Among Us.
3 am, earth time. Polus.
I walked through the open doorway into the office. Kind of a stupid idea to have an open door on a snow laden planet, in my opinion. If it's a planet covered in snow and ice, with high icy winds, why make doors that don't close unless the emergency protocol is triggered? All I know is it's been only 3 days, and I've decided that this coffee machine here makes the best coffee. Ever. Now, the best part is you could try to contradict me, but you couldn't. This is special space coffee. Okay, I'm lying, it's just normal coffee. But the coffee isn't the point.
The point is that it's freaking cold here, and I don't like this place. It's kinda ridiculous the one person that doesn't want to go gets picked. Funny how that works, right? I mean, it's really not funny.
But I guess that's just how it is. You see, my Dad signed my family up, thinking that it would be a good experience for all of us to go to space. And anyway, he must have thought, There's a low chance we'll be picked. Yet, somehow, we got picked. I mean, it's crazy, but it's a lot of work and anxiety. I would rather stay home, but since we signed up, there's no turning back. The the ride to Polus the worst.
I will admit, I was scared, and didn't wan to to go at all, and I was trying to think of the pros and cons, but I have to say, what was the pros? I got to go to a different, dangerous, unexplored planet? I mean, that always seemscool when someone else is doing it, but when your actually doing it? Who knows if there's deadly radiation, or what kind of life the planet contains? At least there was other people to share our misery with us. There was about thirteen people going with us.
There was going to be sleeping establishments on the main pod for each person, but there was a mix up, so there's only twelve rooms. So, of course, I had to sleep with some ratty blankets on a padded bench in the Office.
You see, we've marked a large area of land, and have made renovations and buildings in that area. We have The Office, The Weapons, The Observatory, The Laboratory, Decontamination, Communications, O2, Electrical, for our power, and The two Reactors, that generate electricity by mining minerals and turning them into fuel. Then, in between The Observatory and the Decontaminator 1, there's a Medical room. Then, you go through the Decom; (Short for Decontamination,) you walk into the Laboratory, and go through to the other side, you'll walk through Decom 2, and walk into the Admin Room, and The Admin room is connected to the Office. Next to the office, outside of it, is the swirling pit of lava.
I don't know why it's there. Supposedly it was naturally there to begin with, but it looks man made to me. Any how, go above the lava pit, and there's the doorway to the Observatory.
To the left of the Observatory, there's the building that houses Electrical. Next to the Electrical room, there's the Camera room. Go down through the narrow passage, into O2. Then, go out through the door of O2, there's a short path to Weapons, witch has an honest- to- god Satellite gun orbiting. (Because occasionally asteroids will go into orbit of Polus.
Just above weapons, only a few feet away, is the Communication's room. And then, above all of it, there's the Dropship we arrived in. they all get to sleep in the cozy, warm Dropship, while I sleep on a bench. Joy. Of course, it wasn't my choice I got to sleep on the bench. My dad, yet again, nominated me without asking. It was more telling. Anyway, I just woke up, so I'm feeling crappy, and my neck is sore because I slept on a fucking bench on my first day on a new alien world. ***
I woke up the next morning, feeling irritable and tired. My sister was brewing coffee. Usually we weren't allowed to have coffee, but one of her tasks was to sift through mineral collection logs. For an hour. So my parents allowed it. I was allowed to have coffee because I slept on a bench. And, if anyone tried to stop me, I would rip their eyeballs out of their sockets.
So I was allowed to have coffee.
I was not looking forward to my tasks for the day. I had to download data from HQ, and that takes a while. A long while. Half an hour is the most likely. But, I have to do two, so roughly an hour. I sighed, and began to walk towards 02, which is where my first download is. Just as I began the download, I saw a crew member walk by, muttering;
"Wires… wires… where?" That must have been Donny. He was the most forgetful person that I have ever met.
"Donny, you're in the wrong room. The first set of wires are in the Office."
"Oh, thanks." Donny said, looking puzzled.
"But… Cleo said that wires was here!" Donny said, looking more confused. Of course Cleo said that. That girl had more tricks and pranks up her sleeve than a beehive has combs. She can be funny, but usually she's just kinda mean. She's constantly playing tricks on the weak minded. Her first target: Donny.
