Ripley was clothed, despite all...that stuff she did in our absence. Her leather looked a bit...melted in places, but I guess that tends to happen when you get busy with a xenomorph.

I stared at the woman, with her mewling alien baby. "You...and Ernie...Had a child. And you didn't die."

Ripley smiled. "You seem surprised."

"I...am. How did you have a baby with that th-, I mean, with Ernie, without it killing you?"

She looked at me like I were crazy for asking. "You really want to hear the graphic details?"

"...Maybe?"

Ripley rolled her eyes. "Maybe."

"Hey. Let's just say I'm curious and I might want to try it."

The woman laughed at me. "Good luck with that, android!"

"C'mon, are you going to tell me or not? It's not like they make books about this stuff!"

Her face was saying `Seriously?'

"It's me. Newt. Please. I really want to know how to make a baby without killing people. How..."

"Fine. If you have to know..." Ripley cleared her throat, looking a little embarrassed. "When I said I gave birth, I equivocated a little. I actually...fertilized her."

I gawked at the woman. "Wait. You're a dude?"

"You'd think a droid like yourself could comprehend reproduction outside the traditional male/female/gay/straight binary mindset."

I glanced between my legs, but of course I'm a robot, so I examined Ssunamrozedrah instead. "How is that possible? We're not built with a womb."

"The eggs have to come from somewhere." She paused. "What do you mean, we?"

"I already told you I'm Newt. Don't you believe me?"

I told her about the whole ordeal with the chair and everything.

"We're betrothed," said Ripley. "I'm sorry, but if you're getting any ideas, you'll have to find somebody else."

"Thanks," I muttered. "Guess I'll go lay an egg in a person then."

"Do you really want this that bad?"

Androids don't blush, but I think my alien body in the chair probably did. "I...don't know. After I died, I became something I really don't like. I haven't felt loved in a long time. I'm lonely."

Ripley frowned. "That's sad. Want to hold my baby?"

I eagerly nodded, holding the infant...thing to my chest, thinking about what it would be like to be a mother. It tried to bite my fingers, but when it decided they weren't tasty, it allowed me to rub its head. I was so jealous. "Did you give it a name yet?"

"Ernie and I have...kicked a few around, but it's difficult when you don't know what sex it is."

"How about `Angel'? The jury's still out on that one. Or maybe `Sammy', so it can be Samuel or Samantha."

"You know, Sammy is a cute name. I'll have to ask Ernie about it."

"Ironically, Ernie is a guy's name."

"Yeah..."

"I still don't get it. How are you having a baby now? Didn't you just...do it an hour or so ago?"

"Time seems to be working differently here," said Mary. "Perhaps it is the same with her race."

"Record turnaround time for a baby," Ripley agreed. "The `baby bump' came and went so fast I think my stretch marks are actually skid marks. I'm pretty sure Sam is five months old already."

"What did you eat?...During your pregnancy?"

Ripley shrugged. "Anything I could find. I raided some supply lockers, and a fat guy's refrigerator. And then my water broke. Ernie seemed to know how to midwife...So what are we doing here?"

"Same stuff," I said, bouncing the child. "Opening dangerous laboratories in attempts of finding imprisoned family members."

"I smelled a Ss'sik'chtokiwij a couple doors down, but I couldn't unlock the room. Maybe we should check to see who's there."

I raised an eyebrow. "Lead the way."

Ripley waved to the hybrid boy we rescued. "Hello, Matthew."

"Um," I blurted. "That's Luke."

"What are you talking about? Luke was in the spaceship with my twin."

"No, no," I said. "I know what Luke, I mean, Matthew looks like."

I could see the archival footage in Big Bird's electronic brain. The one that looked like a pillbug was Luke. Matt looked more like a spider.

"I've been asking her why she keeps calling me Luke," said the boy. "But she acts like I'm not saying anything."

I blinked, and I was looking at a completely different kid. He seemed to be the same exact age as the other child, but now he resembled a small hairy version of Mortal Kombat's Goro, with a smaller set of less human-like spider arms growing out of his shoulders. His face looked human, but he had an extra set of eyes, and mandibles around his mouth. The top of his jumpsuit kind of looked like a tank top because of the extra limbs.

"N-no," I stammered. "That's not right! You were someone else!"

