Amongst Us

Chapter 2

The Lobby gently floats through space as the crewmates' restraints release themselves and everyone starts floating around the room.

"Alright crewmates." Reds gravely voice breaks the bewitched silence of the crew. "You're officially MIRA employees. There's no turning back now. In that box" he points to a box near the centre of the room, "there are various accessories. Those are for the specially assigned staff, such as the scientists and engineers. The rest are for you to express yourselves." Cyan could swear she heard him mutter "Damn PR hippies."

Pink makes a mad dash for the box. Or, as mad a dash as you can make without gravity. "Ooooh. There's little stickers and stuff in here." She pulls out a set of anime blush stickers and attaches them to the sides of her visor near her cheeks. "Kawaii!"

Each of the crewmates put on various accessories.
Lime- overalls and goggles
Pink- kawaii blush stickers
White- scientist coat
Orange- chef hat
Blue- security hat
Purple- paper boat hat
Cyan- black ram horns

Once everyone was dressed they went to look out the side window of The Lobby to try and spot the Skeld. Lime manages to float to a high window to peek out and points. "I see it!"
Cyan looks out one of the windows to see a large ship that almost looks like it's shaped like a turtle. "Woah."

They dock into a port on the side of the ship. Red puts a code into a keypad and the door opens. "Welcome to the Skeld rookies."

Everyone boards the Skeld, each of them being thrown off balance by the artificial gravity.

Cyan hears The Lobby detach behind them as Red leads them through various hallways before arriving at a large room full of blue tables and chairs. "This is the cafeteria. This will be where you eat, talk, and spend your time off after tasks,"
he waves over to a simple blue wooden door connected to the side of the cafeteria "and that's the bunk, where you'll all sleep. You have ten minutes to get situated, then we'll begin today's tasks."

Lime and Pink run at the door, simultaneously yelling "Top bunk!"
Purple sighs while leisurely walking after them. "We don't even know if there are bunks. No need to trample each other."
Lime turns to Purple. "Oh yeah? Well how do you explain this?" He opens the door to find single beds lined up in rows. "Aw man."

While Lime and Purple bicker over the lack of bunk beds, Cyan inspects a small case at the foot of her bed. Opening it reveals a tablet with the MIRA logo on the back. "Red uh, sir?" She added sir as a precaution. Red seems like the kind of person who respects chain of command.
Red lifts his head from an identical tablet. "What is it, rookie?"
She raises the tablet for emphasis. "What is this?"
Red sighs and rubs where his temple would have been, muttering "rookies." He marches to the centre of the room. "Attention rookies." He looks over everyone as they turn their attention to him. "These tablets are important to your daily lives here on the Skeld. When you clock in at the beginning of your work it'll display the tasks you've been assigned. Your profession may alter what tasks you have. The scientist will also be able to use them to monitor your life signs. Now get some rest. We begin work tomorrow." He lays in his bed in the corner of the room.

Everyone gets into their beds and nods off. Except Cyan. She was kept up by one singular thought. 'Is there such a thing as tomorrow in space?'

*two months later*

Another day on the Skeld. Cyan sits in the cafeteria talking animatedly with Orange, having developed somewhat of a rapport with him.

Orange waves off something Cyan said. "No, it's not that good."
Cyan shakes her head over her meal. "You somehow turned instant noodles and astronaut food into gourmet ramen. Take the compliment, you talented bastard."
Orange rubs the back of his head, embarrassed. "If you say so, Cyan." Orange told Cyan how he grew up in a poor neighbourhood, something Cyan related to. They talked more and more until they reached this moment, half hearted banter over instant noodles.
Cyan slurps up the last of her noodles before drinking the water. How'd he even make the water taste better? "So anyway, what do you plan on doing when we get back to earth?"
Orange smiles down at his meal in reminiscence. "Well I actually want to help my mom. She lives in this really old house that's just falling apart. I'm hoping to fix it up for her. And if there's any left over, I've been considering opening my own restaurant."
Cyan points at him over the table, playful smirk enveloping her features. "Well I can say you have a regular customer on your hands."
Orange chuckles before focusing back on Cyan. "What about you?"
Cyan slumps in her chair. "I didn't really get many opportunities at school because of my deadbeat dad. I hope I can pay off his debts and go back to school. Get a decent job."
Orange looks scandalised. "And you're telling me that being an astronaut isn't enough for you? For shame."
Cyan laughs and playfully punches his shoulder. "Dork."

