Chapter 7: HideNSeek
The thought made her feel… empowered. Like she had nothing to fear anymore. Nobody could touch her, as long as her friends were there.
And nobody would touch them, as long as she was there. That was for certain.
Nadre clutched Alyra tighter as the thought of Avulgar sneaking up behind her entered into her mind. She checked behind her, but Avulgar wasn't there. Neither was there any vent within sight that she could pop out of. Coal reached over and grabbed her hand again.
"Hey, we got it. Admiral Red says that the chances are highly unlikely that—" he began, but Nadre couldn't hold it in.
"What if he's wrong?" she said, looking into Coal's eyes. "What if there's another Imposter on Mira HQ? What then, Coal?"
Coal didn't answer for a moment. Then, without a word, he wrapped his arms around Nadre.
"Then you have allies to help you in a time of need." He simply said, voicing Nadre's thoughts.
He didn't release her from the hug, but he made sure to be gentle enough to squish Alyra between them. Nadre sighed as she enjoyed the warmth in his embrace, though it was purely meant as a friendly gesture.
It was a few more moments before Coal pulled away. He smiled, and Nadre opened her eyes.
"That's what happens then, Nadre." Coal said, looking at her.
Nadre nodded. Coal was right. And more importantly…
He had been there for her.
Alyra whimpered quietly in her sleep, as Nadre fixed her grip on her. From behind Coal, Nadre saw only a glimpse of a small piece of flesh as it darted back around the corner. It was red, and narrowed to a fine point.
An Imposter's tongue.
Nadre grabbed Coal's shoulder. "Let's, um, go this way instead." She said, bringing them towards Reactor. The decontamination door slid shut, and with a click Nadre knew it was tightly sealed. She kept her eye on the vent, just to be sure, but it did not stir. Avulgar had not noticed them make the turn.
But as the other end of the decontamination opened Nadre sucked in a breath to see Carrot standing there, glowering. Carrot's expression was mildly shocked to see that Nadre was in fact there. What her purpose had been, Nadre couldn't guess at the moment.
But a sneaking suspicion was beginning to form itself in her mind.
"Oh, hello Coal. Snow." Carrot said, curtly. She stepped into decontamination as Nadre and Coal stepped around her into Reactor. "Don't mind me. Just came to sort some artifacts for Admiral Red."
As she passed Nadre, though, Nadre felt something slide into her pocket. It moved and shifted to easily to be a weapon or threat of some kind. It felt more like… paper. Nadre subtly reached into her pocket and withdrew the paper, making an effort to silently open it. Inside, written in the language of the Imposters, was the following note.
Their lives will yet be short-lived. Will you join them as well, or finally come to your senses?
Oh yeah. Avulgar's threat.
Coal brushed past Carrot, seemingly not paying attention to the glare and curt motions of Carrot's. He stepped up to Simon says to start the reactor, and the pad lit up beneath his fingers. Alyra's eyes blinked open, and she watched the task with wide eyes. With a glance, Nadre could immediately tell that Alyra was captivated by the blinking patterns of lights. Coal noticed this too, and pulled his hand off the keypad.
"Do you want to try, Sunshine?" he asked Alyra. Gently, he brought her hand to the keypad, and pressed it into the last button, making a confirmed beep of recognition. Alyra giggled and clapped her hands together as the reactor started glowing brightly, signifying that it was powering up.
Nadre high-fived Alyra. "All right! You did it!" she said. Alyra giggled more at this, and continued to watch the bright glow from the reactor. The fluid motions of the plasma ball in front of them captivated her, and soon enough Alyra began to fall back asleep. She was quickly sound asleep once more in Nadre's arms.
"Wow, she got pretty comfortable with you pretty quick, huh?" Coal asked, leaning in to look at Sunshine closer. "May I try to—?"
Nadre didn't want to give her to Coal, but it was a valid request. She handed Coal Alyra.
"Just, please be careful." She said, as Coal took Alyra in his arms. But as soon as Nadre was no longer holding her, Alyra began whimpering. Her eyebrow knit, as the whimpering became a steady whine. Her eyes began to flicker open, before Coal finally realized what was coming next.
