I had to squeeze myself into the cockpit. My arms were tight and my thighs pushed against the sides, threatening to damage the structure. This was not a ship designed for a human of my stature, its original pilot less than half my size. I didn’t have the luxury of options, however, and kicked the engines into life. The controls were alien to me. Though I’d been shown them before, I’d paid little attention to the briefing, never thinking I’d ever need to fly the thing.

Pressure on my stomach forced me to regulate my breathing. The techniques for dealing with anxiety were so much a part of me now, they’d become second nature. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The docking systems of the tiny spaceship functioned with similar automation, expelling me from the station and into the safer emptiness of deep space, pursuers lost for now.

‘Jim.’ My wife’s voice was clear, filling the compartment. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Don’t try to stop me.’ I couldn’t be sure this was Patricia; the AI systems were expert at voice duplication.

‘I…’ The sigh was amplified. ‘I don’t want to stop you.’

I opened my eyes. Her face filled the view. I looked at her, unsure whether the internal camera for this stolen craft was working to relay my image to her. This close, I could see every line on her face, every wrinkle that showed that the recent weeks had taken a toll on her as much as on me. Her eyes were wet with tears and glistened in the light. If it was a simulation, then it was a nice touch, giving a sense of tangible realism that would have fooled me only days earlier.

‘I can save him,’ I whispered. I knew that she could hear me clearly though I kept my voice low. It wasn’t some attempt for privacy between us, just something inside me that didn’t want to make hope too loud.

She shook her head. Her lips mouthed ‘no’ but there was no sound. Perhaps the image and audio had become out of sync. Her hair curled around her chin. It had been styled recently. When had she found time to style her hair? Another clue that not everything was as it seemed. I tensed.

‘I need you to get out,’ she said. The vocal track was clear again, properly synchronised to her movement.

‘Out? Into space?’

She paused. ‘Just dock, land, whatever.’ That did sound like her, a perfect blend of exasperation and concern. The algorithms were exceptional.

‘You want me to turn around?’

‘Yes, that’s precisely what I want. I want you to turn around, land the ship, and talk to me.’

‘We’re talking now.’

‘Jim.’ There it was again, the edge of patience, a touch of despair tempered by warmth and loving.

‘I’m not turning around.’ There was a mission.

Her eyes welled up once more. I gazed into them, thinking of times we’d had together. She should have been in here with me, racing across the stars hand-in-hand. Not that she could have possibly fit.

The speed control was to my left. As my eyes focused, I realised that someone had scrawled ‘speed’ in perfect English underneath the incomprehensible symbols. Perhaps I wasn’t the first of my kind to borrow the little craft. I put my fingers to the panel and slid them along. There was no feeling of acceleration. In space no one can hear your scream; no one can really feel you zoom, either.

‘Jim!’ Patricia was losing that patience.

I turned to stare at her face once more.

‘Patricia.’ I acknowledged her with a firm, determined tone.

‘This has to stop.’

‘I don’t know what they’ve done. I don’t know if you’ve been captured and coerced or if this is an AI simulation of you, but my Patricia wouldn’t be trying to prevent me from doing this.’

‘AI simulation? Oh, Jim.’

‘It’s hard to trust, Trish. You understand.’

‘I do.’ This time she was the quiet one. ‘Look, I’ll be back. Just… don’t go anywhere.’

‘At this speed? I’ll be light years away before too long.’

‘I won’t be too long,’ she promised. Immediately the view cleared and I stared out into the bleakness.

It had all been so much easier three weeks earlier. So much had changed and I recognised I was struggling. Patricia had fallen apart first, though. On the day we got the news, she collapsed, seeking her bed and refusing to come out of it for anyone, even me. Especially me. I was to blame for Felix. Our son. Gone.

Piecing together the clues had been difficult. She hadn’t wanted the hope. Neither of us had, really, but while I clung to the moments, Patricia rejected them wholesale. I’d ended up running as far as I had ever believed possible, following his last movements, trying to understand what had happened. And then I found it, that small thread that explained something. Enough something to be worth following.

They came in their droves then, knocking on the door and feigning kindness. It was easy to see through their veils. Kindness was never altruistic. Not really. It came with caveats and bargains. We’ll do that for you if you do this for us. Deals were dealt, agreements agreed, but there was no trust. Not until I had answers.

The station drifted further away behind me, and with it my old life. For a while, I’d still be in signal range and Patricia could keep in contact. Once I reached minimum safe distance, however, I’d boot whatever hyperdrive or wormholing system this tiny craft had and follow Felix to wherever he’d gone. My pocket held the coordinates, folded old-school onto a piece of paper. It had been clever on his part and had avoided their security systems entirely. No one had noticed me take it.

I shifted in the seat, squeezing my hand between the inner wall of the ship and my pocket. There was little room for my fingers and it took long, slow moments to force the paper out. For a tense moment, I feared I’d drop it and be unable to retrieve it from the floor, mere centimetres from my knee, but it didn’t fall. With care, I pushed it against the scanner, listened as the computer transferred the essential data, and braced myself for the change in course. There was a soft hum and I was routed to my desired destination.

