Yeah, Topher Ferguson became my pet project the first day he showed up.
Skinny little preppie kid from Overland Park. Kansas suburb.
Poor guy. Never seen a black person before.
Me, I've been to jail. B&E. I came out to this rock because no one else would hire me.
Topher, on the other hand, I don't know. I think someone put something in his communion wine. He's not really built for this kind of work, but he seems to think God sent him here to "save the lost."
That story about saving the miner from the cave-in? Didn't happen. I think some people try to make a place mundane as a public school sound like Burma or Afghanistan, you know, some terrible persecuting place, to jazz things up and get people to sponsor them or something.
Seriously, the people on the base are pretty cool. I think the little weenie just doesn't know how to take a joke.
If he made friends with any of them, it's probably because I took him around to meet everybody. I could see the kid's eyes bugging out behind those square glasses he always wears. I thought he was going to faint.
Anyway, roughly a week and a half after preppie boy arrives, we had the incident.
Let me tell you, I so wanted to go over to that base and kick some ass.
Every day, I asked the people in charge, can I go over there and help out? They look like they're in trouble. But nobody wanted to do anything. They just sat on their hands.
Me and my buddy Brian, we found some binoculars, the kind with the electronic gizmos that let you zoom in on objects a mile away, and we just stared at the place, watching everything fall to hell.
The terrorists came down in a Virgin AX429. American make, but patched together.
I knew enough about Corporate Security to know they rarely used pieces that sophisticated, banged up or not, and in between that and the Arabic markings on the doors and the Iraqi flag, I don't know why they cleared it for landing. Idiots.
If I had a way over when the attack started, I would have been there. But they already blew the tunnels to stop their "gas leak" and you had to sign out the spacesuits and vehicles, so I was stuck where I was for the duration.
Damn.
And so I just did my job and went about my business like nothing was wrong. I mean, fuck, what else could I do?
After they caught me sneaking out to the rover during second shift, they threw me into the brig and tightened security. There literally wasn't any way for me to help them.
When it was all over, it took them more than two weeks to even begin to suggest sending people to inspect the damage.
Naturally, I wasn't the first person they sent. The first team was Mr. Freschaur, Brandon Jones, and Sam Middleton, whose head only came up to my chest. Sam's, not the other guys. Brandon was a big son of a bitch. I'm not sure why Nate picked them as opposed to us, except that maybe it had something to do with Middleton being a martial artist.
The guys found a man in the AX, just one. They probably should have killed him, but instead we've got him locked up in the brig. A disaster waiting to happen, if you ask me.
At any rate, me and Brian finally got the green light and we searched the bird from front to back. Brandon and Sam stood guard around the outside, kind of searching the premises for signs of the enemy. We all expected them, I mean, the ship's still there, right? But lucky for us, nobody showed up.
The place reminded me of a beat up submarine combined with a jumbo jet. Little cramped crew quarters with bunks, an exercise room, cryogenics bays and storage rooms full of loot.
I'd like to say that these guys were one hundred percent completely evil, but I'd be lying. I saw a bunk with children's toys and pictures of a woman and a kid.
These men had wives, girlfriends, pets.
Normal, regular people.
Well, except for the whole "Breaking into a base and killing everybody" thing.
Some people chalk this kind of thing up to religion, but I know better. Unless it's a suicide attack, it's all about money, in some way shape or form. Lord knows Base C had a lot of it.
Oh, and I found Hostess Ding Dongs. God, I missed those things.
The weapons cache was locked, but, well, you know. Let's just say I've got skills.
We got their guns, their oxygen, and...some other things. I wanted to take a hookah and some flavor packs, but the guys said no. I still slipped some hash into my pack, as well as some Arabic porn and some tasty curried shit I can't pronounce.
Oddly enough, I found the porn hidden under a Koran.
The base was fucked. The door was blown up, air leaking out the entrance. Just about everybody was dead.
We took photographs of the bodies and sent them through CANARY, stopping every so often to refill our air supply with the farm ventilators, and to eat.
