Signal 001: The Scales
Something is rotten in the state of London
London didn’t notice the sky that morning.
Thick cloud had settled above the brutalist council blocks that have plagued the city since it gave up on beauty - grey, low, indifferent to what came next.
Nothing moved. The air felt maladjusted. Not heavy. Not still. Just… unimpressed.
A black crow lifted from a rooftop, wings churning - then dropped back.
As if it tried to outrun the inevitable, then realised it was too late.
It surrendered hope, like the rest of us.
Then it came.
A single lash of lightning.
No warning. No rain. Just… the scales being prepared.
Something older than time had arrived.
Five minutes earlier, Dr. Langley had been oblivious.
He was walking to work like he always did each morning. NHS scrubs beneath his navy coat. Satchel strap biting into his shoulder. Gravel crunching under his shoes in a local park that no one had bothered to clean in years.
He liked to tell people he lived in Islington. Technically, he didn’t. But Hackney was close enough for the lie to hold. That was the middle-class way. Always pretending to be a step above the other wage slaves.
Mid-40s. Kind face. And the NHS’ star practitioner of assisted suicide that year. One hundred and eighty-seven confirmed compassionate kills so far. And it was only November.
He logged each one in a patient portal that had a beautiful UX - neat little graphs and bar charts tracking KPIs.
Each tick earned a small bonus, which added up to a couple of lovely staycations each year. Every little helps.
Langley knew his work wasn’t for everyone. There’d been a few grumbles, but he dismantled them with the same confidence that won him every Oxford debate.
“We’re not ending lives,” he’d say. “We’re completing them as painlessly as possible. Sometimes people just need a helping hand. A final authority to say it’s OK to let go.”
Langley had cried once - when his football team lost the league. But not when his wife cheated. He just continued making her tea.
In his ears, a soprano held a single note. High. Pure.
He loved her. Not romantically. Not sexually. Just... loved her.
It made him feel holy. Not that he believed in all that medieval shit.
Then, he was struck by lightning.
Not by some tragic twist of fate. Not randomly. Not cruelly. Specifically.
Not because he was special - but because he was morally bankrupt. Which made him the ideal source of terror.
From crown to heel, light flowed through him.
His spine ignited like cathedral pipes. An orb enclosed him in a bubble of blue and red electricity.
He screamed, but nothing came.
No breath. No thought. Just the soprano, still ringing in his ears - as if the voice refused to acknowledge what had happened.
Then silence.
Smoke curled from his collar. Static hissed through his earbuds.
The aria disappeared - like the universe had snuffed out any last opposition.
Langley stood.
Cracked his neck once. Twice.
Like shaking off a bad yoga pose. But something had changed.
If you had the gift of sight, you might have noticed his eyes flicker - black, fast, like high-frequency phasing on a faulty fluorescent strip. Or the shimmer of aura around him.
But London was a city long since blind.
A city drowning in apathy.
A city that we shall soon become.
He walked on. Same street. Same step. But no longer a man.
A vessel for what came next.
Hour Zero.
The story continues with: Signal 002 .