#*margot

Two moon-suits toddle in the sandy heat. Chen stands to Hordiyenko's left, reviewing procedures, while Hordiyenko surveys instruments on the cart. These 70-pound mockup planetary spacesuits make moving, kneeling and grasping difficult. This is how it will be, how it will feel to do these activities in a perfect vacuum.

Chen collapses. He scratches at his helmet. No matter how hard he scratches, it cannot open.

Hordiyenko watches Chen flounder. When its over, he puts his hand out to release the helmet latch - a sigh of stale vapour. If this were ganymede, the eyes staring back at him would freeze into marbles.

More moon-suits join him. The mirrored surface of their visors reflect the aftermath of the epileptic fit. They watch motionless as he wipes the vomit from Chen's blue lips, Chen's bloated face. After two weeks in the desert together, it squeezes their hearts to see Chen suffer like this - but where any of their genuine concern for Chen ended and where their self-interest began, they could not tell. They were now five for the four positions, not six. They follow hypothetical procedure. They report the reclamation of equipment, the land readings, and lastly the death.

QUANTICO RECRUITMENT PHASE III INTERVIEW

"You feel responsible."

Hordiyenko wipes his dry face. When the counselor offers tissues, he takes one. He keeps it with him all the way from the taxi ring to the rickety subway. He remains unresponsive to the beggar man who begins a deep debate with him. He stares at his phone. He reaches his crumbling brownstone. He throws the tissue on the dumpster where more trash has gathered uncollected.

He gets the call back.

The sky seems a little bit closer tonight. Every constellation, every pattern of stars in the heavens seem closer.

“Oh, my god. You are really in bad shape upstairs, lady!”