Thanks for the reviews! It's always nice to hear back. ^^
Oh and I fixed the spelling of Edgar Allan Poe, thanks for pointing out the mistake. And sorry this chapter is even shorter, but they will get longer from here. Promise;)
-reelProjector
Elizabeth Shaw is holding David's head, propping it on its own body. She stands behind the robot with her own head facing away from him. She's trying her best not to vomit. The clicks and hisses his body makes as his artificial spine endeavors to reconnect itself—as David has reassured her it will—are horrifically far from human. Dr. Shaw has her eyes closed and is willing her hands not to move; their trembling combined with the light tremors that shock David's body every few seconds are surely not doing much to help the spine reattach itself. Some deep part of her tells her it isn't too late to rip off his head and throw it across the room. Some other part says that once the mechanical clicking and hissing stop, she'll have something that she can pretend is human—something (no definitely not someone, something) to keep her from going insane of solitude on this journey. Her father always said she had a very good imagination.
Dr. Shaw opens her eyes briefly and then closes them again. The room is still spinning and her heart is still thumping. She doesn't imagine it is good that her heart-rate is through the roof right now but chooses not to worry about it. As the room spins on, however, she does wonder—from a solely scientific standpoint—how much damage it would do if she turned her head and vomited into David's insides.
The thought pleases her in a deranged way and the action seems to Elizabeth to mirror philosophically what he's done to her: retching on his most inner workings—the parts that make him who he is. She is almost certain he had a direct hand in killing Charlie. She is almost certain he is deadly.
David's head abruptly snaps forward, waking her out of her reverie and scaring her out of her wits. Her eyes fly open and she rounds the control chair in which he is seated to bend down and look at his face, now gazing down at the floor. Elizabeth panics. David looks dead. His eyes are closed and his white blood is seeping through the torn collar of his suit and dripping down his torso. Elizabeth gets a handful of it as she reaches to press her ear to his chest and check for a heartbeat again. Her panic causes her own to echo in her ears again and she still cannot make his out for certain. She leans back, keeping a hand on his shoulder and stares at the top of his head, listens to God-only-knows-whose heartbeat in her ears, and panics some more.
She has blasted off into space on a ship she does not know how to pilot with a dead (broken? What doesn't really live cannot die…can it?) android. She cannot set a course for the Engineers world or for Earth. She cannot even return to where Charlie died to join him peacefully. She does not trust herself alone. Suicide is a Godless sin.
David's sickeningly calm voice does not even startle her; it only makes the room resume its spinning, which has become comforting. She prefers not to see this reality straight.
"There we are—fundamentally reconnected. If you would be so kind as to pull together the color-coded wires at the base of my neck that would be a great help. Thank you Dr. Shaw."
She positions herself behind the chair again, leaning over it from the side, since it is very tall and reaches a shaky hand for the wires he's mentioned. Elizabeth is so glad to see that there are many, many wires of various lengths and thicknesses to connect. It will take a bit of time and mindless effort, like a children's puzzle game. The more the activity is mindless and brain-like, the less Elizabeth is forced to remember that it is probably her death that she is assembling. At least if David strangles or beats or rips her to death, it will not be a sin. Only human beings can sin.
"That's right Dr. Shaw, just hold the wires together, the electric current and magnetic attraction should do the trick from there. Do be careful you don't hold them too close to the point of disconnect, however. You would get shocked." He addresses her almost like a child, she thinks, commending her for performing well and warning about possible dangers. His voice is attempting to be gentle and comforting.
Elizabeth thinks she might want a sizeable electric current through her. She wants to feel anything but this nausea.
She silently finishes attaching all the wires and receives a painful dizzy spell when she looks up into the broader space. David is already talking—close by but also somewhere far in the distance. He's even standing and moving an arm up and down slowly. He's turning and thanking her and smiling that eerie smile.
It's the last thing she sees as the darkness at the edges of her vision spreads and engulfs her. The last thing she hears is her name off his lips as she feels arms wrap around her back—suffocating, not comforting—and she thinks the cool, white blood feels nice against her burning cheek when it presses to his chest and that ownerless, thundering heartbeat.