Up in the control room, twenty-four-year-old Elmo watched as things steadily unraveled.

  It wasn’t going well.

  Originally, Elmo was just a fanboy. He’d stumbled across Harlan on social media—just a passing curiosity at first. A few minutes here, a clip there. But little by little, the algorithm did its work. One video turned into dozens. One opinion became a worldview.

  Elmo didn’t even notice it happening.

  He’d always had opinions—political ones, even—but nothing extreme. Nothing too far right or left. Yet each podcast nudged him further down the rabbit hole until his thoughts were no longer entirely his own.

  The algorithm didn’t drag him.

  It guided him—carefully, quietly—into a labyrinth of borrowed convictions.

  His father only noticed once the change had hardened like concrete. By then, Elmo’s new beliefs had taken root, and the man who raised him felt like he was shouting through glass.

  “You’ve swallowed the Kool-Aid,” his father said during one of their many arguments, hurling the phrase like a slap.

  Elmo didn’t know what it meant at first. So he looked it up.

  The phrase traced back to a cult leader—Jim Jones—who convinced his followers to drink Kool-Aid laced with cyanide in a jungle outpost called Jonestown. Over 900 dead. Men, women, children. Mass suicide—or murder, depending on how you saw it.

  Elmo read the article. He understood the reference.

  And then he dismissed it.

  His father just didn’t get it.

  Dale wasn’t like that.

  Not at all.

  The interview with Mrs. Lawrence was going poorly. She wasn’t playing ball. No matter how Dale Harlan steered the conversation, she refused to say a single bad word about Ethan Stipe.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Up in the shadows of the control room, Elmo leaned back in his chair, the monitors casting faint lines across his face. He watched the studio floor below, calculating. Maybe she didn’t need to say anything bad.

  There were always other ways.

  He tapped the mic connected to Harlan’s earpiece.

  “Try this,” Elmo said.

  Down on the studio floor, Dale Harlan paused mid-sentence. He adjusted the brim of the battered baseball cap he never removed. Then came the grin—that signature Dale Harlan grin, slick with charm and calculation.

  “Good idea, boy,” he said to no one Mrs. Lawrence could see. “Great idea, in fact. Glad I hired you, son.”

  Mrs. Lawrence’s brow creased. She could tell he was being fed instructions—but by whom, and for what purpose?

  Dale turned back to her, his voice smooth as syrup.

  “Change of plan, Mrs. Lawrence,” he said warmly. “You go right ahead and say whatever you want about the incident. Your version. Your truth. My boy up there in the control room—smart young fella—reckons we should spin it to make Ethan look good anyway.”

  He chuckled, low and knowing.

  “See, we’ve been trying to get that son of a gun on my show for years. But he’s too slick—knows we’d tear him apart. So we’re gonna reel him in real gentle-like. Just like the catfish I used to catch back on the bayou. Gotta tempt ’em with somethin’ sweet. Let ’em get real close… then you hook ’em.”

  He leaned forward, voice soft and honeyed.

  “So you just say all the nice things you want about him, honeybun. Sweet as sugar. Let him think a leopard’s changed its spots. Dale ‘Two Barrels’ Media is now Ethan Stipe–friendly.”

  Mrs. Lawrence frowned. “Why are you telling me this? I could warn him, you know.”

  Dale leaned back, a chuckle rumbling deep in his chest.

  “Yes, ma’am. You sure could,” he said, drawing out each syllable with polished ease—his Southern accent long perfected after leaving the dry dust of Australia for the sweltering heat of Louisiana.

  “But if you don’t... and he comes on my show? Then I’ll pay you twice what I’m payin’ you today.”

  He paused, eyes twinkling.

  “No, dammit. Make it three times.”

  Mrs. Lawrence blinked. “Three times what I’m being paid today?”

  Her eyes sparkled—just a little—with interest.

  And just like that, the interview began in earnest.

  She spoke warmly about Ethan Stipe—gracious, misunderstood, a very kind man. Harlan nodded along, the picture of attentive hosting.

  He knew she wouldn’t warn Ethan.

  Everyone had their price—even the ones who believed they were incorruptible.

  The trick was simple: find the compromise in their morality they could live with...

  and a price that made the sacrifice feel like a choice.