Chapter 150: The Voice That Should Not Have Been Recorded
Alfonso’s compliance was a new, solid object in the room. He finished adjusting his uniform, his movements deliberate, his eyes avoiding hers but his posture wholly surrendered. The server hum was the only sound. Xia straightened her own clothes, the scent of sex and sweat clinging to the air, a finished transaction.
“Secure the logs from Terminal Seven,” she instructed, her voice restored to its pragmatic coolness. “Then delete your personal credentials from the system and generate a new random key. I’ll provide you with the passphrase hourly.”
He nodded, moving to the console without a word. The lesson had been written in nerve endings and shame, and it would hold.
Xia’s own phone vibrated on the desk. It was not a general alert. It was a priority ping from a monitoring script she’d set on the group’s social cloud. A new file had just achieved critical propagation velocity. An audio clip. Tagged #AlfredoRealTalk. She tapped the notification.
Alfredo’s voice, smooth and intimate, filled the small, dank room.
“…they’re so hungry for it, you know? They want to believe I’m their friend, their confessor. It’s adorable, really. Makes them easy.”
A pause, the sound of ice clinking in a glass.
“Andrea? Francisca? Please. They’d shove their own grandmother off a stage for a front-row seat. It’s not loyalty; it’s a bidding war. They just don’t know they’re the currency.”
Another pause. A low chuckle.
“Silvia’s different. Cool. Useful. She knows the game doesn’t require a heart, just the appearance of one. Mario, though… that jealous little shit. He’s so busy hating me he can’t see his own girlfriend is one calculated smile away from begging for it.”
The clip ended. Thirty-seven seconds of pure, venomous candor.
It was him. It sounded exactly like him. The timbre, the cadence, the slight Bogotá rasp underneath the polished performance voice. It was also everything he would never, ever say out loud where a recording could live.
Alfredo’s green room was a cocoon of muted grays and soft, indirect lighting, designed to soothe the pre-show nerves he never admitted to having. When Xia entered, he was pacing, his phone clutched so tightly his knuckles were bone-white. He spun toward her, his usually composed face a mask of nauseated rage.
“You heard it,” he stated, his voice trembling with the effort to control it.
“I heard it,” Xia confirmed, closing the door softly behind her.
“It’s a fake. A clone, AI, a deepfake—whatever the fuck they call it! I have never said those words. Not to anyone. Not even drunk in a locked room by myself!” He threw his phone onto a plush sofa where it bounced soundlessly. “They spliced it. They must have taken words from interviews, from fucking voice notes, and stitched this… this poison together.”
Xia walked to the center of the room, assessing him. The panic was real, but beneath it was something colder: a terrifying recognition. “The technical method is irrelevant right now.”
“Irrelevant? It’s a lie! It’s defamation! My team is drafting a denial, we’re getting a voice analyst—”
“Mario has already heard it,” Xia interrupted, her words clinical scalpels. “He is currently in a bar three blocks away, drinking aguardiente and telling anyone who will listen that he always knew you were a hollow, narcissistic cunt. Andrea is locked in a bathroom stall crying because the clip confirms every fear she’s ever had about what people secretly think of her. Francisca isn’t crying. She’s just sitting on a curb outside, staring at her phone, replaying the ten seconds about her. She looks… empty.”
Alfredo stopped pacing. He stared at her, his breath coming in short, sharp pulls. The color had drained from his face, leaving his perfect, salon-tanned skin looking sallow under the lights. “We prove it’s fake. We prove it, and it goes away.”
“Does it?” Xia asked, taking a step closer. “Think. You didn’t say those specific sentences. But have you ever thought them?”
The question hung in the soundproofed air.
His silence was the answer. It was in the flicker of his eyes, the slight collapse of his defiant posture. He had thought it. Not in those crude words, perhaps, but in the clean, private calculus of his brand management: fans were metrics, rivals were obstacles, attention was a commodity. The audio was a grotesque caricature, but it was sketched from the shadow he cast.
“That’s what you don’t understand,” Xia continued, her voice low. “They are not fabricating from nothing anymore. They are stitching together partial truths. They are using the shape of your real contempt—the quiet, strategic disdain you hold for the machinery of your own fame—and giving it a crude, ugly voice. That’s why it hurts. It’s plausible.”
He sank onto the arm of the sofa, his head in his hands. “What do I do?” The question was stripped bare, the performer gone, leaving only a young man watching a meticulously constructed identity burn.
Xia watched him crumble. This was the core of him, beneath the gloss: a brittle, brilliant boy terrified of being found ordinary. The audio attack wasn't just a scandal; it was a metaphysical threat. It implied he was so predictable, so transparent, that an enemy could reconstruct his inner monologue.
“You stop trying to defend a fortress that’s already on fire,” she said, closing the final distance between them. She stood over him where he sat slumped. “You let it burn. And you show them what emerges from the ashes.”
