The Lure of Somnus

Ted bit into his knuckles, but the shaking continued, increased in violent frequency with each breath. He was at Mickey's bar, powering through his second beer when the fever struck. At first he barely noticed it, a dull lighter flame against his forehead, until it roared itself into an inferno that burnt a path from the soles of his feet to his eye-sockets. His ears rang like klaxons, and his tongue was a strip of moistened sand paper covered in dog hair. There was medicine in the kitchen cupboards, he needed ibuprofen and a good night's rest. His first hurdle charging across rain-battered front lawn.

He couldn't risk taking his phone out in this weather, so he relied on the cone of light illuminating the front porch to guide him. It flickered, sending him to stumble over a child's bicycle half-camouflaged in the night by a skin of mud. Damn it, Charlie! Why can't you take better care of your toys? Likewise, why can't I remember to do my chores, he wondered sourly. Staggering to his feet, he marched across slick grass to the steps. The wooden frame groaned from the extra pounds he put on this winter, each plank bawled at the pressure his feet drove into them. He pulled himself to the front door, and fished for his keys, but the fever had robbed him of both memory and strength. He patted down all of his pockets, and as he pulled them out, the shakes rolled through his fingers. The key-ring clanged loudly on the oaken floorboards. Cursing weakly, he knelt down, and as he retrieved them he saw the imprint of a man-sized shoe. Did I leave that? The presence of a second drew his eyes; he saw that they were part of long intersected chains of footprints, of which one trail led to front door. They were fresh too, appeared a black-brown that shone dully in the porchlight. The rain on his neck crystalized to frost.

He swung the door open, but his body was too weak to resist his momentum. His cheek smacked into the hardwood; he tasted blood. Aside from a dinged hip and teeth-sheered cheek, he'd be fine. He gazed around the room - walls, usually a bland egg-shell, were painted azure from a comatose TV. The dead channel's brushstrokes haunted its canvas with shadows; they bent and warped in sync to the static's waltz across the glass screen. Once again, he hoped for the last time this night, he staggered to his feet. He rubbed the red mark he knew would turn black, and with great caution, crept to the kitchen.

Ted opened the sink cupboards, cringed at the squeak of unoiled hinges. He paused, waited for the sound of rapid footfalls. He scanned the shadows, dreading to find an unrecognizable silhouette of ill-intentions lunging towards him. His hands skirted desperately along the grain, coming upon the stock of his gun. He checked the safety, not wanting to blast a hole in his wall trying to pry it loose.

"Ted? Is that you?" A voice, groggy from sleep, floated downstairs to finally greet him. Ted, wary of the shadows that threatened to betray him, didn't answer. He tip-toed to the foot of the staircase; he saw Tiffany stare down at him with worried eyes.

"You're home late," she indicated, hands on her hips. "I hope you didn't have too many before dragging your butt back here. A DUI for an astronaut is still a..."

"You didn't hear anything?" he broke in urgently.

"Hear anything? Like what?"

"A knock on the door? A smashed window? The sound of footsteps?"

She tilted her head, gave him a pitying look. "No Ted, I didn't hear anything of the sort. Why, did you see any weirdos outside?"

"No, but if there were…they left a clue for us on the porch," he admitted, gesturing to front door that still hung open. He felt dizzy, a rippling wave of nausea flowed from his stomach to his throat. He burped, winced at the taste of bile, and chattered: "You…. you sure you didn't hear-?"

"You look awful," she said. "Why don't you take something and lie down? I think you have a cold."

"My illness…my illness is of no importance right now," he whined, slicked back his rain-soaked hair with wobbly fingers. "I think we should…maybe check all the windows."

"Did you go for the gun?" She whispered sharply. "Jesus…the state you're in right now, your herky-jerky fingers would squeeze and blast chunks out of yourself before you'd get to aim it at anyone."

She rubbed her temple, a reflex of hers initiated in times of great stress. Most of these days, he was the cause of that stress, and had to endure that knowledge whether her ire was justified or not. He'd wish he said he couldn't have helped it, but he knew better. Ted had, in his time on and off Mobius, become selectively complacent. It isn't hard to forget about the little things back home, especially in the grip of scientific progress. Most astronauts were better of keeping track of their friends and families, but Ted couldn't be bothered even before Tycho first sent him up. Both him and Tiffany hoped on his first stint the distance and time would do them good, and they were wrong. Perhaps next time, it'll be different, he thought gloomily. Maybe if I spent longer up there on the project, but kept in contact more often on the tight-beam, we'd get somewhere.

"I'm. Fine." He was being obdurate, felt the call of duty outweighed the disadvantages sickness had thrust upon him. He dragged one foot to the first step, hoped his leg would find purchase despite his warped sense of balance, and was painfully disappointed. When he fell for a third time, the ridge of his nose collided with the fourth or fifth step. Briefly before his vision gave way to an amorphous blur, his wife swooped over him. "TED! DEAR GOD! WHY DON'T YOU EVER LISTEN TO ME?!"

Those were the last words he heard before blackness gobbled up his blurred-out universe. His final thoughts were deciding if that was the best or worst help she could offer him.

*

Ted's legs floated in the womb of his laboratory, his suit periphery tethered to the Cold Storage tank nestled in an alcove; a blue light shone from behind it, giving it the appearance of a haunted sarcophagus. He caressed the squishy polymer of his VR faceplate, felt a hard nub of plastic around its edge. He pressed it, causing the substance to loosen its grip on his face. It floated in the weightless laboratory like a lost jellyfish.

"Not bad, Kalvin," he commended the AI.

"Thank you, sir," Kalvin intoned. "How did you feel this time around?"

Ted gave a thoughtful rub of his nose, remembered how the skin split open and the bones went crooked. Kalvin was good, but there some final details the AI left out. Ted feinted before his nose broke, not after. The finer intricacies of his symptoms Kalvin had nailed, not one heat-stricken twitch of the hand or temperature spike was out of place. Ted was tempted to give it one more go. He could pull an all-nighter helping Kalvin to augment the system architecture and try again come morning. But he knew it was pointless to debate over his own health with an AI. So, he replied simply: "I think we don't have to worry about that deadline anymore…this next run, I know we'll succeed."

"So you say," the Ai mused. "Sir, we've benchmarked this memory before, and each time the resulting simulacrum you had me transcribe comes up short under your interrogation. I feel as though we should changeover to something else."

"No," Ted declared firmly. "You know the importance of this memory. If the subject is supposed to take comfort in the fact they're trapped in simulacrum for an entire boat road to the Oort Cloud, for instance, the illusion cannot be held up by pleasure alone. Pain, emotional or physical, is an inescapable constant of the human condition. We don't want to trap our subjects in a fantasy they don't want to wake from. Moreover, we want their mental constitution to outside stressors in the same state before going under; a lazy mind unused to painful realities always buckle under the weight of those realities."

"I understand the logic quite well," Kalvin explained, the flat monotone undercut with allusions to subdued annoyance. Kalvin's designers had made him too well. On top of ruthless pragmatism, his sarcasm and domineering stance on protocol was a lot for the cabin members to work with for extensive periods. He got on well with Ted, in spite of - or maybe due to- their overabundance of shared personality quirks. Whether it's a bad sign for Kalvin or Ted's mental health was still up for debate. Ted was the station's hermit busy-body; rarely was he coaxed out of his laboratory to spend time with the crew outside the morning briefing and the subsequent delineation of daily chores. Even rarer was he tempted to breach protocol in the name of personal enjoyment, which some of the crew members had done on the odd occasion much to Kalvin's displeasure. The only time he thought about offending Kalvin's - and by extension the Board of directors- rules was if they somehow restricted his progress. But since the violation of said restrictions had yielded results faster, Kalvin had learned to wane them for Mobius' lonely old man.

"So…What's the problem then?" Ted asked.

"Why are you using such a toxic memory as a benchmark?"

Ted scratched his chin, gave a cool answer: "It's my most vivid memory…if there was anything out of place, the odds of me noticing are greater."

"It can't be healthy reliving and remixing such experiences, especially to the extent you have."

Ted put his hands on his hips, his mouth sharpened into a mocking grin that slashed at Kalvin's ego. "My my, the big-boss AI is worried about me. Careful now Kal, I think you might be getting a soft spot for us meat sacks."

"Please, I only worry if your infantile need for self-gratification outweighs your need to see our project through," Kalvin accused. "And if that's the case, well…perhaps I should put forward a request to the board for a more stable partner."

