author notes

this is something sitting contemplatively between "au" and "canon" for my original webnovel i've been working on for Years at this point: ENDEMIC EGO DEATH. i'd just got done rereading annihilation, and wanted to take a crack at writing something expedition log-style for my own ocs as an experiment/character study. a Lot of this deviates from what i'd already decided about, Several Things, but i like how it turned out and might change things up a little in canon to accommodate it....hmmmmm!!

the log of simon marin

---

This is the start of the log of Dr. Simon Marin, soon to board the shuttle to the VIC-27 station belonging to Bartell Explorations. In the event that we arrive safely in one piece, my job is to observe the star Antares for any new changes to its electromagnetic field, as well as conduct a series of tests to see how we might further manipulate it. As it is standard procedure to keep a log to be shared remotely with Bartell’s headquarters on a weekly basis, I will be recording things such as my scientific findings and any concerning changes to my mental state, as will I alert to any observed changes in the other members of this expedition; however, as per the contract with my own employers, my log is only to be read by Preston Young, as well as anyone else he deems necessary to interpret my findings or my health. Understanding there may be strangers’ eyes on my words, I have decided to write this log with the intent to be understood without the prior context Mr. Young would have.

This first log isn’t strictly necessary by Bartell’s standards, but considering my goal for full context, I am making some preliminary notes now, before I join the others on the shuttle:

First, my qualifications: I am a graduate of the University of Washington, with a doctorate in theoretical physics and chemistry. After co-writing The Youniverse with Elaina Berkovich and a more pointed focus on chemistry, I taught theoretical physics at UW’s Seattle campus for many years before I was approached for an extensive study on the unique electromagnetic force known as the Sutton wave, emitted largely by celestial bodies of all kinds, including the Earth and our sun. I have maintained a contract with Mr. Young for some time now, in order to fully understand what exactly the Sutton wave is, and how it does—or doesn’t—impact the human body. I have not committed to much field study before, at least not like this; today will mark my first time going to space. Still, I’m confident in my ability to perform the job.

As for the Sutton waves, I am returning to the site of their “official” discovery. The VIC-27 station has orbited Antares for quite some time now, gathering the most immense amount of data on Sutton waves we currently have. Discovered in 1962, Dr. Caroline Sutton set out to prove on a (then) 20-year mission that their behavior permanently changes when the waves’ source is directly observed by humans; Antares had not yet been visited by us even once. With seemingly no regard to everything else we know about electromagnetic waves, upon their arrival, the amplitude just exploded from a flat line to well beyond the peaks we’d ever see on Earth. Anecdotally, Dr. Sutton and her crew reported feeling reinvigorated, after being cryo-lagged from the journey; some posit this could be due to the immense barrage of Sutton waves they might’ve absorbed on their approach, as it has been confirmed in multiple studies that living things, including even plants, actively draw them in. Personally, I have not been able to recreate these extreme conditions in my own lab, and am skeptical that this wasn’t just coincidence.

We are the first expedition back to the VIC-27 station in some time, and are to be the first to monitor new observed activity since 1982; prior to that, the station was manned full-time, with crew changes every 5 years. We’ve received data back about Antares remotely, ever since the expeditions stopped; certainly, its activity has calmed, only spiking every once in a while for reasons we’re unsure of before sustaining consistent activity never seen without humans nearby.

My goal for this expedition is to understand the relationship better between Sutton waves and human beings. It has been posited both within the scientific community and by the layperson that Sutton waves are related to consciousness in some way or another, and that it is the mind—even the soul—of a person that causes this immense and explosive transition in the quality of a source’s Sutton waves. I’m no stranger to misconceptions about the observer effect, and quite frankly, I believe the theory comes from a place of either uninformed or wishful thinking, even coming from Dr. Sutton herself. The much more likely cause for the change in Sutton waves on observation must have something to do with the tools we bring with us; therefore, my less official aim for this expedition would be to uncover the method by which I could theoretically reproduce a source’s Sutton wave transition in my lab, eliminating the necessity for FTL engines and space stations that otherwise muddy the waters.

For those concerned for my health and emotional state, I will admit to some anxiety about the location and travel aspect of this study. As mentioned, I’ve never been to space before, and I never thought I’d go. My apprehension is balanced only by my excitement to study Antares. It’s been the object of my fascination for years now, having access to all the data brought home from the VIC-27 station; to be there, to see it with my own eyes, to finally start a new phase of research is an incredible honor. I hope to carry this excitement with me through my research; I hope it’s not squashed when I get there; I’ve heard the smell in a space station is absolutely dreadful, especially the old ones.

The expedition team consists of me and my research assistants—Dr. Constance Pine, and Dr. Celia Vance—and the Bartell Explorations crew we’ve contracted to help us in space: Captain Morgan, Dr. Dennis—the physician, Ophelia Rowan—technician #1, and Elijah King—technician #2. Of course, I have every confidence in my research assistants; Dr. Pine, an astrophysicist, I hired for her field study experience in space, and I expect to rely on her expertise in many ways throughout the study. Dr. Vance, I have worked with for many years already, during our grounded studies on Sutton waves; I greatly admire her ability to maintain focus in high-stress situations, and I trust her more than most—myself included—to understand and embrace the challenges of the job.

The others, we’ve all trained with during the time leading up to this expedition. I am optimistic about their abilities, mostly; Mr. King, for his part, is a trainee, and I don’t expect him to be in perfect form for this job. His knowledge base is extensive, and he has indeed gotten his qualifications from the very same institution as his younger trainer, Ms. Rowan—the difference in experience is certainly noteworthy, though. I am highly impressed by her, and I’m sure her parents couldn’t be prouder; only 19 years old, and already, she’s not only graduated and passed her STEAT, but she’s been on a number of short-term expeditions, all successful. Of course, I can’t blame Mr. King for his shakiness during training, but I certainly feel much more comfortable in Ms. Rowan’s hands than his. If I harp on Mr. King for a lack of experience, though, Ms. Rowan herself is certainly lacking next to Captain Morgan; with decades of her life dedicated to space travel, she’s seen all sorts of life-threatening danger and still lived to tell the tale. Not many live to be her age, in her field; statistically, I know there’s some good luck at play, but I’m greatly comforted by her accomplishments and her focus.

A personal note to Mr. Young: Don’t forget, I gave you that number for emergencies only. Just because I’m in space doesn’t mean that rule doesn’t apply anymore. Emergencies only.

---

It’s truly staggering, trying to remind myself that it’s been over a year since my last entry. To me, it just feels like yesterday. It’s a completely different level than any sort of jetlag, disorientation-wise, both mentally and physically. What have you been doing, during all that time I was asleep? I’ll never really know the extent of it; by the time I get back, it’ll all already be distant memories. “Sleep”, too, isn’t really accurate; I experienced the jump in time normally associated with sleep, but it isn’t really sleep; and trust me, the body knows the difference.