Ah, Ding Dongs...I'm drooling just thinking about them.
Yes, yes. The victims' pockets were mostly empty when the burial squad carried them off. Maybe I did take a few things out of their pockets, but what of it? It's not like they're going to sit up and tell me to put it back.
Anyways, the official story I tell...officials is that I only looted the pockets of the terrorists, because, you know, they deserved it.
Mostly, I took the nicotine, because it's hard to come by in this place.
We ID'd, I don't know, hundreds of bodies. We just went from room to room, snapping pictures. I felt like a war reporter or something, but I didn't care. It was either that or going back and drilling rocks all day, and you know I didn't want to do that!
According to other people on the network, five people were still unaccounted for, and that's not including their medical android.
Two of them we got details on.
Craig Lahaye, whose death report had been posted by Dennis Goldike but not processed through the system like the other cave-in victims, and Manager Dennis himself, apparently the only one lucky enough to access the escape pods.
Saved his own sorry ass. Left everyone else to die. Nice guy.
He probably had his reasons.
So that left three unknowns: Gina Martinez, Brittany Murphy and Peter Miringu.
We didn't find them.
The thing.
Yes...the thing.
The prospect of seeing real extraterrestrial life on Jagalchi was the one big bright spot in my whole, what, fifteen year career at this shithole job.
In fact, while off the clock, so to speak, I like to go down into caves and fuck with the Hell's Lice, teasing them, feeding them different things, playing music, twisting their legs around, scaring the hell out of them...hilarious.
Probably made it hard for them to catch the damn things, but they tasted like the back of somebody's balls anyway.
So yeah, I wasn't exactly scared when I heard about the creature.
I saw all the ripped up bodies, but the only thing it told me was to be careful. I still wanted to see it. I was practically wetting my pants with excitement.
It was a messy eater. What I saw was a little gross.
The victims were all missing body parts, legs, arms, feet...on a couple, it even seemed to do what they do with crawdads. You know, "Suck the head, bite the tail."
One of our guys tossed his cookies when they saw them.
Two separate rooms, so he actually dry heaved on the second round.
I swear it was Freschaur, but nobody believes me.
They say he was in the army, but I don't think he saw any action.
I know because I was there, and I definitely saw him puke.
We found Ellen's body in the pod room.
God, what a fucked up way to die.
Stabbed in the brain, right while she was giving birth.
I saw a small hole in the bottom of one of her feet, like she'd stepped on a nail or something, and it rotted out. The hole was black, and it seemed to go straight through her body.
I wasn't sure what to think about it, except that Tetanus probably wasn't good for the baby.
Speaking of which, I didn't see Ellen Junior anywhere. I was almost a hundred percent certain that the thing ate it. Baby meat is probably a delicacy for them.
Dumpling meal please, hold the MSG. Thank you, I'll eat it here.
We don't visit Base C very often. I've been there a few times for special meetings or one of our rare parties. I vaguely remember someone throwing Ellen a baby shower.
They have some sweet equipment over there. The TV in our entertainment room isn't half as big as theirs, nor does our crew area have its own personal kitchen.
Another thing. They have their own separate showers. None of this high school locker room shit.
Okay, so some of them still have the group shower, but the others...not fair.
I almost shit myself when I saw the creature.
I was whistling to myself, checking the individual rooms... (nothing here, nothing there...), getting kind of overconfident...so, hey, I thought I might as well stop in one of the restrooms to drain the ol' lizard.
Damn near drained the lizard all over my spacesuit.
The thing was in the shower, clutching that egg. Just rocking back and forth, singing something, I guess.
I think it actually looked startled to see me. I almost think I heard it say "Jesus." If I did scare it, the feeling was mutual.
I popped out of there double quick, hiding around the corner as I stared at it, my heart almost up in my throat.
I readied my machine gun, clicking the safety off, chambering a clip.
I looked around the corner again and saw the creature hadn't moved. I guessed it wasn't hungry after all those corpses, unless it was trying to trap me.
