Ripley and Matt looked around for Jodie, but neither of them found her. It's as though she vanished. Concerned, Ripley tried to find a vantage point and look for her from the top, of course that's difficult when factoring in the sheer height of the bookcases lining the library.

"She say anything to you?" Ripley asked him.

Matt shook his head.

He claimed she just up and walked off somewhere and since, he didn't see her. He assumed she's still somewhere in the library, but doesn't know where.

"That's why you gotta keep an eye on that one," Ripley told him. "Never let her fool you for a minute. Knowing her, she got herself stuck someplace."

Jodie's the type to mosey around corners, nosying in business that isn't hers to nose around, among other things. She's probably back with the team and getting in trouble with Samuels.

"What do you think grabbed him?" Matt wondered what it was that grabbed Clarkson.

Ripley didn't know, none of them got a good look at it. Everything happened so quick.

"I don't know," Ripley frowned.

Continuing to look for Jodie, Ripley got the feeling they should return to the camp, but Matt disagreed, he said they had to find her.

When Ripley brought up that she could've gone back to the camp, Matt shook his head. "Come on, do you think she'd go back and risk you yelling at her?" Matt pointed out.

Frowning, Ripley further walked with him until they spotted familiar faces in the distance.

"God, what the hell was that?" Clarkson nervously looked around. Samuels calmly told him to sit still as he scanned him.

Mallory glimpsed around and spotted Matt and Ripley coming towards her.

"Oh, hello, sweetie, did you find the security console?" Mallory asked Matt. He replied he didn't and she frowned. "Even with your little toy?" Mallory frowned.

Matt shook his head and she sighed.

"Hey, what happened to him?" Ripley asked about Clarkson.

Mallory told her that Clarkson's fine, not a wound on him, just shaken up. Whatever grabbed him dropped him this way and left him dazed.

"I told you I saw something!" Rebecca crossed her arms as she looked at Clarkson.

Clarkson held up a hand as he stated, "Yeah, we get it, please tell me something I don't know about!'

The two squabbled and Samuels shook his head while he held the medical scanner.

"Well, as long as he's okay," Ripley sighed.

She stopped and asked Mallory, "I don't suppose you seen Jodie walking around here, have you?"

Mallory shook her head, she asked if she wasn't with Matt, and Matt said that she wasn't.

"We haven't seen her," Mallory frowned.

Sighing, Ripley told her that she and Matt's looking for Jodie and then the security console. They'll meet back at the camp afterwards.

Nodding, Mallory told Matt to keep an eye on them and he flashed a smile at her before setting off with Ripley.

There was no telling how long they've been looking for Jodie, but it's apparent that she's nowhere in the library, and Matt always insisted to look in other dictions of the library.

"Matt, I don't see her anywhere," Ripley told him. "Maybe she's up in the office?"

Matt shook his head, he didn't believe she was.

Ripley asked if it's possible she found the security console and he wasn't sure.

Frowning, Ripley worried something might've happened to Jodie.

Even though Jodie's a time machine, she's still subjected to the rules that be, and if anything happens to her, neither of them's getting home.

The winding bookcases made it hard for her to gauge where they were and when she asked for Matt's Sonic Screwdriver, he told her that he lost it.

"Again?" Ripley's upset with him.

Matt swore he had it and must've left it someplace.

Shaking her head, Ripley's upset with Matt and he swore that he knew where it was. He'll show her as proof.

Following Matt, Ripley's led into a large reading room, with more tables than a beer hall. There's tables, carts, something similar to the one they saw at the Librarian's library, without the giant mirror.

"Okay, Matt, if this is one of your jokes, I'm not laughing," Ripley's fed up and wants to know what's going on.

She saw Matt fading into the darkness and didn't follow him, her feet wouldn't move, and she heard in a low voice, "Forgive me, for leading you astray."

She knows Matt's voice anywhere.

This… didn't sound like Matt, a mere imitation.

Thinking on her feet, Ripley tried to flee, but found that she couldn't escape, he wouldn't let her run.

She saw him changing before her very eyes and sent a shiver down her spine.

Ripley stared at fake Matt with his hair slick with black and his eyes completely black, almost like they're empty, and his smile. It's pulled to inhuman lengths as he smiled at her. His iridescent pale skin allowed her to see him as he paced around the darkened reading area.

"Who are you?" Ripley asked him as he paced.

While pacing, he said, "A means to an end."

The fake Matt explained his mere existence. Wrought with troubles and brewing disposition, it was a miracle he's even standing in front of Ripley, yet here he is.

