Artimus had been led to a small room, barely big enough to house the small bed and table in there. He was told that if he needed to go to the bathroom he would have to use the public toilets located on the ship. He felt like he was being held hostage, which he pretty much was, he wasn't allowed to contact anyone, wasn't allowed to leave to ship. He was being kidnapped by the government in a sense. They'd at least given him a tablet, so he could watch some television shows or something of the sorts. The first thing he tried to do was try to contact all his 'friends' that were had apparently just let the military take him.
After that he just spent the next few minutes lying on his bed, looking up at the plain grey ceiling. It didn't take long before he got bored of that though, so he decided to go and have a look around the ship. He found the cafeteria, where the main meal seemed to be some kind of white sludge that they passed off as porridge. He kept walking and eventually found himself at the med bay. The med bay looked like it had been used much more frequently than he was used to. The med bay back where he had worked had almost started gathering dust from lack of use.
He just kept walking, heading in one direction the whole time. He had been walking for nearly half an hour, not hitting a single obstacle, not needing to turn a single corner, and then it suddenly dawned on him how big the ship must actually be. He had thought it was just one of the old battleships the military had, being exaggerated by the proud crew. But apparently they had been telling the truth that it was in fact a flagship.
He walked for a while longer until he saw something that looked familiar to him, white coats. Why would there be scientists aboard the military vessel. He decided to investigate the matter further. He grabbed a coat from inside one of the many laundry rooms and put it on, all he had to do was act like he normally did and nobody would notice a thing. He walked up to a door marked 'LAB-002' and had a quick look through the metre thick glass window at the front.
He could see a bunch of people in white coats talking to each other and looking at what seemed to be a blurry wall of sorts. He waited until he saw someone coming and decided to try his luck with getting into the lab. "Hey" he called out as the person he had seen started nearing him. "I'm Artimus" he said "I've just been reassigned to this ship and I haven't had the chance to get down my bio code yet, any chance you could let me just follow you in?" he asked. "Sure, I don't see why not" the man replied as he held his hand against a panel on the wall.
Shortly after that the door in front of them hissed quietly and opened. They both mad their way inside and Artimus could finally see what was behind the foggy glass. It was Xenomorphs, a miniature hive of them. "Hey everyone! This is Artimus!" called out the man that he had walked in with. "He's new here, so cut him some slack will you". Nobody really said anything in a reply, but everyone just seemed to nod their heads in agreement before returning to their own work.
"So Artimus, what exactly is it you do?" asked the man curiously. Artimus had to think quickly, so he decided to give the man a straight out truthful answer. "I specialize in handling the Xenomorphs when they're young" Artimus replied, a professional tone taking over his voice. "You don't say, I'm the one who gets 'em at the end of the line" the man said, apparently trying to start a conversation with Artimus. "What do you mean?" Artimus asked, confusion lightly crossing his face.
"I'm the one that has to pull apart the bodies when they're done" the man clarified, "It's actually pretty dangerous, with the acidic blood and what not". It was a little too clear that the man was trying to make himself seem like a risk taker. Artimus knew however, that there was almost no risk in pulling apart the Xenomorphs, because it was handled by computers. He was growing tired of the conversation and would much rather be looking at the collection of Xenomorphs that they had acquired.
"You don't mind if I go and have a look at them do you?" Artimus asked, gesturing towards the foggy glass. "Sure, I guess you don't get to see to many adult ones in your line of work" "No, I guess not" Artimus replied, trying to end the conversation altogether. "Come on, I'll show you who's who" the man said, reaching an arm around his shoulder and bringing him closer to the glass. "We've got five warriors, thirteen drones, and our pride and joy, one praetorian. Of course we have to separate that one from the rest".
Artimus looked in at the Xenomorphs, they looked massive compared to what he was used to dealing with. Some of them looked as if they could reach four or five metres tall standing at their full height. "How old are they?" Artimus wondered out loud. He almost jumped when he heard a reply come from next to him, "Well, the oldest one we got is thirty seven years old, and then the youngest is barely one day old. We just got him today, picked him up off some back wash research place, meant to be curing diseases, no idea how a Xeno would have got there".
"How do you know the youngest is a 'he'?" Artimus asked, looking next to him for an answer. "Well we don't really have any way of telling their gender, unless we cut them open, but we just assume that it's a 'he' because of how violent it was acting". "Where is it now" Artimus asked, hoping to see the creature that had attacked him. "We had to keep him away from the others, we tried putting him in with one of the other young ones we had but he just tore 'em to shreds".
