WHEN I WAS A BOY, I was for a while the head of a broadcasting network that stretched from one end of my home town to the other. It consisted of 107 small radio transmitters built from kits. Mine was the parent station, WPLR; the other 106 were repeater stations that extended my transmitter’s range like a string of pearls.

WE WERE STILL POWERLESS by mid-morning, when Ms. Fletcher-Hackford’s seventh-grade English class from the Babbington Central Upper Middle School arrived. Their visit had been planned some time ago, and I had forgotten all about it, which meant, of course, that I had forgotten to prepare anything for it. . . .

I HAD HOPED to begin putting my salesmanship to work on Lou that night, but he stood behind the bar in unwonted silence, looking for all the world like a grumpy guy. My instincts told me that the direct approach wasn’t going to work; I was going to have to be subtle. . . .

WE DINED BY CANDLELIGHT that evening, and by candlelight I read episode thirty-seven of Dead Air, “Act Now! Offer Limited!” . . .

In Episode 3, “Simulations” Albertine asks, “Are we living in a simulation?” and Peter asks, “Where are the martinis?”

THIS IS THE STORY of the death of Rockwell Kingman. Like every success story, it begins with a need. In this case, the need was money. That need had driven me into the dark recesses of my mind, . . .

BALDY THE DUMMY’S closing story that night was the one that Albertine told me Lou had read on the porch, about the twelve-year-old girl who killed herself with a single gunshot to the head. . . .

FOR MY THIRTY-SIXTH READING from Dead Air, “The Relay System,” I was in a very good mood, a little high on hope. . . .

I SAT AT MY COMPUTER, staring at the screen and writing nothing. I spent an hour that way, and then I turned the thing off and went to the kitchen for some coffee. The other early risers were in the lounge, but I avoided them. . . .

ALBERTINE sat at her vanity, looking through a photograph album. I looked over her shoulder. A depression was coming over us. I could feel it, not only in myself, but in her, too. . . .