Alien - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Transformation ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

Transformation

 

Disclaimer: I do not own this series.

 

Chapter 3

 

To the outside world, Arthur was little more than a slumped, sprawled out unconscious xenomorph in the corner of the room. But in his mind, Arthur was far from blissfully asleep. The room he envisioned as his safe-house had changed… drastically. Half of it was how he remembered it, a dump of an apartment; the other half was a hive like structure, a cornucopia of alien shapes that resembled alien body parts, that he could have blended in perfectly. Or not. He glanced at his human hands and felt normal human features. He was human here…

 

“You like what I've done with the place?”

 

Arthur violently flinched now noticing the alien intruder sitting in the alien half of the room almost completely invisible.

 

“Intruder? Me oh my! I'm getting popular now!” The Alien bit into a pastry… a twinkie.

 

“Damn, these are good.” It savored every bite and noticed Arthur's angry stare.

 

“Oh that's right… for the past week you have been eating nothing but raw beef and pork and possibly animal droppings mixed in with it all. I've been enjoying every piece of food you have ever eaten. And I gotta tell ya though. Humans are masters of the culinary arts.” The Alien proceeded to exaggeratedly down a huge bottle of soda letting out a gargantuan satisfied burp.

 

“Are you still on edge about the whole strangling thing? The Alien was suddenly in Arthur's face patting him on the shoulder.

 

“That was a metaphor! You know, you becoming the alien thing? It's poetry! Much like this tasty bagel!” The creature downed it in a single bite. Arthur remembered the moment he downed that bagel himself.

 

“Mmm mm! Good! Hey, you know what you need here? Oh why do I ask questions, you usually just drink and smoke tequila. Party pooper!”

 

With the grace of an acrobat, the Alien flipped upward spinning twice in the air and latched onto the ceiling. He dropped down onto to the floor holding a delicious margarita. Of course nothing spilled.

 

“These things here are much, MUCH better than that plain tequila crap you keep drinking. You know what you need Mr. Loser?!

 

With a snap of its fingers, a beautiful high definition holographic display appeared. The same one Arthur had wanted and had been saving up to buy with his money.

 

“Look at how crisp that display is! Thank god for the consumerism! Beautiful!” The Alien handed a half eaten bowl of popcorn over to Arthur. It took him a few seconds to realize he was now sitting in the chair watching the display. His chair had become the equivalent of a sports car. It was like sitting on a cloud.

 

“Shhh!” The Alien held its finger to its mouth. The romantic comedy being played picked up its pace. The creature laughed freely and seemed to wipe tears from its “eyes.” “This is the good part! Go get `im girl!”

 

The Alien finally finished the movie applauding the whole way leaving a dumbfounded Arthur holding a bowl of popcorn.

 

“Hey! You gonna eat that? I made a whole bowl! What's wrong with you! That's good popcorn, can't let that go to waste!”

 

The bowl was suddenly in front of the alien's face as it demolished what was left of the food. It set the bowl on the table half assimilated by the alien features. They stared at each other for a long time.

 

“You're quiet. I guess that suits us.”

 

The Alien flipped through a magazine with reading glasses on.

 

“Oh and by the way, word of advice, when ya wake up… you're gonna have the most agonizing headache you ever had.”

 

With that Arthur woke up from the most surreal dream he ever had with the biggest migraine he ever had. The screech that tore itself from his throat was bestial but an obvious sign of agony. His whole head, the enormous, smooth long cranium, pounded and pulsed with each wave of pain. Arthur could barely control himself as he rolled around on the ground in a mock epileptic seizure. The pain lessoned and his senses came back to him as pulled himself to his feet.

 

The bomb! Klaxons blared as whirling red emergency lights shed eerie shadows over debris of the shattered window. Arthur felt wounds from the shrapnel across his body finally finish healing.

 

For a while he stood at the corner of the room preparing his strength and wondering if this was all an experiment. Maybe all they wanted was a reason to kill him and when he left they turn his body into a holy carcass to complement the destroyed window. He waited. No one came.

