By Day Three, there were strategy meetings in underground bunkers and rooms with red phones and heavy locks. Fluorescent lights flickered with anxiety and urgency. A man in a dark suit at the Pentagon pointed to a digital screen, speaking to a hushed crown through a haze of smoke:
“If it’s intelligent, it can be reasoned with. If it can be reasoned with, it can be deterred.”
He meant it the way men like that mean everything, with the confidence of someone who’s never been told no by the stars.
The Chinese launched a payload of reflective satellites designed to scatter the signals. They hoped to refract them like sunlight on water, to confuse whatever was sending them. The plan failed. The signals came through anyway, clearer, louder, with added bass. A billboard in Shanghai blinked to life and displayed:
“You can’t stop a good deal.”
In Moscow, the Orthodox Church declared the messages a form of diabolical inversion. It was, they argued, a reversal of Babel, language being made too universal. The Kremlin, unable to block the signal, instead hijacked it with their own overlay:
“Remember, comrades: Trust in state messaging. All others are capitalist traps.”
The overlay lasted thirty seconds. The signal returned, stronger. It repeated in flawless Russian:
“Comrades save 20% when they buy two or more.”
At Google headquarters, a task force of linguists, coders, and ex-psychics were given clearance to build an interpretive model using archive footage of QVC and televangelists. They called it “Project WhisperCart.” The model concluded the messages followed a primitive but sophisticated funnel strategy: Awareness, Engagement, Anticipation, Conversion and, finally, Fulfillment
It sounded like marketing. It was marketing. But it also sounded like invasion. To many, it sounded like the end.
The Vatican released a second statement, more carefully worded this time. It spoke of “celestial mimicry,” of the Devil’s talent for wearing the voice of nostalgia. It warned the faithful to avoid “worship of the familiar.” The Pope did not appear in person. Rumor was he hadn’t spoken in three days.
The President of the United States did speak. He stood at the podium, flanked by flags and advisors, and told the world:
“We do not believe this to be a hostile act. But we are preparing for all outcomes.”
He said this as smartwatches across America buzzed with an unauthorized alert:
“Last Chance! You’ve unlocked EARLY ACCESS to the Final Sale!”
A coupon appeared. It couldn’t be removed. It couldn’t be ignored. One redemption per planet That night, the White House went dark for seven minutes. When power returned, reporters were told it was a “routine upgrade.”
We didn’t believe them.
In the countryside, people did what people always do. They prayed. They packed. They argued about whether the signal was Republican or Democrat. A farmer in Iowa dug a hole, built a shelter, and stocked it with ammo and Spam. A yoga instructor in Berkeley opened a community dome and led nightly chanting sessions to “align vibrations with the inbound retail wave.”
In Lagos, a preacher declared the signal a test of devotion. “When the angels speak through jingles,” he shouted, “will you recognize the Lord in their tone?”
By Day Two, the signal bled into everything. Not just radios, but wind patterns. Ocean currents. Dogs began barking in unison at 03:17 UTC. Birds migrated in circles. A child in Munich spoke in rhyme for three straight hours and, when asked why, simply said,
“That’s the rhythm of the world now.”
And then came Day One.
The signal, now an almost melodic symphony of advertisement and invocation, turned intimate. It wasn’t just global anymore. It was personal.
A man in Johannesburg received a voicemail that began in his grandmother’s voice, dead since 1999:
“Dear, don’t miss your moment…”
A woman in Reykjavik played a vinyl that hadn’t worked in years. It crackled, then said:
“This is your final preview. Be ready.”
Our televisions turned on without permission. Our phones hummed in our pockets. More that just ringing, now. Throbbing. A tremor, not of sound, but of expectation.
Somewhere, a product was about to be launched. And the planet was the showroom.
In Colorado, a group of ex-cultists, ex-academics, and ex-CEOs gathered in an abandoned ski lodge. They had renamed themselves The Cartographers of Want. They believed the signal wasn’t coming to Earth, but from just beside it—somewhere outside time, tuned to the exact frequency of human desire.
They believed the final message would not come through our devices, but through us.
At midnight before the final day, Carlos Dávila, the man who first heard the signal, sat on the roof of the observatory in Chile and looked up at the blank sky. No ships.No stars.No answers. Only the stillness before something happens.
He lit a cigarette and laughed. It wasn’t a joyful laugh.
“They gave us everything we ever asked for,” he said to no one. “All we ever wanted.
And now they’re coming to collect.”
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