Chapter Text
You stood at the edge of the cafeteria, tray warming your hands as you looked down the long table packed with UA Marines. From the moment you had awoken out of cryosleep, they had been shouting, laughing, and shoving each other around. They reminded you of the most annoying classmates you’d had throughout university, the ones who just couldn’t take anything seriously. It had been a long time since you were in school. With three degrees under your belt, you’d never thought about going back. But now, it almost felt like you had traveled back in time.
You sighed. Burke had told you that you’d return to the peace and quiet of your lab in a month, maybe less. It couldn’t come soon enough for you. You had been so close to a breakthrough when he had yanked you away from your important environmental studies to go observe… aliens? The idea of studying extraterrestrial life was exciting, if it was true.
In your opinion, the whole mission sounded like an excuse to round up a bunch of guns and make a big display in front of some colonists whose equipment happened to have shorted out. Big deal.
Burke caught your eye and waved you over. You didn’t want to, but you didn’t know any of the others, so you walked over and slid into the seat next to him anyway. The woman across the table glanced up at you, then back down at her plate.
“Making any new friends?” Burke asked, smirking.
“Shut up.”
You shoveled a spoonful of something that resembled overcooked eggs into your mouth. It didn't have the texture of anything close to organic. Burke introduced you to Ripley, but apparently neither of you felt like talking. It was all the same to you.
The eggs tasted sour. You swallowed with a grimace.
Someone offered you a tray of cornbread. You shook your head. Burke took two and chewed on them as he spoke.
“We’ve got the lab equipment onboard, almost everything on your list. When we get to the colony, you can use their stuff too. It’s supposed to be top of the line.”
“Great,” you mumbled.
“You’re going to be studying the aliens?” Ripley asked, her knuckles turning white around her fork. “Why?”
“To build up some defense against them,” Burke explained. “Obviously, we have a capable team already, but against something like acidic blood, my colleague here could develop an antibody. Oh, relax. They’re into that environmental crap, not cloning, or whatever you’re thinking.”
“It’s Bioecology, actually,” you said. No one was listening.
As Ripley and Burke argued, one of the Marines started to scream. You shifted your gaze to the knife flashing across the table. His yell rose louder and louder. The crowd leaned in, jostling bodies closing over the scene.
You took your tray to the trash bin and walked off to find the lab.
You tightened the seatbelts across your chest. Apone had given you a bulletproof vest and a helmet like the ones Marines all had on. For your safety, he had said. At least now you looked a little less conspicuous.
Bishop sat next to you, hands on his knees, posture perfect. In the close quarters of the drop ship, your side pressed against him on your left and Vasquez on your right. In this sandwich, you were the chicken.
When Burke had introduced you to the crew before cryosleep, he had mentioned the synthetic onboard. You had never met one who preferred being called a person, artificial or otherwise. The staff of your lab were all human. You admired how his chest rose and fell with every breath, as if it was not just mimicry, but built into his functioning.
“Do you share Lieutenant Ripley’s concerns?” he asked. You blinked. Only when he looked at you did you realize the question was meant for you.
“What?”
“You’re staring at me,” he noted. “I assure you, it is impossible for me to cause harm to–”
“Oh.” You flushed, looking down at your boots. “No, nothing like that, it’s just… I study living things, but only the biological. I was wondering if I could understand how you worked. If it would make sense to me.”
“You’re… curious?”
“Yes.”
When you glanced back at him, his wide eyes were doing something so remarkably human it made your breath catch. You were close enough to see that his irises had a crude reproduction of the gradient that a human’s would. That did nothing to diminish the effect.
“I’d be happy to tell you anything you want to know,” he said, beginning to smile.
“Maybe after.”
He nodded once, but amidst takeoff your stomach rolled over and over so much that you forgot how to stand once you landed, let alone anything you had been thinking of asking him.
You refused Bishop’s hand for balance and stumbled down the ramp on your own.
Burke had been right. The colonist’s labs were almost as well equipped as your own back on Earth. To top it off, they already had several specimens. You had spent the last few hours sorting through their notes and records in the lab with Bishop while the others searched for the colonists.
“Did these colonists have any pets?” you asked.
“Only ones small enough to be kept in cages,” Bishop answered. He stared at the spider-like thing wriggling in its tank. “Dogs and cats were against regulation. Why?”
“Just wondering if they could be infected too. How the resulting xenomorph would be different, if at all.”
The creature waved its legs in the water. A shiver of disgust ran down your spine. Unfortunately, it seemed that they did not require air to breathe. It tapped against the glass as if searching for you. Not for the first time, relief rushed in that you hadn’t been left in the lab all alone.
“If it was smart enough, do you think it would cut itself and use its blood to dissolve the glass?” you asked.
He tilted his head. “The bigger ones might. I doubt these are intelligent enough.”
“I sure hope you're right.”
“I would not allow anything to happen to you.” As he repeated the same sentiment from before, he turned himself to face you like a sunflower unfurling to the sun, an offering.