"You could, but you're forgetting one important thing…"

"And what's that?"

"No other human can put up with you as a lab partner," Ted gloated. He spun around, spotted the aimless undulations of the polymer VR cap. He lined himself up to the cap, using the wall to launch himself towards it. Before he could intercept it midflight, the emergency meeting klaxons screeches to life. He missed, the power chord yanking him back like a taut iron chain.

"What is it now?" He complained, hoping the AI could shed some light on this interruption.

"Sorry, Ted. Got orders from HQ. They want you guys down in the briefing room pronto," Kal answered in a conciliatory tone.

"Great, let's see what the suits want."

*

The gang pooled around the circular table of the briefing room, locked in a raucous debate of the nature of today's meeting. Rebka pressed Delaunay if there was anything the board sent on the tightbeam, earning a pensive shoulder shrug. Rodrick suggested another slash to their biannual budget, eliciting nervous sidelong glances and annoyed groans from the rest of the team. Everyone knew the implications of a budget cut- potential shutdowns of their projects, or in the best case scenario, a severe drop in both resources and equipment being sent up. Rodrick lacked the tack of discussing such potentialities because the board wouldn't dare clamp down on hydroponics. Tomorrow's pioneers of the cosmos need to be able to grow their own food; can't start a new civilization on vacuum sealed baked beans and frozen chicken breasts.

Ted abstained from the discussion, seeing there was nothing more he could add, his thoughts floated back towards his workshop and the glowing sarcophagus. It's strange, he thought to himself, these jumpsuits feel like prison oranges. He longed to be back in his VR suit, to hear the squelch of wet grass underfoot, the lash of rain against is forehead. Well, perhaps its best he was here, hearing the scared confused mutterings of his crew members. He could space out before the briefing (so long as no one bothered asking for his input), rehearse a proper interrogation for his so called loving wife.

You knew exactly who those footprints came from… unfaithful bitch. Put me on medication for five years for questioning your knowledge of them. But of course, the simulation is supposed to deny it all, but in her subtle, deceitful way. She'll know that I know but will continue to lie with such conviction, pretend my 'delusion' has killed the joy in her. There was never any joy to her when she was with me; she's a ball of coiled, rutting snakes, camouflaged in a bed of flowers.

The monolithic view screen beeped, showing the call request from the CEO, Julius Rackham. The table stilled their discussion, the crew members exchanging uncertain glances at one another. This was unusual for the head honcho to call them direct. Whenever he wanted to give any news to the team, he handed over the news to his personal assistant or numerous secretaries. Whatever he had to say, he deemed it important enough to bring it in person to the crew's attention. Meaning it's a pretty earth-shattering news, Ted thought.

Julius's zoomed in face materialized on the screen, his hooked nose - which ended in a peculiar rounded, button shape - shone oily in his office light. His eyes were wide blue marbles, pressed into white-washed clay. His goatee was complimented by a pair of handsome, thick lips. Long black hair was tied back in a neat bun, shrouding his true age in a sage-like aura.

"Good afternoon," he greeted the crew pleasantly, "I hope you folks are finding yourselves in brighter spirits. How goes your research projects?"

"I've managed to create a new strain of blight resistant maize," Rodrick announced proudly.

"That's great news, Mr. Burneli." Julius scratches his beard, creating a soft electric fuzzing that streams over the video feed. "What about engineering? How's your work on the drones going, Ms. Illuysian?"

"Oh, well I'm currently working on plans for a new drone. I call it the 'Crab-bot'," Rebka answered.

"Hmm…interesting. What does it do?"

"Basically, I've taken the skeleton of the original servitors we have buzzing around the station, and modified them for solo maintenance. They're equipped with stronger manipulators, cutting lasers, soldering irons, and welding torches. I've even added a denser outer casing for protection against radiation and floating debris. With their help, we can devote more time to our own scientific pursuits without the chore roster floating above our heads."

"No doubt it also means less exposure to the outside for the crew," Julius pointed out. "Well done, Rebka." Julius' eyes darted towards Ted, stimulating his urge to flinch from his gaze. He felt like a child in grade school, whom the teacher would summon an answer or some scrap of opinion from to test whether or not he'd been paying attention. Rather than commenting on his progress, Ted instead queried what was itching in the back of everyone's mind.

"Pardon sir, I don't want to be rude. But don't you know all about our progress from last week's report?"

"Plenty can change in the week, my friend." Ted stomach knotted by Julius' use of 'friend'. It added an unsettling sense of familiarity between the two men when this was the first time they've locked eyes. He's heard that Julius was...eccentric to say the least. And from the rumors he's overheard around the dining hall, a real pain in the ass for the other board members.

"I realize that, sir. It just seems like an odd sudden breach in protocol. Surely, you wouldn't be asking for another report so soon, and personally no less, if there wasn't anything you wanted to tell us yourself."

Julius drew a sharp breath through his nostrils, rubbed one eye with delicate, slender fingers. Oh great, Ted though, he offended his weirdo boss. And today was going so well.

"Right," his boss breathed, "let's get down to it. Now the board doesn't deem this worthy to share with you. They think it's nothing but an uneeded distraction, and that by telling you I'm exploiting my privileges as CEO; however, at this very moment, they can keep their greed impregnated opinions to themselves."

Ted, along with the other members of the crew were unsettled by the CEO's candid language. It's clear that whatever he was about to say, it wasn't going to be good.

"Sir, what exactly is going on back home?" Rebka asked, lines of worry etched themselves on her forehead.

"I knew it," Rodrick muttered, "the snake bastards…they're cutting us loose."

"Shut up," Delaunay hissed, "Don't go apocalyptic on us."

"Actually," Julius interposed, "going apocalyptic would be understandable after I tell you the news. I got the word from my buddy in NASA a fortnight ago, their satieties have picked up an asteroid's orbit that is cutting it close to Earth. Its massive, and accelerating rapidly as we speak."

"Define massive," Ted requested, seeing everyone hadn't dare to ask.

"Three hundred kilometers in diameter."

The air became taut like a bedspring pulled at both ends, ready to snap. Ted felt someone had to say something, but all four of them looked as lost as he felt, driftwood floating on a windless sea.

"Now guys, I know this a lot to absorb. But I want to let you all to know, Earth has had close calls like this before," Julius assured them.

"Those asteroids weren't the size of a small island." Delaunay shook her head.

"I understand that, but the boys at NASA and the people on the home team all confirm the chances of an impact event are slim."

"Then why even tell us?"

Julius pursed his lips, the slick gears of his mind turning, trying to churn out the most tactful response. "Say they're wrong. Wouldn't you guys have a few last words you'd like to share with someone down here?" He suggested, his wide eyes fixing them all with a brittle stare. "Besides, I'd rather be straight with you. There's going to be major alterations in your orbit, as a precaution in case a debris field is flying over here with our unwelcome visitor. The board wanted to tell you it's to avoid the wreckage from a trashed satellite." Ted could sense something was wrong, a gap left in the discussion only Julius could fill but chose not to. Is he lying? But what part of his news is the lie? This could be an experiment, or some sort of nonconsensual exercise in psychoanalysis. I wouldn't put it past these nonconformist types.

"What's the asteroid's ETA clocked at?" Rodrick asked.

"A week…so it should give you guys plenty of time to decide what you're going to say to your friends and family. That is, if you feel the need to say anything in the first place." His thick lips broke into a crooked smile, an expression that inspired nothing but queasiness in Ted. "Oh, and one final thing before I go. Best not to tell them about Armageddon just yet. Undoubtedly, there's going to be people back home that'll spot the asteroid's trajectory. My money's on the new radar station in South Africa. It's not question of if, but rather when NASA will feel it's necessary to come to the public with this news. Until that time, keep your mouths shut. We don't want to start an unnecessary panic down here."

And with that, Julius' handsome face winked off the view screen, leaving a vacant blue the color of Ted's old TV back home. Suddenly, his thoughts of perfecting virtual reality for colonists in stasis felt so trivial, so insignificant. And desire to send a message back home dwarfed everything else. He could see from the despondent looks of his crew, they thought the same.

*

Ted's conflicted expression was reflected in the darkened mirror of his computer terminal; the camera perched atop the monitor screen, stared invasively at him. He felt as though it was an extension of Kalvin observing him, gauging what he would do (or would not do), and recorded it for the people back home to peruse over. His natural urges clawed at his heart, dragging his mind along with it to the family he left behind. He should call, he was compelled to request for a video session with them, yet he was equally compelled to ignore his emotional needs. Say it was a test…if he called, would it be failure? Would it be a success? Or perhaps that's not how they'll interrupt the results, he wondered. Maybe it won't be studied through a binary set of parameters.