I grabbed a pillow on one of the beds and threw it at the beast, quickly backing out before it could get to me.
I could have sworn it said, "You know how stupid you look?"
"Did you just say something?" I asked it.
It only shook its head and muttered, "God."
"Can you...talk?" I asked.
I could barely hear it, but I think it said, "Jesus, what a buffoon."
Well, anyways, that's where I got the idea.
As I said before, I like to fuck with aliens.
But before I get to that, I have to tell you about the egg.
Big assed green thing. Slimy. The monster kept cooing and rocking the thing back and forth like a real baby.
The screwed up thing about it was, I thought I saw an umbilical cord hanging out the side.
I mean, it seemed to belong there, being connected to the shell, but it was the wrong color, kind of a red-purple instead of green like the rest of it.
I got Brian to cover my back as I stealthily crept up and tried to grab it.
That's when it shouted and threw me at the toilet.
If it had been porcelain, we would have had a flood, but it wasn't, so, with a bruised head, I staggered out the door.
We took this as our cue to leave.
I knew that I'd get searched the moment I stepped through the home airlock, but I also knew the searches were rather...cursory, so as soon as we got in the rover, I hid as much stuff on my person as I could.
They mostly focus on the spacesuits and packs, because that's what you presumably wore the whole time you were there. Presumably. You wouldn't risk draining your oxygen supply or depressurizing your suit to, say, stuff a few packages of Iraqi hash into your underwear, or slip some E-Cigars into your socks.
I also used magnets to clamp some bigger stuff to the bottom of the rover, which I'd figure out how to retrieve later.
I put a false bottom in the pack. I'm really proud of that one. You can't even tell. That, and the secret side compartments.
I had to spend the rest of the night drilling. That was the deal. But I didn't care. This was the most interesting thing I'd done in months. And, thanks to all the intel I'd gathered, I only had to pull a half shift. Top that!
The idea for our little missions trip quickly developed into a plan while I was attending Solar Sunday.
Pastor Rapchuck's services aren't exactly riveting, so I stare off into space a lot.
That's a metaphor. You can't actually see space from the chapel.
Anyway, as he was preaching about the peace of God, I found myself absently staring at the new pastor's aide.
The guy was as clean as a newborn baby.
Little dainty hands. Didn't even look like he had touched a drill.
Clean shaven, fancy haircut from one of those expensive gadgets he brought with him.
His spotless, brand new alb with lace trim made him look like a doily.
And those ridiculous square glasses with the thick rims.
It wasn't just his appearance that made me want to work on him. It was the way he was always nervously standing around like he had his thumb up his ass all the time.
What bugged me was that he hardly did anything, even during service.
He needed something to do.
And so, after service, I spoke to the pastor about it.
Let's just say I got a little creative with the details.
The alien in the shower became a "survivor", camping out in hydroponics.
I told him some story about how this imaginary woman pretended to be dead so she could hide on the base, that her friends had died and she had nothing left to live for, yadah yadah yah, and she made me promise not to tell anyone.
I told him I'd hate to take him away from his important duties, when he clearly had a trainee that seemed desperate for new opportunities to serve the Lord.
I don't know what Rapchuck whispered to the guy, but we had him convinced enough to come along.
So...you know we brought him to the alien.
I could see his Adam's apple bobbing on his pencil neck the moment he stepped into the room. Me and Brian were covering our mouths, snorting, right about to bust a gut laughing.
We had to really fight to keep a straight face when we told him about his mission of mercy.
When I first saw him praying with the thing, I really did thing they slipped something into his communion wafers.
I mean, I'm not the greatest bible scholar, but I'm pretty sure there aren't any passages that say, "Go ye therefore into space and preach to little green men."
It made me think about that old joke about the missionary and the lion. Maybe the alien was just saying grace, and he only thought it was a lost soul. We kept our guns ready, just in case.
I've seen some weird shit in my life,but this one took the cake.
A big assed bug thing, folding its hands, or claws, and asking Topher to pray for her "baby" that happens to be inside an egg.
