Chapter Text
Harris got into Sam’s car. Her car was small and had some trash in it, and the outside was black like her suit .
It had been a rough couple of days while the crew and ship were checked for more signs of imposters. There was almost endless questioning of what had happened, and HQ had reason to believe that the crew was lying about Bernard.
It was shocking to say the least, when Bernard revealed himself to be a giant pile of wires. Harris was pretty sure he saw some of the wires that Bernard was supposed to eject into space in his suit. There was an acute feeling of betrayal and fear, that was oddly trumped by hope. Hope that If Bernard could just stay with them, and make it back, he’d be able to stay.
Harris knew that hope was false as soon as he had it. There wasn’t a way that Bernard could stay with them. It was crushing. The happenings in the Skeld began to shift into place in his mind, and he knew Bernard would have killed them if he thought he could get away with it. He wouldn’t have asked to keep the vents a secret. He wouldn’t have taken those wires. He wouldn’t have kept a knife in his suit.
But other things he did didn’t fit into place in the story either. Why did he attack Red? Why didn’t he attack Green while they were alone? Why did he attack Cyan? Why did he give Purple his suit? None of it made sense.
Eventually the HQ came to the conclusion that the crew had become delusional from being in that situation for so long, and had tricked themselves into thinking that Bernard was helping them. It might have made a little bit of sense, that they trusted him so much that they forgot to see him when he was being suspicious. To the crew however, the situation still didn’t make sense with that conclusion, and the HQ decided to ignore that.
When they pointed out that Green was alone with Bernard, HQ pointed out the strange thing he had said about being able to murder her, only unable to because of the meeting. Then the crew recalled him fighting Cyan, the HQ recalled that throwing out Cyan was the only way to keep himself safe, and he let Stella get cut which could have killed her. When Stella argues that Bernard gave her his suit, they argued that he probably locked her in the room to kill her, and she was lucky that the door unlocked in time for her to press the emergency button.
The crew was livid and couldn’t do anything about it. Their minds twisted and not being able to tell fiction from reality, they were sent home with high praise and the promise of an award ceremony for their bravery. After all, it was unheard of for a group of eight newbies, with no captain, to take down three imposters with no deaths to the crew.
Anyone who survived imposter attacks were given medals. The very next day they were called back and the award ceremony commenced, just as promised. Backwards retelling of the crew’s story and all, they were handled medals of bravery from the 3rd quadrant military; Officer Brown actually came out to hand them the awards, she was impressed that they were able to pick out the imposter despite him being cleared and trusted.
Along with the medals, they were evaluated on how well they ran the ship, garnering almost perfect scores from professionals who inspected it. It wasn’t difficult to keep a Skeld in working order, but it was still impressive. Most crews would panic without a captain.
Cadet Joseph Crenshaw (Joey), known as Yellow, and Cadet Stella Bright, known as Purple, were signed on as permanent members of the Skeld. They would be looking for new members along with Captain Luka Riff and First mate Leeya Riff, who were supposed to be on the crew instead of the two imposters.
Cadet Samantha Croft, known as Black, was taken in by the botany department because of her notes on the Skeld’s inadequate O2 system. Cadets Octavia Moyer, known as Blue, and Maurice Chase, known as Orange, were taken in by the investigation and information department, for their deductions on the Skeld. They were the ones who had figured Bernard out, and showed promise according to HQ.
Cadet Yazmin Haines, known as Green, chose to study with the medical department, so that next time she went into space, she would hopefully be a nurse for the military.
As for Cadet Harris Whyte, he was offered a position of first mate on the Mira HQ. A new space craft to be used as a space station for all third quadrant ships to communicate with. To be fair, just about half of the crew was going to be made up of former captains and first mates, however he was offered the position by Captain Reese Bloom, known for their gold suit and flower hat. They had been the only survivor of the Scalloway when it was attacked. It was a high offer that he really couldn’t turn down. He would be second in command after learning about the ship, and would hopefully help prevent incidents like the one on the Skeld from happening.
Of course, he had trepidations about this job, but—
“Harris are you alright?”
Oh right he was in Sam’s car. They were pulling out of the company parking garage now, onto the busy street, people still exiting from the ceremony. A few waved to them, and some waves were given back.