Artimus was thankful that he never came close enough to it for that to happen to him. "Hey, wanna see something cool?" the man asked, sounding like a four year old with a new toy. "Sure, why not" Artimus replied in a monotone voice. "Guys, let's run test four again" he called out, most likely to the two man standing behind the control panels. "Running test four" came the reply, and Artimus directed his attention back into the room full of Xenomorphs, waiting to see what would happen.
"I don't see anything happening" Artimus said, sounding very disinterested with the lack of action. "Just wait for it" the man said next to him, glaring into the room. Artimus looked back into the room and noticed a very small opening at the top of the room. Almost as soon as it appeared all of the Xenomorphs in the room began running towards it, crawling up the walls and along the roof. Artimus just stood there dumbfounded, wondering what was going to happen. He didn't have to wait long though, as a small cylinder dropped from the roof. "What is it?" Artimus asked, squinting so as to get a better look at the cylinder.
He didn't get to see it for very long though as a Xenomorph quickly grabbed it and ran away. "It's a nice little drink the boys in the lab made, it makes all your nerves much more sensitive, it was originally meant to be a gas, for crown control to take down the Xeno's, but they just can't seem to get enough of it". Artimus was drawn away from his conversation and back towards the room as a loud screeching could be heard.
When he found the source one of the Xenomorphs was rolling across the ground and rubbing its body across anything it could. "See what I mean, the stuff in that canister could have easily killed everyone in this room, but to them it's like ecstasy". Artimus could barely believe what he was seeing, he had never in his life seen a Xenomorph act this way. It almost looked as if the Xenomorph was enjoying itself, but surely Xenomorphs weren't capable of such things like that. If they were then that would mean that he had watched people torture sentient beings and not even blinked an eye about it.
"Now, I know what you're thinking, and yes, Xenomorphs do have feelings and emotions, but on a much lower level than humans. Think of its intelligence more like an overly intelligent dog" the man said, looking at Artimus. Artimus felt like he was going to be sick, he could remember the Xenomorphs screeching as tests were run on them, but he could never have imagined that they felt and remembered the pain. He had always thought that they were just animals, that had no rational mind at all.
Artimus felt himself gagging slightly and his eyes began to sting, in his mind the Xenomorphs that had been tested on were being replaced with images of people and children in their place. He couldn't hold it any longer and just vomited everywhere, getting the attention of everyone in the room. The man standing next to him stepped back and raised his hands to show that he had nothing to do with it. Artimus wiped some of the vomit away from his mouth before telling everyone else that it would be better if he left.
Everyone seemed to agree with him and someone got the door for him, so that he didn't get any vomit on the bio panel. He stumbled back to his room eventually and straight away fell onto the floor. It felt like his body was going to throw up again but he had nothing left in his stomach, se he just laid there, convulsing on the floor. He didn't have much time before a marine arrived at his door before calling in a medic, unsure of what was happening to them. Artimus still couldn't believe that they had feelings and emotions, he couldn't believe how sad and angry each one of them that was killed by torturous experiments must have felt.
It was one of the things had had constantly told himself, 'Xenomorphs aren't intelligent, they don't have feelings, they probably don't even know what's happening to them'. But now that someone had proved that they do have feelings, he felt as if his world ad spun upside down. His life had pretty much revolved around seeing the Xenomorphs tortured and killed for sport. His mind just couldn't stand it, sending his body into some sort of fit. It was as if he had done one of the worst things imaginable and only just now became aware that he did it.
He was brought to the med bay, where one of the scientists was called in to explain what had happened. Once the scientist told them what happened they asked him how Artimus even got in there in the first place. The man had explained that Artimus was new to their research team, only to be shot down when they told him where Artimus had actually come from. Artimus looked barely conscious throughout the whole speech, but he heard every detail.
Not soon after that Captain Farley Mcintar came into the room, "well, I guess we did find something out about your old job while you were snooping around somewhere you weren't supposed to be" the captain said. "Looks you got quite the shock when you realised that the bugs weren't as dumb as you thought, didn't you? So what, you used to torture them or something, used to pull apart while they were still kicking? Am I getting close at all here?", Artimus just closed his eyes and waited for the whole conversation to be over, he felt like his life was being pulled apart.
Here's another chapter, sorry if the story seems a bit slow, but I'm just trying to make sure it seems at least a little bit realistic. But I can promise that there will be an appearance of a certain Xenomorph next chapter. If you have any suggestions just post them in the comments or feel free to just pm me. Thanks to everyone who is reading my story.
