Chapter 3: Chimera

Jones awoke feeling no better than when he had fallen asleep. He struggled out of the uncomfortable, decaying couch, stretching his stiff limbs. After rummaging around for a while, he found a shopping bag with a strap that he could sling over his shoulder, and he spent a little time filling it with supplies from the store shelves. Wherever he decided to go next, he would need food, and the less time he spent outside, the better.

He had gone over his options, and he figured the only place he could really head next was the reactor building. If he was going to be stuck in the colony for an extended period of time, then he needed to make sure that he wasn’t sitting on top of a potential meltdown. Horatio had reactivated the computers in the control tower before going rogue, and that was still Jones’ only route off-world. It would take some careful planning, but he might be able to engineer a scenario where he could observe a landing ship and stay hidden if its crew were suspicious, assuming that anyone even responded...

One problem at a time.

He set off into the muddy street, heading in the direction of the monolithic cooling tower, guided by its flashing warning lights. It was still raining – it never seemed to stop – and the sky was still choked with dark clouds. Jones kept one eye on the rooftops at all times, knowing that if the xenomorph caught him out in the open, he would stand no chance of escape. They were as fast as cheetahs and far more vicious – he remembered that much.

On his way past the headquarters building, he dipped inside to see if he could find any working pulse rifles. The readouts on their little ammo counters were all dark, even when he discovered the power switch, which meant that their batteries were drained. Few of them had any ammunition left – it had seemingly all been expended during the firefight. Jones didn’t know enough about the firearms to clean or maintain them anyway.

He continued on, passing beyond the bounds of the colony proper, the cooling tower growing larger and larger. The terrain was even more barren out here with no prefabs to break up the sight lines – an endless expanse of mud flats without so much as a tree to be seen. Anyone who tried to terraform this place had their work cut out for them.

The going was tough, and Jones was once again exhausted by the time he reached the plant. He was stopped by a tall security fence that encircled the compound, but the elements had not spared it from their ravages, and it had collapsed in several places. Before long, he was standing in front of the main door to the complex, the pyramid-like cooling tower rising above him like the sheer wall of a cliff face. Fortunately, the main lobby required no passkey, but the same probably wasn’t true for the more sensitive areas of the building.

As he stepped inside a very corporate space with more desiccated planters – the left side of the room taken up by a front desk – he realized how hot it was. He was already starting to sweat inside his suit, his visor misted with droplets of moisture. It wasn’t a meltdown, or he’d already be dead, but the alternative wasn’t much more encouraging...

Jones pulled off his helmet and let it hang down the back of his suit like a hood, unzipping the garment most of the way down his torso. He remembered enough about XX-121 now to know that there were no airborne pathogens associated with the species, and only a full hazard suit would protect him from radiation if there was a problem with the core. There was a laminated placard with a color-coded map of the facility on the wall behind the desk, so he tore it down, giving it a brief look over.

As he proceeded deeper into the building, his suspicions were quickly confirmed by the sight of masses of dark hive resin clinging to the walls and ceiling. It was even thicker than what he had come across in the warehouse, the glistening, dripping material transforming the spartan hallways into nightmarish tunnels. The jet-black substance played tricks on his eyes with its reflective sheen and its oddly organic shapes, every shadow potentially hiding a xenomorph, their odd anatomy almost indistinguishable from their mad architecture.

Navigating was going to be an issue – the plant seemed to have been transformed into a giant termite mound. He would have to keep a close eye on the map and try to match its corridors with the winding passageways left by the drones.

Why had they come to the plant when all of their food and hosts would have been in the colony? Could it be that they were attracted to the warmth of the core? Judging by the environmental conditions of their hives, they seemed to prefer a warm, humid environment in which to make their nests. A nuclear fission reaction might have drawn them like a moth to a flame.

Jones was in a completely alien environment now, the pervasive resin blocking out the lights on the ceiling to plunge him into darkness, his flashlight beam his only means of navigating. The further he ventured, the more he began to notice the mist that swirled around his legs. He couldn’t be sure if it was a malfunctioning ventilation system or some intentional product of the hive, but it reduced visibility even further. At least the hive’s architects had jammed open the security doors with their resin, granting Jones access to areas of the plant that would have been difficult to reach otherwise.

Sweat was pouring from his brow now, the heat becoming more intense with each step, Jones checking the laminated map to make sure that he was on the right track. The resin made even perfectly straight hallways twisty and strange, and he was in danger of losing his way. If he got lost in these depths, he’d never make it out.

Just as he was starting to consider turning back, he came across a landmark that he recognized. Above one of the jammed doors was an illuminated sign that had been almost completely overtaken by the resin, its glow just visible. It corresponded with a marking on the map – the wastewater treatment plant. While that wasn’t his ultimate destination, it looked like he should be able to pass through into a service tunnel that would take him closer to the control room. He was no nuclear physicist, but neither were the people employed to man these facilities by Wey-Yu, so he should be able to get a read of the situation if nothing else.