 

He tentatively exited the prison that had become his unwanted home. With the exception of the sirens, there was no sound around him. The vault like entrance was bent open as if a giant can opener tore halfway through it. Or as if something incredibly strong pulled it open. His cell was the first of a series of cells bordered by the single hallway. The computers recessed into the walls spat incomprehensible data garbage on cracked monitor displays. He lightly touched the screen and cringed when it finally broke utterly and shorted itself off. There was a very good chance the Artificial Intelligence, generically called Mother, was attempting to restart itself. Artificial Intelligences were almost always left on because they took a ridiculously long time to boot up; the best Company AI took about six hours to fully restart.

 

Arthur quickly checked the other cells, or holding pens, finding them all empty. They were all identical to his own. Judging by the light scrapes that covered every other room; whatever was there had been there for a long time. Perhaps there were others like him who had gone mad and then escaped? He would have to proceed cautiously. If the others did indeed see him as threat, he doubted he would win in a fight against more experienced or insane foes. But there had to be a huge presence of fulltime guards and soldiers… perhaps the others that escaped were still engaged in a battle with the Company's lackeys. There was certainly nothing happening nowhere near here; he would have sensed something by now. Being the closest to the sonic blast, he probably took the most damage and was knocked out the longest. But first things first, he needed to know where he was, what happened, how to get out, and how to reverse the process that changed him.

 

The main entrance to these experiment rooms was six inches thick of the same coated metal that covered his old cell. Arthur could not quite fit through the aperture the others must have made when trying to escape. Unsure of himself, he pushed as hard as he could against the door hoping to slide it open. Whatever damaged machinery that locked the door broke inwards, and Arthur almost unbalanced himself as half the door slid wide open. He stared slightly at his hands again suddenly aware of the immense strength he now possessed. He was a monster, and he wanted answers. The hiss he gave was his only sign of anger. Instinctively, he dropped into a quadruped stance and sprinted full speed out of the laboratory hoping to find out what happened.

 

Several minutes later, Arthur came to the conclusion that he was completely and utterly trapped. Whoever had designed this installation was a smart son of a bitch. The whole place spoke of functionality over artistic integrity. There was a center area, a sort of rest room, bordered by five doorways. One was the broken open door he had exited, two others were identical in look and damage, one was the standard emergency airlock, and the last was possibly the main entrance to this place. The center area spoke of battle. Utilitarian furniture, simple metal chairs, plain sofas, and a holographic display were all bent out of shape, broken, melted, or ridden with bullet holes. The centerpiece was LV 0091's Desert Cactus, a vine-like mass intertwined into a shape of a evergreen tree and covered in shark teeth-like thorns. It had been one of the first plant life discovered outside of Earth. And it was covered in blood from the soldier impaled on the top of it. He did not die from being eviscerated by the plant's spines; the hole straight through his skull probably killed him. One of the other aliens killed this man and then threw him onto the blades of the plant. Arthur's inner jaws twitched as he knew exactly what had struck the man so hard as to cave in his skull.

 

Arthur recognized the pulse rifle clutched in the dead man's hands. He leaned over and yanked it out of his vice-like grip. Damn. The guard apparently did hit whatever he was firing at. It was riddled with acidic burns, the clip itself had basically melted into the gun. It was useless. The pistol seemed to be working. Hoping the action movies he had watched were somewhat accurate; Arthur armed himself with the pistol.

 

There were other rooms of course behind four other doors; including the room he came from that had to be five total rooms. Every door had been pried open except for the main exit. Two of them rooms resembled the same type of holding pens he had been placed in. There were twenty one total cells and all of them were destroyed. The third, a room full of computer equipment with a few holding tanks spread towards the back of the room, was where “he” had be born… where he had lost his humanity. The plain text proudly proclaimed the room as the Nanite Control Room. It sickened him to the point of nausea to stay any longer in that place of death, his death; so he left and remained steadfastly in the center room trying to unravel the mystery of what had happened. That only left two doors. One of them was obviously the way out. It was much larger and stronger of the same vault like design of the others. There were slight dents and scratches over it proving to Arthur the others must have tried to get out through there and failed. His attempts only added slightly deeper dents.

