The ration pack crinkles as you turn it over.

The ration pack crinkles as you turn it over.

These rations any good?

Produced by a company called VANGUARDA 79, it claims to be the 'Food of the Future'.

Is it?

Technically yes, due to the violent contractions of space time.

How many of these has he stashed in here?

Tossed in the corners, clotted beneath furniture -- dozens upon dozens of silver packs, glinting in the half-light.

This is a man with a system. A tried-and-tested one.

He's been down here for years...

Five, to be precise. Ever since the Crew's blowout.

You went East -- he went South.

Look at HOLOCENE.

Your former double glances back at you, pushes his glasses up his face, then turns away.

Don't look at him.

You hear your former double shuffle behind you and rub a hand through his mass of hair.

This is not a short term solution...

It's 96. Little late to be futuristic.

The best futures are preserved. This one comes freeze-dried, sealed in foil.

Check the expiration date.

Even though COSMO-COMIDA! claims to be the food of the future, small print on the packet reads 'Best by: Hebdomos 84' -- twelve years ago.

He's subsisting on these alone.

There's a coil wired into the wall, fused to the socket with melted plastic and faith. That's where he eats, listening to currents crackle overhead.

I can't believe HOLOCENE's been living like this...

He found himself a little world, newly terraformed, all his and no one else's.

A body in a ditch. A back alley arrest. A name scraped off a plaque and folded into bureaucracy. You'd assumed a lot, but not this sad half-death.

I did this to him. I'm basically force-feeding him these decrepit rations.

Every operant for themselves. He knew the rules.

You were a full world away. Counting down days in cigarette stubs -- a thick curtain drawn over Novessa, watching a phone that never rang.

It's not the same. I was home.

A familiar room, yes -- but mentally, a hostile foreign shore.

They left him like this. The Opera. Or the shadow behind them.

And the Operant Bureau forgets by design -- especially in the aftermath of 'catastrophic collapse', as the theatre report called your last outing.

He's his own man. I respect it.

And if he ever wants to leave, the stairs still work.

Caught between a life and a death. He's here, at least.

And now both of you are here, together, standing among the crash site, long after the retrieval crews have given up hope and gone home.

Check out the info on the back.

Heat-stamped in pale blue: weight, pack date, and manufacturer details -- a company called 'Locklean Rethnor'.

Famous for sterile logistics, tax-flexible exports, and a stunning aversion to political alignment.

Five time zones away. Quite the distance.

A triumph of international cooperation.

You sense the long shadow of EMTERR hanging over this.

Doesn't sound like a local name.

Precision-engineered beyond the coasts -- a triumph of international cooperation.

Read the room.

This is not about cleaning. It is not even about this room.

It's about HOLOCENE, isn't it?

Of course. There is a room behind this one, locked within your former double's head.

Curtains twitch at the windows. Inside, stacks of dog-eared dream and memory contaminate each other.

How do I get in?

You'll need a key.

He wants you to find something he cannot give you. It is disguised, but not hidden. So probably something like...

... That piece of paper right there.

That? He could've just pointed it out.

Maybe he can't. Or believes he can't.

The remote viewers! Spoon-bending vöyeurs!

This is not about cleaning. It is not even about this room. It is about that single slip of paper, and whatever is written upon it.

A spontaneous inter-matter manifestation. (Squint.)

Maybe. Or maybe you just missed it.

Did he drop that when I wasn't looking?

Your former double has busied himself with a loose piece of thread on his dressing gown sleeve.

If he did, he moved fast.

That's a big room.

But it will only take a small key to open it.

He's lonely in there, I know it.

That's why you're pacing around in the dark outside, trying to get in.

No one knows you're down here. Let's dwell on that for a moment.

"I'm never going to leave this place, am I?"

"Get a grip, CASCADE. You sound hysterical."

The room is one of those massive, boring books you know you'll never finish. You haven't even made it past the first page.

"Do I have to read the whole room?" (Swing your arms limply and stamp your foot.)

"I don't know what you're on about, CASCADE, I just asked you to clean up. In fact, don't just clean -- be a vigilant operant and sweep."

This is the mould's room now. Eviction notice incoming, effective immediately.

"You know you have a significant mould problem developing back there?"

"Very surface level reading, CASCADE. I'm embarrassed for you."

Cosy little number he's got here, all things considered. Spacious, sparse -- quiet, too.

"So you're working from home now?"

"Diligently. I've been silo sufficient five years and counting."

You're in the basement's basement. One quick glance tells you all you need to know:

"This is a virgin's subterranean beat suite."

"'Beat suite'?"

"Yeah. The suite where you beat."

"Look harder, CASCADE. There is no pornographic material to be found in this room. Not an 'adult magazine' or 'explicit video disc' in sight."

"No 'secret stash'?"

"You sound disappointed. M.I.H.O. certainly is."

"Ah. That's what the remote viewing is for."

"CASCADE. We both know 'workplace harassment' is a bourgeois construct. All the same... please stop."

"But a man with near perfect memory wouldn't need material, would he?"

Take some ration packs. [Conclude.]

There's enough in this box for a month of austere survival.

Take one pack.

You pocket the freeze-dried rations.

"Please, help yourself, CASCADE." Your former double shakes his head and mutters something under his breath.

Take five packs.

You pocket the freeze-dried rations.

Put them back where you found them. [Leave.]

The packet makes a light crinkle as you place it down.

A silver brick, foil-wrapped and creased with factory precision. You recognise its dull sheen and shape instantly:

Ration pack.

Beneath the word 'COSMO-COMIDA!', a grinning cosmonaut -- one gloved hand giving a thumbs-up, the other squeezing purple paste from a tube into their mouth.