The Last Frequency

I was born for secrets.

Not just to hold them, but to carry them, to keep them alive.

Secret whispers between soldiers on moonless nights. Voices cracking with urgency as they coordinated rescues, called for backup, or delivered words no one wanted to hear. Fall back. They’re gone.

I was a walkie-talkie. I mattered.

My earliest memory is chaos, metallic clangs, the stench of gunpowder, sweat-soaked hands gripping my sides like a lifeline. I was strapped to a soldier’s chest, my antenna trembling as he shouted into me. His words sliced through the noise of war, sharp as shrapnel.

“This is Echo Three. We’re pinned down! Send air support! Repeat, send air support!”

I carried his desperation through the void, my static roaring across miles until someone- someone safe- answered. Help is coming. And for one fragile moment, in a world breaking apart, I stitched it back together.

But wars end, and when they do, so do we. They pulled me from his chest like an old bandage, tossing me into a heap of “retired equipment.” That’s what they called us. Surplus. Forgotten. I didn’t feel retired. I felt abandoned.

Months passed in silence. I listened to the hum of fluorescent lights and the faint echo of footsteps. Then one day, hands pulled me from the pile: smaller, softer hands. A boy with scabbed knees and boundless energy. His father had bought me at some government auction, thinking I’d make a good toy. A novelty.

But to the boy? I wasn’t a toy. I was mission critical. The moment he pressed my button, something sparked to life inside me.

“Base to Eagle One, do you copy?” His voice was young but steady, brimming with a seriousness only children can conjure.

And then, through the static, a reply: “This is Eagle One. Base, I hear you loud and clear.”

His sister. Reluctant at first, then drawn in by the adventure. Together, they built a language of whispers, a world of daring missions and secret codes. Through me, they saved the neighborhood from invisible invaders, uncovered conspiracies, and turned every backyard into a battlefield.

For a while, I mattered again.

But children grow up, and so do their distractions. It started with longer pauses between our adventures. Then one day, I found myself tossed into a drawer, my battery drained, my signal fading. No more missions. No more voices. Just the muffled quiet of a forgotten world.

Years passed. I listened as the world evolved.

Smartphones buzzed and chirped, their tones sharp and lifeless. Voices grew flat, digitized, stripped of their imperfection and intimacy. My kind wasn’t needed anymore. We didn’t trend. We didn’t innovate. We just waited.

And wait I did.

Until last week.

The boy-now a man-opened the drawer. His hands, no longer small and sticky, were larger now, rougher. He hesitated, staring at me as if he wasn’t sure I’d still work. When he pressed my button, static hissed weakly in reply. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

“It still works,” he murmured, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

Soon, he introduced me to someone new: a girl with wide eyes and an unyielding curiosity. His daughter. She looked at me the way he once did, as though I held the keys to a world she hadn’t yet discovered.

“What is it?” she asked.

He knelt down, placed me in her hands, and said something that made my circuits hum with pride: “This isn’t just a walkie-talkie. It’s a time machine.”

Her fingers curled around me, tentative yet excited. She pressed my button, and for the first time in years, I heard a voice crackle through me. “Base to Eagle One… do you copy?”

The words hit me like a jolt of electricity. I came alive, static roaring to life as I carried her message into the ether. In that moment, I felt whole again.

But the world has a way of reminding us how temporary joy can be.

Weeks later, I overheard the father’s voice late at night, soft and weighted. “I just… I don’t know how to connect with her anymore,” he said to someone over the phone. “She’s always on that tablet. I thought showing her some of my old stuff might help, but…”

He trailed off, and I felt the weight of his silence. Connection. That was always the point, wasn’t it? Not the missions, not the games. Just the voices, reaching out, hoping someone would answer.

A few days later, the girl picked me up again. She carried me outside, her breath visible in the cool night air. She pressed my button, her voice soft but clear: “Base to Eagle One… do you copy?”

I wanted to answer. To tell her I’m here. To tell her I’ve always been here. But my battery was too weak, my voice too faint.

She sighed and placed me on the porch, my antenna tilted toward the stars. Then she walked back inside, leaving me alone with the hum of the wind.

And yet, I wait. Not for a soldier or a boy or a girl, but for anyone who still believes in static. Who understands that beneath the crackle lies something real. Something human. Something worth remembering.

“The technology will fade, but the connection is eternal,” I once heard the soldier say. I didn’t understand it then. But I do now.

I am the last frequency. A voice caught in the air, waiting to be heard just once more.

Do you copy? Over.