Shane walking into my cell is a shock like nothing I've ever experienced. My eyes are wide and fixed, my mouth hanging open and my whole body is feeling tingly and floaty. Shane is speaking to me, but the words are far away, jumbled, and I can't pay attention.

I feel like I’ve broken from reality. Am I still dreaming? Am I hallucinating? My chest feels tight, and my heart is racing. I might be sick.

"Honey......shock....Honey.....please, look—"

"Shane?" My voice comes out as a croak, "How—”

I don't even know what to ask. How is he here? Where is here? Just what the fuck is going on?

He's kneeling down on the floor next to me, reaching out to me, but I jerk away from him.

"Shhhh, babe, it's ok. You're safe. Everything is going to be fine," I have a dizzying sense of deja vu and he reassures me, "I'm going to explain everything. But first I need you to take a few breaths. You seem to be in a bit of shock? Or having some kind of anxiety attack?"

I want to punch him. Shock? Anxiety? I have been stalked, threatened, and kidnapped. I saw Rick killed right in front of me. And now, I don't know where I am or what is going on, all I know is that I've been tricked somehow! Just how the hell am I supposed to feel? How would anybody feel in my place?

But he's right. If I want answers, I need to calm down a bit. I try to remember how to deal with anxiety; we did a lesson on it in my first-aid class. I need to ground myself. Ok, I'll count backwards from one hundred by fives.

100

95

I notice Shane is wearing a blue jumpsuit. It's a nice color on him, setting off his blue eyes.

90

It's a strange thing for him to wear though. It looks very star-trek. Why is he never wearing this when he calls me?

85

80

75

I look down and notice I'm wearing scrubs. Light gray, soft cotton scrubs. Somebody took off my clothes and put these on me.

70

65

Shane is now sitting across from me watching me intently. Christ, he's here, with me. I could touch him if I want to.

60

55

50

Okay. I'm okay. Done counting, ready to listen.

"Alright. What's going on Shane? I thought you couldn't come back from Europa quickly. Didn't you tell me the fold was effectively one-way? That a trip there takes a month, but a trip back takes a year? That's why the shortest tour was for two years."

"Yeah. When the fold was created, it bent space-time in one direction. It launches you toward Europa. When we come back the other way, we are moving against the current, so to speak. And it doesn't take longer from the traveler's perspective, just from the outside perspective. So while technically at the end of my job two years will have passed on Earth—" He looks at me and my impatience must show on my face. This is not a good time for him to geek-out. "Anyway, you're right. I couldn't return quickly."

"So are you saying you never left? Was this all some kind of trick and you've been working for SynDeCorp this whole time?" This is the only explanation I can think of, but it doesn't make any sense.

"No! Babe, I would never work for those bastards. I wouldn't even get one of their implants, remember? No way was I signing my life away to those pigs!" He's right, he's always hated SynDeCorp. There's no way he would work for them. He has bought a lot of their products, but when they take up more than three quarters of the market that's kind of inevitable.

"Oh, like Horizons is any better?" I scoff. Everybody knows about the Mars Colony scam. Horizons Exploration is just as sleazy as SynDeCorp.

"Well, yeah. They are better. Not that that makes them good." He shrugs.

I shake my head at him. "So then, what? How are you here? Why aren't you on the Europa Station? Your job isn't over for another year and a half," I say, desperate to figure this out and frustrated at how I feel like I'm missing something really obvious.

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"Well, about that, I signed up for another tour. Five years this time. They gave me a huge bonus—"

"WHAT?!"

"I had to Honey—"

I hold up a hand, right in his face, shutting him up. "Never mind! It doesn't really matter. How. Are. You. Here?"

"I'm on the Europa Station. We are on the Europa Station. I had all of you brought here." He answers.

"All of us?" I ask quietly.

"Yeah; you, Rick, and Borg.”

I just can't. What the hell?

"Rick is dead. I saw those goons kill him." I explain flatly. This is crazy.

"No, Hun," he reaches for me again, but I skirt away from him. He drops his arm, "He was shut down. A manual shut down. Then you, him and Borg were shipped here with the live samples. I had you smuggled in." He has the same expectant look on his face like when he told me he bought Rick.

It wasn't SynDeCorp that got us. We were never going to live off the grid in a cabin. Shane was just maneuvering us to a specific spot so we could be knocked out, kidnapped, and delivered to him.

A laugh bubbles up and out of my mouth, surprising me.

"You ordered us up to be delivered?" I ask, another slightly-hysterical laugh escaping, "Did you unbox us yourself?"