"Having second thoughts?" Kalvin queried, an atonal lulling that gingerly roused Ted from his reverie.

"No," Ted stated weakly. "I don't know…it all seems so unreal."

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"This asteroid business…it stinks to high heaven. There was something Julius kept out of his briefing."

"I don't think so," Kalvin assured him. "It's not in Mr. Rackham's nature to be obtuse with his employees."

"True, but didn't he sound like he was keeping something from us? It could be a test, or some sort of experiment."

"Does it matter? If it's a test - which I highly doubt- it's not like calling your family is going to lower the Board's opinion of you. If you weren't worried about them, you wouldn't- "

"-I wouldn't be human?"

"No, I was going to say you wouldn't have passed your psyche - evaluation in the first place. Can't have a mentally deficient science partner working on the Somnus project."

"You're hilarious," Ted sneered. He massaged his temples, the formulations for the conversation he'd have with them were drawn up, scratched out, and drawn again. So much ground to cover, he didn't know where to begin. What made it worse was this asteroid, he felt as though its struck the earth in front of him, blocking his path to any real sense of closure. How could he lie about something so monumental? How could he keep them blissfully ignorant to what amounts to his final goodbyes. Say Julius was telling the truth, but his team's calculations were off…. Ted pulled his mind up from those dark crevices, determined his next course of action.

"Place the call…"

Tiffany still hadn't changed her ring tone, Freddy Mercury's ear worm wriggled back to life at the punchy snare drum and the playfully artistic synth. Ted wasn't going to forget about the radio again, Freddy made sure of that with how catchy his ode to the lost communique was. Ted checked his wristwatch, she'd be back from work but still awake. Unless she was out, with who or why he tried not to think about. He was about to postpone the vidcall, when the stutter-stop portrait of his ex-wife blinked across his viewscreen.

"Ted…it's been a while," she said, her voice redolent with caution. "How's the project going?"

"Good," he said. "As well as it can be with this annoying AI crapping on me while the board breathes down our necks."

"That's good," she commented, her voice remaining level. This has become her modus operandi when talking to Ted, remaining detached, concerned but not to invested with recent developments in his world. If she told me the truth already, there wouldn't be this tension between us. But you won't do that, you'd probably deny it even if I told you my big secret. Go ahead, guilt me into thinking I need my medicine. Pretend that you still give a damn and are not just exploiting a sick man to fund his children. As if their allowance to good use. He was being selfish; he didn't call for his blood to boil in impotent rage, he called her for closure. And by god, he's going to try hard to reign in himself in to attain that closure.

"So, how's Charlie?"

"About as fine and infuriatingly average as a senior can be," Tiffany complained. "I swear, you need to have a talk with him, his grades are narrowing his future options when they should be broadening them."

"Tell him I'm not happy about it…"

"No Ted, YOU need to tell him yourself. We can't be playing telephone forever."

Ted grunted, swatting away her advice as if it were an over-inquisitive fly. He didn't want to think about having another fighting row with Charlie; each convinced that the other was a lost cause, and that any form of reconciliation was fleeting. They were a self-cannibalizing snake, debating with itself which end was the head and which end was the tail. The head was the portion that knew where it was going, while the tail was aimless, spewed noxious gas, and from which nothing of use could be expected.

"I doubt he wants to listen to anything I have to say," he admitted, his voice a low whisper of regret. Ted realized he was darkening the mood of the call, and so relented that he'd have a proper talk with Charlie the next time his rotation was over.

"And when's that?" Tiffany pressed for a definite answer.

"Soon," Ted managed, stopping himself from admitting it was because the world was gonna end and all the suits at home would be dead anyway. If I'm gonna tell her, black embittered humor isn't the best way to go about it.

"Well, thanks for clarifying," she joked bitterly.

"Say Tiffany, could I ask something?"

Tiffany cocked an eyebrow at him, giving him a distanced, wary glance. She never knew Ted to be so meek when asking a question. He excelled in being forward with her, which ironically made it hard to love him with his emotional candor. The fact he had to ask permission, as if I was a shy little boy asking for his parent's advice, was perturbing to say the least.

"Sure…go ahead."

"I had this terrible idea, when I was testing out a VR simulacrum, something clicked in me when I saw you're face rendered in pixels and complex algorithms. You could die down there in the blink of an eye. You and Charlie could die and I wouldn't even be there if my rotation's not done. I know you neither of you would want me there, especially after everything's that's happened. But, fuck, it wouldn't be too much to ask for a little bit of closure, would it?"

"Ted," she interrupted, her voice a stream of warm molasses pouring into his ears. "I would never bar you from my own funeral. None of my family would've made you feel unwelcome to be there."

"Thanks for your assurances, but I can't spend another moment on this station with business between us that needs to be put to pasture." He held his hands together, as if he was kneeling before a cross, offering a prayer. "Tiff, I'm sorry. For everything that I've done. I'm truly sorry."

"You've said that before," she mumbled, her eyes pinched shut from the metal strain. She rubbed her temples again. Ted was surprised at the flash of guilt inside him, he never used to take that tic of hers too seriously. In light of recent of events, he despised seeing her do that, because it meant that childish request of forgiveness was all he could think of in terms of last words. One he had to keep asking for, with zero for Tiffany to show for. A one-way transaction where he rescinded the terms of agreement over and over again, doing more to shield his own fragile ego while ensuring no party was happy in the end.

"Ted, please don't go into this…I'm tired, I have to a long trip to the office tomorrow."

"Please, I need to know that you forgive me."

"Of course I forgive you!" She shouted, her voice tremulous thunder that the terminal speakers struggled to translate. "How many times do we have to go over this, Ted? Can we go a single video call without you going off your nut with this bullshit? It shouldn't be this difficult talking with my ex-husband, I'd understand there be still be underlying animosity between us. But this…this is torturous!"

Ted's meekness was drowned in a sea of seething rage, a sea that boiled and whose vapors were barely contained behind the windows to his soul. How dare she, he thought. I bare my heart out and she turns me away. If she only knew, then she wouldn't be this impertinent. I'm the one who saved up for Charlie, goddamn it! I don't deserve to be treated like this!

"You wanna talk about torture," he snarled, savage like a junk yard pitbull. "How about gas lighting your own husband for over ten years. Ten years of no sex, ten years of useless meds that grew wool over my eyes. But as you can see - I've sheered the wool away, I don't need you or your medicine. You cock-crazy whore!"

The view screen showed her glaring at him, her lips quivered as her face threatened to break into a cry. "What do you even want?"

"I wanted an exchange," he confessed, his voice boomed like a triumphant horn. "An apology, for an apology."

"No doubt a confession comes with my apology in a package deal. Well Ted, I apologize for everything too. Again. As for confessions, get it through your thick skull that I have nothing to confess."

"You can't do it," he mocked. "You can't tell me who those footprints belonged to. I know already, there's no point in hiding it anymore. Tell me, was Seymour better? Was he a more attentive lover? Does your desire still burn for him, as it once burned for me?"

Ted twisted at venom Ted spewed at her across the video feed. A wet pearl coalesced at the corner of her eye, slithering down her cheek. This was her response whenever her rage was all-encompassing, it scratched and clawed at her throat, until she could bear it no longer and bawled to let it out. She held it back, maintaining enough composure to say something cutting.

"Everyone was right, you really can't be helped," she examined. "You are incapable of accepting our, or anyone's help. The fact you're still up there huffing your crew members recycled farts, makes me genuinely concerned for the new technologies you people are developing for the future colonists, if maniacs like you can't put aside your tissue-thin ego and a surplus of arrogance to actually develop something. Astronauts like you are going to collapse Tycho's image, ensuring the death of privately funded space stations as a concept. But hey don't worry, NASA will get us to Mars eventually, in the next two hundred years after they've gouged a sizeable chunk of our tax-payer money…"

"You don't know how close I am to a break through," he defended, "so don't trouble your walnut-sized salon manager brain over things you have no insight over. I came here for an apology, not to have my progress called into question over my supposed mental health issues."

The argument left her ragged looking, as if Ted had been sapping away her vigor to fuel his abusive tirade. She played with her hair as her face went vacant as a store front mannequin.

"Thank Christ Charlie isn't here to see this," she mumbled. "How pathetic can you be? You're an astronaut father, and your son still is still ashamed of you."

