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Your Role is Crewmate: Chapter 3

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Loop 2.0: Ham and Cheese on Rye, Tomatoes, Onions, Extra Pickles, Hold the Mustard

Index: (Chapter 1) / (Chapter 2) / (Chapter 3)

Archive of our Own: (Chapter Link)

Note: This is definitely the time loop that's gonna fix everything. I can feel it in my bone.

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“We are in a time loop,” Purple said. “You and I are in a time loop. There are alien imposters on the ship. They’ve taken over two of the crew. They are going to kill everyone.” Purple’s grip tightened, fingers digging into Red’s stiff shoulder. “And I cannot tell you which two crewmates are the imposters, because I think they change, every time.”

There was a long and horribly sticky moment of silence and nothing, which was a great pocket of prison-bar space for Purple’s brain to rattle and gnaw in, like a caged catmate teased by the wayward hoppings of a clueless free sparrow. And that sparrow was Red right now, with their blank expression, and their single-footed side-step of Purple’s spilling punch puddle, and their gaze drifting to Purple’s hand clenched to their shoulder.

Red took a sip from their own punch cup.

“Woah…” Red said.

“I sound insane, I know. I know,” Purple continued, and their desperation was ill-becoming of a previous debate-club captain. “But Red, if I have ever been serious about anything in my life, I am serious about this. I will do whatever it takes to prove—”

“A time loop?”

“Yes! A time loop. Something is trapping us in—"

“What is my time loop code phrase?”

Purple caught their own half-spilled words in all the ways they did not catch their spilled punch drink. It felt like barely not tripping down the stairs. Red took another sip of punch.

“Your what.”

“My time loop code phrase,” Red asserted. “I have a code phrase which I have never told anyone. In the event some mate comes up to me claiming to be in a time loop that I do not remember, I give them the code phrase. Then, on the next time loop, they tell me the code phrase, which would be impossible for them to know without the prior time loop interaction, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt we are, in fact, in a time loop.”

“You had that ready to go?”

“Do you have any idea how boring it is to pilot the ship all day?” And when Purple did not answer, Red rerailed the conversation. “What is… my time loop code phrase?”

“I don’t have it,” Purple answered with the tone of swatting away a pesky gnat. “This is my first time telling you about the time loop.”

“Hmm. I guess there does need to be an initiating loop,” Red said, index finger resting contemplatively on their chin.

“So do you—”

“Ham and cheese on rye, tomatoes, onions, extra pickles, hold the mustard,” Red declared. And—in the interest of fairness—it was now Purple’s turn to stare in the silence of a missed beat of conversation.

“Is that—”

“I love mustard. I would never pass up the opportunity for mustard on a sandwich. The only reason I would utter that phrase is as the time loop code.”

Purple’s heart rate was ticking back down into something resembling normalcy—not because the danger had passed, but because the situation was stupid now, and stupidity was exhausting.

“Now,” Red continued, “when you find me next loop, you can tell me the code—”

“I’m not trying to find you next loop, Red!” Purple cut in. “I’m trying to not die this loop. I’m serious. We’re in a lot of danger.”

Red was still half-looking at Purple’s hand on their shoulder. Self-consciously, Purple released their grip.

“Aliens?”

“Yes. Two of them. On the ship, right now, disguised as two of our crewmates, and they will kill all of us if we don’t kill them first.”

“Huh. Uh huh,” Red said, and then said nothing else.

“So do you believe me?” Purple pressed.

“If I’m honest? It does not sound likely, Purps.”

Purple let out a frustrated swallowing of sound. They glanced across the pizza party, and everything Purple’s visor drank in felt plastic—a mirage, not there, like it was acted and barricaded behind a screen. This was no different from a scene in a movie that had been rewound and rewatched twice because someone had sat on the remote.

Cyan noticed Purple’s attention and waved. Purple did not wave back. And whether that refusal was because Cyan wasn’t real or because Cyan had watched Purple bleed to death moments ago, Purple wasn’t sure. But it did fill Purple with a feeling like walls closing in. Knives to the throat. Some two couldn’t be trusted here, which meant no one should be trusted.

And that included Red.

