The Empire of Change Audiobook By Wolfgang Ausserbauer, Fabienne DocWolf cover art

The Empire of Change

Coming of Age

 Virtual Voice Sample

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This title uses virtual voice narration

Virtual voice is computer-generated narration for audiobooks.
The Senate building slept under the pale wash of dawn, its marble columns catching the first thin light of morning. Inside, the corridors were empty except for the low murmur of ventilation and the distant clatter of a janitor’s cart. The building always felt older at this hour—its History closer to the surface, its secrets less inclined to hide.
In a forgotten service corridor beneath the north wing, a single security camera blinked to life. It wasn’t supposed to. The feed had been dormant for years, its wiring rerouted during a renovation that never reached completion. But at 04:17, the lens adjusted, focused, and captured a figure moving through the shadows.
The person walked with deliberate calm, neither hurried nor hesitant. A hood concealed most of the face, but the posture was unmistakably controlled—shoulders relaxed, steps measured, weight distributed with the unconscious precision of someone trained to avoid attention. The figure paused at a sealed maintenance door, placed a hand against the keypad, and waited.
The lock disengaged without a sound.
Inside the chamber, dust lay thick on the floor, undisturbed for decades. The figure crossed the room, knelt, and set down a small rectangular case. Not a bomb. Not a weapon. Something quieter. Something meant to be found.
A gloved hand brushed the dust aside, creating a clean outline around the case. Then the figure stood, lifted the case again, and slipped back into the corridor, leaving only the absence of dust as evidence.
The camera blinked once more, then died.
Aboveground, the city was waking. Staffers would soon arrive, tourists would gather at the steps, and senators would move through their routines with practiced certainty. None of them would know that the building had been breached. None of them would know that a message had been left in the dark.
Across the river, in a quiet apartment in Arlington, a woman sat at her kitchen table, staring at her phone. Lian Chen had not slept. She had spent the night refreshing news feeds from her home country, searching for updates on her brother. There were none. His last message to her—sent three days earlier—had been brief, almost cryptic.
They will use me to reach you. Be careful.
She read it again, her fingers trembling slightly. She didn’t know what he meant. She didn’t know who “they” were. But she felt the pressure tightening around her life, subtle at first, now unmistakable.
A knock sounded at her door.
She froze.
Another knock. Firmer.
She rose slowly, crossed the room, and opened the door.
A man in a dark suit stood in the hallway, his expression polite but unreadable. “Ms. Chen? I’m with the Senate Preservation Office. We need you at the building earlier than planned today. There’s been… an irregularity.”
Her pulse quickened. “What kind of irregularity?”
“We’ll brief you on-site.”
He stepped aside, allowing her to pass. She hesitated only a moment before locking the door behind her.
As they walked toward the elevator, she felt the first faint tremor of dread. Something had shifted. Something had begun.
And somewhere beneath the Senate building, in a sealed chamber no one was supposed to enter, a trail had been laid with deliberate care—one that would soon draw the attention of a man she had never met.
A man flew in overnight from California.
A man the Pentagon trusted with quiet crises.
A man who could read a room the way others read a map.
John McPhedran.
The message had been left for him.
And the moment he arrived, the hunt would begin.
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