An Imposter Among Us

7: The Day I Make Most Everyone Hate Me

Genesis (1st-person POV)

I'd had to make a lot of hard decisions in my life. I had to choose which comb was my luckiest one. Every day I debated over whether to get out of bed and go to work or stay and call in sick for the fiftieth time that quarter. Once, I "accidentally" locked Loco out of the facility but ended up letting her back in after much self-reflection and kitten-eye resisting.

But all that was nothing compared to what I had to do in weapons.

Zaniah and Elara were arguing with each other in communications, occasionally gesturing to a funny-looking device resting on the central table.

"What's going on here?" I asked, though I was dreading the answer.

"The comms were sabotaged," Elara said. "And I believe the one in charge of them is to blame."

Zaniah huffed. "And I believe Elara did it."

"Well, whoever it was," I cut in, "we need to get them back online. How did the connection cut off in the first place?"

"With this signal jammer," Zaniah said, pointing to the device. "I found it strapped behind the machinery with duct tape."

"Well, maybe Jericho can take a look at the fingerprints on it, but..."

"When I took it down, I only touched the antenna," Zan said. "If there's anything on the body of it, that'll give us a culprit." She leveled a glare at Elara.

"Let me guess," Elara said. "She's looking at me."

"It could be anyone," I reminded them, though I got sick to my stomach again thinking about it. "Let me go get Jericho."

It took several minutes for Jericho to arrive with a UV scanner, looking around the device for a good fingerprint. I had called in everyone to gather in comms, mostly because I wanted to read them.

Calypso stood against a corner of the room, keeping her eye on Jericho. Were they dating or something?

Light kept his eyes on the ground, rocking back and forth on his heels. At first I thought he was just shy, but...I wasn't so sure now.

Stella leaned against the doorway, picking at her nails. Despite how casual she tried to come off, her breathing was labored.

Ceres was blank and unreadable. He didn't seem too innocent to me, then again no one did, not even Zaniah.

But probably a more important question was why? Why would someone sabotage how we communicated with each other and viewed our tasks?

It sounded like something only the killer would do, as their next move. What could be a better way to isolate everyone and put them on edge?

"I think I found something," Jericho said, holding up a piece of clear tape. I quickly interpreted everyone's reactions. They all looked the same: anxious but impeccably curious. "Who has the solution?"

Calypso stepped forward, revealing a vial of clear liquid and a petri dish in her hands. She twisted open the container, used an eyedropper to coat the bottom with solution, then stepped back to give Jericho room to dip the scrap of tape in it. Calypso used a pair of tweezers to poke the ends in, and waited a second before pulling it out. Jericho pulled out a small flashlight from his back pocket and shined it underneath the tape.

"We got it," Calypso said. "Captain, do you have electronic records of our fingerprints?"

"Way ahead of you," I said, unlocking my tablet to reveal copies of all of our prints on a single file, compiled right when I saw the error message on our tablets. I also took that time to skim through everyone's files.