I saw the scary old man flicker into existence behind Ripley. I pointed, and he was gone again.

"Big Bird," I said. "What's happening? I keep seeing things!"

"I...believe Father has been altering your perception."

"He can do that?"

"It's called `hacking.'"

"Why are you talking to a wall?" Matt asked.

Ripley was holding her baby again, but I didn't remember giving it to her.

I stumbled back, leaning on a door frame. "Big Bird, how do I know what's real? How can I tell if anything is real?"

"Would you like to return to the chair?"

"...no." I rubbed my cybernetic eyes, hoping to eliminate the visual hallucinations. "The Matrix has me."

Father disappeared, but Matt remained an arachnid.

"Ripley, I'm confused. Who else is a prisoner on this ship?"

She stared at me with concern. "Why are you asking me? They gave me shock therapy."

"You obviously know more than me!"

"Great. A robot with Alzheimer's. Now I've seen everything."

"There's only four of us," said Matt. "Ernie came here to rescue me and Zeke. She brought along Jeremy, and Jeremy got captured too. She also thinks Samuel is here, but she never actually saw that larva hatch."

I frowned. "She told me to look for someone named Lammy. And Amos."

"Lammy and Amos?" Ripley asked. "I'm pretty sure they were on the ship."

"Then why did Ernie ask me to find them?"

"Are you sure she wasn't just saying that she missed them, and wanted to get back to them?"

"Um..." I froze in thought, pondering the diagram of the Auriga I'd seen on the computer, the vision of where all the lifeforms were located. "I...don't know."

Ssunamrozedrah nodded. "I helped free them from the compound on earth. They did not accompany us into this space station."

"So...there's only three? Two and a half? That certainly makes our job easier!"

"I hope you're right."

Ripley showed us a rusty metal security door, marred with deep scratches.

I had a sudden flashback.

When Archeron's atmosphere generators first came online, a flash flood ruined everything in the trailer my family was staying in. We temporarily moved to an upper level housing unit, one with a nearly identical scratch pattern on its door, not made by aliens, but by vandals.

The place had thin walls. Late at night, as we neared the end of moving our stuff, I made a little too much noise prying open the cabinets the lot managers had painted shut, and a woman yelled at me through the wall. I could also hear the neighbor's toilet seat going down, the Mariachi music downstairs, and snoring as I lay in my bedroom. Sometimes I heard people having sex.

The worst thing I overheard was when we first moved in. I guess the neighbor's boyfriend didn't know the meaning of the word "No."

"Hey!" she shouted. "Don't come in here! This is my house!"

The man muttered something, and cussed at her.

"Hey! Get the fuck out of my house!" she half screamed, half cried. "I swear to God, I'll call the constable!"

More cussing and screaming.

I just lay in bed with my eyes wide open, listening to them fight, wondering if I needed to call the constable myself, waited for a scream that might possibly be the woman, or maybe the man being murdered. I never found out what happened.

The thing that bothered me most about the exchange was how she called her apartment ` a house.' It wasn't a house, it was a temporary HAB unit in a complex of living modules, with a building manager. Nothing that could be remotely compared to an actual house. It was as much an oxymoron as the phrase `apartment homes.'

"Get the fuck out of my house!"

It was the laboratory door that prompted this flashback. The shape of the gouges and scratches resembled the graffiti knifed and spray painted on the front of our dwelling.

It brought something else to mind as well.

The hall closet had monsters in it.

During the daytime, it was a narrow compartment, a couple shelves built in front of the plumbing system. Push something too far back and you'd knock something to the floor. At night, though, it became a darkened portal to hell.

Sometimes my parents would go out on scavenging expeditions and leave me and Timmy alone in the unit. When darkness fell, I'd hear things scratching around in that closet.

I heard growling, and voices. Sometimes I thought they called to me.

And then, after we moved, after that facehugger thing got dad, and I broke in the unit to steal food, that same closet door came open, all on its own.

"Is your battery running low?" Ripley asked me. "Or are you having trouble with your programming?"

It seemed I'd been spacing out again. "Sorry."

I set about dismantling the security device on the laboratory door.

Lacy shrieked, tackling me to the damp squishy carpet, her claws crushing my throat. "Touch that door and I'm removing your head from your shoulders! Don't think I won't!"

