Null/Void

(CW: Null/Void centres around the malicious mega corporation of Void Networks. Specific content warnings are in the show notes of each episode, and this post includes mentions of death and deadly accidents; in particular a deadly traffic accident, which happens in episode one.)

Null/Void is a sci-fi series by Cole Burkhardt, which follows Piper Lee, an employee of a huge telecommunications company called Void Networks. She’s stuck in a dead-end job after moving back to her hometown after college, but a chance encounter after work one day turns her life upside down.

While waiting for the bus home, Piper meets Adelaide. In the end, it turns out that Adelaide isn’t waiting for the bus, she just wanted to see if Piper was okay. Piper doesn’t see Adelaide again, until one morning, she phones her – but the thing is, Piper never gave Adelaide her number. Adelaide warns her not to take the bus home later that day, but she doesn’t say why. After the call, Piper sees that there’s no record of it on her phone, and starts to think that she dreamt it all.

The bus arrives at the end of the day, and Piper still doubts what happened that morning – until she hears Adelaide’s voice telling her not to get on it. Then she sees a horrific crash happen.

At the end of the first episode she’s given a flyer on the street by a stranger, who thinks she dropped it. She didn’t, she’s never seen the flyer before. Written on it is, ‘HAVE YOU HEARD FROM ADELAIDE?’,and a phone number – Dodger’s number. She then meets Dodger in person, as well as Chris and Niki – a small group who all have similar experiences to Piper, having been contacted by Adelaide in the past. They had all been warned by her in a similar way to Piper, and owe their lives to Adelaide, but the events they missed were outside of the town – Chris was in Washington, and Niki was in Puerto Rico. Like Piper, they don’t know who she is or how she knew to warn them. But unlike Piper, none of them has ever actually met Adelaide in person.

Piper is special, Adelaide tells her later on. She’s important, she has a lot of plans for her. 

And as the series develops, we discover what exactly Void Networks is up to, and how much control they have over people’s lives. The jigsaw pieces start coming together, suspicions are confirmed, and the audience learns some disturbing details about how the company operates. Piper and her new friends come together to fight the company, but, of course, fighting a mega-corporation with such evil plans as Void Networks won’t be easy.

Null/Void is set in a contemporary world, in a reality which really isn’t impossible, which makes it all the more unnerving. There’s the familiarity of Piper’s mundane life, the struggle to find a fulfilling job after graduating, and also in paying the rent every month. We live with mega corporations that have monopolies over various aspects of our lives every day, and in Null/Void this is accentuated and even more sinister than what we’re used to. It’s the concept of, if things carry on the way they’re going right now, society could end up with its own version of Void Networks before we even realise it, which makes the story even more compelling.