I stared at the section of wall Dee had disappeared into, uncertain about what to tell Kingston, if anything.
It sounded crazy. Why would anyone be sneaking off into a wall? And who would build such a thing? If Kingston already knew about it, he might act like I'm crazy, even if he knows I'm telling the truth.
...Wouldn't he? Everyone else seemed to.
Could I trust him?
Was I really cracking up?
I got up from where I'd been sitting, stepping toward the rock wall.
"Where are you going?" Kingston said.
"I think I left something on the floor," I answered. "It must have fell out while I was drilling."
He marched ahead of me. "Which did you leave? Maybe I can help find it."
"That's okay," I said. "I'll look for it myself. Anyway, I have a pretty good idea where it is."
"Then maybe you can tell me where to look. I get it for you."
I just shook my head.
He put a hand on my arm, giving me a slight smile. "C'mon. We can look for it later. You know we are not allowed to work these mines alone."
"I wasn't going to work," I protested.
"No difference," he said. "We operate on buddy system. In case of cave-in."
Sighing in resignation, I followed him to the cafeteria.
Now we had Chinese food. Fried rice and wontons and egg drop soup.
We never had soup. It wasted water. As did the fish tank. At this point, I stopped trying to understand things like this.
At the tables I saw a few faces that I hadn't seen before.
A beak nosed man named Clifton, who had something wrong with his eye, and looked rather ill at ease.
Sam Middleton, a short hairy man with slick black hair.
Brandon Jones, a big red faced guy with buzz cut hair.
Mr. Freschaur, bald, thick limbed, brunette.
And, strangest of all, a missionary aide named Topher. Apparently he was a pencil neck when he first arrived, but after drilling and working the place for awhile, he's developed a lean sort of musculature. His square glasses are taped together, and he seems to be developing a beard.
Along the wall, I could see Cat speaking with a sloth-like man with flabby arms and a fat stomach.
Honestly, you couldn't call it talking. They did a lot of silent staring, nodding that didn't appear to be connected to a conversation, their mouths opening at odd times, in ways that didn't look like speech.
After the meal and a few games of pool, we returned to the site, resuming our drilling operation.
I drilled next to Dee, in hopes of getting some answers.
For the first hour, I didn't get anything. We just did our job.
We were working around the limestone, chipping away at the Haddanium, to see where the limestone began and ended. Limestone ranks lower than pyrite in terms of value, so we'd just as soon isolate a large block and dump it somewhere, maybe the center of the planet, if we could find a hole deep enough.
We somehow hit a snag, our drills getting stuck in the unyielding material. Dee's drill shorted out, and she swore and sat down on a rock, drinking from her water bottle.
"What were you doing inside the wall?" I asked.
Dee nearly choked on her water. "I was drilling. What do you think I was doing?"
"No, I mean, when we were going to lunch."
"Excuse me?"
"I stayed behind," I said. "I saw you knock on the rocks and go inside the wall."
She looked angry, her cheeks flushing red. "I'm afraid you've been seeing things. Maybe you'd like to lie down?"
"No," I said coldly. "I'd much prefer you tell me the truth."
She sighed. "Ellen, the only thing I did when you were on your way to lunch was to collect my personal belongings from our last site. Some...pictures."
"Did you leave some inside the wall?" I challenged.
She maintained the charade, indignant. "Ms. Ripley, if you insist on keeping on with these fanciful delusions, I'm going to send you back to Cat's office."
I gave up.
We worked until dinner. The cafeteria served us pizza, the staff joking about replacing the Canadian bacon with slices of Hell's Lice. The rest of the evening was free, the second shift guys taking over. We played cards and watched old movies. I played Ms. Pacman a little.
Soon everyone was turning in, to prepare for another day of drilling.
It tried to sleep. I really did. But it was no use. I'd spent most of the day unconscious, and now I couldn't sleep. I just stared at the ceiling, wondering about things.
I got up, tiptoeing out of my room.
Dan was up, watching Something about Mary, laughing his ass off.
He didn't see me. I dove behind a couch, laying low, glancing around to check if anyone else was up and about.
Nobody else. The bedroom doors were all shut. I crawled behind a barco lounger and another sofa, facing the doorway that led into the outer hall.