“But uh, hey Purps, if you wanna… maybe guard the crew a little extra hard in case of aliens, then I say have at it,” Red said with an enthusiastic swing of their hand, and a wandering of their gaze that suggested they were looking for an escape from the conversation.

Purple stared hard at Red, who could be an imposter and could be looking for an excuse to slip out and kill White and could just kill Purple next. Purple festered in their thoughts.

Red made an awkward side-shimmying step to leave.

Purple blocked them with a step in mirror.

Every imposter possibility aside, Purple was filled with one single certainty that felt like drowning: whatever bloodbath Purple was about to endure, they didn’t want to do it alone again.

“The first time we did this loop, Red, you actually figured out both imposters. You defeated them both. And you were really really cool doing it.”

Some absolutely electric something snapped behind Red’s blank face—a silent, frozen, complete transformation that reminded Purple too uncomfortably of a sniper bullet passing whisper-quiet through back and front of skull—if bullets could make someone silently giddy. Too forcefully, Red jammed their punch cup out for Purple to take, which Purple did. Red straightened their party hat, possessed with a new purpose that marched them waywardly and directionlessly forward. “Who are the imposters? Where? Show me. I can do that again.”

“—they came with me on the ship. Everyone loved them. White? Whiiiiite…”

Despite having just freed the captain from their grip, Purple’s hand shot out once more. They grabbed Red on the sort of instinct that one would use to snatch the dogmate-leash close when curbside tires come squealing past.

“Uh… Purps?”

“White’s dead.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, there they are.”

The cold shiver of the cafeteria door opening was an unscrubbable stain in Purple’s memory. They hadn’t realized how deeply imprinted the sequence was until it played itself forward, again, Purple’s breath hitching like the stutter-click of old film.

Rewind.

Again.

White staggered in. And Purple’s capacity for shock had been snuffed out under ashtray grime, a bitter carcinogenic choke to their lungs that quieted any horror. Instead White’s teetering motions, their rasping gurgles, were objects of terminal pity. They were a half-dead intermediary of roadkill. They were a sorry sight that couldn’t be helped and beseeched only the intervention of a kinder, quicker death.

Purple could do nothing about it. So they only held the captain’s shoulder firm and stared well past White into the hall. Because maybe there would be the shadow of a culprit outside, a trailing limb, a hint of color, an artifact of dropped party hat or clothing like a detective game might offer. But from Purple’s limited vantage point, only the empty hollow halls of the Skeld framed White’s entrance.

White’s throat split like the unzippering of a bag of honey. The blood that leaked first was thick, and polite enough to contain itself to the collar of White’s shirt, and mistakeable, still, for the kind of incident that had a solution. Purple felt an involuntary tug of Red’s shoulder, but Red was paying no attention to Purple’s grip. They were wholly, inquisitively entranced in White’s entrance. Purple ran a quick inventory of the party goers, gaze shooting one end of the cafeteria to the other, and frustratingly, irritatingly, everyone was accounted for.

Then White’s head split. And in some ways it was worse this time, like waiting for the eruption of a balloon Purple knew was inflated past its puncture point. Purple could only flinch, in a way unnatural and incongruent from the rest of the screams that pealed from the living crewmates.

Red writhed under Purple’s grip, a decision below base consciousness to break out into a screaming run. And while it was not an intentional abdication of the alliance Purple was trying to sew, it felt enough like one for Purple to yank them back, and flip them around, and plant both hands on Red’s shoulders, and lean in close enough to threaten the clinking of their visors.

“Do you believe me now?!” Purple asked.

“Well what happened?! Who did it?!” Red asked, gaze flitting around like a trapped fly.

“I told you we don’t know. It’s changed each time. It was Green and Orange first, then Cyan and Black.”

“I always kind of thought Cyan had it in them,” Red remarked.

“It wasn’t them though. At least. I think not?” Purple fumbled on their words. Cold and icy flashes of memory spun behind their visor, the hollow titter of Cyan’s laugh. It had spoken in third-person, hadn’t it? And then the thing inside Black had called it— “An infection, I think, is what it’s like. The alien imposter takes them over, and I don’t… actually know what happens to the crewmates. Green and Orange and Black and Cyan might have all been dead when it happened.”

"So two of us are already dead?"

