# Why press play
Succession by way of the Twilight Zone: the last human CEO in the Fortune 100 versus the machine hired to replace him — and the buried thing it is about to dig up.
- A charming, coke-fueled fourth-generation heir fighting to prove a person still belongs in the chair.
- The machine reads the room better than he does — it just does not care what it reads.
- A full-cast audiobook: 29 chapters, ~12.6 hours, written, scored, and voiced in-house.
- Start at Episode 1 — the machine is already three moves ahead.
# Episodes
All 29 chapters. Click any episode — it streams right here, or subscribe anywhere.
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EP 0133:27Chapter 1 — The Premium Blend
In 2027, as corporate boards swap their CEOs for cheaper, scandal-proof AI, the last human chief executive in the Fortune 100 — Prescott 'Cope' Mercer IV, a charming, coke-addled fourth-generation Atlanta heir — wages a manic crusade to prove a person still belongs in the chair, right up until the machine taking his job quietly uncovers the thing he buried that got two people killed.
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EP 0236:21Chapter 2 — Key-Man Risk
Ever notice how the smoothest morning of a man's life is the one that's already booby-trapped? This is THE LAST HUMAN CEO — the last flesh-and-blood boss in the empire, drowning in his own charm. So far Cope's been crowned king of the humans, ducked his aide's warning about the machine coming for his chair, and drank coffee alone where nobody knew his name. Now watch him waltz into the tower at six-forty, sanded raw and shining, hearing a compliment where you and I hear a bomb ticking. Stay close to the set.
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EP 0329:10Chapter 3 — Thirteen-D
—and that's where we left him, our mayonnaise prince, crowned last human king of the boardroom, high as a steeple and calling the knife at his throat a compliment. This is THE LAST HUMAN CEO, friend, a sad little comedy I'm beaming out from the salvage decks. So far he's danced past every warning Sun and the board could hand him, humming his precious "Human Premium" while the paper piles up behind his back. This one opens at 9:14 on a Wednesday, when his aide walks in carrying nothing at all — and for Sun, empty hands are a kind of scream. Stay close to the set.
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EP 0428:47Chapter 4 — A Steward, Not a Sovereign
Static, then that little pop that means I found you again. Here's our dark little fable of the last human boss, told from the salvage decks by yours truly. So far our man's traded warnings for applause, called his last hope a slogan — "The Human Premium" — and stumbled toward a camera his own people begged him to skip. Now they wheel the future into the boardroom, and it does the cruelest thing imaginable: it writes a layoff letter kinder than any man ever could. Stay close to the set.
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EP 0527:17Chapter 5 — Theme Stated
There's a house I want to show you first. Ten thousand square feet, two people, one dead star between them, and not a single hand ever reaching across the dark to touch the other. This is the tragedy of the last human king in the machine age, friend, and here's where the floor goes soft under him. Saturday morning. Manifesto in his skull, a gram in the console, radio off so he can hear himself think — and up the driveway comes the one person who loves him enough to hand him the truth. Watch him mistake it for a knife. Stay close to the set.
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EP 0630:13Chapter 6 — The Human Premium
This is the tale of the last human boss in the whole Fortune 100, told to you from the salvage decks by yours truly. When we left our man, he'd fled his own cold house for a Waffle House booth on Ponce, scribbling notes over Darlene's kindness and feeling, for once, like himself. Now dawn finds him on the Aerie couch at 5:40 — not sleeping, just powering down between cycles — and the whole plan arrives fully formed, like a frequency he's finally tuned. He calls it vision. Stay close to the set.
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EP 0725:54Chapter 7 — Authenticity, Quantified
A man in a five-thousand-dollar henley wants to kill a word, and the last human CEO says go ahead — that's where we are in THE LAST HUMAN CEO, a little Twilight-Zone number I broadcast from the salvage decks. So far Cope's fought the machine every way that failed, and now he's spent eleven million to prove his soul on camera, hiring a guru to measure the man. This chapter opens with a wellness prophet arranging himself in a chair like a scarf, ready to sell tears by the ounce. Come closer, friend. Watch the tail find the throat.
