It was the early evening of a hot summer day on the North American Continent. Millions of people were living their lives just like it was any other day, following their routines, completely unaware that something extraordinary was going to happen soon. Crime was being performed and stopped, lives were being saved and snuffed out and bad jokes were being told and received. Most of that activity stopped, however, when almost every single non-vital electronic device with the ability to receive signals and display video and audio stopped working as intended on almost 40% of the surface of the globe.
From cellphones to televisions, computer screens and electronic billboards, they all had their screen turn black and start playing a loud, high-pitched sound for around 10 seconds, just enough time for people to realize that something different was going to happen. Then, almost as if it had waited until the attention of hundreds of millions of people were focused on their screens, a video started playing.
Front and center, the face of a relatively young man was present, as he seemed to be fiddling with something offscreen. Most people thought he looked ordinary, like just another face in the crowd if nothing else, but some of the younger girls watching the broadcast thought that his dark brown hair looked cute alongside the blue of his eyes.
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"Is this thing even on? I just pressed the button but-Oh!... There's a blinking light on the console now. Is it working now?
... I think I won't get more confirmation than this, so I better just say something if this is indeed working. So...
...
Hello, anyone watching this. My name is Henry Anderson, and I am a 26 year old engineer born in Denver, Colorado. I am sending this message as a request for help, as I seem to be stuck in some sort of abandoned space station, given the lack of gravity and the window showing the Earth outside.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Earlier today, I woke up with no knowledge of how I got here. I seem to be currently above North America, so I hope this message is broadcasted to someone who can help me, as I fear I have little to no food, water or oxygen aboard. The space station seems to be in a state of disrepair, and it's condition is worryingly unstable.
This communication array seems to be the only thing in good repair aboard the station, and so I hope it is still working properly. If anyone can hear this, please inform Nasa or any other aerospace agency as soon as possible, and get them to help me. Given what I found while searching, I think I can survive for around 1 week if nothing goes wrong. Please, I once again ask for help if anyone can hear me. I don't want to die here.
...
I will wait and see if I receive any answers. If not, this message will be repeated in a few hours, though considering the speed of the station I will be somewhere above Eurasia at that time. So this will be it for now."
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And then, it was over. The desperate message of a man asking for help had ended, and all of the previously affected devices returned to normal as if nothing had happened. Of course, the reaction that people had to this event was varied and extreme. Many thought that it had been a hoax, or some sort of digital attack or weird advertisement, while others were horrified that a fellow human being was stuck in space, slowly dying. A few just cursed him for interrupting their entertainment.
Almost instantly, the story was brought to the news and spread all over the world. Nearly a billion people had seen the broadcast, and in just a few hours a billion on the other side of the world had been informed of what happened. Practically everyone awake at the time had heard about what had just happened, and many more were still to receive the news, given that most of Asia was still asleep.
By the end of the end of the afternoon, the United States government sent a public announcement that added even more chaos to the situation, saying that data from it's previously vestigial aerospace agency Nasa, had confirmed the presence of a previously unknown derelict space station from which the signal had been sent, orbiting almost 300 hundred kilometers above sea level, practically confirming the broadcast.
The true consequences of this were still to come, but many already looked upwards at the sky, trying to find the tiny dot that housed the man who was quickly becoming one of the most famous people alive.