You'd think Donny had learned by now, but, as mean as it was to say it, Donny was pretty forgetful and slow. The combinations didn't mix well. I heaved a sigh.
"Donny, she was playing a trick on you." Donny nodded glumly, and shuffled out of O2. Donny was a sensitive man. A sensitive, forgetful, slow guy. But, I think I truly think he's one of the best people here. He might not be smart, but at least he tries. Unlike Cleo. There was my sister, Clara, who was generally peppy and nice to everyone.
"Zack!" my Mom jogged up to me.
"Zack, could you please blast the asteroids today? I would, but I just don't have the time…" She showed me her randomly generated task list, which did seem rather full.
"I guess…" I sighed, realizing it was only seven, and I had already sighed two times. It was going to be a long, cold, snowy day.
I had finally finished blasting the asteroids into smithereens. I was tired from my tasks I'd had to do all day. The worst part about tasks was that even when you finished them, the feeling of completion was minimal, because only a few days later, you would see someone else doing them. It never seemed to stop, a repeating loop, over and over and over, like a demented Merry Go Round. As I walked over to the bench to take a break, Cole walked past me. Even though I'd been here a month, I never talked to Cole. He seemed to fade into the background as much as possible. His brother, Ted, was the exact opposite of him. He was obnoxious and loud and proud.
I wasn't sure at first if I liked Ted, but now. I'm certain I do enjoy his company.
Sometimes. He can be a little irritating, but it's worth it in the end. He's a nice enough guy. But his sister? I'm not sure about her. On the first day she became friends with Cleo. Her name is Zara.
No matter what you ask her or tell her, she has to respond with a scathing or rude comeback. She turns every normal conversation into a fight. I'm honestly surprised she's Ted's sister. She doesn't come out of her room often though, so you can deal with her easy enough. Then there's Bob. He's an interesting person. He's divorced, and decided that he wasn't doing anything with his life, so he signed up for the mission. He says he has no hobby's, but he seems weirdly good at tasks, and he loves to send messages to HQ. He's like our recorder. I've walked by his area on the Dropship, looking for my sister, and heard him quoting things all of us has said.
Then there's Johnny, the most insane, unstable person I've ever met. He's also the smartest person on the ship. He's like that stereotypical mad scientist. Every problem with technology on the ship, we come to him about it. He usually fixes it, but sometimes he'll "Get bored" and just stop fixing it in the middle of fixing it. I would think, there's no way someone's weirder than him, right? But then I met Darwin. Take the word
"Conspiracy theory" and his websites all about conspiracy will pop up. He's constantly up at night, muttering, saving his tasks for the end of the day. It's hard to sleep when that guy is swiping the card in the other room of where you're sleeping. Darwin is always twitchy.
He's another big target for Cleo. His friend, Jacob, says he was scarred as a kid, and he never forgot it. Jacob is a good man. He's nice, agreeable, smart, and athletic. Basically every teenage girl's dreams. That's everyone that's on this mission. All and all, a group of weirdos. But, (And I hate to sound so cheesy) they're like my family.
We are literally stuck on the same planet. How can you not pay attention to their personalities and lives? I realized I had one little task left.
It was the scan passport task. You have to regularly scan the passport now, thanks to Johnny. It wasn't working at all before, so my mom asked Johnny to try to fix it. He did, but now, like I said, you have to scan it at least once a week. I walked over to the passport scanner, and I saw Zara muttering quietly to Cleo. Zara's face (I saw through the visor) looked pale and sweaty, and Zara didn't look any better.
She looked like she was about to be sick. They walked out towards the lava pit, and I wanted to follow them, but I knew it probably wasn't any of my business. But what could make Zara look so stricken? Even though nothing happened, I kept my eyes peeled the whole day, and I jumped out of my skin when I ran into Donny. I just couldn't shake the feeling of foreboding.
Another day, another task. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. Honestly, after the first three days, I had stopped being so nervous and jumpy. Yes, it was strange, but everything was the same.
I had decided to just forget about it. The printed task list was getting longer and more demanding by the day.
