William set his bag on his bed, slipping off his jacket and placing it up on the hook. He wandered over to the small counter and pulled up his only chair, placing the flyer down and reading quietly as he pulled up his datapad.

  “The October Project- let's reach the stars together and go where nobody has before.”

  He bit his lip and scanned the site code- the October Project popping up without delay. Whatever the October Project was, it was using the Martian net. Which meant it was most likely local.

  “Let's see what exactly you are.” William muttered, tapping away on his datapad as he dug deeper.

  At first, it was all surface-level information. Mission statements. Dry, earnest paragraphs about exploration and long-term viability. A handful of stock images- hab domes, engine diagrams with most information redacted, starfields that looked extremely accurate. So accurate that they bordered on scientific paper rather than aspirational.

  William skimmed without slowing down. This was the part anyone could fake. He dug deeper, leaning in to his datapad.

  Funding disclosures came next. Not hidden or in a corner of the website- just… unadorned.

  Numbers laid out in plain text, squeezed so close that he had to reread them twice to be sure. Grants from the Martian government, and private donors with names he only vaguely knew as Martian natives.

  No Earth corporate registries. No shell companies looping back on themselves.

  “Huh,” he murmured. He cross-checked anyway. Pulled registry records, ran the names through the Martian net. Dead ends, but honest ones. The kind that came from people who didn’t have the money to be clever about hiding things- or didn't think about it.

  The site lagged slightly as he opened older documents. Updates spaced months apart. One PDF still had an internal datasheet attached- someone reminding another to “rewrite this later, it sounds too much like a dissertation” and the paper was left unchanged.

  William almost smiled. He leaned forward as the tone shifted.

  Applicant Requirements

  We do not accept all candidates-

  He stopped scrolling. Physical screening. Psychological evaluation. Stress tolerance. Long-term isolation markers. Failure conditions listed bluntly, without softened language or promises of appeal.

  No change your life today, no small little “go get em's!” he remembered seeing from earth propaganda. Just a quiet, firm list of ways you could be told you weren't good enough to be on this project.

  “Refreshing.” William muttered.

  He sat back, staring at the screen for a long moment. This wasn’t Earth. No one was trying to sell him a dream. If anything, they seemed almost reluctant to allow anyone to join. Not many people are going to have the mental fortitude to handle isolation- especially not after the… he cut the thought off and bit his lip.

  His eyes drifted back to the flyer on the counter.

  He reached out, tapped Apply, and started writing an application.

  'I am William Nightingale, I was born on earth-'

  He finished the application, making sure his sentences were capitalized. His sentences made sense, and he didn't have any filler. He wanted to show he was earnest, after all. That, more than anything, told him he meant it.

  William shut down the datapad and set it in the receptacle at the door- the device doing a little jingle as it began to charge, a small warning scrolling across the screen.

  Warning! Do not use Datapad gen 3 after heavy damage. If there is any swelling in the battery, deep cracks or grooves in the shell, or struggling to charge, replace Datapad gen 3.

  The room lights dimmed automatically as he crossed the space- lights out. Same time every night- 2100. Routine. Set in stone. He chuckled and took off his day clothes, brushed his teeth. Gargled saltwater, and put away his supplies in their proper places. The lab meat vat felt- odd to leave on the counter, but the instructions explicitly said to leave it at room temperature with access to electricity.

  After everything was done, William slipped into his bed- the memory gel forming to his body, and began counting asteroids, like he used to when he was small.

  “One, icy asteroid. Two, iron rich asteroids. Three copper sparse asteroids…”

  - - -

  The lantern flickered at his hip.

  Just for a fraction of a second- long enough for William’s heart to seize and his palms to slick inside his gloves with sweat.

  He froze, hands locked around the drill’s grips. Cheap plastic, stripped screws, and a motor that shuddered like it knew it was dying. The faded rocket logo looked back up at him, mocking him.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  He exhaled, breath fogging the inside of his visor. Asteroid mining was cold. Always cold, and the worn heaters in his suit barely kept him warm enough to work.

  He leaned back into the drill. The bit bit into the rock, vibration crawling up his arms. No sound, except the sound of his hands vibrating against reinforced cloth. Just resistance. Just pressure in his fingertips.

  A fracture raced outward from the drill point, spidering through the wall- not down, not up, but everywhere. The cavern shuddered, pieces peeling free like sun-burnt skin.

  William let go of the drill and kicked back, shouting into his mic as he flew through the low gravity and back the way he'd come.

  “Structural failure! Abort! Abort-”

  The rock around him began to come apart, floating around him like a dangerous dance. Beautiful. Mesmerizing. Deadly. He heard yelling through his speakers, connecting to D teams mics. Her voice came through, scared but steady.

  “William. We're trapped, too much debris floating in the tunnel. You're going to have to leave us behind.”

  He stopped, grasping a power cord barely attached to the wall to stop his momentum. The shards of stone spinning around him in slow motion as he processed what she'd said.

  “No- No, I'll come get you.” He pleaded, turning to go back down the way he'd come.

  “No, don't. You won't make it.”

