Disclaimer: This fanfiction is not affiliated with Among Us or Innersloth LLC and is not endorsed or otherwise sponsored by Innersloth LLC. Portions of the materials contained herein are property of Innersloth LLC. � Innersloth LLC.
Meeting after meeting, ejection after ejection, the crewmates' numbers dwindle, and still one Impostor remains. Detached from the frantic finger-pointing, Black shares with Banana her true thoughts.
Perhaps the real enemy has been hiding in plain sight all along.
This story is also available on AO3.
Banana looked like he couldn't breathe. Black's attempt at a comforting nod, from the other side of the table, only made him shrivel even more; she let out a discreet sigh, saddened, and looked over the assembled crewmates –eight people, including herself, sent to man the Polus outpost: seven crewmates, one Impostor. Fear, resentment and suspicion filled the meeting room like a thick haze. Especially suspicion.
Orange glared at Maroon and groaned without bothering to hide his irritation. "Why the meeting? Nobody's even died yet. I was almost done with my download, now I'll have to start again from scratch!"
Green crossed his arms and let out a suspicious snort. "Or you're the Impostor and you hoped to get kills before we have a chance to eject you."
Orange raised his arms in the air. "No deaths, no sabotages. Whoever the Impostor is, if they don't want to kill, fine by me. We can just finish the mission as if they weren't here and happily return home, safe and sound. Maybe HQ made a mistake and there aren't actually any Impostors on Polus."
At these words, Black ran her gaze over the assembled crew members, one after the other. As she focused on him, Banana felt a cold shiver run down his spine. Then she turned her eyes to the next crewmate, and his heart resumed beating.
"That never happens," Maroon snapped. "And tasks aren't being done fast enough to risk it. I was going to accuse Coral," –she illustrated her words with an angry finger pointed at the other woman, who jumped and stiffened until Maroon lowered her hand and whipped her head back to Orange– "but now I think it's you."
"Hey!" he bristled. "If anything, I may well be the only one doing my tasks!"
Purple looked Coral up and down. "Why Coral?" she asked Maroon without her eyes leaving the suspected woman.
Maroon answered in a hissing, accusatory tone, "She was chasing me. She's been following me since we left the dropship, like she was looking for a chance to kill me."
The last crewmate at the table, Tan, nodded thoughtfully and peered at Coral.
"I just wanted to stay with someone to feel safer," she tried defending herself.
Orange raised his hands and groaned with annoyance. "Look, you want to be sure? Let's just vote her and return to work. I don't want to spend any longer on Polus than strictly necessary to do our job."
"No, please!" she gasped, jolted by the suggestion. "I'm innocent! Maroon, I'm sorry, I won't follow you anymore if you don't want me to!"
But Maroon's attention had focused on Orange again. "Wouldn't it be convenient for the Impostor if we did their dirty job for them by ejecting an innocent? The more you speak, the more I'm convinced it's you. Maybe we should eject you, Orange."
"You're right, that's awfully suspicious," Tan agreed.
Green approved with a vigorous nod, joined by Coral, more shakily.
"What!? It must be Maroon, she's accusing me for no reason!" Orange retorted.
Sighing, Black finally spoke. "We should skip instead of condemning random people to death just because we're scared." In response to Maroon's suspicious glare, she shook her head with another sigh. "Like you said, if I were the Impostor, I'd be looking for a free kill and piling onto your accusations. I'm trying to avoid a needless death here."
"Well I for one don't intend to wait to be murdered without doing anything," Maroon retorted.
She cast her vote, immediately followed by Orange, then Green, Coral and the others, and finally Black. As the results appeared, Black groaned to herself: Orange had caught five votes, two people had skipped, and Maroon had received one vote.
Orange struggled, protested and begged as the crowd dragged him to the lava pit and pushed him unceremoniously into the inferno.
A shroud of silence fell upon the crewmates when they checked the verdict on their tablets.
Orange hadn't been the Impostor.
Black caught up with Banana on his way to oxygen. She called out to him quietly to catch his attention without spooking him; he turned around and looked at her with an interrogative stance, leaving her the initiative of speaking.
"Mobs are even scarier than Impostors, aren't they?" she asked with an attempt at humour tainted with sourness. Seeing him shrug noncommittally and prepare to walk away, she went on, "I noticed how terrified you were when Maroon called the meeting. We could stick together; it's always better to have someone who can vouch for you."
His reluctance, as he pondered his options in silence, prompted her to offer a way out by adding, "You seemed more afraid of the votes than the Impostor, but I understand if you don't trust me even after I wanted to save Orange."
