Alien - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Transformation ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

Transformation

 

Disclaimer: I do not own this series. Or do I?

 

Chapter 2

 

Phantom hands still grasped his throat as Arthur awoke. His mind and body was instantly awake. He felt as if he had slept three days after running a marathon. And he realized everything was horribly wrong.

 

The dull metallic world that surrounded him had changed dramatically becoming a lurid expansive world of vivid colors too clear to be real. He was trapped in a room that was barely 8 feet in size with a glaring, explosively reflective window, and it was the most breath taking place he had ever seen. The floors, the wall, the ceiling, and the glass window made up this beautiful prison and felt as heavily armored as the outer hull of a battleship. The smells and scents overwhelmed him. Something coated every facet of this room… It was sensory overload and he could barely grasp half of it.

 

Arthur wished the changes stopped there. The world had not only changed… he had changed… he did not need to look, he could feel everything. His spine had extended into an unbelievably dangerous appendage tipped with a extremely sharp spear like blade. They had done this to him. His skin had become hard almost armor like and formed into an exoskeleton resembling a human skeleton. The sense of touch was incredibly diminished; he could only feel pressure. They had changed him. His hands… the claw like hands… built like a human's with brutal strength. Hands he could almost feel choking him… killing off his humanity.

 

A sound approached him; a heavy automatic door usually used for airlocks slid straight open silhouetting three human figures; and the world beyond the window clarified. Sound and vision were intricately connected now. Sound clarified images giving a sharper view of whatever made the sound. Every footstep from these people gave him a view past that intensely brilliant glass wall… a one way mirror he assumed. Three people stood before him studying him extensively with the guise of scientific innocence. He knew better to call these people scientists, even when they played their part furiously typing glaringly obvious records into conveniently placed networked computers recessed into holes of the outer walls. They were murderers! All of them! Especially the leader who stared him down with steel eyes; the kind faced man took his humanity in the name of innocent science.

 

He wanted to kill this man to reach out with the weapon his body had become and to tear his damned heart out. He could see the heart; it beat with such regularity that all of his vital organs were highlighted, easy targets. Teeth bared revealing a inner jaw, and alien rage consumed him. Murderer! He should die like the dog he is! He threw himself bodily at the window unconsciously positioning himself so he could deal the most damage with the greatest applicable force. With the grace of a lion, he slammed headfirst into the brilliant window bouncing harmlessly off it none the worst for wear. The man did not flinch even as the less experienced scientists twitched and picked up the pace of their work. He yelled in rage giving out an earth shattering alien roar of bloodthirsty malevolence. But the window, this thin piece of sturdy material kept him at bay.

 

The lead scientist was not smiling nor was he smug. He just stared me down ignoring the gratuitous violence he leveled at the glass window. He swiped claws and threw his tail as a javelin through the air, but the glass remained intacd. Unharmed. Not even a scratch. For a moment, he had become the monster again trying to feed his madness with the flesh of his enemy.

 

“Dr. Lorne, we're done here.” The other scientists, the ones who showed fear, broke into a dead run out of the room. The immense airlock like door sealed shut behind them leaving Arthur and Lorne staring daggers at one another.

 

Lorne… his name snapped Arthur out of his senseless rage. He had a name now. The world past that wall of glass was getting dimmer. Arthur knew he was still there, but he was barely making any sounds but steady breathing and a healthy beating of a heart. He looked like a shadow and soon he appeared to vanish leaving Arthur and his reflection facing off against each other. Arthur walked up closely to the mirror, his body moved like some predator stalking for its kill. Pulling himself to his feet as he stood tall, Arthur examined every inch of himself. The long oblong head was smooth and polished and his outer skin was a caricature of the human skeleton. In every right, he was monstrous, demon like, and dangerous, but his mind was still completely human. He hoped.

 

“I know you're still there.” Dr. Lorne's whispered bringing back the rage Arthur sought to suppress and his furious grimace bared surprisingly human but strong teeth set on equally powerful jaws. The inner jaw nested itself slightly outside of the mouth ready to strike.

