“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” She was pretty sure it wasn’t, and his response echoed her instincts.
“No,” he said, “but we have little choice. The Joes won’t stop until everyone is dead. I must convince APOLLO that the infection has been eliminated, and to call off the lockdown and sterilization procedures.”
As he spoke Samuels led her into the next room, in which stood a large metal portal and a platform that would slide into it. Huge cables snaked across the floor, each of which led to one of four miniature power stations. Amanda recognized a jury rig when she saw one—this reformatting chamber had been rewired to be something else.
“How confident are you that this will work?”
“Not very.”
“Just checking.” She held up her shotgun. “I’ll make sure you work undisturbed.”
“Excellent.” Samuels then climbed onto the platform and used the controls to slide himself into the tube. The machinery hummed to life and Samuels was covered in a yellow glow.
“APOLLO connection initiating,” a mechanical voice intoned.
“APOLLO, infection has been purged,” Samuels replied. “The creature has been removed from the station. Sevastopol is now safe. Request that emergency lockdown be lifted.”
“Unauthorized connection.”
“Ripley,” Samuels said. His voice sounded strained, which was worrying.
“Samuels, what’s happening?”
“APOLLO’s rejecting me—we might be in trouble. It’s trying to stop me—from interfacing—Ripley, I can’t disconnect—you need—to manually disconnect—systems—please.”
“On it!” Amanda had worked on an APOLLO mainframe back on Luna, so she knew her way around the systems, more or less. Samuels’s jury rig, though, made everything weird.
“The systems—must be disconnected—in the correct order,” Samuels said. “First the red.”
Amanda dashed over to the red power station and used the Weinshelbaum K92 to unscrew the bolt enough to loosen that connection.
“Now—the blue.”
As she went to the blue power station, she realized that this was the first time she’d used the K92 as a tool since she opened the X13s with Axel. Since then, it had just been a glorified club used to pound on Working Joes.
“Next—yellow.”
“—and then the green one, got it.” Amanda worked as fast as she could, loosening both sets of bolts. After she finished the green one, the tube lit up brightly, then dimmed entirely. Samuels slid out limply, falling to the deck in a heap. She ran to him and knelt by his side.
White lubricant leaked from the side of his mouth, and his body looked more like a rag doll than a person.
“Samuels,” she said. “Oh no.”
“Ripley?” His voice was off—sounding more like the scratchy mechanical tones of the Joes. Between that and the leaking of fluids, Amanda knew.
“You’re dying, Samuels.”
“You speak as if I’ve had an actual life,” he said. “I—I thank you for that.”
“Of course you’ve had a life. Don’t be stupid.” Amanda had never understood the prejudice against synthetics. They were people, too. Hell, she hadn’t even realized that Samuels was anything but a human being, and he was a better person than any biological person she’d met on this misbegotten station…
“Ripley, I managed to open the APOLLO transit. You can get to the core and—and attempt to stop this madness. Before I was disconnected—I was able to grant you access authorization. I thought—I thought you should have—have closure for—for your—”
She waited for him to finish.
It never came.
“Dammit,” she said. “Sleep well, my friend.”
It surprised her at first, that she had said “friend,” but for some reason it didn’t bother her. Samuels had treated her like a friend before they even met, just by arranging her inclusion in the party on the Torrens. Back on Luna, he never could have anticipated the nightmare it would become.
The company could have just gone for the flight recorder and sent her—or, more likely, her stepfather—a message about it. But he’d shown enough compassion to let her come and see for herself.
Getting to her feet, she tapped the radio.
“Ricardo? Can you read me?” Her voice broke, but she didn’t care. “Ricardo, pick up, dammit! Ricardo?”
“I’m sorry, I’m here now, Rip,” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“Samuels is dead.”
“Shit.”
“He opened APOLLO transit for me and gave me access to the core. I need to get down there.”
Ricardo said, “Right. Go out the door behind you and make a right. There’s a long corridor, and a catwalk leading over a manufacturing plant for the Joes. At the end of it you’ll find the transit car that will take you to the core.” He hesitated, and she darted out the door. Then he spoke again. “I’m sorry, Rip. He wasn’t bad for a synthetic.”
“He was pretty fucking good for a person.”
“Of course.” There was another silence, as she continued down the hallway, then, “Um, Rip? The reason I didn’t respond right away? I found a recording that I think you need to hear.”
She got to the catwalk Ricardo mentioned. Looking down, she saw the shadowy forms of vast machines, a sprawling manufacturing facility that was completely shut down.
Thank goodness for small favors. The notion that APOLLO might be replacing the dead Joes with new ones didn’t bear thinking about. Then what he had said registered, and she slowed to a walk.
“Okay,” she said to Ricardo, “play it.”
“It’s a surveillance record, from the brig.”
Taylor’s voice came over the radio. “You’re Marlow, right?”
“Yeah.”
Amanda stopped and clenched her fists.
“I’m Nina Taylor, legal counsel for Weyland-Yutani.”
“Ooooh,” Marlow said, “the big guns now, huh? Not some girl with abandonment issues?”
