Domestic Dread
The Returning Signal
I started at SaxaVord in March 2018, I think, perhaps April. The spaceport sits on Unst in Shetland, where the land lies bare beneath a sky that never seems very far away and the air smells of salt, peat and wet stone.
I started at SaxaVord in March 2018, I think, perhaps April. The spaceport sits on Unst in Shetland, where the land lies bare beneath a sky that never seems very far away and the air smells of salt, peat and wet stone. It operates missions with the UK Space Agency, but it is not Harwell, not even close. That was the point.
They needed an avionics technician, and I needed a job that did not ask too many questions. I had the qualifications. I could arrive on time and keep my mouth shut. That was enough.
The work was straightforward, mostly sounding rockets. Small payloads that went up for a few minutes and came back down. I checked harness routing, tested connectors and logged inspections in the system. Sometimes I repaired a wiring fault or replaced a suspect relay.
Nothing glamorous. Nothing that made it into the mission reports people actually read. I liked it that way.
The spaceport itself is bigger than you might think. A collection of low buildings spread across the site, with launch pads, integration laboratories and machine shops. A main road cuts through it, and everything branches off from there. I parked in the same place every morning.
Car Park C, third row, near the access gate. I walked the same route to the avionics building and presented my security pass at the same door. Routine, I suppose.
Routine kept things simple.
I lived alone in Baltasound, a short drive south-west of the spaceport, in a one-bedroom flat in a small development called Norwick Court. The name made it sound grander than it was. My windows faced the car park and a drainage channel that overflowed after heavy rain. The rent was 650 pounds per month, including heating and electricity.
The divorce went through in 2021. Helen and I had been finished for some time before that, but the paperwork took a while. She stayed in Aberdeen. I did not blame her for leaving. I would not have stayed with me either.
"We don't talk now," she said when she rang once, six months after the papers were final.
I did not answer. She left no message. That was it.
I kept the flat as I kept my workbench: clean, organised and without anything unnecessary. I had a second-hand sofa bought through Gumtree, a kitchen table with two chairs and a bed. The television worked. I did not need much else.
Every Sunday I bought groceries at the Co-op in Baltasound. I bought the same things: mince, frozen peas, pasta, porridge oats, bread and tea. Sometimes I picked up a hot roast chicken if I did not feel like cooking.
I ate at the kitchen table and washed the dishes immediately afterwards. I did not go to pubs, obviously. Work was the centre of everything. It had to be.
I usually arrived at about 07:00, sometimes earlier if a test was scheduled. I pulled my assignments from the system, printed the checklist and got on with it. Harness inspection, connector torque verification, continuity tests on umbilical lines. Most days I worked through lunch.
A cereal bar from the van, perhaps a satsuma, then back to work until 16:00 or 16:30.
Graham Sutherland was my supervisor. A systems engineer in his mid-forties, he had grey beginning at his temples and always wore a pale work shirt with a UK Space Agency lanyard clipped to the pocket. He approved my time sheets every week, and he watched me more closely than he watched anyone else on the team. I knew why.
They all did.
I had been sober since 2017, nearly eight years by the time March 2025 came round. That sort of history does not simply disappear. People remember.
At a place like SaxaVord, even an isolated site far from the better-known space-sector work at Harwell, they do not forget. Graham never said anything directly. He did not have to. I would see him passing my workstation a little more often than made sense.
He asked how an inspection was going when he already had its status in the system. If I took a long lunch or came back from the lavatory after more than a few minutes, I caught him glancing at the clock. It did not bother me. Not really.
I regarded it as the cost of being there at all. Plenty of employers would not have taken me on after what happened in Aberdeen. SaxaVord did. I kept my head down and did not complain.
I became used to the scrutiny. I started to think of it as part of the job. Arrive early. Do the work. Stay late if required. Never give anyone a reason to doubt you.
Simple.
I genuinely believed I could keep doing that for ever, or at least until I retired. There were men at the spaceport who had done the same job for twenty or thirty years. I thought I could become one of them.
Invisible. Reliable. Forgettable.
That lasted until Thursday 6 March 2025.
Thursdays were when Graham conducted his section reviews. He pulled everyone's inspection logs and went through them line by line, looking for patterns or missed steps. I rarely heard from him unless something was wrong.
That morning he found me at my bench in the integration laboratory. I was running a continuity check on a 32-pin payload harness. The eighteen pins I had tested were all within specification.
"Mercer," he said.
I looked up. His arms were folded. That was not encouraging.
"Yes?"
"I need you in my office in ten minutes."
"Is something wrong with the harness logs?"
"Just come by when you reach a stopping point."
He did not wait for an answer. He turned and walked out.
I completed the active continuity check, logged the result, returned the harness to its anti-static bag and sealed it. Then I washed my hands and went to the administrative wing.
Graham's office was at the end of the corridor. The door was half open when I arrived, but I knocked anyway.
"Come in. Close the door."
That unsettled me. Closed-door conversations were not normal for us. If he had comments on my work, he usually emailed them or mentioned them in passing.
This felt different.
I stepped inside and shut the door. His office was small: a desk, two chairs, a filing cabinet and a whiteboard covered with rota grids and part numbers. A window looked over the car park. I could see my van from there.
"Sit," he said.
I sat.
Graham leaned back and studied me for a moment. He did not look angry or frustrated. He was evaluating me.
"You've been here about seven years now."
"About that."
"No issues. Clean record. You turn up, do the work and don't cause problems."
I said nothing. I was not sure whether it was a question.
"I'm assigning you to a task," he said. "It's outside your normal duties."
Something tightened in my chest. Not panic, but the beginning of it.
"What sort of task?"
"Payload custody and transport. There's a recovery coming in this weekend. A small upper-atmosphere test. It's marked for special handling."
I did not work on recoveries. That was not my job. I worked on builds and pre-launch checks. Once a vehicle left the pad, I was finished with it.
"Why me?" I asked.
Graham tapped his pen against the desk.
"Because you're reliable. And because this needs someone who can keep his mouth shut."
That did not answer the question. Not really.
"I work in avionics integration," I said. "I don't handle post-flight operations."
"You do now."
He slid a folder across the desk. It was thin, with perhaps three or four pages inside. I did not open it.
"There's a briefing tomorrow at 09:00," Graham said. "The spaceport's Protective Security team will attend, coordinated with the UK Space Agency. Dr Priya Shah from RAL Space Payload Operations at Harwell will be there as well. You'll receive the full briefing then."
"Protective Security?"
"It's marked for special handling," he repeated. "That means chain of custody, documentation, the whole process. You'll shadow the recovery team, verify the payload's condition and sign off its transport back to the laboratory."
I stared at the folder. My hands felt cold.
"I've never done that before."
"You've carried out inspections. Same principle. You're simply doing it at the other end of the flight."