"Huh. That's… interesting. She seems to have a special fondness for you." Coal said, handing her back to Nadre. As soon as Alyra could feel herself in Nadre's arm again, as though a switch had been flicked, she began quieting down once again.
"Yeah, something we both share for the other." Nadre said, grinning. Her arms weren't even beginning to tire of holding Alyra. She weighed nearly nothing, after all. Coal looked between the two of them for a few moments more, before turning to his tasks.
"So…" he began, trying to piece together a shattered crystal shard. "…how did you, erm, run into Sunshine, again?"
Nadre opened her mouth to speak, before it snapped shut again. What was she gonna say? This could… this could be really, really important to her survival.
"I, um, was going into electrical to do a task. Somebody had said something to me that had made me upset, so I just needed something to focus on." Nadre said, speaking carefully. Also, she had not told a complete lie. True, it was more like she had gone in to do a sabotage, but really, what was the difference? Sabotaging was in reality just doing a task backwards. "I heard Sunshine whining, and looked behind the electric box to see her sitting next to Yellow's dead body."
Coal nodded, finishing his crystal.
"I heard that our stay here on Mira HQ is going to be very brief." He mentioned, turning around. "Admiral Green said that we were only staying long enough for us to refuel, then we're going down to the surface of the planet."
Nadre's expression lit up. Finally, this was what she was really waiting for. "Finally. I've wanted to see Polus since I was very, very little."
Coal grabbed her hand and they both began walking out of Reactor.
"Yeah, me too." Coal said. "Admiral Green said that he and Admiral Lime were going to show us on a tour of what had happened that night when they were on their first mission here. The night that their careers as living legends began."
'And the night that Aelorvan's ended.' Nadre thought. The irony struck her as funny, but she kept her expression poker-faced.
As Coal patiently waited for the decontamination door to open, a glimpse of movement caught Nadre's eye. A small tip of a tongue was slithering out of the vent, slowly making its way to wrap around Coal's leg. Without a word, Nadre lifted her foot and slammed it into the vent, banging it closed against the snake-like tongue. The tongue, with a near-silent hiss, was quick to make itself scarce. Coal looked down.
"What's the matter?" he asked, eyeing Nadre's foot, which was resting securely on the vent.
"Oh nothing. Lost my footing for a second there." Nadre said, smiling. The door opened, and Coal and she stepped through. She glimpsed back at the vent in decontamination as the door slid shut, and for only a moment she caught the red glare of Avulgar's visor, staring at her from inside the vent.
'Stare all you want, Carrot,' Nadre thought as the click of the lock reached her ears, 'You are not getting anywhere near this child, nor this Crewmate.'
In fact… it might be time to take some action.
Nadre made an expression that she thought portrayed extreme fear, and grabbed Coal's hand.
"Come on, we have to go." She said, hurriedly. Coal's expression became serious.
"What is it, Snow?" he asked, as she led him along through the hallways of Mira HQ.
"I think I saw something." Nadre answered. She made her way into cafeteria, interrupting what was evidently a lunch-break between Green and Violet. She flipped up the plastic cover on the big red button, and slammed her hand against it. Red lights began flashing, and Mira HQ's on board computer began droning.
"Emergency meeting! Everyone please make a calm and orderly fashion towards the Cafeteria. Repeat; Emergency Meeting!"
Everyone was seated around the table soon enough.
"What happened?" Cobalt asked, gripping Cherry's hand. "Why was the meeting called?"
Coal shook his head. "Snow says she thought she saw something. That's all I know on the matter."
Everyone turned to Nadre.
"Well? What did you see?" Admiral Red said. Nadre stood, holding Alyra in one arm while she placed the other hand on the table.
"I saw the vent lid flip up through the window in decontamination." Nadre began. Cherry and Cobalt gasped, while the four Admirals faces remained placid, as though they had already known this would happen. "There are more imposters among us."
Admiral Lime stood. "Did you see anything else? Any colors?" he asked, looking her directly in the eye. His hidden message came through, loud and clear.
