Unmasked as an alien spy wearing a dead superfan's identity — sent to assassinate Imani, and ejected from the dungeon into waiting hands.
Linus is exposed as an impostor and assassin at the Hungry Eyes farewell. The real Linus — a genuine 'Elle's Snow Cones' superfan and soother tourist — was killed off-screen, and this alien slipped into his identity to infiltrate the crawlers, betting no one would notice. The Snow Cones fan community noticed almost instantly: the real Linus had privately posted an essay confessing that watching the crawlers love one another made him realize they were 'just like us,' and that he missed his own family and 'big brother' — a brother this impostor turns out to be.
His cover unravels through small tells (a wrong tattoo, over-leaning into the sex stuff real perverts never say aloud, ignorance of how the dungeon works), and Elle orchestrates the reveal as a public execution-by-truth, having briefed the whole crowd in advance. His clumsy plan to poison the tea was doomed — the crawlers' healers grant drinkers immunity, and the teapots flashed red. He confesses his true target was Imani, with Louis as secondary, and that Carl was deliberately spared as 'the one most likely to get everyone killed.' Carl pops a fist through his illusory neck without hurting him, then delivers a cold sermon: by trying to divide them, the enemy has only forged an unbreakable family.
Ejected from the game back to his small ship trapped in orbit over Earth, he departs knowing friends of the crawlers wait for him on the other side.
A tall, gangly, semi-transparent soother-alien form with long thin limbs — a stolen disguise now dropped, its mannerisms turned cold and professional.
An alien infiltrator wearing a dead superfan's face, sent to assassinate Imani and unmasked before he could strike.