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There were always things breaking in the ship. It's become a part of life, the past few months, to check what needs fixing and divide the tasks during breakfast. It's been getting worse, though.
"I think someone is purposely trying to sabotage the ship. I think we have an imposter among us." Gabriel declares, after they've divided the task list, which grows longer every day. "Everyone look out for people who are acting suspicious." Isack adds on. They've clearly talked about this before.
"Okay, you have your tasks. Disperse." Ollie's been the de facto leader of their group, having previous experience on space ships of a similar calibre of the one they're on right now. One by one, they leave the cafeteria. Kimi trails after Ollie, and they're the first to swipe their cards.
Liam trails in just as they're about to leave, and Kimi stands in the doorway for a little while longer, watching Liam's dark blue suit move about in the admin room. After a moment, though, Liam's done and moves back towards the cafeteria, while Kimi makes his way to the electrical room.
Most of the wiring had been pulled from the plugs and, whether accidental or on purpose, it's a hell to fix. He'll have to go criss-crossing through the ship, fixing wherever it pops up next on his display. It sucks that he's been assigned to do it, but there's not much he can do to change it.
Once all the wires are re-aligned, he leaves electrical, on his way to the Oxygen room. Wires broken there are definitely cause for concern, and he'll have to remember to bring it up come the next meeting. As he walks through storage, he passes Franco, going the opposite way. Kimi keeps walking.
The wires in O2 have been twisted around each other so many times it actually takes him three or four attempts to fix them. Just as he's closing the cabinet door, an emergency meeting is called. He doesn't have time to think about what on earth would anyone call an emergency meeting for , simply focusses on making his way to the centre table in the cafeteria.
Jack's pink space suit is lying on the table, blood pouring out, staining the fabric, dribbling off the edge.
"What--" Kimi barely manages, half-collapsing into his chair. He's known Jack for years and years, they were good friends all that time. He can't possibly be dying.
Ollie shivers, then shakes his head as if to get rid of a thought. "Seven stab wounds. This was done on purpose. By someone here. We need to know alibis."
"Who found him?" Isack asks, clearly barely managing to get the words out. Franco silently raises his hand. "He was in medbay. I walked in and he was lying there, right next to the scanner."
Something there doesn't add up. Franco must've ran like hell if he made it from the storage to the medbay since Kimi saw him. But it's not impossible, either. He brings it up. "I saw Liam scan his card, as well, and me and Ollie were together just after breakfast." He adds on. Gabriel sighs. "Everyone should duo up, I think. We can't do anything with the information we have right now."
And duo up, they do. Gabi and Ollie gravitate towards each other, saying they both have tasks in the east wing of the ship. Isack and Liam leave next, and that leaves Kimi and Franco.
Kimi's still suspicious of Franco, how his story didn't add up ever so slightly, and so he follows close. Very close. Probably too close to comfort, to be honest. He tries his best to verify everything Franco does, listens intently to hear if the garbage chute (with Jack's body in it... he doesn't want to think about that.) really goes.
He looks away from Franco just a moment, to check on his samples in the medbay, and while he's loading them back into the machine, an alarm goes off. The reactor's breaking, and fast.
He loses track of Franco in the mad scramble to fix it, of course. Once he's done catching his breath, he starts searching, to no avail. That is, until a meeting is called. He fears the worst. Hopes for the best, of course, that the imposter has been found with definitive proof and can be disposed off.
No such luck. He's second to the table, only after Gabriel, and where Jack was, barely an hour ago, lies Liam, now. A much less striking image, courtesy of the dark blue suit, but still something that will never leave his mind for the rest of his-- with the way things are going, short-- life.
The single gunshot wound, straight to Liam's heart, shot from the back, gives little argument as to who it may have been. Everyone saw Liam and Isack leave together, Isack behind. It's decided that there's unfortunately only one way to solve it, and that's how they, only four of them left, end up dragging Isack to the garbage chute, despite desperate pleas. "It's not me, it wasn't me, I lost Liam when the reactors went out, I didn't do it, s'il te plait." He keeps repeating it, and he might have a point, but Kimi's not about to say it. Who knows, they might throw him out next.
The garbage chute groans under the weight when Gabriel pulls the lever.
Lunch is a tense affair. The three empty spaces around the table don't do it much better, and after the tasks are re-divided among them, they leave, Ollie and Kimi and Gabriel and Franco, to go opposite ways.
Kimi follows Ollie to the navigation room and, once there, rounds the corner and pulls Ollie close.
"It's not you, is it?" He says, voice barely above a whisper.
"Of course it's not. Would I lie to you?"
Kimi shakes his head. "It's Franco, then. Gabriel would never, he's been too much into solving it. Franco's barely said anything." And he knows he's right. It has to be Franco. It has to be. And so he grabs Ollie's hand and drags him, half-running, all the way back to cafeteria, where he flips open the plexiglass cover, then slams the bright-red button that has "Emergency" written on it in half a dozen languages.
Gabriel and Franco arrive equally out of breath, and have barely sat down before Kimi starts talking. "It's Franco. I don't know why he called that first meeting, about-- about Jack, maybe to avoid suspicion, but then, when the reactor went, I lost him. We were coupled up, remember?" He says, as if the entire thing didn't go down less than 45 minutes ago. "He must've... It was never Isack. It made sense then, but it's Franco. It has to be."
Gabriel gasps, tears welling up in his eyes. He and Isack were close, and he was already never going to forgive himself, Kimi knows this, but certainly not now. If they hadn't acted so hastily... but they were all fearing for their lives, fearing they'd be the next one on that table.
"So? Franco? Any arguments?" Ollie says.
Franco just shrugs. "What can I say?"
For him to use his flirty nature, even in a situation as precarious as this, something his life relies on, is ballsy, Kimi thinks.
"Do you want to explain yourself?" Ollie continues.
"No."
He goes willingly to the garbage chute, seemingly resigned to his fate. When Gabriel pulls the lever again, hands shaking, they all sigh a sigh of relief.
"How do we explain this to HQ? To Isack's parents?" Gabriel asks. Kimi just lowers his head. "Rest first. We need it, I think."
Franco was ejected.