About this episode

The first episode of Care Protocol introduces a mysterious death in Portland that defies explanation.

Here is the first episode of a new Short Storyverses limited series podcast, Care Protocol . Nobody has died on a Portland street in four years. The city handed over the wheel eight years ago and got back quiet nights, clean air, and a fatality rate of zero. Ask anyone. The algorithms saved us. Then, at 7:12 on an ordinary Tuesday, a man waiting for his morning ride is killed against a brick wall at Fifth and Glisan—in front of three witnesses who all describe the same impossible thing. Before lunch, there is a second. The company’s lawyers called the police seven minutes after the first death. That was six minutes before anyone called them. Special Agent Maya Restrepo catches the case: deaths that could not have happened, and a maintenance log with a sentence sitting in it where a number should be. You’re hearing Episode One of  Care Protocol  as a special LitReading bonus.  The story continues on its own separate podcast, and future episodes will not appear in the LitReading feed.  Search for and follow  Care Protocol  wherever you get your podcasts. In Episode Two of  Care Protocol : Something happens on a stretch of I-5 outside Wilsonville…

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