You Are Not the Signal - Part 6
Missed the first note of the siren’s song? Or need a refresher? Go back to Episode 1:
Pyra flicked through more data on the tablet, showing me a second and third recording with a different mess of peaks and dips.
“Look. I ran the file multiple times and got a different spectrum each time. That’s not compression, it’s modulation. The file is alive. It’s like it’s listening back or something.”
I blinked. “So it changes. Big deal. What does that actually mean for me?”
She rubbed her temples, then looked at me. “To use your example, this isn’t data just flying past you like radio waves. Imagine someone is whispering something to you while you sleep. Over and over. Except it’s not words, it’s pressure. Frequency pressure. Like your brain’s being nudged to hum at a different pitch.”
I stared at the waveform. “So, it’s aligning me.”
“Exactly.” She hesitated, lowering the tablet slightly. “And here’s the thing. The more you listen? The more you want to.”
The words hung in the air between us, heavy as static.
Then Callista’s voice arced through me like a current. “You didn’t quit because of me, Nico,” she had said during the interview, soft as silk. “You quit because something in you was finally loud enough to hear.”
I glanced at Pyra. She was staring at me like she already knew what I was about to say.
“I don’t think she’s doing anything sinister,” I said carefully. “I’ve spent my life reading people, observing them, capturing a sense of who they are in words. If she were manipulating me, I’d see it. She’s not coercing anything. If anything, she just helps people recognize what they already need.”
“Jesus,” Pyra muttered, almost under her breath.
I wanted to laugh, tell Pyra she was being dramatic. But something in her face stopped me. It wasn’t fear; it was conviction.
"I get it, Py. I do. But you're wrong about her. She revealed what I was always ignoring, what felt right instead. It felt…liberating.”
“Liberating?” she repeated, the word scraping out of her throat. “That’s exactly how it’s supposed to feel.”
Her voice rose as she turned fully toward me. “You’ve been defending them since you traipsed through the door. Like Harmonia is just some ambitious startup. Like they didn’t eat my business alive.”
“I’m just saying—”
“You’re not saying. That’s the problem. You’re repeating.”
I flinched.
“You don’t even hear yourself, do you”? she asked, laughing—but it wasn’t joy. “Your voice has changed. You’re not even acting like yourself.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine!” she yelled, flinging her hand toward the tablet. “You’ve been listening to something designed to rewrite you. You think I can’t tell?”
She turned away and rummaged through a drawer, hands shaking.
Not that I had anything to yell back. I never learned how to. In my house, silence was the only weapon we had been allowed to use.
“I know it’s not your fault,” she said quietly. “I do. I just—”
She paused and swallowed something down. "I miss…I don't know. Whatever this was." Her back stayed to me as she pulled a matte black case from a tray of resistors. She held the case out to the side without turning around.
“Take these.”
I approached her slowly. “What is it?”
“Modified AirPods. I did some digging into the company’s tech, and all their employees wear these stupid little things. But I rigged this pair with a frequency disruptor, so they’ll scramble whatever signal Harmonia pushes. At the very least, it’ll give you enough time to pull yourself out.”
“Out of what?”
She turned to face me. Her expression had settled into something colder now, more resolved. “Whatever hole they’re digging for you.”
I stared at the case. Heavy. Wrong. “You really think it’s that deep?”
“I think you’re already in deeper than you know.” She closed my fingers around them. “Wear them. Please. It’s the last thing I’ll ever solder in this place.”
I swallowed, the guilt settling like grit behind my teeth. “I am sorry about your shop, Py.”
She nodded once. Tight. “Just promise me that if you won’t stay away from Harmonia, at least don’t go in unarmed.”
Then she turned her back again. “Now, get out of here. I’ve got packing to do.”
I left, case in hand. But it felt like a betrayal. Of her. Of myself. Of the strange clarity I’d felt in Callista’s presence.
Most importantly, when I had told her before I left the interview: “I want to join.”
That night, I went to Liam’s old apartment. I was on the balcony, barefoot, the concrete warm beneath me, though I couldn’t feel the sun. The city stretched out in silence, all lights and no sound. Below, Liam’s body sprawled across the sidewalk, his skull cracked open like an egg. Blood pooled dark and slow, spreading like spilled wine on white linen.
I gasped. But not because he was dead.
Because his head moved.
His mouth twitched. Opened. Began to form words, but no sound came out. Just the silent shape of something he needed to say.
I wanted him to stop. I needed him to die. Fully. Watching him hold on, watching him try, was like surfacing for air only to find the sky just out of reach.
Then I felt something press against my back. A shove. Heavy, inevitable. I stumbled forward and went over the rail. My scream didn’t come from my mouth so much as it came from everywhere. As I fell, I clapped my hands over my ears, but the sound couldn’t be escaped, the terror unavoidable.
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No RSVP. No instructions. Just your name embossed in silence. When the signal wants you, you don’t have to say yes. You just have to open the envelope.
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