It was not the same. Not remotely. I did not argue.
"Is this voluntary?"
Graham's expression did not change.
"No."
I picked up the folder. It weighed almost nothing. RESTRICTED ACCESS was printed across the front in red, with my staff number, 7149058, written beneath it in Graham's handwriting.
"The briefing is in Conference Room B," he said. "Don't be late."
I stood. My legs felt stiff.
"Anything else?"
"Yes." He looked straight at me. "This remains confidential. You don't discuss it in the break room or mention it to the other technicians. If anyone asks what you're working on, you say it's routine payload work. Understood?"
"Understood."
I left his office and returned to the integration laboratory. My bench was exactly as I had left it. The tools were in their places and the inspection log remained open on the tablet. The harness was still sealed in its bag.
I sat and stared at the folder for a while. I did not open it. Not yet. I simply held it and tried to work out what the hell I had been drawn into.
The routine I had spent seven years building - arriving, doing the work, remaining invisible - was finished. I knew it then.
Graham would not have called me in for something minor. He certainly would not have involved Protective Security unless it was the sort of matter accompanied by paperwork, oversight and questions I probably could not answer.
I put the folder in my work bag and returned to the harness inspection. I had fourteen pins left to test.
I did them one by one, recording every result, and tried not to think about the next morning's briefing. My hands shook slightly when I torqued the connectors, however, and I could not stop looking at my bag, where the folder sat restricted, silent and waiting.
The briefing was in Conference Room B at 09:00 on Friday 7 March 2025. I arrived at 08:55.
Graham was already inside with a man I did not recognise. The man stood as I entered. He was about 1.78 m tall, with an athletic build, and wore the uniform of the spaceport's Protective Security team, along with a duty belt and radio headset. His black hair was cropped close. He had dark brown eyes and a small scar through one eyebrow.
He had the alert posture security officers possess even when they are doing nothing but standing still.
"Mercer," Graham said, "this is Callum Reid, Protective Security."
Callum offered his hand. I shook it. His grip was firm without being aggressive.
"Callum has been briefed on the assignment," Graham said. "He'll coordinate security."
I nodded. I did not ask what security involved. I assumed I would find out soon enough.
Callum indicated a chair.
"Have a seat."
I sat. Graham remained standing near the whiteboard. Callum took the chair opposite me, produced a tablet and moved through information I could not see.
"You've been assigned to a temporary support team," Callum said. His voice was level and professional. "The payload is arriving through SaxaVord's launch and recovery operations. The recovery window opens at 06:00 on Sunday morning."
I waited.
"It's a return capsule," he continued. "Small. An upper-atmosphere test platform. You'll be part of the receiving team."
"Doing what?" I asked.
"Verification and documentation. Standard custody protocol."
That did not answer my question. I looked at Graham. He watched me with the same tight expression he always wore when he expected resistance.
"Why an avionics technician?" I asked.
Callum did not blink.
"You already have the necessary clearance, and your skills match the assignment requirements."
I did not know what that meant. Avionics technicians checked wiring and connectors. Recovery teams dealt with structural integrity, re-entry damage and parachute deployment systems. They were different skills altogether.
"What's the payload?"
"A classified rendezvous mission," Callum said. "That's all you need at present. The full briefing will take place on site at 05:30 on Sunday."
Graham shifted his weight.
"Mercer, this is straightforward. You shadow the recovery, verify its condition and sign the transport documents. That's all."
I looked at the folder I had brought with me. I still had not opened it. The red RESTRICTED ACCESS label stared back from the table.
"And if I say no?"
Graham's jaw tightened. Callum simply watched me, calm and patient.
"You won't," Graham said.
That was all. It was not quite a threat. Merely a statement.
I thought about Aberdeen, the fact that I still had this job at all, my flat in Baltasound, the 650 pounds a month and the routine I had built to keep everything level and manageable.
"All right," I said.
Callum nodded once.
"Report to the high-bay integration hall at 05:30 on Sunday. I'll meet you at the north entrance. Bring your security pass and briefing packet."
He tapped his tablet twice, then stood.
"Questions?"
I had about a dozen. I shook my head.
"Good," Callum said. He looked at Graham. "We're set."
Graham nodded. Callum left, his boots making steady, measured sounds on the tiled floor. The door clicked shut behind him.
Graham remained where he was for a moment, arms folded. Then he looked at me.
"This is routine, Mercer. Documentation work. Do it properly and you'll be back at your bench on Monday."
"Of course," I said.
He believed that no more than I did.
I returned to the integration laboratory and opened the folder. There were three pages. The first was a site map showing the high-bay integration hall, the north entrance and a route marked in yellow highlighter from Car Park C. The second was a checklist: security pass, briefing packet, enclosed shoes, no personal electronics and no cameras.
The third page was blank except for one bold line at the top:
REPORT TIME: SUNDAY 05:30. CONTACT: C. REID, PROTECTIVE SECURITY.
I put the folder back in my work bag and did not think about it for the rest of the day. Or tried not to.
On Sunday 9 March 2025, I woke at 04:15. I did not need an alarm. My mind did that by itself whenever something was scheduled early.
I showered and dressed in work trousers, steel-toe boots and an old SaxaVord sweatshirt beneath my jacket because the high-bay integration hall was always cold. I made tea in the kitchen and drank it standing beside the window.
The car park outside was empty and still dark. I left Baltasound at 04:50 and reached the spaceport at 05:10. Car Park C was almost empty, with only a few vehicles scattered near the back, probably belonging to the weekend monitoring crew.
I parked in my usual space in the third row and took the folder from the passenger seat.
The north entrance of the high-bay integration hall lay beyond the main integration building, round the side by the vehicle access ramps. I had been there perhaps twice in seven years. It was not part of my normal route.
Callum was waiting beside the door when I arrived. He wore the same uniform and headset. He checked his watch as I approached.
"On time," he said.
"Yes."
He presented his security pass, and the lock clicked. The door was heavy and reinforced. I followed him inside.
The hall was enormous, with a ceiling about 9 m high, overhead cranes and concrete floors marked by yellow safety lines. It usually held rocket stages or payload fairings in various stages of assembly.
That morning there was only one object beneath the lights: a flatbed trolley bearing a sealed container.
The container was approximately 2.4 m long and 1.2 m wide, made from dull grey polymer with reinforced edges. About a dozen tension straps secured it. It resembled the controlled-environment transport systems used for temperature regulation and vibration damping.
Callum walked towards it. I followed.
Graham was already there, standing near the flatbed with a woman I did not recognise. She was about 1.63 m tall and slight, with a laboratory coat over business clothes. Her black hair was secured in a neat bun, and she wore narrow rectangular glasses. She held a clipboard in one hand and kept rubbing the opposite wrist with her thumb.
