Are Friends Electric?
The air in Ion hummed with the low-frequency thrum of aging fusion cores. Neon bled across wet streets, flickering in rhythm. Beneath it all, a heartbeat the city barely remembered.
That night, the Recharging Ceremony stretched longer than usual. The CryptoPlugz in rows, sockets locked.
CryptoPlug #7 shivered in delight beneath the midnight sky, its tiny circuits humming softly as it powered the neon sign “Smith & Co. Repairs.” The flickering glow stretched faint beams of electric blue in the damp. Across the street, perched precariously on the edge of a terraced house roof, #88 worked in steady silence, channeling bursts of energy into a weather sensor, a delicate structure of glass and metal that tracked shifts in wind and whispering rain clouds. The sensor pulsed softly in response, alive and alert under the watchful care of the plug. #88 had traveled all the way from Abyssmire, a city far beyond the horizon where whales drift through currents of cyan, octopuses ink constellations in the water, and bubble-shaped subways carry citizens along the streets. The wisdom she’d gathered from listening to the whales’ ancient songs had secured her this job, giving her charge over the little device that warned of approaching storms.
Each CryptoPlug was bound to their object, their existence defined by the flow of energy they maintained. The Recharging Ceremony was their training to sync their pulses to the rhythm of the Grid, because anything outside that regulated flow risked a surge that could overload the system and short-circuit them in an instant.
CryptoPlug #175 lived in Brixham, one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the city of Ion. She powered a kitchen radio, a sturdy little box with worn buttons and a faded sticker that once said “Good Vibes Only.” Kids had peeled half of it off years ago. Every morning at 6.45am the woman tapped her fingers to the rhythm of jazz music while sipping her coffee. Dogs barking in the alleys, brass clanking. From her socket, as she did every day, #175 gazed out the kitchen window. Mornings in Brixham were cold and metallic, with cyan and acid-green slicing through mist and steam. Brick factories framed the grey sky and iron bridges arched over a maze of pipes. The metallic soundscape blended into the background of the radio’s broadcast.
But that night, things took an unexpected turn.
CryptoPlug #175 felt a dull ache in her socket. She slipped slightly out of it, her chest still warm from the regulated charge. The Inspectors wouldn’t patrol her workstation for another few hours, giving her time to rest from the training and stretch in ways she normally couldn’t. But suddenly, the radio wavered in short, uneven bursts. The speaker released a thin, crackling hum - steady at first, then stuttering as though tapping out a pattern. With each buzz, tiny arcs of light leapt from the radio, coalescing into faint, shimmering shapes above the countertop: a swirl of lines, a floating map of alleys, glowing points that pulsed like distant stars.
#175 froze. She realized that even her slight movement had destabilized it. Panic shot through her circuits. She pushed back into the socket, and the flickering holograms stopped.
But the ache in her socket never fully went away. Night after night, the pull of curiosity and relief from the pain made her inch a little further out. And one night she lingered longer.
She loved watching the radio’s crackling vibrations scatter arcs of light that danced above her, forming shapes in the air, almost like a secret language. It made her pulse skip in a way she couldn’t control. It felt good. When the radio’s light flickered, she responded with a soft, electric hum of her own, sending tiny pulses through the air. The vibrations danced in rhythm with the stuttering buzz of the radio, weaving a private melody of crackles and glimmers that only she could sense.
For a moment, the two of them, radio and Plug, seemed to flow together. It made her warm and light inside. No heaviness, no pain. It was almost like someone was gently tickling her circuits. Under that dance of light, she felt, just for a heartbeat, understood. She felt connection.
So every night #175 slipped slightly out of her socket to look for this secret dialogue, a language only she and the radio shared.
But then fear always gripped her, freezing her in place. What if the Inspectors saw her pulsing off rhythm? What if I short circuit and fade away?
Anyone whose pulse flared too bright, too fast, too slow, or too uneven risked endangering themselves and all the other Plugz - or at least this is what she had been told. This is what the Grid was there for. So #175 took a deep breath, and for the rest of the day tried her best to match the steady beat of the Grid.
That same evening, after the whole household had settled, CryptoPlug #175 peered from her socket at the dimly lit streets. The shadows of the alleys stretched long across the cobblestones, and the drip of water from the pipes echoed like distant footsteps. Then, suddenly, a figure sprang from the alley, sparks of orange and yellow crackling along its limbs.
It landed just within the line of sight of the kitchen window, the air around it humming with energy. #175’s circuits stuttered, a jolt of alarm running through her. “By the currents… a Misfit!” she whispered, frozen, every pulse of her regulated charge quickening as the intruder’s presence hung in the night like a live wire.
Blocky Misfits were the ones everyone was warned about: unstable, dangerous. No one wanted to get too close.
“You feel it, don’t you?” - #1’s voice rumbled, low and slow like a distant storm.
#175 stuttered. “I… I don’t know what you mean.”
For a moment, his energy gently dimmed.
“You’re scared of it. Everyone is at first,” #1 said, head tilted as he examined her expression. Then he added, “You don’t have to understand it. Just trust it.”
#175’s circuits thrummed nervously. Something about the way he existed without an assigned object made her pulse leap in ways she hadn’t expected.
The next morning, like every morning, Ion woke up in perfect rhythm. Or at least that’s how it had been since the Grid took charge.
The Grid promised safety, efficiency, and order to all Plugz: no more blackouts, no more short circuits, no sparks snapping in the air, no more lost signals. It had built towers, anchored sockets to every Plug, and installed regulators that hummed along the streets, sending pulses to keep every heartbeat in perfect rhythm. Streets were lit night and day by the ceaseless blink of holographic ads:
“Stay connected to your sockets. Keep the rhythm. In this way, you will never fade.”
Everything pulsed to the same rhythm, the perfect rhythm of the Central Grid.
And so, the Plugz obeyed. They plugged in. They worked. They recharged. They repeated. Most had forgotten what life had been like before the Grid. Only a few older CryptoPlugz remembered what lightning splitting the sky looked like, or the shimmering colors of auroras dancing above in the night. In some faraway cities, these could still sometimes be seen and felt. Plugz now needed the Grid to survive, to feel safe, to organize the energy they couldn’t otherwise control.
Decades ago, Ion had been alive in a way that went beyond the Grid. It pulsed with a raw, chaotic energy known as the Pulse, a current that ran through the city’s underground and even through the CryptoPlugz themselves.
And year after year the Pulse was slowly fading. Blocky Misfits had long tried to warn the other CryptoPlugz: “You will fade away only if you stop feeling the Pulse. You must not fear what you can’t control. You must not resist it ” But the Grid responded by tightening its grip, drowning out the currents that refused control. Layer by layer. It built towers that pierced the sky, each one humming with a rhythm that overpowered the Pulse. It replaced old conduits with wires that allowed no wandering flow. Regulators were installed on every street, drowning out the Pulse’s unevenness with their perfect beat. The Recharging Ceremony trained the Plugz to pulse along with the rhythm. Inspectors watched carefully, helping every Plug’s pulse stay steady. The signs filled the air with soft frequencies that made any Plug who lingered beneath them feel safe.
