Not in a dismissive way. Not in the way people hesitated when they wanted to avoid a difficult question. No, he was thinking. Calculating.
He met my gaze, and for the first time since I'd seen him, there was no authority in his stance. No ironclad certainty.
Just quiet understanding.
"Yes," he admitted. "There's a chance you'll die."
No fanfare. No sugarcoating. Just the truth, laid bare.
I felt the words settle into my bones. I had already known, of course. The risk of space travel was obvious. No one stepped onto a rocket without understanding that they might not step off again. But knowing and hearing it aloud were two very different things.
Mark must have seen something shift in my expression, because his voice softened. "This mission is unlike any that has come before it. Mars is not the Moon. There is no emergency return option, no rescue within hours. Every mistake, every miscalculation, is magnified a hundredfold."
He sighed. "Even with the best people in the world, our current chance of success is... fifty percent."
A coin flip. Life or death.
A mission, or a graveyard.
Mark continued, his voice steady but not unfeeling. "I apologize, Mr. Angel. The world is not ready for an astronaut like you."
I tilted my head slightly. "And what does that mean?"
He met my gaze with something almost like regret. "Your skills, your instincts—you're unlike anyone we've ever brought into this program. That much is clear. But that doesn't change the fact that you are walking into a situation where even the best may not be enough."
I studied him carefully. "Would you have told me this eventually? Or would I have been left in the dark?"
Mark didn't flinch. "We would have explained everything in tomorrow's meeting." His expression remained even. "At that point, you would have been given a choice. Stay or leave. No shame in either decision."
I watched him closely. If he was lying, I couldn't tell.
"The hotel," I murmured. "It's compensation, isn't it?"
Mark nodded slightly. "It is. If we're sending someone out to die... the least we can do is treat them well before they go."
There was no malice in his words. No sinister undertone. Just a quiet, brutal honesty.
I exhaled through my nose.
"I need a couple of days," I said finally.
Mark nodded. "Take your time."
That was the end of it. No pressure. No insistence.
Just space to decide.
I turned and walked away.
The hotel felt even larger now. The hallways stretched endlessly, the luxury pressing in on me from all sides.
By the time I reached my room, Elliot was already inside, lounging on one of the chairs, a towel draped around his shoulders from the sauna.
"Hey," he said, stretching. "You heading to bed?"
I nodded once. "Yeah."
He gave me a strange look but didn't press. "Alright. Sleep well, Mr. Angel."
I closed the door behind me.
And then, I was alone.
The silence pressed down on me, thick and suffocating, wrapping around my chest like an iron coil. The room—so spacious, so extravagantly furnished—felt too large, too empty. The golden glow of the bedside lamp cast long, soft shadows across the polished floors, but it did nothing to warm the cold that had settled deep in my bones.
I sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped together, staring at nothing.
A coin flip. A gamble. My life placed on the table like a meaningless bet.
I had faced danger before. Fires that swallowed buildings whole. Smoke so thick it felt like drowning on dry land. The weight of a crumbling ceiling pressing down on my back as I pulled someone free. I had been Cipher's hostage once, tied to a chair in the dim glow of a cabin, waiting for the gun to carve answers out of me.
But those moments had been sharp, immediate, fast.
Life or death, decided in a heartbeat.
This wasn't a blaze to be fought, a bullet to be dodged, a threat to be outwitted.
This was certainty in uncertainty.
A slow, creeping inevitability.
I could already picture it. Months from now, the ship hurtling through the abyss of space, a failure somewhere deep in its machinery. An accident in the cold dark of Mars. A body left in the red dust, frozen in silence.
I sucked in a slow breath, but it felt shallow.
"Never do something that will get you killed."
Sienna's voice echoed in my head, stern and unyielding. A promise she had made me give her once, once I revealed to her my Job title of Jobmaster (SSS-Class). Her words had been sharp then, filled with desperation and plead both.
And then, in my other ear—
My Instinct, coiled deep in my chest, whispering its answer. The thing that had carried me through everything. The thing that told me, time and time again, that stopping was never an option.
My gut and my logic. My promise and my purpose.
I exhaled slowly, my fingers loosening.
I had a couple of days to decide.
But I already knew the answer.
I needed to talk to them.
I pulled out my phone, the screen's glow harsh in the dim room. My fingers hovered over the keyboard before I typed the message.
"Call me when you can."
It was past 2 AM back home. They were both asleep. I didn't expect a response.
Less than twenty minutes later, my phone vibrated in my hand.
Of course she would be awake.
I exhaled, my shoulders sagging slightly as I ran a hand through my hair, the motion slow and heavy. Then, without thinking, my fingers reached up to my mask.
My head dipped forward, my free hand pressing against my brow as I shut my eyes.