Alien

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Now this. A dead end likely to leave her, well, dead.

  Why even fucking bother? she thought, both crushed and furious. Maybe I should just sit here and wait for whatever it is that’s killing everyone. Then she heard a rattling in the vents, and a computerized voice sounded over the PA.

  “Unauthorized access. Security breach detected. Please wait for security check.” The doors all closed and locked. In the distance she heard a klaxon, loud enough to be irritating.

  She was trapped. And she was getting tired.

  Fuck this.

  She wasn’t going to just sit here and wait to die. Instead, she was going to find the asshole who brought this flight recorder back, and see what else they might have found. Or maybe they copied the data before it was erased. Weyland-Yutani wanted that information, and the fewer people who possessed it, the more valuable it became.

  The rattling again, louder than the alarm, and she moved quickly around the room. There were a ton of other things here that she had ignored upon seeing the flight recorder. In short order she found a backpack, which she began to fill with useful items, including everything that piece of paper listed to make a smoke bomb.

  There was also a small fridge. The moment she opened it her nostrils were assaulted by the foul smell of spoiled food, but there were also four water bottles on the shelf. Reaching past the desiccated remains of rotting meals, she pocketed three water bottles and opened the fourth, draining it in two long gulps.

  Searching again through the clutter, she found little else of value until she stumbled across an energy cell for the Halfin.

  Eureka!

  If she was going to venture out again, though, she’d have to be prepared. First, she took the time to put one of the smoke bombs together. That took the better part of an hour. The only item missing was a control circuit required to set it off, but she found a remote control she could cannibalize to do the trick.

  She thought she heard the rattling again, but decided it was her imagination.

  It took her all of ten seconds to replace the AW15’s burned-out cell with the working one. The tool went live as soon as she turned it on, and she moved quickly over to the door. It took another five seconds for the Halfin to find the right code and transmit it.

  As the door slid open she switched off the headlamp, pocketed the Halfin and the smoke bomb, shouldered the backpack, and gripped the K92 in her right hand. She thought about carrying the revolver, but she wasn’t eager to kill anyone, nor be killed by someone who saw her holding a gun. Better to be seen with a blunt instrument that could be explained away as a tool, and keep the firearm in her pocket.

  Stalking down the hall, she turned a corner to see a human figure. At first she thought it was Axel—the person was both male and bald—but it turned as she approached. The figure had purple skin and glowing eyes, and wore a brown zippered jacket.

  This was one of the “Working Joe” androids. Nowhere near the sophistication of a synthetic, these were drones that were hooked into the APOLLO computer that controlled the station.

  “Can I help you?” the android said in a scratchy voice loud enough to be heard over the alarm. Its mouth wasn’t quite moving in time with the words that came out of it.

  Why should the Joes be working any better than anything else on this dump? she thought, then said aloud, “I need to get to comms control. It’s urgent.”

  “That is a restricted area.”

  Amanda rolled her eyes. “It’s an emergency. Don’t you realize what’s going on?” She gestured toward the distant alarm.

  “APOLLO has the situation in hand.” It added, “Your registration is almost complete.”

  What the hell…? Then she remembered. The console back in the lobby must have continued cycling through the registration process, even while she was busy dodging bullets. Without her active participation, though, would it be caught in a permanent loop?

  “Forget it,” she said. “I’ll find my own way.”

  To her relief, the Joe did nothing to prevent her from moving on. It seemed blissfully unaware of the security alert, despite the alarm that was echoing throughout the station. She had avoided Seegson equipment as much as she could since ditching her piece-of-shit Seegson Pad when she was at Delaj. No reason to expect anything better out of the Joe.

  The corridor ended at a large console room that looked vaguely familiar. To her left was a staircase that led upward. It was clearly labelled.

  facility control

  As near as she could tell, they probably led to the other end of the lobby area where the woman had panicked and shot at her. Spotting a computer terminal, Amanda tried to activate it and call up a map. To her surprise, the terminal turned out to be fully functional and gave her a map of the spire. It verified that, if she went up those stairs, she’d not only reach Facility Control, but also find an elevator that would take her up to the comms.

