An Impostor Among Them

Part 4: They Can Fake It

"Well, what are we going to do about it? Is there any way to tell who it is?" Lime asked, sending a nervous glance around the room.

"None of us have any clue how to handle this," Green shot back. "We need to figure this out as a team. There must be something we can do. We were told that a rescue ship was sent up to us and will be here in about a week."

"Hold up, hold up. It took us three hours to get here," Pink interrupted. "Why would it take so long for them to get to us?"

"This is an unplanned rescue, and we've moved in orbit slightly, so it's harder for them to track us," Red explained.

"But still—a week? We could all be dead by then!" I cried.

"Not if we actually do something about it. Everyone, gather around the center table. We need to make a plan." Red walked across the room to the center table. The rest of us jumped to our feet to gather around the table. The glass-covered emergency meeting button gleamed under the overhead light.

"So—where do we start?" Yellow asked.

Purple rocked on her heels anxiously. "Does anyone seem suspicious to you guys?"

"Cyan's been kind of quiet today," Pink commented.

"What the hell?" I snapped. "I was working with you yesterday when the emergency was called! And I think we've all been a bit quiet today, don't you think?"

"Yes, but White was already dead when Yellow reported him," Green pointed out.

"I didn't mean to accuse you. I was just commenting," Pink said quickly.

"Why are you all so quick to attack him?" Lime snapped.

"I saw Cyan go into Admin with White minutes before he turned up dead. You were likely the last one to interact with him," Brown said, ignoring Lime.

"We were both just swiping our cards," I explained.

Pink shot me a glare. "That doesn't make you safe, Cyan. You were still with him."

"I went in there with them, and I saw nothing wrong," Purple defended. "I left to empty the trash in the cafeteria, and when I turned around to go into Storage, they were going in opposite directions."

"Thank you, Purple! Why would I do any of this to you?!" I shrieked. "You all know me! All you have is circumstantial evidence. Since there was so much blood at the scene, wouldn't some of it have gotten on my uniform? I had no time to change before I saw Pink."

"The impostor is blending in with us so well that we were unaware they were on the ship. They must have some tricks to make them less suspicious," Red suggested.

"He is obviously distraught about this. If the impostor really did kill White, then it wouldn't make sense for them to express emotion about it," Purple tried to reason.

"They can fake it," Pink shot back. "Everyone on this ship is acting normal. Someone here is the impostor, so someone on this ship is doing a pretty fucking good job at hiding it!"

"May I point out that you two, Pink and Green, are very passionate in your arguments toward Cyan?" Yellow said matter-of-factly.

"Listen, this is a new and very stressful situation. We're not trying to accuse anyone—we are stating our evidence as to why it could be him," Green said.

"Which is an accusation," Brown groaned in exasperation.

"So Purple was in Admin with White, too," Red pointed out.

Purple looked startled. "No—no, that doesn't mean I did anything! I was on my way to empty the trash, like I said earlier. Then I went to Storage, and saw Pink and Cyan together right before the alarm went off."

"I saw her doing it," Brown confirmed.

"You must have been in Storage for a while, then," Green jumped in.

"Yes, I was. The chute was jammed, and I was trying to unclog it."

"Trying to—did you ever finish?" I asked.

"No. You guys can go check when the meeting is over."

"I believe you, but don't ever try doing that again," Red said. "You could have lost an arm if it started working again."

"Sorry," Purple sighed.

"What are we going to do about anyone who seems suspicious?" Black asked no one in particular.

The eight of us thought for a moment. "Well," Red said hesitantly, "we don't have the equipment to integrate any sort of security. It wouldn't be wise nor safe to let this dangerous person roam the ship until rescue arrives. We'd need to find a way to individually isolate everyone on board."

"But that doesn't seem practical," Lime countered. "We lock someone in their rooms for days on end? That would be incredibly inefficient. We don't have enough time to isolate every person on board for enough time to determine whether they are safe, and doing so means willingly jeopardizing everyone else. And it would defeat the purpose if we locked half the crew away at once. And there could be more deaths if we made any mistakes, or if someone managed to escape."

"She does make some good points. That wouldn't work," I said.

"I have an idea." Black hesitated. "You aren't going to like this, but please hear me out. We could pay very close attention to how everyone is behaving to see if they act suspiciously. What if we have . . . a sort of voting system? We discuss who we think it is whenever there is a reason, like whenever a meeting is called, or, God forbid, someone else is killed—then we can vote them out. We need evidence, though, rock hard evidence."

Everyone went silent. Black shrank back a bit, seeming to regret speaking up.

"And what do we do with them once they're voted out?" I asked bitterly.

"Like Lime said, we can't lock them away. They could very well find a way to escape and attack us. We . . . we could eject them through the airlock," she said quietly.

"Are you crazy?" Yellow snapped. Black flinched away even farther. "How in the world would it be considered a good idea to throw our crewmates out into space?"

"Actually, that's not such a bad idea," Green agreed. "We wouldn't be voting out random people. We'd have a discussion session—and pay close attention to each other between sessions—then vote out whoever is behaving differently. There is no way that the impostor can copy their human counterpart one hundred percent."

"I get what you're saying, but what if we vote out the wrong person?" Purple countered. "We just kill our friends and crewmates? How would we ever know if they were real or not?"

"Purple, we'll be careful with it," Brown explained. "We're not just going to vote randomly. If we see someone kill, or if there is video evidence, or anything similar to that, then we will vote out."

"We could start off by discussing White's death," Pink suggested. "Not voting. Just talking about our perspectives on the situation."

"Yeah. I think that's reasonable," Red said. "The eight of you can continue to discuss amongst yourselves. I'll see if I can fix our tablets."