After an asteroid strike on a space station, a caretaker technician mysteriously disappears causing his colleague to lose his mind.

SYNOPSIS:

Lanford sits in a waiting room sipping from a cup of water. He is soon joined by Randolf and discovers he is applying for the same caretaker position as him. As they wish each other luck, two mysterious men are watching them through a two-way mirror.

Two months later, Lanford is working as caretaker technician on a space station alongside Randolf. During breakfast one morning, Lanford questions Randolf how long they’ve been out in space. He is tired and bored of the work and is ready to go home. Randolf on the other hand is just glad to have a job. They spend most of the day checking systems and looking for faults or playing table tennis, a game Lanford always wins.

One particular day alarms go off much to the concern of both men. They discover the station is in the direct path of a fast approaching asteroid field. They manage to reposition the station to avoid the larger pieces, but suffer damage from the smaller. The station is hit hard and both are knocked unconscious.

When Lanford wakes he finds himself alone, Randolf is nowhere to be found. Lanford tries to contact help, but the emergency signal is damaged and so he sends a video message via satellite relay, something that will take several days to arrive. He repairs damaged systems, but soon suffers from the loneliness and confusion as to where his colleague could have gone.

Lanford eventually snaps trashing the sleeping quarters and in the process finding his lost supplements for maintaining health. Believing this to be partly the cause for his breakdown, he takes a tablet and falls asleep.

Upon waking he hears noise from the other room. He goes out to find Randolf in the kitchen making breakfast. He questions as to where he has been, but Randolf claims he hasn’t been anywhere, where could he go? He tells Lanford it was all a dream and that help is on its way.

Relieved to know everything is okay, Lanford soon suspects something is not right and learns that the emergency signal is still damaged and that Randolf must be lying. He confronts him, but Randolf stands by his claim that he hasn’t been anywhere and that it was all in Lanford’s head. Lanford is paranoid assuming Randolf is planning something and stabs him.

With Randolf bleeding to death a message alert catches Lanford’s attention. He watches the video message from Dr Osman, who explains that Randolf is not real and just a figment of Lanford’s imagination. The company wasn’t willing to pay two men to do one man’s job and so produced a drug that can initiate dissociative identity disorder to avoid the mental issues caused by loneliness. He is told to stop taking the supplements and wait for help to arrive.

As a confused Lanford looks for Ranfolf’s now missing body, he looks down at his own stomach to find himself bleeding profusely. He collapses to the floor.

A few months later another man sits alone in the waiting room. After taking a sip of water a second enters and they begin talking. Dr Osman and a mysterious man watch from behind a two-way mirror and believe they have found their next subjects. Hopefully this time there won’t be any issues like the last.

MINDSPACE