This caught his full attention. He turned to face Black fully and tilted his head to the side. "How would you know I'm not the Impostor? I mean, I am not," he immediately stressed, "but why would you trust me with no information?"
"Even if you are…" She made a vague jaded gesture. "What happens happens. Honestly? I'd rather die to an Impostor than to the mindless fear of my own fellow crewmates." She added in a tone of connivance, "Plus, someone's watching cams."
He followed her gaze, stared at the blinking light for a second, and finally relented. "I guess it doesn't hurt."
He walked with her into oxygen, then as she went to the canisters, he stayed behind at the garbage chute.
After a brief moment of silence, she spoke loud enough to catch his attention from the small room: "Are you still here? Banana?"
His response came from the tree area. "Yeah, just taking care of the tree."
"With how paranoid everyone is, we shouldn't stray too far from each other. I doubt we've seen the last ejection." She groaned with disgust. "Being thrown into lava is really a horrific way to die. Nobody deserves that. They were all so quick to eject Orange, and I bet they don't even see themselves as murderers."
He came to the entrance of the canisters room to watch her. "It's the procedure on Polus."
"The procedure allows to skip," she countered. She took a breath as if about to add something, hesitated, and simply glanced to Banana. "Even discounting the Impostor, that's still three crewmates who voted out one of their own. The least they could do is acknowledge they killed him. If anything, they should worry that's one fewer crewmate for the Impostor to kill! But no, they only care when fingers point to themselves."
"That's… an unusual take," he commented slowly.
Black let out a humourless laugh. "Am I wrong, though? The truth is we're all murderers."
Before Banana could answer, the alert for a new emergency meeting froze him to the core.
"Hey, it's alright," Black encouraged him gently. "We were together the entire time. We can clear each other if they found a body."
He shook his head. "They're probably going to accuse someone out of the blue again."
This time, it was Tan who had called a meeting.
"Coral, how did you go from office to lab? Are you an engineer?" he demanded as soon as everyone had gathered around the meeting table.
"… I just walked there? And no, I'm not," she answered, sounding confused.
"That was too quick. I think she vented!" Ignoring her immediate protestation, he turned to Maroon. "You were right to suspect her."
Maroon crossed her arms with a resounding "Ha!" and glowered at Coral.
On the verge of tears, Coral shook her head with insistence. "He's lying! I didn't vent!"
"She sounds sincere," Purple mused. "Even if Tan isn't lying, he may be wrong."
Black, again, peered at all the remaining crew members in turn –Banana flinched under her gaze, albeit not as strongly as in the previous meeting. After a second of reflection, she asked, "Who was on cams?"
"Me," Green answered. "I only saw Coral on download in office and Tan go to lab; I left security when Purple came into electrical."
Tan puffed out his chest. "Well, can anyone confirm Coral walked to lab?" His tone dripped with smugness.
As everyone shook their head, Black insisted, "Can anyone confirm she did not? Not you, Tan," she added before he had time to argue. "I don't think you're lying but I agree with Purple, your timing could simply be off."
The lack of positive answer from the others didn't surprise her. She pressed the matter: "We already killed Orange, can we please skip until with have more solid proof?"
"It is solid," Tan snapped. "I know what I'm saying. And if it isn't her, you can vote me out, that's how sure I am!" Without a further word, he cast his vote angrily.
Soon enough, everyone else followed suit, and the results were revealed. Three people had skipped; unfortunately for Coral, it wasn't enough to counter the four votes she had received.
After she had disappeared into the incandescent lava, the tablets displayed their conclusion mercilessly: the votes had, again, condemned a loyal crewmate.
The remaining crew didn't bother hiding their hostility to Tan, and scuttled away with fearful glances behind their backs. Avoiding everyone's gaze, he staggered towards the other side of the compound, as far away from the reminder of his tragic –and suicidal– error as he could.
Black muttered under her breath. She glanced to Banana, thoughtful, then joined him. This time, he walked by her side readily as they returned to oxygen. Once she'd finished filling the canisters wordlessly, they left the building again.
Banana finally broke the silence. "Regarding what you said earlier, you don't have to feel guilty about Coral. Her ejection isn't on you," he tried comfortingly. "If anyone's to blame, it's Tan. You tried to convince people to skip."
She let out a half-sigh, half-groan. "I'm more angry." She looked to him to add, "Especially at MIRA."
He stopped to stare at her. "How so?"
"They pay lip service to protecting their crews, but the truth is they don't care how many get murdered or ejected," she replied with an a gesture of irritation. Banana's lack of protest encouraged her to continue, "We're just anonymous cogs in their money-making machine. Interchangeable, and expendable. As long as the survivors finish the job, it's all the same to them."