It was not quite fidgeting. It was a repeated, controlled motion.
"Mercer," Graham said when we reached them. "This is Dr Priya Shah from RAL Space Payload Operations at Harwell. She's here to take custody."
Priya looked at me through her glasses. Her eyes were dark brown. Her expression appeared calm, but something in it was taut and careful.
"Priya, this is Euan Mercer," Graham said. "Avionics technician. He'll handle verification and documentation."
"Good," Priya said. Her voice was quiet and precise. "We'll require a complete photographic record and a written report on the exterior condition before it is moved."
I nodded.
Callum stepped beside the flatbed and took a small tablet from his belt.
"The payload arrived at 04:00. Chain of custody transferred from the recovery team at 04:12. There were no incidents during transport."
"Exterior temperature?" Priya asked.
Callum checked the tablet.
"Stable at 18 C. Within normal limits."
Priya made a note on her clipboard. Her hand was steady, but she continued rubbing her wrist.
I looked at the container.
"Can I see it?"
Priya glanced at Graham. He nodded.
Callum moved to the front of the container and began releasing the straps. It took him about two minutes. When the final strap was loose, he raised the lid.
Inside was a capsule.
It was small, roughly 90 cm tall and cone-shaped, the sort of capsule used for an upper-atmosphere test or a modest sample-return mission. I had seen dozens in photographs and several in person.
They always returned scorched. Ablative shielding came back blackened and pitted, with heat staining and scars from re-entry friction. Sometimes pieces of the parachute system remained tangled in the recovery lines.
This capsule looked clean. Not new, but clean.
Its surface was smooth and metallic, with a faint pattern of panel seams running vertically along the curve. There were no burn marks, no ablation damage and no scorching at all.
It looked as if it had been stored in a climate-controlled laboratory, not as if it had just torn through the atmosphere at terminal velocity.
I stared at it.
"Something wrong?" Graham asked.
"It isn't damaged."
"Correct," Priya said. She moved closer, watching the capsule. "There is no re-entry scoring, no thermal degradation. Surface integrity is intact."
That made no sense. Even the best shielding and the shallowest re-entry angle left heat damage. Friction burns. Something.
"How?" I asked.
Priya looked at me.
"We don't know."
Callum was watching the capsule as well. His hand rested on his duty belt, and his fingers tapped once against his radio.
Priya turned a page on the clipboard.
"The capsule has returned from a classified rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid. Its designation is restricted. It was deployed roughly four months ago, completed a flyby and returned to a recovery window over the North Atlantic last night."
"All right," I said.
"During the return flight," she continued, "it broadcast a maintenance tone on the primary telemetry channel. Continuously. Without interruption."
I frowned.
"For how long?"
"Four months."
I looked at the capsule again.
"That isn't possible. The batteries couldn't sustain a continuous transmission for four months."
"Correct," Priya said.
Her voice remained calm, but I heard something beneath it now, something not quite steady.
"They should have failed after three weeks. Four at most."
Graham shifted his weight. Callum's fingers stopped moving. Priya rubbed her wrist again.
"We need to establish why it is still broadcasting and why it returned without damage."
I stood looking at the capsule. Clean, smooth and wrong.
This was not a simple inspection. It was already wrong.
The straps were off and the lid was raised. I was staring at the capsule when I heard it.
A high, thin, constant tone filled the entire hall.
I turned towards the ceiling, then back to the flatbed. Nobody had touched the capsule. Nothing was connected to it. There were no cables or test instruments.
"Can you hear that?" I asked.
Priya looked up from her clipboard.
"Hear what?"
"The tone."
She became still. Callum's hand stopped against his radio. Graham moved a step nearer the flatbed.
"I hear it," Callum said.
Priya placed the clipboard on the edge of the container and approached the capsule. She did not touch it. She simply stood and listened.
The tone was steady, perhaps 2,000 hertz. I assumed at first that it was leakage from another test elsewhere on the site. The high-bay integration hall shared power and data infrastructure with several other buildings. Crosstalk happened. You might hear stray audio from a signal generator three rooms away.
I kept listening. The sound did not waver. It remained clean and sharp.
"Is something transmitting?" Graham asked.
Priya shook her head.
"Not from this room. None of the equipment is powered."
Callum removed his radio and keyed it.
"Reid to operations. Are any RF tests running this morning?"
The radio crackled. A voice answered.
"Negative. Nothing scheduled until Monday."
Callum clipped the radio back to his belt.
"Then where is it coming from?"
I did not answer. I was still trying to identify it. The tone had the quality of an electronic oscillator rather than a mechanical vibration. It was too pure and too stable.
Then it changed.
Not in pitch, but in rhythm. It divided into bursts.
Short, short, long. Pause.
Short, short, long. Pause.
My chest tightened.
"That's structured," Priya said.
Graham moved closer.
"Structured in what way?"
"Patterned. It isn't random interference."
Callum wrote something on his tablet. I could see his jaw working.
The bursts continued. The same sequence repeated: short, short, long.
I looked at the capsule again. It remained sealed in the container, without visible damage or connections.
Priya rubbed her wrist with her thumb. She did it without looking down, staring only at the capsule.
"We logged this before," she said.
Graham turned towards her.
"Logged what?"
"This exact pattern. Goonhilly Earth Station's deep-space tracking network detected it on 18 November 2024 at 03:00 UTC. The same cadence and interval."
"From where?" I asked.
Priya did not look at me.
"From the asteroid, during rendezvous."
I waited for her to continue. She did not.
"What does that mean?" Graham asked.
Priya finally looked at him. Her face was pale.
"It means the capsule recorded it. Or it is repeating it. Or..."
She stopped.
"Or what?" Callum asked.
"Or it began broadcasting it during the return flight and never stopped."
The tone continued. Short, short, long.
I wanted to tell her that it made no sense. Capsules did not spontaneously transmit recorded signals. They executed programmed sequences. If one was broadcasting, a timer had triggered it, a sensor had crossed a threshold or someone on the ground had sent a command.
I said none of that. The capsule remained sealed and the signal continued.
Priya picked up her clipboard and made a note. Her handwriting shook.
"There's more," she said.
Graham folded his arms.
"More what?"
"The reason we brought it down early. The flight plan kept it in orbit for another six weeks of extended observation. We recovered it last week."
"Why?" I asked.
Priya looked at me.
"Because the signal changed direction."
I did not understand.
"It had been broadcasting outwards," she said. "Towards the asteroid. For three and a half months, the transmission vector remained fixed on the rendezvous coordinates. Then, on 27 January 2025, the signal reoriented and began transmitting towards Earth."
Nobody spoke.
The tone continued behind us. Short, short, long.
I tried to process it. A capsule in orbit did not simply alter its broadcast vector. Not without attitude thrusters. Not without a command sequence.
