The Mock Trial

[airlockedmods]

[Jesse McCree is dead, the first victim of, what the Overseers seem to hope, is a long game of motives and murder for whatever their reasons. With the investigation completed, C.E.C.E.'s voice comes over the system and directs the Champions to proceed to the locked elevator door at the end of the hallway. Once all Champions are on board, the elevator begins a slow descent down beyond any area that they've been able to explore so far. At least the elevator music is charming.

When the elevator door opens, the Champions enter a courtroom with 21 podiums arranged in a circle and each one marked with a name. McCree's face grins casually at the 20 surviving members from one of the podiums, a greyscale portrait in honor of the dead.]

Congratulations. We have now entered the trial portion of the test. I trust that you will do your best to determine who disturbed the peace by committing murder. Once the culprit has been found, they will face an appropriate punishment for their crime. If you fail to determine the culprit, however, they will be allowed to leave the space station and the rest of you will face punishment instead.

Comments

[voltrounds]

Right. The murderer had to set this up ahead of time. Everything would have been too obviously suspicious otherwise.

[misplacedxsheath]

I'd wager they concealed the weapon within the zero gravity room and then lured the victim into place. Carrying it with them would have been immediately suspicious.

[voltrounds]

That might be why the screwdriver was in the utensil drawer, too. They needed to stash it somewhere quickly so the victim wouldn't see it.

[misplacedxsheath]

Though that begs the question of why they didn't simply hide it with the weapon. Unless... there is another possibility. If they left the rail on its loosened screws until they were on the way to the zero gravity room...

You. [He turns to Barney.]

Was the missing railing between the cafeteria and the murder scene?

[airlockedmods]

[It was]

[waitforit]

[ He's trying so hard to stay out of this and vanish, thanks guy. ]

Uh, yeah, it was. I wasn't gonna go there, but it was pretty hard to miss.

[misplacedxsheath]

Then the victim likely came upon them in the act of hiding the tool. They would have hastily shoved it in the nearest hiding place. After that, they convinced him to enter the zero gravity room, following after so as to grab the planned weapon along the way. If he entered first, unaware of the danger, stranding him in midair would have been simple.

[voltrounds]

I think they ate together first. There are the food packets and the notebook, after all.

[stitch_in_time]

Without him noticing the handrail? That'd be pretty difficult to remove quietly, even once it was unscrewed, wouldn't it?

[misplacedxsheath]

Depending on how far ahead McCree was, he still might not have heard.

[refusedtoleave]

Then, they took the screwdriver out of the case, hid the case, loosened the railing and were caught in the kitchen before they could put it back...

They might have just used the food as an excuse for why they were there.

[misplacedxsheath]

Entirely possible. It would have been a suspicious thing to simply be out so late without a purpose.