The crew were trying their best to keep up with the machine, but there was just too much. Everyone was barely finishing their tasks before dark. Due to having to time to rest, everyone was irritable and tired. And, just to make matters worse, the Reactor almost broke down and melted the camp today.
The crew were sitting in the Office, complaining about the tasks on our only day off (Sunday) when the room started shaking, and the alarms went off. We didn't know what was happening at first, but Johnny figured it out first.
"The Reactor is melting down! We have to fix it!"
Luckily, Johnny had made a special way to fix it. You know how Apple iPad's have touch I.D. to sign in sometimes? Imagine that, but you put your whole hand on the sensor. There are two Reactor Drills opposite of each other, so two people had to run up to the scanners. We fixed just in the nick of time. Everything stopped rumbling, the alarms stopped going off, and all was still and quiet. Until that was interrupted by Cleo, yelling; "What the hell was that!?"
Johnny had no idea why it happened. "I know the cause was the systems were overheating,"
He said.
"But I don't know why they overheated."
"Well, they stopped, so shouldn't we calm down?"
Donny said.
"No, Donny, we shouldn't calm down! We need to figure out what it was so it won't happen in the future!" "No, I agree with Donny. We should figure out what it is, but we should do it calmly."
Jacob said.
"I'll research the Logs in the Lab to see if I can find anything unusual."
Johnny announced. He walked off towards the Laboratory. We all stood around for a little while, staring at the Reactor, until eventually, everyone drifted away into the snow, leaving me alone.
A blizzard started, and I decided to go back inside. I had nothing to do, considering it was Sunday, so I took a nap on the bench. When I woke up, I heard my parents in the Admin room, whispering to each other. "...Said that doesn't just happen…" "...Be wrong, you know…" "… possibly One of us…" I couldn't heat them properly, catching only snippets of the conversation. Though I did have a faint idea of what they were saying. It sounds like the Reactor couldn't have gone off on itself. Which means that someone caused it. But who would do that purposefully?
What would they gain from it? On a related note of strange things, I saw mini tunnels near buildings. When I pointed it out to Donny, he tried to crawl in, by the couldn't fit in it. Even I tried, but I couldn't, either. I haven't seen any animals at all on the planet, so I wonder what could have made that. When we eat, we eat frozen food, meat, plants, and freeze dried meals. The freeze dried meals are pretty gross, but it's worth it since it fills you up.
Things have been tense ever since the Reactor incident. Everyone's expecting it to malfunction again. But something tells me almost everyone here knows it wasn't an accident. I can't look at any of them the same, you know. Knowing what they've done. I can't believe someone in this group would do that.
Donny, Johnny, Cleo, Bob, Cole, Ted, Zara, Darwin, Jacob…. How could they do something like this? My family? No way they did this. I'm not adding them on the suspect list. That just… doesn't happen.
I doubt my mom or sister or dad would be able to pull it off. Donny? No way. He wouldn't be able to do that. I suppose Johnny could… but why would he do that? Zara? Cleo? Zara was acting strange only five days before the meltdown. As was Cleo, so it could be them… but I need to find a legitimate reason for that.
Bob? Maybe. I can't be sure about him. Jacob? Ted? Cole? The truth was… I hadn't ever asked about their pasts, so I was basically surrounded by strangers. I have to investigate them further. I want to believe no one did it, but, noting my parents muttering, Johnny saying what he said, this must be one of us. I decided it was a good idea to snoop around a little, and I went over to the Communications, and I overheard Bob talking. "… It malfunctioned. Yeah. Everyone's okay, but we're all a little shaken up. Yes. Mhm. Got it." then he clicked a button, and stopped the dialogue.
I crept away from the door, not wanting Bob to see me eavesdropping. I padded through the snow over to my bench, realizing that it was late. All night I thought about the Reactor, and who seemed most likely out of the group to do it. The next morning, Johnny called a meeting on the rarely used emergency meeting button. How it works is amazing. Everyone's suits have built in super magnets, and when the meeting is called, it magnetizes every living thing with that level of magnetism to the seats around the table with the button in the middle. How they got that to work, I haven't the slightest idea.