The thought stung hard enough for Purple to pull a fraction off of Red. "Maybe! I don't know.” Purple released Red for real this time. The scrambled horror of the cafeteria was beating down, overwhelming, hot and interrogating. Black was watching them, Purple noticed after a furtive glance over their shoulder. Purple dropped their voice. “But WE need to focus on surviving. Call a meeting to get this under control, and then I’ll tell you everything I know."

And Purple felt the pressure of something just slightly off. Because despite doing things right this time, and handing Red the captain’s control of the meeting they desperately wanted, Red simply… did not. Red stared. Purple felt like biting off their own skin.

"...Just to check. How do I know it's not you?" Red asked.

Purple felt their heart rattle in their own chest, bruised and raw still from sitting at the meeting for Blue’s murder, with votes and knives stacked against them.

“How do you know I’m not the imposter?” Purple asked.

“Yes.”

Purple faltered. "You... you can't know that. But it's NOT me. Why would I have come to you for help—and told you everything—if I was the imposter?!”

“Because the least suspicious person is the most suspicious person. Common diversion tactic.”

Purple let out a frustrated noise. “Well the imposter might also be YOU. You’re just as likely to be the killer as me, so—"

"Not true. You’re way more suspicious than me right now. You said someone was gonna die, and White walked in here dead, and that's kinda something a murderer would know."

Purple let out a frustrated noise. “I didn’t kill White!” For the third time in too short a period, Purple grabbed Red again, at the collar now, hand balled and scrunched tight enough for Red’s button to scrape Purple’s knuckle. “So you can either believe me, or you can vote me out if you think it's me."

Purple felt Red go tense under their grip. Red’s gaze faltered. They looked around, elsewhere, uncomfortable, and maybe Purple was being far too optimistic in their reading of shame in the captain’s loosening posture.

More gently than Purple was expecting, Red peeled Purple’s grip from their jacket.

"Don't give me orders, Purps. Everyone, non-emergency meeting!"

...

Somehow, despite the situational gravity that Purple was at no risk of forgetting, this part of Purple’s plan felt like a child’s mission.

Purple moved with a lash of sneaking-around shame. Like stepping around construction barriers, like skipping class, like slipping back in a bedroom window before either parent could harangue Purple for being out late. These were all things Purple had not done in over a decade, and so it felt like wearing the ghost of their teenage self now, as Purple used the smokescreen of Red’s meeting to exit from the cafeteria, and snake a square-shape through the Skeld halls, and duck back into the kitchen via the back service-hall.

Red’s voice had petered out and now came back booming as Purple entered the back of the kitchen, which only artificially separated Purple from Red’s meeting by the wide bay opening between kitchen and cafeteria.

“Orange and I will be following Blue to medbay to fully assess the situation, but first there are—is it 37 pages?” “38 pages!” “38 pages of official MIRA guidance on workplace incident and injury protocol which I will be reading some or all of to you depending on what I feel like.”

Purple had half a mind to get lost in Red’s words—because they were different, and that intrigued Purple—and because Red was alive, which pulled the strings of something deeper and wetter still squirming in Purple’s chest. Purple shook off the urge. Red was cooperating, and providing a distraction for Purple right now, and distractions were a rare commodity on a ship where everyone was in everyone else’s business.

So Purple focused on their own mission, which was to duck their head and shimmy their feet in a mockery of the world’s least prepared heist star. This was because Purple needed to remain out of view, because it would be abundantly easy for anyone in the cafeteria to notice Purple rooting around in the kitchen if they so much as glanced over, and somehow Purple suspected that Red’s recitation of the MIRA handbook would not hold rapt attention.

But this was necessary—all scuttling and ducking and shimmying included—because Purple needed to see for themself if the salt stores were truly gone, and they needed to do it without any imposters taking notice. If Purple was so lucky, maybe the imposter salt sabotage last loop was a fluke, and the flakey salt would be sitting prim and proper and ready to be dumped into a half-baked holy water weapon. Though, it wasn’t likely. Purple was never someone who could be called “so lucky.”

Purple’s heart joined in the scuttling at the sight of a tin, chewing tobacco sized, laid out on an industrial metal table smeared with the dried clay of pizza dough flecks. Purple kept their head low, moving with a crab like shuffle to the table. They stuck their head up a bit like a dogmate begging at a meal—and once sure no one from the cafeteria was looking—Purple grabbed the salt tin.

