Regardless, the telescopes collected the signal and fed it into imaging software. A moment later, the Project monitor displayed the software’s yield—a sheet of music! Staffs, a treble clef, time signature and waves of black notes.

In my essay, I wondered why Burns, presented with this chillingly sophisticated image, did not immediately send for Kalowitz, who would have called the Project Director, who would have alerted the American President, who might have saved the world. But I found no satisfying answer. Instead, Burns downloaded the signal and processed it into sound: a long overture of static, a series of beeps and drones, a moment of silence, a tune.

Listening, Burns sighed. By no coincidence, we think, the tune was one his grandmother Burns had sung to him in the crib. Her sweet face came to his eyes that night, and her breath to his nose. The chorus crested, and his heart melted—in an instant.

And I shall hear, though soft you tread upon me

And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be

For you will bend, and tell me that you love me

And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.

Lulled by the familiar ballad, Mr Burns relaxed his ordinarily cautious nature. He emailed the song to his mother, Patricia, who sent it to her brother, Jonah, who forwarded it to his entire address catalog.

A recipient of Jonah’s email had a premonition of danger and marked the attachment as potentially hazardous spam—too late. The virus had learned to propagate itself. It infiltrated every computer that came within range of an Internet signal, even momentarily. At 98.9 percent saturation, the virus began to feed. Confusion, blackout, global meltdown. Whoever launched the Volcano Maker, United Korea we think, triggered the Last War—the end of an age. The United States responded, along with the Pax-Putinia, violating the Upper-East Treaty. When that treaty fell, all the old allegiances and grudges resurfaced in total war.

On account of the blackout, aerial navigation was imprecise. Bombs exploded hundreds of miles off target, shattering alliances and bolstering animosity. As the lines between nations dissolved, mad men took over each of the seven continents, and bombing continued, destabilizing the crust of the Earth. The ten-year Continent Conflict ended when a parasitic organism rose up, we think, from the magma layer and killed millions before it was contained. Crashing seas of molten lava, unpredictable quaking, and boiling geysers that sprayed strange bacteria and disease left most of the world uninhabitable.

Hungry herds of refugees sought shelter, strength and new world order. Eventually they found it, on a stable island that was old North America. They organized into tribes and managed a few years of peace before fighting broke out again, a six-year race war. When the three remaining armies—the Dark Kongos, the Brown Clayskins and the Whites, called English—finally agreed to end it, they met in the north country, near Niagara, and hashed out a compromise.