I stared up at the fish hook shaped birthmark on her shiny obsidian face. "Ripley says there's a Ss'sik'chtokiwij in here. It's not a disease. I believe her."

"You're not opening that door!" Lacy screamed, bashing my head into the floor. "Touch it again, and I swear to God I'll make your little machine body stop working, then find whatever it is you're keeping your real body and-"

Ssunamrozedrah grabbed my attacker, throwing her into a junction box, fists smashing into her stomach. "You backstabbing traitor! I should rip your bones out of your chest and use them as my xylophone!"

Lacy struck her in the face. "You're too stupid to make a xylophone. You couldn't make a -"

Ssunamrozedrah grabbed her around the throat, pressing her into a bulkhead. I heard bones cracking. "Call me stupid again and I'll use your headless carcass to hatch eggs!"

"Not before I rip your jaw from your ugly face and shit in your mouth!"

She shrieked, clawing at Ssunamrozedrah's face.

At this point, Ssunamrozedrah got fed up and just started wailing on her.

It all became a biting mass of bodies, like dogs fighting over a bone. Lacy ended up on the bottom, Mary snarling and pressing her to the floor like the proverbial alpha wolf.

The security keypad now hung from its cables. I was about to attempt rewiring the system when my cybernetic eyes picked up traces of chocolate on the buttons.

I could tell seven digits had been depressed several times, but three of them had never been touched.

Big Bird's brain went into probability calculation mode, but my brain said Tommy Twotone.

I typed the song title in as a joke, but then I ended up popping the door open eight seconds before my android half decided it was a likely choice.

A moment later, a black body sprang through the threshold, smashing me backwards into the damp carpet with a wet splash.

At first glance, I saw the same scary bug monster that killed my parents.

A memory flashed before me: The hall closet flying open, a Ss'sik'chtokiwij face appearing from its shadowy depths.

It rushed into the open, pinned me to the floor, burning saliva dripping down my neck.

But then this thing spoke, shattering the memory.

"Oh baby bear! Your brother's been sleeping in my bed! You know what that means, don't you?"

"No!" I whimpered. "You're dead! The colony exploded!"

"Not before I got my hands on your brother."

The creature breathed in my face. "Dressed him up like Goldilocks. Remember that, Baby Bear? His ass looked real cute. I had a real good time with him!"

In a secondary flash of memory, I realized it hadn't been an alien at all coming out of that hall closet so many years ago, just a pale guy in a leather gimp suit trying to take my brother's clothes off. He'd taken out the shelves to fit in there, to surprise me.

I tried to run away, he grabbed me and put a knife to my throat. When my brother hurried to the door to get help, a fat sweaty guy in a furry bear costume came in and grabbed him.

An alien eventually ripped his guts out, but not before he'd dressed Timmy up like Goldilocks and...done some things to him.

I only wished it had been an alien.

"Shut up!" I yelled. "Shut up!"

"He's with me right now, Becky. Down in hell. Got him bending over in those cute little stockings."

"You shut the fuck up!" I screamed, ramming my fist into the creature's head. "Say one more word and I'm sending you and that alien body back to hell where you came from!"

The alien gave me a slow mocking laugh. "In hell I screw your little brother, over and over again, and there's nothing you can do about it."

Remember that laser cutter I killed the centipede thing with? I still had it.

I switched it on, raised it to slice that ugly bug face to pieces.

A claw clamped down on my throat, but not my attacker's.

I found myself being raised off my feet by my neck.

"I'd rethink your next move, machine!" Ssunamrozedrah snarled. "Harm my cousin in any way, and I'll separate your working parts and throw them in a scrap heap!"

"You heard what she was saying!" I yelled. "She sounded exactly like the man who kidnapped my brother!"

"The only thing I heard was you yelling and trying to slice her head in half." She bashed my head into the wall. "Your circuit boards seem to be defective. How about we take them all out and put some better ones in?"

I thought she would do just that, but then I heard Opvossu-Jesus shrieking. The previously imprisoned alien had her on the carpet, claws clamped around her throat.

Her mouth claw thingy came out, punching a hole through Opvossu's head.

Like a stomped cockroach, it took a couple more punches to truly send her into the great beyond.