Fuck you too, asshole. She added that remark to the ever-lengthening list of reasons why she wanted to beat Marlow until he bled, if the opportunity presented itself.
“Leave Ripley out of this,” Taylor said, “she’s just looking for closure. I’m looking after the company’s interests.”
“And I’m looking to get outta this cell. Maybe we can do a deal?”
“Maybe. This is being recorded, you understand?”
“Yeah, I can see the red light.”
There was a pause, then Taylor continued. “I want data: the location of the planetoid where you found the derelict, and everything you have on the organism and its origins.”
“I can give you that,” Marlow said with no hesitation. “And I can give you a way off this shithole. You just gotta let me out.” Marlow had tried that on Amanda, but she hadn’t been empowered to release him, and probably wouldn’t have even if she was.
Taylor had no such compunctions.
Amanda had thought better of her.
“I can probably agree to those terms.” There was a sound in the background. “As long as—What the fuck!?”
Amanda gasped. She couldn’t tell what was happening.
“Taylor! Shit, Taylor, get me the fuck outta here! Now!”
The recording stopped there, but Amanda guessed that was when the Joes started their rampage through the Marshals Bureau. Yet she’d checked the bodies—the only one she’d recognized was Waits.
She reached the transit station, where there was a car waiting. She stepped on board, and the control panel gave her options for the manufacturing plant, the computer core, and the reactor core. She touched the panel labelled COMPUTER CORE. It lit up with an image of an eyeball and the words RETINAL SCAN.
Sure hope you got this right, Samuels. Amanda peered straight into the icon with her right eye wide open. A message appeared on the screen.
RIPLEY, AMANDA
WEYLAND-YUTANI CONSULTANT
CLEARANCE:
GREEN
ACCESS GRANTED
The transit car lurched to life and took her down.
“Rip, I’m starting… lose… signal the further dow… o…” Her link to Ricardo went dead.
Amanda sighed. “Peachy.” Going into a computer core overrun by homicidal androids, without any support, probably wasn’t the smartest move she’d ever made. But Samuels sacrificed himself so I could have this access.
It’d been easier when she hadn’t allowed herself to care.
25
SCIMED SPIRE, SEVASTOPOL STATION
DECEMBER 2137
The transit car decelerated, lurched to a stop, and the door opened to reveal a large domed structure. She stepped out and the door closed behind her, though the car didn’t move. Then a metal door opened in one side of the dome to reveal a cramped hallway.
This was access to the computer core, and the fact that the door opened on her arrival meant that her green clearance worked, and that Samuels had managed to do what he said. Not that she doubted him, but it wasn’t as if anything had gone right since they woke from cryo on the Torrens.
Just past the door stood a mesh gate blocking her access. A small table stood to one side.
“Firearms detected,” a computerized voice said. “Please place all firearms on the table.”
“You’ve gotta be shitting me.” She sighed and placed the Jacobs and the shotgun on the table. And, thinking about it, the precaution made sense. The core was comprised of very sensitive equipment that controlled an entire space station. Bullets didn’t go well with that.
“Thank you,” the voice said, and the gate slid upward. As she moved down the corridor and approached an inner door, the outer door shut behind her. She felt the breeze of a decontamination protocol, and then the inner door opened.
The computer core itself was also domed, though smaller—the walls covered in white points of light that indicated the data processes. Amanda was never sure what exactly each light symbolized—that was a programming thing, not an engineering thing. Her concern was more with the connections behind the walls. In the center of the room was a chair facing a monitor and keyboard.
Here goes nothing.
Amanda sat on the chair and pressed the enter key. The monitor lit up, showing a green octagon, and then several lines of data scrolled by before giving her a prompt. She typed two simple words: DISENGAGE ANDROIDS.
NEGATIVE. WY SPECIAL ORDER
939 IN PROGRESS.
Amanda blinked. “What the hell?” She typed, WHY WY?
WEYLAND-YUTANI PURCHASED THIS
FACILITY. SEE PURCHASE ORDER
WY-SS X3 DATED 11.21.2137.
“Two days after we left? Holy shit…” None of this made any sense. They were already sending Samuels, Taylor, and her to get the flight recorder. Why did they have to buy the fucking station?
WHAT IS SPECIAL ORDER 939?
The response was quick.
PRIORITY ONE: PROTECT SPECIMEN,
MAINTAIN STATION QUARANTINE,
DISALLOW COMMUNICATIONS. ALL
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS SECONDARY.
Then she remembered one of the things Taylor said to Marlow. “Everything you have on the organism and its origins.” The company fucking knew about that damn creature! Was this ever even about the flight recorder? Or was it about that damn monster?
Angrily, she typed,
CREATURE NO LONGER ON
SEVASTOPOL. SUSPEND SPECIAL
ORDER 939.
She didn’t think that would work, but it couldn’t hurt to try.
NEGATIVE. SCHEDULED REACTOR
CORE SCANS ARE UNVERIFIED.
“What? Fuck!” She typed, SCAN REACTOR CORE.
UNABLE TO COMPLY. REACTOR
CORE SCANNERS OFFLINE.
Computers were irritatingly literal, so Amanda tried typing, BRING CORE SCANNERS ONLINE.