As she finished, he finally tensed, looking into the darkened distance further away. "People might hear you," he stressed in a lowered voice, "and find it suspicious."
She shook her head bitterly. "And isn't it just convenient." She deflated, coming a step closer. "Sorry. I don't mean to put you into even more danger. I know how terrified you are of the meetings."
She became silent when Maroon came into view and cast them a distrustful look. Black and Banana watched the other woman walk past, and only returned their attention to each other once she'd disappeared into oxygen.
"We should check vitals," Black suggested.
Banana shrugged. "Why not."
Chuckling at his lack of enthusiasm, she led the way back towards office. "You never know, the Impostor might have finally started killing even if the crew's doing a great job at eliminating one another on their own." Her quickening pace betrayed her pent-up anger as she returned to the previous topic, cautious to keep her voice down this time: "Seriously, though, MIRA's very policies encourage people to vote out innocents rather than risk letting an Impostor live. They could implement more effective prevention measures, like forcing everyone to medscan at the beginning of the mission. Or they could harden their computers to stop Impostors from accessing the systems altogether, instead of merely counting how many unauthorised access there are."
He tilted his head doubtfully. "The Impostors would just fight harder. They'd find a way to counter the measures."
"Sure," she admitted, "but my point is MIRA doesn't even try. They just let the crews deal with the situation on their own."
"They save money at our expense…"
"It's even worse than that. The situation suits them," Black corrected darkly.
Before he could ask her to elaborate, Purple pressed the emergency button.
"Any last words, Tan?" Purple hissed the moment all the remaining crewmates had joined the meeting.
Green nodded so hard he almost shook, and Maroon crossed her arms and puffed contemptuously. Tan, his laboured breaths echoing in the room, seemed on the verge of fainting. He tried to speak a few times, only managing to produce incoherent sounds.
"No defence? You thought we would just let it slide?" Green sneered.
Black pressed her palms flat on the table to try to calm her growing irritation. "Look, he made a mistake. Yes, he was particularly arrogant about it and yes, Coral died as a result, but ejecting him now won't bring her back. Chances are he isn't even the Impostor, just a mistaken crewmate."
"Then who is it?" Maroon retorted. "Because unless you have a better lead, it's all we have. I'm starting to think you're suspicious, Black!"
"She's been with me the entire time," Banana interjected. "She had ample opportunity to kill me, or me her."
"True," Maroon admitted, "I passed the two of you outside O[2]." She turned back to Black. "But please stop derailing the meetings. We need to figure out who the Impostor is before they kill us all. If Tan's innocent, he sure failed to show it."
"Not to forget he could've been using reverse psychology as the Impostor," Purple agreed. "Hard-accuse Coral and put his life in the balance, then plead an honest mistake, count on us not going through with the 50-50, and get away with a free kill. It's safer to eject him."
"Please," Tan croaked, "I'm not the Impostor… I'm sorry about Coral, I swear I really thought she'd vented…"
Green breathed in loudly through his nose. "Well, we'll soon know for sure. If you truly are one of us, you must understand we have no choice but to protect ourselves. You'd do the same in our place. You did with Coral."
He pressed his finger on the voting screen, immediately followed by Maroon and Purple with approving nods. Tan then voted with a shaking hand, then Banana, and finally Black.
The results soon appeared on the tablets: only two people had skipped, four had condemned Tan.
He didn't struggle when they brought him to his death at the lava pit; the fight had already left him the moment he'd seen the conclusion of Coral's ejection.
Of course, he wasn't the Impostor either.
Banana stayed with Black in the meeting room after the others had left. For a minute, he watched her stand there motionless; then, as she finally acknowledged his presence, he asked the question that had nagged at the back of his mind during the whole meeting: "What did you mean, the situation suits MIRA? I understand they're negligent, but to say they actively benefit from the attacks…" He gave her a quizzical look, more perplexed than offended at the suggestion.
Black held his gaze for a moment, nodding her head slightly, before answering. "They don't just fail to take effective measures to protect their employees. Take a step back and think about how messed up the whole voting and ejection system really is."
He tilted his head in partial agreement. "It's cold, that's for sure. What makes you think there's more to it than yet another attempt to lower costs?"
"For starters, it effectively stops crewmates and Impostors from finding a compromise and negotiating a semi-peaceful outcome. And that's not all; I'm confident it isn't only about widening the wedge between the two groups, either. It's also, and perhaps mostly, about stopping MIRA's own people from opening up to one another."