"Did you command a reorientation burn?" I asked.
"No."
"Then how?"
"We don't know."
Graham rubbed his face.
"You're saying the capsule changed its own transmission direction?"
"I'm saying the signal vector changed," Priya replied. "We recovered the capsule to find out why."
Callum continued writing on his tablet.
"Everything is being logged with timestamps."
I looked back at the capsule. It rested in its container, smooth and clean, broadcasting a signal that should not have existed from hardware whose batteries should have failed months before.
The tone changed again.
Long, short, short, short. Pause.
Long, short, short, short.
Priya made another note.
"I need to see the avionics bay," I said.
Graham nodded.
"That's why you're here."
I moved closer to the flatbed. The cone-shaped capsule was about 90 cm tall, with panel seams running vertically along its curved surface. The external access port was visible on the lower third, exactly where it should have been: a standard compression-sealed hatch, about 20 cm square.
I leaned towards it.
That was when the contactless security-pass reader clipped to my belt flashed green.
Only once, but brightly enough for me to see it in my peripheral vision.
I froze. I had not moved the reader or presented my pass to anything. It was merely hanging from my belt. Yet it had flashed green as though it had authenticated me.
I straightened and looked down. The light was off again. There was only black plastic and a blank LED window.
"Did you scan something?" Callum asked.
I turned. He was watching me.
"No."
"Your reader lit up."
"I know."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Callum approached and examined the reader on my belt. Then he checked his tablet and began writing again.
"What time was that?"
I looked at my watch.
"05:46."
He recorded it. He gave no explanation, only logged the event and stepped away.
I looked at Priya. She was staring at the reader.
"That shouldn't happen," she said.
"I know."
"Contactless authentication requires an active query from a terminal. There isn't a terminal here."
"I know."
She rubbed her wrist again.
"We need to move it."
Graham nodded.
"Where?"
"The clean-room in Block 6. I've already had it prepared."
Callum secured the tablet to his belt.
"I'll coordinate transport. We need a sealed trolley and a two-person escort."
"Fine," Priya said. "But nobody opens an external access panel until the capsule is in a controlled environment."
I continued watching my security-pass reader. The light remained dark.
The tone carried on behind us. Long, short, short, short.
The trolley arrived twenty minutes later. It had a sealed polymer shell, locking castors and a climate monitor fitted to one side.
Two logistics staff helped Callum lift the capsule from the container and lower it onto the trolley. They moved carefully and did not hurry. The transfer took about five minutes.
Priya checked the climate monitor.
"Stable at 18.2 C."
Callum locked the castors.
"We're set."
The four of us - Graham, Callum, Priya and I - moved it across the site. The logistics staff remained behind to clear the flatbed.
It was still early, not yet 06:00, and the paths were empty. There was only us, the trolley and the sound of its wheels on the tarmac.
The tone was quieter, muffled by the trolley's shell, but I could still hear it.
Block 6 was a low rectangular building beyond the main integration complex, with clean-rooms on the ground floor and laboratories above. Priya presented her security pass at the side entrance, and we wheeled the trolley along a corridor with white tiled floors and fluorescent lighting that left everything flat and overexposed.
The clean-room was at the far end. It had double doors, an airlock vestibule and a pressure differential indicator on the wall showing green.
Priya stopped the trolley outside.
"Mercer, you're with me. Sutherland, Reid, you monitor from the observation room."
Graham looked at her.
"I should be inside."
"No. Custody protocol. Only essential personnel enter during the initial inspection."
"Mercer's essential?"
"He's conducting the avionics verification. That makes him essential."
Graham did not argue. He stepped back and folded his arms.
Callum opened the observation-room door across the corridor.
"We'll be here."
Priya nodded. I followed her into the vestibule. She activated the interlock, and the outer door sealed behind us. The inner door then unlocked, and we pushed the trolley through.
The clean-room measured roughly 6 m by 6 m. Stainless-steel workbenches stood against two walls, with overhead lighting and a laminar-flow hood in one corner. A raised platform with a rotation mount already fitted occupied the centre.
Priya locked the trolley beside the platform and opened its shell.
The capsule sat inside as before. Smooth. Undamaged. Almost silent.
The tone was barely audible in there.
"Help me lift it," she said.
We placed our hands beneath the base and lifted together. It was heavier than I had expected, roughly 36 kg. We lowered it onto the rotation mount, and Priya secured it with four clamps.
She stepped back, removed her glasses, cleaned them on her laboratory coat and put them on again.
"Your task is simple," she said. "Open the avionics bay. Confirm that the telemetry-board serial number matches the launch record. Document any visible damage or anomalies. Nothing else."
"What will you be doing?"
"Exterior imaging, a full-spectrum scan and a surface-composition sample, if we can obtain one without breaching the seal."
I nodded. She handed me nitrile gloves and an inspection torch.
"The access port is on the lower panel. You'll need a 6 mm hex driver."
I already had one in my belt pouch. I put on the gloves and switched on the torch.
The capsule sat on the mount. I could see my reflection in its surface, warped by the curve.
I told myself it was only another inspection. Check the hardware. Confirm the serial number. Record the results. Procedure would keep it contained.
I stepped closer and directed the torch towards the access port.
The tone was still sounding, faint but steady.
Short. Short. Long.
I inserted the hex driver into the first fastener and began to turn. The tone did not stop.
I removed the fourth fastener and placed it in the tray with the others. The access panel came away cleanly. There was no resistance and no seal failure, only standard hardware behaving as it should.
The avionics bay was compact, about 15 cm deep and 30 cm wide. Circuit boards were arranged in a stacked configuration, with ribbon cables passing between them. Everything looked factory standard: clean solder joints, correct wire routing and UK Space Agency flight-hardware labels.
I angled the torch for a clearer view of the board serial numbers. The telemetry board was second from the top, a green printed circuit board roughly 10 cm square, with a white label in its upper-right corner.
I leaned closer to read it.
TLM 518K4. Revision D. Build date: August 2024.
I took the tablet from my belt and opened the manifest Priya had uploaded before the inspection. I scrolled to the avionics section and found the telemetry-board entry.
TLM 518K4. Revision D. Build date: August 2024.
A perfect match.
I recorded it in the inspection log and added the date, 9 March 2025.
For a moment, I thought the whole business might remain dull. It could still be another piece of flight hardware that had somehow returned intact, with strange RF interference that we would trace to a loose connector or corrupted firmware. By Monday I might be back at my bench conducting continuity tests on umbilical harnesses.
That would have suited me.
I moved the torch across the board, checking for damage. There were no cracks, discolouration or signs of thermal stress. The components looked sound. No swollen capacitors, no burnt resistors. It was standard post-flight condition for hardware that had never become hot.
Then I saw the second set of numbers.