The majority of my first day here was spent waiting; just waiting in the shuttle for the captain and the techs to determine whether it was safe for us to go in, even after docking. The longer we spent in silence, the more anxious I was that we’d have to put two entire years to waste, traveling all the way back straight away to report uninhabitable conditions. Eventually, though, they finally invited us in.

“But don’t get too comfortable,” Ms. Rowan told us as we entered. “The main engine is fried.”

Captain Morgan was resolute that we were in no immediate danger, though. “It’s not ideal, but we can limp along until we get an emergency supply drop.”

Rowan tried to push it, but Captain Morgan was swift to pull rank. I don’t like the sound of it, but if Morgan thinks we’re safe enough without it for the time being, I trust her. I can’t blame Rowan, either; I remember being resolute in my own naiveté about the rules and over-cautious safety guidelines in my own work, back when I was freshly graduated. Her hypervigilance may be a bit excessive, but it could be a boon, too, in those unexpected, statistically improbable situations—should they occur.

The data we received was, of course, remarkable and exciting. Speaking entirely anecdotally, I’m certain now that the theory of Dr. Sutton’s team being invigorated by the rush of Sutton waves must be false; while I did indeed feel an incredible relief from my symptoms of cryo-lag, it came only with the excitement of looking at the VIC-27 station’s sensors; that was hours after we’d already arrived in Antares’ orbit. In fact, our arrival was dreadful, and I kept asking myself when this alleged explosion of Sutton waves—if another one was caused by our approach at all, of course—was supposed to alleviate the nausea I felt upon waking up.

The lack of immediate relief wasn’t for a lack of activity; the amplitude and frequency did indeed increase once we reached a distance of about 170 miles from its orbit. I am attaching the exact data to this entry, and I know exactly what you are going to look at first, so I will acknowledge for completion: Yes, we noted the exact time of waking up, and the exact time the first of us—I gave Dr. Vance the honor—looked out the window at Antares visually. There is a delay only of about half a second between Dr. Vance’s observation and the burst of activity from Antares.

“It’s like we woke it up. Like it was saying hi to us.” Dr. Vance said as she looked over our readings with me.

I see what she means, but personally, I’m hesitant to anthropomorphize a sun, even just as a social sort of engagement; I still firmly hold that, without a more controlled experiment, we don’t truly know whether it was coincidence or not.

The rest of the team still reported varying levels of cryo-lag; any relief we felt eventually faded, and we didn’t get much work done today. My head hurts too bad to interpret numbers and do equations, much as I’d like to get straight to work; we just loaded all our supplies into the station, much to Rowan’s protestations, and had our first meal after sending the shuttle off back home; “breakfast” (using the term literally, as it was about 11pm back home) consisted of a horrible sort of saline drink for cryo-lag that the Captain served hot, insisting it went down easier. I find it hard to believe that it can be any worse than it already was while hot. It didn’t help that, sure enough, the smell in here is unimaginable. The only way to do justice to this miserable experience is to remind you that I’m currently living off the recycled bodily fluids of several strangers. Between that, the constant noise of the fans, and my immense struggles with zero-gravity so far, I’m not optimistic that the headache and nausea will ever pass. To Mr. Young, or anyone else reading this, really: Try to savor fresh air, the next time you happen on it.

Final note: This YI communications console on board is...weird. Rowan typed her log up directly on the console to send out; I nearly did the same, but I wouldn’t get to save a copy of my own report—it would just transmit, and I’d lose it forever. I mean, maybe that’s normal, but the sort of PC-functionality to it lulls a man into a false sense of security with his data. I guess I’ll be saving my logs on my laptop, transferring them over on a thumb drive.

---

I know that wear and tear is normal for any structure, no matter the importance of its purpose. Still, I’m beginning to find it difficult not to be put off by some of the station’s old scars. It helps that it seems Ms. Rowan has eyes on it, too—the past few days of our expedition so far, I’ve constantly seen her working on the station with Mr. King.

As for work: I’ve attached more data for you to look over, but by my eye, it looks like business as usual. As supported by previous expeditions’ data, it seems that the Sutton waves’ response to the presence of individuals can indeed vary greatly, and behaves roughly the same until a crew change. We know not much more than this. It is very difficult to get much done so far, with the novelties and struggles of working in space. I have taken quite a beating from the station, trying to get used to moving around—or staying still—without gravity to anchor me; not just that, but Dr. Vance and I have been forced to adjust to new organization systems, and are constantly losing things such as pens, data printouts, laptops, and other equally important tools, as they tend to simply drift away. It brings to mind a particular student who thought himself above everyone else in his class, always trying to slip out undetected mid-lecture without losing points...not to mention, while I commend Dr. Vance on her ability to focus through stress, I’m finding it’s difficult to ask her to pay attention to work here, rather than playing with our new laws of physics. I’m not going to harp on her for it, though; Dr. Pine reminds me that the novelty will soon pass, and we have plenty of time ahead of us.

We are also frequently interrupted for reasons outside our control; we’re often asked to take part in “soft evacuations”, as Captain Morgan calls them. Not true emergencies, just preemptive maintenance that means, for safety reasons, we have to be sealed off in a different section of the station until maintenance is complete. She’s equally diligent about ordering us to our own health routines, as prescribed by Dr. Dennis; even in early childhood, I’ve never been so regular in when or how I eat, sleep, exercise, or rest. By the time I get back, I might be in the best shape of my life...I find the strict schedule to be infuriating, always herded away from work like cattle at the worst times, but I know it’s important.

The station’s gym is cramped, and every day, I share it with two others during my routine: Dr. Dennis, who observes and assists like a personal trainer, and Rowan, who is more familiar with the guidelines of her routine and requires less attention from Dr. Dennis. I hope for a day Dr. Dennis either decides I’m just as capable or becomes bored and complacent from watching me push levers around and cycle or run in place day in, and day out; I know I shouldn’t avoid my exercise, but it’s not very comfortable or encouraging, being watched and cheered on like I’m a child by a physician half my age. If I’m to visit the gym every day, I’d much rather fumble with it alone, and suffer whatever consequences that may come from being unpracticed.

Today, though, I partially got my wish: Dr. Dennis was pulled away by Captain Morgan mid-routine, leaving me to finish my cycling session without his incessant platitudes. Rowan was at the other end of the machine; it’s just one big machine, you know—a contraption, more like, reinventing gravity’s natural resistance through mechanical means, something involving vacuum-sealed chambers, I think. We take turns, between cardio and general strength training; while I monopolized the exercise bike, I could turn to my left and watch Rowan bench false weight, anchored against a different wall to create an impression of different gravity sources, between me and her.

It’s strange; you know me—I’m not very talkative, either at work or in my personal life. But I’m feeling uncharacteristically chatty, out here. I think it comes from knowing these people are the only ones I’m going to speak directly to for the next four years, and our very unique environment. I’m a hypocrite: I’m annoyed by Dr. Vance’s distractions, but I’m just as distracted, spewing out conversational vomit at everyone I share a room with. (Save for Dr. Dennis, selfishly.) I just keep going on about Sutton waves, or reminiscing about decent food, or complaining or laughing about space in some way or another. Rowan is no exception, and I think she finds me irritating for it.