After that, the thing actually got chatty.
"You'll have to excuse me," it said. "I really can't sit on the toilet anymore. I sort of had to go in the shower. It doesn't smell bad, does it?"
Topher stammered no, but he probably would have said it if the thing smelled like a sewage treatment facility.
Get this. The thing actually opened up to him.
It started to tell us a story.
Some crazy shit about a tomb down in the caverns and waking up as a monster.
It spoke for twenty minutes.
What do you do when a big assed alien creature gives a speech, but listen to it?
None of us said anything. Brian just froze like a statue, puffing an E-Cig through the little slot in his helmet made for fluid intake.
In my humble opinion, the whole story sounded a tad far fetched, but I would have believed anything coming out of that deformed ooze dripping mouth.
What bothered me more than that were the unanswered questions.
"If you really are who you say you are, how did you end up in that big alien body?"
"I...don't know," was her reply. "Maybe the gas or something in that chamber..."
"Are you sure you weren't an alien before, and you just inhaled some gas that made you think you were originally a person?"
It let out this animal shriek, to voice her upset or something, I guess, then chilled out and said, "I don't know. I mean, why would an alien come up with such a dull and depressing fantasy?"
That gave me pause. People with dull and depressing lives often make up fantasies to escape them. But when's the last time you've heard of the reverse?
I really wasn't sure how she'd know all of that information if she wasn't who she said, unless the things could read minds, or gain people's memories by eating their brains or something. The explanations were not forthcoming.
In fact, I was doubtful we'd ever get them.
And the baby...we wouldn't know anything about that unless we opened up the egg...or stuck it under an x-ray machine.
"Maybe something happened to her during an out of body experience," Brian suggested. "Maybe her soul had nowhere to go, so it went into this thing."
"That would imply that the creature is in there with her."
My beady eyed friend shrugged. "Maybe it is."
We all stared at the creature thoughtfully.
"Presuming it is actually Ripley in there," I said. "Should we take it back to the base with us?"
"I wouldn't," Brian muttered, taking a drag of his cigarette. "They'll probably try to kill it or dissect it, if it doesn't kill them first."
"I'll be fine, gentlemen," the creature said. "But I would like someone to check this egg. I think I can still hear a heartbeat, but I might be going crazy."
All three of us stared at each other.
Brian was giving me this crazy look like, "You want to listen to it?"
Topher's face was saying "Hell no, I'm not going to do it!"
And of course we're all wearing space helmets anyway.
If the air system had been up and working, I probably would have just pressed my ear against the damn thing. I decided we would have to come back with a stethoscope or something.
"What about your medical droid?" Brian asked. "Varney? Vince?"
"Venn," the creature said in a low growl. "His name is Venn, and I really don't trust him."
"You want me to send a doctor over here?" I said. "I'm sure we could get someone...a biologist, at least..."
"Would you?" It climbed out of the shower, causing Topher to retreat in fright. "I'd really appreciate it."
I nodded. "No promises, but I'll try my best."
Well, you know, we had our fun, but we couldn't sit around in a base with no air and hang out with a monster all day, so we headed back through the compound.
As we were nearing the temporary airlock that lead outside, I heard Brian saying, "Uh...Wade?"
I spun around, thinking it was a joke, maybe some important machinery breaking down or something. You know, a flood of water coming out of a pipe, something kinda funny but serious, but not serious enough to holler about.
What I saw was the creature.
"Whoa!" I cried with my hands raised, one holding a gun. "Don't do that! You're scaring the piss out of us!"
The creature didn't reply.
"Look," I said. "If you want to come with us to the base, it's cool. I'll tell them you're coming. We'll work something out."
"Wade..." Brian said. "Uh...I...don't think that's who you think it is."
I stared at him, then the creature, then the hallway behind the creature.
"Wait," I said. "Where's Topher?"
Brian shook his head. "Got me."
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Author's note: It seems I have some leftover sow's ear to work with. Not really sure where this plot is going, but I'll continue to post these random scenes until I run out of ideas.