He stayed quiet as he reflected about it. She led him to the office and motioned angrily at the See something, say something poster. "Everything's designed to stoke up paranoia. They want to sow distrust among the crew. 'Don't forget, any one of your coworkers could be an Impostor. Nobody can be trusted. Keep an eye out for non-conformance'," she mock-quoted. Seeing him nod in understanding, she went on, "People who fail to tow the line become immediately suspicious, so are at risk of getting ejected. It scares dissenters into keeping quiet."
"But not you." There was an underlying interrogation in his affirmation.
She shrugged. "I don't have anything to lose. Or I have too much, depending how you look at it. Staying silent means letting them get away with it. If speaking up has the slightest chance of changing things… I have to try. Because if I don't, who will?"
She strode out under the blinking eye of the camera, and walked to the edge of the plank to stare at the molten lava below. Too many people had died to it already, and for what? She had to try to find allies, whatever the risk. Better to go down fighting the system than die pointlessly.
Banana followed in silence, all his attention focused on her. "Why do they do it?" he finally asked. "What's the point of driving their own people apart?"
She returned to the rocky ground, sighing, "It has all the benefits and very few drawbacks. Sure, disunion, on top of the Impostor attacks themselves, slows down the work; but MIRA just sends more crews to make up for it. The wages and what little compensation the families of the dead receive is more than made up for by all the gains from space exploitation."
Banana, eager to put distance between himself and the lava pit, started walking towards the laboratory; Black immediately realised his discomfort and strode to his side. She was, however, surprised when he completely changed the subject: "My next task is to repair the drill; where's yours?"
Pushing her confusion away, she checked her tablet. "Telescope." Not that she was truly eager for tasks to be done and MIRA to reap the benefits from another successful mission. Someone was still watching cameras: at least, whoever it was wasn't working.
Black flinched as Green suddenly came into view, striding out of the laboratory towards office; Purple soon followed, but walked in the direction of electrical.
Banana's eyes followed the two of them in turn and, after they were both gone, he relaxed again. "What do you believe MIRA's endgame is with all this?" he asked Black.
She didn't even hesitate before giving her answer: "Keeping the little people under their thumb. The more crewmates fear Impostors and one another, the more they turn to MIRA for protection and stop looking too closely at their work conditions. Not to mention systemic change requires united action; isolated individuals are helpless against such a big corporation."
Banana walked into the drill cage, but stopped before reaching the equipment to turn towards Black, tapping idly on his arm with his fingers. "If you're right… it means Impostors are unknowingly playing MIRA's hand."
"Exactly," she sighed. "Impostors believe they're hurting MIRA but really, they're just pushing the crewmates deeper and deeper into its embrace. The more Impostors kill and destroy ships and outposts, the more the crewmates are afraid. And the more the crewmates are afraid, the more they concentrate on identifying and eliminating Impostors. And the omnipresent distrust stops them from organising against MIRA."
"Could things truly be different? Is there any hope of breaking this vicious circle?" Despite the weakness of his voice, hesitant hope filtered through.
She deflated. "I don't know. I wish both camps understood playing the roles that are expected of us only serves to reinforce MIRA's hold. Impostors attack crewmates, crewmates eject whoever they suspect of being an Impostor. People on both sides die, and MIRA stays in power."
The blaring of another emergency meeting, again, interrupted their discussion.
"Purple faked a task," Green announced.
The target of his accusation threw her hands in the air. "What are you on about? I just launched the sample analysis in medbay."
"You spent way too long on it."
"Because you were standing there doing nothing and I got scared!" Purple justified. "I kept turning back to check what you were doing, then I messed up and had to start again from scratch."
"So you say." Green crossed his arms and turned to Maroon, Banana and Black. "That's not all: I've followed her since the last meeting, and before faking the task, she's been running around without doing anything. First she entered comms but left immediately to go to oxygen, she did a lap around the central wall and went back to admin, then she passed through specimen, and dashed all the way to lab. All that time, she didn't stop to do a single task; she only stopped at the samples in medbay, where she spent three times as long as it should've taken."
Purple quivered in indignant fear. "Of course I ran, you were chasing me! I was trying to shake you off!"
Green whipped his head back towards her. "I was watching you. At first I just happened to have a task in comms, but I saw you leave without having done anything. So I followed you, and saw you wander aimlessly. Undoubtedly, looking for a good kill."
Black wished she could rub her temples to ease the headache coming up. She tried, once more, to cool down heads: "Wouldn't she have killed you if she were the Impostor? Specimen, especially the hallways, would have been a perfect spot."
