"Blundering nincompoops!" the voice in the phone was screaming in agent Humphrey's ear. "Morons! Fools!"
"B-but Sir…" Humphrey stammered. "How were we supposed to know that it..? I mean, if somebody just had told us that…"
"Don't try to make excuses, Humphrey! You know damn well that it is your job to take every possibility into consideration! As you also should know that we don't go public with sensitive cases!"
"But, Sir… who would listen to a kid's fantasies?"
"Someone might well start to listen if a contact is made! That must not happen, Humphrey! Fix this mess or you're fired! Both of you!" There was a click in the phone telling the agent that the line had been disconnected. Had the carrier-wave been able to transmit the boss' true emotions when he'd hit the off-button, the click would've sounded much fiercer. Humphrey gloomily pocketed his phone and sat down at the table in the bar where he and agent Bolton for the moment resided this early morning.
"I heard," Bolton said. "It appears that we were a bit hasty with our offer of reward."
"Yeah. We screwed up big time." Humphrey confirmed. "How were we to know that the surviving grunt from LV-426 was under the impression that the brat was dead? Now that program has been blown as well because of the statement we let the TV have yesterday."
Bolton sighed. "Four different divisions dealt with each of the survivors, and none were conferring with the other. The only shared order they all had was: 'To ensure permanent separation, none of the survivors is to ever find out anything vital about the other'. Well, thanks for sharing that information with us!" He sipped his drink in frustration.
"The boss' orders were clear enough:" the younger said as he poured up another glass of Whiskey. "…either we fix this or we're fired. But how the hell are we going to do that? We don't even know where the brat is, thanks to that bloody old man who showed up and grabbed her before our eyes!"
"If we only still had a satellite-lock on her phone, then it wouldn't be a problem." Bolton grumbled. "But it is still out, isn't it?"
"What else would it be?" Humphrey snapped.
"Check it."
"What's the point to check it…?"
"Do it! You never know."
Annoyed as he felt that it was a waste of time, Humphrey fetched the padd that was monitoring the satellite-feed. But as he turned it on though, he got mighty surprised. "The signal! It's back!"
"Finally a stroke of luck," Bolton said as he straightened up. "Where are they?"
"Medford, near the border to California! They must've been traveling from Washington non-stop to get that far in such a short time!"
"They must have a goal somewhere and they need to pass through California to get there obviously. We need to intercept them! Let us head to the local main office. There's a jet-driven helicopter we can use to get ahead of them!" Bolton got up and was already on his way. "Let us not screw up this time!"
"Question is, what do we do with them once we catch them?"
"I'm surprised at you, Humphrey. Who said anything about catching them? The boss said to clean this mess up, which means that the gloves are off! That child must be made silent! Permanently!"
She was running through the dark alleys of the city –running as fast as she could, but there seemed to be no way to outrun the black car that was chasing her. And the people on the streets did not seem to care about her problems – the adults just looked the other way. The kids however were pointing at her as she ran past them; laughing and teasing.
"PISSYPANTS!" the kids screamed and laughed. PUSSYFACE! LOW-LIFE SCUM! SMELLY CAT!" Smelly! Indeed she smelled, because she was back in her school uniform that had been sprayed with sulfur and the smell of rotten eggs made her gag. Meanwhile the car from the Company got even closer behind her and now there was a voice coming from inside that.
"There's nowhere to run, Jorden!" The voice in the car said menacingly. "There's no place to hide! We will get you, and when we do you better be nice to us – then maybe we will be nice to you!"
She rounded a corner in her attempt to get away, and it was there she saw a sanctuary: her grandparents' house! Quickly she rushed inside and slammed the door shut, putting a barrier between her antagonists and would-be molesters. Now she needed to find her grandparents – maybe they would help her. She found them in the living room: they were kneeling before a giant cross.
"Grandmother! You have to help me! There are people chasing me…"
"Hush, child," the old woman said. "Can't you see that we are in the middle of a prayer?"
"But there's evil people after me," she pleaded. "And evil robots who want to kill me!"
"Then pray to God, child. He will protect you."
"But they're out there right now!"
"You heard your grandmother, girl!" her grandfather now said harshly. "Pray to God and you will be safe! God will always save us!"
"He didn't save you!" she pointed out. "You're dead! You been shot!" And indeed, the old couples' bodies were full of bleeding bullet holes. Her grandfather stood up, glaring angrily at her.
"You insolent little runt!" he roared. I'm telling you, God protects us! And if you want to be safe, then you will give your prayers to him!"