Purple dropped to a hunch. Undid the salt tin top. Let out a huff of horribly disappointed air.

Empty.

Purple resealed the tin and humored their own defeat with a few seconds of keeping their head pressed between their knees. They stuffed the empty salt tin in their backpack. They rose back into a hunch to scurry away before anyone could call them on the earned suspicion of sneaking around in the kitchen alone.

Purple reached the back door to the service hall and leaned a palm against it, though they paused at the glint that caught their attention from the corner of their visor. Purple turned, and they drank in the sight of the chef’s knife, recently cleaned, resting lovingly on a spread-out towel to dry. The sight of it was ice-water down Purple’s bone. It was the same knife as Red had grabbed, last loop, useless against Black and useful only to be driven into Purple’s abdomen.

Purple approached it. Purple traced the carving of its handle.

The knife was a liability, almost certainly. It was a weapon that could not hurt an imposter but could be turned on a crewmate.

But still, Purple's hands itched. Wandering around unarmed felt like a nakedness begging for an imposter tongue to carve through their unprotected organs. A knife felt like protection.

Purple reached down, snatched the knife by the hilt, and dropped it into their backpack alongside the salt.

...

Red’s arrival at the security doors was no surprise. It was, in fact, distinctly impossible to catch Purple by surprise as long as they kept their nose buried so close in the camera screens that they practically risked falling right into the monitored rooms. Purple waited, anyway, for Red to knock before remotely unlocking the security doors.

The doors shivered open, noise like an isolated surge of summer rain, and Purple shared in that momentary shiver as Red stepped inside.

“Just got out of medbay with Blue and Orange. White is, in fact, super dead.”

“Aaaand there is a mysterious pink residue on White’s body, and Blue wants to do scans of the whole crew to figure out where it came from, right?”

Red went fumblingly quiet in a way that suggested they were mentally unhitching one train of thought and rigging up a new one.

“Yes, actually. How did you know?”

“I told you. Time-looper. Do you believe me now?”

The challenge soured Red’s expression. They tossed their attention to Purple’s line of binoculars in protest of looking at Purple.

“Or you could have heard us through the medbay security camera, which is a very single-timeline-y thing you could have done.”

“How could I have heard you without sound?”

“Maybe you read our lips.”

“What are you even talking abo--” Purple shook the thought off. “Whatever! Doesn’t matter. You at least believe me that something is going on, right?”

Red stewed on this unhappily, in a way that their foot would have driven a divot into the floor if Croc rubber had any edge over metal flooring.

“It might be that nothing is going on. I still think it’s possible White’s body just did that.” Red fell silent, and then added reluctantly, “But…”

“But?”

“But Blue said—quote—‘Crewmates don’t just split mysteriously in twain.’”

“Right, alien imposters split crewmates in twain, and other shapes.” Purple’s attention pivoted back to the screens. They flashed through each camera. “The imposters have no bone, and they also explode in space, so a crew-wide vote is the best way to get rid of them. Blue’s scan will tell us what we need to know.” Then, attention to the medbay camera, like a curse under their breath, Purple added, “As long as Blues stays alive long enough.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Purple spun in place to Red, one hand extended. “Let me see your captain’s handbook.”

Red went visibly stiff. “My what?”

“Your captain’s handbook.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I would never have a need to consult--”

“You have a handbook, and you consult it constantly. Give it to me.”

“Maybe you’re thinking of other MIRA captains. But me, personally--”

“You can’t lie to me, Red. I know about the handbook. Time-looper, remember?”

Red bristled. “Oh sorry, I guess I forgot you just know everything ever! Guess you can just solve this whole thing on your own, can’t you? Why bother consulting me?”

“Red--”

“Tell me this then, little Mx. Time-looper-knows-everything. What color is my underwear?”

“Pink thong.”

Red went silent in a way that made other silences jealous.

“Wait...”

Purple let out a noise of frustration, and moved off their chair to step forward and slip one hand into Red’s unzippered backpack, which earned a yowl from Red, and an attempted swatting away of Purple’s hand like a catmate being prodded on its stomach. Purple had already snatched the book clean from Red’s backpack.

