CHAPTER 6 – Imprisoned

"Your ass is already on the line. The only question is, what are you going to do about it?"

- Ripley, Warrant Officer, USCSS Nostromo


Joe and Evan did not fully comprehend what they had just witnessed. They had seen a man burst open in front of their own eyes, seen a strange snake-like creature slither its way out of the carcass and watched Patterson go inside the room before the camera feed was shut off.

Evan struggled in distinguishing between utter shock and complete disbelief at everything he had seen on the screens. He shot a look at Joe, turned off the screens, grabbed him by the sleeve and began heading for the door. As they walked out, Joe immediately tried to pull Evan back in after noticing the scientist who had just bumped into him. Evan staggered but composed himself, staring directly at the visibly angered scientist who stood in front of him with his arms crossed.

"Dr. Patterson! Please excuse us, we were just doing a routine patrol…" Evan said nervously.

Patterson's eyes narrowed, "Evan Rowland. Joseph Blau. You two are off-duty at this time." He glanced sideways at Joe, and then looked at the security post they had just come out of. "What were you doing in there?"

Joe quickly intervened, "Just an impromptu patrol Dr. Patterson, better to make sure everything is secure instead of doing nothing while off-duty. Right?"

"Were you looking at any security feeds?"

"Only mid-sec and below. Nothing high-level." Evan said.

Patterson pushed Evan aside and barged into the security post, turned the screens back on and began to check the log files. His eyes turned from suspicious to frustrated to enraged as he noticed that there had been a recent entry into the secure bio-med camera feeds, including the one in his specimen's room. He smashed his fist onto the desk and pointed towards Evan and Joe. "What did you see!?"

Joe shook his head rapidly, "Nothing Sir! As Evan said, we just checked mid-sec and –"

Patterson held up a hand and cut Joe off, "Spare me the bullshit Blau. I know you saw it – yes, you know precisely what I mean."

"Sir please, we don't know what you're talking about." Evan quickly replied.

"You are a liability to me now, both of you. You saw it. You saw it!" Patterson snapped, grabbing Evan by the collar. "I will not let you interfere with its development, let alone let you reveal it to others!"

He let go of Evan and began to scratch at the back of his neck. He looked up and pointed at Joe. "You had clearance didn't you? I knew there was an oversight somewhere, I thought we were thorough enough."

"Dr. Patterson please, we have no idea what you're talking about!" Joe pleaded.

Patterson paced in the room, muttering unintelligible phrases to himself. He stopped and took out a radio from one of his pockets and dialed a special frequency into it. He raised it to his mouth and began to speak into it. "We have an unauthorized security breach at Bio-med high security entrance three. Two suspects to be taken to detention immediately."

The radio came alive and a methodical, almost robotic voice said, "On our way."

Evan's eyes widened and he instinctively began to back away from Patterson. Joe followed suit. They turned away from him and began to run down the corridor, dodging gurneys and stacks of crates as they ran. They did not fully understand the implications of having eavesdropped onto the high-security footage of that creature's emergence from the prisoner, but they knew for a fact that the whole facility would soon be coming down on top of them.

They ran and nearly made it out of the bio-research wing but were both suddenly intercepted and tackled by armored security guards that had seemingly emerged from nowhere. They were swiftly pinned to the floor with the guards' knees to their backs and handcuffed as Patterson walked in front of them, giving the guards a handful of orders which they could not quite hear. Evan and Joe looked at each other and, without warning, were brutally knocked unconscious by the butts of the guards' weapons.

Evan awoke in a cramped cell with no windows and no discernible entrance. The walls were padded, possibly sound-proof, and colored in a mixture of brown and beige that screamed rudimentary if nothing else. The only thing other than himself in the cell was a small, cylindrical silver canister attached to a wall receptacle which presumably contained water for him to drink. The ceiling was completely flat and featureless save for a small circle from which a dim, yellowish light flowed into the cubical space. Evan's hands were still handcuffed and placed behind his back. He looked around trying to find the door but it seemed as if the cell had been constructed around him, with no edges standing out, no handles, hinges, nothing. He could hear nothing except for the sound of his own breathing, greatly amplified compared to the sepulchral silence that surrounded him.

What in the world was Patterson up to? What was that creature? Why was he so paranoid about them having seen it? These questions circled in Evan's mind, answers nowhere to be found. He knew he was being held in the solitary confinement ward of the facility's detention center. He had never actually set foot in here before, only recognizing the cell's design from design schematics and floorplans he had seen during his first week working here. These cells were reserved only for extremely dangerous criminals or for quarantine purposes, yet he knew he was neither. Patterson wanted to keep knowledge of that thing hidden for whatever reason, so much so that he went so far as to completely isolate people whom he only had a sneaking suspicion of instead of absolute proof. There was no doubt in his mind that Patterson's creature was dangerous, perhaps to a degree that he did not fully grasp, yet he still questioned Patterson's motives.

Perhaps the creature was dangerous to the point that any reasonable individual would not allow it to live, explaining why Patterson would want to lock up unauthorized people who knew about it – simply so they would not interfere with whatever twisted experiments they decided to carry out with it. Evan did not know what they would do with him, or what they had done with Joe. Maybe he was in a similar cell as his, thinking about the same questions and being equally confused at Patterson's paranoid hostility.

Evan slowly stood up, noticing that his limbs felt numb and frail. How long had he been out? He felt groggy and his head began to spin as he stood, briefly losing his balance. He placed a hand on his forehead and noted that he was sweating profusely. He was dehydrated. He looked at the silver cylinder and thirst began to overcome him; however, his hands were cuffed behind his back, there was no way he could reach it. He sat back down and tried to pass his hands under his legs, struggling to stretch his arms enough to do so. He felt too weak to exert himself and gave up on his attempt, the cylindrical canister taunting him as he failed.

He tried again, he stretched his arms and curled his legs, desperately attempting to bring his hands in front of his body. The strain on his arms combined with his exhaustion sent searing pain throughout his frame. His arms gave out and Evan began panting as he attempted to recover. He must have been out for hours, maybe days. He had had nothing to eat or drink in all that time either, so they must have drugged him and thrown him in this cell without a moment's consideration to his resulting condition. He wondered if the guards with high-security clearance such as those that had subdued both him and Joe knew what Patterson was working on, or if they were just blindly following orders.

"God dammit…" He whispered under his breath, closing his eyes and gulping a new breath of air to prepare for another attempt at making his hands usable. "Here I go…"

His face tensed up as he stretched his arms again, bending his torso and bringing his thighs as close to his chest as he could. After a minute of struggling, he managed to pass his left leg through, his right leg quickly followed. He collapsed and let out a long, winded sigh of relief as he now had his hands to his front. He rolled and carefully began to stand up, lurching towards the canister. He tore it from its receptacle and began to twist open the lid, every fiber in his body hoping it was filled with the life-giving liquid he so desperately needed. Surely enough, the cylinder was half-filled with purified water which Evan briskly drank, emptying the canister.

He let the silver cylinder drop to the ground, the cool water satiated him and made him feel as if a fire had been put out in his throat. He wiped the accumulated sweat off his brow and sat back down, his eyelids soon began to droop and he began to feel fatigue start to wash over his body. He let out deeper and deeper breaths as his back began to press against the wall of the cell, numbness beginning to crawl up from his legs, to his stomach, to his chest and, eventually, to his head. Evan's eyes closed and his breaths became more distant and quiet, he was completely unconscious.