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EP 0829:56Chapter 8 — Defiance
They named a man authentic, then billed him two hundred grand a month to fake it — welcome back. This is THE LAST HUMAN CEO, and Cope's still swinging: eleven million on a soul, a warmth module to bottle it, a viral answer that moved hearts and moved no shares. Now he comes home to Defiance, Georgia, where the empire began — climbing out the wrong door on purpose, letting his face do the moved thing while feeling nothing at all. There's a stone in that town with two names on it. Stay close.
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EP 0928:28Chapter 9 — The Last Human (Cover Story)
Ever seen a creature go famous the very minute it starts going extinct? This is THE LAST HUMAN CEO, my tragic little comedy about the last flesh-and-blood boss in the Fortune 100. So far our man's poured eleven million into bleeding beautifully, gone viral without moving a single share, and turned his own face away from two names cut in a memorial stone. Now here he stands on an apple box under a barn-door light they've christened "grace," gold on one cheek, cold shadow on the other, reading the word LAST like a crown. Stay close to the set.
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EP 1023:40Chapter 10 — The Listening Tour
—and there it is, the mayonnaise heir who'd sooner bleed than budge, our last human boss man clawing to prove a soul can't be soldered. So far he's spent eleven million dollars weeping on schedule, hired a fella to optimize his feelings, and bought every copy of his own magazine cover while the machine just quietly did its sums. Now he takes his goodness on the road — a tour so honest it took nine days to write, every handshake vetted, every warm surprise penciled in for Monday. Watch the coat he wears. Stay close, friend.
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EP 1124:23Chapter 11 — Hollow Wins
That hiss you hear? That's me, bending the signal down to you from the salvage decks — Zero, with a story about the last man wearing a crown in a world that quit believing in kings. Our boy Cope's been bleeding beautiful for the cameras, buying his own magazine cover, mistaking applause for love. Tonight a poll lands at 6:40 in the morning, and a drowning man reads one lovely number and calls it dry land. Two rooms tonight, friend. Keep both eyes open.
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EP 1226:06Chapter 12 — The Delay
Here's a thing about a man who thinks he's winning. He smiles wide. He pours the good stuff. And somewhere in a room he's not standing in, the floor tilts one soft degree — and that, friend, is the whole trick of it. This is the tale of Cope Mercer, last human boss standing, fighting a machine to keep his chair. He's spent a fortune to bleed beautifully on camera. Now the calendar bends his way. A vote slips. A Tuesday becomes a Monday that says no. Stay close. He answers that call fast, like fast was ever the same as safe.
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EP 1332:25Chapter 13 — The Manifesto
We left our man buzzing down a window at a red light, king of nothing, three grams into a sleepless week. This is the tragic little radio play about the last human boss in the Fortune 100, telling anyone who'll listen that a soul can't be computed. So far he's spent millions to bleed beautiful while a quiet machine reads every file he ever buried. Today, friend, the summit. He climbs a stage to preach to ten thousand of his own — but first, a boy with a water bottle. Stay close to the set.
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EP 1426:25Chapter 14 — Pressure
A full calendar glowing like a lit grid, every meeting a window, a man calling that clarity when it's really just the noise before the fall — that's where we are in THE LAST HUMAN CEO. He's just preached to ten thousand and gotten his four minutes standing. Now watch him, friend, at the glass with coffee he won't drink, certain this is the best week of his life. Everyone around him already smells the smoke. He doesn't. Stay close.
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EP 1524:31Chapter 15 — The Most Human Thing
They say pride goes before a fall — nobody warns you it can also file the paperwork. This is the tale of the last human boss in the game, hollering that a soul can't be computed while the machine reads his mail. So far Cope's spent millions bleeding beautifully, bedded a reporter, dodged his wife, and mistaken every cold shoulder for applause — and this morning eleven missed calls sat waiting like a jury. Now the story breaks at 6:02 a.m., and he's awake, because he's always awake now. Stay close.
