You return to the shelves.

You return to the shelves.

Unlock this shelf from the other.

Behind a jumble of papers, you find the other end of the anti-tipping latch keeping the shelves attached.

Fuck you, second latch. (Pop the latch.)

And with a simple flick, the latch comes undone.

The shelves ease apart by a fraction as metal settles back into alignment.

The control terminal should work now to move the shelves.

And freedom for you too. (Undo the latch.)

Disengage the latch without further thought.

What's that strange thing on the top shelf?

You point your beam at the suspicious shape, lurking above you:

A drinking cup, shaped like a cartoon wolf.

Sick. We wants, yeah?

By god, the craftsmanship of it.

Project WOLFCUP has taken top priority.

The wolf looks at you. Silent. Expectant.

How did this get here?

From that wolf show.

One of 66, now in cup form.

Say no more -- I'm in.

The craftsmanship, at a glance, looks impeccable.

Sounds impractical. Possibly dangerous.

And yet, it's clear that some real craftsmanship went into this cup.

Take the wolf cup.

The wolf's rainbow mane flares out behind her. A spiked bat is strapped to her back. Two words, printed on the cup: STUBBORN WOLF.

One more for my collection. Boom!

The wolf smirks.

You put Stubborn Wolf away, and turn back toward the archives.

Salute Stubborn Wolf.

What are you doing down here?

I know some semioticians who can't wait to meet you.

Seems very opinionated.

The wolf smirks.

No, seriously. How did a stupid themed cup end up down here?

The smirking wolf offers no answer.

Who left you behind, bud?

Read 'APPENDIX D' again.

You take up the mouldering grey binder once more.

Examine the satellite's schematics.

The exterior schematics detail each face of the satellite, marking thruster locations, antenna mounts, and radiator fins.

The antennae extend tens of metres into the void, their length dwarfing the satellite's.

Metal fingers grasping for ancient, decaying radio waves.

The interior is split into modules. Narrow passageways snake between crew berths, laboratory, storage, and an unlabelled room.

Examine the crew berths.

These are padded compartments stacked along the bulkheads. Each has its own locker and was optimised for personal space.

Barely wide enough to stretch. Privacy would be nonexistent.

And the lab?

The laboratory module shows benches, storage, and diagnostic consoles, arranged in precise order.

A place designed for long shifts, with a hidden geometry of efficiency.

Spectrum analysers, amplifiers... Heavy-duty radio stuff.

How heavy?

Enough to sweep every part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and then some.

What's in the unlabelled module? (Proceed.)

A single, massive viewport dominates one wall. Small fixtures around the room suggest seated arrangements.

A window large enough for the stars to spill in.

The marks along these 'seats' are anchor points -- four per seat. You know what that implies.

Those look like restraints.

No labels needed for you to recognise a detainment chamber.

What did the cosmonauts bring with them?

Each member of the crew was allotted 1.5kg for their personal preference kit. Cmdr. Roque's kit contains a visor for his beloved pelota squad Recreacion.

Sounds like a tool.

Lt. Silje appears to have brought pictures of her boyfriend and two children from a previous marriage, as well as her oboe. Lt. Markov's kit includes an instant camera as well as a board game.

Reminders of a world worth returning to.

Board games. Nice.

Specifically, 'Grains & Gallows'. A grim tale unfolding in two acts, according to the description. At first, a co-operative ballet of rationing and survival during a series of famines.

And then?

By the midgame, alliances fracture, and players sell each other out to protect their dwindling supplies. The game ends when only one player remains.

I couldn't sell out my friends, the guilt would be overpowering.

The description indicates this is a 'fantasy'.

And what about Dr. Straniak?

His preference kit contains only two books. The titles sound vaguely medical: 'Somnia Regula: Principles of Lucid Induction' and 'Neural Plasticity & Hypnagogic States'.

I'm sure the famine is manmade. The powers-that-be want us to turn on each other, so they can dominate us.

One of the game's key selling points is highlighted: Players may sell their opponents' children to nobles.

I'd sell everyone out, then eat their rations right in front of their sad, starving faces.

That is one of the reasons why operants are discouraged from playing board games together.

It's just a game, as meaningless as real life.

What else?

My brother.

Pelota, I don't get it.

Go over the medications ledger.

Beyond the standard mission fare, there is a long list of controlled substances. Primarily stimulants, dissociatives, and hallucinogens.

Yum-yum, here we go.

The list is very clear about these being controlled substances. It's in bold.

The manifest includes psilocybin, various opioids, lysergic acid diethylamide, dizocilpine, and Orlavin-3.

Orlavin-3 is a hybrid psychotropic, capable of inducing paralysis-grade calm while forcing vivid, inescapable hallucinations.

Sounds useful. Where do I get some?

You don't. Orlavin-3 is blacklisted in the Developed World and the People's Republics.

At low doses, it's a compliance inducer. At high doses, it's a sanity ender.

Assumption: Straniak 1) Hand-picked those substances. 2) Did not partake.