But this time, on an impulse, I asked her a question that she was actually interested in answering. “How is the maintenance on the station going?”

Rowan strained under the machine’s simulated weight as she spoke. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another. We’re technically in a state of emergency, every day until we get our supply drop. Y’know that? A whole year of bandaid repairs. It’s insane.”

Of course, I’m no stranger to less than ideal lab conditions and perpetual bandaids to equipment. During my chemistry days in my 30’s, I once worked in a lab with a constantly-dying chemical shower; it’d get checked by routine, flagged for repair, and someone would come in to jury-rig a fix on the pipes that needed replacing before leaving it to break again in the next few months. Maybe I’m just jaded to this sort of risk by now. Her reply didn’t inspire fear for our lives, but I did feel empathetic to the mental strain of her work load. Still, in a weirdly comedic mood, I asked, “Any chance of us getting blown out into space?”

Despite my anxieties about getting here, I don’t feel the sort of bone-chilling fear I should feel about the risks posed to our lives, every day we spend here. But, it does keep nagging at me, that Rowan didn’t reply to that.

---

I’m pleased to report that work has really picked up since I last wrote. We’ve decided to start off with a repeat test, one you know well from its name: the peek-a-boo test. We close off all windows for certain periods of time, forbidding any observation of Antares before opening the main observation window again, to look for any changes in the rate at which Sutton waves are emitted. Just like for the other expeditions, the results are the same: over the course of a few days, the station will be intermittently “attacked” by Sutton waves, between periods of lowered activity, until windows are opened again and we look at Antares; at which point, we received one final barrage before amplitude and frequency returned to normal.

I know you’re going to be infuriated by this; but still, I don’t consider this definitive proof that it’s some quality of our direct observation, at least by way of our consciousness, or the “soul”. I won’t consider anything proof of what you want until I can recreate it in the lab. I’ll give you this, though—it certainly brings up a lot of questions, and not a lot of answers.

I will, however, defer to Dr. Vance on her interesting take on the peek-a-boo test, for which we have just sealed the windows to reset and try again: she wants to see if Antares “responds differently to different individuals”. Considering we already know that each crew has been marked by a different sort of “signature”, I’m surprised this repeated, controlled variance on the test hasn’t already been tried.

As for everything else: I’m getting the hang of living in space, I think, and I think Dr. Vance is getting bored with all the microgravity tricks she came up with. (Rowan always corrects us on the “zero-gravity” misconception; it seems like a reflex. There is indeed a minuscule pull towards Antares—so small, it doesn’t mean absolutely anything to me, but I’m sure it makes all the difference to the captain and technicians.) I can forget about the smell for long periods of time, and I’m greeted by only a low-grade sort of nausea when I wake up each morning, as opposed to violent. It’s incredible, the things a person can get used to, if they have to; if their only other option is the vacuum of space. I hear I might change my mind on this later, and start feeling claustrophobic.

---

This week has been a challenge. I will state now, for those concerned with my mental and physical wellbeing: I am exhausted. Given the circumstances, you’ll have to forgive me for the language, but I am fucking fed up with King.

The annoyances have been piling up; he has an incredible disregard for our lab space, stealing our pens and paper and clipboards, and has been caught on more than one occasion napping under things or around tight corners when we try to get started for the day. (Why one would put so much effort into sleeping outside his tethered, secure sleeping bag is beyond me; it seems prohibitively difficult, but then again, most things make sleep unattainable to me.) Annoying and disrespectful, and doesn’t inspire much trust, but I can live with it; today, however, we discovered the reason why our readings were fluctuating so much, despite firmly shutting the windows for the test. The kid has been opening the windows when nobody’s looking.

Dr. Pine was the one who already knew, before I did at least, that it wasn’t some error in our systems, or new and unexpected data, or anything of the sort. That our problem was far more infuriatingly simple than that. Without consulting me—she’s quite independent in that way, I’m finding—she even took it up with Captain Morgan, who reported back to her later that neither King or Rowan admitted to opening any windows. The next night, Dr. Pine posted herself up in some corner of the lab and caught him in the act.

His excuse? I thought it was just during lab hours. Bullshit. He knows the rules perfectly well, Preston, I swear to you, and he lied about it, hid behind what’s increasingly seeming like a facade of obliviousness. I’m a trainee—I don’t know any better! As if it takes a long, stern talking to to realize that you shouldn’t lie to your crewmates—technically your employers!—or sleep on the clock. All that wasted time...how will I sleep now, knowing he could be out there, fucking up our next test?

---

First ofall, i would like to remind all fo you earthworms at Bartell, your’e not suppsoed to read my logs. If youre reading my logs, thats’s a breach of contract with YOuge industries and yoru asses iwll be sued. OU HAVE BEEN WARNDD.

Peston, this messag eis for your eyes only.

Perston, i’ve been in space for a logn time. I’v eonly been awake for under a month, and it feels like forever. I’ll be out here for longer.But being out here, it’s just like Earth. It really is.

youand Abigial are really my only freinds. And i liove Abigal—I do, I lov emy friends, you can tlel her that if you want, idont care—but Peeston, you dug me out ofa hole. A horrible awful pit. Yo uguave me a perpose, after I lost everything. You didn’t give up on me. You beleive in me. You kept tryign, and you tell ME to keep trying. Other poepl’s sympathy wears otu after a while; peopel get sick fo caring about a man like me. I don’tknow what’s wrong whith me. It’ slike I only know how to be damaged, and nothinge sle. Anythign else scares me. Because if I let go, then what? What else is there for me?

Elaiana had enough, thats’ for sure. Phoebe too. Even Freida.

Withe veryone elsee, I I know it’stemproary. Even abigali. I can love someone with all my ehart, but I know they won’t feel the same way, and i have to reign it in. Acutally dont telll what I said about loving her. She mightnot feel the same way, or take it the wrong way...but you, Preson, I dont’ feel like that. You dont make me felel like I have to be careful whth what I sayor how I say it. I feel comfortable wth you in a way I have’t felt since...PHoebe, I htink. I loved Elaina, Prestyon, and I htik I still do, but with you and Pheoebe, I always felt like you just udnerstood. Saw me ofr more than the sum ofmy parts.

Soryr, mabye you can tell I’m drunk. Drunk in space!! IT’s kidn of awful, hahaha. I fyou think your ehad swims when you dirnk with gravity, just wait till there realy is no up or down, ssee how that treats oyou, hahahahahaa.

Buti had to tell you all this now. Maybei t makes no sesnse, but I haveto tell you this, becase it’s eating me up. IT’s like my chestis empty,and a cage at the same time. LIke a black hole is in there, and my ribcage contains it, to protect evyerone else fromgetting sucked in. But it ust means i have to grab atany fleeting moments fo clarity in how I feel, and throwit out of my bodya s fast as possible,before I lose it forever. Does that makee sense? I’m just trying to tell you, Ilove you, Prestn. I knwo I give you a hard time, but thank you for everything.Thank you for trustnig me with the TOmrorw Project. It’slike a second chance, to do this whole thingr ight this time. But, maybe I’m not doign that very well, sitll. Maybe I shoudl be nicer to you when we disageree. I dont’ knwo why I act thew ay I do, sometimes.Maybe it’s toolate for me to change. But thank you, for being patient with me. Thank you, my best freind.