UNABLE TO COMPLY. REACTOR
CORE SCANNERS NOT FUNCTIONING.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck!”
Maddeningly literal. APOLLO wouldn’t lift the lockdown until it was sure that the station was clear of aliens, and it couldn’t scan the reactor core. So she had to go down there. Getting up from the chair, she went back outside—this time there was no decon procedure—and as she gathered her weapons back up, her radio crackled.
“Rip? Can you hear me?”
“Ricardo!”
“Finally!” he said. “Been trying to break through the interference for ages. Any luck with APOLLO?”
“Yes and no. Turns out APOLLO is running a Weyland-Yutani program.”
“It’s what, now?”
“Seegson sold the station to Weyland-Yutani right after we set off from Earth.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I mean, it makes some sense—the station’s being decommissioned, and I can see why Seegson would want to sell her for parts—but why keep it secret?”
“Then you didn’t know about this?” Amanda shouldered her backpack.
“No, and trust me, the way gossip flies around this place, if that was public knowledge, it’s all anyone would have been talking about.”
She entered the transit car, which was still there from her trip down, and instructed it to take her to the reactor core. The last stop on the line, she noted wryly.
“There are a ton of Joes down there, Rip,” Ricardo said. “Be careful.”
As the car moved, she double-checked the shotgun to make sure it was loaded. It still had a round after the previous Joe she’d blasted. Patting her pockets to make sure the spare ammunition was still there, she held up the shotgun in a ready position as the door opened.
There was a Joe right outside the car.
“You are not authorized to access this—”
Amanda blew its head off.
Reloading the shotgun with two more rounds, she then worked her way toward a catwalk that led to the reactor main core. There were two Joes standing at different spots on the walkway, and both started moving toward her end. Adrenaline kicked in, she picked up speed, and jogged toward the catwalk.
“Running causes accidents,” the closer Joe said.
Her response was to blow its head off.
As the body hit the catwalk, the other came behind it. She shot that one, too, then stepped over the inert forms.
“You all right, Rip?”
“Just some Joes,” she said. “Moving on to the reactor core.” As she came down the other side of the catwalk, she saw a closed door and a control panel. Unfortunately, the core had a keypad. Fortunately, Amanda still had the Halfin AW15.
Bless that woman for being too stupid to fix it.
After hacking the code, she pocketed the AW15 and raised the shotgun. When the door opened, a blast of humid air hit her like a slap to the face.
What the hell? The reactor was supposed to be hot, but not humid. Any moisture would be boiled away by the extreme temperatures. There was no heat dryer than that of an engine core.
But walking into this one was like swimming through the air. There also wasn’t any light, which didn’t make sense, so Amanda switched on her headset lamp.
And then she saw it.
The walls were covered in a familiar slime, and something that looked very much like the alien creature’s exoskeleton. Dotted throughout the large reactor room were giant oval shapes that looked like the eggs Marlow had described—the ones he had seen on LV-426, one of which had burst open and attacked Foster. That was what brought the alien here in the first place.
She also saw a ton of bodies. Humans wrapped in slime-caked cocoons, faces pale, eyes bloodshot. There was a body near each of the eggs.
“Jesus, Ricardo—it’s a nest.”
“A what?”
“There’s eggs and people in cocoons and—fuck, Ricardo, this is a farm for more of those things!”
“Get out of there, Rip!”
“Fuck that shit,” she said, lowering her head. “I have to destroy this nest, now.”
“Are you
out of your mind?”
Amanda couldn’t answer no to that question, but she didn’t particularly care. These monsters had probably killed her mother. They definitely killed almost every single person she’d met on this station, and tons more besides. Waits had referred to the creature as a cockroach on steroids, and, like all cockroaches, they needed to be stepped on.
With extreme prejudice.
Her motion detector beeped. She pulled it from her pocket and saw that there were five figures moving through the reactor. And then she heard a distinctive slither. Turning, she ran out of the reactor core and into the relative coolness of the outer corridor, then closed the door.
A plan started to run through her head as she recalled her knowledge of the specs for this model station. There were four power sources for the reactor, four energy cores placed at the four compass points around the reactor itself.
“I’ve got to restore power to the reactor,” she said. “I can power up all the cores, overload them, and then initiate a reactor purge.”
“It’s suicide, Rip,” Ricardo said. “Just get out of there.”
She ignored him. “There are emergency overflow circuits that feed excess power into the local capacitor banks on each tower. If I decouple them, and discharge the system, the purge will be external. The nest is right in harm’s way, and it’ll be destroyed.”
A pause. “I have no clue what you just said.”
“Just find something to hold onto when I tell you, okay?” She ran to the alpha core, which was closest to her. Her hands flying over the control panel, she set the core to overload. Then she proceeded down the hallway that skirted the reactor core.
The alpha and beta cores were easy enough to set to overload. Each time, the computer intoned a warning.
“Alpha core at full capacity.”
“Alpha and beta cores at full capacity.”
The gamma core took a little longer, as Amanda had to reset some connections, but soon it was done, as the computer kindly confirmed.
“Alpha, beta, and gamma cores at full capacity.”
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