 

That only left the last exit… the airlock. As a construction worker, he had to perform several space walks in his lifetime repairing damage from small meteorites or the occasional explosion from poorly maintained equipment. The space walks always reminded him of his true fear of being lost in a endless void. And he doubted with all his heart that the others escaped through that airlock. No signs of damage were noticeable. If they did, they were probably sucked straight out into space forever lost. He shuddered slightly. That left him with no exits stuck in a slightly bigger prison than the one he left. With some luck, maybe he could get out of here.

 

“Emergency, imminent danger detected. Hazardous lifeforms detected.” Mother's voiced echoed across the rooms stopping Arthur dead in his tracks. The emergency lights shut itself off as the normal lighting was restored. Mother had restarted. He had been out for a six hours? He must have been hurt worse than he thought. Still that meant he could access the video records of what happened.

 

The only computers undamaged by the blast were in the Nanite Control Room. That same strange feeling of nausea overwhelmed Arthur as he started up to one of the computer terminals. He did not want to stay here longer than possible. The command line prompt on the monitor flickered for basic input. A quick directory check revealed the whole system was completely integrated into every computer. When Mother had restarted, all the restrictions on all the files had been removed. Or someone had purposefully removed all the restrictions. Was this a sick experiment created by that Dr. Nolan? Were they testing out the effectiveness of their creations by setting them loose in a controlled environment against heavily armed Company individuals with full access to classified information? With that access, he doubted they wanted anyone left alive. The Company had too many atrocities to answer for.

 

He set his gun down by a working computer station. A few keystrokes opened up all the video file records. A sharp beautiful interface ballooned onto the monitors highlighting the records of the past six hours. He gently touched the screen playing the records.

 

The first clip showed what he had expected. Rooms of cells like his own mostly occupied by other xenomorphs. The video clip blanched jumping from a pristine controlled laboratory setting to a destroyed chaotic battleground. Someone had deleted the record of Dr. Nolan's sabotage. Static clung to the once clear image as the camera attempted to adjust despite being damaged. The other xenomorphs blurred like wild animals as they fled the holding pens and beyond the view of the camera. Their screams of rage and ferocity joined the vicious sound of metal being dented and ripped open. Arthur quickly switched to the camera covering the center area.

 

The others destroyed the exits at almost the same time swarming out into the center area. The main exit, a door several feet thick of battleship grade metal was heavily guarded by a small battle group of marines that hastily opened fire hoping to give enough time for the scientists to escape. The panicked civilians wasted no time in running past the marines into the relative safety beyond the doors. The other xenomorphs scattered spreading out the main fire and panicking the marines present. Shots went wild and failed to hit their mark. One of the soldiers fell behind in his attempt to evacuate the civilians. He barely had time to pull the trigger sending a short yell of bullets as the alien's inner jaw burst through his head. The glancing blow to the drone that killed him sent mild waves of acidic blood onto his pulse rifle. The xenomorph wasted no time and victoriously threw the corpse onto the Desert Cactus. But despite the speed and strength of the others, the main exit sealed itself far too quickly. The short fire fight ended with one human dead. Otherwise nothing living had been killed.

 

The enraged trapped creatures clawed at every door and broke through any room. The majority raked claws against the main exit and screeched in irritation when all their efforts proved useless. A few of them wildly upturned furniture and took their time destroying everything around them. And even fewer examined the world around them picking up small objects like a child discovering a new toy. Then they all stopped what they were doing and lined up next to the airlock. Airlocks had an outer and inner door. Once the inner door closed, atmosphere would be pumped out of the room, and then the outer door opened into the vacuum of space. The creatures stormed out of the airlock clinging insect-like to the outer hull. The camera flickered again. For a moment, Arthur thought he glimpsed a massive figure enveloped in the shadows follow where the others left. Then the recording stopped. A message kindly informed Arthur of a sudden system reboot deactivating all nonessential equipment.

 

That was it. They escaped right through the airlock. With dejected acceptance, Arthur shambled back to the airlock pistol in hand. The inner doors automatically opened beckoning him inwards. The airlock itself was only large enough for two people of average height to fit comfortably. If the others survived in a vacuum, he had no doubt that he could as well. He felt his insides churn as he entered the coffin-like inner alcove; the air around him chilled from either the proximity to open space or from his fear. He stepped lightly into the airlock. The door roared behind him as it shut. The room removed the atmosphere whispering hostile hisses. He noticed the control panel near the outer door was left half finished and uncovered for repair. That was why the airlock opened for the others…

 

The outer door unlocked itself vibrating the room. Arthur tried to stall his breathe but soon acknowledged he was not actually breathing. And then it opened.