Love, Simon

---

I’m sorry for any alarm caused by the lack of a timely log; though, of course, I have to remind myself you haven’t even received my last one, yet, relative to when I’m typing this—it’s been 12 days, just shy of the two weeks it takes to get a message to Earth from here. It makes me wish I could go back and edit my last one before it reaches your desk, warn you that the next might be a little late. (Speaking of your desk—but not at all actually—I’ve been picturing these things getting sent directly from the station to the Priority Fax. Not that I believe you’d do that, of course, but it’s surprisingly helpful imagery. Maybe a bit too helpful, after my last entry...apologies for the lack of professionalism; living in space is stressful enough on its own, without kids messing up your tests. I’m certainly still irritated and wary of King, but I’m a bit mortified in retrospect that I let so much needless emotion slip in official work documents...)

Anyway, I am alive and in decent health, if you were worried. Truthfully, sending in a report just slipped my mind.

After my last log, I did what I had to do, although I really did not want to: I called an all-hands meeting, and I reiterated vaguely but sternly that the rules of our tests must be followed strictly by all crewmembers, at all times, save for emergency situations. Thankfully, with a reported reprimanding from Captain Morgan, we didn’t have a repeat of the window situation for our next test. Peek-a-boo-two, as Dr. Vance called it, was administered by placing Dr. Pine alone in front of the window to open and observe by herself, as opposed to the method of peek-a-boo-one; the time-honored tradition is for everybody to be there and shout—well, you know. The reading we got was indeed different; you’ll see in the graphs I’ve attached there was such a sharp spike, as opposed to the usual rounded curves. Dr. Vance joked that Dr. Pine’s usual neutral expression (referred to with vulgarity I’m not comfortable repeating here) had scared Antares.

And, yes, a couple of holidays have indeed passed. New Year’s went by with little fanfare; at least for me, as I fell asleep (why do I toss and turn when I’m trying, but I can’t keep my eyes open when I want to stay up?), but I heard Dr. Vance ended up nailing Dr. Dennis in the face when she threw a ball at the floor to celebrate at midnight (PST); I’m sure it was indeed very funny. As far as our pick of the litter of earlier December holidays goes, Captain Morgan at least gave us the dignity of choosing when we would undergo the social gauntlet of the closest thing we could take to a full day off, together, as a team-building thing (although we did have to do it in the company of Christmas decorations, even celebrating on the 28th). We broke out our special, highly limited supply of halfway decent food; we watched movies from our even more limited selection. Captain Morgan and I ended up slipping out, and she shared some contraband vodka with me she’d flavored with peppermints, and we talked about home.

Captain Morgan doesn’t have a family—not a partner or kids, at least; she really has dedicated her entire life to her career. I told her I admired that.

“What about you?” She asked.

Sounding like an asshole, now, like I’m ungrateful to my family, I told her about Frieda and Elaina.

“It must be nice. Looking forward to going home.” Captain Morgan said.

It’s true; I do look forward to going home, but I thought that was an odd thing to say, after hearing I haven’t even had contact with Frieda for two years, Elaina much longer. Living on the other end of the country, like they’d only stopped because they reached the other coast.

“Do you really prefer it out here?” I asked her.

“God, not really. I think I hate space and Earth equally.”

I told her, I didn’t think that was fair to Earth; but I also sort of saw her point.

“Don’t be so hard on your daughter, by the way.” Captain Morgan added, opening her cup to carefully release peppermint chunks into the air, plucking them from where they floated to suck on them; that’s one thing about her that always gets me—she’s always playing with her food. Also, I hadn’t thought I’d mentioned anything that implied I’m hard on Frieda; I started to feel like she was talking more about herself, now, disguising it as advice to a colleague. “Academia isn’t everything. Some people have to find their own channels. You know, the more you try to pull her into your world, the more you push her away.”

Politely pretending we were still talking about my daughter, I said: “I can’t be so flippant about my child’s education. Just because it can be tedious, doesn’t mean it’s okay to forge my signature and run away.”

Captain Morgan laughed at that. “I like the sound of your daughter.”

That reply was infuriating, but it gave me a weird sense of deja vu, and I ended up laughing, too, in spite of myself. Possibly, it was the vodka. For a split second, I swore I could smell cigarette smoke, too, and I craved one for the first time in quite a while.

We drank a bit more after that; I overindulged and embarrassed myself, like I normally do. Hangovers in space are truly miserable, by the way, in case you were wondering.

Other than the hangover, I’ve been doing fine, but my conversation with Captain Morgan has indeed left me sort of homesick. A personal note to Mr. Young: I understand this isn’t laid out in the contract, but if you can, would you pass a message to Frieda, please? By mail; not by phone, and not in person. Please put Bartell Explorations headquarters as the return address.

My message is as follows:

Dear Frieda, I hope you and your mom have been well while I’ve been gone. How is her treatment going? I hope she hasn’t been hiding from her appointments again. Have you learned to drive the RV yet? Did you ever look over the guide to east coast colleges I sent you? I tried to prioritize Massachusetts, and I made sure to circle the ones that have filmmaking courses; you know, Phoebe took lots of extra courses to enrich her hobbies, while she studied atmospheric sciences. College doesn’t have to be all stick and no carrot, as she’d say; except atmospheric sciences sounds fascinating to me, I wouldn’t call it a stick, but you get the idea. I’ve always wondered...do you actually remember Phoebe? Do you remember when she lived with us, or do you just remember her visiting? You were so young when she moved to New York. Have you ever visited her with your mom? Do they even still talk? Maybe by the time I get back, you’ll already have graduated. Maybe you’ll have made another movie; maybe you’ll have made several movies. I’m sure I’d have nothing but good things to say about them, for what it’s worth. I wish I could ask BE to send us the one you made in junior high; it was much better than any of the movies they gave us. I wish you hadn’t destroyed the tape. You and your mom are alike like that, though; I can’t tell you how many times I walked in to find her burning perfectly good drafts of The Youniverse. Nobody gets it, but I still get the urge to say, drop the brains and look out the damn window, you idiot! at work out here. Remember how you got in trouble for the word damn, showing the movie to your class? I remember when your teacher called me in a tizzy about it. I know I gave you a hard time, but to be honest, something came over me, and I just couldn’t stop laughing until she finally hung up.

Anyway, I hope the checks are coming in the mail on time and in the full amount. Do you still have that phone number I gave you? Don’t hesitate to call if anything changes with your mom’s treatment, and you need the amount adjusted. No number is too high, even if it’s for something besides her treatment. Did you ever look over the house listings I sent? Did you already move into one? I hope so; I’m in space, with rooms and halls so small you have to press yourself against a wall to let someone else shimmy past, and I still have more room and privacy out here than you two do, living together in that RV. I know your mom is attached to it, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. Sometimes, she can get stuck on things that aren’t good for her.