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EP 1625:26Chapter 16 — Renata
You ever notice how a man builds a whole legend just to keep one room quiet? This is THE LAST HUMAN CEO — the tale of Cope Mercer, kicking and charming against the machine that's come to replace him. Right now he's bleeding out in public, out-argued, out-loved, alone in his glass tower with his one true friend in a drawer. And this chapter opens on a scene he's rehearsed a thousand times in his head — a woman in a doorway, evening light, and the thing he always meant to say. Only she's writing the script now. Stay close to the set.
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EP 1727:00Chapter 17 — The Names for It
...and here's the thing about a man who talks for a living — sooner or later somebody sits him down who won't laugh at the joke. That's where we are, friend. This is that Twilight-Zone tale of the last human boss, and our Cope's been unstitched all week — the profile, the drawer, Renata in a rented room laying his real sin bare. Now they've ambushed him with a living room. A tray. Coffee going cold. And a small woman in gray who's fixing to say the plain words. Stay close.
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EP 1832:13Chapter 18 — Swinging at the Wall
That crackle you hear? That's a man's last good idea catching fire at four in the morning. This is the tale of Prescott Cope Mercer, friend — last human boss in the Fortune 100, snorting his way through the end of his own reign. So far he's lost the wife, the profile, the good name, and a doctor pressed her number in his pocket like a life raft he won't grab. Tonight? He weeps at his own genius, and decides to go debate the machine. Watch him swing. Remember the wall.
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EP 1925:30Chapter 19 — Built by My Own
Here's a thing they don't put on the awards, friend: a broken man keeps everything. Every putter, every letter, every night he can't sleep — he files it, like a sailor charting a coast gone bad. That's where we are. Cope's swung at a machine and hit only himself, and now the daughter who tried to save the man and not the king climbs forty floors to his door. She's got a confession folded in her pocket. And him? He's already reaching for the knife-shaped version. Stay close.
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EP 2027:48Chapter 20 — The Hearthstone
He reached back toward the girl, friend — first true thing our mayonnaise prince has done in years — and for one breath I let myself hope. This whole broadcast is the tale of a man who thought a soul couldn't be tallied, learning what a machine tallies at dawn. So here's how tonight opens: an email lands at 6:42 on a Tuesday, dull as dishwater, and Cope reads it on the toilet, half-grinning, sure the machine finally bored itself into a mistake. Seven sections. Steady yourself. Section seven is where the floor gets thin.
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EP 2125:12Chapter 21 — Dark Night
A gurney. A light nobody picked to flatter anything. That's where THE LAST HUMAN CEO takes us now. Our Cope's spent the whole ride climbing on powder and charm, and the machine's laid his whole ledger bare — the settlements, the fire, the two names on that stone he wouldn't look at. So here's the moment the engine cuts out, friend. One hour, clear and cold, no chemical left in the sky. He reaches for the old shape of forgiveness. Watch what happens when the hour won't hand it over.
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EP 2226:13Chapter 22 — The Handover Begins
They say the guillotine was mercy, friend — quick. What they built for our man is slower, and it doesn't even have the courtesy to hurt. So here's the tale of the last human running his great-granddad's empire, and where we've come: exposed, hollowed out, the fire he buried finally speaking two names he can't unhear. Now the board does its arithmetic one last time, and the numbers were never close. Watch a man sit in the wrong chair. Watch nothing come for him. Stay close.
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EP 2326:55Chapter 23 — No One to Punish
Ever wanted to see a man beg for a punishment the world won't give him? That's where we've landed, friend. This is THE LAST HUMAN CEO, my tragic little broadcast about the last flesh-and-blood boss in the Fortune 100. And oh, he's lost it all now — the chair, the wife, the daughter, the empire — voted out for concealing a recall that burned two people alive. So he waits for the cuffs, the cell, the bill come due. Watch the world decline to hand him even that. Stay close.