You hummed. “What could you really do though? Ripley said that once it… attaches to you…”
“In that case,” Bishop began, “my concern would be with ending your inevitable suffering.”
“You’d kill me?”
The blank look he fixed on you was enough to remind you that his skin was stretched over plastic ligaments and metal bones, no matter how human he looked. Goosebumps rose on your arms.
“Unless we could find a way to remove the creature. Yes.” He paused. Calculated. “Does that bother you?”
“No. I’m glad. I don’t want to endanger anyone else.”
You reopened the handwritten notes you had been reading. Even though the Marines had gone off to rescue the colonists, you had a hard time believing that the one who wrote this could possibly still be alive. You cursed your original skepticism.
“I do not want it to come to that,” he said after a while.
“Hm?”
“It’s beyond my basic programming. I find humans... interesting. Your safety is not just a rule, but a goal to me.” He measured something in a vial as he spoke, the gesture an almost humanly self-conscious distraction.
“You find the aliens interesting too,” you remarked.
“Yes.”
“I’m not Ripley. Doesn’t bother me.” You flipped through the pages in your hand, eyes skimming over the words. Removed surgically before… “Hell, I think they’re interesting. I’m used to studying lifeforms from Earth, so this isn't like anything I’ve ever seen before.”
“You’re a bioecologist.”
You glanced at him, startled. “I never told you that.”
“It’s customary for me to read the files of all crew members.”
“What else did you learn about me?” you asked, smiling.
“You’ve published several papers on your research. Brilliant, by the way.” His eyes crinkled as he mirrored you.
“Thank you.”
A pause. “You were also arrested five years ago at a protest about Weyland’s environmental impact.”
“Yup. Burke bailed me out. That’s why I’m here. I owe him.” You shook your head. “Although, I’m not sure why he wanted me if he had you.”
“I may be artificial, but two pairs of eyes are always better than one.”
“Even if you could do the work of five people in half the time?” You ran a highlighter over a sentence.
He turned his head away, but not before you could see his smile widen. “Precisely.”
“Her name’s Newt,” Ripley said, placing a hand on the girl’s blonde head. “I just need you to watch her for a minute. I’ll be back soon.”
Newt peeked out from behind her, clutching a doll’s head in her hands. She looked a little shell shocked. You supposed that was to be expected.
“Okay,” you said. The lab wasn't the safest place for her to be, but she didn't look like she'd cause any real trouble.
Ripley shifted her gaze to Bishop, then leaned closer to you.
“Keep an eye on him, too.”
You looked back at him. Bishop stood in front of the tanks, wearing the big goggles you had insisted on putting over his eyes. A dead specimen lay on a tray in front of him, half dissected. His scalpel flashed with the same precision as his knife game at the table earlier.
“I think I’ll just die if you don’t,” you had said, after he claimed the goggles were not necessary.
“Whatever notions of jailbreaking you have, I assure you, they are not needed. I must wear them, if you insist.”
“Oh.” You had paused there, uncertain. “I don’t want to make you wear them, I’m just worried.”
His lips had drawn down. “About?”
“If you get hurt.”
“Well,” he had said, glancing at the floor with a shy smile, “how thoughtful.”
All to say, he looked a little silly at the moment, and Ripley telling you to be careful around him almost made you laugh. But you didn’t dare.
Instead, you nodded. “I will.”
Ripley picked Newt up, placing her on a high stool beside you. Her chin barely raised above the table’s surface. She stared at you with wide, unblinking eyes, and so did the doll in her lap.
“Thank you,” Ripley said as she hurried out the door.
You sifted through the pile of notes beside you, back to the page where one of the doctors had noted that the creatures were able to keep their hosts breathing. Bishop had drawn up a rudimentary sketch of the alien’s internal anatomy at your request, which you had been comparing to the colonist’s records.
“What’s that?” Newt asked, pointing.
You glanced up. “That’s a scalpel.”
“What about that?”
“Tongs.” You circled an unclear area on the sketch. “Did you get to labs in your science class yet?”
She kicked her feet in the air. “No. We mostly learned about Earth.”
“Hm. You want to help?”
Newt nodded, eyes brightening. You smiled.
“Alright, first thing’s first.” You pulled the microscope closer. “We’ve got to look at this thing at the cellular level.”
“We learned about cells, too,” she said.
“That’s good.” You placed a slide with a sample of the alien’s exoskeleton on it under the microscope.
Newt had to stand on her chair to see. She demanded to wear a pair of blue plastic gloves like Bishop and you, but even the smallest size had an inch of empty space above her fingers. You told her which dials to turn to focus the image or increase the brightness.
“You’ll be publishing scientific papers in no time," you said.
A clear glass of water slid in front of you. Another, smaller one paused in front of Newt. She didn’t notice, too busy tilting her head at the microscope. You glanced up.
Bishop stood at your side, goggles propped up on his forehead. Indents surrounded his eyes where they had rested before. You curled your fingers in your lap to resist reaching out and touching them.
“Find anything useful?” he asked.
