I don't own Inside Out or Alien3. Inside Out is copyright Disney/Pixar, and Alien3 is copyright Twentieth Century Fox. WARNING: This short story contains big spoilers for both Inside Out and Alien3. Thank you to ErinMilne for her writing advice.
Joy stepped on the button in the floor that caused the recall tube to lower from the ceiling, the new sad core memory in her hands. She stared at the descending tube in anticipation as the memory orbs on the short term shelves began draining. Coming to the realisation of what Joy's intentions were, Sadness hurried from the console as Disgust, Anger and Fear looked on, shocked at the ongoing turn of events.
"Joy, no!' Sadness pleaded as the blue emotion quickly made her way towards the yellow emotion. As she tried to wrestle the blue orb from Joy's clutches, she declared "That's a core memory!". Joy was unwilling to give the distained item up however, and she and Sadness lurched back and forth, each begging the other to cease their current course of action. Joy was eventually able to pull away from Sadness with the glowing orb still in her possession, but her momentum sent her stumbling into the still elevated core memory holder, and as she struck it the golden spheres contained within were knocked free and went clattering to the floor of Headquarters. "The core memories!" Fear blurted out, as the golden lines of power than ran from Headquarters to the Personality Islands became extinguished, and the islands powered down.
Riley stared wide-eyed out into space in disbelief, the tears she had been crying still fresh on her cheeks. For some reason the sheer finality of the move from Minnesota to San Francisco hadn't hit her until now. She suddenly felt that everything that had made her what she was, was now no longer a part of her.
Joy quickly went around gathering up her most prized possessions from the floor one at a time, however as she collected the fifth and final yellow orb she gasped in horror as she saw Sadness about to deposit the new sad core memory into the holder. In desperation, Joy made a flying lunge which knocked the sphere out of Sadness's hands, however Joy lost control of a few of her own core memories in the process. The sad core memory began rolling towards the recall tube, and Sadness began scrambling towards it on all fours. She leaped at the core memory as it gathered momentum from being caught up in the tube's suction, but she wasn't fast enough and the ball of blue light went up the tube and out of view beyond the opening in the ceiling. Meanwhile, Joy had successfully gathered up most of her spheres again, however one golden sphere was rolling past Sadness towards the tube and appeared to be set to suffer the same fate as its blue sibling unless someone got hold of it.
"No no no no!" Joy exclaimed despairingly as she went to fetch the one rogue yellow sphere while still holding onto the other four, even as the ball became airborne when it started to be sucked up into the still extending recall tube. Getting directly underneath the tube opening, Joy was able get her left hand atop the fifth orb as it gained velocity heading upwards. She was almost completely sucked up as well, however she was able to hook her left foot under the metal rim of the opening at the last moment, somehow perching the four other spheres between her right arm and her chin. Summoning the strength to hook her right foot under as well, the suction of the tube only continued to increase as Joy fought desperately against it. The suction increased to such a point that Sadness, still lying on the floor after her unsuccessful attempt to save the blue core memory, was drawn into the tube herself. The impact of Sadness hitting her body from beneath was too much for Joy to withstand, and both emotions exhaled sounds of shock as they disappeared up the tube, Joy still retaining possession of the happy core memories. The aperture swished shut behind them, and the glass tube began rising back.
Anger, Disgust and Fear stared transfixed at the point in the ceiling through which their two companions had departed. Eventually, Anger was the first one to speak, inquiring meakly, "Can I use that curse word now?" Neither Disgust or Fear were compelled to offer a response. All three appeared frozen in time, until the thudding sound of Anger collapsing backwards to the floor in front of the console caused Disgust to shift her attention to him. "Huh? Anger, ANGER!" Disgust shouted as she saw that the red emotion was lying on his back with his eyes closed, unconscious. Meanwhile Fear still stayed focused on the spot in the ceiling which Sadness, Joy and the core memories had travelled through. It seemed nothing would be able to compel him into any sort of action anytime soon.
Superintendent Andrews paced the mess hall as he presented rumour control. Despite the recent passage of time on Fury 161 being more eventful than many of the prisoners could ever remember, the mood in the room was largely apathetic. Empathy was never really a defining attribute of most of the planet's current population. Still, many of them would be glad to see the arrival of the rescue team, however not for Ripley's sake but their own - the woman was already proving to be (as expected) nothing but trouble, and the sooner she was gone the better.
Andrews began retracing his steps as his report reached its conclusion. "I think it's fair to say that our smoothly running facility has suddenly developed a few problems. I can only hope we are able to all pull together over the next few days, until the rescue team arrives for Lieutenant Ripley!"