“I guess. It’s a lot to take in still” he responded, and looked out toward the countryside as Sam turned onto the highway.
They were being sent home for a month, to recover. Harris and Sam ended up living about ten minutes away from each other, so Sam offered to drive him. He would’ve had to take the bus otherwise, not something he wanted to do after becoming flash famous for taking out multiple aliens.
“I wish that didn’t happen if I’m being honest. It’s not cool. They’re just going to ignore our story—“
“And we cant do anything about it. He’s dead”.
“Yeah”.
That was the end of that conversation. Harris felt bad for being snappy about it, but he and Bernard had bonded on that trip. He considered the Pink suit his best friend after he had saved Harris’s life.
The crew had been questioned on what the most difficult part of the trip was in the public interview. Blue was left to answer it, in front of that giant crowd of people. She stood in front of the microphone and told a bold faced lie,
“The hardest part by far was figuring out who it was”.
Only one of the imposters was difficult to figure out, it was Bernard. Cyan was taken down easily and then there was Red, who was given up by Bernard.
Figuring out it was Bernard wasn’t the actual problem, no one wanted to throw him out. That was the hardest part of the mission.
The HQ told them that they couldn’t admit to being attached to an imposter in front of so many people, so begrudgingly they didn’t. Blue had to do it, she was good at keeping her cool, and delivered the line with confidence. No one knew she had lied.
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Harris looked toward the purple suit, who he thought it was Purple, but now Purple’s voice came from Pink’s suit. And Pink called herself Stella, then called whoever was in the Purple suit Bernard.
It was a confusing situation. What was more confusing, is that the so-called Bernard raised his hand to vote himself out.
Didn’t Purple’s suit have a massive tear in it from the fight? Why was somebody else wearing it? Wait why was who used to be Pink, presumably Bernard, wearing Purple’s suit? Why did he trade her, he was going to get radiation poisoning! Why did Stella ask them to vote him out?
And in the instant that Bernard raised his hand fully into the air, Harris understood. He didn’t want to understand, his head started pounding, it just couldn’t be possible.
Thick rows of tied together wires sat in Bernards suit, some sticking out. Harris saw some of the tell-tale colors of the wires from the ship in the suit, so he did take them after all.
There was a collective gasp around the group, while Orange and Blue immediately raised their hands. The others were still reeling from the shock, and Yellow had started trembling.
Harris looked around at the others, and saw Green raise her hand slowly.
“Is that... why your feet looked weird on the scanner?”
Bernard’s suit nodded, “Yeah”.
White looked around the table,” were not actually going to vote him off are we? He’s saved our lives!”
Yellow shook his head, raising his hand, “we have to”.
Black looked to White, and back to the group, “there’s totally something wrong with this guys. He’s helped us”.
“Bernard why aren’t you defending yourself? Don’t you want to live?” Harris yelled at the purple suit, he saw the mass of wires wiggle around a bit. It sort of looked as if that was the equivalent of a nervous shuffle.
“I’m not going to. I’d rather go out like this if it’s alright with all of you”, Bernard responded, and Harris couldn’t believe it.
Why? Why?
Why?
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He stepped onto the sidewalk, out of Sam’s car, toward his apartment building. He turned to wave to Sam, who waved back.
“Hey man, don’t go doing anything stupid alright? I’ll see you around”, she said, putting her car back into drive.
“I won’t”, Harris responded softly, and turned to his building, going in.
Up the stairs, get out his keys, unlock the door, and be greeted by a hungry cat, meowing for food. After feeding her he went to get his sewing kit.
Each cadet was taught how to sew among other things, so he had gained some skill and it became a hobby. Just before the trip he had made a little plushie for his niece’s birthday. Since he was going to be on vacation for a month he may as well start on something.
The vacation was going to be a nice little break, he hadn’t been on ships very long but he could already tell it was a dangerous trade. He wanted to take his mind off of it as he looked through a bin of cloth, his mind wondered off to Bernard again.
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Stella, Harris, and Bernard climbed up the ladder into the kitchen, and headed for the safety room. Black had eventually voted for Bernard, but Harris skipped voting, knowing that it didn’t matter what he did. He had already made up his mind about the matter, and felt like he could only talk to Black after this.
Stella opened the door to the ejection chamber, but turned before Bernard could step in and hugged him, which Harris didn’t expect. He could hear her now, she was crying.
