Chapter 2

Then one afternoon, she stopped at the end of my driveway and tilted her head like she'd spotted a crack in the foundation of reality."Is that an antenna on your roof?" she asked.I told her yes. It was part of the fiber termination. Barely visible. Painted to match.She frowned, scribbled something, and said she would check the bylaws.That was the beginning. After that, there was always something. A question about cable routing. A concern about visual clutter. A complaint about a satellite dish I didn't own. Once, she accused me of hosting commercial equipment because a technician had parked a van on the street for longer than she found acceptable.Every conversation felt like a test I hadn't studied for. She spoke in rules, in clauses, in phrases like "community standards" and "neighborhood integrity." And the thing was, I wasn't breaking any of them. I checked. Repeatedly. I kept copies. Highlighted sections.But logic didn't slow her down. If anything, it made her more focused. I started to feel watched. Not in a paranoid way. Just aware. Like every small thing I did had an audience. And that audience was waiting for me to slip.Still, I figured it would pass. People like that usually burn themselves out. They move on to a new target. Or they get distracted by something bigger. So I kept my head down and worked.Then came Monday.I remember it because everything felt wrong before I even understood why. I walked into my kitchen and didn't hear the soft hum from the fridge panel telling me I'd left the door open too long. My phone didn't buzz with overnight alerts. The smart thermostat screen was dark. I tapped my phone: no signal, no Wi-Fi, no cellular data loading anything useful.At first, I shrugged it off. Outages happen. I grabbed a hoodie, poured some coffee, and decided to check the external junction box before calling anyone. It was a habit: control what you can before escalating. The weather was clear. No wind. No rain. No reason for failure.

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