He looked up at her, his eyes red-rimmed. “How?”
She didn’t answer with words. She placed a hand on his chest, feeling the frantic hammer of his heart against his ribs. Her touch was not comforting. It was assessing. Then she pushed him backward, off the arm of the sofa and onto the deep cushions. He grunted in surprise, his fall cushioned but undignified.
Before he could speak, she was on him. She straddled his hips, her knees pinning his arms to his sides, her weight holding him down. She leaned over, her face inches from his. “They think they know your voice?” she whispered, the words a hot, intimate secret in the quiet room. “They think they’ve captured your truth?” She brought a hand down and slapped him, sharp and stinging across his cheek. “That’s the performance. The curated persona for the masses.”
His head snapped to the side. A shocked, wounded sound escaped his lips. When he looked back at her, there was no anger, only a desperate, dazed confusion.
She slapped him again, on the other cheek. “This,” she hissed, grabbing a handful of his artfully tousled hair and yanking his head back, exposing his throat, “is what you really are. A scared, pretty thing who needs to be told who to be.”
Her other hand went to his belt, working it open with brutal efficiency. He was limp, overwhelmed by the aggression, by the inversion. She freed his cock, giving it a few rough, pragmatic strokes until it stiffened in her hand—a physiological response, divorced from desire.
“You want to prove the recording wrong?” she murmured, shifting her weight to position him at her entrance. She was already wet, a slickness that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with control. “Stop performing. For them. For me. Even for yourself.”
She sank down onto him in one deep, uncompromising thrust, taking him inside her completely. He cried out, a sharp, raw sound of overwhelmed sensation. She rode him slowly at first, a deliberate, grinding pace that made his eyes roll back.
“You think you’re so clever,” she breathed, watching his face contort. “So in control of the narrative. But you’re just meat and nerves. A puppet. And someone just cut your strings.” She leaned forward, her lips brushing his ear. “Feel that? That’s the only thing that’s real. The friction. The wet. The fact that you’re buried in the cunt of someone who sees right through every lie you’ve ever told, especially the ones you tell yourself.”
Her words were filthy, precise, and devastating. They stripped him bare more effectively than any audio file. He began to move beneath her, his hips jerking up in shallow, needy thrusts. “Please,” he gasped, not even knowing what he was begging for.
“Please what?” she mocked, increasing her pace, her body slapping down against his thighs. “Please let you come? Please tell you you’re still special? Please fix your broken toybox of a reputation?” She punctuated each question with a harder descent. “You don’t get to ask. You get to take what I give you.”
She could feel him teetering on the edge, his body tensing, his breath coming in ragged sobs. She clamped down hard with her internal muscles, a vice-like grip that made him shout.
“The audio is out,” she snarled, her own composure fraying into something darker, more guttural. “It’s in the wild. You can’t un-release it. All you can do… is decide what happens… in this room… right now.”
Her rhythm became frantic, a brutal, piston-driven chase for her own release. The sofa creaked beneath them. “Are you the liar in the recording? Or are you just the dumb, pretty fuckboy getting used?”
His control shattered. “I’m yours,” he choked out, the confession ripped from a place deeper than pride. “I’m whatever you say I am.”
A grim, satisfied smile touched her lips. “Then come,” she ordered. “Come for me. Show me you can obey one true thing.”
With a broken cry, he obeyed, his orgasm wrenching through him in violent waves, his release pumping hot inside her. She rode it out, milking him with sharp, contracting pulses until he was spent and shuddering.
She collapsed forward for a moment, her forehead resting against his sweat-damp chest, listening to the frantic gallop of his heart. Then she pushed herself up, dismounting from him with a wince. He lay utterly still, a beautiful, ruined thing staring at the acoustic-tiled ceiling.
Xia retrieved a towel from a nearby shelf, cleaned herself with detached efficiency, then tossed it onto his stomach. “The audio is a weapon,” she said, her voice once again calm, analytical. “But it is only dangerous if you believe it has power over you.” She looked at him, at the red marks on his cheeks, the sheen of sweat on his skin, the utter defeat in his posture. “You have now been shown a deeper truth. Which one will you let define you?”
She turned and left the green room, closing the door softly behind her. In the silent hallway, she leaned against the wall, letting out a long, slow breath. Her own heart was only just beginning to settle.
On her phone, another notification blinked. It was a direct message to a secure channel, from an anonymous sender.
Anonymous: Did he cry?
Xia: No.
Anonymous: Pity. The data stream is fascinating. The poll, the photo, the hack, the audio. Reaction metrics are off the charts. The experiment proceeds.
Xia: What’s the next variable?
Anonymous: The observer becomes the observed. Silvia is listening. And she is far more curious than she should be.
