April 29, 2621
I met with Jennifer Weyland Schaefer early this morning, once again accompanied by her sister Bethany. Due to Kj's difficulty with last weeks interview, and a sudden and unexpected outburst of PTSD, he has been put under psychological isolation. Jennifer has been alone with him most of that time, helpi g to recuperate her husband's emotional outlash. His emotional state has improved since then, and he is expected to be released from isolation later this evening. With this news, Jennifer is once again able to conduct our interview.
Bethany is here once more to give added details, and provide support for her tired sister. After some friendly banter we begin.
"How are you today Mrs. Scheafer?"
(Jenny) Tired.
"I take it Kj's psychological didn't go over very well?"
(Jenny) No no no. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it was more physically demanding than usual. And by that I mean he was. I won't give any details, but let's just say that whenever he's reminded of Crimer's Ridge, I have to be a little more (coughs) distracting. I don't mind his affection for me at all, In fact it's quite the contrary, but Wow! I have to work just to help him with that nightmare.
Any rate, where shall we begin?
"With the events that led to you and your husband's first encounter with each other. I believe that is the same time the truth to your father's actions began to be more enlightened.
(Beth) That actually happens much later on, but as for Jennifer, yes she was very enlightened.
(Jenny) I fell it is best if Beth starts with that. You were there when the outbreak started, right sis?
(Beth) Certainly. It began when I was assisting our Cheif Xenology Biologist ,Dr. Martha Reida, with an experiment involving their hive mind capabilities. Dr. Reida and I were doing research on the topic for months trying to find a scientific way to determin how the hive mind of the Xenomorphs works, and if we could, we could also discover a way to interfere with it, to create some way to confuse or possibly even control them. I was skeptical on the notion, but Dr. Reida was a close friend of mine, and a very good scientist, who's work was very notable among several of the companies recent breakthroughs in Xenology at the time, that and given the increase in the number of outbreaks that occured at the time, all of them orchestrated by the queen no doubt, I assisted her without hesitation. Unfortunately for us the security task force team we had assisting us with the more physically demanding parts of the project were less involved than our normal teams usually were, and because of their bumbling stupidity a security malfunction went undetected during the procedure. The result was an obvious break in containment one that lead to the death of several task force employees, and...
She sighs with a dispassionate look of sadness.
(Jenny) Dr. Reida herself.
She wraps a supportive arm around Beth.
(Beth) Yes. Dr. Reida too... I also suffered from the start to, however given my artificial physiology. I survived.
(Jenny) Tore her in half. Bet that was a pain for Dad putting you back together again.
(Beth) Ohh it was believe me. But what was most disturbing about the sistuation was that the queen had managed to escape containment also. She had made several attempts, before, none of them had been successful, but then she just stopped. We hadn't understood that the purpose of the outbreaks before hadn't just been escape attempts, but the queen was trying to get familiar with the area around her, using her subjects to test our security systems, and find ways to bypass the so she could make her ultimate escape. None of us saw this coming.
Upon realizing the severity of the situation, I had to warn everyone about what was happening, that is kind of hard to do when you have to use your hands as legs, while your main power server is threatening to expire. But given my concern for others in the queen, and her subjects wake, I managed to manually activate the alarm system before I powered down.
(Jenny) I was doing tests on a newly discovered Zwiglia plant specimen at the time, the purposes of which were to find how much carbon dioxide it could respirate, as it's consimption of the substance was ten times greater than that of a regular plant, not only that but it also required less sunlight than usual to remain alive, unlike most other planets. I was going to try and find this out so I could create a solution for the other terriformed planets, who's oxygenated atmospheres were more lacking than most others were. My experiments were unable to reach a conclusion as Beth's warning began rining across the entire facility. I'd been through several outbreaks before so I was calm and collected, and followed safety procedures like I normally did in these kinds of situations. But that all turned upside down when I discovered we were in the middle of a class 10 Xenomorph outbreak. The worst I had ever been in was a category 5, most others were lower than that. It must have been serious if the entire facility had to be put on total lockdown. I was not as independent a person as I was then. I had no idea what to do in a situation as serious as this. I had been like so many others, who were reliant on the faithfulness and integrity of the safety measures, and procedures that guided me before. All of the sudden those were useless and I was left panicking what to do. Daddy's work area wasn't far from the laboratory that I had been working in, that had to be the safest place in the entire facility, which it was kind of but still easily accessible to the xenomorphs. It wasn't so much the safety I was looking for, but more of guidance to safety that I was depending on. Dad would have the answers. I was sure. He always made sure I was safe, above anything else, at least for so I thought at the time.
Once I made it to Dad's work station, where he usually was in the wake of an outbreak, I could see the concern in his face. I'd never seen him so stressed in my life. He was sweating up something fierce. He was giving orders to people all around him, scientists, task force employees, security administrators, everyone in his line of sight was given an order and they were expected to do it if they knew what was good for them all. I was a big topic of importance to him. He was in the middle of yelling at a task force sergeant, demanding where I was and if I was safe, before I stormed in scared shtless.