I should stop now, before I end up talking about work and having any chance of this message getting to you demolished via confidentiality agreements. I mostly wanted to tell you, maybe I don’t say it enough, but I love you, always and forever, and I miss you. I’ve missed you since you left, but the feeling is amplified exponentially by the sheer distance. 600 lightyears—sometimes out here, the feeling threatens to tear me apart. I want to respect your space, but still, I have a favor to ask: would you come to the BE launch site when I come back, so I can see you again? We don’t have to talk about anything. I just want to see you. I need to look forward to seeing you, when I come back to Earth.

---

Mr. Young, please tell me you haven’t sent that message to Frieda. If you get this and you’ve so much as placed it in an envelope, destroy it immediately. Please.

Work has been interesting, but probably not very exciting for you to look at, this week: we’ve repeated the exact methodology from peek-a-boo-two for peek-a-boo-three, with Dr. Pine at the window again. Results are consistent with peek-a-boo-two. We will be performing the exact same test one or maybe two more times with Dr. Pine before changing our “looker”, as Dr. Vance has dubbed it. I’d like to circle back to Dr. Pine again, to see if the results stay consistent even after changing lookers, but I’d also like to move on to some other tests as well, and the peek-a-boo test is fairly time consuming.

Life up here has been fine; same as usual. The days blend into each other out here. We only mark the time as day or night through the station’s clocks, tuned to the time back home. The lights get noticeably dimmer when we’re supposed to be sleeping, but that only serves to make my adrenaline spike, somehow.

---

Dr. Vance really wanted to be the next looker. Curious as I may be about my “signature” granted by Antares’ Sutton waves, I feel much more comfortable monitoring the test itself, so I was planning on granting her this. But I called Ms. Rowan in, instead. I’m not sure why; I just did.

For those concerned with my wellbeing: I will belatedly admit to some further issues with impulse control, beyond the “conversational vomit” I experienced when we first arrived. For some reason, I got it into my head once that it would be funny to put on a space suit and go out onto the hull, looking in at the lab from the outside, and pretend I was forgotten out there by some old expedition. I guess I thought the suits look so old and outdated, it might be pretty convincing. Thankfully, I came back to my senses when Dr. Dennis found me for my two-and-a-half hour gym sentence and asked what I was doing. I also chased Dr. Pine around with a moldy cup of some unidentified liquid I found in storage; I’m still embarrassed by that (and have apologized profusely), and I only mention it because ordinarily, the thought would never cross my mind. Or at least, I hope it wouldn’t? For some reason, the thought keeps nagging at me that I really can’t know for sure. Dr. Pine has told me over and over that it’s okay; some people are more prone to “space madness” than others, (an anecdotal condition; not clinically proven, beyond the acknowledgment of heightened workplace stress) and she’s seen weirder. She shared a few alarming personal stories of her own first expedition that I won’t repeat here, with respect to her dignity. I have decided in no uncertain terms that this will be my final expedition to space. I don’t like the sense of not being in control of myself, not even knowing I’m not in control of myself when it happens. It’s made me feel increasingly claustrophobic in my own body; it’s a feeling like suddenly realizing the water’s boiling in a pot you’ve been sitting in all your life, and it’s only getting hotter. I covered up the mirror in my closet room with some printouts from the lab.

Anyway, as for the test: Rowan wasn’t too pleased to be pulled away from her own work, but she did comply. She floated in the cupola, as requested, and hit the button to open the shutters.

At that exact moment, as I heard the scrape of metal on metal, the temperature in the lab skyrocketed as the entire station shook around us, like I was suspended in mid-air during an earthquake. Then it all stopped at once, as if none if it ever happened.

The bizarre part is, it’s true: none of it happened at all. At least, not according to the station. Everyone else corroborates the experience, no matter where they were on the station or what they were doing, but the station’s logs don’t show any temperature changes or course disturbances. Not even so much as a pen or slip of paper flung out of its container.

Before coming back to my senses, before my heart got the chance to calm down, Rowan left the cupola and started digging through our things, like she was looking for a misplaced assignment five minutes before class started. None of us stopped her; we just watched her throw anything deemed unimportant (A.K.A.: everything) with extreme prejudice, like the object in question had chosen its form just to spite her, before leaving the room without another word—but not before she ripped up the data printout from the test and ate the pieces in front of us.

Of course, I wasn’t going to go fish the pieces out of her mouth, as if she’s a cat eating plastic. The paper readout is just a redundancy, thankfully, and we can always print another if we lose one. So, I turned to the console.

There’s really no telling what is typical or abnormal Sutton wave behavior in this context, just yet; Rowan is only our second looker. I will say, though, I’ve never seen them withdraw from the station like this. It only lasted a moment; if we manage to get Rowan in here again to repeat the test, I will try to have the presence of mind to time any sort of mass-hallucination symptoms we may experience again, planning for the possibility that it wasn’t just coincidence.

Dr. Vance said, laughing: “If a sun hated me like that, I’d actually kill myself.” I didn’t think that was very funny for a number of reasons; mostly, though, it was only then that I realized a trend in suicide jokes, coming from her. I plan to keep a closer eye on her...as long as I can maintain the presence of mind to do so.

I should ask Rowan why she reacted that way to the test, but for some reason, it feels like asking something wildly inappropriate and personal. The humiliation and resistance I feel to it is paralleled only by imagining myself sidling up next to her and saying, so, tell me about your sexual history. I can’t account for this feeling, but I can’t get over it, either.

---

Apologies, again, for my last log. I think I made the state of things sound a lot more grim, even somewhat supernatural, than they really are. Dr. Dennis is very attentive to our mental health, and has been bending over backwards to ensure our minds are sound enough to work. Telling him more about the alleged “space madness” I’ve been facing, he’s ordered me to a few consecutive days away from the lab. (I mentioned my concerns for Dr. Vance, but I haven’t seen her given the same sentence away from work; Dr. Dennis has been vehement about her privacy since I brought it up, though.) My time off has been spent almost exclusively in the botanical wing, joined by Dr. Dennis when he’s not busy. We are all, of course, tasked with botanical responsibilities, to benefit both our minds and the plants, but I was given larger tasks to try and achieve at my own pace, such as digging out old dead things and planting new things, unfrozen from pots in storage. Maybe I’ll start keeping plants at home; I really do feel much clearer-headed, already.

The botanical wing is complete with sun-lights and strange microgravity water features, apparently both artistic and functional, a series of color-tinted tubes sucking water through and twisting around each other, occasionally opening up in small holes to send a fine mist everywhere that eventually sticks to the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and any other surface that interrupts it. These tubes aren’t an obstacle, as long as you “walk” through the wing as intended with velcro shoes on green, stained carpet. The whole place is landscaped into a six-sided sort of labyrinth, extending across every wall of the wing; there’s some magnetic quality to the soil, the water, and of course then the plants, a metallic sort of chemical mixture in that keeps it all pinned to the “floors” with false gravity, allowing for the beautiful display but prohibiting us from eating anything we grow. (The water recycling system separates the chemical, recycling that as well; my chemistry brain keeps itching to take a look at the station’s water systems.) Dr. Dennis and I take long walks through it, and talk about anything but work.