Xia looked down the empty corridor. At the far end, a shadow detached itself from a recessed doorway and slipped silently out of sight. The shape was slender, feminine. It could have been anyone.
It could have been Silvia.
The game was no longer about pushing buttons from a distance. The puppetmaster was walking among the puppets, adjusting the strings with a personal, cruel touch.
=====
A rooftop lounge in Zona Rosa, Bogotá, Colombia.
The rooftop lounge was a glass-and-steel orchid blooming in the Bogotá smog, all soft ambient lighting and the low murmur of money. Xia found Silvia at a corner table, her back to a panoramic view of distant, twinkling hills. She wasn’t looking at the view. She was staring at her phone, her expression not panicked, but intensely, unnervingly still.
“You heard it,” Silvia said, not looking up as Xia slid into the opposite chair. Her voice was a smooth, low alto, untouched by the tremor that had wrecked Alfredo.
“Everyone has heard it,” Xia replied, ordering a mineral water from a passing waiter. The young man nodded, his gaze lingering a beat too long on Silvia’s profile.
“It’s a good fake,” Silvia remarked, finally setting her phone face-down on the table. She looked at Xia. Her eyes were dark pools, absorbing light and giving nothing back. “The tone is perfect. The contempt is… plausible. That’s what makes it art.”
“You’re not upset.”
“Should I be?” A slight, enigmatic shrug lifted her shoulders. She wore a simple black dress that clung to her like a shadow. “It’s noise. Mario is currently drinking himself into a stupor, believing every word. Andrea is shattered. Francisca is a ghost. Alfredo is in his green room, probably having a very expensive existential crisis. The damage is to the ecosystem. I’m just a name in the script.”
Xia studied her. This was not the reaction of a victim. This was the analysis of a fellow strategist, assessing the fallout of a weapon she didn’t fire. “You were in the hallway,” Xia stated. “After I left Alfredo.”
Silvia’s lips curved, not quite a smile. “It’s a public venue. I was looking for the bathroom.”
“You were observing.”
“I’m always observing.” She took a sip of her gin and tonic, the ice clinking softly. “It’s more useful than reacting.”
A notification chimed simultaneously on both their phones, a jarring synchronicity. Silvia’s polished calm fractured for a single, microscopic instant—a tightening at the corner of her eye. They both looked down.
A new anonymous post, this time on a gossip forum notorious for its ruthless commentary. It was a series of image screenshots, formatted to look like a private message thread from Silvia’s account. The language was stiff, a little too on-the-nose, but the content was a cold blueprint.
Silvia: Mario is a loaded gun. Point him at Alfredo and he fires himself. No fingerprints on me.
Silvia: Alfredo’s vanity is the door. A little admiration, a hint of unavailability, and he’ll push it open himself.
Silvia: Andrea and Francisca are gasoline and a match. They’ll burn each other to ash fighting over a spark. I just have to stand back.
Silvia: They all think they’re players. They’re just set dressing. The prize is the narrative. And I’ll be the one they crown when the smoke clears.
Silvia exhaled, a slow, controlled release of air. Her knuckles were white where she gripped her glass. “I did not write that.”
“Can you prove it?” Xia asked, her voice neutral.
“The timestamps are from nights I was with Mario. The IP would be spoofed. The language… it’s a caricature of someone calculating.” She looked up, her gaze sharpening. “But it’s not a total fiction, is it?”
“No,” Xia admitted. “It’s an amplification. A distortion of a whisper into a shout. You have enjoyed the tension. You have let Mario’s jealousy burn. You have accepted Alfredo’s glances. You have watched the others scramble from a careful distance. The facts are seeds. Someone is just watering them with poison and showing everyone the rotten fruit.”
Silvia absorbed this, her intelligence wrestling with a new, personal vulnerability. Ambiguity had been her shield. Now, it was the exhibit used to convict her. “So what do I do? Release my own messages? Show my genuine, boring texts about homework and what to have for dinner? No one will care. The lie is more compelling.”
“You give me full access,” Xia said, leaning forward. “Your phone. Your cloud. Every deleted draft, every archived chat. Not to prove your innocence to the world. To find the fingerprint of the person who can do this. They are in your systems. They have been watching you, too.”
The waiter returned with Xia’s water. He was young, handsome in a generic way, with an attentive smile. “Anything else for you, señoras?”
Silvia looked from Xia to the waiter, a slow, calculating light dawning in her eyes. The fear was gone, replaced by a chilly, decisive energy. She ignored his question, speaking directly to Xia. “Ambiguity is a room. And someone else is furnishing it for me.” She pushed her phone across the table. “Take it. All of it. The passwords are biometric. You have my consent.”
Xia took the device. It was still warm from her hand. “This is the correct move.”