To his surprise, when he squeezed through the narrow aperture of the overgrown door, he found himself standing in a cavernous space that was lit by natural light. It was like being inside a giant underground cavern, the organic, flowing resin once again reminding him of wet stone. There were giant tanks for storing wastewater from the reactor stacked up against the leftmost wall, but they were completely buried beneath the carpet of resin, making it look like someone had poured a giant vat of melting plastic over them. At his feet was the thick mist, and high above his head, the resin culminated in an uneven dome. Pale shafts of light shone through, providing just enough illumination for him to see by. They were spaced out at irregular intervals, slanted at angles that suggested the drones might have burrowed through the outer skin of the building. They were probably ventilation shafts more than they were skylights, as xenomorphs didn’t even have eyes.

Jones began to cross the room, keeping a watchful eye for eggs that might be hidden in the mist. Horatio wasn’t around to save him this time. He tripped on a pipe, grunting in annoyance as he fell and dropped his bag, but he soon brushed himself off and carried on.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he heard the telltale hiss that had been burned into his mind like a brand. Without even searching for its source, he bolted for the nearest cover, diving between two of the large water tanks. They were about the size of truck trailers – long, cylindrical containers that had once stored radioactive coolant. He flicked off his flashlight and lay down on the sloping resin, feeling its oddly flexible texture beneath him, covering his mouth and nose with a gloved hand to stifle the sound of his breathing.

One of them was in here with him. It could be the scout that had been shadowing him, or his presence in the hive might have woken more of the drones from their hibernation. His wild eyes darted across the ceiling above him, but even in perfect lighting conditions, the damned things were camouflaged into the resin. He remembered how Horatio had been ripped apart and how the xenos had torn through the entrenched Marine defenses in the HQ. What chance did he stand compared to androids and armed soldiers?

Jones froze like a deer in the headlights as a shadow passed through the mist ahead of him, visible for only a moment as it moved between the two containers. He might have been able to dismiss it as a trick of the light if it wasn’t for the swirling fog that it left in its wake.

He tried to press himself deeper into the resin reflexively, but there was nowhere else to go. Like seeking refuge in a cul-de-sac, he had cornered himself. Memories of how the things hunted came flooding back to him. He remembered the vibration-sensing structures that ran along either side of their elongated heads, their developed olfactory bulbs, and the rudimentary light-sensing organ beneath their eyeless skulls. Jones had dissected those structures – studied them. Far from being blind, they could map out a detailed image of their environment using a kind of sonar, tracking their prey by sound and scent, like a bat and bloodhound rolled into one vicious package.

Cold terror gripped his heart as he heard the sound of scraping claws on metal. Something was climbing the tank to his left. Turning his head slowly for fear that any sudden movements could spur an attack, he glanced up, seeing the shadow rising into view.

The unmistakable profile of a xenomorph emerged to peer down at him, its long, curving skull glossy enough to shine like polished steel. Between the pervasive gloom and the creature’s dark coloration, Jones could only really make out the features that caught the light from the shafts that spilled into the room, picking out the strange sinew and cable-like structures of its alien anatomy.

Its lips peeled back in a snarl to expose a set of wicked, shining teeth, fat strands of drool forming dangling ropes as it let out another snake-like hiss. Those jaws opened, the sinew and tendons that held them together stretching, a smaller mouth with its own bespoke set of teeth extending like a tongue to lick at the air. More of its body came into view as it rose higher, Jones able to make out its bony shoulders and the strange chimney-like protrusions that jutted from its back.

What could he hope for now – that it would simply kill him swiftly, and not cart him off to an egg chamber to suffer a prolonged and excruciating death as a living incubator for its offspring?

Frozen in fear, he watched helplessly as the thing crawled down the near side of the tank like an insect to block his escape, the vertical surface doing nothing to slow it down, the creature dropping gracefully into the mist a few paces away. It landed in a crouch, but slowly rose to an intimating height of seven feet and change. It took a step closer, sending him scrambling backwards on the floor, the thing passing directly beneath one of the light shafts.

Up close, Jones noted that it wasn’t quite the same as the specimens he had found sprawled on the floor in the headquarters building. Where before, he had seen bony hips and exposed ribs, here the features were softer and more rounded. While still present, the exposed sinew and cable-like veins were covered with an almost translucent film, like a pale layer of skin or flesh had formed over them. The tough carapace, too, was buried beneath this beige-tinted epidermis. The dark coloration typical of xenomorphs was shining through it, just visible beneath the surface, lurking there like a shadow. It was only when the light was directly on it that anything seemed amiss.

