"So" Pop asked Squee, "what else would you like to do today? We just did chores, and I bet everyone else will be proud once they come back home…"

Even if Squee wasn't quite helping during the chores just now, they still tried the best they could.

"I wanna go outside" the dumb blonde replied. "You know, just to explore the environment. I haven't seen too much of it, aside of our living block and the spaceship, that is."

"Hmm, that doesn't sound like a bad idea. In fact, I think we should indeed go outside."

The two remaining crewmates at the building got up to put their coat and shoes on before heading outside.

The crisp mid-autumn air felt nice to the both of them.

"It's too quiet around here, though" Squee stated.

"Hey" Pop noticed, "it seems like there are apparently several small spaceships belonging to several groups of crewmates?" She pointed at three identical dropships on their respective landing bases, as well as a few empty landing bases that had some oil puddles on them.

"But ours is definitely better than theirs."

"That's absolutely right, my friend."

The two walked past the several other living buildings on the area, and occasionally saw the apparent other crewmates inside of them.

"Do you think we'll ever get to know all of those other groups of crewmates?"

"We could get to know them ourselves if we just barge into their houses."

"Squee, no! I don't think Mack – who is most likely the manager of all of those groups of crewmates – will approve of it if we just randomly barge into those living buildings, and neither will those other groups of crewmates. Who knows what they're like?!"

"Maybe one of these buildings is haaaunted…!"

"Squee, please stop it with your suspicious demeanour, you're giving me the creeps!"

"Sorry, Pop, I didn't know you were cross with me."

"I'm not cross with you, it's just that I'm really not comfortable with the fact when people exaggerate creepiness to such a level. It makes me feel very uneasy, just like discussing sickness in full detail. You know what that's like, right?"

"Yeah, people who are telling that they've thrown up for a million times, that the pails were practically running over, and that the toilets were all clogged up with all of their germ-laden…"

"For the love of God, please stop it!" Pop eventually snapped.

Squee squeaked out of the fright of being yelled at and the speed of their breathing also increased a little.

"Sorry, neighbours! Squee is just a huuuuge dumb blonde who never knows when to stop doing dumb stuff for real!"

The two crewmates were left laughing quite loudly.


Meanwhile, the main spaceship of the Skeld landed at the Mira HQ once again.

Lava, Billy, Yikk, Arnie, Charlie, Navy, Vienna (and their children), Rice, Choco and Nori were present, and all set for a new mission.

All ten of them looked at their pagers in anticipation, hoping to become a regular crewmate. (Except for Lava, that is, as she loved being the impostor.)

Eventually, Billy turned out to be the impostor among everyone else.

Alright then, they thought, you can do this…

Everyone immediately started doing their assigned tasks.

"Yikk, are you sure your knee is not as painful anymore as yesterday?" Arnie asked.

"Yes, Ahnie!" Yikk replied before taking off with some of the other crewmates. "I'll be fine!"

"Very well then!" The former private then did his fuelling task before going into the building itself as well.

"This is quite a nice building to work in" Lava said. "Wish I could be the manager here someday."

"You could've already gotten a chance if the employees here sent you a letter instead" Charlie said with a grin. "Then, none of us would be bothered by one another, huh?"

"Oh, shut up, you butt! It's my life, and I do what I want!"

"You could throw your cigarette leftovers off of the balcony here" Nori said. "It's about a bajillion feet away from solid ground, man!"

Lava grinned heartily at the thought of someone on the 'solid ground' suddenly having a cigarette butt fall onto their head and subsequently getting some of the unhealthy ashes in their hair.

"I should definitely apply here for a job anytime soon… you know, when pigs fly?"

"Well, they can fly now, so go for it." The older twin winked at the snob and stepped onto the scanner in the medical bay.

A few of the others who watched Nori scan still chuckled about his statement.

"Pigs cannot fly" Neri said to Vienna, "right, Mummy?"

"Of course they can't, Neri" the purple crewmate replied, "Nori was only just kidding. He doesn't like Lava too much."

"Oh, neither do I, Mummy" Nika said, "and neither does Yikk, and neither does Pop, and neither does Billy."

Meanwhile, Yikk, Arnie, Charlie and Billy just came out of the decontaminations hall to head to the reactor.

Both Arnie and Charlie had to divert power from the reactor to a different spot, while Yikk quickly unlocked the manifolds with both their speedy fingers and ability to count to 10.

The lime and cyan crewmates soon went through the decontaminations hall again, while the dark green and yellow crewmates were now at the laboratory.

Aside of letting the laboratory accept the diverted power, Arnie also had the task of sorting the samples there.

Billy simply overlooked him over the shoulder, and just as he was almost done, they cold-clocked him hard, sabotaged the lights and jumped into the nearest vent.