Are you ready to tell us who it is?
Nadre shook her head. "I didn't. All I know is that there is another Imposter among us. Coal and I must've missed it by a few seconds."
Admiral Red stood. "Okay, then we'll have to keep our eyes peeled for sus activity. Everyone be wary of the vents, and try to give them a wide berth. Meeting adjourned. Get your tasks done."
Everyone began filing off, but before Carrot left, Nadre saw the look of utter betrayal and hate etched on her expression. Nadre shot her a look right back. One that conveyed her mental message.
Come at me, and I will destroy you with this information.
Carrot whirled on her heel and stormed out. Coal looked from her to Nadre, once or twice.
"What's up with her?" Coal asked. "You two get in a fight about something?"
Nadre shrugged, though her sharp gaze was still burning twin holes through the back of Carrot's head. "You might say that."
Coal gripped Nadre's shoulders and turned him to face her. "Hey, it's fine. She's got no reason to even think you're sus. I bet you nobody else would vote for you in a million years."
Nadre opened her mouth to respond, but no response was necessary, nor forthcoming. She stood there for a moment more, staring into Coal's visor. Then Coal smiled, and turned. He walked off towards Admin to finish his tasks, as Nadre still stood there.
What else was there to say? Admirals Green and Violet noted her, standing there with her mouth opening and closing.
"Snow, come sit over here with us." Violet said, patting the seat across from them. "Come tell us what's on your mind."
Nadre walked over to the vending machine, ordered some of the milk in the machine, and sat down, somewhat mechanically. Violet grinned, as Nadre began feeding Alyra the milk in small portions at a time.
"So what's going on between you and Coal, Snow?" she asked, her eyebrow raised.
"I — don't know if I'm the best judge to give you an estimate, Admiral." Nadre said, speaking slowly as she concentrated on Alyra. "I would say he was just reassuring me, but it feels too… personal to just be obligatory."
"Well duh, that's much too obvious. What I mean is, how far has Coal gotten with attempting to court you so far?" Violet asked. Nadre almost turned as bright a pink as Cherry.
"You think that he—that I—" Nadre began, all power of speech suddenly failing her. "What?"
"It's quite painfully obvious that Coal likes you, Snow." Violet said. "It reminds me just of how supporting and encouraging Green was, on our first mission here. He was my only anchor to reality during that mission. If it weren't for him, I don't know how quickly I would have died."
"Probably that first time you went out to the launchpad." Admiral Green said. "Miss Precariously-balancing-on-a-stool-I'll-be-fine."
Violet playfully punched him in the arm, and continued.
"Anyway, he swept me off my feet pretty quickly. My knight in shining armor kept my head above the waves as everything and everyone seemed to be drowning around me. And that was when I knew that I wanted him to always be there for me, and that I wanted to be there for him too, when the time came." Violet wrapped up. Nadre nodded.
"Coal had made advances before, but at the time I… I had put a sort of hold on it. I told him that I couldn't be like that with him, right then." Nadre admitted. "I didn't have the concentration for it."
Okay, that last sentence was a little bit sketchy. Violet shrugged.
"Well, if you can't think of him as a stronghold against the Imposters now, when will you? Obviously, there's more than just the three that the four of us faced. What happens if this happens again? Who will you have? Who do you have now?"
Nadre, had it been more socially accepted at the moment, would have argued that she was not frightened of the Imposters, as she was one herself. However, with Admiral Green sitting right there, she didn't feel it was safe yet. She shrugged and nodded; a safe bet to go with.
But as she was sitting there, feeding Alyra, a scream, only heard for a heartbeat, rang out against the walls. Admiral Green was on his feet before Nadre could blink, but Nadre quickly took second place. The voice that possessed the scream sounded much too familiar. She dashed like a bullet to Admin, toting Alyra in her arms as she scanned the room.
On the floor, sticking out of the vent, was a small patch of paper. Nadre leaned down and picked it up, reading it. Two, simple words, written in Imposter, were scrawled out on it in what could be blood.
Your move.