THE OCCUPATION THAT COMES TO BE KNOWN AS ‘the Slow Invasion’ happens overnight, as billions of small black cubes materialise simultaneously all over the world early in the twenty-first century. The Unified Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT) suspects a hostile extraterrestrial incursion but can find no evidence to justify initiating a costly international operation to isolate the cubes in a secure facility.
The general public and the media assume that the cubes are part of a marketing campaign, and as the objects seem to be inert and harmless, people take them into their homes and offices to use as ornaments, paperweights and bookends. This is precisely the intention of the Shakri plan. Over the next 12 months, the cubes become such a familiar part of everyday life that they infiltrate every corner of human existence.