"Well then" Arnie's spirit said, as he did his most recent task again. "A bit of a mediocre imposter we have here, huh? Just standing aimlessly before striking a hit onto me."

Lava took care of shooting the asteroids on the balcony, while Navy and Nika downloaded the weather data there. Little did they know that Billy just silently went through the vent there behind their backs, though.

"Oof" the yellow crewmate muttered as they looked around them, "that was quite close." They briefly caught their breath before going into the cafeteria and pretending to fix the wires there.

Rice just departed from the cafeteria after ordering a Florence flask of strange yellow stuff from the vending machine that they needed to bring to the laboratory, and they passed by Nori on their way.

"Ooh" the older twin said, "what's that stuff? Kinda looks like lemonade, but probably isn't."

"It's for the lab" the younger twin replied, as they briefly removed the cork from the flask and took a brief whiff. "And it's not lemonade… and neither is it urine, if you were secretly thinking of that."

"Ew, put that stuff away right now!"

"Alright, alright, I was just teasing you, bro! See you around, aight?"

Choco departed from the office after uploading some data on the computer there, as well as fixing the lights there at the same time. What else could he possibly do when he was the only one around there, after all?

Back in the cafeteria, Billy had their opportunity to make someone unconscious once again. They spied on Nori from the corner with the storage closet, and silently sneaked towards him.

"Wait a second" the crewmate in black said, having heard slight shuffling from behind him, "who's there?"

And just as he looked over his shoulder, the yellow crewmate swiftly hid underneath the closest table.

"Hmm, I was most likely just imagining things…" He grabbed the handle of the garbage chute and pulled it down to empty it.

Once he was done and he was about to head for the admin room, Billy sneaked towards him once again, this time with a few fists in tow.

Choco, who only just happened to pass by, felt that something was clearly wrong with the situation.

"Nori, watch out!" he exclaimed, but he was too late already.

The Latinx punched their crewmate hard, but was in quite the state of shock upon seeing that someone else was nearby. In that state of shock, they swiftly grabbed the nearest megaphone and reported the unconscious body.

An emergency meeting was soon held.

"That was quite fast" Charlie said. "What did you see?"

"I saw Billy punch Nori" Choco said. "Right in front of my eyes. They were most likely blinded by rage."

"What?!" Billy exclaimed at the top of their lungs. "I-it wasn't me, honestly! Please don't hurt me…!"

"Suuure" Lava said in a stoic tone. "So you think Choco did it, huh? I'll have you know that Navy and I saw it all happen from the balcony after only just being done with our last tasks."

The yellow crewmate swallowed hard at the thought of apparently being betrayed while venting on the balcony and thinking that nobody was looking.

"And to think my poor brother was also scanning to prove himself innocent" Rice said. "You could've at least pretended to be innocent!"

"It wasn't the best idea to self-report that unconscious body, Individual Billy" Navy said.

"Or should we say… impostor Billy?" Nika giggled, before bursting out in even more laughter and 'infecting' most of the others with it as well.

"No, no…! I just… uh…" The Latinx's head became as red as perfect cherries, and they hid their face into their hands out of shame. "I only just h-happened to pass by a-a-and I saw someone run f-from it… but I dunno who… it's not me, please!"

"Wiyah, wiyah, pants on fiyah…!" Yikk giggled in a sing-song voice while poking their best friend all over their body quite hard. "Vote Biwwy out, evewyone!"

Soon, everyone grabbed their pagers to vote, and even if Billy skipped their own vote, they were indeed confirmed to be the impostor, and assigned to do tasks elsewhere in the building.

"Good riddance" everyone said here and there.

Navy and Vienna made sure that Nori was on one of the beds at the medical bay, while Choco and Charlie went to look for Arnie to also bring him there.

"Where did you have your tasks?" Choco asked.

"The first few?" Charlie replied. "Well, one of them was at the laboratory, and before Yikk and I left, Arnie and Billy were also there, which means… that Billy punched Arnie and vented from there!" She practically sprinted towards the locker room and the decontaminations hall. "Follow after me, tubby!"

"Hey, don't just 'tubby' me, Zero Suit Samus!"

"The real Zero Suit Samus doesn't have cyan hair highlights and diving goggles like I do!"

The two chuckling crewmates soon found Arnie's unconscious body and brought it to the medical bay at nearly the same pace.


"Hi, Mack" Pop said, "please come in." She led her manager towards the dining table, where Squee also sat.

"Oh, hi Mack" the orange crewmate said, "didn't know you'd come."

"Just thought I'd drop by to see what you guys often do in your free hours" Mack said. "I see you guys did chores this morning… the floor looks so nice. I'm praising the both of you."

