The door hissed shut. Serena stood on this side of it in Yu’s office, a look of urgency upon her. She strode up to Yu’s desk and sat before her, straightening her blue and white administration jumpsuit and flipping her black hair back. Yu examined her, letting her own pink tipped hair fall before one of her eyes. They stared at each other, and Yu could see in the light reflecting in Serena’s eyes that she was anxious. Almost afraid.

“What happened?” Yu asked.

“Listen to this.”

She set her PDA down on Yu’s desk and pushed the play button on the screen. Static, white noise. It was nothing. Yu listened for a moment, before furrowing her brow and casting a confused stare to Serena.

“What is this?”

“Wait,” was all she said.

So Yu waited. About a minute went by, before she could hear… something. Some kind of labored breathing, the beginning utterances of words that never formed, and something that sounded like an air conditioner fan. She listened to this unholy concoction of sounds for a moment, eyes hardened and focused.

“Serena,” she said, the heavy, strained breathing continuing. “What is this?”

Serena leaned forward and paused the recording. With a sharp and constrained tone she said, “This is the last recording we have from Sedna. One of the radio towers received it last night.”

Yu sat back. “From Sedna? This would be the first thing we’ve heard from Sedna in years. Are you sure?”

“Positive. Its transmission was stellalocated to Sedna’s current position. It’s from Sedna.”

Gritting her teeth, Yu leaned forward, clasped her hands over each other, and leaned her lips on them. “It’s just noise.”

“There’s breathing. And it sounds like someone is trying to talk.”

“Play it again,” she said.

Serena leaned forward and pushed play on the PDA. Once more the labored breathing commenced, the garbled beginnings of words that were whispered as though far off, and the hum of the white noise in the background. Yu listened.

She pulled back and frowned. “You’re right, it sounds like talking.”

Serena then pulled back her PDA, pausing it again, before saying, “It’s disturbing.”

“How long until Sedna is within NRT range?”

She thought for a moment. “A non-rapid transport would take years to get there if Sedna maintained velocity; however, Sedna is speeding up, as you know. Estimation is about a year and some months. RPT could get there faster, but flight to the planetoid is forbidden according to the Commander.”

“We need to investigate,” Yu muttered.

“Yes,” Serena agreed. “We do. I agree with you, Director. But, if I may speak candidly?”

“You may,” Yu said, letting her shoulders drop, tired.

Serena nodded. “Your father is not well. He speaks of hearing a voice.”

“Voices?” Yu sat back up and blinked, before giving Serena a hard stare. “Serena, where did you hear that?”

“We advisors are tight-knit, and his is loose-lipped.”

“Voices?” Yu repeated. Then, her eyes grew sharp, and she shook her head. “No, Serena. Do not speak of this to anyone else, please.”

Serena, for the first time, cracked a small smile. “I will not, Director Solarum. My allegiance lies with you.”

Yu let a deep breath out, wondering if that, too, was a reason her father had assigned her specifically to this position. And her father… Her chair creaked as she sat back in it, staring at the ceiling. “This is a lot, Serena. But he needs to know about this. We need to get to Sedna, there’s clearly something wrong.”

“Clearly,” Serena said, crossing her legs. “If there weren’t, he’d have swarmed the planet with ships by now. Something is very wrong.”

Rubbing her temples, Yu closed her eyes and sighed. “Schizophrenia doesn’t run in our family. If it did he’d never have gotten the job. We have a clean bill of mental health. So it must be something else.”

“He is under quite a lot of pressure, Director,” said Serena, looking away. “Some lower level TerraGov officials are apparently demanding that the demonstrated tholins mixture be produced on Titan and shipped back to Ganymede to enhance the farms there, but he is resisting. As well, Mars is facing a population explosion that is resulting in a food crisis and TerraGov is asking for shipments of nitrogen and methane, so production on Quaoar is ramping up. And with Sedna being dark, it is all compiling. Again, according to Constance. Ah, his advisor.”

Yu sighed. “I have to tell him about this. Does he know yet?”

“You are the first person I’ve told about this.”

“What about the ones who received it?”

