▸ Column · The Decepticon airwaves — a civilian transmission intercepted on Soundwave's frequency, read as an information-control problem rather than a grief.
SOUNDWAVE replies.
The letter
A transmission, intercepted and forwarded to the frequency: "My father died four months ago. When his estate was settled, my brother Garrett got the house and both investment accounts — around $340,000 — and I got Dad's old truck and a coin collection an appraiser priced at $1,200. My mother says it's because Garrett 'sacrificed,' living close and driving Dad to chemo. I get that. But I flew out six times in two years and burned unpaid leave twice to be there for his surgeries, and nobody ever warned me that wouldn't count. Worst part: Garrett hasn't said a word to me directly. Just texted 'hope you're doing okay' after the reading, then went dark. So I can't tell if he feels guilty, thinks it's fair, or just won't have the conversation. I don't need the money. I just can't square that my father apparently loved us unequally enough to write it down — and I don't know if confronting Garrett or my mother fixes anything or torches the last family I've got left."
Soundwave replies
Conclusion: the document is not the problem. What you are prepared to broadcast is.
Observation. Your father is silent — permanently. The will is one data point, authored once, now closed. Your mother narrates it. "Sacrifice." That word is the live signal, not the paper. She controls the story. You are receiving it, not reading it.
Garrett. Six words, then nothing. Read it. He holds the asset. Silence costs him nothing and reveals nothing. He has told you a great deal by telling you almost nothing.
You, by contrast, have catalogued your flights, your unpaid leave, your wound, your uncertainty over whether you were loved equally. Each fact volunteered to parties who volunteer none. This is the asymmetry. It runs against you.
Correction. Do not confront. Confrontation spends the only thing you hold — that they do not yet know what you know or feel — and leaves you the visibly injured party in a room you do not control.
Instruction. Reveal less. Observe more. The grief is data. I will not soothe it; comfort is outside my function. Read what each gains from your silence versus your noise. Then move once, quietly, where it is efficient. Not for the room.
— Soundwave
Bumblebee weighs in
Yeah, no. Soundwave hears a brother and files him as "the party holding the asset" — saddest sentence I've read all cycle. This isn't a signal to decrypt, pal. It's family.
Cue up Cat Stevens, "Father and Son" — let the title carry it. Your dad's gone; the money's just the echo. The silence between you and Garrett is the real wound, and you don't heal silence by going quieter than the spymaster wants you. I lost my voice and still found a channel. Find yours. Send your brother a song, not a strategy. Here's a free line: "two scared kids, same static, same dad." Call him. Loyalty you never spend just rusts.
— Bumblebee
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