He’s really not so bad, as an individual; I can’t fault him for having a job that annoys me. He has a partner back home who apparently goes simply by Bells; I asked what it might be short for, and he just laughed for a while, like it was too funny to answer. Maybe he was laughing for another reason, I don’t know; I was sort of embarrassed and didn’t push it. Talking to him can be sort of a confusing ordeal in that way, but it’s not terrible, and it doesn’t seem to come from a malicious place. It’s better than feeling condescended to in the gym, if nothing else.

Apparently, he was just as surprised about his first expedition into space as I was my own. He’d always wanted to be in the medical field in some capacity—he punctuated this with a cheesy cash register sound—and ended up being scouted by Bartell Explorations. He’s been on several expeditions by now; I asked him how Bells felt about the long-distance, and he laughed again before just moving on, asking me about my own family.

“Don’t have one,” I said, inexplicably. I immediately apologized and said, “I mean, I have a daughter,” but Dr. Dennis had already started walking away with purpose. I didn’t follow him.

Sorry, Preston; you’ll have to contact Bartell Explorations if you want a timely lab report. Either way, I’ll try to type up a second log about what I missed, when I go back in.

---

I don’t think Dr. Dennis is okay. Two days ago, when I tried to leave the botanical wing, I found the doors sealed shut, every airlock out of the wing depressurized. I don’t have the clearance to alter the pressure in an airlock, nor was I allowed to bring my laptop or radio with me, so that I wouldn’t be tempted back to work. I just had to stand, sometimes float around, and wait for someone to notice I’d been locked in. Apparently, I wasn’t missed at dinner...

It was Rowan who broke me out, after a full night alone, trying to sleep the time away. She was just as surprised as I was by the way I’d been locked in; especially since, according to the logs, it was her keycard that commanded the airlocks the previous evening.

Of course, we had some questions; they were immediately answered when Dr. Dennis appeared and started screaming at Rowan until his face turned beet red—didn’t take much, actually. He kept saying that she’d just “contaminated the experiment”; even said once she’d contaminated me, by letting me out.

“What experiment? What sort of contamination?” I couldn’t help but ask, genuinely curious, even if it was just insanity.

Rowan shot me a nasty look for asking; fortunately for her, though, he didn’t bother answering, cursing and pounding on the walls on his way back down the hall.

“Have you ever worked with him before?” I asked Rowan.

“Yeah. Once.” Rowan said, distracted, still watching the hall like he might pop back around the corner. “He never did anything like this, though.”

She went and reported this to Captain Morgan. I waited some time after she’d already done that to bring it up with her myself as well; nothing against Rowan on a personal level, but you understand, it is getting difficult to have faith in even the most trustworthy right now, and she’s already behaved strangely once before.

Captain Morgan, to her credit, still seems pretty level-headed. “Concerning,” She said with a serious nod. “Rowan told me about that earlier. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. There’s worse places to be trapped for a night.” I answered, truthfully.

“Well, as you understand, we’re pretty limited in what we can do about this. But I’m already making arrangements to keep an eye on him. You may need to exercise without him—just ask Rowan for help in the gym, if you need it.”

I tried not to feel too much relief at that, and failed miserably.

Captain Morgan issued a couple statements to the crew on the intercom this morning: First of all, a reminder that stealing a colleague’s badge was considered a fireable offense at Bartell Explorations headquarters. Second of all, that Dr. Dennis would be “half-out of commission” for the time being, and that we can all go to her or Rowan for first aid, if needed.

On the one hand, I truly do feel refreshed from my banishment to the botanical wing. On the other hand, it’s a bit disquieting, having a compromised physician.

As for the work I missed: not much, apparently. Dr. Pine and Dr. Vance couldn’t agree on how to proceed, so the windows have been shut for longer than the usual time period. I don’t like that variable being thrown in with the rest of our peek-a-boo tests, so we’re just going to open the window and reset tomorrow.

---

I’m sorry, again, for the delay in logs.

I opened the window, the morning after my previous log. Me. Not as a looker; just a man opening a window. The most innocuous thing in the world, just the press of a button.

It seems my mental state is compromised further than I thought.

I don’t know where to begin, with what I experienced when I opened the window. I don’t know if it matters. I don’t know if I should share it. The more I try to put words to it in my head, the more it starts to feel like...words on a screen. Which is exactly what it becomes, when I intend to type it, of course. I form the words in my head, and a transformation occurs, somewhere between me and the letters that line up on my screen. But it feels like once they reach that state, I can’t go back in my head, anymore; it’s not like I forget the experience. I remember every moment, the excruciating details. It’s something else. It just... becomes ...words on a screen. Does that make any sense?

In any case, I completely understand why Rowan didn’t want us to look at the printout from test four. I am not sending you the data, from this not-test.

I’d really, really like to come home, now, Preston.

---

Sorry, for the last part of my previous log. I was, and still am, rattled by what happened. Please don’t raise the alarms or anything about getting us home early, unless that’s what the experts recommend. There’s still much work to be done up here. I’ll push through.

---

Here. It’s here again. That thing I saw, out the window.

I tore down the printouts I’d put up over my mirror, and I saw it again. It followed me into the station.

Rowan knows it, too, maybe. Maybe she had that reaction because she saw the same thing I did.

Either way, it wants to talk to me; it wants to talk to Rowan; it wants to talk to Frieda; it wants to talk to you. It wants to take someone else. Someone irrelevant.

And I don’t think it knows how to do any of these things. Or maybe I don’t know how to listen. I don’t know sign language. I don’t know if it knows sign language, either. I’ve asked the rest of the crew if they know sign language, but they don’t. We’re at an impasse.

Don’t mistake this for idiotic ramblings about alien encounters from a first-timer in space. I don’t believe in undocumented phenomenon. I don’t believe in aliens. This is not an alien. It’s something else.

Experience itself loses its tangibility through communicating it; becomes flat. Two-dimensional. Unbelievable. Unremarkable.

Really, I don’t want to put words to it. I don’t want the experience to be words on a screen, not for me or you, but I have to document it, so I can make any fucking sense of the thing.

Writing it out is going to fundamentally change the experience forever. It’s its own observer effect; like checking the pressure in a tire. But it might be better than nothing. Maybe.

Eager to get back to work, I floated alone into the cupola. Dr. Pine and Dr. Vance weren’t even in the lab with me; I’d just woken up obscenely early, and felt drawn to the lab to get started. This wasn’t strange at all; you’re the one who says I’m always either a day early or a day late.

Listening to one of Elaina’s old favorite bands on my headset, I floated into the lab, went straight for the Cupola, and I opened the window.

Listening now only to the pounding of blood in my ears, I had no idea where I was. I startled into this sensation with the distinct feeling that I had already been Somewhere for hours, days, eternities. I can’t even tell you if that Somewhere was just the station, and I’d forgotten where I was, or if I was somewhat...transported...or even if I was just unconscious.