“Debriefed and signed to NDA’s.”

“Good,” she said. She stood, and turned to face the window, running her hand through her hair. Her eyes scanned the Zone below as she thought to herself for a moment. She had to tell her father, obviously, he had to know. But… voices? He might’ve had a lot on his plate, sure. But he wasn’t losing it, this much she knew, she’d known the man all her life and if he were beginning to lose it, she’d have noticed little things. This was big, and out of nowhere.

Turning, she locked eyes with Serena, and said, “I must see the Commander. Serena, send me that transmission over an encrypted message and go find Constance, I want her in my office tonight, I wish to speak to her.”

“Yes, Director,” she said, picking up her PDA and tapping on it. Then, Yu’s PDA dinged, and Serena stood, gathered her sparse things, brushed herself down, and departed from the room. Yu looked down at her PDA, saw that she had an encrypted message from Serena Gipson, and then headed out of the room herself. She went down the hallway, hooked a left, and stepped through the receptionist hall, before boarding the elevator and heading up to the Executive Suite, where Xiao’s office was.

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She rode the elevator in silence, alone. Her thoughts wandered like tired nomads through her mind, dragging and sauntering around. She leaned on the elevator and folded her arms, staring at the floor. The sick sounds of the labored breathing and murmuring replayed in her mind, a sick concoction of noises that seemed ethereal now that she could only hear it in her mind. She frowned. It was disgusting, and even more distorted in her head, and it made her stomach churn, just a little bit.

The elevator finally dinged, reaching the top floors of the tower, and she stepped off. Soon, after working her way through a series of hallways and security doors, swiping her keycard at each station, she stood before the double doors that led into her father’s office. She took a deep breath. Supposing something was wrong, she’d possibly be finding out here, now. The thought settled in her gut like a stone. Then, leaning over and pressing the intercom button, she pushed it down further, out of her mind completely. The speaker buzzed for a second, and then fell silent.

Then, there came his voice. “Director Yu.”

“Father.”

“I assume this is urgent?”

“Yes,” she said.

There was silence.

Then, the doors hissed and slid apart, revealing his office. The couches, the rifles on the wall, the chairs and the desk and the great, massive window behind him. And he sat at his desk, typing away on his terminal, only stopping to cast her a passive glance as she stepped in. Then, he went back to work, typing, click-clacking away. Yu walked up to the chair opposite him and sat down, crossing her legs and shifting uncomfortably.

After a time, he finished typing and, looking at her with hard gray eyes, spoke.

“What is it?”

Yu pulled out her PDA from her cargo pocket and sat it on the desk, playing the audio. The sickened breathing, the garbled mumbling, the whirring of whatever machinery was moaning in the background. Xiao stared at the PDA, listening for a moment, before casting Yu a skeptical glare.

“What is this?”

“A transmission,” she said. “From Sedna.”

This gave him pause. He turned his nose up, and stared down at her for a moment. “From Sedna? We haven’t heard from Sedna in years.”

“Until last night.”

Silence.

Yu leaned forward, and leaned her elbows on the desk. “Commander,” she said, her tone flat. “This was intercepted by a radio tower last night. It was stellalocated from Sedna. It came from Sedna.”

It was as though the air became thicker around them.

Xiao said, “And what of those who picked up this transmission?”

“NDA’s and debriefings.”

Shaking his head, he seemed to think on that, and then said, “That won’t do.”

“Father, are you alright?”

“What do you mean?” he asked sharply, shooting knives into her eyes.

She recoiled. “I’ve heard rumors,” she said, careful, “that you’ve not been feeling well.”

“And who,” he said, leaning forward, “told you that?”

“Constance has loose lips. Serena told me.” Yu sat back and inspected her father. “Father, if you’re hearing voices–”

“Enough,” he hissed. “I will not have my own daughter questioning my competence.”

“I’m not.”

Xiao frowned. “I do not take this sort of questioning lightly, Director. Mind your place.”

“Father, I just care about you, I want to ensure that–”

“This came from Sedna. I want all involved written up in a report and placed on my desk by the morning. In the meantime, you will look into the water rigs on Quaoar. We received a data transmission stating that the rigs are siphoning thirty four percent more water than they did last quarter. I want that data verified.”

