Chapter 7: Signal Watchers

The rejection emails had stopped coming. Three days of frantic outreach to authorities, journalists, and online communities had yielded nothing but form letters suggesting psychiatric evaluation and forum bans for "spreading dangerous misinformation." Elias sat in his darkened apartment, staring at his computer screen where a final, automated response from the FBI's tip line glowed with bureaucratic indifference: Your submission has been reviewed and determined to be outside our investigative purview.

Outside our investigative purview. As if reality itself being hijacked was simply beyond their job description.

Chloe had returned to her own apartment after the second day of futile phone calls, but she checked in hourly—short texts that served as anchors to sanity in a world that had collectively decided to ignore the impossible. Her latest message sat unread on his phone: Any luck with the university contacts?

There was no luck. There were no contacts willing to listen. The academic physicists had been politely dismissive, the communication theorists had suggested he contact mental health services, and the one conspiracy researcher who'd initially shown interest had ghosted him after reviewing the documentation.

Elias was contemplating whether despair or madness would claim him first when his laptop chimed with an encrypted message notification. The sender's address was a string of random characters, but the subject line made his pulse quicken: Re: Channel 7 Anomalies - You're Not Alone.

He opened the message with trembling fingers:

Mr. Thorne,

Your posts about broadcast prediction phenomena have been flagged by our monitoring systems. We represent a private research collective investigating similar anomalies worldwide. If you're willing to verify your identity and accept certain security protocols, we'd like to invite you to a discussion forum where your observations might find a more receptive audience.

The signal watchers see what others cannot.

- Verification Required -

The message included a complex authentication process involving PGP keys and anonymizing software that Elias had never encountered before. But desperation made him a quick learner, and within an hour he'd installed the necessary tools and followed the breadcrumb trail of encrypted links into the deep corners of the internet where paranoia and preparation converged.

The forum that eventually loaded on his screen looked like something from the early days of the web—basic HTML, green text on black background, and a simple interface that prioritized function over form. But the user list showed forty-seven active members scattered across time zones, and the post timestamps indicated constant activity despite the site's obscure location in the digital underground.

The welcome message was brief: Signal Watchers - Documenting Reality Deviation Events Since 2019. Current Threat Level: Critical.

Elias registered using the authentication tokens provided in the original email and found himself in a discussion thread titled "Conduit Channel Analysis - North American Grid." The posts read like fragments from his own nightmare:

User: Moscow_Static
"RTR-1 showing pre-event broadcasts for 72 hours now. Food shortage reports manifesting in exact locations within 24-hour windows. Government response suspiciously coordinated with prediction timeline."

User: Berlin_Frequency
"Deutsche Welle experiencing similar patterns. Infrastructure failures predicted with minute-precision accuracy. Local authorities attributing responses to 'emergency preparedness exercises' scheduled months in advance."

User: Tokyo_Interference
"NHK World anchor showing physical distress markers consistent with external neural manipulation. Micro-seizure activity during key prediction segments. Medical examinations reportedly showing no abnormalities."

The global scope hit Elias like a physical blow. This wasn't just Channel 7, wasn't just Seattle or even North America. Whatever force was manipulating reality through broadcast signals had established footholds across the planet, using local news anchors as unwilling conduits for its reality-shaping agenda.

He scrolled through weeks of documentation, finding patterns that mirrored his own observations but on a massive scale. Weather disasters predicted and manifested. Political crises foretold with impossible accuracy. Economic fluctuations announced before the events that would trigger them occurred.

But it was a pinned post from the forum administrator that made his blood run cold:

User: Signal_Prime
"Conduit Channel Classification - Priority Alpha"

"Channel 7 Seattle has been designated a Primary Conduit based on signal strength analysis and reality deviation magnitude. Anchor subject (Brenda Vance) shows advanced stage neural integration consistent with full system control. Local observer (E. Thorne) has achieved Pattern Recognition Threshold and may be suitable for direct contact protocols."

"All watchers advised: Primary Conduits typically precede Cascade Events by 14-30 days. Channel 7's recent escalation to existential threat scenarios (asteroid designation: Charon's Scythe) suggests imminent transition to Terminal Phase."

"Standard containment protocols have failed. Recommend immediate implementation of Counter-Signal Emergency Procedures."

