Troy pressed his forehead against the wooden bar, polished smooth from years of rubbing by greasy hands. He'd driven hours to this foul-smelling dive because it was the only place to get away from her. At least the whiskey made him stop caring about the foul, sticky spot under his left elbow. He tapped the empty glass next to his head as the bartender walked by.

 "This is your last one, sir," the bartender said as he poured. "I'll close your tab." He picked up Troy's ID from behind the counter and frowned. "Aren't you…"

"Yes," Troy groaned.

"I thought you were—"

Troy shoved a wad of bills onto the counter. "That cover it?" The bartender nodded. "Then shut up."

The amber alcohol swirled against the walls of the glass as a new song came on the jukebox. The tune made him want to sink into the floor. It was his last recording from before. He remembered like it was yesterday.

"This is a disaster," he muttered into his hands.

"We might be able to salvage it."

"I'm going home."

"Yes, sir. Should I—"

"I'm going home, Dave. Which means I better not get any calls for the next twelve hours. And I mean none. Especially not from her."

"Yes, sir."

Troy slammed the door behind him and headed down the hallway of his production studio. Door after door led to rooms full of instruments, microphones, and people trying to sing.

Keyword: trying. The only thing those recordings were good for was torturing prisoners at a CIA black site. He wondered as he climbed into his gold Mercedes if the government would actually pay him for that service. Had it come to this for the Emperor of Song, the master hitmaker? After seven hours of wailing, he'd had enough of Miss Penelope Morgenstern, aka Penny Stern, the latest diva to beg for his golden touch. Her voice was good, and the lyrics were solid. It just wasn't working, like most sophomore records.

The outside world was a blur as he sped down the highway, grinding his teeth in frustration. The music business was like panning for gold, and he had been coming up dry for months. An eternity. He wondered if he was losing his touch or just having bad luck. It didn't ultimately matter. You were only as good as your last hit. 

His car alerted him to a call coming through. Penny. He ignored her. Let that crazy blond fuss and fight with another producer. He was going to sleep. He entered through the garage of his Calabasas mansion to find the kitchen lights on. 

"Jenny?" No answer. His housekeeper rarely stayed this late. Maybe his chef was finishing up his meals. "Jacque?" Nothing. The kitchen was sparkling clean. The only sign of life was a Hello Kitty coffee cup in the sink. "Jenny, what are you still doing here?"

Then he heard it. A sound warbled from the pantry like a trapped bird. It was honey to his ears, a hug that warmed him to his soul. He'd never heard such a hauntingly perfect tone. 

"Jenny, is that you?" The voice drew him forward like a catfish on a line. He opened the pantry door to find his housekeeper, smartphone in hand, watching a video. She jumped at the sight of him and shoved the phone in her pocket.

"Who was that?" he asked.

Troy shook himself out of his thoughts and took another fiery gulp of whiskey.

"The band is about to start." The bartender pointed Troy toward the stage. A raven-haired girl with too much eyeliner stood next to the mic, checking the setup. He hadn't seen a live band in years. It was all VR concerts or music videos now. He'd heard that some symphonies put on performances for school kids. Sort of a throwback to how music used to be. 

Used to be. The phrase gripped him like a bouncer grabbing his collar at a club.

"Sorry, sir. I got distracted finishing up in the kitchen. Your breakfast is in the refrigerator."

"The voice. Who was that?"

 "It's just a video my brother sent me," Jenny said. "From Tokyo."

"Who is the singer? Let me see."

The video was a black screen with a simple line representing voice pitch. There was no name or picture in the description. He and Jenny stood transfixed, listening to the acapella melody over and over. His phone vibrated with call after call from Penny until he shut it off completely. 

What did this songbird look like? Any voice that perfect had to come from someone beautiful. He had to find her.

The thought made him sick now. He groaned into the glass and tried to think about something else. Anything else.

"I heard you paid like fifty bucks for it all." The bartender clearly wasn't used to having celebrities around. He asked too many questions. At least he wasn't throwing things or cursing like most of Los Angeles.

"More like a couple thousand," Troy answered. "Used to say I bought her for a song." The bartender didn't laugh. No one ever did. "Thought I had an angel and ended up with..." He decided not to finish the sentence.

"Made you a billionaire," the bartender huffed.

"And killed everything I worked for," Troy said. "People forget I have a case full of Grammys at home."

"Back when they still gave those out, huh?" the young man said acidly.

The Grammys felt like a lifetime ago. He'd stopped going long before they were shut down, but as he looked at the rows of cheap booze behind the counter, he wished he could go one last time. 

"You know we don't play her music here, right?" the young man said.

"Wouldn't be here if you did." 

He hoped he'd never hear her voice again. All those years ago, he should have plugged his ears and walked away while he had a chance.

It took two days to get the contact information from Jenny's brother. But when he put in the call to Tokyo with a translator, a young man answered. Kiyoshi didn't say much at first.

"I'd like to talk to the singer behind that video. She has an incredible range. I can offer her a contract with Emperor Records as our newest star." He talked for several minutes about the endless possibilities, but Kiyoshi said nothing.

"So, where is she? What's her name? I can't wait to meet the woman behind the voice."

"I don't know if I should give her to you. She is my best," he said in halting English. "She is…" he said something to the translator in Japanese, and the translator made a confused face.

"He says she took him four years of work."

"What does that mean?"

