I only look like a big scary alien on the outside. I'm still a dumb kid, or maybe a dumb teenager. Honestly, I'm not really sure what I am.

I don't remember my last birthday. It's gone with that...what was that?

It's like an itch. There's something...I knewd. Something...that happened to me.

It's gone again. Gone forever, I guess.

It's like that time I tried to download Daddy's camera into a computer and erased all the files. We tried a recovery program, but it only brought back the newest image, a picture of some nekkid lady Daddy thought he deleted. Mom saw it and started yelling at him.

We lost the pictures we took of grandma before she passed (or was it Old Jane from the machine shop? She and mom were close). Stupid memory!

Never mind. The point is, I'm an alien with a dumb human brain. That's why I didn't try to escape when Ripley came to rescue me and the doors were wide open.

Or maybe I was being smart. I don't know.

Fourteen: Escape from this place is impossible.

I mean, I know I'm out in space somewhere, on a space station. I can't just break a window and run away to earth. Ripley may have just been an escaped prisoner like me.

I don't know the first thing about the space station. All I know is its name. Auriga. It sounds like what Speedy Gonzales says when he's running from the coyote, or whatever animal he runs from.

The thought had occurred to me that maybe I was in a movie set, and they were only projecting images of space on my window, but I don't want to test that theory out. I don't want to be proven wrong. Not about that.

My other thought was that my open cell and Ripley's appearance was one of those elaborate tests they put mice through, and the moment I got outside I'd find the floors electrified and I'd have to jump through a hoop to get a glass of water.

So, instead of escaping I explored the lab.

Fifteen: Scientists have it better than the guinea pig.

The little room had the shape of a hexagonal prism. In some ways, it reminded me of a trailer home, like the modular dwellings we had on Hadley's Hope, my home.

Seeing those rows of glass tanks with socmavaj in them reminded me of the last days, when that man locked me and Ripley in a room and tried to get one of them to lay eggs in us.

I caught my reflection in the glass, shuddered, looked away.

Off in the corner, I saw Bruno's little observation area. He had a futon to lay on (I've never seen him use it. I guess he closed the window shield first), a set of computers monitoring my vitals (my pulse looked pretty steady), a flat panel TV, and a second computer he used for reports, I guess.

A long work table lay behind the TV, one I had previously been unable to see from within the drum, its surfaces scattered with various biology experiments, dissected socmavaj, dissected larva, diagrams, notebooks, photographs, mice and guinea pigs in cages, some scarred and missing patches of hair, vials of various samples (possibly my blood and saliva), the skulls and organs of larger dead aliens.

My drawings and writings had been carelessly stuffed into a cardboard box on the floor below, many more in a blue recycling bin.

My letter to Santa was in the blue bin.

I pulled it out, spread it on the work table, and cried a little before crumpling it up and and throwing it back in. So much for Christmas.

The cabinets above the table contained chemicals, rock samples, more alien specimens.

I also found a few of my specimens in sealed glass containers, prompting me to sing this song: "I'm saving your poop in a jar, to remind me just what you are, you're a pile of poop, saving your poop in a jar..." It made me feel a little less angry about them throwing away my papers.

The lab had a tiny coffin-like bathroom with a shower. You pretty much had to sit on the toilet to wash yourself. No one had ever bothered to bathe me, so I stepped into the compartment and closed the door.

I've never had a problem with claustrophobia. Heights maybe, but never claustrophobia. Still, it was cramped, and I could hear noises through the walls that made me wonder if the ship were going to break apart and leave me floating through the depths of space in this little compartment.

I figured out that the rubber button on the wall activated the vacuum operated flush toilet, but the shower controls mystified me. You operated the temperature and spray pressure with the same lever-like knob, and you pressed a little silver button to get it going.

At first, the water just came out of the handheld sprayer in a little trickle, so I kept on pushing the button until it gushed out in a passable dribble.

When I was finishing up, and looking around for a towel, the water suddenly came spraying from the nozzle full blast and wouldn't shut off. I hurried back into the lab, slamming the door shut behind me.

I saw no towels, so I shook myself dry and resumed my wandering.

The place featured a bookcase and a video library. Bruno appeared to like mysteries and fantasy stories about barbarians and enslaved women. The bodice rippers, I guess, were Claudia's.

A big yellow cabinet stood near the exit, marked with a warning that said hazard chemicals were inside. I tried to open it, but it was locked. I moved on to the walk-in kitchen.

Bruno had access to a small sink, a coffee machine, a refrigerator and a microwave. I opened the fridge and found water bottles, soda and food, pizza, pork chops, Chinese food and Hot Pockets.

I ate a couple slices of pizza, washing them down with a Pepsi, then found myself throwing up.

Dammit, I thought as I watched my barf burning a hole in the metal flooring. I thought it was only chocolate and Skittles that made me sick. I guess I'm diabetic or something.

I rinsed my mouth out with water and explored the back corner.