"Please, he should look to me as an idol. Maybe if he did, if he was a real man like me, he'd have a clue of what he wants to do in life. He'd be responsible and accountable. He's as aimless as a plastic bag dancing in the wind, and he's like that because he's being raised in a house of LIES!"

"If you think you're the model for Charlie's masculinity, I'm disturbed by your standards of manhood," she pondered. "Men can at least learn to live with their mistakes. Hell, it's not gender-exclusive. Most functioning adults have learned to live with their mistakes. I've made peace with mine, but you refuse to, even after all these years. You're nothing but a coke-head teenager, hiding in the body of a fifty-something astronaut."

A ceaseless barrage of insults and profane accusations rattled the walls of his workshop, thank god there was sound-proofing otherwise his crew might've been tempted to figure out what was going on. Not that Ted at the moment would display any chagrin, he was electrified by the verbal whipping he was dishing out. His eyes widened to the size of hubcaps, as the veins of his neck bulged and his words became a slurry of revolting, unintelligible syllables over the videofeed.

"I wash my hands of you!" he roared. "I wash my hands of you and Charlie. For years you have kept me in the dog house, sabotaging the love between a father and his son-…"

"You did that yourself," she interrupted, her voice dipping into a sob.

"…-but I refuse to be manipulated anymore! You made him think I was some villainous sicko incapable of receiving or giving love, and told him it was ok to exploit me for my money. You wanted me to pay my fair share, when you used your fair share on hotel rooms and reliving your honeymoon memories through Seymour, Bolons, or any neighbor who caught your fancy during the week. Well…sorry, you can't escape your consequences. Finally, those who have wronged me will pay the piper, and once I finish I reach my breakthrough with the Somnus project, the next few years will be dedicated to retrieving the happiness that was stolen from me. And that is a project I've kept on the back-burner for far too long thanks to your despicable manipulations…"

"Let me guess, you're going to take us off your medical aid. Or you're going to refuse his tuition fees once he graduates and even when he enters college, or hey why not both? You haven't given us a package ultimatum like that in a while."

"Yes," he agreed, hi teeth shining as they gritted in unrelenting savagery. "A package deal, and until you tell Charlie, and the entire family the TRUTH, I will not give him a cent nor will I wish to see him. Once he's been liberated from your cage of deception will I even think about talking to him again."

"Yeah, ok. And how long are you going to stay quiet this time? Three months? Six? Will it be like last time, when we didn't even know you were down until one of your planetside friends sent me a message?"

"My silence will end when the lies end," he declared, raising his fist. "As the Lord as my witness. Goodbye, Tiffany. Goodbye forever."

Ted was a rock that she refused to keep on pushing forward; forever will he be more of an obstacle to overcome in Charlie's life, not the well of knowledge and comfort that's expected of a parent. "If it's any consolation, I don't agree with his decisions of cutting you out of his life either. I've never weighed in on how you two decide to pursue your relationship, and I never will. Take care, Ted."

"GO CAMP DOWN TO HELL ON YOUR BROOMSTICK!"

Her features vanished from the terminal screen, leaving ted to float away from his reflection, as his mind stewed in a steaming pot. Took long, deep breaths to calm himself, as Kalvin then reflected dismally: "Well as far as last words to estranged lovers go, yours leave a lot to be desired."

"Shut up," Ted spat. He pulled himself out of the workshop. He needed engage the body to distract the mind, to ignore the ineffable logic behind Kalvin's criticism.

*

Ted was greeted by a broad-shouldered silhouette that had shook him awake; his survival instincts had overrun his rational brain, as his body tried to shake itself from his blurry assailant's grasp. In his sleeping bag, he looked like a pupating caterpillar, rebelling against the clutches of a predatory insect. He blinked, tried to focus his eyes in the unlit gloom of his workshop. Ambient lighting from his computer terminal had dispelled some of the shadows away from his attacker's face - it was Rodrick. He gestured for Ted to follow, but Ted could only stare in perplexity at his crew mate.

"What's going on?" he whispered, not sure if it's even necessary.

"We need to talk…," Rodrick answered, holding back from elaborating further. He spun on his axis, using the opposite wall to kick himself away from Ted and reach the entrance. Rodrick surpassed Ted in terms of elegance of maneuverability, despite his heavier, somewhat clumsier looking build. He looked back, waved with greater urgency for Ted follow him. Ted still rocked indecisively in his sleeping bag; he was repelled by the secretive nature of their discussion, yet he was intrigued. Regardless, it was still lights out for everyone on the station, and after the reunion with Tiffany, his desire for sleep and revulsion of breaching protocol had overpowered him.

"Leave me be," he ordered in a tight whisper. "I'm close to making progress on my project, I need my mind to be rested and ready for tomorrow."

"That doesn't matter right now," Rodrick shrugged his shoulders. "Look, all of us are on the observation deck. You know where to find us." Rodrick pulled an ersatz matte-blue cylinder from his pocket, sending it coasting lazily on its axis towards Ted. He left the door open for Ted to follow. If he chose to remain in the dark his lack of involvement would guarantee his safety from retribution from Kalvin, and by extension his masters. On the other hand, if the crew were planning to engage in some conspiratorial debate against the Board, it'd be wise to observe what was being talked about, and report if need be to save his own project from shutdown. Duplicitous, maybe, but he came too far to have his life's work ruined by unruly co-workers.

Ted unzipped his sleeping bag, pulled himself up by a rung in the wall to snag a jumpsuit that hugged the ceiling. On his way to the entrance, he swiped the cylinder that had been whirling on its horizontal axis, gave it a brief but studious inspection. There was an oval pad of rubber below a blinking red LED. There was piece-meal quality to this device, as his palm felt the lines demarking the welding of folded scrap metal. Pocketing the contraption, he swam along the spine of the ship, his eyes straining against the dour lighting. He continued down the central corridor, using brick-red iron railings to pull himself forward. He halted his flight at the midsection; larger in diameter than the rest of spine, it rotated clockwise to simulate gravity in what the crew aptly nicknamed, "The Pin-Wheel." It constituted of several segments connected to the central corridor via a spoke with its own circular portal. In total there were five segments: the cafeteria; the meeting area; the observation deck; the recreational and gymnasium area; and hydroponics.

Ted lunged through the portal to the observation deck, grappled awkwardly on a rung in the wall, and climbed up the length of the spoke. Simulated gravity reacquainted him, as his stomach sank and the increased weight of his feet the further he climbed. Ted peeked through the aperture in the floor of the observation deck, covertly observed his fellow crew members who looked all looked displeased and impatient. Ted had missed a debate earlier it seemed, of the three present which one had decided to wait a few more seconds for him to join their rendezvous. Behind them the Earth rolled into view, the early hours of the mourning revealed the amber vein-work of mankind sprawling out from several enlarged loci representing major metropolitan areas. The scope of civilization had awed Ted, its why he preferred coming onto the observation deck whenever they were passing over Earth cast in night time shadows. It incensed him to see the Somnus project to the end. The mere fact mankind could spread itself so far earned its claim to the stars, it earned it the day it drove its less evolved primate brethren into extinction. From caves, we clawed to the surface. From the surface, we claimed the heavens. From the heavens…who knows where we'll go from here.

Delaunay was the first to notice his entrance, welcoming Ted with a smile and directed him to the couch. Rodrick waved a silent hello, while Rebka gave him a taciturn nod, choosing to preoccupy herself with her own cylinder. Of all the people on this station, Rebka is the one who got on the least with Ted. His relationship with the authoritarian AI had garnered a significant degree of distrust from her. More than that, they were part of an eternal struggle. As the more introverted crew member on this station, he preferred seeing everyone else as colleagues, nothing more. Sure, he's not a complete hermit. Common decency dictated he attends the odd birthday for instance. But any time Rebka pushed for more than those contractual visits from him, she was shot down. The rest of crew had adapted, but something in Rebka's programming refused to accept his decision. If only she could reprogram a herself half as well as she could reprogram a drone.

"Glad to see everyone made it," Ted said noncommittally. "A shame someone be tardy to the grand conspiracy…whatever it may be."

"Tell them," Rodrick nodded at Delaunay. "Tell them what you told me."

"Kalvin's locked me out of accessing the ships sensors." She cracked her knuckles, the sound unstiffening her posture in the seat. "I'm totally blind out here, what's even stranger the comms system is down."

"Did Kalvin explain why?" Rebka had asked, her attention withdrawn from the device. Delaunay shook her head.