A few of the prisoners close to the entrance had noticed the quickly loudening sound of frantic footsteps as the Lieutenant herself appeared, just as Andrews mentioned her name. Breathing heavily from exertion, she was still able to expel her warning immediately. "It's here! It got Clemens!"
Andrews didn't skip a beat upon witnessing Ripley's unexpected arrival, his indignation evident as the superintendent asserted forcefully "Stop this raving at once, stop it!"
Ripley had no intention of doing any such thing. She had tried to convince Andrews of the horrible truth, to no avail. Sheer hopeless defiance in the face of a disbelieving gaoler was the only option she had left. Before Andrews had even finished giving his contempt-laced instruction, she insisted again "I'm telling you, it's here!"
Andrews next order was to his subordinate Aaron, though issued in no less harsh a tone. "Mister Aaron get that foolish woman back to the infirmary!"
Aaron had already started making his way towards Ripley before Andrews had finished issuing the decree. However he turned back sharply in Andrew's direction when his superior suddenly let out a cry of anguish. A nightmare had descended from a hole in the decrepit ceiling, and was in the process of yanking the superintendent up to his doom. The previously inert state of the room's other occupants was suddenly broken as an explosion of motion took place. Decisions were being taken, then reassessed in split seconds. Try and get behind other people for protection, attack this sudden threat immediately to ensure survival? How to best do that? It was all over though in a matter of moments, as Andrew's legs followed the rest of him upward and the squeeze ball he had been holding fell to the floor, bouncing a few times up and down before rolling away. Blood dripped down and formed a puddle where Andrews had just stood. Among those who had decided the best defence was a good offence was Morse, who had bustled his way from the far side of the room towards the location of the abduction, picking up a nearby overturned chair to use as a weapon as he neared the place where the alien had latched onto its unfortunate victim from above. However, by the time Morse was ready to try something both the alien and Andrews had disappeared from view, and the only sounds in the air were those caused by the dripping of the blood and the bouncing away of the squeeze ball as he, like the rest of the room' occupants, in contrast to the very recent flurry of activity, could only stand frozen like statues as they stared at the opening in the ceiling in stunned silence. Both amazed and frightened by what he just witnessed, he was the first to speak, doing so loudly and, all things considered, predictably. He shouted out his favourite curse word, which was more than any of his fellow prisoners could even think to do.
"Anger! Anger, wake up!"
Anger moaned as his eyes opened slowly and he found Disgust shaking him by the shoulders as he lay by the console. Fear was immobile, still standing in the spot where he had watched the recall tube ascend back to the ceiling after it had claimed Joy and Sadness. This was all too much for him. Disgust, however, was panicking as she tried to rouse Anger back to consciousness.
"Anger, come on! What is going on! Anger, please!"
"Stop it, I'm awake, I'm awake!" Anger protested as he sat up.
"Are you OK? What just happened? Why did you faint like that? We just lost Joy and Sadness! What are we gonna do?"
Anger still wouldn't look at Disgust, his eyes cast downward as he took in what he had just experienced. Disgust grew even more frantic. "Snap out of it! What happened to you! C'mon Anger, say something!"
"I feel like I've just experienced a memory of a past life..." Anger began explaining.
"WHO CARES!" Fear suddenly shrieked as the purple emotion erupted into movement. "Joy, the core memories and Sadness are all gone! This is a disaster! Yikes yikes yikes yikes yikes ARRRGH! Help help help help help!"
"Quit it beanpole!" Anger asserted as he got to his feet.
"Fear's right!" Disgust said quickly. "I don't know what we're going to do! I can't think of anything! Can you think of anything?"
"Just give me a minute, OK?" Anger decided he couldn't mull over what he had just dreamt about. There was a far more pressing matter at hand - how were they going to get Riley through the rest of the day? What if Joy didn't ever come back, what then? Any contemplation over a past life was a non-existent priority given the current situation. "Look, just forget I fainted or anything," he said with a shake of his head.
What is a prisoner on a prison planet in the future doing as the emotion of Anger in an 11 year old girl's mind in the past? Well, if you subscribe to the multiverse theory of existence, coupled with the problem (that ASBusinessMagnet's research has pointed out) that the fan theory of 'the emotions of people were previously people themselves' doesn't work, because there would had to have been more emotions then there have been people that ever existed, the extra amounts of people needed to become emotions would have to come from somewhere... and maybe the different time periods don't matter when it comes to stuff like this? Also, I realise this 'Morse as Anger' theory is ironic as *Another big spoiler for Alien3 coming up...* Morse is the only one of Fury 161's inhabitants to survive the movie. Still, the next time you're watching Alien3, keep the thought "This guy is going to become Riley's Anger in Inside Out' in the back of your mind, and see if it all syncs up.