“Thank you. You saved my life twice, I won’t forget it”, she sniffled as Bernard hugged her back, and said “yeah no problem”.
Stella looked up to him, “why did you help us?”
Bernard went silent for a minute, and responded “we need human inventions to live. It doesn’t exactly make sense to kill humans when we’ll die out right after”.
Stella nodded her head, but didn’t look satisfied with the answer. Harris places a hand on Stella’s shoulder, “Hey can I have a minute with him?”
“Yeah I’ll be in the cafeteria, bye Bernard...”, and she left, her footsteps almost echoing in the metal ship.
“I just couldn’t kill any of you, even when Red set it up perfectly, I couldn’t let you die”, he said quieter than before, and Harris remembered when Bernard literally took out his teammate to save Harris.
“Why’d you do that?”
“I convinced myself that we were friends I think”, Harris thought back to Bernard passing out during the meeting Blue had called, recalling the words
“I thought I was among friends”.
“We’re friends Bernard”.
Bernard’s helmet looked up to Harris, “Are we?”.
“Yeah I’m your friend. Of course we’re friends”. White kicked the ground, how did he go about this...
“Can I ask something from you?”
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Harris had an idea, since he was going to be on the Mira HQ as something other than a cadet, he was officially allowed to have a hat. Hat was a simpler term, it was really just ‘whatever you can keep on your head’, once he saw two suits with a wet floor sign and flower pot on their heads, that was impressive.
Harris pulled out the pink fabric from his bin, the shade was a little lighter than he wanted it but that was fine, it would do. He also grabbed the old suit that Bernard had inhabited, pulling off the visor. He took a needle and thread and started to sew a tiny space suit.
He was going to make a mini Bernard to put on as his hat. The HQ higher ups would be the only ones able to call him out for it, as no one else knew the meaning the little plushie would have.
Bernard laughed, thinking about stuffing it with wires. He went to his closet and rummaged around, pulling out old wires he hadn’t gotten around to recycling, which was a lot because his closet was a giant mess.
Setting the plushie up, it almost looked like an exact copy, if only it could actually be— wait
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“Are you sure you want to have that?”
“Very, you have no idea how helpful this could be”
“And the suit? You want that too?”
“That one is for a more personal reason honestly”
“Alright if you want, how is it going to be helpful?”
“If I can see the DNA of your bacteria it could be ground breaking Bernard, we’ve never seen an imposter who can make friends! Imposters evolve fast, you may be a new kind”
“I just don’t think it’s a great idea, I could’ve hurt you all still”
“Not wanting to harm anyone doesn’t make you more human it makes you like a stupid lovey dog”
“...fine, but keep it in a baggie, and don’t show it to them until after you’re sure they’ll use it for good”
And Bernard handed him a single wire.
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Harris ran to his room, he had hidden the bag in his suit while the HQ was doing inspections, and he absolutely wasn’t going to give it to them. They obviously had no interest in believing that an imposter could be okay, let alone save a life. Giving it to them would be the fastest firing and imprisonment he’d ever seen, no he wasn’t going to give them the wire.
Harris obtained the bag, running back to his living room where he had been seeing, and shooed his cat away from the Pink doll.
He took the wire out of the bag and put it into the doll, hoping.
A few hours had passed, and nothing had really happened yet, Harris was worried, but knew that the bacteria should be growing. Getting up to make his dinner, he decided that he had to take a break for the night. He had been worrying about the possible outcomes of what he just did for a while and it was starting to get to him.
He shoved a pot onto the stove and threw some canned soup into it to heat it up. Harris took a quick peek back into the living room to make sure nothing had changed, but it had. The doll looked different, like it was better filled. The visor that Harris had cut to fit the doll was shifted too, now facing the door of the apartment rather than the couch. The doll had turned around.
The pot behind Harris began to bubble, and he ran to get it off the stove. Turning back toward the exit of the kitchen he was faced by what was hopefully Bernard. The doll was simple, not really a great recreation of the suit, more of an oval with legs and a visor. He figured that giving it arms might be too much for now.
“Bernard?” Harris asked, afraid of a different answer.
“You said you’d use it for science!”.
“This is science! I’m doctor freaking Frankenstein!”!
“This is stupid is what this is!”
It was a good night.