"Not if she realised I'd spotted the two of them together on cams," Maroon spoke. "I did see Green follow Purple to oxygen and back. Then at the end, when he left lab and passed you and Banana on his way to the button, she was the one hot on his heels. She broke off to come towards me," she added, giving Green a thankful nod. "This meeting may well have saved my life."
"I wasn't going to kill you!" Purple tried to defend herself. "I don't have weapons, I'm not the Impostor! I wanted to ask you for help because Green kept following me!"
Maroon lifted her chin suspiciously. "Why not call a button?"
"I wasn't sure!" Tears of desperation filtered in Purple's voice. "I just wanted to ask you to come with me while I did my tasks."
"To kill one of us and blame the other, no doubt," Green hissed. He waved a hand towards Black and Banana. "Those two have spent all their time together, all you needed was to kill Maroon or me, report the body and hard accuse the survivor."
"No! No! I sought protection so I wouldn't die!"
"I don't believe a single word. Good bye, Impostor." He clicked a trembling finger on his tablet.
Quietly sobbing, Purple shook her head and sought support with the other three crew members at the table. "Please, I'm innocent! Green was the one acting suspiciously the whole time!"
She voted in turn, soon followed by Maroon and Black. Banana's hand hovered above his tablet, and he looked at Purple, then Black, then Green and Maroon, then Purple again.
Maroon finally groaned with irritation. "Banana, just vote already."
He hesitated and rubbed his fingers together as if the tension made them itch.
He turned his eyes back to Black, who shrugged noncommittally and answered in an encouraging voice, "Do what you think you have to, Banana. It's all any of us can do."
"Vote Purple," Green demanded, at the same time as Purple pleaded, "Green." She insisted, "His accusation makes no sense, he has to know it's a lie!"
Banana looked down at his tablet, still not touching the screen. He lowered his hand almost to contact, changed his mind, raised his hand away, eyed the four surviving crew members beside him again, lowered his gaze back to the tablet.
He was still holding his hand in the air when the timer expired. Two votes had landed on Purple, one on Green, and one person had skipped. Maroon and Green were practically running as they dragged the panicking Purple to her death.
When the results revealed that she, too, had been a crewmate, a loud whimper escaped Maroon's lips, and Green jerked his head around at the three others in turn.
Black didn't have to wait long before she and Banana remained alone in the meeting room. She looked to him, her head tilted to the side. "You didn't vote," she commented softly.
He averted his gaze. "I could've saved Purple if I'd skipped. I'm sorry. I just… I hesitated too long."
She shook her head. "Her death isn't on you. Green and Maroon have been the most vocal about ejecting people from the beginning of this mission."
"They're scared. They don't want to die, and they're doing what they think is right. Not to excuse them, but I understand."
"I know. But still." She sighed. "Let's go to specimen, hopefully we can talk without getting disturbed." Until someone called an emergency meeting to throw yet another baseless accusation, no doubt. If the situation arose, she wondered whether Banana would actively skip to save her.
Once they'd gone through decontamination and were out of earshot in the specimen hallway, Black returned to their discussion. "Both from an ethical and a practical standpoint, Impostors are attacking the wrong targets. But that's not to say their motives are wrong. In fact, they have very valid reasons to hate humanity."
Banana stopped in his tracks to peer at her. "You think so?"
"Oh, yes." She invited him to resume their way. "That's yet another argument against the murders: the induced fear and hatred stop MIRA's crewmates from looking honestly at their own actions. Though in fairness, most people would need to be hit in the face with the truth to give up their wilful ignorance."
Arriving in the specimen room, Banana paused in front of the live samples. Black walked to his side, and for a few moments, observed them with him.
"How destructive humanity can be should be obvious when you look beyond the surface," she finally spoke again. "Earth's history is full of one group of people enslaving or otherwise exploiting another, and of civilisations consuming to death the environment that sustains them. For a species who prides themselves with being more intelligent and compassionate than any other, humans sure act short-sighted and selfish."
Banana tore his gaze away from the samples to stare at her, disbelief in his tone: "You're speaking as if you weren't one."
Black chuckled mirthlessly. "Tell me about it. Story of my life." She shook her head with a sigh. "You know I'm right, though."
She strode to the specimen box; instead of storing them into their slot, she took the translucent crystal rod and watched it glitter in the dim light. "Human empires have always dispossessed the less powerful peoples they came into contact with, and MIRA's no exception. These artefacts belong to the Impostors, not to a private company on Earth. Even from a historical point of view, there'd be so much to learn, but no, all MIRA's interested in is profitable practical applications of a long-lost technology."
