An Impostor Among Them

Part 15: Do You Have Proof?

Green came sprinting out of the room, Brown right behind him. She skidded to a halt upon seeing us.

"Brown tried to stab me!" Green shrieked. "Check her pockets, and you'll see, she has a knife!"

"Green—Green is the one to have the knife! He put it in his pocket, and the vent was open beside him!" Brown sputtered. "I thought I heard a sound, I was right, he was opening the vent."

"She sliced at me but didn't hit hard enough!"

"I saw the knife, check his pockets!"

"She tried to sneak up behind me!"

"He was about to jump into the vent!"

"Why did she randomly go into Electrical?"

"Because I heard you. Green was alone in the room, he could have snuck away and killed!"

Black dashed into the hallway. "What the hell is going on?" she demanded.

Green and Brown pointed at each other and shrieked simultaneously:

"Green is the impostor!"

"Brown is the impostor!"

"One at a time," Black shouted.

"I was turning off the lights, like you said to, and she randomly went in there—she tried to sneak up on me, and acted casual when I noticed her. I asked what she was doing, she tried to slit my throat but I jumped away, see?" Green lifted his chin to reveal a shallow nick. Several fresh beads of blood dripped down his neck.

"No!" Brown cried. She backed away from Green. "He had the vent open and was kneeling beside it, he was about to jump in!"

"Do you have proof that he was about to jump?" Black pressed.

"N-no, I don't, but why else would he have it open?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because one of the tasks is to clean it?" Yellow said.

Brown paused. "Shit," she muttered.

"What was that?" I hissed.

"It is on the list. I forgot. But he has a knife—even if it was a utility knife, he didn't need it to turn off the lights, and why would he panic so much that he felt the need to counter-accuse me for something I never did?"

"Because you tried to fucking slit my neck!" Green snarled. "And you probably did that to yourself in your room since Purple wasn't lying. Listen—why did she randomly enter Electrical against Black's orders? She tried to blame me for using the vents, just like Red did. I know what I saw, I know what I felt. Check her pockets, I bet you'll find the knife! Also, I was kneeling by the vent because it was open and I was about to close it. I finished the task earlier."

"You're not listening to Brown. And what about your evidence against Yellow?" I shot back. "I thought the evidence was 'overwhelming.'"

"I never said that. Either there were three impostors, or Yellow just made some pretty bad slip-ups," Green explained.

Yellow looked totally lost. He glanced back and forth between the two, his mouth open slightly, speechless.

Black ordered Brown to put her hands up. She did so immediately, and upon searching, no weapon was found in her pockets. Nor in Green's. Green demanded that we check in Electrical. Sure enough, a dagger lay on the floor, blood streaked on the tip.

Brown pled desperately as we made our way into Storage. She was nearly in tears, begging us to believe her. "Please, you can do whatever you want to me if I'm lying! Try to fix the Medbay scanner and scan me! Think of every situation that has happened on this ship so far, think about where Green was, and I'll bet he doesn't have an alibi for half of them!"

"We will make a decision as a group," I said firmly.

Green too pleaded for us to listen. "She is going to kill all of us if we don't eject her. If she hit me back there, she could have killed me, and you might not have found me until—"

"Hold on," Yellow interrupted. "She did hit you."

"I mean if she really hit me, not just nicked a little."

"No. I think you meant if I hit you at all," Brown said. "You're lying. You inflicted that cut on yourself so you could blame me."

"I just want you to give me a reason why you went into Electrical all of a sudden. That's all I want. I'll bet you can't give me a good reason," Green said, almost like he was trying to provoke her.

"I told you my fucking reason twice. I heard the vent creak open. I was suspicious of the sound, so I went in to check on you." Brown didn't trip over her words, stutter, or even hesitate. She sounded completely confident in what she was saying. I started to lean toward her side of the story.

"I opened it to clean it," Green said equally as calmly.

"No. You said that it was already open when you entered the room, and you were about to close it," Black corrected. "You specifically told us that you'd completed the task already. Why is your story not matching up?"

"Earlier, I said that I was kneeling beside it to close it. I never said why I was closing it—I did because I'd opened it." Green brushed his hair behind his ear casually.

Yellow shook his head. "Dude, that doesn't make any sense. Why were you cleaning it when you were supposed to be turning off the lights? And I don't know about the rest of you, but I didn't see any cleaning supplies in there when we went in to check for the knife."

"It was just a little spot of blood," Green defended. "I used my sleeve."

"Why were you looking down into the vent so intently that you saw a spot of blood?" I pressed. "And why would there be blood down there in the first place?"

"An impostor could have tracked it in there."

"Prove that you cleaned it," Brown demanded. "Show us your sleeve."

Green held up his sleeve. Sure enough, there was a small streak of blood on it. Brown looked horrified. Black, however, didn't believe him for a second.

"The blood is still wet," she said not two seconds after Green showed it.

"Well, blood is—"

"It should have dried by the time we got here if you cleaned such a small amount. The stain is also clean. If you scrubbed it like you told us you did, the edges would be more ragged. And your neck—why is the blood suddenly smeared? I saw you brush your hair aside with a very odd hand motion, using the same hand that has the blood on it. Someone else, please tell me that you saw him do that."

"I did," I confirmed, suddenly recalling the odd motion. I hadn't thought much of it, but looking back, what Black pointed out had made sense.

"What if Red was innocent, and his accusations were correct? Green wasn't in the room with us when White was killed," Yellow said. "And Brown was on the other side of the room when it happened."

"There is one impostor, and Red killed Purple," Green shot back.

Why is he sounding so overly defensive?