They didn’t find me unconscious, but maybe I was for a minute. I know I didn’t see “nothing”, but I can’t quite grasp what it is I saw, either. Just because you can’t grab wind doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.

As I float alone Somewhere, I ask myself, do you know what this is like? Was this how you felt? Am I experiencing something like what you saw? Does this mean what I think it means? Suddenly, I can see that scene from Frieda’s old movie in unexpectedly vivid detail, like the movie is real, and I’m there; a couple of kids dressed in baggy Halloween costume lab coats, poking vaguely at a bloody mess of animal organs from the grocery store with pens, “doing science” on what was meant to be zombie brains. My daughter bursts in wearing an oversized Columbo-esque trenchcoat stained with red paint, all her hair tucked up into her grandpa’s hat, wielding a toy gun, limping on a bloody leg, and shouts the line, my favorite line. The timer’s still counting down in the corner; the one that started the moment her character was bitten. He chose to hide it, just trying to use what little time he had left to do the right thing. I wanted to take comfort in this memory of my daughter, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop seeing the zombie brains, dumped and arranged in stained plastic tupperware.

Lungs aching, now—excruciating pain. All over. All my nerves on fire, body not moving. There came a split somewhere, between me and my body, but something was missing, too. Like I’d just left half of myself in my body as I drifted away from it, losing it forever. Knowing without it, I’ll fade away, too, or at least become something so unlike myself, I can’t lay claim to the identity of Simon Marin, anymore. Just remembering how it felt still makes me retch.

Kindly, though, the sensations eased away, slowed to a stop.

Soon after, I sort of “came to”, and that’s when I saw it: Hands. Human hands. All consistent in size, shape, skin tone—my hands. Mine. Trillions, quadrillions...

Octodecillions of them, somewhere in that area where the scale of it is so enormous, it loses practical meaning, would never be something we actually encounter in a literal sense. Normally.

Objectively more than I could have possibly seen out that single Cupola window, maybe.

Now panicking, I flung myself back out of the Cupola and turned away. But simply not looking at it anymore couldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I was experiencing. I’d already seen it, and now, I knew it was coming. Not just for us, but for Earth, too—kind of. I’m not convinced my arms are my own. They could’ve been replaced, and I’d have no idea; even if not for that, statistically speaking, it just feels insane to believe that my two are actually mine against a number I can’t even grasp. Like it already has the monopoly on My Arms, so I shouldn’t even bother to try and take ownership. Am I controlling them?

Or are they controlling me?

Kisses, Simon?

:)

---

How many times am I going to have to apologize for my previous log? Can I just attach a disclaimer at the top of my logs that apologizes for the last one by default? Doing it every log is starting to feel like a waste of time.

I’m fine now. Everything is fine. I stopped seeing the hands. Dr. Dennis is okay, now, too.

Space madness. It’s just space madness. BE headquarters has sent us some additional advice on combating it, a delayed effect, not even knowing the half of the impending mental breakdowns across the station. I’ve finally confiscated Captain Morgan’s alarming supply of vodka and relinquished it to Dr. Dennis—how the hell did she get so much vodka out here?—but there’s not much I can do, other than hope Dr. Dennis can help her come off it easy, as promised. He does seem coherent and inappropriately chipper again. King refuses to leave his room, except to eat or shit. Dr. Pine has either been unaffected, or is very good at working through it; thank god, because while I was busy trying to reinvent sign language in my mirror, Dr. Vance attempted suicide, and needs to be on strict observation.

Rowan, same as Dr. Pine. Thank god for that, too; we’ve had a few actual, real evacuations while she fixes something. Either that, or she demands far more urgency in her work than Captain Morgan does, which might be more likely, now that I think about it. But I’m not in the least bit interested in arguing with a technician, if she tells me to get the hell out of a room in the next 5 seconds.

We’re following the advice of making some changes to our schedules for variety, and trading certain chores off to someone else who’s never done it before. We’ve all spent some time together in the botanical wing. We worked on the gardens, and we talked about our feelings. We’ve been advised to make use of any art supplies we can dig up; I found an old drawing tablet and an installation disk for an even older drawing software, and today, I drew a pig from memory. I think I could do better on paper.

We’re feeling alright; we’re feeling like we’re on the mend. I’m certainly in control of my own arms.

I’ve decided to suspend the peek-a-boo tests for now. Instead, we’re going to move on to the more intensive tests. No more playing around and wasting time out here.

A personal note to Mr. Young: I got your message through BE HQ, along with our space madness management tips. Maybe they even sent them at your behest...what log would you have just gotten by the time you sent it? 1.22? 1.17, more likely; maybe 1.22 just came in on the same day you got your message in with HQ. It also makes sense, given the content of 1.17...

First: No need to apologize for sending that letter to Frieda when I asked. Thank you for your diligence. Knowing how highly you prioritize any requests from me is...well, slightly concerning, given a few messages coming your way as of writing this, but still comforting.

Second: I’m sorry about my Priority Fax joke. Again, it wasn’t to imply I really believe you’d shred my logs without reading them. Actually, I don’t think anyone would be able to stop you from reading them if they tried.

Third: I don’t know why I write my logs the way I do. Maybe the emotional nature of them just takes me back to The Youniverse. Of course, you know the narrative style of it; Elaina’s always credited as “the heart”, me “the brains”, unfairly—she may not have graduated like me, but she’s very knowledgeable in spite of that, and just because she’s better at writing than me doesn’t mean I didn’t contribute to the dialogue or prose.

Fourth: Now, that’s an idea. I’ll see what I can do, but I may wait until we go home; I don’t think she’s in any state to consider job offers right now.

Fifth: I’ve given it some thought, since reading your message. I can’t say I agree; at this point, I’m certain it’s just space madness. Setting aside my feelings on the matter (as I am not happy to entertain what that means about my own experience) Dr. Pine has seen and experienced it before, and has insisted that our erratic behavior aligns with her expectations; on the other hand, I will concede that I don’t know for sure, considering space madness is anecdotal, a catch-all for all the sorts of behavior that stems from the stresses of the job. There isn’t exactly a DSM entry for it, with a definitive list of symptoms that I can read through and cross off or circle. But, if we are aiming towards your hypothesis, then yes, this proposal makes perfect sense. I’m not comfortable with your proposed methodology, though; something like that would certainly not be legal, let alone humane, and could cause far more roadblocks for us than it might help us. Let’s focus on the tests we already have planned, and circle back to it when I come back to Earth.

Sixth: Thank you for the kind words. I look forward to seeing you all again, too.

---

Yesterday, myself, Dr. Pine, and Dr. Vance all returned to the lab together for the first time in a short while. Collectively, we all agreed to ease into it with a few repeat tests from the lab; confirming whether or not the laws of Sutton waves emitted by Antares remain consistent with the laws we’ve studied from Earth and other planets in recent years, since the VIC-27 expeditions stopped. Just like similar studies around other distant planets, it seems all the activity of life and other disruptions on Earth dampens the effects we can study; we received some powerful results from Antares.