"You know, it's funny, innit, the work they went into making this library, this tomb of mine," he raised his hands as he gestured how it felt like a tomb to him. "Do you happen to know what the punchline is?"

He lowered his head to look at Ripley as she stepped backwards. Even before Ripley got a word out, he's already in front of her, so fast, she hardly saw him as he made his way towards her.

Face to face, the fake Matt said in a low voice, "This isn't the real library!"

Ripley's shocked as the fake Matt confirmed that, yes, this wasn't the real Alexandria's Library. A decoy. Something to keep people busy while the real library's elsewhere. Built the same, looks the same, but there's no real books here, just empty books to mask the truth, and a good story to go along with it.

"I'll save you the history lesson and say that the real library's how we say, misplaced, or destroyed. Could've been any numerous reasons. Could've been destroyed. Mere incompetence, perhaps. Perhaps, traitors afoot. Potential cold feet about having it exist, maybe. This is the last structure to bear the mark of Alexandria. They never gave me the ability to acutely know where the real library is and if it's still in existence," the fake Matt told Ripley how the real library remains out of reach. He didn't know if it still exists, but he knew the library's out of reach, and the only remnant left's the decoy library built to fool would-be thieves and everything else.

He found it funny, in a painfully ironic fashion.

"All the effort they put in, the outdated logs, that stupid computer, oh yeah, worth every pence they put into it," he rolled his nonexistent eyes as he's uncomfortably close to Ripley, causing her to step backwards.

"Assuming the real library's destroyed and this one's fake, what's your function, now?" Ripley asked the fake Matt as his inhuman smile disappeared from his face. He replied, "Nothing, there's nothing for me here. Everything's gone. My supposed creators. The books I was supposed to protect. There's nothing. Just fake books, a computer with books that don't exist, and I'm very tired indeed."

Ripley asked if that's why the library suddenly showed up on scanners and the fake Matt confirmed that it was his doing. He learnt everything he could while remaining trapped in the library and he wanted a change of scenery.

"I never knew how much I'd appreciate seeing humans again," the fake Matt told Ripley. "Especially ones with a working ship."

Lamenting, the fake Matt regaled how lonesome it was living in the decoy library, forced to protect it, even though he always knew all along that it wasn't the real Alexandria's library. He's sick of it and desperate to leave by any means necessary.

"And what're your plans when you leave?" Ripley questioned the fake Matt.

Chuckling, the fake Matt said he wanted nothing more to find the real Alexandria's library and set it on fire, payback, as it were. For all the centuries he spent wallowing in the fake library, waiting for his ticket off the planet.

He meant it, he wanted to find and destroy the library, leaving nothing but burnt ashes.

"That's it, that's your plan?" Ripley wearily watched as the fake Matt moved closer to her.

He admitted, "Well, not exactly. I'm an ink blob that can only assume forms taking a bit of blood. For my life to continue, I'd have to take a solid form, a permanent form. If I don't, I regret to inform you, that what comes next after is particularly nasty."

A sentient ink blob, created with the intention of going after the would-be thieves, knew that it'd have no chance outside the library, without a permanent form. To blend in, it needs a solid form, something that wouldn't give off the impression that it wasn't human.

"And there's only one way for me to do that," the fake Matt frowned. "I'm terribly sorry, but I'll need one of your bodies, and your ship."

The problems the fake Matt faced, he could take almost any form he wanted, as he lacked bones and organs, but he couldn't fake even a heartbeat. He needed a body to host him, something to help fool anyone who would've questioned him, and that came with a major drawback.

Whatever body he took, the person owning it's surely to die from him slithering through their veins, organs, everything until he's in place.

If the team didn't give him any choice, he'll just take one of their bodies by force, and that'd mean risk damaging them. He also wanted a tall person who'd help him situate comfortably.

Judging his form now, it seemed as though he had a person picked in mind.

"So, what, we give you someone and a ride, you're not going to kill us all, after?" Ripley wearily asked him what the plan would've been if it went off without a hitch.

The fake Matt shrugged as he nonchalantly said, "Then we wouldn't be talking, now, wouldn't we?"

It seemed that the fake Matt only wanted a body and a ride out of the library, give him that, and he wouldn't care what happens to the remaining team.

Straightforward for a sentient ink creature that grew despondent.

Evident that he wanted Matt, Ripley stepped further back as the fake Matt came towards her, he really wanted out of the library, and the plans after, well, he'll think as he goes.

"You think you can just take a body and get out of here?" Ripley asked him.

He nods.

"I'm willing to make a trade," the fake Matt said.