 

“We all have a role here. I do my duty for the Company. What the Company wants me to do is criminal. I understand that.”

 

Dr. Lorne walked to the same set of computers his fellow underlings had worked on and calmly typed in a key set of instructions. A nearby camera nestled deep into a wall far from human sight softly clicked off leaking its location to Arthur.

 

“Arthur Kinsley, as far as anyone is concerned outside this room… I have failed. The nanites, in my report, failed leaving the subject amnesiac.” Lorne told his tale with great consternation. Arthur could feel the tone behind his voice somehow… Lorne was not lying.

 

“If I do my job as I should. This project would have been successful a decade earlier. But… if the Company feels they have invested so much into this program… perhaps they will hesitate and use my technology for purposes outside of the military…” Lorne ruffled his hair, rubbed the minor burn scars on his face, and breathed heavily into his hand. Stress fell off him waves.

 

“Dr. Lorne… please report to docking bay.” The room echoed the artificial female shouts from the intercom. The ceiling sharpened as the sound reverberated from its source next to a light fixture. It was an obvious ship or possibly space station grade AI. The type that was capable of overriding human orders given enough data and a pertinent situation.

 

“Acknowledged, Mother.” Dr. Lorne finished his work on the computer.

 

“Unfortunately, I have to leave. An unwanted guest has arrived, a Company representative…” Lorne turned his back to Arthur as he walked out of the room. The heavy barricade of a door gracefully swished open. The hidden camera powered itself back as if no time had passed. Before leaving Arthur to himself, he cocked his head back and whispered something Arthur almost failed to catch.

 

“Keep yourself sane. Don't forget who you are.”

 

The finality of his advice supplemented the superfluous clatter of metal enclosing itself back into place detaining him from the rest of the world. Without any sound to clarify images outside of the one way mirror, Arthur's world shrank back into the small cell he woke up in. He had nothing to do but wait here and contemplate. His reflection contrasted with the mental image of himself. He could feel the stress and shock of his plight began to wear away at the edges of his sanity.

 

Arthur stood where he was waiting for something to happen. No one else came. Nothing moved. Everything was eerily silent. It barely registered when he punched the glass and began viciously trying to shatter it. He threw himself in his self conscious desperate rampage to get out. Eventually he grew tired hours later. That left him to himself.

 

Lorne's words kept him awake and alive. There was no way to tell time. Boredom became his major concern. There was nothing to do here but test out this new body forced onto to him. Even that novelty began to wear off as familiarity took its place. But he never felt entirely comfortable. He felt like he was on a constant adrenaline high.

 

Perhaps days had passed, but his alien metabolism worked havoc with his sense of time. He did not feel tired when he felt he should have. He would find out later hunger was no problem. But without any form of interaction or any way to occupy the mind, Arthur's thoughts turned suicidal.

 

But his fear of death and lack of courage saved him in the end. He was no fan of pain. When he flung his tail to rip through his wrist, the resulting scratch gave a new definition to the word agony. He may have almost completely lost the sense of touch, but he had gained an unwanted ability to clearly sense damage done to him. The blood that dripped from the small hole in his wrist struck the floor.

 

The metal smoldered throwing scents across the room. His blood was acidic? There was a noticeable mark on the floor from where his blood had tried to burn through. With alien sensibilities, he knew he should have done more damage than the slight mark left. The strange coating he had smelled and seen all over the walls and ceiling spoke of unnatural chemicals. The foreign veneer of the substance must have neutralized the acid. It explained the toxic feeling that surrounded him but failed to hurt him. They were ready for any problem that occurred. They knew what he was, what he was made of, and what abilities he had.

 

He did not want to die or suffer. So he waited hoping to have something to do or see before he absolutely went mad. Games presented themselves in his mind to keep him occupied so as he did not go mad. As a loner, he was no stranger to a lack of human contact but was unprepared for the trauma of driving oneself mad.