They knew his name. They'd been watching him watch the signal, tracking his progress from confused observer to pattern-recognition specialist. The forum wasn't just a support group for people experiencing similar phenomena—it was an intelligence network documenting the systematic preparation for something that made asteroid impacts look like minor inconveniences.

A private message appeared in his inbox:

From: Signal_Prime
"Welcome to the watchers, Elias. Your documentation of the Channel 7 anomaly has been exceptional. We need to talk - voice conference in Secure Room 7 in ten minutes. Your life, and possibly everyone else's, depends on what we discuss next."

The secure room turned out to be an encrypted voice chat system that connected him with six other people whose voices carried the same exhausted paranoia that had become his constant companion. They introduced themselves only by location and duration of observation: London (8 months), Sydney (11 months), Mumbai (6 months), Lagos (4 months), São Paulo (7 months), and the administrator, Signal_Prime, who claimed 3 years of active monitoring.

"The phenomenon started small," Signal_Prime explained, their voice disguised by electronic modulation. "Local anomalies, minor prediction events, reality adjustments that could be dismissed as coincidence. But it's been growing stronger, more coordinated. The asteroid represents a quantum leap in scope."

"What is it?" Elias asked. "What's controlling the signals?"

"We don't know. Our best theories range from extraterrestrial intelligence to interdimensional interference to some form of artificial consciousness that's achieved reality-manipulation capabilities. But the how matters less than the what."

"Which is?"

"Total narrative control. Whatever this force is, it's not just predicting the future—it's writing it. Every broadcast strengthens its ability to impose predetermined outcomes on reality. The more people who witness the predictions without recognizing them as such, the more power it gains over causal chains."

The voice from Sydney spoke up: "But why the anchors? Why use human conduits instead of direct manipulation?"

"Psychological anchoring," Mumbai replied. "People trust familiar faces, authoritative voices. The signal needs observers to believe in the reality of what they're seeing. Human anchors provide that credibility bridge."

"Until they don't," London added grimly. "Three of our tracked anchors have completely disappeared from broadcasts in the last month. Replaced by carefully crafted explanations about medical leave or career changes. We think they either fought the control successfully..."

"Or the control consumed them entirely," São Paulo finished.

The implications crystallized in Elias's mind with terrible clarity. Brenda Vance's increasing distress, her physical transformation during the asteroid broadcast, the way her humanity seemed to be draining away—she was being consumed by whatever force was using her as its mouthpiece.

"The communications blackout," he said. "It's not just to prevent coordination. It's to force people back to broadcast television, to maximize exposure to the conduit signals."

"Exactly," Signal_Prime confirmed. "Classic isolation and control strategy. Remove alternative information sources, concentrate attention on compromised channels, then accelerate the narrative toward whatever endpoint the signal is pursuing."

"Which brings us to why we contacted you," London said. "Primary Conduits like Channel 7 are rare. Most signals work through minor regional stations with limited reach. But when a major network anchor achieves full integration, the reality manipulation capabilities increase exponentially."

"We think Brenda Vance is about to become the first fully converted Primary Conduit," Signal_Prime continued. "If that happens, the signal will be able to impose large-scale reality changes directly. Not just predictions that come true, but active rewriting of physical laws, causal relationships, maybe even temporal mechanics."

The weight of the revelation settled over Elias like a burial shroud. He'd thought he was documenting an impossible phenomenon. Instead, he'd been watching the final preparations for something that would remake existence itself according to the whims of an alien intelligence.

"What do we do?" he asked.

"We fight back," Signal_Prime said simply. "Counter-signals, frequency jamming, anything that might introduce static into the narrative control system. It's dangerous—we'll be targeting the source of reality manipulation itself. But if we're right about the timeline, we have maybe days before the Terminal Phase begins."

"And if we fail?"

"Then humanity becomes an audience to its own extinction, and whatever's writing this script gets to direct the final scene."

Outside Elias's window, Seattle slept peacefully, its citizens still cut off from the global communication networks that might have warned them about the approaching catastrophe. But in the electronic depths of an encrypted forum, seven people who'd chosen impossible truth over comfortable blindness prepared to wage war against forces that treated reality itself as rough draft.

The Signal Watchers had found their newest member, and together they would attempt something that had never been tried before: editing the signal that was editing the world.