The translator talked with Kiyoshi for several moments and finally turned back to Troy.

"He's a computer programmer, sir. The voice is artificial."

"I'm sorry?"

"I call her Gael," Kiyoshi said. "Generated Audio-English Language."

Troy couldn't speak. The wind had been knocked out of him. Then the words came rushing out all at once.

"That's impossible. You can't fake a voice that good. I'd know a fake. I always know fakes."

"Not fake!" Kiyoshi yelled, his voice cracking with anger. "Gael not fake! She is perfect! Scientifically created to be the perfect singer. I am a scientist, Mr. Knight!"

His perfect singer was a computer program designed by a socially anxious college kid. Creating the ideal voice was his obsession, and somehow, he'd done it. He had designed versions for Japanese, Chinese, and English. Several others were in development, but none had the hypnotic quality Gael had. Kiyoshi was too young to understand what he was doing when he signed over the American usage rights.

Troy could still remember how his guts twisted during that phone call, just like they were twisting now over too much booze. The lead singer on the stage was fiddling with her hair nervously. That was the trouble with humans: they got nervous. A computer was perfect every time. No human voice could compete.

Gael's first song, complete with mysterious anime-inspired album art, went viral in minutes. His publicist had to shut off the notifications on her phone. The press dug through records to find the mysterious singer and begged for interviews and photos. Troy's other artists started to feel ignored as the weeks passed. All anyone wanted was Gael.

"I want to do a duet with Gael," Penny said, her nasal tone grating on Troy's nerves.

"That's career suicide."

"No, it'll be awesome! The two divas!" Penny's black pigtails bounced up and down. "Come on, Troy, I know she'll love working with me."

"When did you dye your hair anyway?"

"Like yesterday? It's my new look."

"You mean it's Gael's look."

Penny turned bright red and stuttered out a denial. He let her babble for a bit and raised a hand.

"There's not enough autotune in the universe for you to keep up with Gael, Penny."

Penny. Troy wondered how she was doing. Her big movie bombed. So did two marriages. Hopefully, she had found something to do that didn't involve music. No one could keep up with Gael. Not even Troy. Her popularity snowballed until he had to reveal the truth.  

"It's time." The massive crowd of reporters was dead silent, hanging on his every word. Troy's stomach dropped into his shoes as he read the prepared statement in front of him. It would be the end of his career. He'd be branded a sham and a liar. 

"The world of music has been rocked by a new voice, and it's time to reveal the source. It's time to let the world in on the secret. When I first heard it, I knew this voice was going to change the course of history. I knew I would never be the same. And now all of you will never be the same."

He gripped the edge of the curtain. "I give you Gael!" The curtain fell to reveal a computer screen. He pressed play and watched as the industry he'd ruled over for decades cracked and fell apart like old vinyl. 

"Did you know what you were doing?" the bartender asked. This guy couldn't leave him alone. He turned away from the bar.

He did know. The moment that should have been the end of Gael was the end of everyone else. First, she took over the pop charts. Then country, R&B, and jazz. Within a year, other genres shrank as audiences craved more of her music. 

She dominated the radio and streaming. She dominated the awards. With each new song, she lined Troy's pockets. With each new release, she crushed the human competition. That's when he knew he needed to kill her. 

"I say let the program prove itself. Let her write her own music," Troy said to the tech in his otherwise empty production studio. His pantheon of artists had moved on to other work. And here he sat, trying to put a stake in the heart of his audio vampire. "It's possible, right?"

"I mean… technically."

"Then let's technically do it."

"Boss, a robot writing music doesn't usually go well."

"That's fine," Troy said. "That's just fine."

That artificial intelligence was supposed to put the genie back in the bottle and show that Gael could never do what a human could. But her first song was good. Better than good. It was addictive. She cranked out song after song that wormed down into a person's soul.

She. As if the program behind those pixelated eyes had a soul. Gael was an it, no matter how smart. He'd started his career rewinding cassette tapes, and he ended it by releasing a siren coded in Prolog. At least this bar without a programmable jukebox was beyond her reach. 

Microphone feedback rang in his ears. The girl with the black hair waved to the crowd from the stage and strummed her guitar.

"Thanks for coming out tonight to hear some human music," the singer shouted into the mic. "I just heard we have a special guest here tonight. Everybody, the one and only Troy Night!" Her piercing eyes seemed even sharper behind all that eyeliner. "Guess you found the last place in California to hide from that virus you made. How does it feel to be the man who killed music?"

Troy raised his whiskey glass toward the stage and downed the rest in a single gulp. The singer muttered a curse before gesturing defiantly to her bandmates.  

"One, two, three, four…" Her voice clanged like church bells across the bar. Troy put his glass down, pulled his coat up to his ears, and gestured to the bartender.

"Activate my Robo-driver, would ya?" he said in his ear. The young man followed him to the door.

 "I gotta ask," the bartender said, gaping at the gold Mercedes. "Did Gael really write her second album?"

"Yes. I just picked the title," Troy answered, unlocking the car and blowing into the breathalyzer. The Robo-driver light came on and he pointed the bartender to the glowing port. 

 "That's pretty messed up, man."

"'Siren in the Machine' just seemed to fit."

The bartender tapped his authorization card against the port behind the car's mirror. Troy handed him a few large bills and waved him away. He settled into the back seat. 

"Take me home." The car whirred to life, and the display shifted to the radio.

"Would you like some music?"