 

Eventually at regular intervals scientists would come in, notably in shifts, and study his cell writing down something on a notepad with a writing utensil before hurriedly moving on. He gave them names when they came. Johnson, Mary, Bob, Alice, and Mr. Jackass. He guessed their names from their looks. Johnson was some no name technician who seemed to act as the janitor efficiently working on the computers recessed into the wall. Mary was a modest elderly woman perhaps in her forties who walked with experience. She was no fun and held no fear of him. Bob seemed to have no life to him and no creativity. He was just a slow moving, tall man of possible Indian descent who let the world run by. Alice… well, she was an arrogant youthful girl who muttered explicatives under her breath about her superiors. But the most entertaining person was Mr. Jackass, the village idiot. He was a squirrelly looking man who had difficulty picking up his pen and not urinating himself when he studied him. Often Arthur would wait at the back of his cell just for this man. When he came and stood next to his window as he studied him and looked down to write on his notepad, Arthur would run quietly and stand right in front of him. That man may have been weak but he could jump extraordinarily far in surprise. Judging by his screams, Mr. Jackass had a healthy set of lungs. Judging by the smells, he had poor bladder control.

 

Eating was barely tolerated. They did not treat him as a human being or even as an intelligent animal. The food was simply large chunks of bloody, raw meat mixed from a variety of dumb animals that fell from a small hole in the back wall. He could not escape through the tiny opening. He tried. At first, Arthur refused to eat the food placed in front of him. But his hunger got the best of him and he gave in to savagely gorging himself in primal satisfaction.

Every meal left him contented but unsatisfied.

 

But he could never overcome the feeling of hopelessness and boredom of this life… at least not on his own. When the food came, he ate slowly hoping that by savoring the meal he could kill time. Then he found a small gift. The chunk of mixed meat he was eating, perhaps his sixth meal, came with something extra. It was a simple white pamphlet of some sort; it was something to read. He protectively clutched the small pamphlet and looked about the room hoping that no one would notice and feel it out of place.

 

Xenomorph Biology: Required Reading Material for all employees of the classified space station “Dreamland.”

 

The text was a simple black font. Arthur carefully flipped the page as not to damage his prize. Known information, he read in his thoughts. The pamphlet was absolutely short, but the information detailed was a true eye opener. The creature he had become was discovered almost sixty years ago. There were different types of Xenomorphs; the most common being the drones, the warriors, and the venerable Queen. The warriors described had smooth polished foreheads and were known for their greater strength. They had made him a warrior of sorts? Were they mad?

 

His concentration broke when two figures entered the outer room. To his surprise, Arthur recognized Dr. Lorne as he led another man directly to his cell. Arthur quickly hid the pamphlet underneath himself and crouched to cover it.

 

“This is it. Billions of credits for a barely conscious animal cowering in the back of a room.” Hostility adorned every word from this man. He was the antithesis of Dr. Lorne. He was over six feet tall of Russian descent and heavily built with a steel jaw. Only the white lab coat he wore and the thin glasses showed he was a scientist and not a body builder.

 

“Dr. Nolan, I have been very accommodating of your continued presence in this project. If I have been patient with you, I demand the same patience out of you!” Lorne's tone increasingly grew louder.

 

“Lorne, I mean no hostility.” Dr. Nolan's voice was ripe with sarcasm. “You understand that I am a representative of the Company on this matter. I am only here to see if you are following our procedures and not wasting hard earned money.”

 

“If the Company felt my project was wasting money they would have sent someone neutral, not the head of a competing military project!”

 

Nolan laughed and patted Lorne on his back further inciting Lorne's anger.

 

“I am not stupid, Nolan. You know very well that your involvement here is not by accident. So tell me Nolan why are you here? I have been kind to you, answer me.”

 

“I have always been a fan of your work, Dr. Lorne. The Company would never hurt its own.” If Arthur could laugh he would have, his former job was directly responsible for the well being of a Company terra-forming project.

 

“But it came to my attention that a great deal of the money you requested was not flowing to where the Company wanted it to go. Now I checked your records myself because I am loyal to our Company. You see, a good ten percent of your budget was going into several alternative corporations.”