Its shape was more human – familiar, something about it sparking recognition. Its ribs were visible just beneath its skin, and there was something more. What should have been a flat and featureless chest instead had a pair of small mounds, forming a pair of modest breasts, lacking any nipples or obvious functionality. Below, its torso tapered into a slender waist. Its core was packed with muscle and sinew, the subtle rows formed by its abs casting shadows on its skin, forming an indent that ran down past where its navel would have been. It was svelte, athletic, built for agility as much as strength.

Its hips were wide, flaring out to give it a distinct hourglass, like the figure of a runner or a gymnast. They swayed as it took another step towards him, a long, flexible tail waving in the air behind it like a whip. Xenomorphs had proportionally long limbs, and this example was no exception, its rounded thighs dimpled by muscle. They tapered into digitigrade legs, vanishing into the mist at the ankle.

Something was wrong – this wasn’t right. Why was it different from the others?

It towered over him, crouching down closer as he lay back against the resin, turning his head as those slavering jaws came to within an inch of his face. He could feel the warmth of its breath on his cheek, a droplet of its slimy saliva dripping to his collar. Was it scenting him? That secondary mouth slowly slid free, but despite the rattling hiss that emanated from the alien, it didn’t plunge the implement into his throat.

Only when he dared to look it in the face again did Jones realize the truth. Tattooed onto the translucent skin of its smooth forehead was the number twelve, the little trails of ink clearly visible. It all came rushing back to him, almost too much to process at once.

He remembered the vats filled with specimens in various stages of development, some sporting the dark carapace of wild xenomorphs and others with this smooth covering. He remembered poring over the genetic data with his team, the sequencing of alien genomes, and the splicing of more desirable traits. What was it that Horatio had said? It had been Jones who had championed XX-121 as a weapon, yes, but not the wild strain. He and his team had been creating hybrids, preserving the species’ desirable traits while introducing new ones sourced from human DNA. The goal had been to make them more amenable to interaction with their handlers – easier to control, tempering some of their more violent and feral instincts when not directed at a military target.

It was not a xenomorph – it was a chimera. Jones remembered Twelve not as a number, but as a name. This was not his first interaction with the creature, though it had grown considerably since the last time he had seen it. He recalled a creature the size of a cat chasing after a red ball that he had rolled along the floor of his lab, pursuing it with a strange, four-legged gait. Wey-Yu had wanted rapid maturation, and Jones knew that he had to socialize the specimen before it grew dangerous. Eleven failures, a twelfth opportunity. This one was going to succeed. He didn’t merely want to create a living weapon that would be mindlessly unleashed upon its prey – he wanted a creature that could serve alongside its human handlers, intelligent and social enough to be trained.

The skin and fat that had grown to cover the carapace, the more human features, even the vestigial breasts – they were products of that gene-splicing process. Finding the right balance had taken years of careful experimentation, and it had been impossible to introduce one feature without inadvertently including others – such was the nature of genetic engineering.

“Twelve?” he asked, his voice trembling. “Do you remember me?”

It had taken so long to equip the chimeras with mammalian social instincts. His only hope now was that some remnant of the bond they had formed still remained, like an imprint.

The creature backed away a little, cocking its head at him. Even if they had interacted when the chimera was little more than a newborn, it had been living wild for twelve years.

“Please remember,” he pleaded, tensing as he waited for the killing blow.

It didn’t come, so he dared to reach out a hand, extending it towards the chimera’s face in the hope that the alien wouldn’t just tear it right from his wrist. The chimera brought its featureless face closer, seeming to scent his palm, its long tail whipping back and forth through the mist. It loosed not a hiss this time, but a trill, the sound calming him. It did remember him, then. He had raised this creature from the tank to an adolescent – he remembered playing with it and performing tests in the lab – but he couldn’t recall when they had parted ways. It must have been around the time he had gone into stasis.

He tensed up again as it drew its face closer to his, but rather than sink its teeth into him, it brushed its tattooed forehead against his cheek. Its skin was soft and smooth, the fat layer beneath it making its texture squishy. Jones lifted a shaking hand, running it along the length of the creature’s elongated head. It trilled again, then turned its attention to the shopping bag that he had discarded nearby.

“Oh, are you hungry?” Jones asked. Moving slowly so as not to startle the hybrid, he reached for the bag, the plastic rustling as he fished inside it. He produced a protein bar and tore it open, offering the morsel to the creature. He lurched as its pharyngeal jaw shot forth with alarming speed, snatching the bar from his hand, the primary set of teeth starting to chew it.

“Y-you’re a hungry girl, aren’t you?” he muttered as he watched a few crumbs fall to the misty floor. “What have you been eating all this time?”

