Page 108 of White Noise

I’ve moved through enough current to know what electricity feels like in every crude form humans have forced it into.

This isn’t that, I can still feel her.

I look toward the monitor.

It’s dark and the camera is off.

I turn toward the other electronics in the room and pull myself farther away from each connection instead of reaching for them.

Saga remains exactly where she was inside the noise, so my attention returns to her.

I move toward the doorway.

Still there.

Another step and the signal shifts around me, but the pattern underneath it doesn’t.

I know which part is hers.

What the fuck. That shouldn't be possible.

Every time I touched her, she changed.

Every time she reacted to me, something passed in both directions.

I was so focused on teaching her nervous system to recognize my frequency that I never considered what all that contact might be teaching me in return.

I know Saga angry. I know her terrified.

I know Saga turned on enough to forget what stupid little insult she was about to throw at me. And now I know her asleep.

Underneath all of those versions, the same electrical rhythm remains.

The same fucking pattern.

Her.

A laugh works its way out of me before I can stop it.

For once, I hope she fucking succeeds tomorrow. I want her out of this condo.

I want her surrounded by strangers, traffic, buildings, miles of wiring and millions of competing signals. Let her make the experiment as difficult as she wants.

Let her strip away every familiar device and remove every rule she thinks she understands.

Maybe then I’ll know whether what I’m fucking feeling right now is real.

Static begins gathering across my arms as I let the body loosen.

I could stay longer. That matters too, though not nearly as much as the sleeping woman behind me who remains distinct even as I stop looking at her.

I turn back once.

Saga hasn’t moved. She has no idea what she gave me tonight.

That makes two of us.

For now.