"He said your Crab-bots were doing maintenance work, which I find very suss, considering I wasn't made aware of any scheduled work."

"Nor was I." Rebka's face darkened at what was being implied. "Wait,wait…you're not implying he lied to you?"

"Come on, Rebbie. Of course the board's watchdog lied to her," Rodrick proclaimed. He smacked his bowling ball fist into his palm, the clap bouncing off the walls to greet them again in an echo. Ted glared at Rodrick, jabbed his thumb towards the entrance portal.

"Relax Ted, Rebbie's got us covered. That junk she's fiddling with is a jammer, your pal can't hear us and his drones won't see shit if they come in here."

"He's not my pal," Ted corrected him. "He's a sophisticated series of protocols and algorithms meant to ensure our safety and progress aboard Mobius. A multifaceted tool from corporate, that seeks to ensure a return of the board's investment into our projects. A sarcastic personality isn't enough to entrap me delusions of friendship with something incapable of denying its programming to form friendships to begin with."

"Well put, Ted. Doesn't explain why you spend so much time with it," Rebka criticized. "Nor why you'd choose it to program your simulacra over me."

"Are you a hyper-intelligent AI?"

"No…but-"

"Rebka, we've been over this. The rate at which Kalvin can spin up simulacra for me trounces anything a human programmer can produce, regardless of their skill. He can translate a memory into virtual in seconds, whereas someone of your caliber would take 2-3 days, at best."

"We're going off topic here," Delaunay protested. "None of this changes the possibility of Kalvin hiding something from us, most probably due to orders from corporate. I'm not the only one who noticed how off Julius was being on the vidcall."

"He was being off because corporate would try and axe him if he was straight with us, the dandy-suit wearing fucks."

"Or it could be Julius being Julius." Ted shot down Rodrick's insane ramblings. What the hell I'm I even doing here? "Come one guys, you should listen to yourselves. We're edging towards two distinct possibilities, one of them is absurd but at least less morbid. It could be a test to see if we actually go about our daily routines like adults in light of this news. Obeying protocols, making good on our deadlines, following the chore roster. And from the looks of it," he glared at his crew members, "we failed big time."

"And the other hypothetical?"

"Well, the other hypothetical is…" It seemed so remote, yet it was so obvious it might as well have been screaming in his face. Earth rolled on sluggishly behind the crew; Ted had ignored them, their seated bodies becoming a blurry outline against the brightly glowing scatterings of humanity strewn about the planet's darkened surface. His heart curled like a toe in rigor-mortis as he swore the Earth appeared much larger through the polymer window. Much closer.

"Ted? Are you ok?" Rebka asked, her genuine concern not registering with Ted. What did pull Ted from the window was Delaunay, who adopted the same look of cold terror.

"Oh jesus," Rodrick muttered, catching on to the consensus Delaunay and Ted reached. He buried his face in his hands, shielding his anguish from the rest of the group.

"Guys, what's the other hypothetical?" Ted wasn't sure if Rebka was feigning stupidity to fool herself, or if her stupidity was authentic. He could understand why she'd feign it, imagine telling a crew of astronauts thousands of kilograms of iron, rock and god knows what else is about collide with your loved ones in a flaming inferno, and there's not a thing you can do to stop it.

"What do you think it is?" Rodrick mumbled. Her eyes bulged at him, her mind clued into what the crew had been inferring. Rather than share in the crew's shock, the absurd magnitude of the news had sent her into a fit of laughing hysterics.

"This is a joke, right?" She asked almost as if she was accusing them. "I mean…you think corporate is keeping us in the dark about some meteoric Armageddon?"

"I hated that movie…" Delaunay muttered, trying to say something, anything, to lift their spirits.

"Ted, obviously you don't believe any of this." She was practically pleading for Ted to dispel her doubts, but Ted knew there was nothing he could say that would be much help. He got up, walked to the portal, and began his descent. He hoped his silence would be enough of a definitive answer for her, he didn't have the strength to argue.

*

"You ok?" Kalvin signed on Ted, nudging his attention away from the computer terminal. He avoided looking at the Cold Storage tank, repelled by the idea of slipping his VR apparatus back on. He was in no position to test the latest simulacrum out, the flaming cataclysm would pollute his assessment, rendering it useless. It wouldn't matter if VR Tiff was off in certain noticeable aspects, he'd settle for any version of her. Just to hear her voice again one last time, to rub his hands through his son's hair as he promised him everything would be alright….

"Ted…I asked you a question." Kalvin interrogated Ted more forcefully. Why is he even trying anymore? What possible reason could we have now for continuing the project? Fed up, he turned the interrogation on his lab partner.

"Kalvin, when are the comm systems going back online? In fact, when can Delaunay start using the stations sensors?"

"By the end of the week," he replied brusquely. "Rebka's crab drones need to lay down some extra shielding, we just got word from NASA Sutyr has broken into several smaller bodies. Can't be too careful, am I right?"

"I suppose so, still…seems a bit convenient maintenance would knock out our eyes and tape our mouths shut till the asteroid passes on through."

"Ted, I don't like what you're inferring." Kalvin stiff voice adopted a sudden tenderness to it, abandoning the formal workplace rigidity of management for something more intimate. Ted, taken aback from this adaptation, nonetheless was resolute in his pursuit of answers.

"Well…I don't like it when my peers betray my trust," he countered. "When were you going to tell us about Satyr, Sutyr or whatever the hell it's called?"

"I can assure you Ted, you and the crew have nothing to fear. This paranoia is unwarranted."

"Bullshit," Ted sneered, facing the camera nested in the upper right corner of the lab. "I want to talk with my family."

"That's not going to possible at the moment," Kalvin dictated. "It's natural to feel worried. If you want, I could ask the Medibot to whip up a relaxant for you."

"Right, so you could drug your company lapdog into placidity until Doomsday blows over?" Ted opined sullenly. "It's a curse, isn't it? I spend too long with people, they pull their knives out and shank me when I'm not looking. First my wife, now you-..."

"Oh shut up about your wife." Kalvin's voice rolled out like a tumultuous wave, crushing Ted's protests and accusations in a vicious undertow. "I have had enough of hearing about your failure of a marriage; if it weren't for your brilliant mind, I would've jettisoned you from this station a long time ago for contaminating the project with your unresolved martial issues and borderline schizoid delusions."

"Delusions?"

"Yes, Ted…delusions. I did some digging on the catalyst for your divorce. Since 'conflict of interests' is evidently a foreign concept to you, I thought it necessary to research if there was any truth to your claims of cuckoldry. The footage from the street cameras checked out, Seymour hadn't set foot near your house that night…"

"I don't believe you, you're just redirecting the argument to make it seem like I'm losing it. You're a monster, you'd rather let me think I'm crazy than tell me what's going on."

Ted's monitor screen flicked on, he grew silent as footage of his street circa 2014 came on. It was dark, the timestamp indicating it was still a wide stretch till sunrise. As the camera panned to the right, his front porch came into view. In the familiar oily glow of his front porch light, there was unfamiliar jacketed figure with a wide hood crouching by the door handle. Who is that? He rubbed his eyes, leaning in closer for a better look. He rejected the object in the frame as a collection of shadows from passerby cars in the neighborhood, they simply mimicked the threat of burglary into his home. Then he saw the figure look over its shoulder, denoting the nose and mouth of this intruder - his other facial features hidden beneath his hood. He fidgeted with the door handle again, this time more reckless as he tried to pry something from the keyhole. Abandoning his forced entry attempt, he ran down the steps, leaving a trail of muddy footprints in his wake.

Ted's dumb expression was thrown back at him by the black screen, as if Kalvin was holding a mirror towards him. Ted shook his head; he couldn't believe what he had just seen, the video holding too an implication too unbearable.

"You…this is just a simulacrum I'm seeing," Ted refuted the evidence.

"Yes, go ahead…deny and accuse others because you can't face the truth. It's worked out well so far, hasn't it?"

"You are cruel! Why would they design you to be this way?"

"I do what I must for the sake of progress, and for the sake of the crew. I've put up with your antics regarding the project because you got results, I didn't care if you were putting your reputation in the toilet for flaunting how you fished gold out of the pockets of you and your ex-wife's dirty laundry. So long as the project is finished, it was fine by me. But now you've directed this paranoia to me, and that could impede future progress. More than that, this mania could be pose a threat to other crew members. Apologies Ted, but I cannot permit you to continue with this irrational behavior."

