Among Us: Hosts

Ch. 13: Unexpectations

In the present, Chantelle rubbed her eyes and stepped away from Chiedza and Assisi.

"Prem. I found his body in Shields. It was... disturbing. His head was twisted and cut clean off in a corner... and his entire torso was just... gone! His eyes looked so..." she gagged, but held back from throwing up. Assisi rubbed her back.

Jessica turned to Kandor slowly. "Didn't you say... you were with Prem before you came over to us?"
He looked around, "Yea, but he was with Chantelle. I left and went to electrical. Chantelle... you were the last person I saw him with."

"Did you call Code 1 to deflect suspicion from yourself?" Matias asked bluntly.
Assisi put an arm around Chantelle protectively. "Why would she do that? Matias, you're too much!"

Kandor shrugged, "Anything's possible."

"I was at Communications. Kandor was in the area, and I left Prem in the hallway to fix an issue with Comms. When I finished, I went out and found Prem's body."

Chiedza finally spoke, "Kandor... you're being really suspicious. You keep accusing people left and right. Perhaps you're the one deflecting suspicion."

Assisi nodded, "Prem was innocent. Simi was innocent."

Kandor and Matias shared an incredulous look, and Kandor looked back at the group, "Chantelle was acting suspiciously as well! She was stalking me yesterday. Besides, Assisi, you voted for Prem too! Where were you?"

Matias said, "I was following her in med bay. She did the scan. And then I got to Jessica. It's not me or Jessica, we were together the whole time."
He smiled at Jessica, who stared back at him without an iota of whatever enthusiasm and confidence he had.

"So Chiedza... where were you?" Kandor asked. A couple days ago, everyone would have scoffed at the question, but Assisi turned to look at her with a similar glint in her eyes.

"Yeah... and did you really find that patch by your bed again? Or are you hiding something from us?" Assisi added.

Chiedza scoffed and looked at them in surprise. "Me? Really? Please. If it was me, you all wouldn't have stood a chance— I'm the only one holding us together."

"You're not," Jessica said grimly, "Things are falling apart."

Chiedza let out a laugh of disbelief and looked around. "It's me, your captain."

"I don't think that matters anymore," Kandor said slowly, "If you flex your rank to us, we have no choice but to be suspicious."

"The voting period has begun." The AI announced.

Everyone took a moment to turn to the screens on their wrists.
"Chantelle! I don't think it's you. I'm voting for Chiedza." Kandor yelled out.
"I'm voting for her as well," Matias nodded, "Jessica?"

Jessica looked between the members, conflicted.

"Jessica! Don't. Vote for Kandor." Assisi said firmly. "He's not the leadership this ship needs."
Chantelle's eyes hardened, "I'm voting Kandor as well."

Chiedza and Jessica stared at each other.

"You don't really think it's me, do you?" Kandor said, "Vote Chiedza."

Matias narrowed his eyes, "If you don't vote, there will be another death on your hands."

Assisi and Chantelle turned and glared at him for what he said.

Chiedza sighed before clicking on her wrist device. "I understand. I understand it well."

Jessica looked like she was on the verge of tears. "We need to avoid pointless death on this ship."

Everyone watched the screen come up as the AI announced the results:

Chiedza: Matias, Kandor, Jessica
Assisi: 0 votes
Kandor: Assisi, Chantelle, Chiedza
Chantelle: 0 votes
Matias: 0 votes
Jessica: 0 votes

"There has been a tie. No one was chosen to be ejected."

The whole cabin sighed in relief.

"I don't think it's either of you!" Jessica pleaded, looking at Chiedza.

"I know. We couldn't take a chance, Jessica. It was gonna be him or me."

Assisi harrumphed and took Chantelle's hand to drag her along, "Your indecisiveness is gonna kill more of us."

Jessica got up and walked towards med bay. Matias followed her, and nodded at Kandor, who went to follow Chiedza.

Chiedza made her way to navigation slowly. She sat at the chair and used her Captain patch to enter a few system files.
Kandor followed in, "What are you doing?"

"You're wasting your time here, Kandor. I'm not the imposter, and I'm not giving you the Vice Captain patch." She responded solemnly.
"Do you even have it?"

Chiedza thought for a second. "Hm. No, I suppose I don't."
"How irresponsible of you," he remarked snidely.

Chiedza turned around and stared at him. "I tried to maintain order. I tried to save everyone innocent. It didn't work."

"It's because you cared too much, Cap'n."

She smirked, bemused, "Maybe you're right."
"Give me a chance, Chiedza. We can weed out the imposter together." Kandor said, suddenly.

It made her laugh emptily, "There's already too much splintering. Assisi won't listen to either of us. And she technically ranks higher than you, you know."

"Ranks don't matter right now."

Chiedza looked aside for a second, before focusing on him with annoyance again, "So since you're talking to me like this, you don't think it's me?"
"It's like you said, Captain. If it was you, we'd all be dead by now."

She closed her eyes, and turned back to the screen in front of her. She pressed a few buttons and turned back to Kandor.

"Why are you doing this, Blue? What will you get out of this?"

"If we had followed my ideas from the start, there'd be more of us alive right now."

Chiedza tossed the patch in her hand to him. "You want it so bad? Have it. It's just a useless piece of fabric now. You and Assisi can claw over it or whatever. I've restricted the access to the system anyway.  I wouldn't give over such power to either of you. Chantelle has her brains about her, but the rest of you have been reduced to a sputtering crowd of idiots."

Kandor took the patch into his pocket, but glared at Chiedza adamantly, "Your feigned moral superiority will kill us all."

She shook her head. "Your tribalism is what will kill us. As for me... this has already killed me inside before it could get me outside. Now leave. Unless you want to end my life right here, in which case I dare you to give it a shot."

Kandor heaved a sigh and left the room nonchalantly, "I should never have come on this mission."
"We should never have stepped foot on that planet. Can't change what's already done, can we."

Kandor rounded the corner to walk towards Shields, and Chiedza got off her chair. She stared at the images of the deceased members on one screen. Her heart wept for the loss of her friends; Gan and Prem especially.
She knew Raha's husband on Earth would be writing letters to the base for her to read like he did every week. She knew Assisi wouldn't recover from a blow to her mental state from this. She wasn't even sure Assisi would survive this mission. Tina, their poor, poor daughter. She was aiming to be an exploratory astronaut herself someday. Her kind, strong, charming father, lost to the mechanisms of a stupid voting system he set up himself. His blood was on her hands.

Finally, she thought about her own son. He was in college. She was supposed to be back in time to see him graduate, become a strong young man in his own right. With a start, Chiedza realized what the hell she was doing. She had a gun pressed to her temple, one she had grabbed from under her desk with determination. Her resolve shook with her hands, more and more, until it broke, and she had to put the gun back down.

She put a hand over her heart. She had to live; she had to try. She couldn't just give up now. With renewed determination, she stared at the door of the navigation room. She was going to sniff out the imposter, definitively.