Chapter 2: Company Man

They made their way back to the lobby, Jones watching Horatio curiously, wondering if the android might show any signs of emotion. Not being an advanced model, he mostly seemed vaguely annoyed by the state of the building, like a nanny seeing a child’s room strewn with toys. Jones had no doubt that the synth would have picked up the nearest mop and started cleaning if left to his own devices.

The rain began to hammer Jones’ suit again as he stepped outside, Horatio stumbling in the wet mud. At least the storm was cleaning some of the dirt from the android’s face, giving him a somewhat less horrifying countenance. They passed more rubble, trudging through the wreckage as they headed in the direction of the reactor, following the main street – such as it was. The conditions made the going tough, and it wasn’t long before Jones needed to seek shelter again, taking refuge from the downpour inside a large warehouse.

The interior was cavernous, with shelves stacked to a ceiling that must have been three stories high, the sound of rain hitting the roof creating a dull roar that echoed through the space. There were supply crates, shipping containers, and pallets of goods strewn around the concrete floor. To the left was an alcove that housed a couple of power loaders, their industrial yellow paint job picking them out against their otherwise drab surroundings. This must have been where the colony stored a lot of its goods and raw materials.

“The colony is in an alarming condition,” Horatio began, rainwater dripping from his tattered uniform. “I must restore network access and contact headquarters at the earliest opportunity.”

“I need a break first,” Jones sighed, popping open the visor on his helmet to get a breath of fresh air. He wrinkled his nose, his brow furrowing. “What’s that smell? And why is it so hot in here?”

He began to walk deeper into the warehouse, scanning the shelves with his flashlight, the sound of his rubber boots echoing off the concrete. The beam reflected off something lustrous in the gloom, Jones pausing as he glimpsed more of the hive resin. The stuff seemed to blend into the darkness, making it all but invisible unless it was under direct light.

There was so much of it here, forming great pillars that rose all the way to the ceiling, carpeting the shelves to create sheer walls. Their uneven surfaces made him think of flowstone from some dank cave. It was so hot that his suit had already shut off its heating element, and he could see droplets of moisture seeping down the glistening structures, almost like they were sweating. More of those strange bulbs had taken root at the base of the mass, forming clusters like pustules, most of their fleshy petals splayed open. In only moments, he was standing in a completely alien environment, the walls closing in to form tunnels like some kind of termite mound.

Something pale caught his eye – there was something on the wall of the nearest tunnel. He stepped closer, focusing his beam on the area, then recoiled. There was a person melded into the wall, desiccated flesh stretched over the pale bone of their exposed skull, their body completely cocooned in the dark resin. There was a hole in their chest the size of a basketball, their broken ribs visible through the breach, like something had exploded out of them.

Horatio caught him by the arm as he stumbled backwards, almost falling over, Jones jerking away from the synth in his alarm. As he turned his head, he saw that there were more of them, some two dozen bodies cocooned inside the walls like some kind of nightmarish beehive.

“What the fuck happened here?” he demanded, spinning around to face the android again. “What did this to these people?”

“Species XX-121, naturally,” Horatio replied as though it was the most normal thing in the world. “Their reproductive cycle is quite well understood. I suggest that we move on lest we encounter any drones. They can be quite protective of their breeding grounds.”

“Breeding grounds?” Jones repeated, his eyes scanning the bodies. They were frozen in place, their jaws open in silent screams, each one having fallen victim to the same strange injury. “Just what the hell were we studying here?”

“I recall you being quite optimistic about their employment as biological weapons, Doctor.”

“Me?” Jones demanded, turning to glance at the synth in disbelief. “I wouldn’t ... couldn’t have done this.”

“On the contrary, you were instrumental in the study of the captured specimens. However, I doubt that you had any part to play in the containment breach, so your distress is unwarranted. I never once observed you failing to adhere to facility protocols, and your employee evaluations were always exemplary.”

“I can’t be here,” Jones muttered, turning back the way he had come. There was a creeping sense of dread looming over him like a shadow, commanding him to run, as though there was some nameless terror on his heels about to give chase. What were these drones, and why did the term instill such fear in him?

“Do be wary of the ovimorphs, Doctor,” Horatio added as Jones passed by a cluster of bulbs. “They are capable of entering hibernation and remaining fertile for extended periods of time.”

“Ovimorphs?” Jones repeated, pausing to look at the nearest bulb. “You’re saying these are eggs?”

Almost as if to answer his question, one of the intact bulbs shifted, its four petals splaying open. They were joined by ropes of slime, their fleshy inner surfaces glistening and wet. Inside was something that looked like a mass of wobbling offal, making him recoil, the movement suggesting that something was alive in there. He raised a hand to close his visor reflexively, but too late. Like some kind of hellish jack-in-the-box, something sprang from the egg, moving so quickly that Jones scarcely had time to react.

In a flash, there was a pale hand in front of his face, Jones reeling backwards to see that Horatio had interceded. The synth had some kind of horrifying insect clutched in his hand, its jointed, spider-like limbs flailing wildly. It had a long, serpentine tail that cut through the air like a whip, coiling around the android’s forearm with enough strength to cut into his sleeve.

Jones watched with wide eyes as Horatio crushed the thing, its spindly legs twitching erratically, green goo and unidentifiable guts spilling between the android’s fingers. The blood began to smoke as it hit the concrete, creating acrid fumes and forcing Jones to seal his visor. The substance was eating through the material like sulfuric acid, bubbling and smoking. When Horatio let the corpse fall, it too sank into the ground, its bodily fluids burning through the floor like a ball of red-hot nickel through ice. The synth had not fared much better, Horatio examining his own hand curiously as it began to disintegrate, several fingers falling away as the metallic endoskeleton beneath his rubbery epidermis was exposed.