  William heard Jim's scream of pain cut short as he was likely crushed by debris.

  “I have to try! I can't lose you too.” He pushed off the wall, floating between two large boulders- shards of suit, glass, and frozen bone glittering between them.

  “William, I can't lose you either. If you don't turn around right now and get to the ship i'll- I'll take off my helmet.”

  Beep beep. Beep beep

  William slowly opened his eyes, the dim orange glow of Mars once more filling his room as his alarm screamed by his head. Sweat coated his body as he sat up and placed his fist against his forehead.

  William stayed sitting for a moment, fist still pressed to his forehead, listening to the hum of the habitat steady itself around him. The alarm cut out with a clunk. The lights held at their low, soft orange.

  He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, the cold floor biting just enough to pull him further from sleep.

  “…coffee,” he muttered.

  He moved through the room on muscle memory alone. Cabinet. Pot. Heater. Packet. He didn’t even look at the labels this time, just tore one open and poured it into the filter, hands moving like they always did.

  William leaned against the counter, arms crossed, eyes unfocused as he waited. The window showed the same stretch of red dust and distant dome, unchanged from yesterday, unchanged from the year before that. The pot buzzed as the brew completed.

  He poured the coffee into his cracked mug, checked it out of habit, then took a sip- brow furrowing as the bitter caffeine began to work its magic.

  “Creamer,” he sighed, more out of tradition than intent- but, as he did, he turned towards his stasis fridge and pulled out the creamer he bought yesterday. Peppermint. He poured it into the mug and took another drink.

  “Better.”

  He thumbed the door controls and waited for the pressure cycle. The lights shifted to white as the habitat registered him as active. Somewhere down the corridor, a door opened. Boots echoed, and some faint voices complained about the early mornings.

  The door slid open with a pressurized thunk. William stepped into the hall, mug in one hand, the other already reaching for the reception slot without looking- his datapad slipping out with ease, fully charged.

  The screen lit up automatically, flashing something he wasn't used to seeing.

  DAILY STATUS

  Date: 7/13/3101

  - William Nightingale has been relieved of duty until medically cleared by Mars Medical. -

  Note; get some rest William. Remember- nothing crazy today.

  No site assignment. No shift hours. No quota, just the day off Albert had ordered him to take yesterday.

  “…huh.” he took another sip of his coffee, enjoying the minty aftertaste as he turned back into his room.

  He glanced down at the bottom of the pad. The data chip slots were full- all three. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Blue, like always- like he requested.

  William stared at the three blue chips for a long moment, then slid them back into the datapad slots with a soft click. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Every hour of his day accounted for- except between those meals. Hell, he could just cook the food he bought yesterday.

  He set the mug down, rolled his shoulders once, and looked around his room. Drumming his fingers against the counter as he tried to think about what exactly he was going to do today.

  William exhaled through his nose and thumbed the datapad awake again. The home screen bloomed to life- calendar, calculator, work updates, Email, and the very few games he had downloaded onto the device.

  The first one that loaded was an old Martian net ‘classic’- if you could call a six month old game a classic- Ore Reclaimer. A small top down survival game defending your refining outpost from the bloodthirsty aliens attempting to eat you. Automation was the goal, and there were thousands of different machines you could build. But, he managed to get his character killed in less than ten minutes trying to mine Iron.

  William frowned, restarted, and tried again.

  He immediately got tools to build simple wooden cog machines, attempting to automate. He managed to get some basic traps down before being swarmed by aliens.

  By the fourth attempt, he wasn’t even trying. He'd go for iron, get there, dwaddle for ten minutes and die to the swarm.

  He hadn’t expected a reply the very next day, only at most thirteen hours later. Honestly, he hadn’t expected a reply at all.

  William set the datapad down, stood, then sat back down again. He drank his coffee like that would settle the nagging voice in the back of his mind. It didn’t. It never did.

  Maybe he should go into the city. Go to a restaurant, get some real food. Something with texture that wasn't potatoes. Walk under the dome. Pretend today was normal.

  But then he pictured screens over kiosks and fifteen-second ads in transport stations, bright Earth colors where they didn’t belong. He pictured BluRocket’s name printed on a flyer like it had never left. And, he had a LabSteak. He didn't need to go into town and see those…abominations.

  A quiet ding rang out as he started another round of Ore Reclaimer. William froze with his hand halfway to his mug, and opened his inbox.

  OCTOBER PROJECT - APPLICANT STATUS UPDATE

  His thumb hovered over the email, deciding whether or not to look. He didn't want to be rejected, but he needed to know.

  For one irrational second he imagined the screen lighting up with some corporate slogan- some soft, smiling rejection written by an algorithm trained to sound human, but always had that off, too sanitized cadence.

  A plain text window opened, simple and clean.

  William Nightingale,

  Your application has been reviewed. You have been selected for preliminary screening.

  Report to: 143 New Mars Str.

  Time: 15:30

  Bring: Government ID

  Failure to attend will be regarded as an automatic disqualification from the October Project.

  Under it, a single line in smaller text:

  Do not consume stimulants within six hours of screening.