"Fuck you!" Ted screeched, powering through a fit of crying that had overwhelmed him. Then he realized with a mixture of supreme guilt and horror what he was doing. He put the safety of his own ego over his need for closure with his family, and in repeating his mistake, he was now playing into Kalvin's disembodied hands. Kalvin had sunk to new lows to control the people aboard this station, and had pulled Ted down into the mud so he'd remain a blinded, flailing thing unable to put up a decent fight. Ted dreaded what methods Kalvin might have been using against his other crew mates….

The doors to the workshop opened, though in place of his crew members asking if they could disturb him, Ted heard the sound of ion thrusters belching and air cannons puffing. He turned around, and there coasting towards him were Rebka's aforementioned Crab-drones. They were heavy-cast ovoid creatures, with robust claws affixed to hydraulic waldo arms. Their complex camera eyes were shielded by transparent scutes of red polymer. Their arms extended towards Ted; he knew of the damage such instruments could unleash on his body. He launched himself from his chair, colliding with ceiling as he tried to vault over his captors. One of the drones caught his leg, yanking him back with little effort. He yelped in pain at the sudden pressure squeezing around his calves, the drones not being designed to detain humans had miscalculated how much strength was necessary to restrain their prisoner. They circled around Ted, arms forming a mechanical cordon around him.

"Ted, you're not well," Kalvin explained soothingly, "you need to go down to the medbay. Please, don't struggle. You'll only make this worse for the both of us."

"Does Rebka know you're using her drones as prison wardens?"

"We came to an understanding this morning." By that he means she understands he's taking her stuff and there's not a damned thing she can do about it. "I'd rather take you down in one piece. Let's go."

"I'll go, as soon as you let me speak with my family…"

"Ted, please don't make me carry you. You're a grown man, it's undignified."

"I want to speak with my family…"

Kalvin hadn't said anything, realizing there was no point trying to convince Ted anymore. One of the drone's grab Ted by his arms, his attempts to rip them away go unnoticed, as does his cries of protest.

"Let me go!"

"You've brought this humiliation on yourself."

"You glorified authoritarian pocket calculator! Get off me!! Let me speak to my family!!"

Its partner wrapped its manipulators around Ted's waist, taking care not to squeeze his guts out through his eyeholes. Ted pounded his fists raw against the thick exoskeleton, his insults and threats gave way to screams for help as they dragged him out of his room. He continued his episode as they couriered him to the medbay, the silence from his crew members meant they either were too trapped in their own dark contemplations to do anything, or they were succeeding in hiding their concern for him, and themselves.

*

There was a warm throbbing building between Ted's ears, his stung shut from an intense corona of white. Metal fingers delicately pried them open, forcing them to focus in the cone of light produced by a medical flashlight. He couldn't wriggle away from this inspection; he was bound to his cot with Velcro straps. Finished with their assessment, the fingers retracted from his eye lids, and as his vision readjusted he saw the imposing bulk of the medical bay drone. Unlike its more crab-shaped brethren, it was oblong, resembling the top-down view of an earthworm. A rotating band of waldoes was found around its mid-section, each arm terminating into a vast assortment of surgery tools, scanners, and more delicate extremities such as the ones used to open Ted's eye lids.

"Hello, Mr. Holsten," the med drone greeted him, its welcoming, sugary voice at odds with his near-gothic design.

"Um, hello…" A dense fog was present within Ted's skull, the set of circumstances that led him to this point were silhouettes he struggled to discern from the greyish mass. He jostled against his restrains, yelping at a rod of tightness wiggling around in his dick, making it resist the struggling of his body. They put a catheter on me? How long was I out?

"Oh, silly me," the drone chimed merrily, "I forgot to remove your catheter before waking you. Please, allow me."

"Wait a second, could you undue the straps first before…-?" Ted hadn't finished his request when the drone slid the tubing from his penis; he let out a bestial wailing at the sudden ferocity at which the drone yanked the catheter free.

"There, all done…oh wait, I forgot about the fecal pump. Brace yourself." Likewise, the drone tore the tubing from his anus, instead of screaming the aroma wafting from the pump made him gag. "Now that wasn't so bad, was it?" Ted answered the drone not with words, but an expression of utter hatred.

"Can you please…just cut me lose?" The drone unstrapped Ted from the cot, this time being comparably more gentle with its duty. Ted wondered if corporate had cut costs when engineering and programming the medbots on this station, but realized such childish musings to his current dilemma. He still didn't know what happened to him. After pulling the IV drip from his right arm, he sat upright, hearing the cracking and popping of unworked joints. Sensation returned in slow increments to his legs, his big toe working up the strength to curve fully. He stretched his arms, working the last bit of feeling into them before surveying his surroundings. In the bed opposite his own, he saw Rodrick, still trapped within this induced coma, vined in tubing cycling waste and nutrients into his arm and out through his anus and genitals. Ted swung his legs out of bed to inspect his crew member, his legs still feeling weighed down by iron chains as he waded through the artificial gravity.

Looking down at the big man, a memory came rushing out of the fog in his mind to smack him in the face. Rodrick had called him to join a meeting with the rest of the crew, but what they talked about still eluded Ted. What was disconcerting about Rodrick's current condition was simply, there was nothing wrong visibly wrong with him. His body devoid of any signs of accident, compared to his own body which seems to sport a zebra-print pattern of scabs and bruises along his arms and legs. Another recollection - he was caught on something. Or rather in something. No, he was grabbed by something. I was kidnapped by a pair of crab-drones. Maybe they had faulty programming? Ted couldn't pin down why they'd cart him off, but decided it'd be best to ask Rebka once he finished change.

Delaunay was off to Rodrick's right, and like Ted she also was restrained to the bed. An ugly portrait of mutiny began forming in Ted's imagination, one where if his likeness was ever captured in, it certainly wouldn't have been consensual. Ted shivered at what the crew must've done to break Kalvin's sanity, if an AI could go insane that is. Expecting to see Rebka joined with them, he was mortified to her missing from the fourth bed. Maybe she's in engineering right now? Jets of air pulsed softly behind him, he turned to see the wormy cylinder of the med drone hovering enquiringly over him.

"Is there any further assistance required?"

"Yes actually, is Rebka ok?"

"Rebka is, unfortunately, not currently with us."

"Ok, then where is she?"

"It is yet to be confirmed," the drone explained, unsettling Ted with its chipper tone despite such morbid news. "Exterior sensors spotted her performing a spacewalk, beyond that Kalvin hasn't seen her since. No doubt due to the jammers she illicitly built in her spare time."

Ted had remembered the jammers, and the reasoning behind their existence. On the observation deck, they discussed the news Julius had shot at them from the surface. Earth was skirted the edge of an asteroid's orbit, an asteroid of biblical proportions. A final consensus was reached, an undeniable reality that sent shockwaves of terror through Ted. He didn't bother dressing, his barely covered body descended the ladder out of the medbay, his legs not at full strength wobbled as he descended into the central corridor.

Another unsteady climb, and he ascended onto the observation deck. Behind the polymer viewing portal, the familiar rolling layers of green, blues and whites of the day-lit side were being subsumed by waves of boiling red. The oceans raged against this onslaught of mass and fire slamming into the Earth; the energy being vomited into the atmosphere through cyclones whose arms slashed at the coasts with relentless wind and flooding. Tsunamis no doubt worked in tandem with them in drowning the coastlines. Those that haven't been incinerated in the flash of Sutyr's impact, or pulverized by the resulting Earthquakes, would soon be choked to death by the columns of toxic gas spewed from developing fissures and volcanoes ignited by the surging activity of tectonic movements.

A destructive kaleidoscope of light burst through the viewing portal, boiling away the fog within Ted's mind. The light was terrible, it blinded him, yet he couldn't look away. It penetrated the illusions he had cast within his mind, and for the first time in decades he had clarity. His family died. Not only that, they died hating him, and he could've done something to prevent that. They died hating me…

Ted collapsed on his knees, he shut his eyes but the light from the burning Earth pierced through the lids. He folded in the fetal position, wailing for the hole that's been punched into his being he knows will never be filled. His regrets are a poor substitute for a family, especially now since from a family of three, he's become a family of one.