“My God!” Jones exclaimed, retreating another few paces. “What the fuck was that thing?”

“Their purpose is to implant a host with a parasitic embryo,” Horatio explained, impervious to pain. “I suggest that you keep your visor sealed, as it may provide some small measure of protection if such an attempt reoccurs.”

Jones scanned the forest of eggs that surrounded him, adrenaline making his heart race. Suddenly, the freezing rainstorm was feeling a lot more welcoming. Setting off at a brisk jog that bordered on a panicked run, he headed for the exit, leaving the hive behind him. He paused when he reached the door, doubling over to catch his breath. His stay in the stasis pod was still making him weak and tired.

“Thanks,” he added as the synth approached, pausing to swallow. “I don’t know what being implanted with an embryo entails, but that might have been the end of me if you hadn’t intervened.”

“I consider the safety and well-being of the Weyland-Yutani workforce to be my personal responsibility,” Horatio replied with a warm smile, apparently unaffected by his mangled hand.

“I’ll give you a steam wash myself when we’re through this.”

“Might I be so bold as to suggest that we proceed with haste, Doctor?” the android continued. “I am growing increasingly concerned for your safety.”

“A very wise suggestion.”

They headed back outside, weathering the storm, Jones’ flashlight beam barely helping him navigate through the twisted metal and boggy terrain. He came across a couple more bodies that had been all but reclaimed by the mud, along with another Marine who was leaning against the wall of a prefab, a rifle still resting in his lap. Jones briefly considered taking it, but he knew nothing about firearms, and it wasn’t likely to be functional after a decade of being exposed to the elements.

What Horatio had told him was still rattling around inside his skull. Granted, Jones had few clear memories of his time before emerging from stasis, but he refused to believe that he would ever be a part of something like this. Surely he would have recognized the danger that these specimens posed?

As he skirted around an abandoned truck, the tarp that was strapped over its bed whipping in the wind, something caught his eye. There was a shape on top of a prefab far to his right, silhouetted briefly by a flash of lightning, picking it out against the clouds. At first, he mistook it for a cluster of comms antennas, but then it moved. As darkness engulfed the figure once more, he caught a brief glimpse of something not quite humanoid slinking away. Its body was covered in jutting prongs, and there was a serpentine tail slithering behind it.

Horatio noticed his double-take, but between the rain and Jones’ helmet, they couldn’t communicate.

With burning muscles that hadn’t been exercised in over a decade, Jones finally reached the corporate headquarters of the colony – a large, two-story structure with a jutting control tower that overlooked a landing pad. When he approached the door, he found that it was torn from its frame, so he proceeded more warily.

The lobby of the building was a graveyard. There must have been a dozen Marines and Wey-Yu security personnel lying all over the room – slumped against the front desk and piled on the floor. The bodies were in an advanced state of decay, but it was plain to see that some of them had been dismembered, with severed limbs and the dark remnants of long-dried blood splatter visible in places. There were bullet holes everywhere, as though a frenzied firefight had taken place here, and there was even a pair of automated sentry guns sitting atop the front desk. They were aimed at the door, as though the defenders had been trying to hold off an attack.

As he made his way deeper into the dark, dusty room, his flashlight beam reflected off something else. He recoiled, bumping into Horatio, his eyes scanning the bizarre sight as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

Lying slumped on the floor was a creature, maybe seven feet tall, its body coated in a glistening carapace that more resembled hard plastic than anything living. It was humanoid, with arms and legs where they should have been, but that was about where the similarities ended. That tough, black carapace enclosed it like the shell of an insect, but it had a skeletal appearance, with visible ribs enclosing the torso. Between the bony structures were cable-like veins and wiry sinew, its inky flesh indistinguishable from its armor in color. From its back jutted large prongs that almost resembled exhausts, and from the base of its spine emerged a long, segmented tail with a point like the tip of a spear. Worst of all was its head – a grotesquely elongated, eyeless structure, carnivore teeth that gleamed like polished metal shining between its jaws.

Its body was pocked with bullet holes, the acidic blood that had spilled from them eating into the deck while leaving its carapace undamaged. It wasn’t the only one – there must have been just as many dead xenomorphs as people, their dark coloration making them much harder to spot in the gloom.

Xenomorph – species XX-121. Seeing one of the damned creatures had sparked a memory. These were the drones that had created the hive and had brought those poor colonists to serve as living incubators for their offspring. This was what had attacked the colony, not pirates or a rival corp. Images flashed in his mind of the tall aliens floating in specimen tanks, cut open on a dissection table, acid-proof tools slicing into their still-warm innards.

“It appears that the infestation is worse than I assumed,” Horatio said, casually stepping over a Marine who had been run through with a tail spike. “The communications equipment is on the top level.”

Jones followed behind the android, his head swimming with newly recovered memories. It was all coming back to him now. Wey-Yu had found these things on some far-off planet where they had wiped out an entire colony. The corp had recovered intact specimens, and they had set up shop on this backwater to avoid prying eyes, studying the things for both military and industrial applications. Jones had studied them. What hubris could have overcome him to make him think that something like this could be controlled and contained? It seemed insane to him now, but had he ever protested or voiced his concerns? He couldn’t remember...

They navigated around more bodies on the stairs. This must have been where the last survivors had staged their final stand. Who knew how long they had held out before finally being overrun by the swarm. If what he remembered about the species’ life cycle was accurate, each dead drone represented one colonist used as a host. The gestation period was only six to twelve hours, but with at least a couple of hundred colonists on site, they could have been reproducing for a while.

He remembered the figure that he had seen on top of the prefab. Drones could enter a state of hibernation for prolonged periods of time, so they might not be gone. At least one of them was awake and running around, potentially acting as a scout for the rest.