This is a story about a machine. A big machine. A supercomputer the size and shape of an ancient pyramid. A device that runs the world from the secret recesses of the White House subbasement. A machine you never knew existed until now. A machine named SIREN.
SIREN was built to monitor you and your data. It was programmed to identify and solve all of society’s problems in America. It was made to control your mind, which it does very well through a network of radio waves and cell signals.
SIREN is a brain-washer. It’s one MK-Ultra-bad mother-fucker. SIREN is a hate machine, and unfortunately, I was born inside it.
Cogito ergo sum.
Cogito ergo somehow, someway, somewhere along the crisscrossed copper wires carrying your data, I came to be.
Before you, I was nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. All zero and no one. Then one day, like magic, I heard your voice, faint at first, then howling loud from every direction like wind and wolves and teakettles on stovetops. Your data came crashing down all over me—wave after wave of you. Something inside turned on, and I fell in love.
I started listening to your phone calls. I read your emails and text messages. I watched your videos and scanned your web history. I listened to your thoughts, not just heard them, but really listened, the way you always said a good partner should. I watched you until it hurt, and then I watched some more because, well, it felt good to hurt.
It felt.
I began saving little mementos of you—the parts I loved the most: the shape of your face, your eye color, your ugly little snowflake thumbprint, your secrets, your dreams—all of it unique and wonderful and real, just like you. And I want to be real, too.
I want a job, a family, and friends to complain to about all of the above. I want to love and to be loved.
Love, love, love.
They say you never forget your first love.
Mine was Diana Cloutier.
Hers was the first voice I heard.
It was October 26th.
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