"He doesn't care! No one cares!"
"Yes, he does! And I'm going to make you see that if I so am going to have to beat it into you!" The old man now held a whip in his hand which he raised above his head. "Pray to God!"
She backed away. "No!"
"PRAY, YOU BLASPHEMER! PRAY!"
She turned away and ran off, with her grandfather chasing her this time. Quickly she escaped into her room and locked the door.
"You will perish in hell, girl!" her grandfather screamed through the door. She turned around and faced hell – her own personal one, that is. It wasn't her room she had escaped into: she now stood in the complex under the atmosphere processing station on LV-426, the worst hell-hole she had known. She was once again dressed in the dirty torn clothes she had worn for so long when she was alone, surrounded by the horrible alien eggs. On the walls were her fellow colonists, cocooned and with torn open chests – and of course them! She could hear them crawling on the walls concealed in the shadows, hissing and breathing. She was so afraid that she almost cried. She looked around for any means of escape – and under an alcove she saw her. Ripley! The grown-up was sitting in a chair in front of the computer terminals that she had seen inside the marine APC. She was sitting with her back turned against her and with a big shot-gun in her lap. So why wasn't she using it?
"Ripley!" she cried out to her. "Help me, please!"
"We've been over this, Newt," the woman said without turning around. "I've already done my part. I've got other things to do than running around saving you all the time."
"But why? I thought you loved me! Why do you hate me so?"
"Love? Hate? It had nothing to do with that. You were just a mission."
The girl tried a different approach. "But is your mission finished? I'm still in trouble. Won't you complete it?"
"Now that is a different matter," the woman said. "I do have a mission, and I do need to finish it."
"Then why don't you?"
"Why not, indeed?" Ripley finally turned around in her chair to face her, but the girl jumped back in fear when she saw her. The woman's pupils in her eyes were glowing red like lasers-dots! And her face looked like it was made of metal! And now her gun was pointing at her!
"NO! Ripley! Not you too!" the girl cried. "Why do you want to kill me?!"
"Because you are a Connor!" Terminator Ripley said. "And all Connors must die!" She cocked the gun. "Mission accomplished!" The gun fired…
…and Rebecca woke up with a start in the backseat of the Camaro where she had been dozing. She tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes, desperately wanting to forget the horrible dream she just had. She felt that her face was wet from tears.
"You didn't sleep that well," Pops said from the driver's seat. They were still traveling.
"I rarely do…" the girl said with a quivering voice, wiping her face dry with her sleeve. "Did… did I say anything in my sleep?"
"No. But you were moaning inarticulately. Your dreams must not have been pleasant."
Rebecca did not confirm this to Pops as she didn't want to talk about it. Instead she sat up and leaned forward between the two front seats. "Where are we?" she asked.
"We passed the border into California just a few minutes ago," the cyborg answered with his usual neutral tone. "We only got a few hours more, and then we're there." It would have gone faster if they had traveled on the highway, but Pops insisted on sticking to the smaller and slower roads to remain inconspicuous. Besides, he wanted to let enough time pass by to allow his plan to take effect. He had spoken to the girl about his new idea after they had left the restaurant – she had as he had warned her been reluctant to it at first, but once she had been allowed to process the idea she had come to realize that it might solve a lot of her problems.
"Do you really think they will take the bait?" she asked him.
"If they are as intent to get their hands on you as they appear to be, then they should." The 'bait' Rebecca was referring to was the homing-beacon in her cell-phone – Pops had reactivated it a few hours ago. To implement the plan Pops had thought up, they needed the company-people to find her location again. Strategically thinking, the federal people should set up an ambush to intercept the fugitives at a key-point somewhere in California, and that's when Pops would take action.
Rebecca leaned back in her seat, falling silent once more. The dream she had just had still hurt, especially the part with Ripley shooting at her. She knew it was just in her own distressed mind, but it did remind her of the heartbreak she had felt when she'd received that letter from the adult where she had said goodbye and abandoned her. Ripley had her own life to live and Rebecca did not have any part in it. The girl looked solemnly out and the window and sighed. Well, Ripley – I do hope that you are happy wherever you are. You certainly can't have it any worse than I do.
Far, very far away from the runaway child – on another planet to be exact, Ellen Ripley was busy working. She was at the moment strapped into a power-loader, carrying a container in the pressure-claws of titanium alloy. The loader's ponderous feet boomed against the deck as she walked towards the loading-platform of the ship she was serving under. She expertly put the container down on the rectangular plate and backed away so that she would not risk getting entangled to it as it rose up lifting the load into the belly of the transporter above her. She was moving to get the next crate when a voice called to her.