They had been scratched into the board's surface, just below the white label, perhaps a centimetre down. The characters were small and cut to a precise, consistent depth.
Someone had used a sharp instrument, probably a scribe or marking punch of the sort used to mark metal components in a machine shop.
I stopped moving.
The number was 7149058.
I stared at it for perhaps ten seconds before I understood.
It was my staff number. The number printed on my security pass. The one I entered into the system every morning when I logged into my assignments. The one I had used since People Services issued my access credentials in March 2018.
7149058.
I knew the first six digits without thinking, but I always forgot the final eight. At least once a week I had to check my pass because my mind refused to retain it.
Whoever had scratched the number into that board knew all seven digits.
I was still holding the inspection torch. I realised that my hand was trembling.
I drew back from the capsule and looked towards the observation window. Priya stood there with her clipboard. Graham was beside her with his arms folded. Callum stood a step behind them, holding his tablet.
I turned back to the board.
The numbers remained there. Clean, deliberate marks. Not accidental. Not random.
I altered the angle of the torch to make sure a shadow or reflection was not deceiving me.
They were still there.
"Priya," I said.
My voice came out more quietly than I intended. I cleared my throat and tried again.
"Priya, can you come in here?"
The intercom crackled.
"What is it?"
"I need you to see something."
Thirty seconds later, the vestibule door hissed and Priya entered. She crossed to the platform and bent over the capsule beside me.
"What have you found?"
I directed the torch at the telemetry board.
"There. Beneath the label."
She adjusted her glasses and leaned closer. I watched her face.
At first she did not react. She studied the numbers with the same concentrated expression she had worn since the transport container was opened in the hall. Then her mouth tightened.
"I haven't seen this before," she said.
"You're certain?"
"The board passed its pre-flight inspection in August. I reviewed the documentation myself." She straightened and rubbed her wrist with her thumb. "This marking wasn't present in any of the photographs."
"Those are my numbers."
She looked at me.
"My staff number. All seven digits."
Priya's hand stopped moving.
"You're certain?"
"Yes."
She remained silent for a moment. Then she turned towards the observation window and addressed the intercom panel.
"Sutherland, Reid, we have a documentation issue."
Callum's voice came through the speaker.
"Specify."
"There's an unauthorised marking on the telemetry board. It wasn't present during the pre-flight inspection."
"What sort of marking?" Graham asked.
Priya glanced at me, then back towards the window.
"A seven-digit numerical sequence scratched into the PCB surface."
"Can it be photographed?" Callum asked.
"Yes."
"Then document it under chain-of-custody protocol. Mercer, photograph it with a scale reference."
Without thinking, I pulled my mobile from my pocket. I had brought it into the prohibited clean-room despite the checklist. I had it halfway raised before Callum's voice cut through the intercom.
"Not with your personal device. Use the facility camera from the equipment locker."
I lowered the mobile.
"And Mercer?"
"Yes?"
"The images go onto an isolated drive. No network access and no cloud synchronisation. Photograph the marking, transfer the files to the lockbox drive and delete them from the camera. Understood?"
"Understood."
Priya was already walking towards the equipment locker on the far wall. She removed a rugged black Peli case and brought it to the platform.
Inside was a Canon camera fitted with a macro lens, together with a small plastic ruler for scale. She handed me the camera.
"Document the serial label first, then the marking directly beneath it. At least two angles of each."
I took the camera and switched it on. The battery indicator showed full. The memory card was empty.
I framed the first photograph. The white label filled the display, with the serial number clear and legible. I took three photographs from slightly different angles to be safe.
Then I moved down to the scratched number.
Through the viewfinder, the marks looked even more deliberate. Their depth was consistent across all seven digits. Whoever had made them had taken time over it.
I took four photographs: two straight on and two at oblique angles to capture the light inside the grooves.
"Got it," I said.
Dr Priya Shah took the camera from me and reviewed the images on the rear screen. She scrolled through them twice, zooming in on the scratched numbers, then nodded.
"These are clear. Good depth of field."
She handed the camera back to me.
"Remove the card and take it to Callum. He'll handle the transfer."
I popped out the SD card and held it between my thumb and forefinger. It was warm from the camera. I walked to the vestibule, cycled through the interlock and stepped into the corridor.
Callum Reid was waiting outside the observation-room door. I gave him the card.
He slipped it into an evidence bag, sealed it and wrote on the label with a felt-tip pen. Time, date, my name.
"The card stays in the lockbox until RAL Space Payload Operations requests it," he said. "You don't copy it. You don't talk about what's on it. Clear?"
"Clear."
I went back into the clean room.
Priya was standing beside the platform with her arms crossed, staring at the open avionics bay.
"We need to remove the tray," she said. "Full board inspection. If someone accessed this hardware assembly, there may be other modifications."
"You think someone tampered with it?"
"I think something is wrong." She looked at me. "The clean-room logs are digital. Every entry is security-pass stamped and recorded. If someone opened this capsule after final integration, we'll know who and when."
That made sense. At SaxaVord, with the UK Space Agency involved, everything was tracked. You could not even enter a controlled area without leaving a data trail.
But it did not make me feel any better.
Priya moved to the side of the platform and released two spring-loaded clamps holding the avionics tray in place.
"Help me with this."
I moved to the opposite side. The tray was a rectangular assembly about 36 centimetres long, mounted on slide rails inside the capsule body. Priya gripped one end. I took the other and we pulled it straight out.
It came free with a soft click. We set it on the workbench beneath the laminar-flow hood. The boards were stacked vertically in a card-cage configuration, held in place by a metal frame and about a dozen small screws.
Priya leaned over the tray. I stood beside her. She pointed at something between the telemetry board and the power-distribution board beneath it.
"That shouldn't be there," she said.
I looked. A small object was wedged in the gap, about five centimetres long and a little over a centimetre wide, wrapped in foil. It was the sort of metallised film used for thermal shielding on flight hardware.
Priya's face went pale.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I don't know." Her voice was tight. "It's not on the manifest."
She turned towards the observation window.
"Graham, we have a problem."
Graham Sutherland's voice came through immediately.
"Report."
"There's an unmanifested component in the avionics tray. Foil wrapped, approximately five centimetres by one centimetre, wedged between the telemetry board and the PDU."
Silence on the intercom for three seconds. Then Graham's voice returned.
"Nobody touches it. Not until we receive guidance from RAL Space Payload Operations."
Priya stepped back from the bench. Her hand went to her wrist again, rubbing it in small circles.
I stayed where I was, looking at the foil-wrapped object. It resembled a data cartridge, the kind used in flight recorders: a small solid-state module that logged telemetry and system events. But if it was not on the manifest, it was not supposed to be there.
The clean-room speakers crackled.