Animals. Trapped. Cage.

One last note: all the controlled substances are designated as 'mission critical'.

Sounds very unpleasant.

So they were having a party, right? A space party.

Very doubtful. At low doses, Orlavin-3 is a compliance inducer. At high doses, it's a sanity ender.

Orlavin-3. Terribly effective for interrogations and 'shock pacification'.

I'm not familiar with that one.

And the ledger does not clarify its purpose.

Keep reading.

Look at Straniak's notes.

A few pages contain fragments of sentences, ramblings, and musings.

Written over months, if not years, given the different pen colours and how the inks faded. This is something Straniak returned to.

'Nature of the signal'.

'Natural emission or directed transmission, both remain possible. If the signal resembles distress, it may be because intelligences naturally broadcast pain, not information.'

'Possible: Suffering organises itself differently.'

That, you know to be true.

As you flip through the notes, you notice a series of entries you missed before: It appears to be some kind of pre-mission schedule.

'On success'.

'What good is a message, where no words exist? No, the mission is not contact. It is surrender to pattern; a great resignation to being read as much as reading.'

'Re: Hallucinations'.

'No malfunction -- only bandwidth expansion and fine-tuning. Detaching sensory anchoring allows endogenous signal amplification; partial decoupling from local realities to privilege remote hosting. It is a welcome.'

Fancy words for a frightening statement: 'Your mind is my playground'.

'Stars & noise'.

'Stars are not discrete objects; they are nodes in a flux. Signal is not sent, it circulates. We do not intercept, we enter a stream of modulation.'

'Reframed as such, noise is not presence, merely a raw vector of universal being. A cry is structured excess: desire leaking, recognised only as categorisation, yet indifferent to it."

'The self'.

This entry consists of a single line:

'The self is the limiting factor. Selfhood once necessary for survival has proven lethal to reception.'

Examine the schedule.

Days and time slots, spanning three months. Guided meditation sessions, debriefs, sleep rotations, and the largest, recurring block-out: 'remote host windows'.

Whoa, whoa. What are these 'remote hosts'?

Next to the schedule, calculations -- and the names of stars.

Orbital position, ascension, range. All in relation to stellar targets.

Which stars?

All the great named ones: Altair, Canopus, Capella, Sirius, Aldebaran, Rigil, Deneb.

What about the gay one, Rasalhague?

That one's there too, though there's no mention of its sexual orientation.

I don't think stars can actually be gay, it's just a little joke.

Below the star names, a single sentence is circled. You've seen it before.

'Grenzen sind Illusionen; alles sieht zurück.'

I'm also gay so it's cool for me to say it.

It would've been a hate crime to leave it out.

Keep reading.

Put the strange notes away. (Go back.)

You feel slightly relieved to close this particular file.

Put the document away. (Go back.)

You return the binder to its storage tray.

Look for the missing 'APPENDIX D'.

The reference code you found in the post-mission summary leads you to a thick grey binder. Inside are schematics, datasheets, and a crew manifest.

And nestled among these, you find a copy of Dr. Straniak's personal notes.

What really happened on that satellite?

You stare past the ceiling, into imagined dark. Attention becomes a filament, stretching until it hums -- and pulls you outwards.

Follow it.

You close your eyes. Reality dislocates, and suddenly --

You're there.

Look out the viewport.

Outside, stars burn without depth or comfort.

Sun-facing panels glimmer like the frost-touched carapace of a great insect.

Get up.

You can't.

Your fingertips crackle. Too much current, not enough grounding.

Look down.

You're bound tight to some kind of table, propped up vertically.

Look to the right.

A man drifts past. He is naked; bones etched beneath the pale, taut skin. His mouth moves soundlessly. Pearls of blood detach and float from his ears and mouth.

Commander Roque.

A broken instrument.

Look up. (Proceed.)

A man floats, dark hair swirling like ink in water. A metre away: a blonde woman, restrained. She speaks in an unnatural rhythm. The man listens, frowning.

The woman's body jerks suddenly, limbs flailing. Sparks flare along control panels; loose wires thrash. Lights swell around you, swallowing colours and edges.

Signals unfurl around you. An ocean of drifting voices and prayers lost amid the electromagnetic spectrum.

As light devours the room, your last image: the dark-haired man, taking notes with insectile detachment.

And then, reality snaps back. The silo hums around you.

You try to project yourself upward and into the past, but to no avail. There's just you, here, now.

Hotwire the shelves.

Step back. [Leave.]

You turn away from the shelves.

Darkness swallows your vision.

Without an artificial light source, you can't see a damn thing in there.

Now that the shelves have been moved, you can see what's on the other side of Shelving Unit B: Hundreds more documents, haphazardly arranged.

You also notice the steel beam connecting this shelf to its partner. It vanishes into one of the lower trays.

Shouldn't you know how this goes by now? Flashlight on.

As you look around, light glints off a thick steel beam, bridging this shelf to the next.