  About fucking time.

  The blare of the security alarm had devolved into white noise, until Amanda barely even noticed it. Abruptly, it stopped—either something had been fixed, or it had just given up the ghost. Without the klaxon, however, she heard the rattling in the ceiling again, growing louder and more violent. Without warning a vent screen crashed to the floor. Amanda jumped back, peering upward.

  Slowly, something came out of the darkness. At first she thought it was an arm, but peering more closely at it, she realized it was a tail.

  The tail that had killed Axel.

  Heart pounding with sheer panic, she hit the deck, diving behind the desk that held the terminal she’d used. There was a weird slithering sound, then a fwump of something landing on the deck.

  Amanda pulled the revolver out of her hip pocket.

  She crawled cautiously over to the side of the desk and peered around it. There was a figure there, but her brain refused to accept what she saw.

  At first glance, it looked like an insect of some kind—except it was at least eight feet tall, with narrow arms, clawed hands, and spindly legs. Plus that tail, which she now realized was as long as the body. The creature’s head was long and narrow, ending in a crest. There were no obvious eyes, but a huge set of wicked-looking teeth.

  She ducked back, thumbing the safety on the revolver. At least now she knew why Axel hadn’t been willing to talk about it. It was a creature of pure nightmare, and he’d probably worried that if he tried to describe it, she’d scoff at him or think he was insane. Hell, one look had left her doubting her own state of mind.

  There were several thumps as the creature moved about the room. Suddenly, there was a loud one as the thing landed on the desk, sending vibrations that caused her teeth to rattle. It was all she could do not to cry out.

  Fuck fuck fuck fuckfuckfuck.

  She held the Jacobs close to her face, hoping to hell the thing wasn’t bulletproof. It had what looked like a hard exoskeleton, so there was no guarantee. Although it hadn’t yet seen her, its tail whipped down, striking the deck with a dull thud. The tail slithered back and forth right in front of Amanda for several seconds, confirming her fears.

  It was definitely what killed Axel.

  Perfect fucking ending to my life.

  Then the tail snaked back up out of sight. Another fwump, causing the entire desk to shift, and then thudding footfalls. Once those faded, Amanda peeked back out over the top.

  There was a strange gunk that reminded her a little bit of the cryogel the Torrens had slathered on her for stasis. It was all over the top of the desk, and smeared on the deck beyond. That was what she had seen on Axel’s arm just before he was killed.

  The slimy trail went over to the stairs and up.

  At first, Amanda rejected the notion of going up after it. She could double back, return to the lobby, and go in that way. But time was of the essence. The longer she spent on the station, the more likely something—or someone—was going to kill her. Hell, everyone in the fucking universe needed to know about the damned monster.

  Unles
s they thought she was insane, too.

  She had to take that chance. Amanda had to contact Verlaine as soon as humanly possible and get out of this nightmare. So, Jacobs raised and ready, she ran over to the stairs and up, carefully avoiding the gunk.

  They led to a catwalk that overlooked what the map had called the SysTech Hub. Consoles everywhere, all deactivated, including a central unit. At the far end there would be an elevator bank, which she remembered but couldn’t yet see. As she moved slowly forward, crouched down so she was hidden behind the railing, she heard voices.

  “Shoot it! Fucking shoot it!”

  Then the report of a pistol.

  Straightening a bit, Amanda saw that her fears had been well-founded. Rounds just bounced off the thing. The man with the gun was standing near the console on one side of the monster, while the woman who’d shot at Amanda was on the other side—at the very elevator bank that Amanda was hoping to access.

  The creature turned to face the woman, who held up both hands in a defensive posture. Amanda suspected it wasn’t going to prove to be much of a defense.

  “No, stay back, stay baaaAAAAAAAAAAAAA…!”

