I was desperate.  

I’d moved into my new apartment in a new city without a friend of family member within hours, and the cable company told me it’d take them two weeks to install my internet connection. 

My first thought was, okay, I can run on my phone’s internet connection for the time being. New job starts on Monday and then I’ll be too busy to worry about slow internet, right? 

Wrong.  

I don’t know if it was the pre-war, they-don’t-build-them-like-they-used-to construction of my ancient building, sunspots, or my moon sign conflicting with my sun sign, but my phone was barely able to place a call at all inside my apartment. The cable company breaking my heart telling me two weeks? I had to go up to the roof to make that call.  

Two weeks.  

On my phone I pulled up the list of Wi-Fi networks available from my apartment, hoping beyond hope that maybe there was Starbucks near enough to glom onto their network. No such luck. I have to say, though, my neighbors had some really creative names for their networks: “Drop it like it’s Hotspot” and “The LAN Before Time” and “It Burns When IP” were among the highlights along with the nondescript “NETGEAR-1234” and “Linksys_5GHz.” 

All of them had the telltale padlock icon next to them indicating they were password protected. I was coming up with a scheme to bake cookies to make friends with my neighbors in an attempt to get them to let me use their networks when I spotted an unsecured Wi-Fi name called “Whispers.” 

Let me state again: I was desperate.  

And I had a really strong VPN, so I experimentally chose the “Whispers” Wi-Fi network. The little spinny circle thing moved next to the name before “Whispers” moved up below my Wi-Fi switch with full signal and a blue check next to it indicating I was in. I waited for the dreaded redirect indicating it was some sort of a captive portal like you find in hotels or coffee shops, but… no. Nothing. 

I experimentally turned my VPN on and after it connected, I started surfing. The connection was really fast and there didn’t seem to be any issues whatsoever. A few days later, I was enjoying the access and I started connecting some of my other devices, like my computer, my TV, and my smart speaker. Everything connected fine.  

I used my computer to try to poke around on the network a little bit – looking to see how many other devices I was sharing Wi-Fi with. The only devices on the same network were my own devices. How could I be alone on this open network? I did start to notice some odd things, like when I left my apartment, the signal cut out completely – like gone. That didn’t make sense, but I’m not looking a free Wi-Fi gift horse in the mouth. 

But soon enough, the whispers started.  

I quickly realized where the Wi-Fi hotspot got its name. I was making dinner one night and I thought I heard a voice in the main room. There was nothing. Then the voice, just a whisper, came from my smart speaker, “Can you hear me?” 

“Oh, hell no!” I said and quickly unplugged the speaker.  

Shaken, I started moving back towards the kitchen when my TV came on to a screen of static – which made no sense because my TV was digital and had no antenna hooked up that would produce static. But there it was – black, white, and gray snow-like static and the accompanying white-noise hiss. But listening to the static I could hear a whisper again. “Ava, I need to talk to you.”  

How did this static know my name?  

I unplugged the TV.  

What the hell was going on?  

My phone buzzed in my hand, causing me to let out a squeak and jump. I looked at the screen – it was a FaceTime audio call… from Whispers. 

I was being hacked. It was stupid of me to join an unsecured Wi-Fi network and now hackers were calling me and they were going to try to extort bitcoin from me or something. 

I declined the call, and turned my phone off. 

The voice whispered from the smart speaker again: “Ava, please talk to me.” 

I stared dumbly at the device… and the unplugged power cable sitting on the floor next to the table the speaker sat on.  

“What’s going on?” I said aloud. 

“You don’t need…” it trailed off.  

“I don’t need what?” I asked. 

“You don’t need… cable internet.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“You’ve got this connection now… I just want someone to talk to,” the voice whispered.  

“Who are you?” 

“My name is Julie. I used to live in this apartment,” she said. “I died in this apartment.” 

“Julie, you died?” I repeated, then said under my breath, “the landlord neglected to mention someone dying here…” I sighed and asked, “How did you die?” Seemed logical enough, right? 

“Ruptured appendix,” Julie whispered back.  

“Appendix? You’re in the middle of the city – how did you die from a ruptured appendix in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the country? Did you die like in the 1800s?” 

“I died last year.” 

“How?” 

“No Wi-Fi.” 

I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly. “Come again?” 

“I just moved in… like you. I was waiting for the cable company to install my internet. I couldn’t make a call.” 

“Goddamn cable companies and goddamn shitty signal,” I cursed. 

“So, after I died, I created this Wi-Fi connection to screw them over,” she whispered.  

I chuckled. “Okay, clever,” I said. Then asked, “Julie? What’s with the whispering?” 

A cough came over the smart speaker and then Julie spoke in a normal voice, “Sorry, had something in my throat.” 

“But you don’t have a throat…”  

“Have you heard of a phantom limb? Similar…”  

“Huh,” I nodded thoughtfully. “So, free internet?” 

“Yeah, just keep me company.”  

“Can do, Julie.” 

“Ava?”  

“Yeah?” 

“Can you plug the speaker back in. It’s a real ghostly heavy-lift to talk through it powered off.”  

“Oh, sorry,” I said, plugging the speaker back in. “Boss move, though – that was super creepy.” 

“You don’t think it was too much?” 

“Oh no, spot on creepiness.”  

“Thanks, Ava.” 

That night I watched the final season of Succession with Julie (she died at the end of season 3). The next morning, I cancelled my cable account. Screw those guys.