Another dogfight ensued. The stranger, possessing a great strength, required three Ss'sik'chtokiwij to hold her down.

"She is possessed," Mary said.

Now free from Ssunamrozedrah's clutches, I groaned, "No shit."

"The real Becky or Newt would not try to kill one who is possessed like this. She would attempt to save them, like she did me."

"That's bullshit. You didn't make it personal. She did!"

Ripley handed her baby to Ruth.

Without a word, she pressed her lips to the possessed alien's head, made the sign of the cross along its dome.

"You bitch!" the Ss'sik'chtokiwij shrieked., throwing a tantrum.

A black cloud dispersed from its body, and it lay still, breathing calmly on the sodden moldering carpet.

I stared in shock. "You? How can you even...?"

"I learned a few things from Ernie's friends." She took her baby back into her arms. "Numbers 11:25."

Ripley helped the Ss'sik'chtokiwij back to its feet. "Hello, Zeke, I'm a friend of your mother's."

Zeke brought her in for a hug.

I examined the lab she'd been kept in.

Ernie wasn't the only one who had weird hobbies. Somehow Zeke had crafted giant sculptures of The Outer Limits' Zanti Misfits out of butter. I guess she takes after her mother in the creative arts.

It was kind of cool, but I couldn't figure out where the hell she got the butter from, or why lab people had allowed her to work on such an ambitious creative art project in the middle of the room.

The display had been set up on a lab table. Behind it, I saw the cell that Zeke had emerged from. Why it was open, who let her out, and why they weren't there now, I couldn't begin to guess.

Ripley stepped into the room, admiring the Ss'sik'chtokiwij's handiwork. "Wow, Zeke. That's a really good butter sculpture." I wasn't sure why, but I thought I saw her lips making the wrong shapes as she said this.

Unlike a human baby, `Sammy' could climb like a monkey. He crawled up around Ripley's neck, nuzzling against her. It was cute.

Out of curiosity, I broke off a leg of one of the sculptures and ate it.

Androids can experience taste. Their tongues have sensors that check for poisons, analyze chemical compounds, and in some fashion the combination of the data can be...addicting...in a Tetris sort of way, you know, like making patterns and filing rows of information away in databanks.

It wasn't the sweet cream butter taste I expected, nor butterscotch. For some reason, though, it seemed...kinda tasty, and I even thought I salivated a little.

Ripley complained that I was ruining the sculptures, but again, her mouth didn't appear to match the words.

"Sorry."

"You're hungry, aren't you?" a voice asked. "I can see it. It's all over your face."

I looked up and noticed a little blonde girl in long johns staring back at me through the window of a prison cell.

I did a double take. I'd seen this girl before! "Sandy?"

The girl scowled. "What?"

I pointed at her. "You! You're Sandy Miller!"

"No," the girl said. "I'm Sarah. Could you please let me out?"

"Hi, Sarah," Ripley said, waving to the child.

"That's not Sarah!" I protested. "That's Sandy!"

The woman gave me a sad look. "Ernie told me about you. You've been forgetting things."

I raised my voice in anger. "Dammit, I remember who she is! It's not Sarah, it's Sandy Miller!"

"My name is Sarah," the girl said quietly. "I don't know who you think I am, but it's not Sandy Miller."

"They were cloned," Ripley said. "Like me."

I didn't want to admit they might be right. I kept trying to think of reasons why they were wrong. I rubbed my face in frustration, looking away.

I glanced around the room, and down the hallway. "Where's Lacy?"

"I don't know," said Ssunamrozedrah. "She ran off. Good riddance."

She scowled at me. "Speaking of which, have you abandoned your plot to kill my family members, or are you merely waiting for a more opportune time?"

"Relax," I said. "We're cool."

Ripley marched up to the child's cell, frowning at the security lock. "Hey, regardless of what you think her name is, could you help me get her out of here?"

"Sure," I said.

I examined the keypad for a moment, took apart some of the wires, and then something just snapped.

All of a sudden, I lost control of my body, and I struck Ripley across the head with a microscope.

"Newt, what-"

Ripley caught my arm as I swung again, but my body responded with a head butt.

"Just because we don't agree on the girl's name doesn't mean we have to fight!"

I slugged her in the stomach. Raised the microscope again.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him.

The old man.

He was laughing.