Yu let her gaze slowly fall. “But–”

“No. You will do this. You are the Director, I am the Commander. You obey my orders and you do as I ask. Understand?”

She hesitated. “Yes, father.”

“Good. Now go, I want that report on my desk by tomorrow morning and I want that data verified.” He looked at her expectantly. “Go.”

She stood sharply and turned, and without another word, departed the office.

It was late into her night. Yu had finished typing a report on the Sedna Transmission. At least, that’s what they were calling it for now. All in all it involved three radio men, one courier, a debriefing officer, Serena, and Yu. And now Xiao, of course. Her fingers were tired after it was all said and done. As it had turned out, one of the radio men, a man named Jacob Halton, was assigned to listen to Sedna as part of a three-shift rotation that he and three other radio men were on that was meant to catch anything like what was actually caught.

This radio man heard the transmission, and told his superior. His superior, a man named Kirken Manchen, then listened to the broadcast and heard it as well. Apparently they went on record in their report to say that it was incredibly distressing to listen to. Both he and Jacob heard the transmission live. Both men were now missing from duty.

They transmitted the report to a higher-up, who caught it, sent it to a courier, a woman by the name of Helen Heart, who delivered this straight to Serena, who stood as a barrier to Yu herself. Serena heard the recording, learned it was from Sedna, and immediately took to commanding that both men who heard it live were debriefed and signed to NDA’s, along with the briefing officer, Colonel Jones McCalgiry. The courier, Ms. Heart, joined them. The colonel would go on to sign an NDA at Serena’s request, and so everything then tied to Serena, who told Yu. Yu would then tell Xiao, who would order the report.

And that was the order of events that led to her typing out a twenty page report on the Sedna Transmission. She rubbed her eyes, feeling the weariness spread through her bones. It was almost time to sleep, but something was keeping her awake, despite the tired feeling that weighed her down. Something unsettled her.

Where were those men?

She wanted to call Serena, but she was likely resting at this point, and she didn’t want to activate her out of respect for her sleep. So instead, she simply rubbed her eyes and sighed. Then, she sat back in her chair and spun around to face the window. Day and night here went on Earth time, and were more stand-ins for the shift names than actual lighting rules. But it was late, late into her night. Still, below her, the Administration Zone buzzed, monorails running, NRcT’s flying by, a gunship or two taking off, it was as alive as ever.

For a moment, she thought that it seemed almost… permanent. A city in the Kuiper Belt, it was a marvel. Surely if humanity could do this, if humanity could avert the Climate Catastrophe of 2041, if humanity could survive the Asteroid Belt Insurrection, if humanity could do the Great Neptunian Expansion, surely humanity was a permanent fixture here, too, in the Kuiper Belt. In the universe.

But at the same time, it all seemed so frail. Like it could all collapse at any moment, just one broken airlock, just one act of sabotage, and so many lives could be lost. Truly the rate of technological advancement was extraordinary, still continuing at an exponential pace, but still, it seemed so fragile. Anything could go wrong, anything at all, and everyone in the Administration Zone could perish, potentially.

Perhaps that was the balancing act humanity had to adhere to. The beauty of advancement into the unknown, coupled with the danger of the house of cards collapsing in on itself. At any moment, humanity could destroy itself. Nuclear arms, and then antimatter arms, and then the slingshot guns, humanity had a penchant for trading its lifespan for progress. Yet here they were, in the Kuiper Belt, and it was, for the most part and most people, just… life as usual.

For a moment, she felt incredibly small.

She would go to bed that night with an uneasy mind, contemplating her own place in the universe, the time of her birth, her place in the species, and what the future might hold; but mostly on her mind, the thing that niggled at her the most, was the disappearances of those two men. For some reason, the Sedna recording replayed in her mind as she drifted away. She could hear it, as though it was beside her ear, the whirring of the metal, the jumbled, groaned words, and labored breathing. She could hear it.

And hear it she did, every night, in her dreams.