Then the tone returned, louder this time. It was no longer muffled by the transport shell. It was clear, sharp and rhythmic.
Short, short, long. Pause. Short, short, long.
I looked at the capsule. The avionics tray was out. The boards were disconnected. Nothing had power.
But the tone continued.
Priya turned slowly, scanning the room.
"Where is that coming from?"
I listened. It was not coming from the capsule. It was coming from the walls, the ceiling, the speakers. Everywhere.
"Cut the power," Priya said.
Her voice was louder now, almost sharp.
"Mercer, pull the connector. Kill it."
I moved back to the capsule and found the umbilical connector at the base of the tray, a circular connector with a safety latch. I flipped the latch and pulled.
The connector came free.
The tone did not stop.
Graham's voice came through the intercom first, sharper and slightly higher than normal.
"We need to evacuate and lock down the clean room."
I stood there holding the disconnected umbilical connector. The tone kept playing.
Short, short, long. Pause. Short, short, long.
The same pattern, the same pitch, coming from everywhere.
Priya turned towards the observation window and nodded once. Callum's voice cut in before she could move.
"Negative. Protocol requires visual confirmation of containment integrity before we initiate lockdown."
Graham said something I could not make out through the glass. Callum did not look at him. He kept his eyes on the clean room and spoke directly into the microphone.
"Mercer, conduct a visual check. Confirm no breach, leakage or thermal event."
I set the connector on the workbench beside the avionics tray. My hands were steady. That surprised me a little.
"Copy," I said.
Priya stepped back to give me room. She had stopped rubbing her wrist. Her arms hung at her sides now, hands open, fingers slightly spread.
I had seen that before. People did it when they were trying not to touch anything, when they were afraid of what might happen if they did.
I began with the capsule itself, walking a slow circle around the raised platform. The exterior was still clean. No scorch marks, no ablation, no cracks in the panel seams. I checked the access port where I had removed the fasteners. The edges were smooth. No discolouration. No heat stress.
The tone did not change.
I moved to the avionics tray on the bench beneath the laminar-flow hood. Twelve boards were stacked in the card cage. The ribbon cables remained connected. The foil-wrapped object was still wedged between the telemetry board and the power-distribution board, exactly where it had been.
I did not touch it.
I leaned closer and used the inspection light. No scorching on the foil. No melted insulation on the surrounding components. No fluid. No smoke residue.
"Nothing visible," I said. "No breach. No thermal event. No leakage."
Callum made a note on his tablet.
"Confirmed at 06:02."
Priya exhaled slowly through her nose.
Graham's voice returned over the intercom.
"Then where is it coming from?"
Nobody answered him.
I kept checking. I went over the trolley next: the polymer shell, the climate monitor still reading 18.2 C, the castors still locked and the seal intact. I crouched and looked underneath.
Nothing. Just the metal frame and wheels.
The tone looped again.
Short, short, long.
I stood, and that was when my mobile began vibrating. It was in the right front pocket of my work trousers. I felt a long vibration through the fabric, the pattern for an incoming call.
I did not move.
It stopped, then began again. The same long vibration.
Priya glanced at me.
"You're supposed to leave personal electronics outside the clean room."
"I know."
The mobile kept vibrating. I pulled it out. The screen lit with the incoming-call display.
Helen Mercer.
Her contact photograph filled the top half of the screen. Shoulder-length blonde hair. Green eyes. A picture I had taken at a garden gathering in Aberdeen in 2019, before everything fell apart.
I stared at it. Helen had not called me in more than a year. Maybe longer. The last time had been six months after the divorce was final.
I had not answered then either.
I declined the call and put the mobile back in my pocket. It vibrated again immediately. I pulled it out.
The same screen. Helen Mercer.
"Same photo," Priya said. "Turn it off."
I declined the call again. It began vibrating before I could move my thumb away from the screen.
"Jesus," I said.
I held down the power button. The mobile ignored it. The call screen stayed up. Helen's photograph. Her name. The green answer button and the red decline button.
The mobile vibrated in my hand. This time it did not stop. It continued without pause, a constant vibration that made my palm tingle and my fingers go numb.
I declined the call again. It reconnected in less than a second.
Callum's voice came through the intercom.
"Mercer, secure your device or remove it from the controlled area."
I tried the power button again. Nothing. The mobile kept vibrating. The screen remained lit.
I shoved it back into my pocket, and the vibration pressed against my thigh. Constant. Uninterrupted. I could feel it through the fabric, through my leg. A high-frequency hum matching the tone from the speakers.
Priya turned back to the workbench. She was no longer looking at me.
The mobile vibrated harder. I felt it shift in my pocket. Heat began to build against my leg. Not much, perhaps a degree or two. Enough to notice.
Then I felt something crack.
It was not loud. Just a small pop, more sensation than sound.
The vibration stopped.
I pulled the mobile out again. A fracture ran from corner to corner across the screen. One clean, perfectly straight line.
The call screen was still visible, but the photograph had changed.
It was no longer Helen.
It was me.
I was standing in the clean room, holding the mobile. The picture had been taken from behind and above. My back faced the camera, my head tilted down, my right hand holding the mobile in front of me. The avionics tray was visible on the bench in the background, along with the capsule on the platform and the laminar-flow hood.
The photograph showed me exactly where I was standing at that moment.
I looked up. Priya was still at the workbench with her back to me. The observation window across the corridor showed Graham and Callum behind the glass.
There were no cameras in the clean room. No mobiles. No equipment mounted on the ceiling or walls.
I looked back at the screen. The contact name still read Helen Mercer. The photograph showed me in the clean room holding a mobile. I could see the crack across its screen in the photograph, the same crack that had just formed.
I turned the mobile over. The rear casing was intact. No cracks. No damage.
I turned it back. The photograph did not change.
I looked up at the observation window. Graham was leaning forwards with both hands against the glass. Callum stood beside him with his tablet in one hand and the other resting on his radio.
I looked at Priya. She was still facing the workbench, her body angled towards the avionics tray, her hands resting on the edge and her head tilted slightly down.
Then I looked at her reflection in the observation window.
Her face was turned towards me.
Not her real face. The reflected one.
In the glass across the corridor, I could see her profile. Her chin was angled in my direction. Her eyes were on me. Her mouth was moving.
But her real body had not moved. She was still facing the bench.
I blinked. The reflection remained wrong for another second. Her mouth continued to move, forming small shapes, words I could not hear.
The rhythm matched something.
I held my breath.
Her reflected mouth stopped moving.
I exhaled.
Her reflected mouth moved again. The same rhythm. The same timing.
It was breathing with me.
The reflection. Not Priya. Only the reflection.
I blinked hard and looked away. When I looked back, it was normal. Priya faced the bench at the same angle as her real body.
Nothing wrong.