"Yeah I guess I did..." he gives me a squinty-eyed look, "Are you making fun of me?"

I shake my head and take another deliberate, calming breath. "So why didn't you tell me this was your plan? And just have me meet whoever at whatever place? I was…that was really traumatizing, Shane."

I can tell he wants to reach for me again, but he stops himself, "You've got a SynDeCorp implant. They were trying to get Rick back, so they were definitely watching every single thing. I couldn't say anything to you that they could use to intercept you guys. You were in real danger. Not just Rick, but you too. Five Perfect Match owners have gone missing, most of the Matches have been destroyed. I might have considered just turning Rick over to them, to keep you safe. But, babe, you are so softhearted and so attached. I knew you couldn't go along with that anyway. So I came up with the best plan I could."

"So…we're on the Europa Space Station?" I ask, just because this so nuts. He nods. "And I was asleep, and knocked out for a whole month while I was shipped here?"

"Yep." He nods again and smiles, happy I'm catching on, "You were induced into a coma and then cryogenically stored with all the larger animals we are going to introduce on Europa in phase 4 of the terraform."

"Okay, so I was frozen? You had me actually frozen alive?"

He nods again.

Oh my god. I don’t know what to think about this.

"If Rick is alive, take me to him. I want to go see him." I demand. I feel like this isn't the husband I know and love. He tricked me and I never suspected—It might not be fair, but I woke up knowing I had been traumatized and kidnapped and it turns out that Shane is the one behind it all. I guess, logically I know that that isn't really how things are, but I'll need more than a couple minutes to sort out all of my feelings. I just know that I don't want to keep hanging out in this cell. I don't want to be alone with Shane.

He stands quickly and politely holds his hand out to me to help me up. I don't take it.

"C'mon, Honey, don't be mad at me. I did the best I could. And it worked." He smiles some more, encouraging me to accept…what? The situation? Him?

I put my hand in his and he gently lifts me to my feet. He doesn't release my hand though, he uses his hold to pull me out the door and down the hall.

"He is still shut down. I thought you'd want to wake him." He explains as we head down to the next doorway and come to another room identical to mine, "I believe your sync should work. There's no SynDeCorp network here, but there is a closed network that both of your implants should be able to access, so theoretically—”

"He has implants?" I interrupt Shane's rambling, "Like mine?"

"Yeah. I read all the discovery evidence from the Perfect Match emancipation trial and these match androids are actually composites. They are made from many different genetic samples that are all woven together into a new, individual code for each one. Then they are grown in a vat, like a clone. And then their metabolic and digestive systems are augmented." He looks down at me and asks, "Did you know Rick doesn't have to eat? Ever?"

I nod my head.

"Anyway, they have two implants, very similar to yours. Then they are woken up so their initial programming can be installed. They are more biological than anything else, not androids at all. Barely cyborgs. SynDeCorp is pretty much manufacturing people. And those implants that everyone has, those are capable of a lot more than people realize. Not just spying on people, but outright controlling them. Changing opinions, erasing memories, all of that is possible and probably already being done."

He's rambling again. I had forgotten this about him. He doesn't seem to do it in video chats, but in person he'll start talking about a subject and just go on and on and on, like a professor giving a lecture.

I look into the room through the little window on the door and sure enough, there's Rick lying on his back, out across the floor. He looks asleep, but I guess he's shut down.

A tension I hadn't known I was carrying suddenly lifted off my shoulders and I let out a sigh, relieved to know Rick really is here. I can tell by the look of him that he's not dead, just turned off.

The realization settles over me that I didn't believe Shane when he had told me Rick wasn't dead. I didn't believe him that I really am on a space station. After he lied so smoothly and convincingly to get me here, manipulating me in service to a plan I hadn't even guessed, I don't trust anything about him. I've known Shane for years. Lived with him. I'd never had even an inkling that he was so gifted at deception. How can I ever trust him?

"Do you want to wake him up now?" Shane is guileless and cheerful as he ignores my moodiness.

"I'd like to take a shower and change into some real clothes first," I say. I need to get my bearings before I add Rick into the mix. He's safe and asleep in there. I don't need to worry about him.

"I could use a shower myself. It was no easy task retrieving you all from bio storage, let me tell you." He continues chatting cheerfully as he leads me to his quarters. I briefly wonder if I could get my own room, but what would be the point of that? This is Shane. No matter what kind of feelings I'm having right now, he's my husband. I want to share a room with him.

Don't I?