Banana watched her put the rod back on the table with respectful movements. "A long-lost technology from the civilisation that almost destroyed Polus," he said in a toneless voice.
"Hm-hm," she nodded. "And people wonder why the Impostors would do anything to stop the pillage. Humans are really bad at predicting the consequences of their own actions. Which was already apparent in the sorry state of the Earth. Have you ever been to MIRA HQ?"
As he shook his head in a negative answer, she explained, "They built a tower to reach above the cloud cover so they wouldn't see the ravaged earth below. And as if it weren't in a bad shape enough, they actively make it worse. Here, garbage is dropped into the lava; it isn't too bad, the lava's already full of toxic elements anyway. There, garbage is dumped down to the ground." She groaned. "And it's arguably even worse on ships, with garbage just thrown out of the airlock. It floats in the void until it falls into the gravity well of some random planet. Give it enough time and pieces of human trash will be found in the entire galaxy."
Banana snorted a disgusted laugh. "Not a future I want to see," he agreed.
"You know the saddest part? It isn't a future the vast majority of crewmates would want to see, either. Same goes with plundering Impostor artefacts from a destructive era: most wouldn't accept to be used by MIRA as an invasion force, if they realised that's what's happening, and most wouldn't want potentially dangerous technology to be studied behind closed doors."
And then, for the second time, Green called an emergency meeting.
"So, I thought about it," Green began. He gave Black a pointed look before turning to Maroon and Banana. "I was wondering why there'd been no deaths, and I think I know why. Banana said it couldn't be Black, or she would've killed him, right? But everyone knows they've spent the entire time together. She couldn't kill him, or she'd be the prime suspect. But how did she know in all the meetings the people we accused were innocent?" He glowered at Black. "Easy: because it's her. Has to be."
As Maroon's eyes turned to Black, who prepared to defend herself, Banana interrupted her train of thought: "Black isn't the Impostor." Far from his fear in early meetings, he sat straight and projected his voice assertively. "Why even would an Impostor defend crewmates when they can simply stay silent and let them get voted out at no cost to themself?"
"To appear more innocent while–" Green began, immediately cut out short by Banana.
"An Impostor wouldn't take the risk we'd skip, especially when letting ejections happen works so well they don't have to kill anyone. They'd go with the flow to avoid attracting attention. If there's one person here I trust, it's Black. Plus, I've seen her do do tasks. What tasks have you done, Green?" He shook his head with a sarcastic laugh. "Going straight to cameras when we'd just arrived? And then following Purple only to accuse her of doing nothing? Don't you have any work to do?"
Green jumped, shaken that the accusation had now turned back to him.
Banana whipped his head to Maroon: "Think about it, what makes more sense for an Impostor? To argue for skipping votes, or to push to eject people they know are crewmates, one after another? Have you seen Green do a single task? Black and I sure haven't."
The argument seemed to hit home, and Maroon glared at Green. "You were chasing Purple, and then you lied that she faked a task."
As his fear and frustration turned to anger, he clenched his fists. "I was trying to keep us all safe! I've done nothing but try to identify and eliminate the Impostor! Banana, don't be stupid and vote Black with us!" He clicked the voting icon on his tablet to emphasise his words.
"And wouldn't you want to eject yet another innocent," Banana retorted.
Maroon nodded in agreement. "Green's been suspicious, and you're vouching for Black." She voted in turn.
Banana turned to Black. "Black, I know you want to skip, but vote Green. Please." He finished in a soft, almost imploring tone.
Black looked to him for a second. If Maroon had voted her after all, splitting their votes would leave Banana alone with the two crew members most intent on ejecting their peers. Green also had everyone else's deaths on his conscience. Or he should, if he had any lick of self-awareness.
Black sighed, and cast her vote, followed by Banana.
It turned out Maroon had voted Green after all: he'd received three votes, and Black only one.
He argued and tried to resist as Maroon, Banana and Black dragged him to the lava pit. Just before plummeting to his terrible death, he cried, "When you see I'm crew, you'll know it's Black!"
The result came as a bombshell: Green had, indeed, been a crewmate.
After the meeting, Maroon dashed away. Ignoring her, Banana came closer to Black, stopping just before entering her personal space.
"How are you doing?" he asked quietly.
"I'm not hating myself for ejecting Green, if that's what you're asking." After a brief pause, she added, "Thanks for defending me."
He nodded slowly. "I–" His voice faltered and he looked away. "I trust you. I know you aren't the Impostor." He shook himself out of his unease. "Plus, Green got what he never hesitated to do to others. I wouldn't go as far as to say he deserved it, but he brought it upon himself."
