call him from the warehouse gym on a Tuesday night when Fallon’s doing paperwork in the office and can’t hear me talking in the back corner.
“Daniel. This is Bailey Morrison. You don’t know me, but you?—”
“I know who you are. The fighter they’re trying to break.”
Word travels. Even underground. Especially underground.
“I need to ask you something confidential. If you say no, I never call again. No follow-up. You’re clean.”
He takes a breath. I can hear him thinking. Processing risk versus the appeal of someone finally giving a damn about what happened to him.
“The arena broadcast system,” I continue. “The backup feed that runs into the truck. Is there a way to inject audio directly into the PA system, bypassing the primary console entirely?”
“Why would I answer that?”
“Because Brennan fired you to keep you quiet. And you’re tired of staying quiet. Because the system you helped build is being used for corruption, and you have the technical knowledge to make someone else’s exposure possible.”
It’s a gamble. If Daniel is still loyal—if he’s gotten paid off or intimidated properly—he’ll hang up and potentially report the call. But I’m reading him like I read opponents in the cage. The bitterness in his voice is real. It’s been six months of real, accumulated and hardening.
“Theoretically,” he says finally. “Yes. The backup feed into the truck has a direct line to the arena audio system. It was designed with redundancy—if the primary console fails, the backup feed can push audio directly to the PA speakers. If someone had the access codes and knew the specific protocol to bypass the primary console failsafe, they could do it. The audio would play for as long as they broadcast before venue management could identify the source and physically disconnect the backup system from the power supply.”
“How long would that take? From identification to actual disconnection?”
“Twenty seconds. Maybe thirty. The backup system is designed to auto-play compressed audio files without user intervention. Once the trigger activates, it’s just sound moving through speakers. It takes time to locate the truck, locate the power cable, and pull it. Twenty seconds is realistic.”
“And during those twenty seconds?”
“Everyone hears it. The crowd, the broadcast cameras capturing the live event, the pay-per-view feed going out simultaneously. Twenty seconds is enough for the narrative to break.”
I understand. Twenty seconds is enough for Brennan’s voice admitting to federal crimes to reach everyone simultaneously. Enough that shutting it down doesn’t matter because the damage is already done. The distribution is already complete.
“Do you still have access codes?”
“No.”
He’s lying, and he’s lying because he wants plausible deniability.
He’s saying no while telling me yes. He’s telling me that the codes exist, that they’re accessible, that he’ll text them if I ask.
He’s giving me this while maintaining the technical distance required to claim he never directly provided them.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Morrison. What are you actually asking me to do?”
“I’m asking you to text me a phone number of someone at the broadcast company. Someone who was also let go. Someone with the technical expertise to coordinate the audio deployment. Someone angry enough to help.”
The line goes silent for almost ten seconds. I can hear him calculating the risk. Then: “I’ll text you in five minutes. After that, we don’t talk again.”
I disconnect.
The text arrives exactly four minutes later. A number. No name. No context. Just the contact that changes everything.
I wait until Friday night to call it. The number connects to someone named Tracy who, it turns out, doesn’t need much convincing once I explain what I’m trying to accomplish.
Tracy was a broadcast tech for eight years.
Tracy got fired for “budget restructuring,” which in Brennan’s context means Tracy probably knew too much about the illegal broadcasts, the audio files they buried, the evidence of systematic manipulation.
Tracy probably had the codes. Tracy probably still has them.
“The system’s always had these flaws,” Tracy tells me during the second phone call, speaking quietly from home, understanding the sensitivity of what we’re discussing.
“Access points that weren’t secured properly.
Backup feeds that could be redirected if you knew the protocol.
The whole thing was designed with redundancy that one person with knowledge could theoretically exploit.
I always thought someone would try. I’m surprised it took this long. ”
“Why didn’t you try?”
“Because I had a mortgage. Because I had a family. Because the consequences seemed bigger than the reward.” Tracy pauses.
“Also because I was hoping the system would be reformed. I was hoping that Brennan would eventually be held accountable through official channels. I was hoping that the right thing would happen naturally.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m tired of waiting. Now I understand that the system only collapses if someone pushes it. And you’re offering to be the person who pushes.”
That’s not exactly what I’m doing. I’m offering to be the person who verifies the access codes work, the person who coordinates the timing, the person who bears the legal risk if federal agents investigate. But it’s close enough. It’s the same fundamental choice. Push or accept.
Tracy pushes. So do I.
“You understand this is illegal if I get caught,” Tracy says.
“I understand. I’m asking anyway.”
“Why not go through official channels? The coalition, Rogan, whoever.”
“Because I need it to be my strategy. Not theirs. Mine. My independent choice, not someone else’s authorized plan.”
I can hear Tracy absorbing this. The kind of trust that comes from someone recognizing desperation that isn’t shame. The kind of recognition between people who’ve been silenced and are learning to speak.
“Here’s how this works,” Tracy continues.
“The access codes are the technical piece—I can provide those. The protocol for triggering the backup feed is something I can walk you through. But the deployment itself, the actual moment of execution, that has to be you. From the arena. During the post-fight window.”
“What’s the execution?”