But, without warning, I was lifted off my feat, and, barely missing corners, flew into one of the seats around the table. Everyone else was sitting tensely, muttering to each other. Johnny straightened himself, clearing his throat.
"My fellow crew mates, I have an announcement to make. As you all know, our Reactors sabotaged yesterday, and I have found why. Someone had purposefully tampered with the wire hatch on the back." Everyone sat in silence, absorbing this statement. Then, Cleo said,
"How do we know it wasn't you?"
"Child, I wouldn't do something like that-"
"But how do we know?" Interrupted Cole. This was one of the few times I'd heard Cole speak. "Well… I just… wouldn't." Johnny stuttered in response.
"So you don't have any proof it wasn't you." Zara chimed in.
"Why would I do that?" Johnny asked, looking offended.
"How should I know?" Zara said.
"Why would anyone do this?" Jacob said.
"Maybe they're just a psycho." My sister said.
"Usually there's a reason." Ted said.
"Wait," I said.
"Hasn't anyone else seen those tunnels all around? Who is making those?" I ask.
"Is that really important now, Zack?" Cleo glared at me.
"It… could be relevant!" I said in my defense. I didn't know why, but those holes were bugging me.
"How could it happen? There doesn't appear to be animal life on the planet!" Johnny said.
"So someone must be manually digging them. But how?" I asked.
"Maybe it was the snow melting weak patches of ground." Jacob theorized.
"Does that sound legitimate?" I said, suspicious.
"Yeah, that's totally likely." Johnny said, looking smug.
"But does it really, though?" I asked, doubtfully.
"Um, yeah, it that's what it is." Johnny said.
"Okay, then… but what about the main order of business, then?" Bob said quietly.
"We have no proof any of us did it," Ted said loudly.
"But some one had to have done it." Johnny said.
"Are we completely sure about this?" Jacob questioned.
"Yes, we are! I'm one hundred percent sure about this!" Johnny shouted.
"Okay, how do we go about figuring this sort of thing out?" My mom asked.
"That's the problem," Johnny interrupted.
"We really don't know each other enough." Everyone sat in silence, thinking.
"Hey… we are in space, yeah?" Bob said.
"What if… I dunno, I feel ridiculous saying this, but what if it's like… not one of us?"
"Sorry, Bob, but your idea is flawed. No unusual life detected on scanners, and it would usually have to be smart in order to do something like this." Johnny sniffed.
"What if it's an… alien?" Donny wondered, ignoring Johnny, who was becoming increasingly annoyed.
"That isn't possible." Johnny said.
"Hey! Nothing is getting done here!" My dad shouted.
"We called the meeting to talk, not to yell and dismiss each other's ideas!" My mom chimed in.
"But the point is that there's no way to determine who did it!" Cleo shouted.
"Well…. That's not entirely true…" Johnny mutters.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Ted asks.
"I mean, we could ask where everyone was at the time of the meltdown." Johnny says.
"But everyone was in the office." Cole says.
"I think that since this person is smart enough to sabotage the Reactor, I think they came up with a remote control sort of device." Johnny says.
"That's kind of a stretch, don't you think?" Bob asked.
"I mean, it kinda matches up." I say. "But how would they come up with a device like that?" Cleo said.
"Well, suppose they aren't-" Bob was interrupted by Johnny.
"No Aliens." Johnny said
"All right, calm down. So, someone got this highly powerful technology. How?" My sister asked.
"How the hell should I know?" Johnny said.
"So, basically what you're saying is that we have no idea whatsoever about who it is, or how they're here." Zara said.
"Well, I don't see you trying to help at all!" Johnny said loudly.
"So, what is the plan of action?" Darwin tittered.
"Be suspicious of everyone you see. Any activity at all, report it immanently." My dad announced.
"At least we know there is a common enemy." Jacob said.
"Well, I'm still wondering why all these holes are here." I said. Johnny had reached his point with us. I had never honestly seen him like this
"Why do you care about the holes!?"" He shouted at me.
"Hey, calm down, Johnny!" My dad yelled. Everyone looked at each other, surprised. Johnny had never gone off like that before. "Ted leaned over towards me, and very quietly, whispered,
"Wow… he's scary when he's angry."
"Yeah, he is." I agreed.
