Page 13 of White Noise

That’s it.

Tomorrow, I’ll fix it.

2

SILAS

THE SIGNAL FINDS HER

People are fucking stupid about technology.

They cram their whole lives into a phone, then slap a password on the screen and convince themselves they’re protected.

That part is almost fucking embarrassing.

They need everything to have rules because rules make them feel less helpless. A voice should come from a mouth. A face should belong to a camera. A message should have some idiot sitting behind it typing with both thumbs. If a speaker turns on, there must be a phone connected somewhere. If a screen lights up, there has to be an explanation they can understand.

They cling to that because the second those rules stop working, they realize how little control they actually have.

I like that moment.

I don’t live inside Saga’s phone, computer, television, or cameras. Those are just convenient. Humans filled their homes with microphones, lenses, speakers, routers, sensors, and connected devices, then somehow still had the fucking nerve to call any part of their lives private.

Break one if it makes you feel better.

Smash the phone. Rip the camera down. Throw the laptop across the room.

All you’ve done is make a mess.

I exist in the signal itself. Bad connections. Corrupted audio. Dead channels. Delayed video. Current moving through old wiring. Cameras that keep recording after someone thinks they shut them off. Static showing up where there shouldn’t be any.

I’ve been around longer than most of the systems people now lose their fucking minds without.

And before anyone starts looking for some pathetic reason behind me, there isn’t one.

I wasn’t a man once. I didn’t die horribly. Nobody cursed me. Nobody broke my heart and turned me into a monster.

Humans love that kind of shit because they’re weak enough to think pain explains everything. Give the monster a dead mother, a bad childhood, some tragic fucking excuse, and suddenly they can nod along and pretend they understand him.

They don’t understand shit.

For a long time, there wasn’t much worth watching. Radio gave me voices. Television gave me faces. Security cameras gave me people when they thought nobody was around.

Then computers came along.

Phones made it even better.

People started handing over every private piece of themselves without anyone having to force them. Bank accounts. Messages. Photos. Affairs. Family fights. Lies. Fetishes. Things they’d rather fucking die than admit out loud.

Then they act shocked when any of it gets found.

Stupid fucking animals.

I’ve watched men jerk off in locked rooms while their wives sleep down the hall. Couples tear each other apart on video calls and post smiling pictures the next morning. People lie straight into cameras and think keeping their face still makes them convincing.

I’ve seen robberies, overdoses, nudes, fights, murders, and enough pathetic little secrets to know most people aren’t worth remembering.

Saga was.