Perhaps the chimera had the same ability to enter a low metabolic state as the wild strain, but Jones had never had time to study that aspect of their physiology. In fact, he was quite surprised by how ... developed the subject had become. She had been the most human of the experiments, meaning that they had successfully integrated the largest number of human traits, and everything must have gone to shit before she had fully matured. Either the wild xenos didn’t have a problem with her, they had all died off, or perhaps she had killed them...

She had been notably more intelligent than them, even while immature, and it might help explain why there seemed to be no surviving examples of species XX-121. Had his team inadvertently created a super-predator?

Now finished with her meal, she turned her attention back to Jones, reaching out to paw at his suit. She was remarkably dexterous, her six fingers – four digits and two thumbs – exploring his unfamiliar clothing. They had engineered her to be social – to desire human company, just like a domesticated animal. She’d probably been completely alone for a decade.

“Glad to see you’re doing well,” he muttered, the alien responding to his words with a tilt of her head. “I know you don’t understand me, but I’ve only had a murderous robot for company since I woke up. You’ll forgive me if I take the opportunity to vent.”

She pawed at his suit again, becoming more insistent, so he unzipped it down to the waist. Twelve was certainly a curious creature, and that had been the case when she had been small, too. He remembered having to put locks on the cupboards and storage containers in the lab because she would always find her way inside them.

“See?” Jones said as the alien leaned down to scent his bare chest. “Just clothes – you remember those. Hell, your memory might be better than mine if those monkey ladder tests we carried out were any indication...”

He grimaced as Twelve dripped globs of her warm saliva onto his skin, moving her head down to his waist, seeming intent on finding out what lay lower.

“Okay, that’s far enough,” he chuckled nervously as he tried to gently ease her away. “I know I have a lot of apocrine glands down there, but let’s keep it above the belt.”

She rose higher again, nuzzling her face against his, smearing more of that gelatinous saliva on his cheek. Xenos communicated with one another primarily through pheromones, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that Twelve would be so interested in smells. Maybe she was scenting him like a cat – marking him as a friend.

Jones lay back against the resin again as Twelve crouched over him, reaching behind his head with one of her clawed hands. With a surprisingly gentle tug, she uncoupled his helmet from his suit, lifting it to examine the transparent visor.

“Yeah, helmet,” Jones said. “Did you see me wearing it?”

She loosed another trill – perhaps using sonar rather than vision to examine it – then balanced it precariously on top of her long head. Jones couldn’t help but snicker at the sight. The chimera set it back in the fog beside her, then reached for the shopping bag again, rummaging for another protein bar.

“Fast learner,” Jones mumbled, watching her peel open the wrapper. “Listen,” he began, starting to get up. “As much as I’d love to sit here and chat, I have a nuclear reactor to check on, so-”

Twelve placed a hand on his chest and firmly pushed him back to the floor, not even looking up from her snack.

“Alright,” Jones stammered, raising his hands in surrender. “Maybe the reactor can wait. It’s lasted this long, after all.”

She tossed aside the empty packaging, then turned her eyeless face to him again, drawing closer. Pinned beneath her as he was, he couldn’t help but feel a predatory aura emanating from her as her lips pulled back to expose her teeth, her seven-foot frame bending like the body of a contortionist to reach him.

“You know,” he began, recoiling a little as another rope of goo fell to his bare chest. “I would really have appreciated a little more time to train and socialize you...”

Her head twisted on her slender neck to peer lower, one of her hands slowly reaching for his zipper. Knowing how it worked now, she pulled it lower, opening the garment past his groin.

“Oh God,” Jones grunted, lurching as her fingers brushed the bulge beneath his shorts. “I get that you’re lonely, but I don’t think we’re a good match.”

When he tried to wriggle out from beneath her, she placed her hand on his chest again, her touch gentle but firm. The unspoken demand was obvious enough. Stay. When she succeeded in peeling back his elastic waistband, he felt her smooth skin brush his shaft, the creature pawing at his flaccid member. He felt a droplet of her drool fall to his belly, and even with those razor teeth hovering so close to his most sensitive anatomy, her insistent probing soon had him swelling.

The xenomorphs had a powerful drive to reproduce, and that clearly hadn’t been engineered out of the chimera. Species XX-121 was capable of reproducing with any lifeform that could harbor an embryo, from cattle to humans, and they weren’t picky about their partners. That brutal life cycle had obviously been one of the first things to go, as Wey-Yu couldn’t have their new weapon breeding out of control and turning its handlers into hosts, but the team hadn’t taken any steps to replace it with anything. Chimeras were intended to be vat-grown as needed, and they should be sterile, but nobody seemed to have informed Twelve of that fact. She was encountering a friendly male for the first time in her mature life, and he might smell just the way she liked if her human heritage was anything to go by.