An Impostor Among Them

Part 9: How Do You Explain This?

We traveled as a group down the hall to Security. Red clicked on the Reactor footage and rewound a couple of minutes. I glanced to my right at Purple. Her arms were crossed protectively across her chest; her breathing came in rapid, shallow gasps.

Why is she so nervous if she's supposedly about to be proven innocent?

"Here," Black said. "Pause here. Everyone is still in there."

Everything looked normal. Pink, Lime, Purple, Red, and Green were all working on different tasks in Reactor. The image was very low-quality due to the age of the system, but we could see shapes just fine.

Green, Purple, and Lime worked together on starting the reactor. Nothing seemed amiss there. Lime walked across the room over to Pink at the manifold unlock. Confused, I wondered, did we go back far enough? I didn't see anything. Huh, maybe Purple is telling the tr—

Then it happened. Pink's hand reached out toward Lime; the latter flinched slightly and swatted at her shirt.

All of us whipped around to face Pink. She backed up against the wall, her eyes wide with horror.

"There was a spider on her shirt!" she shrieked. "That must have been what bit her!"

"Yeah, right," Black snapped.

"Show us your pockets," Red demanded.

"I—"

"Pink, show us your pockets."

Pink stepped forward and raised her arms for us to check. Black reached into her pocket and extracted an empty syringe.

"How do you explain this, then?" Black snarled.

"I—I don't know!" Pink shrieked, beginning to break down crying. "I don't know how that got in there!"

"Pathetic," Brown hissed.

Pink turned to Red now. "Red, please! You know me! You'd know if something was wrong! I can prove myself, you all can watch me, I'll do anything you need to—what about the Medbay footage? You can see, I never went in there today!" She was barely comprehendible through her panic.

"One more chance. We'll check the Medbay footage." Black rewound the tape. Red held Pink back, her hands pinned behind her. She looked desperately hopeful as the footage played.

Her face fell as the screen showed her entering the Medbay and leaving with one hand in her pocket.

Pink immediately screamed, "That was for the sample test! I forgot about the test, I forgot I did it, I started it earlier—go check the records or something!"

"There are no records," Yellow snarled bitterly.

"Pink, I started the test today, too," Green said quietly.

Sobbing, Pink looked up to her friend for one last chance. "Red—Red, please, you can figure something out to keep me alive. Do anything you need to. Green is lying—I did do the test, I swear! Please, if you're really my friend, just . . . please!"

Red looked down at her. There was a look of indescribable pain on his face. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

Pink's face fell. Red started dragging her toward the airlock, and she started pleading, "It's not me! Red, we've known each other for so long, you'll be able to tell that I'm not behaving differently." She struggled with all the power she could muster to get free, screaming all the while. Red kept a firm hold on her despite her fervent thrashing, although her efforts slowed him down.

She tried to say something else, but before she could, Yellow shoved ahead and grabbed Pink by the shoulders. Startled, Red loosened his grip, and Yellow slammed Pink into the airlock wall so hard that she immediately crumpled to the ground, unconscious. Red jumped in and yanked Yellow out, allowing Green to pull the lever to shut the airlock.

The seven of us glanced at one another coldly. "I want to say she did a good job, since we didn't suspect her much. But she fucked up there," Green said.

"I agree," I replied. I glanced to the side. Brown was staring into space, wide-eyed, her breaths quivering. My heart dropped as I remembered what she had said in the cafeteria.

She turned to her friend. "Purple—I—"

"I fucking told you!" Purple screamed, startling me. Her voice had an equal mix of fury and betrayal.

"I'm sorry!" Brown cried. "Please, they all convinced me, I would have never accused you if I wasn't pressured into it!"

"You know what? Fuck you." With tears streaming down her face, Purple turned and dashed down the hall.

The look on Brown's face was indescribable. Seconds later, she bolted after Purple.

"I'm sorry if anyone takes this the wrong way, but we can't stand around talking for much longer," Black cut in. "We need to do something about Lime."

The five of us traveled back to the cafeteria. It pained me to walk in and see Lime lying there motionless, the floor around her splattered with blood. We sent her off with Pink before anyone could overthink the idea of it too much.

Yellow was right. The last thing we ever talked about was how I didn't trust her.