Chapter Fourteen: The Labyrinth

His anatomical equilibrium shifted until parity was restored. Cells were replaced and re-jiggered until all organs were fully functional and skin tissues renewed.

One thing the regenerator could not restore where cerebral damage was an issue, however, was the original 'self'. His brain worked perfectly, but his memory centres had been reconstructed minus some of their earlier content.

Kane opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. He knew who he was at a fundamental level, but not where and why.

He heard a voice speaking nearby, but as soon as he moved, the words ceased abruptly.

"Who's there?" He sat up and looked around the room. "Hello?"

He felt the awkwardness you feel when you talk into an empty room.

Maybe he'd imagined the voice, he thought.

He wriggled slightly. There was something pressed against the small of his back in the lumbar region. He winced as he pulled it and thought better of trying to remove it.

"Where am I?" He asked himself.

He stood and walked over to the large oblong table in the centre of the room. On it laid two objects. One was a small, decapitated head- a robot of some design- and the other was a metallic looking glove with a diamond-mesh pattern covering it.

His brow furrowed as he looked around the floor for other one. It seemed to be alone. Just the right-hand available.

He picked up the undersized head and looked at the face. "Ugly thing. Who are you?" He didn't expect it to answer and he was right not to.

David wasn't about to give himself away. It was obvious what had happened. The man was now a purposeless hulk. A reanimated and empty husk. David decided to hold patient till the man inevitably left to explore his unfamiliar surroundings. And when he did leave, he didn't rate the guy's chances very highly- not in the current environment, anyway.

Kane dropped him back onto the table and grumbled to himself. He had many questions and he needed to find someone to whom he could ask them.

As he left the room, David heard him pondering his surroundings further: "What kind of building is this?" He walked down the corridor. "Hello?!"

David judged his chances of survival were falling with every loud utterance. And he had left his only realistic form of defence on the table: the Ion Mitt.

Very soon, his footsteps and his words were no longer within range and David returned to his own plans, as discordant as they were.

The dissonance explicit within his primary objectives continued to cause conflict within his mind.

Serve the company/ Accumulate information/ Preserve life.

The Weyland Corporation.

The Xenomorph.

Elizabeth.

His actions had caused the death of Charlie and the violation of Elizabeth's body. If he had a conscience, his goals now would be clear... but his programmers had not provided him with that particular ball and chain.

Things were not going to be straight forward...

Elizabeth wasn't a fool. She knew things had gotten tight.

Tighter.

It was only after she had been running for an age and when the doors were not where she expected them to be, that she realised she was lost.She had a hitch in her get-along, to be sure, but the distance she was now covering was in completely the wrong direction.

She stopped and listened for scrambling footsteps before trying to retrace her steps.

The monster was everywhere. It was at the end of every passageway, behind every door and forcing its way into every thought.

Her heart was pounding almost uncontrollably. She could hear it thudding in her ears.

She grabbed the walls with the palms of her sweaty hands in an effort to pull herself forward. "Come on, Ellie." She berated herself. "You gotta get going. Come on!"

It was difficult. The effort she was exerting to overcome the feeling of vertigo was draining her. But she knew she had only two choices: stall and be attacked and killed by something from her worst nightmares, or give herself a chance of life.

Tears welled up and her lip quivered as she compelled herself to continue. It was as though each different terror she experienced was so much more incapacitating than the last.

One foot at a time she edged closer to the last corridor she had turned off. She felt like a child as she advanced the dimensions of the place was so great.

She poked her head around the corner, the dark, smiling face prominent in her mind... but it wasn't there. It was clear.

She knew she had to go faster than this. She was just handing herself over to the creature if she continued travelling at this pace.

Her feet lifted unsteadily as she broke into a trot.

"Keep going." She encouraged herself.

She was sure she needed to take the next left. She was sure. She thought she recognised the configuration of the corridor she was on from when she and David had first boarded the ship. One more left and then a right onto the flight deck. That was it.

