As much as I hated Allison for my now painful hand, she did have a point. Now, I’m not one to immediately ditch his friends at the first sign of trouble, but perhaps some more logical thinking might be in order before hopping into said friend’s metal death trap. Hell, the form that I signed could’ve already meant that my ass belonged to him, legally anyway.

The reality of the situation was simply that everyone had to be viewed with a healthy suspicion- healthy in the way that it might save my bacon somewhere down the line- until we figured who was “dead” and why. And perhaps more importantly, what they wanted to do to us.

It was precisely on that thought that I rounded the final corner before my sector and noticed that someone had beaten me to it- the thin, wiry figure of Dan leant against the entrance to my sector.

My hopes of turning back the way I came were immediately quashed when his gaze that was previously focused on the device in his hands flicked up and caught my own. Somehow my time for popularity had reared it’s ugly head at the time in which I least wanted it- surrounded by pain in the ass crewmates and a potential dead person.

“Well, well, Oliver. Quite the popular person you are today, aren’t you?”

Kinda nice to have someone else notice I suppose.

“But,” he continued, “I couldn’t help but notice your last interaction with another crewmate didn’t end so peacefully. Perhaps it’s time for widdle baby Ollie to jump back in his widdle cradle in his doctor’s room?”

That spiel sent a chill down my spine for two reasons- one, that he knew all that had occurred to me in the last 12 hours, in places that he couldn’t possibly overhear, much less see inside of. And two, that a fully grown man was talking in baby talk towards me.

“Dan, you know exactly what that device does- it’s how we know I’m not the anomaly. But how do you know what goes on in private sectors?” I stressed the private- hoping he’d get that he was violating major privacy codes and regulation.

“Oliver- I can’t see into private sectors” he intoned, mocking me. “That would be illegal- and surely you aren’t accusing me of breaking international laws pertaining to human rights, are you, Oliver? Are you?”

I internally rolled my eyes and let him continue on his triumphant monologue. Is supervillain complex a thing? The need to compulsively explain your every move and plan when you think you’ve outwitted an opponent? Because this was a textbook case.

A small frown crossed his countenance as I waited, apparently expecting some exclamation from me. Was this the part where I was supposed to yell ‘You’ll never get away with it, you dastardly villain!’?

“As the technological expert upon this ship, one of my responsibilities is to monitor the camera feeds- which are only placed in public areas. Locations such as the dining hall, corridors-” he pointed behind me to a plexiglass bubble in the rut between the ceiling and corridor walls- “and the medical bay!” he finished triumphantly.

This was definitely the part where I was supposed to escape my bonds, surprising the villain - setting off some sort ingenious mechanism to destroy his hideout. Then I’d escape the building as the camera zoomed out to follow me walking off in slow motion as the building crumbles behind me, with him yelling “And I would’ve gotten away with it too if it weren’t for those meddling kids!” What can I say - I’m a fan of the classics.

“Right. So you know I hopped in the device and that I’m clear of an anomaly. So what’s your point?” I replied, exasperated. It was honestly better just to get this over with, even if it meant giving him that satisfaction that he wanted.

Then he held up his finger. Heeeere we go again.

“No- I don’t! That’s my point Oliver- only one person knows whether or not you’re clear of any anomaly- and it isn’t you or I!”

He did have a point this time, unfortunately. And I wasn’t going to refute with ‘but I trust him’ because of how well that turned out last time. But I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of letting him notice my unease from the revelation. Call it petty if you will, or perhaps because the first step in treatment for SV (Supervillain) complex is not to give them the satisfaction- but I wasn’t going to let him notice my discomfort.

“And what do you want now that you’ve had your say?”

I must not have formed a perfect poker face because he smirked before he started, obviously noticing that he had scored a hit.

“I have a device that can render people unconscious for a specified amount of time in my possession. This could then be used to sit out the rest of the flight home while you remain asleep, safe in your private sector.”

“Ok, but where’s the catch? And why couldn’t I remain in my sector of my own violation without the aid or your device?”

Daniel smirked again.

“You’d not make it without rations- and you know as well as I do about the metabolic strain this type of space travel takes on the body. My device would put you in a semi-cytostatic state, reducing your metabolic needs, and then further feed you nutrients via intravenous pathways. No catch at all- just a logical decision on my behalf, reducing the people I need to suspect and be on guard against for the duration of the trip home.”

His reasoning was valid, but if he really thought I was going to use another unknown device under the control of someone else, then he was about as sharp as a marble when it came to people. And right now I wasn’t up for a verbal tête-à-tête.