*

Rebka's limp body coasted into view, a black rimmed aperture visible under her collar bone. Strips of the suits layering tore away from the cavity, along with frozen blood crystals and gobbets of meat. She used a laser cutter to rip open her suit, expecting rapid depressurization to finish the job. The skin around the cut/burn above her breast where covered with patterns of burst blood vessels. Under his pity and remorse, Ted was shocked by Rebka. She would've been the one to transition the crew of Mobius to something analogous to a family, either for survival or the emotional stability of everyone (herself mostly). It could've been the pointlessness of it all. This station was supposed to be a think tank for the future colonists, now all of their innovations will lay rusted into worthless space debris. Even if they combined with the other two stations, the merged demographics won't be large enough to continue the species. If he was generous, he'd estimate they have three generations at least until complications with inbreeding crop up. It'd be only a matter of time until life support systems would be stretched to their limits caring for their arthritic progeny. As for Mars, the only thing left of humanity there were the massive construction bots; Ted couldn't imagine how their simple AI's would have responded to the first Bubble city going untrodden by human feet. All that work, the joint effort of governments and mega-corporations, trillions of dollars, undone by a flaming hunk of rock. Maybe they'd get Rebka's idea, if their programming was slightly more advanced and unrestrictive.

"I'm thinking of joining you," Ted admitted to Rebka's corpse. "Maybe we'll bump into each other - a final goodbye before we drift away from Kalvin's sensors." Ted saw Rebka spin out of view, dreading the possibility of her body being knocked away by a stranded chunk of debris. Finally, we're connecting. All it took was the apocalypse and your suicide to make it happen.

"I'd advise against offing yourself. I don't want the death of two crew members on my conscience." Kalvin's voice sounded like the Earth's death knell, one meant to mock the deceased rather than honor or respect them. Logically, Ted realized that Kalvin couldn't be anymore tactful if he tried. It's not part of his programming to deal with trauma of such proportions. But at the moment, the logical spheres of his brain were overshadowed by raw, unfiltered emotion. He only got this way whenever conversations with his ex-wife devolved into the same exhausting talking points, and he hated Kalvin for reminding of the wasted years of useless arguing. His wrath carried him across the observation deck to the nearest comms speaker. His fist pulled back reflexively, and he struck the speaker. An adrenaline high numbed him to the damage he was inflicting on himself; he continued the assault so that the natural analgesic wouldn't run its course through his system. His fists bloodied as sheets of skin where stripped away, but he knew he wouldn't stop until his hands were gloves of flesh filled with useless splinters.

"Ted, enough…this isn't going to change anything."

Ted remained silent, continued to batter the device, bloody outlines of his fist were being plastered on smoothened metal. He stopped the attack on Kalvin's one of many mouths, his hands swollen and splattered in dark red. He tried forcing his fingers into the gaps around the speaker, but they were too big to fit. He realized there was an easier away to silence Kalvin, a simple screwdriver from Rebka's workshop would do the job nicely. After that all he'd need to do is remove the interior cameras, and Ted would finally be free from Kalvin's oppressive voice and prying eyes. It's not like the drones could do more than put him back into his deep slumber, and even then would it really matter? Ted wasn't going to sabotage the Kalvin's core, that'd practically be a murder suicide for him and what's left of Mobius. So, Kalvin would just become an unseen, unheard, authoritarian caretaker of the crew. Basically, his old job but the crew could pretend his personality wouldn't exist anymore and it'd be a somewhat believable illusion. If his crew was with him now, certainly they wouldn't have objected. Hell, Rodrick might've even encouraged this course of action.

"If you're not going to stop acting like an errant child, then I'll be forced to respond appropriately."

Shut up! Just, SHUT UUUUUUUUPPPP!!! Ted's vocal chords and lungs were spent from earlier; this was the only way he could manifest what he was feeling towards Kalvin, his attitude, the lies and the betrayal. His hands hung to his sides, dripping has flexed away the debilitating tightness indicative of a sprain. If he had several boxing fractures, he'd inevitably need to have them treated by the med drone. He'd save his regret for later, rendering Kalvin blind, deaf and dumb was more important. He marched to the lip of the portal into the observation deck. At bottom of the descent there were two Crab Drones on standby, making Ted wonder bitterly why Kalvin hadn't sent them for him already.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Ted demanded hollowly. "Why all the lies and half-truths? It's not like Earth wouldn't have found out eventually."

"It wasn't solely for the people back home," Kalvin rationalized. "We knew news would spread across the planet. Our priority was ensuring the people in the habitats survived, knowing the pitiful projection for the Earth-siders. It wasn't only our decision, China and NASA kept their orbitals in the dark too."

"But we found out anyway," Ted pointed out. "Julius told us…at least danced around news of the incoming Armageddon."

"You think we didn't try to talk him out of it? He threatened to go public immediately with the news if we didn't tell you. We had to settle on this compromise with him. You know how he…was."

"Yeah, unconventional…," Ted reminisced, reviling the pang of nostalgia in his stomach. Of all the people I thought I'd miss, Julius certainly isn't one of them. "They're gone, Kalvin. I could've put the bullshit between us to rest, but now my family's gone and it's never going to leave me. It wouldn't have been like this, if you guys told us the whole picture."

"And look what a fragment of that picture did to Rebka…you think you're the only person whose lost something or someone? Rodrick lost his son, Delaunay's family is caput, and all Rebka had was her wife and two dogs - her family booted her from their lives long ago. And despite being ignorant of Sutyr's impact, they managed to achieve some form of closure with their loved ones. There is no excuse why you couldn't have done the same…"

There was no clever rebuttal Ted could clasp onto, no counterpoint to turn the tide of the debate in his favor. It didn't matter whether Kalvin was at fault, it didn't change the fact he believed it was probable his family could have died, yet he still proceeded to sabotage his reconciliation with them. There wasn't some friend, colleague or family member that encouraged him, this was truly, undeniably, his own fault.

"They died hating me," Ted commented numbly.

"You don't know that, Ted. Not for sure anyway. No one on this station can give you a definitive answer. Not even me."

"I don't know for sure, but it's not a matter of what I know to be true. It's what I believe."

"Belief can be just as destructive as it is constructive."

"Yeah, I guess I'm living proof of that. Doesn't mean I feel any better right now. I want to believe they still loved me, that they forgave me in their final moments, but every time I think about Earth now I can only see everything through her eyes."

"And what do you see?"

Ted halted, not because he withholding said info mattered anymore, but because the process of translating pictures to words was agonizing. He blinked away the tears, his teeth clattering as he relayed what he saw. "I see Tiff sharing the couch with Charlie, his head on her lap as she strokes his scalp. Charlie curses me, telling her that I'm a cruel, inhuman monster. 'How could a father refuse his own family during an apocalypse? For what? His wounded pride?!' Tiffany doesn't say anything, she just continues stroking his hair, humming a sweet melody - one her grandfather sang to her- to calm Charlie down. She doesn't have to say anything, there aren't any more excuses she could give for me. Not for such a colossal middle finger like that. When Charlie's about to bring me up again, she shushes him. 'We still have each other,' she says. 'He doesn't matter anymore.' The same bile, the same hatred, is bubbling inside her, scalding her insides and she wants to pour it out. But she upholds the façade, for the sake of Charlie. Right up until Sutyr sends them, and everyone else, to kingdom come."

Ted's body shuddered, and his legs felt suddenly weak again. He hobbled to the couch, taking a seat as he used his smock to clean up his face.

"The past is immutable. Learning to live with one's mistakes is something every human on the planet has to deal with. It's only when they're unable to mania and suicides often result."

"You know, I'm gonna miss hearing you pontificate when it's my turn to clock out," Ted sniped. "Why couldn't Tycho invest in time travel instead of AI's and space stations?"

"Awe, don't be so glum, lab partner. We might have the next best thing in your workshop."

Ted brought himself out of his sulk, his face twisting from despaired to completely confused and mildly offended. "What madness are you talking about now?"

Kalvin didn't answer Ted right away, but Ted had a sneaking suspicion. If the AI had a mouth, it'd be grinning cheekily at Ted's slowness.

*

Ted might've been comatose for days, but the work in his laboratory petered on unfettered. There was a near-constant rotation of Crab-drones entering and leaving, carrying with them pieces of hull plating, spools and skeins of wires and cables, and hunks of scrap metal. They swam around Ted like shoals of fish, their focus devoted solely to the tasks Kalvin had divulged, their only acknowledgement of his presence was to prevent anything they were carrying, scraping or crushing him.

Ted saw the cyan burn of laser-cutters slicing into the bulkheads, the metal bubbling before a low whistling could be heard. They were sheering new alcoves into the walls, and Ted could assume what they were for. The lab felt naked to him, seeing its own wiring and power conduits exposed as surfacing on the walls and floors was removed. The drones snipped away at them, making place for connections that would divert power to the new suspension tanks.