Black sighed. "He never realised how his actions were contributing to the situation he feared so much. In the end, just another life wasted, all to protect MIRA's interests."
They walked out into the open and took a few aimless steps under the snow. There was really no point in pretending to complete tasks now.
Banana broke the silence first: "What do you intend to do, after… this?" The obvious caveat, if you get out alive, loomed over them, unsaid.
She raised her palms upwards helplessly. "I don't know. I mean, I know what I want: I want to stop MIRA. What I don't know is how."
"You could gather like-minded people, tell them everything you told me, start a movement to sabotage MIRA's operations from the inside."
"Eh, not really. It's one thing to see the situation for what it is, another entirely to convince enough people to make a difference. I'm not an orator, nor a leader. I'm just a bitter lonely woman of debatable sanity. I'm too old to fancy leading a revolution."
"You're not that old," he replied, deadpan.
The comment made her laugh, sincerely for once, if briefly. "I can't help but notice you didn't deny the rest. Seriously though, the best I can do is talk to a few people, and hope one of them will believe me and carry the torch if I die."
Banana stopped and faced her fully. "I believe you."
"Thank you…" she murmured, touched. She quickly stashed her vulnerability back away. "At the core, what I really want is for humans and Impostors to put their differences aside and work together for a better future."
"Is it even possible?"
"It should be, if everyone took the time to think. We're in the same boat, whether we know it or not. Most humans are hypocritical, but few would support what's going on when faced with the blunt truth. And while I can't say Impostors are much better than humans–" She interrupted her sentence and spread her arm around at the desolated landscape around them. "I mean, the way their ancestors wrecked Polus dwarfs what humans are doing to the Earth. Humans can still survive on Earth, barely, but Impostors would've gone extinct without their space outposts."
Banana crossed his arms and nodded in silence, head hung down sadly.
Black continued, raising her voice slightly to reach through his thoughts, "But still, they aren't worse, either. The survivors learnt humility and restraint, and sought a more balanced lifestyle until humans intruded on their corner of the galaxy. Even now, they're merely trying to stop MIRA's crews from coming, nothing more. I wish humans recognised that."
Banana looked into the distance thoughtfully. "Hypocrisy and prejudice run deep on both sides, I guess. For Impostors, humans are all violent invaders, and for the crewmates facing them, Impostors are all senseless murderers. In reality, neither of those are true. We'd need to make them both see past the surface."
"Exactly," she sighed. "And in the meantime, MIRA gets the last laugh. As long as nobody questions its power and the system that allowed it to arise, and instead focuses on fearing and hating the designated enemy, nothing will change. And we're condemned to arbitrate between bad options, none of which doing anything to stop this nightmare in the long run." She kicked a rock despondently, eyes on the ground.
Banana chuckled mirthlessly. "Now I'm imagining the crew sitting around the meeting table, not to decide who to condemn to a terrible death, but how to counter MIRA together."
Black barked a brief laugh. "I wish. Not that Maroon would listen, especially not at this point." She shook her head bitterly, and, after a second of silence, straightened up. "Speaking of Maroon… Come, I'll call a meeting. It's time to finish this."
"I'm very sorry Maroon, you have to go," Black began.
Banana cocked his head to the side and tapped his fingertips on the table hesitantly. "Are you sure you want to do this? We can still skip the vote."
She slumped in resignation. "What other choice do we have? We have to end this senseless charade, don't we? And like Green, Maroon was one of the most intent on ejecting people. She's murdered too many to be reasoned with."
The accused woman ignored her to plead to Banana: "Open your eyes! Green was right, Black's the Impostor!"
"I know she isn't," he replied curtly. "And like she said, you murdered… everyone." His voice faltered at the end of the sentence, disbelief washing down on him as he took the full measure of the last events. How had they gone from a complement of eight to three survivors, without a single direct kill?
Maroon, far from these considerations, clenched her fists and shot back, full of self-righteous flame, "We were all trying to get rid of the Impostor, to save everyone else! Can't you see? She's been marinating you all this time!"
"No, Black is right. You're the only threat here."
He clicked the vote icon on his tablet, soon followed by Black with a slow nod.
Maroon froze. "You both voted me, didn't you," she said in a toneless voice. She looked down to her own device, and, in a daze, cast her own vote.
For the last time, the results revealed their cold verdict: Maroon had, indeed, caught two votes, against a single one for Black.
Maroon thrashed and yelled as Banana and Black dragged her to the lava pit. As they pushed her from the plank, she shouted a last warning, helpless as it was: "Banana, you're a fool! She'll kill you now she doesn't need you anymore!"