“That sounds like a great idea! Let me grab a pen to sign up for that- oh gosh darn it! And wouldn’t you know it, I’ve left my pen in my sector- would you be a gentleman and wait a moment while I pop in and grab it? Won’t take a second!” I enthused as I walked through the entrance

“You’re wasting a one-way ticket out of this mess, Oliver. I only have one of these devices, and I’m not offering you again if you don’t accept.”

It turns out I need to practice my acting skills. Or maybe he isn’t a perfect unsocial sphere after all.

“Won’t be a moment!” I smiled as the door slid across, shutting in his face.

* * *

I breathed a sigh of relief as I fell down, exhausted, onto my bed. All of us were already starting to suspect each other- myself included. It would’ve been a simple task for Mason to show me a false document or print out because; a) no one saw what results the machine spat out except for him, and b) I couldn’t understand any of the report he showed anyway, except for the emblazoned across the bottom of the document.

The antics so far hadn’t been too bad- not as far as obvious and overt actions against each other at least. But it was clear that everyone was on guard against each other. And this was just the beginning- it would only get worse from here. And it would only continue to worsen unless we were to figure out who was the anomaly and whether it was due to some nefarious reason or through accident.

But worrying about the issue wasn’t going to help. Dad used to say worrying only causes you to feel twice the pain, one from worry and the other from the actual event if it happens. However, telling someone not worry is akin to telling someone with acrophobia not to be scared of heights. But regardless, worrying wasn’t going to solve the problem, so I decided to do my final checks and inspection of the experiments.

My task during the duration of this mission, as I had explained to the crew before, was to monitor the effects of prolonged exposure to the effects of space in various animal species. There were also drugs to trial, and it was my duty to record and notate any side-effects arising from the use of these, as well as compile a report to assess the effectiveness of the trials. Grabbing my clipboard and pen, I opened the door to my sleeping quarters and went to check out the animals.

* * *

Looking after the animals used to be the task I looked forward to the most every day. It was a relatively simple task, make sure each of the feeding stations had water and food, and check the biotag chip inside them for any fluctuations in health. But now, as I was using it as a distraction, the job made me feel anxious, speeding me along on the job instead of the usual slow, measured pace I used to employ.

Touching the biotag monitor to the back of a possum, I noted down the ‘healthy’ status that the monitor screen flashed up onto my clipboard before moving over to the aquatic animals over by the lake.

You’d think that the types of animals brought into space for testing would be those used for colonisation, such as cows or sheep. And that was true, at least for the first hundred or so flights. There eventually came the point where Spacca had exhausted all the testing wanted to be done on those animals.

Our graduation group were part of the second wave of ‘explorers’, and unlike the first wave where the focus had been on finding and colonising a planet, the majority of graduate ‘explorers’ of late performed menial tasks such as collecting extra data samples from already explored quadrants or performing trial drug and equipment tests in space. Our group was tasked with a bit of both, Saskia, Dan and I performing our trials and collection of samples while Mason and Allison were more there for support. Allison did perform some tests on the more mechanical equipment trials, but many of these were being phased out in favour of smarter technology, left in the hands of graduates like Dan.

Sighing once more from the anxiety, I wearily looked for the swans, unable to find any at a cursory glance. Usually, they were one of the easiest to spot, the white of their feathers at odds with the murky brown of the lake they sat upon.

After almost walking the full circle around the lake I saw the tell-tale white of their feathers. But upon closer inspection, I started to notice something odd- the birds weren’t making any movements and were lying, washed up, on the bank. At a more hurried pace, I rushed over to the birds and placed a hand on one of their chests to check for a pulse. Finding nothing, I shakily pulled out my biotag monitor from my back pocket, berating myself for not having used it instead of manually checking for a pulse and wasting valuable time. But it turns out it didn’t matter- the bird was dead.

Here’s a fun fact about swans- they float on water due to a particular water repellent oil secreted from a gland on their rump. Because of this, they sleep while floating in the water, since it requires no effort on their part to remain buoyant. Except, the biotag monitor indicated these birds died from asphyxiation, specifically ‘Respiratory Impairment from being in or under Liquid’. A bird that can’t sink drowned.

And this bird wasn’t the only one- 2 other swans laid, washed up, on the bank of the lake. There were no signs of a struggle around the water, no bruised flesh that would indicate a forcible drowning by some sort of human intervention.

The animals had killed themselves.