Chapter 8. A Voice in the Static

Ernar went into the yard without his phone. He had left it in the bedroom, wrapped in shielding fabric from his work kit.

Malika, Daniyar, and about twenty others stood outside the gate. Some held their devices out in front of them like compasses.

“What do you want?” Ernar asked.

“Internet,” several voices answered at once.

Malika showed him her screen. A system notification was displayed there:

USER ERNAR_S IS BACK ONLINE.

“I’m not registered under that name.”

“Everybody got it,” Daniyar said.

People nodded. The same line glowed on all their screens.

“It’s a local broadcast. Fake notifications.”

“But you sent a message,” Malika said.

“To who?”

“Doesn’t matter. We saw the outgoing packet.”

Ernar caught the word packet. Malika knew next to nothing about networks. Either someone had fed her the term—or her device was showing her more than it should.

“My work module sometimes catches a backup channel,” he lied. “It’s closed and diagnostic-only.”

Malika gave him an irritated look.

“Then hotspot it. Why are notifications coming through if the internet doesn’t work? This is getting insulting.”

“I can’t.”

“Why do you get it and we don’t?”

“Because I’m using it to try to restore service for everybody.”

“Convenient,” Daniyar mocked. “We’re losing our minds out here while you’re texting your girlfriend.”

Ernar understood. They knew who the message had gone to.

“Where did you get that?”

Daniyar held up his phone. White letters glowed on the black screen:

HE TOLD HER NOT TO COME.

The crowd stirred.

“Who’s ‘her’?”

“So there is a connection!”

“Make him call the doctors!”

“My mother’s running out of insulin!”

“I need to confirm a loan!”

“My kid can’t log in to his school profile!”

The demands piled on top of one another until they became one many-voiced roar. Insulin. Loan. School profile. A call to family. Ernar raised a hand, but nobody quieted down.

“Give me until morning,” he said.

“Why morning?” someone asked.

“Because nobody goes out there at night.”

He had not meant to say that. The words slipped out on their own.

For one second, the yard went silent.

Malika narrowed her eyes.

“What happens at night? Does the signal come back?!”

Kulzhan-apa came out of the house and stopped by the gate.

“It’s best not to go near the tower after sunset,” she said.

A few people snickered.

“Apa, we’re not kids.”

“Kids at least know when it’s time to be afraid.”

Daniyar looked toward the tower.

Even from here, they could see two teenagers already climbing the steel frame.

“So what happens after sunset?”

Kulzhan-apa said nothing.

Then Daniyar’s phone came alive.

At almost the same moment, several dim lights blinked on at the tower. One by one, status indicators lit across the equipment.

Ernar looked up.

The tower seemed to wake.

Daniyar’s screen flooded with light and game music burst from the speaker. A holographic team emblem appeared above the device. Daniyar shouted with joy.

“Yes! Internet’s back!”

Everyone rushed toward him.

Ernar grabbed the guy by the shoulder.

“Turn it off.”

“Get off me!”

A match was playing on the screen. Daniyar’s teammates yelled through the voice channel, calling him by his handle. He laughed and cried at the same time, frantically hammering the virtual controls.

“That isn’t the network,” Ernar said. “This game’s servers were shut down five years ago.”

Daniyar was no longer listening.

One phone after another lit up. People received messages, calls, transfers, likes. Dozens of faces glowed from below in screen light. Almost blissful smiles spread across them.

Malika went live.

“We’re back online,” she whispered. “I knew you were waiting for me.”