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The ECS program has long rivaled the profitability of the best casinos on Earth: the chances of winning are so slim – prisoners almost always go to waste – but the sweeter the desired prize.

Only in recent years, it has become increasingly difficult to understand the true meaning of the station’s existence: the isolation of scoundrels from society plus scientific achievements or, all the same, the spectacle.

Well, anyway, he’s already made up his mind. He can be a lab rat, a clown, a buffoon for a while, if the final result is what they promise. If he wins.

Christophe heard bursts of laughter behind the thin bulkhead of his room: the old buddies managed to have fun even here in the cage.

At first, when he just arrived here, the other people, the other inhabitants of this enclosed piece of space, seemed a boon. You might say they helped him get used to it. But now the cellmates only got in the way. For three days now – since the announcement of his participation in the descent experiment – they had dissuaded him as best they could. They assured him that it was a lost cause, that no one could manage it, that there was too much unpredictability in the case.