Stiff and silent like a statue, Banana watched Maroon's body disappear into the lava. Yet another crewmate ejected, and one Impostor still on the compound, as their tablets informed them. No point in following procedures anymore, no point in returning to the meeting room. Black had to realise the ugly truth now: the one person she trusted had been the Impostor all along; for all the attention he'd paid to her arguments, he still had coldly killed off the entire crew –even Purple, by abstaining–, and there was nothing Black could do to stop him from finishing her off. While she believed to have found a sympathetic ear, perhaps even a friend, he had lied and manipulated her all along. Victory left Banana feeling empty.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, incapable of looking directly at her. He doubted she'd be so forgiving, now.
But instead of flinching at her impending death, she shook her head and faced the Impostor before her without fear. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry we invade your former planet, I'm sorry we plunder your historical sites, I'm sorry we litter the universe. I'm sorry we scourge everything we touch." She paused before continuing in a lower voice, "Do what you have to."
He raised his head, perplexity replacing the previous guilt. "Do you want to die?"
"Of course not!" she chuckled mirthlessly. "But I understand why. I'd do the same in your place. I only wish there was another way." She closed her eyes and braced herself. "Let's get it over with. Please make it quick."
Time froze as she waited for death.
She wondered whether Banana would spear her through the head. Would she have time to feel pain? Probably not.
Impostors were so fascinating. She wished she could learn how their biology worked. Then again, the only people who saw their maw didn't live to tell the tale.
He'd probably eat her, they always did that to those they killed. She found it strangely comforting to know her body wouldn't go to waste; in a way, it would give her death a purpose.
How long could Impostors go without eating, anyway? Surely he was hungry.
Although, he was probably going to take the dropship and return to his people. Unless he would remain alone with the ghosts of the dead on Polus, waiting for the next crew to start the cycle again?
Speaking of ghosts, did conscience actually survive in some form after death? Or would it finally silence her thoughts?
Wait.
Finding herself still alive after what felt like forever, she opened her eyes. Banana hadn't moved.
Black tilted her head to the side quizzically. "Why?"
Instead of a direct response, he answered with a question: "You already knew it was me when you called a meeting to vote out Maroon, didn't you? How long…?"
Black shrugged. "At first, I just liked that you remained level-headed despite your obvious fear, it was a welcome reprieve from the agitation of the others. Then I started noticing details, like how you closed up when someone approached us, long before I could spot them through the dim lighting. You feared the meetings, yet you were confident they wouldn't find a body. And I suspected you voted for the people who got ejected. But mostly, it was the way you responded to me."
He shook his head, perplexed. "What do you mean?"
"You may not have noticed, I launched verbal probes to find out whether I could trust you." As he was about to argue, she raised a hand to stop him. "I mean trust you with my thoughts. Then the more I spoke, the more you agreed: that's when I knew you were an Impostor. You weren't shocked by what I said, you were shocked I was saying it."
"I even wondered whether you were one of us at some point," he admitted, and his voice sounded softer and more tired than she'd expected. "But I knew it wasn't possible. You didn't make sense."
The comment made her laugh. "Ha. One thing you and my kind have in common." The amusement faded, leaving an uneasy silence in its wake. "Now what?"
"I don't want to kill you. And if you stay behind, MIRA will probably think you're an Impostor and eject you." As she confirmed with a nod, he crossed an arm on his chest and tapped on the other thoughtfully.
After a while, he spoke again: "Perhaps there's another option: you could come with me. Join us, so we can think together of a better way to stop MIRA. You're right, attacking your crews doesn't go anywhere." And it was tragic that innocents died in the crossfire. Probably. Banana still wasn't sure how many of MIRA's minions deserved to live; Black was the exception more than the norm. "I can't promise your safety, we don't normally take prisoners, let alone allies. I can only promise I'll do my best to convince the others to accept you."
Black nodded. "Of course."
"I'll explain what's happened when I contact the extraction team." –Ah, so that was what they did after a successful mission! One of Black's interrogations answered.– "Just so you know, it'll take a few days for them to arrive. We'll have plenty of time to talk freely."
Or to have second thoughts. Black wondered whether the same thought had crossed Banana's mind. Probably: their situation was, as he'd said, unheard of. Whether they'd revert to their people's mutual distrust and killing or make history was uncertain.
As they left the lava pit, a crewmate and an Impostor walking side by side towards a shared future, Black sure hoped for the latter.
THE END
Among Us fanfictions.
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Last update: 18th July 2022.