"Better praise the rest of us, too." The girly girl went towards the kitchen block. "What would you like to drink?"

"A little coffee wouldn't hurt."

"Alright. Squee, I presume you want orange juice?"

"Yes please!" Squee eagerly answered.

Soon, a cup of coffee, a glass of orange juice and another glass of plain water were brought to the table, and Pop, Squee and Mack continued discussing the topic of free time.

"So just now, we decided to take a little walk around the area, and I secretly already hoped that you wouldn't mind…?"

"Pop, of course I don't!" the manager chuckled, "do whatever pleases you! I bet it was quite nice outside regarding the weather, huh?"

"Sure was. I love the crisp mid-autumn air in my airways, but then again, who doesn't?"

"Did you see any crewmates of the other living blocks on your way, by any chance?"

"We only saw them inside of the buildings, and Squee is very eager to meet them anytime soon, but uh… I guess we can't, as all of the crewmates are very hard workers who often have very little free time on their hands?"

"That's true, but someday, me and the other managers could arrange a big meet-up with all of you. Yes, there are several managers, and I'm the manager of both your group of crewmates and the one next door."

"Why, I never knew that. I thought you were the manager of all of the groups of crewmates."

"That'd be way too much pressure for me." Mack chuckled a little and took a brief sip of his coffee. "No, I have many nice fellow managers who really have the same function as me. Such as, well, managing, of course, but also replacing a crewmate or two on a mission when at least one crewmate gets sick, and arranging a group's personal go-to doctor. Speaking of which, I haven't revealed yours yet, have I now?"

"No, but I have one question about such a person. Are they like the regular everyday doctors that one visits, or are they much more than just that? You know, like a psychologist?"

"That's a very good question, Miss Pop. Yes, they are mostly like the regular everyday doctor that one occasionally visits in their office, but aside of being a doctor of physical stuff, they're also doctors of psychology. And in case of several crewmates being sick, such a person comes to your block to take the best of care of all of them, so that the fellow crewmates who are still feeling well don't have to do that. Oh, and they're all dressed in tan uniforms, rather than in stereotypical white with a red cross or anything else in that way."

"Wow, that's such a weight off of my mind! I, myself, don't quite imagine myself consistently dragging overloaded barf pails around, helping others relieve their organs in bedpans, consistently taking everyone's temperatures at unimaginable spots and such… so our personal doctor does all that for us if we're all sick?"

"That's right. Your personal doctor will be…" Mack got a business card out of one of his chest pockets and handed it to Pop. "Doctor Erin Clarke. She has studied in all of the medical-related courses, and is quite the multifunctional doctor: she can do check-ups, perform surgeries, give therapy and whatnot."

"Wow, that's great! Squee and I aren't the only ones who are supposed to know this, though…" The pink crewmate got up and pinned the business card onto the nearby corkboard. "Anyone among us crewmates should know, right?"

"Very well thought, Miss Pop." The man in fortegreen took a brief glance at the clock above the corkboard, which 'said' that it was 3 p.m. right now. "Well, I better keep going. Thank you for allowing me to come over and have a little talk with the two of you."

"Anytime, Mack. Thank you for keeping us company for a little while. I bet the rest of the crewmates will return home anytime soon as well." The girly girl escorted her manager to the door. "Until we see one another again, have a nice day."

"You guys have a nice day, too."

Pop put the used coffee cup into the dishwasher, sat back at the table and took quite the swig of her water.

"So we do get to meet all of the crewmates next door someday?" Squee asked.

"That's right" their fellow crewmate replied, "but unfortunately, we don't know when."

"That sure is sad. I kind of want to meet them right now."

"Me too, Squee." Pop patted the dumb blonde's shoulder. "I'm kind of curious about who my fellow colour counterpart is. Are they also a person of colour, or not? Are they one of the binary genders, or one of the genders outside of that? How tall are they? All of those questions that I'm already asking myself right now…"

"I wonder if my fellow colour counterpart is someone smart." Squee chuckled about their own statement.

"And seeing as there are a few adapted options and rooms around here, I wonder if any of those other crewmates is in a wheelchair or anything as well?"

"And I wonder if any of the other crewmates also have kids? Then, Navy and Vienna's kids could have a few playmates!"

"That's a nice thought, seeing as those three siblings are often stuck together and are also longing for a few friends out loud lately."

"Now, I hope they meet new friends sooner."

"They surely will, don't worry, mi amigo." Pop grabbed the nearby laptop from one of the shelves and turned it on. "What about a little nature documentary to keep ourselves busy before the rest comes home?"

"Sure thing, why not?" Squee replied with a smile.

The two were soon watching the aforementioned documentary with the well-known zen-sounding narrator who had been quite popular for their many years of narrating several documentaries.