The alarms on their tablets sound, alerting them to the start of their next shift. "Well damn. Guess I'll be seeing you at dinner then."
Cyan gets up and collects her tablet. "Yeah." She places a hand to her heart. "Parting is such sweet sorrow."
Orange laughs. "Now who's the dork?"

Cyan joins in Orange's laughter as they head for admin. She pulls out her ID card and goes to swipe it when an emergency meeting is called.

Purple is disgruntled when they arrive back at the cafeteria. "This better be important White. I was in the middle of downloading data from electrical."
White gets excited and dismisses Purple. "Oh trust me this is more than worth it. So, part of my job as the crews scientist is to examine any alien-"
Lime and Pink both practically get star eyes. "Alien?!"
"Any alien material that we come across. So when an asteroid drifted by us I had Blue bring it aboard for examination. But I found something way better than material." He brings up something obviously cylindrical and covered in a sheet. "Pink, Lime, now you can go nuts."

He tears away the sheet to reveal a cylindrical glass container lined with metal full of... red goo?

Red facepalms (visorpalms?) while sighing. "White, do not tell me that you interrupted everyone's tasks because you made slime. I would expect something like that from Pink or Lime, but not you."
Ignoring aforementioned crewmates' protests, White continues. "Oh no, I didn't make this. I extracted it from the core of the asteroid. But that's not the cool part. This is." He takes a strawberry from his coat pocket and holds it over the container. He quickly opens it and throws the strawberry in and closes it again with the speed of Indiana Jones. At first it simply bobs at the top of the goo as everyone leans in. But soon enough, rows of horrifying teeth emerged from it and swallowed the berry whole.

Everyone is abruptly taken aback. Except Lime and Pink. They're going berserk. "It's an alien!"
Red grabs the two of them by their oxygen packs to get them to stop running around. "That's enough! Now, White... care to explain what in the everloving f*** that thing is?"
White stands proud. "It is an extraterrestrial organism with metamorphic capabilities." He receives confused silence and slouches. "It's a shape shifting alien. Watch." He takes out a few Polaroid pictures from another coat pocket. He presses a picture of a tortoise against the glass and the goop moves around and condenses until it perfectly resembles the tortoise in the picture.

Cyan looks at the goo with fascination. That's too cool.
White continues his lecture. "It even has a weapon." Cyan blanches under her suit.
Purple voices her thoughts. "You're telling me that those teeth from earlier aren't a weapon?!"
White shakes his head. "Nope. This will scare some people." Pink covers her eyes as well as Lime's, but parts her fingers enough for a peek.

White takes the pen from his pocket protector and gently starts tapping the glass. The not-tortoise appears agitated, before the back of its shell opens to more teeth and a solid black tendril shoots out and cracks the glass where the pen is.

Red shakes his head. "It's clearly too dangerous to keep aboard the ship. Airlock it, immediately."
White attempts to reason with him. "But sir, we could learn so much from a creature like this."
Purple steps next to Red. "It just cracked military grade glass. I don't want that thing on the same planet as me, let alone in a fifty foot metal box in the middle of space."
Slowly everything devolves into people yelling. Blue finally intervenes. "Enough!" Everyone looks at him in shock. He's never lost his cool about anything before. "We'll put it to a vote. Stand with White, it stays, stand with Red and it's gone." He moves over and stands next to Red and Purple. Pink and Lime stand with White and Orange.

White examines the situation. "It appears we have a tie." They all turn to look at Cyan. "You're the deciding vote."

Cyan looks back and forth between the two groups. Keep the potentially dangerous alien aboard the ship, or save a creature that may or may not be sentient? She looks down at the not-tortoise in the jar, now missing the hole of terror. She knew what she had to do.