"P-Sec sir, what seems to be the problem?"
"I have no idea. He began shouting and screaming saying that the Marker was going to kill everyone."
Sergeant Abraham Neumann tiredly rubbed his eyes.
"The Marker... This fucker is another Unitologist nutjob?"
The lead maintenance officer shook his head.
"No."
"No? Then why the fuck is he losing his shit about a damned Marker, Bryan?"
"I don't know! Josh or Rodriguez may have spiked his rations with hallucinogens? Those two take shit too far on the regular."
"I'm sorry this happened on your watch," Bryan continued apologetically, scratching his bald head.
"Don't be. It's my job," Sergeant Abraham grumbled before stepping inside. His gaze fell upon a man curled up in a ball, whimpering and crying to himself. "What's his name?"
"Michael Feld."
"Michael Feld, this is Sergeant Abraham with P-Sec. Can you tell me what happened?"
"W-we have to get out of here... We have to get out of here!"
"Calm down," Abraham said firmly, his hand tense on his belt near his weapon. "Why do we need to get out of here?"
"T-The Marker is going to turn everyone insane. People will turn into monsters and... and...!"
Michael shrieked and lunged forward, grabbing Abraham by the collar. His eyes were wide and manic with fear, and spittle flew from his mouth as he screamed.
"We need to get on a shuttle and get the fuck out of here before—"
His mania was silenced by a hard cross to the face.
"Crazy fucker," Abraham growled, standing over Michael's unconscious body. "There wouldn't be a Marker on this godforsaken planet in the middle of nowhere. If there was then every Unitologist on this station would be talking about it."
His gaze snapped to Bryan. "Josh and Rodriguez, you said?"
"Y-yeah," Bryan stammered. "Though I'm not certain it was them. It's just a theory."
"Pull them off their shifts. I need to have a word with them."
"Our religion isn't full of assholes," a woman in a P-Sec uniform snapped, folding her arms across her chest. She had been standing near the entrance keeping watching silently until now.
"Not you too Cortez..."
"What? It isn't! Every group has its share of assholes."
"Sure, and your group seems to have them all. Have you heard anything about a Marker?"
She shook her head.
"No. Nor is anyone else talking about it. Someone's being a dick or this man is lying to get off this rock."
------
~Less than an hour earlier~
"Where am I...?"
Michael Feld awoke in an unfamiliar environment.
He'd gone straight home after a day of performing checks on satellite dishes damaged by a major windstorm, finding several reflectors dented by flying debris and one with a bent support arm.
It had been another long day, followed by another cracked-open beer and some gaming before bed.
But now...
With trembling legs, he stepped through the bedroom doorway after it hissed open. The room he was leaving was barren except for a bed and a reading lamp.
The air was cool, balanced on that fine line where it was cold enough to make him want a jacket, but the moment he put one on, he would be too warm. The fluorescent lights flickered on and revealed what appeared to be a domicile except it wasn't his and with walls and a roof constructed from metal.
His gaze wandered across the room.
There was a comfortable-looking couch facing what appeared to be a TV with a table positioned between them. Papers, books, and a laptop were scattered across its surface. Each of the room's doors appeared to be made from sheet metal painted an ugly, off-brown color.
He gulped nervously and began to step forward, his eyes scanning for a weapon when a massive migraine tore through his skull.
"AGH!"
He shouted in agony before collapsing forward, clutching his head.
Fragmented visions and memories of this universe's Michael Feld flashed through his mind.
He saw himself attending an engineering academy on Earth, graduating at the top of his class, and joining the Concordance Extraction Corporation as an electrical engineer. Despite his exceptional scores, his education had left him buried beneath a mountain of debt. So when he learned of a special opportunity in the far reaches of space that offered double the regular pay through CEC channels, he couldn't afford to turn it down.
His counterpart's thoughts flashed across his mind as if they were his own.
A few years of hard work and I'll be debt-free! Then I can start saving up for my very own ship!
An ambitious, highly dubious plan for a single engineer. Even if he rose through the ranks, saving enough would take at least ten to twenty years assuming nothing went wrong and even then, he would only be able to afford a basic shuttle-class ship.
But for the new Michael Feld, the one whose memories were now fusion of a modern Earth and this nightmarish sci-fi universe, there was a much more immediate problem.
"I'm working on Aegis VII," Michael croaked, his blood turning cold as he recognized his situation.
"Dead Space... I'm going to die."