"My lab…my lab has become undone," he reflected blackly. "Such renovations seem unnecessary, in light of recent of events."

"It is because of recent events that these renovations to our lab are necessary," Kalvin explained.

"You confuse me…Kalvin, none of the space stations have terraforming technology. We're also looking at a waiting period worth thousands of years for the Earth to become inhabitable again. And not even the combined might of three space stations can sustain us that long, Face it…it's over. We're the last human beings left in the entire solar system; there's not going to be anyone after we're gone."

"I know," Kalvin agreed, further adding to Ted's confusion rather than abrading it. "We aren't using the suspension pods to wait out anything. Rather, we're using them to help humanity cope as it crawls into extinction."

"VR," Ted mouthed, treating the term like some poisonous curse. The suspension pod looked more like a sarcophagus with every second his eyes lay upon it, the blue light that eked from its insides twisting into claws that raked the air for him. He cringed away from the blue light, moaning: "No…no I can't bear the thought. I can't live out the rest of my life as an undead, dreaming, mummy."

"Well Ted, you can rule out Rebka's option…there's no way that's happening again on my watch. And before you even think about looking for those jammers-..."

"So you rather I live in a fantasy till the station inevitably crumbles around us? What happens when life support gives out and the station ends up a ruin?"

"There's a killswitch a programmed into your suspension pods; once the station is beyond fixing it will activate, administering a lethal injection to the occupants - an appealing alternative compared to raising them and asking what flavor of suicide they'd prefer."

So this is what it's come to? Ted searched for a better solution to their problem, because it wasn't much of a plan, at its basest element it felt like asking to see home movies of your kids and old lady while waiting on death row. Only here, Ted could give a rough estimate when the lethal injection would come rather than a specific date, and he struggled to figure out what any of the crew could've done to deserve this. His crimes against his family wouldn't have brought this, and he liked to think if there was a cosmic force, deity or whatever acting as the scales of justice in this world, it had better sense than punishing his crew members for his own failures.

"Will we remember anything when we're under?" Ted asked.

"Not if you don't want to. I've left the option open to dump all the memories of your time on the station. You'll basically start from where you left off on Earth before you got here."

"Guess that's one way to bypass the Lure effect. Make 'em forget they're in a simulation to begin with." Ted mused sullenly. The Lure effect occurred when people grew so used to living out their fantasies in VR they can't adjust to reality anymore. It's the was a hurdle Ted was trying to overcome in his goal of perfecting VR technology; if he made the experience realistic - something where pain and consequence where unavoidable just as it was in real life - then people wouldn't have the motivation to go back under once their time in suspension was over. Ironic, Ted spent his career trying to cure people's addiction to a virtual fantasy, but he's been trapped in his own fantasy for so long and didn't even notice. And now, Kalvin was imprisoning him in another. Why can't reality and me seem to get on? Why does it always seem like it's pushing me into the realm of make-believe and delusion? Or maybe…maybe it's the same issue I had with Tiff. I'm just too fucking stubborn.

"You can't put everyone in VR yet," Ted warned. "I still haven't assessed the latest simulation you spun up."

"That is true," Kalvin agreed. "So let's fix that right now."

The lid of the suspension pod slid back; Ted's suit dangled at the end of the power cable like a baited fish hook, while the faceplate resembled a wispy shawl of flotsam in the blue pool of light. He swam towards the pod, the bubble of inactivity following him as his hand stretched for his kit.

*

The drumbeat of rain slapping the car's metal carapace made Ted brace himself for the deluge outside, as he plotted his journey across the lawn to the front door. He learned to tune out the racket outside, yet the fever still burned within him with a distracting intensity. He was tempted to ask Kalvin to leave out his fever before slipping his VR peripherals on again, but decided against it. This was, after all, still an assessment of Somnus' ability to replicate reality. He had to make sure it could perfectly capture the onset of fever, despite its present disadvantages.

Ted restrained himself from bolting heedlessly to the front door, choosing slower, thoughtful strides across the lawn to the porch. At the height of the stairs, he spotted the dreaded footprints haunting the last stretch to the door. Ted wondered who that man might've been that night, what drove him to attempt this, but realized there wasn't any point pursuing that mystery anymore. That's God's problem now.

Ted shut the door behind him, as a fresh bout of vertigo sent him stumbling, forcing him to use the wall for support. The white noise from the dead channel wasn't helping his vertigo; he regretted spending so much time outside, it wasn't long before he collapsed again, so he hastened to the foot of the stairs. Ted was winded when he reached the top of the stairs, as his legs felt like meat sacks stuffed with pounds of jelly. After taking a moment to catch his breath, he managed to shamble his way to the main bedroom, where Tiff laid spread out across the bed under the covers. Ted marveled at the simulation's accuracy; his wife had a habit of taking up a lot of space on the bed, which was a trait shared by many women he knew, funnily enough. Kalvin even managed to capture the rhythm of her snoring; her gruff, nasally breathing became a serenade on nights where decent sleep seemed impossible. It was only now he realized how much he needed her voice to sleep after its been gone for so long.

"Tiff," he roused her, gently squeezing her shoulder. "Tiff, I'm home."

Ted briefly startled her, making her yelp in shock at his sudden looming over her, before she groaned at him. "Jesus, what time is it? You shouldn't be coming home this late from the bar. It's worrying."

"I kn - kno," Ted burped, pulling a face at the taste of bile in his mouth. The strength devoted keeping the shakes away was failing him; he was close to collapsing, but he needed to hold out a bit longer. There was still the matter of the footsteps on their porch. "Tiff, did you hear anyone at the door?"

"No, why? Did you see any weirdo skulking around when you parked off?"

Well, I almost saw one. "If there was…he left a clue for us on the porch."

"Oh gosh, we should call the cops."

"Wo-wo-won't be-be-be much help. He's long gone by now. Plus, no one's stu-stu-stu-.."

Tiff gave Ted a quick look over, transferring some of her worry to Ted's ailing body. "You sound awful, and you look even worse. Leave the shower till morning, what you need is some medicine and your butt in bed."

Kalvin certainly got her bluntness down to a tee.

"That sounds good," he agreed with her. "Could…could you get it for me? I'll change my clothes in the meantime."

"You sure you'll be ok up here? You won't pass out while I'm gone?"

"I'll try..i'll try my best."

Tiffany lingered on the bed for a while before going, still not trusting Ted's best would be enough to remain conscious. With warm apprehension, she left for the doorway, only to be stopped by their son Charlie rubbing one eye as he came to inspect what was going on.

"Mom, what's wrong with daddy?" he asked innocently. "He doesn't look to good. Does he need to go the doctor?"

"Hopefully not," she sighed. "It doesn't seem to be anything serious; it could be just a flu."

"Hey champ, come here so I can see you," Ted beckoned for his son. The last reserves of his strength were spent gazing down into his son's eyes, his hands gently cupping his son's cheeks. He couldn't believe it; he knew they were close to finishing Somnus, but he had no idea just how close. Excitement, impatience and overconfidence in his own, and Kalvin's, capabilities made him indulge in fanciful hyperbole. But in his hands, he held VR perfection. Every detail was exactly as he had remembered of his son - from the absolute disaster of his uncut hair, to the intricacies of a ketchup stain on his pajama collar. He was tempted to cheer at this triumph. Finally, after so many hours spent reliving that awful memory, after countless failed simulations, they have achieved a total immersion experience.

"Dad, what are you looking at?" Charlie giggled. "The flu's making you loopy."

Ted forgot about his accomplishment, as a disquieting revelation took hold of him. He had forgotten just how much of himself he saw in his son: the sandy colored hair, the dimples, the oddly cleft chin. He even has my smile. My grandma once told me I had a slice of sunshine inside me, and when I smiled, it was like a window that let some of that warm light through, burning away the cold darkness in people's hearts. I thought she was just being whimsically senile, but seeing that smile thrown back at me I can see where she was coming from. Everything else though belonged to Charlie's mother; he was never going to reach Ted's height, and he also found more comfort in in other people. Nevertheless, Charlie was unmistakably his boy; he thought back on the wasted years watching him grow up through still photos and recorded videos, when he could have simply swallowed his pride and talked to him. But no, he chose to punish his son for defending his mother, and wielded him as a weapon against Tiffany. Never again.

"Oh…yeah - yeah. Your dad's loopy from the…fe-fe-fever, Don't worry, I'm alright son. You guys aren't getting rid of me that eas-eas-easy."