"So… meeting adjourned." My dad said limply. Johnny left in a huff, storming out the door. Everyone followed him sometime later, the nuggets of information we had learned churning in our minds. Someone… was among us. And now it was up to us to find out who it was.
It was late nigh when we heard Johnny yelling.
"I've found out a way to condemn the poor soul who sabotaged the Reactor!" He yelled, running to the meeting room. When we were all seated, he began talking.
"So, you all know about that lava pit? Well, I made a system to get rid of them when we find out who it is."
"What is it?" Donny asked.
"We throw them into the lava pit with an automatic claw! Isn't that perfect?" He said. Everyone was silent, until Cleo spoke up.
"What? That's madness!"
"Isn't it madness to sabotage a Reactor and kill us all?" Johnny said.
"Well, that's… true, I suppose." Cleo stammered.
"I have come to terms with what we are dealing with… Bob, you were right. I found some strange dark blood near a crater, and I analyzed it. It came back as an unknown substance," Johnny bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Bob. And I'm sorry to you too, Zack."
"Oh, well… thanks." I was surprised to get an apology. But I knew that those craters had something to do with this.
"W-why are you apologizing to me, Johnny?" Bob asked.
"Well, Bob, you were right. It is an alien substance." Johnny said.
"Hold up, back it up… are you saying there's an alien here?" Cleo's eye's were full of panic.
"Calm down, Cleo. It might not be-" Bob was imminently interrupted by Zara.
"It's an alien!?" Zara shrieked.
"Stay calm-" Cleo shouted over my dad, in full riot mode.
"We need to leave somehow! This is insane! How do we leave this stupid planet!?" Zara yelled.
"We don't know-"
"Actually Paul, it is likely some sort of alien creature." Johnny cut my dad off.
"How do we kill it!?" Cleo shouted.
"Don't worry, I narrowed down where it is." Johnny said proudly.
"Oh, thank god, Johnny. Where is it?" My sister asked hopefully.
"It's in one of us." Johnny said calmly. This was obviously not what Cleo and Zara had wanted to hear.
"In one of us?" Zara asked.
"It is a small, parasitic alien that can change and contort the body." Johnny said.
"It's likely that all theses holes that Zack had seen are it's way of getting around without being seen." "So you mean that is crawled into one of us and now we have to find out who!?" Zara yelled. "Exactly." Johnny said solemnly. For the third day in a row, everyone sat there, thinking about our future and where our trust lies in each other. "And once we find out who it is, we can chuck them into the lave pit." Ted said, finishing Johnny's monologue.
"The bad side is that now that's in one of us, it's appetite will increase, and I'm almost certain it will need more proteins and carbs." Johnny said.
"Well, we don't really have any meat around us." Jacob said.
"Oh, but we do." Johnny replied instantly, almost as if he was waiting for someone to say those exact words.
"We are meat."Johnny said grimly. My stomach just about plummeted to the floor.
"It will likely start separating us and feeding on us." Johnny said.
"So, as we said before, if you see anything suspicious, don't hesitate. If someone says something strange or tries to lure away from the main area, report it!" My dad said.
"We need to trust each other."
"That's hard to do when one of us is a fake." Zara spits.
"Meeting adjourned!" Johnny said, and the meeting ended. At that point I was ready to go back home. I didn't want to come here, but I did, and now I pay the price.
It was seemingly extra cold the next morning, or maybe I was shivering from the previous nights drama. I still found all of this hard to digest. But Johnny did seem to fit some pieces together. I was thinking about reporting Zara and Cleo's previous activity from a while ago, but I relieved that was way before any of this, so I decided not to. It was weird hanging around in the office after you finished all of your tasks. The air was thick with tension, and it was always eerily quiet. No one wanted to talk to each other, or even look at each other. We didn't know who to trust, let alone who to talk to. It was like a never ending merry go round of suspicion, always going in circles, no one trusting each other. It was such a horrible experience. I tried to stay away from everyone. What if that alien thing had crawled inside of one of the members of my family? I couldn't trust a single person. Walking through long narrow hallways felt like waling through well placed deathtraps. Being alone was scary, but being with others was just as bad. If the group was together, it was all of us together.