“I know.” Silvia finally looked up at the waiter, who was still hovering, unsure. Her smile transformed, becoming warm, inviting, a secret shared. “Actually, cariño, we will have something else. A bottle of your best champagne. And… could you do us a favor? The lounge seems so empty back in the private nook by the vertical garden. Could you bring it to us there? And perhaps… keep us company for a glass? It’s been a long, strange night.”
The waiter, flattered and intrigued, nodded eagerly. “Of course, señorita. Right away.”
Xia watched Silvia, understanding her intent. This was not a surrender. It was a reclamation. If her private world was being weaponized, she would weaponize the present, physical one. On her own terms.
The nook was shrouded in hanging ferns and soft, private lighting. The champagne arrived, and the waiter, whose name was Esteban, poured with a nervous flourish. Silvia patted the plush cushion beside her. “Sit, Esteban. Please.”
He did, his posture stiff with professional confusion and burgeoning arousal. Silvia handed him a glass, her fingers brushing his. “We need to not think for a little while,” she confided, her voice a intimate murmur. “You understand?”
Xia took her glass, watching the dynamic. Silvia was in her element now, conducting a small, real-time experiment in control. She leaned into Esteban, whispering something that made his ears turn pink. Then she kissed him, a deep, exploring kiss that was more assessment than passion. Her hand slid to his thigh, moving inward.
Esteban gasped into her mouth. Silvia pulled back, her eyes finding Xia’s over his shoulder. “I think he’s willing to help us forget,” she said, her words laced with a dark, shared meaning.
Xia set her glass down. The path was clear. She moved to Esteban’s other side, her hand mirroring Silvia’s on his opposite thigh. He was hard already, trapped between their simultaneous advances. “Stand up,” Xia instructed him, her tone leaving no room for debate.
He stood on shaky legs. Silvia, with fluid grace, unbuttoned his trousers and freed his cock. It was thick, fully erect. She looked at Xia. “Ladies first?”
Xia shook her head. “He’s your instrument. You play him.”
Silvia’s smile was all sharp edges. She pushed Esteban back onto the wide, low sofa. She didn’t undress; she simply hiked her black dress up around her waist, revealing she wore nothing underneath. She straddled him, guiding him inside her with a slow, deliberate sigh. Her head fell back as she took his length, a performance of pleasure that was perhaps, in part, genuine relief.
“You see how easy it is?” Silvia moaned, beginning to move atop him, her hips rolling in a slow, grinding circle. She looked at Xia, her eyes glittering. “To let someone else be the tool? To just… use what’s offered?”
Esteban’s hands gripped her hips, his mouth open in stunned pleasure. Xia watched, then moved. She knelt on the cushions beside them, her mouth finding Silvia’s breast through the fabric of her dress, biting down gently. Silvia cried out, her rhythm faltering.
“Is that all you want?” Xia murmured against her skin, her hand sliding between Silvia’s legs, fingers finding where Esteban’s cock stretched her open. She pressed against the joining, feeling the slick, hot slide of him inside her. “To be a user? Not a builder?”
Xia’s fingers worked in time with Esteban’s thrusts, rubbing Silvia’s clit with insistent pressure. “The person who wrote those messages thinks you’re just a manipulative cunt,” Xia breathed, her words filthy and direct. “A hollow girl playing with dolls. Are you?”
“No,” Silvia gasped, her controlled facade splintering into raw sensation. Her body was coiled tight, chasing the friction from both sides.
“Then show me what’s real,” Xia demanded. She shifted her attention to Esteban, her hand wrapping around the base of his cock, feeling it pump inside Silvia. She squeezed, controlling his depth. “Fuck her harder. She doesn’t want gentle. She wants to be unmade.”
Esteban, overwhelmed and obedient, pistoned his hips upward. The sound of skin slapping skin filled the nook. Silvia’s moans lost their performative quality, becoming ragged, desperate.
“Who are you?” Xia pressed, her mouth at Silvia’s ear.
“I’m the one who chooses!” Silvia snarled, her body bowing as a violent orgasm ripped through her. She clenched around Esteban, milking him, and with a shout, he followed her over, spilling into her with a series of jerking thrusts.
For a moment, there was only the sound of their breathing. Then Silvia, still trembling, slid off him. She looked at the mess between her legs, then at Xia, her gaze clear and shockingly sober. “I choose not to be their puppet. Or their villain.” She turned to the dazed, panting Esteban, wiping a hand down his cheek. “Thank you, cariño. That will be all.”
He stumbled away, fumbling with his clothes. When he was gone, Silvia smoothed her dress down. She looked at Xia, a new, solid understanding in her eyes. “The messages are a frame. But the picture they want to put inside it… that’s mine to paint. You have my data. Find them.”
Xia nodded, the cold phone heavy in her hand. The culprit had made a mistake. They had tried to define Silvia, and in doing so, had forced her to choose a side. The ambiguous, observing shadow was now a committed asset. The game had just gained a new, unpredictable player.