Sitting on the rock, Ripley stared in the distance, the sun on them, but they're not warm, and under their bums, no heat generated on the rock. They're not even sweating one bit.
They haven't chanced touching the sand, there's still a chance that the sand worm's still around, and they won't risk the chance of running into it again, if it doesn't reset.
"The only thing I can think of is a big bird," Ripley sighed.
That or a giant fisherman who needs bait for his sand fishes.
Considering what they're going through currently, it wouldn't pass Ripley if there's a chance of sand fishes. Of course, because that's just the next thing that'll happen to them, in this misadventure of theirs!
"Don't think so, luv, you really don't want a vulture mucking up everything else," Peter disagreed with the idea. He told Ripley that after the worm gets eaten, they'll have to contend with a new problem: the bird.
Bird won't leave two sizable snacks alone, even after a juicy worm, so after having the worm, it'll stick around to pick off the two when it's hungry again.
"Okay, no bird, what else?" Ripley sighed as she rested on the rock, her arms outstretched while staring up at the blue sky.
No cloud in sight.
Hardly anything in sight in the sky.
"There's always the tram," Peter suggested as he strummed his guitar.
Could've found something on the tram to deal with their worm problem, but Ripley disagreed, said it'd be dangerous to go back to it, without risking the sand worm from nearly destroying it.
"Vibrations," Ripley sighed.
Peter told her that it's possible, since the sand worm didn't show up until Ripley did and started digging.
"Problem, what're we going to use against it?" Ripley looked towards Peter as he continued to strum his guitar whimsically.
Tram's a good place to start, but of course, they're perched on solid rock and can't safely get down without disturbing the sand and alerting the sand worm of their presence.
"Before it even crosses your mind, luv, just to be clear, we're not using Bessie!" Peter quickly told Ripley that under no circumstances they'll be using his Les Paul against the sand worm. To lure it out, yes. To use it as an expensive blunt object, no.
Sighing, Ripley stared up at the sky, thinking of a way to deal with their situation. Doubting their day's resetting, Ripley didn't want to live out her days stuck on the rock.
Her mind wandered and as she did, she spotted movement in the corner of her eye, and turned her head to see something in the distance.
She called to Peter and he stopped strumming his guitar to look and noticed it as well.
Pushing herself from the rock, Ripley stood cautiously near the edge, hand over her forehead, peering for something in the distance, something dark that it contrasts with the sandy, and it's moving slowly towards them. The more Ripley looked, she realized it's a wall of sand.
"Oh, bugger!" Ripley flinched as she stepped backwards and moved her head slightly towards Peter. "I think we need a bigger rock!"
Peter turned his head to look at what Ripley's seeing and immediately stood up.
Standing next to her, Peter slowly pulled down his sunglasses, his blue eyes widening as he ordered her, "Run!"
The two jumped to the bottom of the rock and made a run to the tram.
It wasn't the smartest of choices, but faced with an impending sandstorm, the two had no choice, and did what anyone would in their situation.
Fleeing, the two ran as fast as their legs can carry towards the tram. Nearly slamming into the door, they forced it open before fleeing inside, and harrowingly escaping the wall of sand as it impacted the side of the tram.
"Oh god," Ripley held a hand over her chest.
Peter furrowed his brow as he peered out the window, the sand slamming into the window, obscuring view of the outside.
"Coincidental, innit?" Peter looked towards Ripley as she attempted to peer through the hazy screen of sand as it slammed into the glass of the tram.
Didn't start happening until they discussed how to deal with the sand worm.
Sand worm didn't start appearing until Ripley tried digging.
"Too contrived be some entity, I think someone's keeping us here," Ripley winced.
Seems that it's a little too coincidental that everything happened one after another. Nature's sporadic with what it does, but even it had a path it takes.
This is systematic.
Nature abhors systematic.
"But who?" Peter wondered. "Don't know you from a hole in a wall. You definitely don't know me."
Frowning, Ripley turned away from the window and crossed her arms.
"I don't know a damn thing about Helios, so I might be wrong. What if this is some twisted revenge fetish because of the resort?" Ripley pondered.
Makes a little sense.
Lots of disputes over land sales, it's happened numerous times, and uncommonly, violent.
Suppose someone felt sore about the land sale and taking it out on whoever they captured in a time loop.
Although as the two came to realize, it's definitely not a time loop.
Nothing outside 0800, the distance between the tram, and Peter's drink looped.
While it seemed contrived that someone would've gone the length to create an elaborate revenge scheme that's ensnaring innocent party, anything's possible, and depending how sore someone was, they'll do what they can to inflict the most amount of harm.
"Doesn't seem like it," Peter frowned as he disagreed with the assessment.
Didn't seem like a revenge fantasy, made no sense to take it out on two Scots who didn't have any part of the land dispute.
Not a time loop, they agreed with.
Something else's going on.
"Okay, what now?" Ripley gestured.
There's only so many wild theories Ripley can think of before it verges on insanity.
Peter paced around the area with the Les Paul swinging as he turned around and walked. Deep in thought, Peter pondered.
"Why would this happen?" he asked a benign question.
Ripley's caught off-guard before haphazardly responding with, "Well, because our luck is terrible, I'd assume?"
She didn't have an answer on hand that didn't sound like a stealth insult and went with the only thing that popped in her head.
Peter clicked his tongue against his teeth before saying, "What if it only happens because we set something off. Chain reaction, if I may."
Raising a brow at this, Ripley exhaled, "A trap?"