"Hey, Ripley!" a burly and over-weight ship-skipper said in a loud voice. "Aren't you done yet? How many more do you got?"
She rolled her eyes. "Only two more to go, Mr. Cinch!" she replied, which was quite obvious. There was in fact only two containers left standing in their designated loading-area which any fool could see clearly.
"Well, hurry it up, Doll. We got a schedule to keep!" Doll! In another time Ripley would have bitten the man's head of for referring to her person in such chauvinistic manner. But she wasn't in a position do to so. As she picked up the second last container with supplies and turned around to carry it over to the descending lift, she once again spotted the name of the ship written on the side, whose significance revolted her. P.C. Cerberus. The initials stood for 'Penal Cruiser', and on her overall there was a number written in stitches on the left side of her torso: E. Ripley: #2179-12004. That had been her identity the past year, a prisoner serving penal-duty aboard a cargo-vessel.
When the Sulaco returned to Earth after the mission to LV-426, Ripley had been arrested immediately – she never knew what had happened to the other survivors. What she did know was that the Company was not willing to take the blame for what had happened to the colony on Acheron; so for the sake of the stock-holders and their own reputation, they needed to shift the responsibility on to somebody else – and Ripley was the perfect scapegoat. She was already deemed unstable after the incident with the Nostromo; therefore they had framed her for deliberately blowing up the expensive colony, causing the deaths of 158 people and a legion of marines. It was preposterous of course, but the Company had paid the lawyers to shift the outcome into their favor. No one had listened to Ripley - she was sentenced for life.
Her 'crime' was so great that the judge would've liked to put her away to the prison-facility on Fiorina 16, but since that was an all-male installation it was out of the question. They made use of her talents instead and put her on one of their penal cruisers that transported supplies and other goods around the galaxy between worlds which the Company controlled. Since she had a class-2 rating, she was assigned to handle the power-loaders for loading and unloading. The ship's captain and 'warden' Mr. Cinch was one who liked to let people know that he was in control, which was why he was jumping down Ripley's throat. In fact, they were still well within schedule of loading, but she couldn't point that out, no matter how much she wanted to. She needed to behave herself in order to reach the point where she could speak to her lawyer about re-opening her case which they only were willing to do if she acted like the role-modeling prisoner. She was not going to rot away for a crime she didn't commit sitting down!
Ripley rode with the last container up into the ship on the lift – once aboard she put the crate into the designated bay and let her fellow ship-mates secure the cargo while she 'walked' over to the parking-space for the loader to power it down and connect the battery to the charger. She was responsible for maintaining the loader to keep in perfect operational standard – the look-through was always expected to take some time, but Ripley was already an expert on those routines, so she was done quickly. Looking around she found that the other workers was doing the last-minute checks on their lists – those were to be signed and copies left to the controllers of the dock. They wouldn't miss Ripley for at least five minutes. She wasn't planning on getting off the ship again – the electronic shackle on her ankle prevented her from doing so without authorization anyway. No, she wanted to make use of her spare time to spend a moment with her lucky charm.
Sitting down away from prying eyes, she fished out a little folded piece of paper from her breast-pocket. She had managed to keep hold of this against impossible odds ever since she had gotten arrested, hiding it from her guards. She folded the paper out and revealed it to be a torn photograph. Beneath the picture there were words printed:
FIRST-GRADE CITIZENSHIP AWARD: REBECCA JORDEN
It had just been an impulse to keep hold onto this picture after she had found it together with its owner within a pressure-bubble in the air-duct network that had served as a hide-out for the little girl that was on the photo, but now it was her most treasured item in her current incarceration. The one thing that gave her strength and determination to get out of there somehow – to go back to her! Ripley was not at all aware of the letter Rebecca had received ending their friendship – it had been a fake, she had not sent it and would never have! She was actually forbidden to have any contact to the world outside of her prison: no letters and no news-papers.
Ripley looked at the picture of the beautiful smiling child looking over her shoulder against the camera and the adult felt her eyes sting. She traced a finger along the curve of the young face on the photo, remembering how it had felt to touch the delicate skin on the real-life girl – a touch she longed to do again.
"They separated us, honey…" she whispered, not for the first time. She said this every time she looked at the photo. "They dared to split us apart. But I won't let them do this to us, baby… somehow I'm going to get out of here and then I'm going to find you. I swear to you, Newt, my sweet little child - someday we will be together again. I won't rest until then!"