 

And it was beauty, indescribable beauty. His hands grasped onto the outer hull as he pulled himself outside to get a better view. With senses greater than anything comprehensible to a human being, Arthur saw what truly lay outside his prison. The background of stars shown infinitely and only gave up their brilliance to the purity of the near white sun. That sphere of white fire pulled solar flares back into its own churning exploding mass. But the brightest object in the endless space was the brown desert planet that the space station orbited. The dullness of the orbiting man-made space station contrasted greatly to the radiance of the obviously terra-formed planet directly in front of the airlock. The planet itself could not be painted or described. The colors! It glistened in the pure white light of the sun. Small seas dotted the world and sparkled with every ray of light that hit it. It was art. It was eye catching with every sense of the word. It was breathtaking if he could still breathe. The fear that coursed through his being dissipated replaced with a deep sense of understanding and peace.

 

He mentally snapped himself out of his reverie. It was cold. It did not hurt, but he could feel himself getting lethargic. As he moved across the outer hull he almost felt as if he was falling into the planet. The cold was exhausting him and his grip was weakening. He lost his hold on his pistol; his attempt to grab it only pushed it farther away. It floated beyond the pull of the space station's artificial and natural gravity. Crestfallen, he watched the weapon began nothingness as it slowly entered the atmosphere.

 

The space station was simply two box-like containers connected by a tube like corridor. That corridor connected to the locked main exit to the other part of the space station. That corridor served as a bridge to the other part of the installation. He followed the slight grooves in the metal, tracks made from the others, and picked up his pace. Adrenaline or whatever chemical served the same purpose rushed through his veins.

 

He found the other airlock lightly dinged from the swarm that had past through here. The outer door again closed behind him and atmosphere rushed into the room along with comforting heat. There was blood over the inner door, bright red human blood. He quickly ran out of the airlock coming into a familiar center room. No, this room was different. It had a similar center piece Desert Cactus, but the room was much bigger. Flat panel televisions and a myriad of comfortable furniture dotted the landscape. All the best in entertainment and comfort was right here melted from acidic blood or porous from a hurricane of gunfire. The battle must have been fierce judging by the blood spatters of both species coating every part of this place. There was a gigantic fissure in the floor about his size. This time the marines must have killed one of the others. There was more human blood than alien. But with the exception of light gore, no bodies remained. He glanced into the large burn spot; a barely recognizable xenomorph body had burned through the floor of the center area but had been stopped by the floor beneath it.

 

Again he had arrived too late coming into a battlefield. He doubted the marines expected a swarm of xenomorphs to pull through the airlock. Hell, he knew someone had to have done this purposefully. Someone had sabotaged it. The only name that answered Arthur's nagging questions was one Dr. Nolan. He was a rival to Dr. Lorne and had probably made sure this facility was overrun. But would not that have helped Lorne? Dr. Nolan only proved that he and the other creatures were deadly. That would make this project even more valuable. That would make Dr. Lorne even more valuable.

 

Senses blazed on fire as he felt another presence behind him. How? Something had snuck up behind him even with his enhanced senses. That only meant one thing. The hostile alien growl behind him spoke volumes. Arthur was unprepared as the other leapt at him, but he instinctively jumped and gracefully twisted in the air dodging its move. Arthur agilely fell back onto the ground on all fours exposing jowls at his opponent. The other xenomorph also fell onto all fours but did not bare teeth. Arthur took notice of his opponent appraising its strength and weaknesses. It was noticeable smaller. The first discernable difference in body structure was its cranium. It was not smooth like his but riddled with small artistic pockmarks. It also looked less deadly lacking the blade on the end of its tail and his heavier build. He recognized it as a drone from the information on the pamphlet he left in his cell.

 

They faced off at each other waiting for the other's attack. One was unsure of his abilities despite knowing his physical superiority. The other experienced from its previous slaughters. The red blood dripping from its mouth declared its fury. A large screech echoed through the room and past the hole in the floor as they made their move.