Chapter 1

The year 2094

At first, her fever and infection from her abdominal wound drove her to lay in the fetal position upon the cold floor of the Engineer's dark and unforgiving ship. David's head sat propped up on the main control panel repeating the garbled promise that he could pilot the vessel. Between his assurances he asked for the doctor to repair him, not pleading but more so demanding that Dr. Shaw put him back together in order that he might help them out of their current predicament.

In her febrile state Dr. Shaw could not hear his disembodied voice calmly instructing her how to put his head back on his body, she could barely comprehend the noises coming from the lighted control panel. The incessant humming and whirring of the biomechanical vehicle that felt like a cold, dank tomb.

For nearly two days she lay curled on the floor till her fever seemed to break and she finally felt the urge for sustenance. Her head pounded as if her skull had splintered during her fight with the alien life form. Maintaining her vision was also difficult as she pulled herself up from the floor and began to search for David. Everything seemed to be moving around her, lights blurring and blinking in front of her as she swayed on her feet. A fresh wave of nausea rolled over her and she feared she might vomit.

A sudden voice in the darkness shook her, pulling her out of her daze. At first causing her heart to pound and then finally to settle as she recognized his voice. She remembered then the urgency with which he covered her with his coat when she came upon him and Mr. Weyland, bloody and battered from the medbay. His gentle arms encircling her. His eyes on her the whole time. How safe she had felt. And now how foolish.

She studied his face now and that smile of his that set her nerves on edge. He looked so perfectly human and yet too perfect to be human, but for the fact that he was only a head.

"Are you feeling better Elizabeth?" He asked.

She nodded, "a bit. I suppose you might feel a little worse, missing your body."

His laugh came in garbled bursts since his voice box was damaged when he neck had separated from the rest of his torso.

"I don't believe that is possible. I don't feel pain as you do. And I certainly have not experienced carrying an alien child." His voice was kind, but there was something in it that Elizabeth did not like, a tone of familiarity.

"That was not a child," she replied, lips tightening and tone icy. "That was a monster. A demon."

Something then rang in those words. Out there be demons.

"I suppose," he mused, clearly unaffected by her tone. "I do hope that you are not also still suffering from the loss of Dr. Holloway."

His words felt like knives slicing right into her heart. How could she have forgotten? In truth, much had happened since he died, and she had not had more than a moment to truly process her loss.

"I sense that your breathing has changed," David's calm voice said. "I do believe that I have upset you Elizabeth. I apologize for my insensitivity."

She ignored his apology since she supposed he liked to say things that hurt, especially things that hurt her. He had a cruel nature though he looked so fragile and human, he was the kind of monster that hid behind a beautiful face. That kind of monster was especially dangerous.

She mused that he must receive a sick sort of delight from seeing emotions so vividly displayed on her face. Heartache, despair, and loss all there in the crease of her eyes and the slight part of her mouth. Each one easily interpreted by his processors.

How could he understand what might cause her such feelings and then feel no real remorse for causing that pain? He was so intricately designed, Mr. Weyland had seen to it that he lacked no understanding. Yet all the knowledge of the world at his fingertips and he should enjoy cruel jibes and reminding her of all that she had lost. Though, she reasoned, there may be many humans that were much the same way.

But for all his personality and lifelike behavior he was still mechanical, he could develop emotions through learning or at least, he might understand how a person would or could feel. He could never truly experience emotion, could he? Elizabeth wondered if he might understand her fear or trepidation regarding the alien space craft, but he could not experience it. Or even if he could not experience fear he still had the desire for survival and what else could that be driven by but fear?

Over the course of the next few days Elizabeth secured his help to find food and water aboard the ship. She did not want to use up the survival stores she had brought with her. As she intended to save them for emergencies.

Their companionship began with an almost intimate hesitancy. Elizabeth allowing David to guide her and comment on the rooms in the ship, to inform her like an over excited tour guide regarding the mechanisms of the ship. She would carry his severed head in a bag with her while he mapped out the structure and narrated what he could of the processes for the biomech. She found that it was fully self-sustaining. It maintained a garden, water, showers, and even bare crew quarters though everything was giant compared to her.

Eventually she allowed David his request and plugged his severed head into the control panel of the ship. He sat contentedly for some time, quietly downloading data that might be helpful. From this information he determined how to set an autopilot and how to utilize the cryopod for long interstellar voyages. He further determined how to arm the ship properly and how to deploy a payload of the black goo they had discovered. All this information he passed along to Elizabeth with a gleeful smirk and almost imperceptible pride. Though she could tell easily when he passed along anything he thought might be helpful. He eyes held a twinkle that was far more human than his smile and Elizabeth tried to take it all in stride. She tried not to think of him as anything other than a very helpful computer.

After nearly a week, she cautiously put him back together. His instructions were simple and a little chiding, but not totally condescending as she struggled to lift his body onto the cryopod to meet his head. For as human as he appeared, he was much heavier than any human male and she feared she might have to work on him as he lay on the floor. But eventually she was able to maneuver him onto the work table using a series of straps she had tied together from cord that was in her emergency kit. His carbon fiber skeleton and artificial musculature were not entirely unlike that of a human and Elizabeth believed that she might be able to utilize her medical training to assist in his repair.