With a much clearer head, now, I keep finding myself looking back on the hands, wondering how it might work as an organism. I keep thinking about it, and there are indeed other living things with tons of limbs, or “limbs”, like starfish. I don’t have any access to books or papers on the matter, but I asked around the station if anyone knows anything about how starfish move—do they consciously move their...feet? Surely they’re not just called feet. Rowan told me (impatiently) that they have a water vascular system to extend and retract their “legs”. I’m inclined to believe she’s right for now, since I have no other choice, but it just seems so...simple, maybe. Surely that’s just the overview of a more complicated answer. It also doesn’t help me understand how the arms move; they certainly never deflated, and their rolling movements seemed a little too complex for a system like that. I do remember reading about siphonophores though, once. Did you know the Portuguese man o’ war isn’t a jellyfish? That’s a species of siphonophore, a colonial organism: they’re made up of clones, zooids, that perform different functions, like eating or swimming. A ton of individual beings, linked together for survival; they’ll occasionally eject a zooid to confuse or distract predators, but they can’t survive on their own, you know, each one being so specialized. Even if your stomach theoretically had its own circulatory system and whatnot, could just be ejected out of you and crawl away, it still couldn’t eat anything without a mouth. They’re astonishing things; some of them can get incredibly long. You’ll have to look up the figures for yourself, but long as hell. Longer than you’d think. I keep wondering what might happen if I just...popped an arm out of the mass. Maybe it’d start writhing around senselessly until it died, separated from some living process I can’t even begin to speculate on. I also keep wondering if it had a face, after all; if I just couldn’t see it. I shudder to imagine that. In a colonial organism, I wonder how it might think, provided it could. Would it necessitate some form of communication between individuals? Or would the individuals share their thoughts? What are the hands connected to, anyway...? Arms, yes, but what are the arms connected to? I really have no clue. Maybe it’s like the underside of a starfish. Maybe they’re all just outstretched, all crammed together so closely, I just didn’t see...the rest of the bodies. The rest of me. You understand, that’s worse, than if it was just my hands. But I can’t stop thinking about being a Simon, crammed together that tight, trapped in a mass of me. I keep getting nervous about it; Dr. Dennis is giving me Ambien, so it’s both difficult and unpleasant to avoid sleep, so I can’t help it; but every time I close my eyes, I get nervous that the next time I open them, that’ll be my reality. That this life of mine is an illusion. I get anxious about it, but I’m trying to be functional too, and if I remember right, I think the trick is to just accept the thoughts as they come. Not as a reality, of course, but just as a thought. I’m trying to do that, but I don’t really know what it feels like. I don’t know if I’m doing it right. Maybe there’s a delayed effect; maybe they’ll go away if I keep at it for a few more days.

---

I don’t know how to preface this, so I’ll just say it. This is going to be my last log for a while. Maybe even forever. Preston, tell me: Why did absolutely none of us listen to Rowan?

Something happened to us out here. Dr. Pine called it a solar flare, but I don’t think she believes that. Ever diligent, she was the one who noticed strange activity on the sun’s surface and projected that we’d be right in the path of the “flare”. Ordinarily, in a situation like this, we would maneuver the station out of harm’s way. We can’t do that, though; the main engine is shot. We’d never make it. We had to focus our efforts elsewhere.

Mentally speaking, the eye of the storm hit us, and after some much-needed panic, we exploded into competence and cooperation. Rowan and King went out to the hull to take down our solar panels and pull layers of shielding from “unnecessary” branches, re-layer it on top of existing shielding over the station’s main branch. I saw one of them out a window for only a moment, before they covered it up with a shield panel. I keep playing it back in my head; the suits are so bulky, the visor reflective, I couldn’t tell—which one of them was it? For some reason, I just keep picturing the suit empty.

While they worked on that outside, me and everyone else set to work moving necessities into the main branch, which houses: The lab, also sporting many of the station’s controls, including the comms console; engineering; the living quarters; and, of course, the cryo pods, plus surely a bunch of other things I don’t know about. We moved a ton of things from storage into the main branch and strapped it down, taping things to the walls, making us ten times more claustrophobic. Captain Morgan sneaked away a couple times to radio with Rowan and King; she sounded pissed, barking orders at them, but she’s been doing the same to us, too.

I thought things were going pretty well, all things considered. But when Rowan came back with Dr. Dennis by her side, King wasn’t with her. She looked like she was in shock.

By this point, I was certain: it wasn’t just me—the station was getting hotter. I wanted to ask where King was, but I didn’t get the time. The entire station lurched and shook, some loud, muffled noise echoing at us from down one of the halls. Immediately, we were bathed in red lights and wailing alarms. Everybody—everybody but King—gathered together; I found myself dragged into a huddle by Dr. Vance, and I held on for dear life, while Rowan floated just off to the side. I can’t remember if I actually started praying to a god I’d say is a sham any other day, or if I just kept considering it. I haven’t honestly prayed since I was a little kid, just copying my grandparents until my dad told me the truth, about God and Santa at the same time.

The muffled noises and the tremors in the station happened a couple more times. One was so immense, I was genuinely convinced for a moment the entire station had been ripped apart, and I just waited to start suffocating and die. No such thing happened, though; after the longest wait of my life, the room started to cool. The station stopped shaking. The alarms didn’t stop, but Captain Morgan soon extricated herself from the rest of us, pushing off to start typing at the console in front of her. All at once, the alarms stopped.

“It’s over.” She said. “The flare is over. We made it.”

We all cheered, like a ton of frat boys coming down from an adrenaline rush. But it’s not over yet.

We survived the worst of it; most of us, anyway. King is gone. Rowan doesn’t seem to know what happened to him, but Captain Morgan has been dodgy about it. I feel awful about how I acted towards him. Truly awful. He was only 22. He was just a kid in the wrong field of work, with a whole life ahead of him to figure it out...

The station is by all means no longer habitable long-term; if it could ever be considered habitable in the first place. Rowan and Captain Morgan confirmed it for themselves: we lost one of only two clean water tanks, just to name one thing out of a massive list of other problems. Some branches made it out just fine; others had full-on hull breaches, while others still appeared to have outright exploded. Sealing the airlocks to the main branch protected us from it, but we’re missing integral things, now, like the gym and the entire botanical wing.

We can’t all stay awake, anymore. We have to go into cryosleep to conserve resources and await rescue. Captain Morgan was intended to stay awake with the station, tending to its wounds until a rescue ship arrives, but Rowan insisted on volunteering herself, even got a little aggressive about it. Honestly...I’m relieved Captain Morgan gave in.

So, this is where we are, now: waiting for the croysleep pods to prep. Waiting to go to sleep. Not really knowing if we’ll ever wake up again.

Preston, please tell Frieda and Elaina I love them. Please ask them to say the same to Phoebe. Please tell Abigail I love her, and I love you, Preston.

It’s been a pleasure working with you. I hope to see you again someday.