I straightened a little, preparing to dart over there, but the moment I shifted, I saw Cat marching past.
A second later, Dan is shutting off the movie, and I have to make myself small and press against the sofa to avoid detection.
When I heard his door close, I checked the area and hurried to the exit, peering outside.
Cat was pulling a shrouded body on a stretcher to a gray door. I watched as she pushed the buttons on a keypad.
With each button press, the keypad made beeping sounds in various tones. I thought these tones sounded kind of like the James Bond theme.
After the sixth note, the door hissed open, and Cat pushed the stretcher inside.
I waited for the the door to close again, then crept up the hallway.
I hurried into the infirmary, searching for any sign of Wayde or any clues about what they did to him.
I didn't expect much. That body on the stretcher was either him or they had taken him somewhere. I couldn't believe that story about him being shipped off to another site. He's a fairly friendly guy. He would have said something if he were going to leave. At the very least, everyone would have seen him go.
I searched the floor and tables, but couldn't find much of anything. Cat kept the place pretty tidy, and I'd need a key to get into the cabinets.
I was about to give up the search when I noticed a red glint behind an examination table.
It was a red plastic card key. I quickly stuffed it into my pocket, hurrying back down the hallway.
No sign of Cat yet. I guessed she was still doing...whatever.
Checking to the left and right, I approached the keypad, trying to guess the security code by sound. I always did have a good ear for music.
After the fourth attempt, the door came open, and I was staring int a cramped metal corridor that looked like part of a submarine, with color coded pipes running along the walls.
Hearing a noise, I ducked behind a breaker box in a little alcove. I couldn't see what was going on, but I heard the door hiss open and shut, so I figured I was in the clear.
A few yards down, I came to another security door, this one with a card scanner.
I tried the card, but it didn't work. I continued on down the corridor, trying it on whatever door I could find.
Woosh.
The noise was surprisingly loud. As a reflex, I looked back and forth to make sure I hadn't been discovered.
When I saw what this room contained, I froze in horrified disbelief.
Rows of glass tubes, each one containing a nude woman, floating in transparent blue liquid.
I crept into the room, and found a second row of them along the door side.
The moment I got a good look at one of their faces, I flinched and jumped back.
The woman was me. The face, the body, everything matched what I saw in the mirror.
I shuddered, retreating further and further, until I found myself bumping into something sticky.
Wiping my hands on my jumpsuit, I whirled around.
I had to cover my mouth to suppress a scream.
It was one of those plant pod things, just like the ones in my nightmare.
The thing had been set up with machinery, wires and tubes of some sort of nutrients. In the cracks in the petals, I could see a glint of human flesh. Computers and some sort of regulating device hummed along the wall.
One of the machines contained a human brain in that blue solution, riddled with probes and wires.
The room had no exits whatsoever. I had to get out of there, and fast.
When I raised the security card to the scanner, I heard a loud hiss. I rushed between the tanks to hide.
Through the corner of the glass tanks, I could see the feline android padding in.
There was nothing I could do but squat down and hold my breath.
I exhaled through my nose, watching Cat pacing around the chamber.
"Ms. Ripley," she said. "I suggest you come out at once. My systems are equipped with infrared scanning equipment and sonar detection. I can hear you breathing."
I was hoping I could exploit whatever limitations existed in said system, so I didn't move.
"`And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden of the cool of the day," Cat said as she checked between the wrong tanks. "`...And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden...'"
I shuddered. I knew the machine had artificial intelligence. It was the strange quotation that made me nervous. Like something had...errored out in its programming.
She was closer now, peering between rows on my side. "`But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, `Where are you?'"
I clenched my fists. There was literally nothing I could do. It was a damn robot.
All of a sudden, I see her standing in front of me.
"You shouldn't be out of bed, Ms. Ripley," she said, pointing a finger at me. As she spoke, a long needle shot out of her fuzzy digit. "A pregnant woman needs to be careful."
"Wait, I'm not pregnant!" I cried, but I couldn't help but wonder if I were wrong. Cat was a medical droid, after all.
"That's right," Cat said. "You're not. Yet."
And then she sticks the needle in my neck.