Young Writers Society

Simon would have blinked if he had eyelids. He didn't have thoughts, just binary code the makers of the show had to translate instead. So he asked,

"Are we humans not able to read the thoughts of everyone around us? I was under the impression that we were just machines of the flesh."

Carter blinked back at the faceless freakish robot thing, staring at it as Jerica leaned in to ask her question.

"Sussy is short for suspicious," he said. He'd figured that out with context clues.

insert sussy squinting gif idk use ur imagination

"I mean, I was able to speak in moving pictures, so anything's possible, bud!" Mel chirped with a delish grin. "Hey, Simon. Does that mean you can read Carter's thoughts? What's he thinking? Like, even his own words are being censored with bleeps. Super sussy. Right, Jerica?"

"Oh." Jerica thought for a moment. It seemed legit. "Yeah, you're sus. 'Cause you're short. Hah!"

Carter slow-blinked at Jerica and Mel, still side-eyeing the robot.

"So I should be condemned for my height? A fact about myself that I had no control over? You're all ridiculous."

Jerica smirked. It was so easy to provoke little men. "Alrighty, Mr. Sussy-pants." She reached for a high-five with Mel.

"Good one!" Mel said with a snort, high fiving Jerica. She was too slow to high five back, so she pulled her hand back then pointed Lordy and Hildy. "See, they have no comment. So it's definitely Mister Sussypants over there who's hiding something. He's not even defending himself. Just dismissing us. SuuUu~UUuspic~cciioussss~"

"Classic deflection tactic." Jerica nodded knowingly. "Seems... sus."

Simon lit up. His face changed to the wide-eyed "aha" emoticon (kind of like :O). He felt like he had a strange thought from another realm, like code being injected directly into his brain:

Code: Select all

simon: what is an imposter? will i receive admiration if I am an adequately 'sus' imposter?  [[adds word to internal lexicon]] i will be the sus-est of sus imposters'

Then he turned back to Carter, noting his new nickname, and changed his face to the ">.<" emoticon and said, "I will listen very closely to the 'Mr. Sussy-pants's thoughts and hope to hear them."

"Uh, hey, Carter? You're boring everyone here. Even Hildy is asleep!" Mel said with a giggle. "Don't you have anything good to say? Or think? So that Simon can, uh... process it?"

"I don't think he thinks much," Jerica quipped.

Carter rolled his eyes and shook his head, sighing. He leaned on the arm of his chair and planted his fingertips on his forehead, leaning his face into his hand.

"A defense, then," he muttered. "Fine. What would convince you? I could tell you that I know as little as all of you do. I was thrown into this against my will, with no forewarning. Would you take me at my word? Or do you need to know my thoughts?"

Because if you'd like, I can think that too, Simon. Or Mel. Or whoever's listening now.

"FIVE MINUTES!" K.K. barked.

Mel hummed. So apparently mind reading is a thing here too now. Then... why bother thinking? There's only one logical solution now.

"Nah," she said with a shrug. "You're the impostor. Who's voting Carter? I vote Carter!"

Hildegarde blinked awake when Mel accidentally? jammed her elbow into her ribs, giggling about Hildegarde being asleep, followed closely by KK saying something about five minutes. Look, it had been a long day. If only they'd let her sleep until the fighting started.

Maybe it would start in five minutes? She could only hope.

"I wasn't asleep," she said like a lying liar. "Dear me, the things folks will say when they think you can't hear."

"Sold!" Jerica shouted, ignoring Hildy as she threw her hand in the air at Mel's suggestion. It seemed they'd taken their alliance to a new level after the last round. "Let's kill Mr. Sussy-Boi."