"Attention all personnel," said the voice--a pleasant female voice, the kind of voice that made you want to trust it, which was its greatest flaw. "The Glassification Advisory has been updated. Structural impact to orbital facilities projected within ninety days. All personnel are reminded that the evacuation protocol remains in effect for priority-category personnel only."

Priority category. Tommy spat on the floor. It was a small rebellion. The kind of rebellion that changed nothing and felt good for exactly four seconds.

He was forty-eight years old. He was cleaning a toilet in Sector C when the alert was read. He would go back to cleaning that toilet after lunch. It was the third toilet he'd cleaned that morning. Toilets did not care about glassification. Toilets did not have opinions about cosmic events. Toilets needed cleaning.

His daughter Mary was fourteen. She was at a boarding school in Houston. Her mother lived in Houston. Tommy lived on a space station that was slowly falling apart, which was the kind of irony that made his wife laugh the last time they talked. "Of course the universe is ending and you're the guy who scrubs toilets," she'd said. Not unkindly. Just stating a fact, the way you state that the sky is blue or the rent is due.

Mary had congenital heart disease. She needed medication that cost more than Tommy made in six months. The space station's health plan covered forty percent. The other sixty came from whatever Tommy could scrape together from overtime and selling things he didn't need and eating whatever was left in the cafeteria after the priority personnel had their pick.

Carlos was his roommate. Carlos had been an astronaut once. A real one, with the silver wings and the flag patch and the interviews on the news. Now he was a "consultant," which was what they called the astronauts who had messed up badly enough that they couldn't fly anymore but were too experienced to fire.

Carlos had a bottle of whiskey in his locker. Real whiskey, not the synthetic stuff they made from algae. He'd been saving it for a special occasion. Tommy asked him once what the special occasion was. Carlos said, "The day I stop caring."

The glassification hit the station's solar arrays first. Tommy knew this because he was assigned to clean the exterior observation window of Sector C--a window that looked directly at the arrays. He was on his lunch break, sitting on a supply crate, eating a sandwich that tasted like recycled air and regret, when he saw it.

The edge of the array, the part furthest from the station, had gone glass. It wasn't a dramatic change. It was subtle. Like frost on a windshield. But it was moving. Slowly, inexorably, eating its way inward.

He finished his sandwich. He wiped his mouth. He went back to cleaning the toilet.

Management announced that the glassification was "not an immediate concern for station operations." Translation: your wages are still coming, even if the station turns to crystal. Tommy read the memo and thought about Mary's medication. $800 short this month. He thought about applying for overtime. He went to the scheduler.

"No extra shifts, Tommy," said Peterson. Young guy. Clean-shaven. Smelled like cologne in a place that hadn't smelled like cologne since 2028. "We don't need extra hands."

"We need extra hands," Tommy said. "The station is turning to glass."

"Nobody's saying you need extra hands," Peterson said. And then he smiled that smile that said I'm sorry but I'm also not sorry, and Tommy wanted to hit him.

He didn't. He went back to cleaning toilets.

The glass moved faster. Not from the arrays this time. From the deep space sensors. The glassification was accelerating. Management knew. They were just not saying it.

Tommy found out the truth by accident. He was cleaning a supply closet in Sector A--not his normal route, but he'd taken a wrong turn and ended up there--when he saw them. The management team. All of them. Standing around a large screen, looking at something. He couldn't see what. But he could see their faces. And he recognized the look.

It was the look his ex-wife made when she was calculating how much child support she could legally extract from him. It was the look of people making decisions that other people would have to live with.

The glass hit Sector D three days later. Tommy was cleaning the corridor between C and D when it came through the wall. Not the inner wall. The outer wall. The wall that separated the station from space. It turned to glass from the outside in. The inner wall stayed intact. The people in Sector D were fine. For now.

But the power went out in D. And when the power went out in D, the life support in C took a hit. The temperature dropped two degrees. Tommy put on an extra layer. He kept cleaning.

Mary called. She called every Sunday. This was a rule. Her mother and Tommy had agreed to one rule that they both followed: call Mary every Sunday.

"Hey, Daddy," she said. Her voice was different from last time. A little colder. A little older. Fourteen is a funny age. They're old enough to know everything and young enough to think they're the only ones who do.

"Hey, princess. How's school?"

"Fine."

"Really fine?"

"Dad."

"Right. Sorry. How's--how's the medicine working? How's your heart?"

"Fine. Dad, are you okay? You sound tired."

"I'm fine. Just a busy week. You study hard, okay? You focus on school. That's--that's what matters."

"I know." A pause. "Dad, are you scared?"

He looked at the toilet he was cleaning. It was clean. It had been clean for ten minutes. He could stop now. But he kept scrubbing.

"A little," he said.

"I'm scared too. Mom says not to be. But I am."

"I know, princess. Me too."

"Are we going to die?"

He thought about that. He thought about Mary's heart. He thought about the medication he couldn't afford. He thought about the space station turning to glass. He thought about Carlos's whiskey and Peterson's cologne and the toilet he'd spent four hours cleaning that morning.

"I don't know, princess," he said. "But if we do, I want you to know something."

"What?"

"I'm proud of you. For being you. however old you are, however smart you are, however much you hate me on the days when you hate me--I'm proud of you."

She didn't say anything for a while. Then: "I'm proud of you too, Dad."

The glass hit C-deck on a Tuesday. It was a small thing, really. Just the outer hull of Sector C turning to crystal. But it was a beginning.

Tommy was mopping the floor. He didn't stop. He mopped the floor because that's what he did. He was a man who mopped floors. It was the only thing he was good at. The only thing that was predictable. You put soap on the floor. You pushed the mop. The floor got clean. It was a closed loop. A perfect system. Unlike everything else in his life.

Carlos was in his bunk. He was drinking whiskey. He didn't say anything. He just raised the bottle in a toast. Tommy raised his mop in response.

The glass came through the ceiling. It was like fog. Thin and cold and beautiful. It moved across the corridor, and where it touched, everything stopped. The lights froze. The sound of the ventilation stopped. The air itself became still.

Tommy looked at the floor he'd just mopped. It was still wet. In about ten seconds, it would be glass. And then it would be perfect. Untouchable. Forever.

He thought about Mary. He thought about the $800 he didn't have. He thought about the toilet he'd cleaned that morning. The one that was actually clean. For exactly three seconds, he felt good about it.

Then the glass reached his feet.

He didn't scream. He didn't cry. He didn't do any of the things people do in movies when the world is ending.

He thought: at least tomorrow's heating bill is cancelled.

And he kept mopping.