“I’m mostly babysitting at the moment. Not that I was making much progress before.”
His eyes flicked to his sketch, the red circle.
“Did I make a mistake?”
You sipped the water. Its coldness soothed your dry throat. “I just didn’t understand what I was looking at.”
“I apologize. I’m a little bit new to… drawing,” he said, shuffling his feet. You wondered if he could feel embarrassed, or if your anthropomorphizations had spiraled out of control already. It seemed like an awfully inefficient thing to program. But it could be learned.
“It’s okay. You did a good job.”
He took in a sharp breath, adjacent to a gasp. “I did?”
“I want to draw!” Newt said. You tore your eyes away from Bishop’s dawning smile.
“I think we have more colored markers somewhere.”
“I’ll get them,” he offered, already halfway across the room.
You tore a blank page out of one of the notebooks. Newt scribbled out a recreation of the alien’s cell structure. As she worked, you took your turn looking through the microscope. You zoomed in even closer, noting every variation in the margins.
Bishop brought an array of markers back to the table, and arranged them one by one in a rainbow next to her. With a glance in your direction, he flipped over a page of notes and began to draw.
Taking another sip of water, you followed their example. A rough circle turned into a picture of the Earth underneath your pencil. You shaded the water darker than the continents. There were no oceans on LV-426, although it rained every day, on one side of the planet or the other. A light drizzle pattered outside the lab windows now, as you worked.
After a while, Ripley walked into the lab, one hand on the pistol at her side. As you smiled at her, the tension loosened from her shoulders. She still kept an eye on Bishop as she moved past him to stand behind Newt.
“Look, Ripley!” Newt exclaimed, holding up her drawing with both hands. Two stick figures stood among the cells, hands linked, with the names Ripley and Hicks above their heads. A heart floated between them.
She grinned. “Aw, that’s sweet.”
“I want to show him.”
“Hicks? Alright, let’s go.” Ripley lifted Newt into her arms with ease, turning to you. “Thanks for taking care of her.”
“No problem,” you replied. They disappeared, leaving the lab in silence except for Bishop’s pencil scratching the paper.
“Better get back to work, I guess,” you said, sighing. You crumpled up your drawing and threw it towards the trash can across the room. You missed.
“Of course.”
Bishop moved back to his side of the lab, pulling his goggles back down over his eyes. His abandoned drawing stared back at you.
It was your face. A side profile. You traced your fingers over the page, heart leaping. A few of your features were crooked, clumsy, but so carefully stitched together.
And you looked… happy.
Red lights flashed overhead. Half of the UA Marines were dead, you didn't know where everyone else had scattered to, and now you were trapped in the lab by yourself. Deafening alarms blared. Containment breached.
You swung a metal trash can at the window. The bullet proof glass didn’t even crack. A sob rose in your throat, high and desperate. You swung again, almost pulling your shoulder out of its socket. The trash can's corner dented. It left nothing but a scuff mark. A figure moved outside. For a fleeting, hopeful moment you thought it was Bishop, coming back like he said he would. He’d know how to get you out of there. He’d never let anything happen to you.
Then he moved closer.
“Burke!” you shouted. “Burke, goddamnit, let me out of here!”
He stared at you through the window, and he smiled.
Something scuttled behind you. Your breath came faster as you pressed your back against the door. Nowhere to run. No way to hide.
In the flashing red light you saw a snapshot of the tank, water dripping through the sizzling hole in the glass. The papers you had been studying lay scattered on the ground, soaking up water. It didn’t matter anymore. You hadn’t discovered anything Ripley didn't already know.
Bishop’s sketch of your face lay there too, waterlogged and unrecognizable.
You swiped a scalpel off the table and held it out in front of you, hands shaking so much you knew he could see it too.
Burke. You glared at him. He tapped his foot, looking at his watch. The picture of impatience, like a man whose transport was a few minute late. You opened your mouth to yell at him but something covered your eyes and you couldn’t breathe and…
It took you one very groggy, slow minute to realize you were awake. Not dead.
“Alright sweethearts, what are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed?” Apone shouted.
You swung your legs over the side of the cryopod. The hand you placed on your chest found the hem of your tank top, not a bloody, broken mess. Across from you, Burke stood up and stretched. The Marines hustled out of the room to their lockers, shouting and laughter echoing behind them. Everyone was alive. You stared at them, heartbeat slowing, calming.
Weird dreams were not unheard of in cryosleep, but whatever you had just experienced took the cake for you. It felt so real. You ran a hand down your face. The cold still clung to your damp skin.
“Wake up and get dressed, sleepyhead,” Burke said, throwing your jumpsuit across your legs. You scowled at him.
“Shut up, Burke,” you snapped. The real anger in your voice startled you. He raised his hands in surrender.
“Don’t talk to you before you’ve had your coffee, I got it.”
You got dressed, but stayed sitting there long after the others had left, taking deep breaths until the tightness in your chest dissolved. If you hadn’t been worried before, you certainly were now.