  Those were the last sounds the woman uttered. The thing slashed at her chest, and blood sprayed out all over the elevator bank. The man’s response was to shoot at the thing some more, until his pistol ran out of bullets.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ!” He tried to turn and run, but the alien caught up with him in two long strides, picked him up with one hand, and smashed the other hand through his skull, sending up a geyser of gore.

  Amanda crouched back down, unable to watch anything more, appalled that she’d reached the point where she barely reacted. It was bad enough that she could hear the man’s gurgling and the squelch of his bloody body as it landed on the deck.

  Sitting stock still, hoping that the monster hadn’t seen her, she waited until she heard the thing move away.

  Rising slowly to her feet, she saw the monster heading to the far end of the hub, back toward the lobby. That seemed like the first good thing that had happened to her all fucking day.

  Clicking on the safety for the Jacobs, she pocketed it and then ran across the catwalk, moving down the stairs to the elevator bank. She tried very hard not to look at the woman’s body, nor step in the blood that pooled under her. Fumbling in her pocket for the Halfin, she pulled it out and managed to get the elevator doors open.

  Stepping inside, she hit the appropriate button, and turned as the door slid closed. The last things she saw were the two corpses.

  “Seegson Communications,” the elevator said, “going up.”

  This one, amazingly enough, moved smoothly without a lurch or a jolt. It came to a stop and, when the door opened again, she found herself facing a completely darkened corridor. She fumbled with her headset, switched the lamp on, and began to walk.

  It was so incredibly quiet here, especially after the constant clanging of the security alarm and the chaos left in the wake of the monster. It was more than that, though. Downstairs there had been signs of habitation, but here it was as if the whole place had been stripped of everything that wasn’t bolted down.

  Then she heard a sound that echoed in the hallway.

  “Access to the elevator is restricted. You are trespassing.”

  It was another Joe, with the same scratchy voice as the other one. Amanda kept moving down the corridor, and another voice responded to the first.

  “Let me pass,” someone said. “It’s me, Hughes! Don’t you recognize me?” Turning a corner, she saw a slatted window that revealed a larger corridor. Quickly, she switched off the light, not wanting to draw attention to herself. Three or four yards away, a Joe stood in front of a frantic man who was waving his arms about. The Joe was very overtly blocking Hughes’s path forward.

  “Your identity is irrelevant,” the Joe said.

  “Listen to me, we’ve got to reestablish long-range communications!”

  Amanda didn’t like the sound of that. “Reestablish” implied that they weren’t working, which was not good.

  “You are becoming hysterical.” The Joe started to move toward Hughes. In response, the man whipped out a pistol.

  “Get back, I’m warning you!”

  The Joe didn’t stop its forward progress, so Hughes backed up and squeezed the trigger. But that didn’t stop the Joe’s forward progress either, as the white lubricant that passed for synthetic blood oozed out of its shoulder, let loose by a bullet wound.

  “Tut-tut,” the Joe said, unperturbed. “Let’s resolve this amicably.” The android then grabbed the man’s shoulders and threw him bodily to the deck. Hughes struggled to raise his pistol again, but the Joe just grabbed him again, yanked him to his feet, and then started smashing Hughes’s head against the bulkhead.

  Over and over and over again.

  Amanda looked away, not at all eager to witness yet another murder. She padded quickly but quietly down the corridor, more intent than ever on remaining unnoticed. This entire station was populated by crazy people, homicidal androids, and unstoppable monsters. She was done with all of them.

  “Good day,” she heard the Joe say to Hughes’s corpse, and a shiver ran up and down her spine. Speeding up, she found her way to the door she sought.

  CENTRAL COMMUNICATIONS HUB

  seegson employees only

  Undaunted, she pulled the Halfin back out. Within seconds it opened the way. As soon as the door slid open, she heard Verlaine’s voice.

