MAG 57: Personal Space

Statement of Carter Chilcott, regarding their time spent in isolation aboard the Space Station Daedalus.
==Statement==
Carter Chilcott had been trying to get into space for a while, but his application to join the International Space Station had been floating around for too long. When he was approached by a private consortium, The Stratosphere Group, to take part in an experiment on isolation on the Daedalus Space Station, he jumped at the chance. Jan Kilbride and Manuela Dominguez would be joining him on the station, but would be taking part in their own experiments. Conrad Lukas, one of the scientists, seemed disgusted that other people would be joining him on the space station even though they would not have access to him.
Carter's part of the station was completely isolated, the only door connecting his section to the other parts of the station was sealed with a code which was locked in a safe. He had exercise equipment, a TV, some books, and a large dome which looked out onto the Earth and space. 
After 6 weeks of being alone, he started to experience the more distressing side effects of isolation: he heard footsteps and also the door opening, although never saw any cause for either of them. He also experienced a lights blackout for 20 minutes, although other systems were unaffected. One day at 14:30 UTC he saw an empty spacesuit float across his viewing window. Looking at it, he realised that the Earth, sun, and moon were gone – not just rotated out of view, but gone.
He shouted for a while at the camera that was installed to observe him, before realising that the cables that were plugged into it did not lead anywhere. After smashing it, he opened the safe and accessed the code for the door: E109GHT8. The code would not work, however, and no matter how many times he tried it, the readout kept displaying the text he entered as 'NO ONE IS COMING.' The door remained locked.
A week afterwards the clock stopped working. He stayed there for between 3-6 months, but his food stores did not dwindle, as if they were constantly being replenished. The line between dreaming and reality blurred and he felt like he was floating through ancient graveyards or an open empty sea. He wondered if he had died and gone to Hell.
He starved himself, almost to death. After he passed out, he was returned to Earth, presumably by his colleagues on the station. He was never debriefed and he never saw Conrad again, but he was paid in full.
== Post-Statement ==
The station was launched in 2007 by The Stratosphere Group, a conglomerate including Pinnacle Aerospace, mostly owned by the Fairchild family; a private investment by Nathaniel Lukas; Optic Solutions Ltd, who provided the cameras and are based in Ny-Ålesund, Norway.
== Supplemental ==
Sasha James catches John going through her desk. He claims to be looking for the file on the Hill Top Road case that she is investigating. Sasha reminds him of her request to stop recording their conversations. 
John does not find much in her desk except some scraps of torn paper, which might be from case files or might simply be trash. He also finds some photographs of Sasha and her boyfriend Tom and notes that, while the two of them look happy, something is strange about Tom's smile and the pictures remind him of stock photos.
== Continuity ==
* Ny-Ålesund was previously mentioned in MAG 25.
* The actions above attributed to Sasha James are actually Not-Sasha, who replaced Sasha in MAG 39, though her colleagues are not aware of her deception at this point, though John has growing suspicions about her.
* Related Entity: Primarily The Lonely (Lukas family) with some involvement from The Vast (Pinnacle Aerospace, Fairchild family) and The Dark (Optic Solutions Ltd., Ny-Ålesund). The Spiral may also be present with Chilcott's hallucinations.
** Carter Chilcott was specifically targeted by The Lonely but the Daedalus space station as a whole is collaboration between agents of The Lonely, The Vast, and The Dark.
*Not-Sasha's boyfriend Tom was previously mentioned in MAG 52 and appears as a delivery driver for Breekon & Hope in MAG 61.
* The space Station Daedalus appears in MAG 106 and MAG 135.
Category:The Magnus Archives Episodes