“Hey!” Red protested, as Purple took aggressively to flipping through the first few-dozen pages.

“Give me that back,” Red tried again.

And then, like a correction to a game of Simon says, Red clarified, “As captain, I order you to give me that back.”

Purple kept flipping.

“I just need to see something,” Purple said.

“It’s not your book.”

“I know it’s not.”

“It’s not my book either, actually, because I would never—”

“I don’t care that you have it, Red. It’s fine. I know all this, already. We got over the book thing already.”

Red made a noise of half-swallowed disgust. “You don’t know everything.”

“I don’t. I just know what I know from the previous time loops.”

“Time loops…” Red said with disdain. And after several long moments of flipping pages and Red’s festering silence, Red cut in, “You could have figured out the underwear thing from the cameras.”

“The black-and-white cameras? I figured out your stupid pink underwear from that?”

“Could have been a good color guess!”

“I don’t use the cameras like that, Red. I use them to do my job! Which I’m trying to DO right now, before we all die, so can you FOCUS?!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Red bit back, arms folded. “I guess I’ll just be more focused while you’re out here knowing weirdly invasive things about me AND going through my backpack AND taking my handbook AND making me go along with the fact that you’re a—time-looper—which I’m being a REALLY great sport about, might I add!! So yeah, let me just put on my best smile and get real helpful!”

The single lash of shame slit Purple at the stomach, and all at once the pent-up anxiety and energy and adrenaline poured out of them, awash on the floor. Purple stuck a thumb in the handbook and let it shut, head lowered, long breath exhaled.

“...Sorry, Red. I do, in fact, really appreciate your help here. I uh... I tried to do this alone last loop, and it didn’t go well. So... thanks.”

And when Red didn’t respond, Purple glanced up nervously. The anger on Red’s face had gone elsewhere, and they were staring with a sort of snuffed-out confusion that—to the best of Purple’s read—was because they hadn’t expected to get their way.

Purple cracked the handbook back open, its spine protesting like stiff twigs. They thumbed through slower now, until they finally found what they were looking for. “RULE #214”. Purple smoothed a thumb over the image, and it was an almost comical rendition Purple decided, in light of how Orange and Green and Black had looked—the simple little alien with its simple tongue, impaling a crewmate. “ALIENS ARE REAL AND THEY LIKE TO KILL.”

Purple met Red’s visor, and noted the way Red stared back, aware of the page, and gauging Purple’s face for a reaction.

“I know you know about the aliens,” Purple said.

“I mean... the handbook is a little outdated. I was hoping maybe the aliens were like, a last decade thing.”

Purple flipped the page, and their heart skipped a beat at the dense gathering of text on the backside of the alien page.

“There’s something here, wait--” Purple stuck their finger to the text, skimming along as they read aloud, “Alien hijacking of a MIRA Corporation vessel is an unlikely but possible event. Captains of alien-infested ships are advised to proceed with the following knowledge. 1. Crewmate death by alien falls outside the bounds of the MIRA Corporation Death and Dismemberment clause of employee insurance and as such do not entitle the employee to compensation—aaAAAAAGH, really?! This is just about how to fuck us over in death?!”

Purple skipped to the next page. It was a new subject about apron care.

Purple snapped the book shut with a noise like a popped firecracker. They buried their head and rubbed at their visor. “Classic MIRA!! Aliens are real! They’ll kill you! But we won’t tell you about the salt thing or how to.... not be in a time-loop with them!!!!”

Purple dropped back into the security chair. Their energy was evaporating like morning mist. The silence percolated with it. They extended their hand out, book offered, for Red to take back.

“Thanks for letting me check anyway…” Purple muttered.

Red took the book back in their hands.

“Ham and cheese on rye, tomatoes, onions, extra pickles, hold the mustard,” Red said.

Purple raised their sticky attention back up to Red, watching them stuff the handbook back in their backpack.

“What--”

“For the time-loop thing,” Red clarified. “Just making sure you remember.”

“Ugh,” Purple answered, and let their head dip again.

“What uh, what salt thing?” Red asked.

Purple snaked a free hand around to their own backpack zipper, a motion which startled Red in its suddenness. Purple yanked the zipper open along wiry teeth, and reached in, and grabbed the empty tin of flakey salt. They proffered it to Red, who approached and gathered it in their hands.