  “Sevastopol,” the captain’s voice said. “What the hell happened, Sevastopol? Did any of our EVA team make it on board? Please respond. Sevastopol, this is Verlaine on the Torrens, contacting anyone in authority. We’ve taken damage from the explosions and need to remove ourselves from station space so we can effect repairs. Systems will be down while we do so, I can’t say how long, but we need to know if—”

  The room itself was in semidarkness, with the only light coming from one working console, on the far side. Amanda started running for it, determined to respond to Verlaine’s call. By the time she reached it, the external link had been cut off. A deep male voice replaced it.

  “External communications disabled by order of APOLLO. Facility offline. All outgoing communications halted.” At that moment the console went dark as well.

  “Fuck!” Amanda pounded on the console. If she’d gotten here sooner, if she hadn’t stopped to gape at Hughes getting killed, if—

  If I’d told Samuels to pound sand and stayed on Luna where it was safe.

  She’d had a boss once who said that if wishes were horses, they’d be hip-deep in shit.

  Switching the headset lamp back on, she stared down at the console controls, and tried to call up a menu. It took what seemed like forever before she got a response.

  “Internal communications open on limited channels,” the computer informed her.

  “Finally,” she muttered. “There’s got to be someone I can contact.” Before she could try, though, something grabbed her calf. “Ow!”

  The grip was tight, and painful. She looked down, and her headset light shone on a Working Joe android. Or, rather, half of a Joe android.

  It was a torso only.

  The Joe looked up at her, right hand wrapped around her calf, a trail of white lubricant streaked across the floor behind it.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” it said in its mechanical monotone.

  “Can’t argue with that,” Amanda muttered. Her leg began to go numb. She pulled out the K92 and brought it down hard on the Joe’s head.

  “Please come with me to—” the Joe started, but then she hit it again. More lubricant splattered about, some of it getting on Amanda’s jumpsuit. But the android still didn’t let go. She smashed it on the head one more time, cracking the plastic skull like an egg, and finally the stupid thing released its grip on her ankle.

  For several seconds, she limped around, trying to get the feeling back in her left leg. The Joes had powerful grips, that was for sure, ev
en after they were cut in half. Reaching down, she rubbed her left calf a bit. It felt bruised, but she could walk on it without much pain.

  Then all thoughts of her leg flew from her mind, as she heard the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard in her life.

  15

  LORENZ SYSTECH SPIRE, SEVASTOPOL STATION

  DECEMBER 2137

  It was Samuels’s voice.

  “Hello? Is anyone there? If anyone can hear this, we need help. Repeat, we need help urgently. Please respond.”

  Amanda typed rapidly into the console and replied to the incoming message. The screen lit up with Samuels’s face. She was relieved to see that he appeared none the worse for wear.

  “Samuels, you’re alive! It’s Ripley!”

  “Ripley!” He turned away from the camera for a moment. “Taylor, it’s Ripley!” He looked back at her. “We were getting worried. We thought—”

  “Me too—but I made it. Where are you?”

  “We’re at a transit station now, right by Medical.”

  That was less than helpful—there were transit stations all over—but while she spoke, Amanda traced the call so she could find them.

  “Okay, Samuels, listen to me,” she said firmly. “It’s not safe here. Seegson’s got this place locked tight—their goddamn androids are killing people.”

  “That’s impossible,” Samuels said with all the assurance of someone who hadn’t just had his leg grabbed. “It’s contrary to primary synthetic programming.”

  “I’ve seen it, Samuels. A Working Joe killed someone right in front of me!”

  “That’s—very peculiar.”

  Understatement of the fucking millennium.

  “I guess Seegson’s notion of how to program a synthetic is a little different,” she said aloud. “And that’s not all, there’s a—a creature. It’s big and it’s lethal.”

  “Ripley, slow down.” Most likely Samuels was still having trouble parsing psychotic androids. “A creature?”

  “It’s a life form, an unknown type. At least I assume it’s unknown, ’cause trust me, if anyone knew about it, we’d all know about it. The thing’s a monster, Samuels, it’s extremely dangerous. I’m pretty sure it’s why this place has turned into a fucking mausoleum. You and Taylor need to—”