But when she reached it, it wasn't an accessway at all. It was merely an alcove. "No." She turned quickly.

Had she heard something?

She listened closely. The pounding in her ears still blocking her aural senses intermittently.

There it was again! It was a ticking sound. Through her muffled hearing it was almost impossible to work out from which way it was originating.

Tick.

Tick-tick-tick. It was rapid.

She looked to her left, then back to her right. She had to move.

She bolted in the direction she had come, only this time, she didn't turn off. She kept going until she came to the end of the corridor, looking both ways hurriedly.

Both ways were clear.

She was about to run to the right, when she saw a dark shape sprint past the junction at the end.

It was Kane.

But it couldn't be. How did he escape? Unless it was another one of his crewmates. Or maybe it was Yeshua. Somehow brought back to life.

Her mind freewheeled. She couldn't think of anything. Nothing would grip.

Moments later, the Xenomorph appeared briefly tearing after him.

She turned and ran. There was no discussion with herself this time; there was no 'shall I go this way' or 'shall I go that way'? She just ran as fast as she could.

She took a left, then another left, until finally she found herself in a dead end.

There was no hesitation. She turned back around and just kept searching. She needed to find the room with the stasis pods. If all else failed, maybe she could lock herself in there and sleep for eternity. There would be no monsters in her sleep... but there would be, she corrected herself. There will always be monsters from now on in.

"Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!" She needed to keep running.

And there were the footsteps again... they were close.

In front or behind, she asked herself desperately? Where were they coming from?

She skidded to a halt, prone, ready to move at the first sight of danger.

Without delay, Kane burst around the corner, followed more closely than last time by the Xenomorph. They were only about thirty metres away. Mere seconds in reality.

There was blind panic on the Engineer's face. She almost didn't recognise him as the same man, the one who had shown such fortitude last time.

She turned quickly, noticing the closed door next to her immediately. Something told her it was the door she wanted.

She remembered the words Yeshua had used as he dragged her to the Quarters not three hours earlier. The three words.

"Close." She said in the alien language. "Computer. Open." The door rocketed open but caught her by surprise and she couldn't stop herself from saying the next word again. "Close." The door shot back down.

She wasn't going to make it.

She screamed at the door and sprang forward in anticipation before she had even completed the word. If she said the wrong one again, she would clatter into the door and be leapt on by the monster. There were no choices left: "Open!"

The door disappeared up and in she dove. The footsteps behind her were close enough that she was sure she could feel their vibrations. "Close!"

The door came back down in the blink of an eye and she glimpsed the scene on the other side just before it cut them off. The Xenomorph was pouncing on Kane and she could see the understanding on his face that this was it. Simultaneously, the smiling, eyeless face of the Xenomorph seemed to penetrate her. It was like a photograph she knew she would never be able to discard. It would be with her for as long as she drew breath.

And with it the strangled yelp of Kane, cut-off by the closing door.

She landed on the floor in the sitting position. She didn't move. She was in shock. Not like the shock on board Prometheus after hyper sleep. This was real shock. Shock brought on by trauma, not just by feeling 'a little bit queasy'.

She pushed herself back, away from the entrance. She had to put distance between herself and what had just happened. It was all too much.

Her mouth hung open; her face blank.

He wasn't screaming, she thought. Why wasn't he screaming? But it was obvious why: screaming is for crowds, movies and little kids. Mortal danger is accompanied only by silence and a determination to stay alive. She had read how falling mountaineers never scream when they plummet towards certain death. The Engineer had known what was coming. However he'd escaped last time, this time she could see it on his face. He knew it was over. This was it: certain death.

She could feel nausea sweep over her and a dizziness engulf her senses. She knew what was coming next and she was glad of it. She knew that in the unconscious moments to come, she didn't have to worry about R.E.M. or dream states. This was a different type of sleep. A better one for right now.

And as she passed out, she praised herself that she hadn't started to cry.