She labored tirelessly for nearly a day and a half, working to snap in the pieces that she could manage as he assured her that his head was always meant to be separated from his shoulders for extreme maintenance therefore, in theory, everything ought to fit together easily.

"The real trick of the thing is to smooth the skin over as you seal it," he said smiling up at her.

She rarely responded but to tell him she was doing the best that she could.

"It is meant to be simple," he assured her.

She caught the jibe. Of course, it was simple if a human could do it.

Finally, she took a step back to admire her work, although there was a heavy scar that cut the full length of his shoulders in a wide arch he was finally put back together.

"Is everything working as it should?" She asked hopefully.

His eyes turned to look at her, but his head did not, "it may take a day or two for my systems to recalibrate and assess the full extent of damage. As you know I leaked quite a large amount of white liquid latex and may need to take a few days to replenish my supply. The recalibration will put me offline in a manner of speaking."

She hadn't counted on that. She had expected he would be finished once he was put back together. And that he would thank her for her hard work. For it had obviously been against her better judgment to return his mobility. He could have at least been grateful. But she supposed that he was a machine after all.

It was odd to go a day without his ever-constant voice in the background passing along some knowledge of star systems (as if she didn't know already) or simply inquiring as to the state of her health. It was almost lonely without him in her head chiding her for not eating enough calories to sustain herself (She could barely stomach the alien food). But thankfully this quiet only lasted a day as he was up the next walking and talking.

"How are your systems operating?" She inquired.

"Well," he replied. Though she was sure there was much more to it than that. He appeared slightly withdrawn from her for the next few days following and Elizabeth determined it was because he was coming to terms with the knowledge that he was not fully repaired. Or that he might malfunction in his current state.

The thought of a malfunctioning synthetic caused her no small amount of anxiety, especially not knowing what form the malfunction might take. But over the course of the next two days he appeared to be back to his normal self, educating her on the biomechanical vessel and ensuring that she was fully able to fly to vehicle if it were not set to autopilot.

And, as the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months, she began to feel something akin to affection for him. It was difficult not to with him being the only conversation for miles. She lamented that he would never know the emotion of such affection, of caring or intimacy.

Sometimes she would feel the urge to touch him, simply for the fact that it had been months since she had last touched another human. Human. That was where the logic failed her, and the faith took over, he was so much more than just a man. Though he could not truly feel the rush that the graze of her fingers against his scalp would provide her, he did go eerily still while she ran her fingers through his perfectly soft and human feeling tresses.

When she did this, which was not often, he would study her all the while, not breathing, as of course he didn't. But he would look up at her, or down as the case may be and she would see something in those synthetic eyes. Was it a feeling? She couldn't tell.

Or sometimes he would make a little noise that was almost too quiet for her to hear but she interpreted as a signal to continue. He may not feel the same way she did when she touched his skin, but he did feel something.

One day she found herself playing with his hair as he leaned over the console working on some calibration for their intended destination. It was then that she realized she needed to check her inventory to ensure she had enough stores for after they arrived on the Engineer's home-world. She began pulled her fingers out of the tangles of his hair but was abruptly stopped by his hand encircling her wrist.

"Please don't stop," he said quietly, not looking up at her. "I cannot account for it, but this act provides a soothing quality that gives me great pleasure."

Did she detect an ache in his voice? If the timbre of his voice did not delineate emotion what then was it? Excellent programming? She thought not. Much of what David did and said could not be accounted for merely by programming. David had learned. He had adapted in way that was terrifyingly brilliant. He was a survivor. But more than that he was emotional and for all essential purposes immortal. Even worse, with the death of Peter Weyland he was now autonomous, able to make his own way in the world.

She paused. It was moments like this that she realized he was not human. But perhaps, it was her duty to help him be?

"That is perfectly natural," she replied. "Touch activates certain receptors in human brains and releases dopamine. I cannot imagine it might be very different for a. . . For you." The word left unspoken hung in the air. Synthetic.

He did turn to look at her then, not releasing his grip. "Do you suppose that other human things might be the same for me?" He sounded almost hopeful.

She blushed, if he had been a human and not synthetic she might have thought he was implying intimate things, but his curious yet innocent nature and (she assumed) his lack of physical equipment might make that difficult.

"Well," she said. "I suppose that if you enjoy my fingers in your hair, then perhaps it also activates the pleasure receptors in your brain. So, one might hypothesize that you were built to have and enjoy many of the same experiences as humans."

He studied her quietly, almost unnervingly so. She had become so used to his constant babble and he never seemed at a loss for words, therefore his silence now only served to make her continue.

"And, if you were created to enjoy these human experiences, then one might believe that other human experiences would be the same for you. Which other experiences were you speaking of?" She inquired.

There was almost a hint of a real smile behind those eyes as he said, "anything and everything associated with the human experience."