“It’s empty,” Red remarked, as they popped the top off.

“Salt kills the aliens. Which is WHY they got rid of the salt. They’re leaving us unarmed.”

Red shifted the container between hands, a bit like a toddler in a touch museum. Purple watched them long enough to see Red lift the container toward their mouth and lick it.

“There’s like, a little salt still in here,” Red remarked.

“Not enough to kill an alien. Let alone two.” Let alone more, Purple thought bitterly, with the realization that other alien eggs could hatch if the imposters weren’t eliminated soon.

“Why do you have it then?” Red asked, handing the container back to Purple.

“I don’t know. In case?” Purple answered as they slipped it back into their backpack.

And after a hanging moment, Red added, “There has to be more salt somewhere, right? It’s salt.”

“Cyan used to have salt but... it’s probably gone too. It was gone last loop.”

“Have you asked Cyan?”

Purple stayed silent a moment. “I’ll rummage through Cyan’s stuff next. There wasn’t any sign of any other salt in the kitchen.”

And if Red noticed the deflection, they courteously did not draw attention to it. “I kinda thought the pizza sauce was bland...”

When this did not yield an answer from Purple, Red added, “Other things have salt.”

“Like what? Maybe... trace amounts in food? That’s not gonna be enough.”

“Salt is a rock, right? And Black is a geologist. If I talk to Black, I’m sure I’ll come up with an idea to replenish the salt and eliminate those aliens in no time.”

Purple was understanding that memories could be mud pits. They could sweep in like flash floods and infiltrate the nose and mouth and windpipe, aggressively unseating air, and space, and all uncrushed feelings.

That was what Purple’s memories were doing now at the captain’s suggestion. Purple’s mind was dominated by the sight of Black, splitting wide open, oozing out flesh like fluid filling out blistering skin. And the sight of Red, sliced down the center, bulbous and greasy inner flesh straining at the duodenum, which had just barely not slit open because the evisceration had stopped short at Red’s stomach. Purple had seen it all so close, shoved up against Red, languishing in their shared blood—the sight and smell and stink of a crewmate’s stomach slit open like burrata, gastric fluids mixed with greasy oils and blood. Purple had been forced to understand it, to see it all, right before Black--

“Purps?”

Hand on their shoulder. Purple was breathing hard enough to wheeze at every exhale. They found enough sense to be embarrassed as their visor found Red, and their shaking hand landed atop Red’s knuckles on their shoulder.

“I’m fine.”

And Red seemed unsure how to answer this, so they said, “I’ll go talk to Black.”

Purple’s hand tightened on top of Red’s. A vise clamp. It wasn’t intentional, but even as Purple’s sense caught up to them, they could not dare to let Red go.

“You... don’t want me to go talk to Black.”

“It’s not safe,” Purple said, blandly.

“You think Black is the killer.”

“I don’t know who the killers are,” Purple answered. “And that means the more people we go to for help, the more likely it is that we’ve told the imposters everything. We can’t trust people, Red. Everyone’s dangerous.”

“Including me, right?” Red asked, and they asked it simply, and without a hint of malice. It was, by Purple’s embarrassed account, far more gentle than Purple deserved. “You’re talking to me.”

Purple let out a held breath. Red slipped their hand off Purple’s shoulder, and Purple’s trailing fingers let it leave.

“Why’d you tell me?” Red asked.

Purple took the opportunity to pinch their fingers tight at their visor. An offshore storm of a headache was rolling in toward Purple’s sinuses, and Purple could feel this would not let them off easy.

“You… really came through in the first loop,” Purple said. “I honest to god did NOT trust you but, you just, you really came through.”

“What did I do?”

“You lured Orange out and got them ejected after they killed Lime. You had my back when I needed your help to take down Green. I made enough mistakes the whole way that you could have ditched me, or turned on me, or voted me out but… you didn’t, for some reason. So. I don’t know. I want to believe I can trust you.”

And speaking with this amount of honesty all felt like wet sludge in Purple’s throat, so it a little bit pissed them off when Red responded with a very stupid and very simple, “Oh.”

