Invisible Networks #24: Mutually Entangled Transceivers

It was twenty years ago when a science outpost on the edge of the colonized universe went dark. The only hint that something had gone wrong were the transceiver implants that most married couples get so they can always be in communication. Suddenly the spouses of those who were assigned to the outpost heard nothing but an overwhelming static through their connection. No more voices of their loved ones.

After investigation drones failed to report back that they successfully warped into the immediate vicinity of the the outpost, theoretical physicists settled on the conclusion that one of the experiments there triggered vacuum decay. A zone of altered quantum field parameters expanding at the speed of light, supposedly obliterating everything it touches. While no one knows how to stop it, it will be a few million years before the vacuum wall reaches the nearest colony. In light of this, most everyone went back to their normal lives, knowing that this is a problem that is far outside of their concern. The freshly-widowed people had their implants removed shortly after, most were being driven mad and suicidal by the unending drone of chaotic noise where once they could feel the thoughts and emotions of those most important to them.

I didn't have mine removed. I lied to the doctors that my transceiver implant simply went silent, and that while it troubled me briefly it wasn't a problem in the long term. After faking my mourning for the first few years I simply maintained an act of being too emotionally scarred to remarry or explore new relationships. Now in my free time I turn off most of the devices in my room and commune with the static. Listening to it. Feeling it. Drinking it in. Becoming it on a spiritual level. Even on a physical level My déjà vu has evolved into weak precognition. Sustenance has become optional for me. The static feeds me in a way that has removed my need for sleep. I once stepped outside of an airlock without a suit while no one was looking, laughing into the emptiness of space as it failed to cause even mild discomfort. My skin doesn't decay, my telomeres don't shorten, and even the harmless cysts in my body have faded.

All of this taught to me by my husband, whose voice I can still faintly hear through the static of what the universe will eventually become.