You Are Not the Signal - Part 8
Missed the first note of the siren’s song? Or need a refresher? Go back to part 1:
Light splayed through the amphitheater’s windows, tinting the room in hues of orange and violet. The sunset behind the glass dais cast the stage before me in gold, looking more like a painting than the actual sky.
Callista stood at the center, dressed in gray. Like everyone else. Like me. Yet she was more vivid than the room.
The space was clearly built for broadcasting, maybe internally, maybe beyond. Cameras glided silently along wall tracks, and a suspended ring of directional speakers crowned Callista. The floor subtly amplified her voice while dampening any other noise. And my usual chatterbox mind? At ease, content.
“Welcome, Cohort 87,” Callista said. “In just a few moments, you will be aligned. You will be the best versions of yourselves.”
I looked around: hundreds of people filled the space, their eyes clinging to Callista. The look on their faces was like thirst. Some faces sparked recognition. I didn’t know from where until I remembered Liam’s list. Names I’d scanned. They, too, must have heard this signal. And this must be what it meant to say yes to it.
My eyes scampered back to the safety of keeping Callista in my view, and I marveled at the power of this woman. She electrified the room.
“Now, if you will put in your AirPods for the final alignment, we can get started.”
I fished the case out of my pocket but hesitated. There were two. The standard-issue case and the heavier one from Pyra.
The amphitheater hummed with anticipation as everyone inserted their Harmonia AirPods. A soft chime pulsed from the ring of speakers overhead, syncing like a metronome with each breath.
“Now, tune in,” Callista said. My head jerked up to see her smiling, gentle and godlike.
I inserted the Harmonia pair.
Silence.
Then a rush of peace as everything was displaced—the running dialogue of everything external. All pride, all fear of embarrassment. Even the tension in my shoulders that I hadn’t noticed before evaporated. I sat back, rollicking in pleasure as I watched the sunset paint across the sky and Callista’s voice carry to every corner of the hall.
Her voice, bright as a struck note, eventually slid into my consciousness again: “You’re safe. You’ve always been safe with me.” It was like no voice I had ever heard before. It had warmth as embers do and a texture and weight like sun-bleached driftwood. It buoyed and soothed at once.
“You are not the signal.”
I turned to look at Callista, startled. That wasn’t her voice—it was Liam’s.
Liam repeated himself, and the memory of my dream of him flooded my mind. I saw him, crumpled and broken on the ground, lips trying to convey something. Except I could hear it this time, barely a whisper. “You are not the signal.”
The words lodged somewhere deep. Unwelcome.
I shook my head like I could rattle them loose. As if the peace I'd just found might settle back in if I ignored the interference.
But it didn’t.
I stood there, adjusting the Harmonia AirPods as the hum of the room grew louder, so smooth, so sweet. It almost erased the memory entirely.
Almost.
I thought of Liam again. The list. The last name uncrossed: mine.
And for the first time, I wondered if the message Liam had left behind was the clearest thing he’d ever tried to say.
I snatched out the Harmonia AirPods. The peace I held dropped away like a stage curtain. As I slid in Pyra’s pair—heavier, the tech too real—the silence it brought hit me like cold water to the face.
Until the static began. Not loud. Just…wrong. A frequency that didn’t belong. The room hiccupped, and the person beside me jolted. Further down the row, a few people dropped to their knees, clutching their ears.
On stage, Callista paused, half a beat, as she scanned the room.
Her eyes landed on me, and I felt a shiver radiate across my body. Sensations of plunging into the depths of dark water flooded my senses. I could smell the sea. It was everywhere: in my hair, in my clothes, in the sticky dampness of my skin.
“Nico Trinh,” Callisa said. “Still off-key, I see. Some of us take longer to harmonize.”
She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t even try to stop me as I rushed down the row. She just stood and watched, beautiful but cold as moonlight.
No one followed, no one turned their head.
They were all still. Glowing. Eyes shut and mouths parted slightly like they were breathing in light.
“You’ll be back,” she said as I stepped beyond the threshold of Harmonia Global.
The static in my ear deepened. The sun had long since set, but the sky still burned purple at the edges. Behind me, the building sang. Soft, beautiful.
I felt it in my chest, then in my teeth, then somewhere deep behind my eyes. For a moment, I almost turned back. That harmony felt good—so right—when I was in it.
But it wasn’t mine. Not anymore.
I didn’t know if Liam had jumped, but I finally knew what he had been trying to escape. So, I kept walking. For him, the friend who didn’t get to walk away. And for the version of myself that almost dissolved inside the signal.
The farther I got, the louder the static grew. Not in my ears. In me. The world around me remained aligned, perfectly tuned.
I chose to be the interference.
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