 

Lorne visibly grit his jaw as Nolan expunged every one of his secrets.

 

“You know your technology, falling into the wrong hands, could result in many deaths.”

 

Veins popped out of Dr. Lorne's throat as he yelled his rebuttal at Nolan.

 

“You don't give a fuck, Nolan! The Company doesn't give a damn about how many people live or die in this matter. All they care about is profit and the technology to keep it. We could be saving lives. But they are terrified of what these nanites could do.”

 

Nolan did not flinch and responded enthusiastically.

 

“So many other companies are highly reliant on the current model of nanite delivery. You introduce yours to the public and a great many of these smaller companies would simply go out of business. That would in turn cost the Company billions. You're no accountant; your genius lies in atrocity. Now, Lorne, how many of these things do you have here.” Nolan asked sternly. The hidden camera whirred at Lorne's direction recording his every word including his previous outburst. So Dr. Lorne was left no choice but to cooperate hoping the Company would keep him alive. Judging from Dr. Nolan's “grace,” the Company was unwilling to kill him just yet.

 

“About twenty were successful including the Queen.”

 

The sheer scope of the project dawned on Arthur. How many had died to lead to him? Why was he alive? There was an internal war within the Company and Arthur had front row seats. He slowly walked up to the window as Lorne and Nolan's fought their war with words. Their conversation improved his vision, he could almost see the great hallway of rooms just like his own… Was he the last in a series of horrifying experiments? His focus turned back to the two doctors as their arguments grew harsher. Words were now laced with poison.

 

“Really? Tell me, Lorne. How strong is this glass?” Nolan requested abruptly. Dr. Lorne blanched beginning to perceive some sort of threat to his well being.

 

“Why do you need to know that?”

 

That question sparked the match and time seemed to slow. Arthur watched the drama unfolding. Everyone seemed to move as if drowning in molasses. Nolan withdrew a large deadly handgun from underneath his coat and leveled it at Lorne.

 

“Dr. Nolan! Are you mad? Don't you realize what these creatures are? What they are capable of?”

 

Dr. Lorne's voice cracked acknowledging Dr. Nolan's threat.

 

“I have outgrown my patience with you, Lorne and so has the Company. They want results, and we are going to show them what these things can do.” Nolan reached back into his coat, pulled out a small metallic brick, and stuck it onto the wall. An emotionless young woman's voice acknowledged itself from the device. Arthur could see and hear the brick slowly power itself up. It was a bomb and it was on his window! He rocketed into the back corner wall and braced himself curling into a fetal position. This was certainly going to hurt.

 

“Warning! Hazardous material detected!” The cool voice of Mother lacked the emotion of worry, but the message was nonetheless clear.

 

Nolan cursed to himself silently forgetting about the installations artificial intelligence.

 

“Calm now, Mother, Saints come only after death, a23fb60.”

 

“Company override; System Shutdown acknowledged.”

 

Nolan turned back to Lorne, grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him to the outer door. Nolan uncaringly pressed the handgun deep into Lorne's back as he escorted him out of the room leaving Arthur alone with the irritating ticking device. Every fiber of his being voiced danger and Arthur prayed he would survive. The advanced sonic bomb detonated shattered all the windows of all the cells. The glass projectiles sprayed over Arthur cutting small grooves throughout his entire body. A small pool of acidic blood guttered sending smoke into regulated air. Delicate computer equipment subjected to the blast shut down into stand by. He shrieked as his vision became so intense as to be painful. He felt consciousness begin to slip through his fingers.

 

This was the first time Arthur had slept since he first woke up only a week ago.

 

Author's Note: If you're wondering, this is based solely on the information from the movies. It is not much, but I try to keep it vague as to not offend those who read any books based on the series. Oh and I also noticed another fan fiction being written also has a main character called Arthur and another fan fiction being written also has this human to alien transformation. I'm thinking of renaming Arthur to “Arthur-infinitely-better-than-that-other-one” and renaming the story “Transformation (MY IDEA! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!)” but some people may take offense.