Spending time in the fake library gave the fake Matt an opportunity to look through the computer, the logs, everything, and found something most peculiar.

He didn't know when or how, but an outside book showed up in the inventory of fake books. He knew this, primary because he read the fake books' tittles enough time to have them engraved in his mind. This wasn't another fake book; this was a legitimate book. He saw through the blatant lies of the description and tittle.

Concluding it's something important that's stowed away mistakingly

It's the reason he started the chain of events that'd lead Mallory and her team to the library.

"Someone's looking for it," the fake Matt deduced. "Nobody hides a book like that in the fake library, unless they're hiding it from someone."

Mallory's contact hastily hid the journal in the fake library. Judging from Mallory's disposition, she believed the fake library's the real one, and presumably didn't think about the idea of a fake library.

So, likely, her contact thought it as the real one as well, but apparent that her contact didn't encounter the sentient ink creature, it must've become sentient later.

The fake Matt caught a look in Ripley's eyes, and narrowed his nonexistent on her. He questioned the look she held behind her eyes and she shook her head, she's unwilling to tell him.

Sighing, the fake Matt told her, "It's futile, to lie to me, you know, I didn't spend my enteral life twiddling my thumb."

Ripley tried to get away from him, but he was quicker than her, she couldn't escape from him in time.

Grabbing her by her neck, the fake Matt lifted her off the floor and his nonexistent eyes narrowed on hers. "You think I'm green?" Ripley heard the fake Matt wagged his free finger at her. "You know too much."

He held a finger up, near the centre of Ripley's face and closed parts of his plan, holding out the finger. "I'll give you a swift death for your trouble, yeah?" Ripley heard him.

It seemed like a fair trade for him.

Tell her the truth behind the fake library and give her a head start before he presumably does the same to the others.

Watching, Ripley saw the fake Matt's finger turning liquid and pointed, slowly elongating. He'll simply stab her through the brain, take a bit of her blood, and use her form to get close to Matt and take over his body.

His clammy hand wrapped around her neck; Ripley struggled. She tried to use her right hand, but the fake Matt showed that he's wiser than he looked and used part of his body to ensnare her arms, keeping them at her side, and unable to move.

"This won't hurt," the fake Matt tried to tell her. "But for a moment."

She, of course, didn't respond.

As his finger formed into a spike, he planned to poked through her head with it in mere seconds, hadn't he stopped after hearing someone calling out.

She didn't hear it completely, but it sounded like a woman's voice, but she didn't recognize it.

"Get your hands off her!" Ripley heard.

The fake Matt howled in pain and dropped Ripley to the ground. She landed harshly on her bum and held her neck. In her bleary vision, she watched the fake Matt flee, steam coming off him, and swore seeing two unknown figures running past her. A blur, she didn't see them perfectly.

One stopped midway running and seemed hesitant in leaving her behind, but the other figure grabbed them and pulled them away.

Coughing, Ripley slowly exhaled as she tried to breathe normally and as she recovered, she's jolted by hands on her shoulder and the sudden appearance of a worried Matt.

"Ripley!" Matt hugged her.

Ripley struggled as she coughed, "I'm not dead!"

Matt helped her up from the ground and she looked at him closely. Him touching her hand gave her enough clues that this was indeed the real Matt and she sighed heavily.

"What happened?" Matt asked her, worried.

Ripley gestured as she said, "Well, there was you, then there was you with black eyes and wanting to stab me with your finger."

Seriously, she told him what happened and he froze.

"Me?" Matt pointed at himself.

Ripley nodded.

"Yeah, guess you fit the bill," Ripley said.

Matt frowns as he asks her if the fake Matt hurt her and she waved her hand. She said that he didn't have the chance, something hurt him, and sent him running.

"There's other people here," she told Matt. "I don't know who they are, but they saved my neck."

Looking past him, she asked about Jodie, and Matt told her that she's fine and with the others. He asked if she can walk and Ripley nodded.

With Matt helping her, Ripley's able to steady herself as her legs righted themselves from the jolt.

Returning to the camp, Ripley saw the team as they made makeshift light with the books they grabbed from the shelf. They found out themselves that the library's not what it seemed and they're not exactly pleased about it, so much as Mallory as underneath her seemingly pleasant face, a fuming woman who felt hoodwinked. Ironic.

Jodie's bothering Samuels as he worked and spotted Matt and Ripley. She stopped what she was doing and hurried towards them.

"Told you, I'm good," Jodie told Matt that what she told him helped find Ripley.

She noticed Ripley disheveled and she asked her what was wrong and Ripley told her.

"Living ink?" Jodie blinked.