Amongst Us

Chapter 5

Cyan is sitting across from the Imposter eating some basic instant noodles. Orange was too sad to cook. Lime suddenly appears next to her. "Hi!"
Cyan jolts in surprise. "Jesus, Lime, give a girl a warning."
"Sorry. Anyway, how's our new crewmate?" Lime looks at the Imposter.
Cyan follows Lime's gaze to her new companion. "I don't really know. He doesn't talk much."
"He, huh~?" Pink appears on her opposite side, causing her to jump again.
"Would you both stop that?" Cyan almost snarls.

There's suddenly a deep primal growl emanating from the Imposter, despite the lack of holes to make the noise with. The standing crewmates jump back while Cyan merely looks unimpressed. The sound stops.
"What was that?" Lime asks, stunned.
Cyan shrugs. "Dunno. He just does that whenever I get annoyed at something. Freaked me out when I was having a hard time swiping my card. He doesn't stop till I feel better."
Pink nods sagely while rubbing the chin of her helmet. "I've seen enough hentai to know where this is going."
Cyan jolts from her chair, the collar of her suit becoming much hotter all of a sudden. "Pink what the fu-!" The coming rant was interrupted by Red storming into the cafeteria and tearing off his helmet to eat. Cyan eventually breaks the ice after some awkward silence. "Any luck captain?"
Red stabs his food with the available fork, voice dripping with agressive sarcasm. "Yes, I'm in the cafeteria, celebrating how I uncovered Purple's evil scheme. Good work Cyan." He angrily scarfs his food.

Cyan quietly grumbles, putting on her helmet and giving Black the rest of her noodles. After dumping the remaining food into his gaping maw, he puts the dish in the kitchen and follows Cyan. During a trip to O2, Cyan and her companion run into Blue, who has his head in a vent. "I swear to god Lime, if I find another pizza in here I'm going to kill you."
"I hear that." Blue jumps, hitting his head in the vent.
He lifts his head and notices the onlookers. "Oh, it's just you," he looks at the Imposter, "and that thing."
Cyan nods. "Yep. I've been teaching him how to do some tasks. So far he's pretty good at cleaning the filters, the vents, and doing the garbage. I've been too scared to let him near the reactor."
Blue seems impressed. "Nice. You name it yet?"
Cyan looks at her companion. "Uh, no, not yet."
Blue hums in surprise. "Weird. Most people name their pets before teaching them tricks."
Cyan blushes under her helmet. "He's not my pet. But I guess he does need a name. Maybe I'll just call him Black."
Blue nods. "Fair enough. Does he do much?"
Cyan shakes her head. "Not really, just what I've taught him, he'll sometimes eat and he likes following me around. I'm not even sure he sleeps."
"Creepy."

Cyan is teaching Black how to fuel the engines when an emergency meeting is called. She walks into the cafeteria with Black to see a disheveled Red sitting in one of the chairs. When everyone is seated, he looks around the table. "I have nothing. I've checked every record, and for all intents and purposes, Purple was completely human. So, tell me, does anyone have any ideas about how that thing got on board?"
Blue speaks first. "Maybe it killed the real Purple before we came on board?"
Like shakes his head. "Not possible. We all did medical scans right before the induction, so unless he was teleported, that's out of the question."

While the other debate around her, thankfully not resulting in yelling this time, Cyan starts connecting dots. We all did medical scans before we can on board. I don't want that thing on the same planet as me. It's exterior features perfectly mimic that of the things it sees. There are dates worse than death. What do you say to the allegation that your crews are regularly killed by creatures of unknown origin?

Cyan's eyes widen in realisation. "It's MIRA." Everyone looks at her. "It's MIRA. Think about it. We all did medical scans, so they would have had to know that Purple wasn't human, and he's the one that tried to get rid of Black the moment he saw him. When I was on my way to the interview, the CEO was talking to the media who said that crews were murdered by aliens, but he denied it, and lo and behold, we get attacked by a shapeshifter disguised as a crewmate. That means that they had to have put Purple here on purpose, and whatever their plan is, it isn't good." Pink and Lime hug one another, Red and Blue shoot one another nervous looks and Orange stirs nervously in his chair.

Later that night(?), Cyan is going through her bedtime routine while thinking about her theory. She pats Balck on the head while he sits next to her bed. "Goodnight Black."
Unknown to her, an eerie voice echoes back in her sleep, interlaced woth hisses in clicks in a pseudo accent. "Goodnight, Cyan."