‘Jim.’ Patricia’s voice was more distant now, quieter. Her face did not reappear.

‘Yes, love.’

‘You’re not coming back, are you?’

‘I have to do this,’ I confirmed. Did it mean I wasn’t coming back? ‘I owe it to Felix.’

She sobbed at his name. A small jump in her breathing. ‘I’m going to wait for you,’ she said. ‘Right here. I’m going to wait right here.’

We were both silent for a long while. I broke it. ‘Is it really you?’

‘Of course it’s me!’

‘No, I mean, you you. Really you. Not some trick.’

‘Yes, it’s me.’

‘Can you prove it?’

I could almost hear her think. In this cold and lonely environment, thoughts were loud. Perhaps not loud enough.

‘I…’ She took a breath, as if accepting to herself that she was going to let those thoughts become voice. ‘I understand what you’re doing. Hell, part of me wants to come and join you.’

‘You wouldn’t fit.’

She chuckled. ‘No, I wouldn’t fit. I’m surprised you managed to get in there.’

‘Me too.’

‘But Jim, you can’t just stay in that spaceship. You can’t.’

‘There’s plenty of oxygen.’

‘Yes, there’s plenty of oxygen.’ Her voice was tinged with sadness. ‘It’s not really about oxygen.’

‘What is it, then?’

‘He’s gone, Jim. Felix is gone.’

‘And I’m going after him. I have his coordinates.’ Damn. I didn’t mean to let them know that.

‘No, you don’t. No one does. He doesn’t have coordinates any more. He’s gone, Jim. That’s it.’

‘Yes. Out there.’

‘Out there, perhaps, but not somewhere you can get to. Not in that.’

‘It’s got fuel.’

‘Probably. What does the gauge say?’

I glanced. The fuel gauge, if that was what that was, seemed to be almost full. ‘Plenty.’

‘I doubt it’ll run out.’

‘Then we’re agreed. Plenty of oxygen, plenty of fuel.’

‘But no Felix, Jim.’

‘Why do you keep saying that? Don’t you understand? I worked it out. He took off. He must’ve got a transport or something, I don’t know. Stolen another ship. I couldn’t work that bit out. This was the only ship I could find.’

‘Yes, that’s his ship.’

‘This one? It’s small.’

‘It is small. Too small for you.’

‘I’m very cramped, I will admit.’

‘Why don’t you land?’

‘There’s nowhere to land, Patricia.’

‘Turn around. Come back here.’

‘I’m not going to do that.’ I started to cry. I hadn’t cried at all, not for all those weeks. In truth, not for years.

‘Jim.’

‘I’m not going to do that! I’m going to find Felix.’

‘Where is Felix, Jim?’

‘I don’t know. I have his coordinates. I discovered them. I’ve fed them into the systems here. The computer will take me. The ship—‘

’The ship won’t take you to Felix.’

‘You’ll have to shoot me down.’

Patricia paused. ‘Is that what you want?’

There was something in her tone. Could they get me from there? I’d been flying at speed for a while now. Ten minutes, perhaps more. How long had it been? Could they still lock on?

The thump sent shockwaves through the whole structure. A dull pain throbbed in my leg, so close to the skin of the craft. The second impact equalled the first in intensity. I slammed the speed control. I had to get away. ‘Trish! You’re going to kill me.’

‘Turn around then. Land. Come home.’

‘I can’t,’ I pleaded. ‘You know I have to find Felix.’ Patricia wouldn’t have shot at me. Not the real one. I knew my enemy now.

‘Last chance.’ Her voice was cold.

‘Patricia!’

The third missile slammed into my side. Everything tipped as the controls went haywire, gravity systems failed, the hull shredded, and I fell. I closed my eyes, concentrated on my breathing, counted.

‘Get up.’ Patricia held out her hand and wrapped her fingers around mine. ‘You stupid old fool.’

She was crying, shaking. Her black dress was crumpled around the bottom edge where she’d knelt on the cold, hard kitchen floor. Her arms enveloped me and I returned the gesture. Together, we fell back to the ground, my side crushing the cardboard construction our son had made. Felix’s ship.

Through my tears I stared at it. It was just a box, really, though he’d glued wings and a sloping front to it. His little crayon drawings decorated it inside and out. It had taken him so long to write ‘speed’, calling out to be prompted for each letter in turn. I don’t know when he’d added the fuel gauge or the oxygen display.

He’d begged me to play with him that day. I could have been the aliens or the enemy robots. I could have been his co-pilot or mission control. I could have just been his dad. Instead, I’d been busy. I’d been in another room typing away while he had a seizure he couldn’t recover from. Patricia had been sleeping off her migraine.

‘I…’

She tightened her hug. ‘It’s OK, don’t talk. We can just sit here a while.’