It was the kind of nothing response that made Purple lower their hands and lift their head properly to the captain. Red was looking in Purple’s direction, but not quite at them anymore. There was an unfocused distance in Red’s visor, an absence that indicated they were completely inside their own head, lost in thought.

“Oh…” Red repeated, a little bit longer, a little bit breathier, and with an upward lilt of hope that sounded almost like a question.

Then, when no one said anything else, Red asked, “And I was cool?”

You were concussed, Purple thought of answering, which would be an accurate description of Red in the days after the fight against Green. But, even tactless as they were, Purple could understand that that response would take down the room.

“You were… admittedly… kind of cool.”

Purple felt just a little bit bad recognizing how directly they’d linked the concept of embarrassment to the captain, like a word association game, as Purple caught the distinctly unsubtle way Red rocked and bounced on their heels. A happy petmate, told ‘good doggy.’

And maybe this all made for a good opportunity for Purple to say more, but between the headache and the loop fatigue, they couldn’t take any more swallowing-glass of complimenting the captain. Especially not as the reality of the situation sunk back in slowly. No salt. No leads. No plans.

That was slightly wrong. Purple had one single plan to fall back on, and that plan was turning back around in their chair, and mouse-wiggling the screens back to life, and scorching their dark-adjusted visor with the nuclear monochrome radiation of the security monitors.

Purple did that. They clicked through each cam. And clicked through them again. And Red hovered.

“…So what’s the plan?” Red asked.

And under better circumstances, Purple might have appreciated the personality break-through of Captain Red asking for someone else’splan. These were not those circumstances.

“Well… considering we’re back to square one and have no salt, no leads on White’s killer, and no one who’s gonna believe us if we say ‘time-looping and aliens’, I’m just… gonna do the job I got hired by MIRA to do… and watch cams.”

Purple completed another rotation of the cameras. They stopped now, intentionally, on medbay. Brown stood on the scanner. Yellow stood to the side talking idly with Blue –a ghost of a conversation, which Purple inferred only by their pantomiming gestures.

“Is there like, a specific alien imposter clue you can see from cams?”

“Not really,” Purple answered, all a little bit haunted-feeling watching Blue. “Well… yes actually… if you count the clue of them transforming into giant flesh monsters when they kill someone.”

“Are we looking for that?” And then when Purple didn’t answer, Red added, “Are we waiting to see who the imposter kills?”

“…Yes,” Purple answered after letting free a long-held breath. “If I’m honest, this is the thing I most screwed up on the first time. I wasn’t on cams when Blue was killed… or Black or…” Purple’s thoughts drifted sideways. “I’m trying to not screw that up again.”

Purple flipped the camera. From the edge of their vision, Purple noticed the way the camera image stamped itself inverted in Red’s visor.

“…Just to double check,” Red started, “that plan, where we stand here and watch the cameras until the imposter kills someone—that plan is one where someone gets killed, right?”

Purple glanced side-long at Red.

“Just checking,” Red tacked on.

“It’ll be a lot fewer people killed than the last two times,” Purple muttered, and they rather hated hearing the morbidity in their resignation. It echoed and rattled in their head like bad microphone feedback.

Red at least didn’t argue. But they did something arguably worse than arguing, which was getting that hop-skip momentum back into their feet as they trotted to the security doors.

“Where are you going?” Purple asked, loathe to break their attention away from cams, but willing to do so to glare at Red.

“You keep doing your job, Purps. I’m gonna go do my job,” Red said, all bravado. They slammed a hand out against the internal door switch. The security doors slid open like parting mist. “Which is to be really cool.” They took one step past the security threshold, and then stopped just out of sight. Red then took the step in reverse back into security. “As captain. As the captain who always comes through. That’s my job.”

Red took the step forward again, just in time for the automatic resealing of the security doors to not nip at their heels. Purple buried their head forward on their desk and let out the kind of guttural noise of frustration animals make to tell each other to fuck off.

Purple lifted their head and flicked the cams, and they passed the next few seconds watching the monochrome captain bounce down the hall toward storage.

“That idiot is gonna get themself killed,” Purple said with all the tired annoyance in their heart.

And then Purple shoved back their chair with enough force for the temperamental wheel to detach, and they broke into a jog that followed the ghost of Red’s footsteps to the security door.

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