I saw something a little unsettling on the tram on the way home tonight, and it’s left me feeling a little unsure of myself. The tram was packed sardine-style (as usual) and I was crammed in like everyone else. Soon after we left the stop, some guy pushes past me, as if trying to get to the door for the next stop. He pauses in front of me, grabs his mobile phone, and holds it up to his face. Ok, nothing unusual about that, that’s pretty much what happens when you try to check your messages on a busy tram . . . except he put it to camera mode and took a photo of a guy sitting on the seats by the window. At first I wasn’t sure if I saw what I thought I just saw, but sure enough, he’d taken a photo then moved on past me closer to the door, shoving past everyone. By the next stop he’d gone.
This guy was tall, skinny, maybe in his fifties, wearing glasses, a baseball cap and a polo shirt with the collar up and what looked like “HIZZ” or “HI33″ in red print on the back. He seemed kind of nervous and tense, and was fiddling with the two newspapers he had rolled up in the back pockets of his jeans. The guy he took a photo of looked perhaps Lebanese, sort of vaguely Middle Eastern or possibly even from the subcontinent. He was short, young, kinda stout in a business suit, styled hair and trendy stubble, and looking pretty tired slumped in his seat.
My first thought was maybe this guy taking the photo was some kind of white-power extremist type, documenting and targeting darker-skinned people. My next thought was maybe he was from ASIO or something, which some might argue isn’t much different. Or maybe he had some kind of fetish for young, Arabic-looking guys, like how people surreptitiously take photos up women’s skirts or of girls at swimming pools. Either way, it creeped me out and the people chatting next to me seemed to notice it too as they pulled faces in his direction as he shoved past us and sounded like they were discussing what just happened (from what I could hear over my music anyway).
Yet, by the time he’d gone (and he was gone within two stops), I had this overwhelming feeling that I should have reacted or done something. I should’ve, at the time, made a point of asking him why he was taking photos of other passengers. Or maybe I should’ve told the guy sitting by the window that someone had just photographed him. I should have acted, but the situation was just so odd and a little disturbing that I felt kinda frightened that I’d do the wrong thing or I’d just imagined it or something. And now? Now I just feel this bubbling sense of unease, the kind where you just know something ain’t right . . .
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From the moment he woke up, Maj. Hassan-Smith knew something was wrong. His oxygen levels seemed normal and he hadn’t heard any alarms throughout his sleep, but there was a disturbing sense of absence that chewed on his nerves. Releasing himself from his sleeping harness and floating to the ceiling of the sleeping chamber, he bounced himself lightly with the fingers of his left hand, trying to work out what was bothering him. Col. Davinson’s sleeping harness was empty, but that wasn’t unusual: by this time in their schedule, he would be checking the instruments and recording the latest string of data in their now-defunct 24-hour cycle.
Swimming through the air, Hassan-Smith made his way to the intercom on the sleeping chamber wall. If something was wrong, Davinson would know about it. Hassan-Smith paged once, waited, paged twice, but there was no response. Something was wrong. Pushing his way through the chambers of the craft, he made his way through to the equipment room; the view through the porthole showing the black vastness of space, lit with the crystal glistening of stars and the red orb of Mars.
The equipment room showed nothing wrong: atmospheric levels, cabin pressure, food and water levels, waste disposal, everything was in order. From what he could see on the displays in front of him, there had been no breech to the hull and no opening of any of the hatches – wherever Davinson was, he had to be within the ship.
Hassan-Smith searched every chamber and corridor of the spacecraft; in his rational mind he believed it logical that Davinson had perhaps collapsed somewhere, victim to a previously unforeseen medical condition. But a greater sense of unease occupied him, and the longer he looked without finding Davinson, the more unsettled he became and the more convinced he was that he was entirely alone.
Making his way back to the equipment room, Hassan-Smith loaded the monitor screen for Davinson. Lines snaked across the screen, showing his heart beat, blood pressure and analysis, respiratory rate, level of brain activity. Wherever Davinson was, he was still alive and conscious. Swimming over to the communications centre, Hassan-Smith grabbed the microphone:
“Control, can you read me? Over.”
Static filled the line as he waited with a racing pulse for the response; his heart sinking, he counted off the seconds before relief finally came: “This is Control, go ahead Hassan-Smith. Over.”
“Control, I’ve got a problem. Col. Davinson is missing. Did anything happen in the past seven hours while I was asleep? Over.”
“Nothing unusual to report.” There was another pause before the static broke again. “What do you mean Davinson’s missing? Over.”
“He’s not here. I’ve searched the craft but I cannot find him. How are his readouts? Over.”
“All normal at this end. He can’t be missing, there’s no anomaly in our data and everything is fine. He’s got to be there. Over”
“What location do you currently have him in? Over.”
“He’s in the equipment room with you. Over.” Despite the white-sterile coldness in the craft, Hassan-Smith could feel the sweat dripping within his suit.
“Copy that. Can you see him on the cameras? Over.” A high pitched whine pierced through the static as the cameras mounted in the room swivelled to catch every aspect, giving the Control Room back on Earth a full view.
Hassan-Smith could barely breathe as he waited for the voice to reply through the white noise on the speakers; he knew there could be only two answers to his question, and he dreaded the implication hidden in both.
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