I shoved the mobile into my pocket and felt the cracked screen press against my leg through the fabric. The tone continued.
I made myself breathe slowly. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.
It was what they had taught me in the programme in 2017, what I used to do in the flat when I could not sleep and my hands would not stop shaking. It did not help much, but I kept doing it anyway.
Priya turned around. Her real body, not the reflection.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"Yes."
"You don't look all right."
"I'm fine."
She watched me for a few seconds, then turned back to the bench.
I forced myself into task mode. That was what I called it. Task mode.
When everything else became too loud, I chose one thing and did it until it was finished. Check the harness. Run the continuity test. Torque the connectors. Log the results.
One thing, then the next. Do not think about anything else.
I looked at the foil-wrapped object between the boards.
"We need to remove that cartridge," I said. "Offload whatever's on it."
Priya did not turn around.
"Graham hasn't cleared us to proceed."
"Then ask him."
She walked to the intercom and pressed the button.
"We need the isolated laptop. Mercer wants to offload the cartridge."
Graham's voice came through after a pause.
"Stand-alone only. No network access."
"Understood," Callum said. "I'll retrieve it."
He left the observation room. I heard his footsteps in the corridor, a door opening, a metal case being moved, then footsteps returning. The vestibule interlock cycled.
Callum entered with a black hard-shell case about the size of a briefcase. He set it on the workbench and opened it.
Inside was an old laptop with a thick plastic casing and no wireless card. Its ports had been physically removed except for a USB-A socket and the power connection.
"Air-gapped," Callum said. "No network capability. No Bluetooth. Logs are write-only."
He powered it on and stepped back.
The laptop booted to a login screen. Callum entered a twelve-character password without looking at the keys. The desktop appeared, showing only a grey background and three icons: File Explorer, a text editor and a media player.
"Document everything," Callum said. "I'll be in the observation room."
He left through the vestibule.
Priya pulled on a fresh pair of nitrile gloves and leaned over the avionics tray.
"I'll extract the cartridge. You handle the laptop."
"Copy."
She used plastic tweezers from the toolkit to grip the edge of the foil wrapping. She pulled slowly. The cartridge slid free from between the boards.
She set it on an antistatic mat and unwrapped the foil.
The cartridge was five centimetres long and a little over a centimetre wide. It was made from matt black plastic, with a USB-A connector at one end and a small LED window in the side. There were no manufacturer's markings and no serial number.
Priya held it up to the light.
"Commercial solid-state module, probably COTS. Perhaps thirty-two or sixty-four gigabytes."
She handed it to me. I took it and turned it over.
The connector pins were clean. No corrosion. No debris. The LED window remained dark.
I plugged it into the laptop.
The LED turned green. The laptop gave a soft chime and opened a File Explorer window, showing the cartridge as a removable drive.
Capacity: 64 GB.
Used space: 1.2 GB.
I opened the drive. There were two folders. They had no labels, only dates for names.
18 November 2024.
27 January 2025.
I opened the first.
It was not telemetry. It was video.
The folder contained fourteen short clips. Their filenames were timestamps and nothing more: 18 November 2024 at 03:14 UTC, 18 November 2024 at 03:21 UTC.
I clicked the first one.
The media player opened. The screen remained black for two seconds, then an image appeared.
It was an interior view, probably from a camera mounted inside the capsule near the top of the sample bay and pointing down. The compartment was small, perhaps twenty centimetres square, with metallic walls and a single cylindrical container in the centre, about the size of a drinks can.
Its lid was open.
I leaned closer. Inside the container were perhaps twenty thin, clear, ribbon-like slivers. Each was about eight centimetres long and half a centimetre wide. They looked like transparent film or laminated material.
Except they were moving.
Not drifting. Moving.
One sliver folded in half, then unfolded. Another curled at the edges and flattened itself again. A third twisted through 90 degrees and held that position for several seconds before rotating back.
There was no air current. No vibration.
Only movement.
"What is that?" I said.
Priya stepped closer to the laptop. She did not answer.
The clear slivers continued folding, twisting and realigning, as though testing their range of movement or practising something. The clip ran for eighteen seconds, then cut to black.
I sat back. Priya rubbed her wrist.
"Play the next one."
I clicked the second file, timestamped 03:21 UTC. It showed the same angle and the same container. The clear slivers were arranged differently now, stacked in a loose pile against one side.
Then something entered the frame from the right.
A hand.
Bare skin. No glove. Human proportions. Five fingers.
The hand reached into the container and lifted one of the slivers between its thumb and forefinger. The sliver curled once around the finger, then released it. The hand put it back.
The clip ended.
I looked at Priya.
"Who was that?"
She shook her head.
"There was no crew. The capsule was automated."
"That's a person."
"I know."
I opened the third file. The screen remained black, with no image. I waited ten seconds. Nothing loaded.
I closed it and tried the fourth. It showed the same interior view, but the container was now closed and its lid sealed. The hand appeared again from the right, touched the lid with one finger, then withdrew.
The clip lasted nine seconds.
I went through the rest of the folder. Most were variations of the same events: slivers moving inside the container, the hand reaching in. A few showed wider views of the sample bay, with labels I could not read and equipment I did not recognise.
In one clip, the hand held a sliver up to the camera. The clear material folded itself into a tight square, then unfolded and became flat again.
I closed the folder.
Priya was staring at the screen, her jaw tight.
"You know what those are?" I asked.
She hesitated, then nodded once.
"I've seen something similar. There was a restricted briefing last year. RAL Space had been asked to assess samples from a high-altitude collection mission. They looked like film or polymer, but they behaved like information storage. No conventional electronics. No circuits. Only the material itself."
"How does that work?"
"I don't know. Nobody explained the mechanism. They only showed us the behaviour. The slivers responded to proximity, temperature and electromagnetic fields. They stored information somehow. Reproduced patterns."
I looked at the screen.
"You think that's what these are?"
"I don't know what else they could be."
The intercom clicked. Graham's voice came through, clipped and tight.
"Shut it down. Remove the cartridge and seal it. We're not cleared for this level of access."
I did not move.
Priya glanced at the observation window. Graham stood with both hands pressed against the glass. Callum was beside him, holding his tablet in one hand and his radio in the other.
"We need authorisation from RAL Space before going any further," Graham said. "That's protocol."
I looked at the laptop. The camera indicator was glowing, a small green LED beside the lens at the top of the screen.
I had not activated the camera.
I leaned back.
"Priya."
She looked at me.
"Did you turn the camera on?"
"No."
I pointed at the LED.
She saw it. Her face went pale.
I minimised the media player and returned to File Explorer. The cartridge drive was still mounted. I refreshed the view.
A new folder appeared.
9 March 2025.
Today.
I stared at it.
"That wasn't there before," Priya said.
"I know."
I opened it. It contained one video file.