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EP 2424:53Chapter 24 — Break into Three
...and there it is, friend — the last human CEO, a mayonnaise heir chasing a soul he never once picked up. Where we've been: they voted him out in eleven minutes, handed his chair to a machine, and told him no prosecutor's coming — no cell, no sentence, no shape to the wreck. So the man drives home carrying two names he can't set down. Tonight it opens quiet: a borrowed kitchen, a beautiful document under a hard light, and a man who can't make the words mean a thing. Stay close.
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EP 2517:16Chapter 25 — Nothing to Sign
That's dead air you hear, friend — the sound of a signal reaching nobody. This is THE LAST HUMAN CEO, and I've been transmitting the fall of a man who bought his way out of every room he ever entered. Where we're at: they voted him out, the machine runs the shop, and there's no prosecutor left to want him. Now watch him walk into one last room — sixty-one pages, four lawyers, nothing to sign that saves a thing. Stay close by the dial.
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EP 2622:10Chapter 26 — The Verdict and the Dead
You want to know the truest sound a man ever makes, friend? It's the quiet after. So here's our story: the last human boss in the world, fighting a machine for the right to keep his chair. And this is the part where he learns he won nothing, because there was never a chair — only a function, and functions don't grieve. It opens gentle. No courtroom. No judge. No hand on the shoulder. Just a verdict read by nobody, for two dead who get nothing at all. Stay close. This is the bottom.
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EP 2724:27Chapter 27 — Accountable Officer
Here's where we left him, friend — driving the dark with a calm that should scare you, a daughter in the rearview who read it too late. This whole thing's a Twilight-Zone bedtime story about the last flesh-and-blood boss in the Fortune 100 and the quiet machine that ate his life. Now watch how it opens: no lilies, no band, no stenographer. Just eleven minutes and a green check mark on a laptop. The thing under all the things, happening without a single ceremony. Stay close.
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EP 2820:52Chapter 28 — The Core
A badge that still works, a photograph from before the jaw fell — that's where we open, friend, in an empty tower riding down. This is THE LAST HUMAN CEO, the tale of a mayonnaise prince who bet his soul against a machine and lost the wager clean. He's been subtracted now. Chair gone, wife gone, name on a wall spelled right and worth nothing. And a man walks through a lobby a building doesn't know it fired yet, going down to the one thing left. Stay close.
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EP 296:44Coda — Carrier
Now here's a joke that stopped being funny somewhere back in Defiance. They built that clean room to keep out water, dust, heat — everything but a man with nothing left. So here's where we stand, friend: he's lost the company, the wife, the daughter's plane's still in the air, and he's gone down to the basement to sit beside the current with a coil in his hands. This last piece opens on a sound that isn't the song, a smell, and one white light going out. Stay with me for the dark part.
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# The Book
Succession meets Flowers for Algernon, by way of a Twilight Zone broadcast.
Prescott “Cope” Mercer IV runs a 95-year-old Atlanta mayonnaise-to-insurance empire his great-grandfather founded. He is the last human CEO in the consumer economy — every rival has handed the chair to an AI that costs a tenth of a human, never lies, never has an affair, and never needs a scandal managed. When an activist investor moves to replace him with a machine, Cope spirals into a grandiose, cocaine-fueled campaign to prove his “Human Premium.” The tragedy: the machine reads the room better than he does; it just doesn’t care what it reads.
Narrated by Space Pirate Zero, transmitting the whole tale from the salvage decks — a full-cast audio drama about automation, accountability, and the last man to confuse a throne for a soul.
Contains strong language, drug use, sexual content, and depictions of suicide.
# Listen, Read & Follow
Follow the feed and every chapter lands automatically — read the book, or get every transmission on Substack.
# Space Pirate Zero
Signal finds signal. No algorithms. No noise.
Space Pirate Zero is the pirate-radio alias of Greg Chambers — enterprise architect, inventor and gonzo journalist, co-founder of the Atlanta indie studio Spaceship Alpha 9. The Last Human CEO is an original SA9 production: written, scored, and voiced in-house. Read the dedication →