Nodding, Peter deduced that this wasn't a bizarre world of some kind, some sort of temporal hemorrhaging, and so on. Instead, it's likely a trap.
"A trap?" Ripley gestured.
That's something she doesn't hear very often.
Inquiring, Ripley asked him what reason there'd be a trap and what purpose would it serve for this situation of theirs.
"Doesn't explain how we ended up here," Ripley pointed out to him as he continued pacing around the area.
"One day, we had a bit of a mice issue. Ugly buggers, chewin' everything up underneath our house. So, I said, I'd deal with it, y'know being the da and all that. I was going to get them mouse traps, you know, the ones that you put a little bit of cheese on them and snap the buggers' necks. Our store didn't have them, they only had the glue traps. So, I was debating on gettin' them and using' them, 'cause, luv, exterminators cost too much. Well, I was talked out of it and chose these traps that caught them but didn't kill them. Didn't think they'd work, 'cause mice avoids anything new in their environment. Well, put them under there, waited a night, and checked by morning. All ten traps gone and no more mice," Peter regales a story about his woes with a minor mice infestation. It ends with the traps missing, but there weren't anymore mice, and peace came over his household.
Ripley asked, "What happened to the mice traps?"
Peter never told her because he's interrupted by something else.
There's an odd noise echoing throughout the tram that caused the two to freeze in one place.
It sounded odd, sounded like moaning, but not from an animal.
Metallic.
Ripley's eyes slowly moved towards Peter as he wearily looked around.
The noise's origins inconclusive as it felt like it echoed everywhere.
Falling to the ground, the two tumbled as the tram sprang to life and seemingly moved on it's own without a conductor.
Struggling the two forced themselves up from the carpeted ground and hurried towards the conductor's station, but found the door locked, and no matter how hard the two forced it, it won't open.
"Come on!" Ripley yanked on the handle, but it wouldn't move. Pulling on the handle didn't work, either, and she stumbled backwards as Peter took over.
He tried to do the trope thing of kicking the door open, but that didn't work, and it left him bemused if not sore.
Thinking, Ripley looked near the door and spotted the scanner used by the conductor to prevent unauthorized personnel from entering the conductor's station.
Matt told her to never use her right hand again, but this is an emergency, and he'd understand once she tells him what happened.
Raising her right hand to the scanner, Ripley exerted the magnets in her hands and braced for her nerves to tingle from the use.
It only sent her backwards and nearly into the wall.
Didn't hurt her, thankfully, maybe just her pride, but that's easily healed with a bit of old fashion and Matt's company.
"What'd you do?" Peter helped her as she looked at the scanner, confused.
Ripley told him bluntly that she tried to open the door by sending the scanner on the fritz, but that didn't work.
Like a countercurrent that worked against the current her right hand produced, the scanner prevented her plan from working.
Think of a pushback and sent her backwards when she tried her plan.
"Well, looks to me we're gonna need to be creative," Peter stepped near the scanner. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a screwdriver.
A simple red handled screwdriver.
He swore by it helping him keep his strings tuned and attempted to use it against the scanner.
Worked as well as you'd think.
"What in hell's name?" Peter's baffled at the sight as the scanner rebuffed his attempt and melted the tip of the screwdriver.
He's aware of the security protocols that scanners use, but one that melts the heads of screwdrivers never came to mind for Peter.
Thinking, Peter looked upwards at the ceiling and spotted the emergency hatches lining it.
Ripley caught on and warned that there's a chance that the plan wouldn't work and he'd risk falling off the speeding tram.
"Well, here's the thing luv, we got about a good few minutes before this tram either derails and kills us or slams into something and kills us. If we're lucky, it falls down a cliff and kills us," Peter pointed out that they didn't know what the tram's going to do, but either way, there's a good chance they're not coming out of it alive.
Against herself, Ripley conceded and worked with Peter to get the safety latch open and pushed herself to the rooftop of the tram.
Helping him up, Ripley's legs wobbled as the tram rumbled under her feet.
Pushing her feet down. Ripley struggled to see through the blinding sand and felt Peter shove something in her hand.
"Put it on!" Peter ordered her.
It's a second pair of sunglasses that Peter carried in case something happened to his first one.
Putting them on, Ripley's dark eyes' protected from the sand as she moved with Peter slowly across the tram's rooftop towards the latch to the conductor's station.
Struggling, Ripley kept her feet firmly on the ground as she followed Peter.
None of them knew where the tram's taking them, but they didn't want to know what the destination was, because they felt it won't be one they liked.
Peter helped her keep her footing as the tram rumbled and knelt near the safety latch of the conductor's station.
He used his screwdriver to break the hinges and yanked the latch open.
Holding it open, Peter ordered Ripley to enter it first and she jumped in, feet first.
She landed in the centre and moved away for Peter and he jumped down.
Ripley helped him steady himself and he thanked her before they looked at the controls of the tram.
The handle moved on it's own as it altered the speed of the tram as the two watched.
Peter ran towards the handle and tried to force the tram to slow down, but it wouldn't budge.
Ripley attempted to find the emergency breaks, but found as she attempted to put them on, she received a nasty shock and recoiled, holding her hands.
Her heart asunder from the shock and wearily looked over to Peter receiving a shock from trying to turn the handle.
Stepping backwards, Peter cursed at it with every known insult in the Glaswegian bible of insults before calming down and looking towards Ripley with worry in his eyes.
"You alright, luv?" Peter asked her.
Ripley nodded as she hoarsely told him that she had better days.
Both receiving a shock, the two watched as the tram conducted itself and there's nothing, they could do short of jumping off the tram.