Past Bruno's clothes closet (he wore a lot of black) I found a storage room.

Amidst the discarded scientific books, computer equipment (memory cores, monitors, etc), scientific tools (robotic arms, magnifying lamps, surgical kits), medical supplies and other such odds and ends, I found storage containers full of oddly familiar items. Objects from LV 426, it seemed, perhaps rescued from the exploded debris and run through a decontamination process.

They'd mostly gathered the small things, dolls, clothing, toy race cars, stuffed toys like an owl Beanie Baby, a busted up Nintendo DS, and a plastic Millennium Falcon that looked like it had lost the war.

The more I looked through these items, the more memories came rushing back. I could almost match them to a name and a face.

A scorpion paperweight from Arizona belonging to Mrs. James, my school teacher.

A quilt that mom sewed for me with her own (claws) hands.

A butterfly hair clip that always perched on top of that...one Mexican girl that always sat in the back of the class. Maritza, I think her name was.

Then, as I was pulling a box out from under a shelf, I found him. A lopsided flop eared stuffed toy with orange plastic eyes and a stiff four foot tall body coated in plush blue fur.

"Big Blue!" I exclaimed, gathering him in my arms.

The sound of footsteps interrupted this happy reunion.

There was someone in the lab!

"Hello?" I called, then, realizing how announcing my presence would result in joltings with a cattle prod, quickly covered my mouth.

With Big Blue in one claw, I crept out of the storage room, looking around.

Although being an alien didn't make me any smarter, it did seem to make my senses sharper.

I caught a whiff of lasagna, wine, cigarettes and lady's perfume, mingled with sweat and sex smells. My ears, or whatever it was that I used to hear with, picked up breathing sounds, not terribly loud, but enough to indicate where the smell came from.

I crept around a row of tanks and found Bruno cowering on the floor, staring up at me, bug eyed in terror.

"Please, don't hurt me!"

I stared at the man, thinking about those dreams where my mouth claw punched a hole through his forehead. "You want a Pepsi? I only drank half of it before throwing up. I'd hate for it to go to waste."

The man's face was pale, his eyes wide in fright.

What do you do when a fifty pound gorilla or a big scary alien offers you a drink? "Y-yes. I will take Pepsi."

I brought him the can, watching him miss his mouth as he attempted to slurp from the can.

"I heard screaming," I said. "What happened out here?"

Bruno, with trembling hands, moved the can to the proper place at his lips, swallowing fizzy brown liquid. "I...do not know. I...had men guarding the room, and now they are dead. What did you do?"

Sixteen: Someone killed the guards, possibly an alien. Possibly the ones that came to rescue me.

"Me?" I cried. "But I was in my room the whole time!"

"Yes," he stammered. I could tell he didn't believe me, but he didn't want to piss me off by saying so. "Of course you were not. My apologies."

I think the slime residue I left on the can was burning him, at least a little. He frowned, wiped his lips.

Seventeen: Superhuman sensory perception can be depressing.

I sniffed. "Who did you have sex with? Claudia?"

Bruno laughed. It was a nervous barking laugh one would give an executioner that said something ridiculous. "Good God, no!"

He coughed, looked flustered. "Must I tell you this most personal detail? Begging your forgiveness, but human beings are uncomfortable when talking about personal lives."

Can you believe the nerve of this guy? What about my discomfort?

I sat down next to him. "I've told you everything about me. I want to hear something about you."

He swallowed hard. "Her name is...Amanda. She works in maintenance and kitchen. I do not care for her smoking or her singing, but her thighs are divine. May I get off the floor, please?"

I giggled. "You're into thighs, huh?"

Bruno reddened. "I am into whole body, but especially thighs."

"You talk funny when you're scared," I said.

"That is what humans do. Can I get up please?"

I shrugged. "No one's stopping you."

He shakily got to his feet.

On a weird impulse, I blurted, "Do you like my thighs?"

I thought he was going to faint right there. "You...are an alien. Please do not kill me if I say that I find alien legs unsexy."

I frowned as I stared down at my body, awash in feelings of inadequacy, depression and self loathing. I sighed in despair.

"You...truly know of no other aliens with which to copulate?"

"No," I muttered, dispirited.

Having no good reply, he pointed to the stuffed dog. "I see you have found your toy."

"Yes," I said. "And...other stuff from home." Then, in a resentful tone, "Nice of you to keep it for me."

"I'm sorry." His tone indicated that he was not. "I was not permitted to give these things to you. I had orders."

I answered, "It's okay. You can keep them. I just wish you would have asked me first."

He swallowed. "I'm sorry. There were rules."

I pointed to his computer. "What games do you got on there?"

I'd just finished playing Majongg and had almost gotten through a level of X-Com: Terror from the Deep when that nasty little black haired android of his rushed into the room and zapped me with a cattle prod, forcing me back into my cell.

See what I mean? I'm a dumb-dumb.