The filename was a seven-digit number.
7149058.
My staff number.
I did not click it immediately. My hand hovered over the trackpad.
Priya stepped closer and looked over my shoulder.
I opened the file.
The media player loaded, and an image appeared.
My flat.
It was an interior shot filmed from somewhere near the kitchen table, aimed towards the corridor leading to the bedroom. I recognised the door frame, the light switch and the skirting board I had patched the previous summer with filler that did not quite match the colour of the wall.
The shot was steady. No camera shake. It looked as though the camera had been fixed to a tripod or shelf.
Nothing moved for five seconds.
Then something stepped into view from the bedroom.
It was tall and narrow, with human proportions, but the details were wrong. It wore an old SaxaVord sweatshirt, its logo faded and cracked. I had donated that sweatshirt to a charity shop in Aberdeen three years earlier, just after the divorce was final.
The figure stood in the doorway. No face was visible beneath the hood. Only shadow.
It turned towards the camera.
Then it nodded.
Slow. Deliberate. As though it recognised me.
The clip ended.
I slammed the laptop shut.
Priya stepped back.
"What was that?"
"It's my flat. That's my place. That was filmed inside my flat."
Graham's voice came through the intercom again, louder now.
"Mercer, what's happening?"
I stood so quickly that the chair scraped across the floor.
"The cartridge is generating new files. It's recording us now."
Priya reached for the laptop.
"We need to destroy it."
Callum's voice cut in.
"Negative. Nobody touches that cartridge. Evidence integrity takes priority."
Priya turned towards the observation window.
"It's actively creating content. That isn't evidence. It's a live threat."
"Step away from the laptop," Callum said.
I looked at Graham through the glass. He was staring at the window, but his eyes were wrong. Unfocused.
The contactless security-pass reader beside his lanyard was flashing.
Green, red, green, repeating.
"Graham," I said.
He blinked slowly.
Then his voice came through the intercom, flat and even.
"Mission control has ordered the cartridge to remain powered. Continue the review. Document all files."
Priya turned to me.
"He didn't call anyone."
"I know."
Graham's tablet was not in his hand. His radio was clipped to his belt. He had not touched anything.
I moved fast. I yanked the laptop's power cable from the wall, pulled the battery-release catch and ripped the battery out of the chassis.
The screen went black.
Priya backed towards the workbench.
I pulled the cartridge from the USB port, then turned to the capsule on the platform. I dragged the avionics tray towards me, found the gap between the telemetry board and the power-distribution board where the cartridge had been wedged, and jammed it back inside.
Then I grabbed the earth strap from the bench, the one we used for ESD protection, and looped it over the boards, pinning the cartridge in place.
The tone stopped.
Complete silence.
I waited five seconds.
Then the tone returned.
Not from the capsule. Not from the speakers.
From me.
From my throat.
A low, involuntary buzz vibrated through my chest and jaw. I could not stop it. I pressed my hand to my neck and felt the vibration beneath my skin.
Graham's voice came through the intercom. It was different now. Sharper.
"Contamination event. Mercer is contaminated. Initiate quarantine lockdown."
I looked at Priya. She was pressed against the wall, her hands flat against the tiles.
Then Callum spoke.
"Mercer, stay where you are. Do not leave the clean room."
The buzzing grew louder. I could feel it in my teeth.
I turned and ran.
I went through the vestibule and slapped the inner lock release. The outer door unlocked and I shoved through into the corridor.
Callum was moving towards me from the observation room, radio raised, already speaking into it.
"Containment breach, Block 6 clean room, 06:19."
I did not stop. I turned left and sprinted along the corridor towards the side entrance.
My steel-toe boots struck the tiles in a rhythm that matched the buzzing. Behind me, I heard Callum's footsteps and his voice over the radio.
"Subject is mobile, heading along the south corridor. Request backup at all exits."
I hit the crash bar on the side door and stumbled outside.
Cold air. Wind off the sea.
The buzzing in my throat immediately dropped in volume, as though the outside pressure had dampened it.
I kept moving, crossing the access road towards Car Park C. My van was in the third row, in the same ordinary space where I always left it. I fumbled the keys from my pocket and pressed the unlock button.
The lights flashed.
Callum came through the door behind me.
"Mercer, stop."
I did not.
He was faster than I expected. He closed the distance to about five metres.
I reached the van and spun around. He slowed, breathing hard, one hand on his radio.
His security-pass reader was flashing.
Green, red, green.
I tore my own pass from its lanyard and slammed it against his contactless reader.
The reader flashed green and held.
Callum froze.
His whole body locked into place, one foot forwards, his hand still resting on the radio. His eyes remained open, but they tracked nothing.
I snatched the radio from his belt and threw it as hard as I could. It struck a puddle beside a drain and vanished into it.
Then I got into the van, started the engine and drove.
It took me eighteen minutes to reach the public car park by Norwick beach. It was mostly empty. I parked facing the sea and switched off the engine.
The buzzing was still there, but quieter now. More like soreness than vibration.
I opened the windows and let the wind blow through.
I sat there for an hour. Perhaps longer.
The buzzing faded to nothing, but my throat still felt wrong. Tight. Scratched.
My mobile was still in my pocket. I had forgotten about it.
I pulled it out. The screen was still cracked from corner to corner, but the mobile had restarted by itself. The lock screen showed two per cent battery and one new notification.
New video saved to gallery.
I stared at it.
Then I got out of the van, walked three metres to the nearest bin and smashed the mobile against its metal edge until the screen shattered completely and the casing split. I dropped the pieces into the bin and walked back.
I drove home with the windows open the entire way.
The next day, the spaceport rang at 09:00. It was a People Services representative I had never met. She told me I was suspended with immediate effect pending an investigation.
I did not argue.
Callum filed a report. I received a copy two days later.
Panic response. Non-compliance with quarantine protocol. Attempted removal and unauthorised handling of controlled material. Destruction of government property.
He did not mention his security-pass reader flashing or how he had frozen in Car Park C.
I never returned to SaxaVord or any UK Space Agency site.
For the first week, I kept every window in my flat open. Even at night, when the Shetland air grew cold enough that I could see my breath in the kitchen.
The clear slivers began appearing during the second week.
I would do the washing and find one clinging to a shirt. Thin, transparent, about eight centimetres long. I would pull it off and throw it away.
The next load would contain another.
Sometimes two.
I stopped using the tumble dryer. I hung everything outside on a rack I bought from the builders' merchant in Baltasound.
I avoided enclosed rooms.
The bathroom was the worst. I showered quickly, with the door open and the extractor fan running. If I stayed in there too long, the air felt wrong. Too still.
As though it were learning the shape of the space.
Sealed quiet felt different now. It felt like a system that could learn an identity and repeat it back.
I kept the windows open.