Daddy drew a reliefed sigh when he saw I was safe. I asked him panickingly what was going on, and received a snarky answer from a more paniced security admin. "Sht is on full lock down! Haven't you been hearing the sirens! The Queen has escaped! Dear God were all gonna fckin die!"
His reaction scared me more than anything else. The Sergeant quickly smacked the man down. telling him to stop lossing his sht. I returned to Dad asking him what we were going to do, still holding my arms around him tightly.
He told me he had to make sure things didn't get any worse they already had gotten. He assigned the Sergeant and some of his men who were present with us to take me to the safe house underneath the facility. The safe house was the most safe area in the whole facility, deep enough to escape damage from a nuke, and strong enough to withstand several high altitude bunker buster missiles, for so I was told. Regardless of whether any of this was true, It was safe enough to withstand what we were up against at least. I didn't want to be away from Dad, I told him I didn't want to leave him, but he insisted, and gave me a GPS bracelet, followed by a reassuring remark that everyhting would be alright. I unwillingly agreed to leave, and was pulled from him by the Task force sergeant, but not before we both managed to tell each other that we loved each other.
The sergeant, surly as he was, lead me and his men to the underground safe room. Z one of the men under the sergeant's direction, asked him what they were going to do. He was obviously shaken, but was controlled. He'd been in some outbreaks before no doubt, but nothing of this severity. His sergeant gave him no reply. He didn't look nervous, but rather irritated, and inconvenienced by what was going on. His subordinates questions weren't helping him calm down. Right as he was about to go off on Z, a Xenomorph dropped down out of nowhere on top of the other nameless task force guy, and began tearing him apart. The sergeant fleed dropped his gun and fleed rather than stay and try to help us. Z did the noble thing and protected me, gunning the beast down in the process. I was in shock by the ordeal, this had been the first time I actually saw a live xenomorph, and it had without any hesitation, effortlessly killed someone standing next to me. Z picked me up and snapped me out of my shocked stupor, and took me to the safe house, whuch had only been a short distance away from us at the time. As we arrived at the safe house we were locked out by the sergeant. Z tried but couldn't make his sergeant help us. Eventually though through some trial and error, he managed to unlock the safe houses door through it's outside bracker. The next thing we saw was the sergeant getting killed by a xenomorph that had managed to break in through the ventilation system. Z tried to fire at the creature, but his gun was out of amunition. He tried to reload as quickly as he could, but before he was able to the xeno had him pinned to the ground and was tearing at him with it's claws. He screamed for me to run, while the creature was distracted with him, and I obeyed. His screams carried on for a few momments longer before they were silenced.
The xenomorph quickly materialized several paces behind me on top of the ceiling, and was rushing after me at full speed. I tripped over the sergeant's gun. I didn't bother getting up, but instead I reached for the gun I'd tripped over, an antique M16 rifle. Old but very reliable if I do say so myself since I'm still alive to prove it. I had never fired a gun before, and I fumbled with the thing trying desperately to make it shoot. The shots didn't come, but I quickly and accidently racked the slide back as I fumbled, and the next thing I knew I felt the gun recoil uncontrollably in my grasp. Thankfully I hit the xeno. It's dead husk splattered acid on my as I go back up to run. Thankfully my clothing protected me long enough for me to strip my clothes of before it could dissolve me to. I ended up running around in my undergarments for the rest of the day, which considering there were monsters everywhere I was less than embarrassed about.
I ended up running into another xenomorph as I tried running back to Daddy's work room. A explosion then went off in the side of the wall that stunned me and the creature. The explosion had made a hole in the wall that allowed me to escape through as the xenomorph recovered. I ran outside the facility and into the jungle as quickly as I could, but the xenomorph was still on me. I ran as fast as I could. I do yoga everyday so that allowed me to carry my stride as long as I could, but that wasn't enough to escape the xenomorph. I ran until I couldn't move another step. I was out of breath and my legs were the most tired they'd ever been. I watched as the creature pounced closer and closer towards me skipping through the trees gracefully.
Millions of thoughts raced through my head as I faced the creature that would undoubtedly take my life right then at that moment. What was death like? What would happen after I died? What would Daddy and Beth do when they found me? Had I done everything I could that made my life worth something? There was so many of those stupid questions I asked my scared self. I closed my eyes and braced myself for whatever the creature intended to do to end my life.
Just before the xenomorph could reach me though I heard a loud zapping sound cut through the jungle, and managed to catch a glimpse of a blue ball of light soar towards the xenomorph before it exploded into pieces. I stood there amazed by the scene trying to comprehend what I'd just seen and wondered where that blue ball of light came from. I received an answer in the for of a camoflauged figure. The figure's features were incomprehensible as the camoflauge he wore distorted the color behind him. But I could tell it was mostly humanoid in shape, and big. Much bigger than I was. The figure observed me with what I guess was curiosity as his the area where his head should have been tilted. The silhouettes featureless face then flashed like burning fire revealling two glowing eyes that disappeared a second latter. I stood awestruck by the person who'd just saved me, as the realization dawned, as to who he was.
It was one of the Hunters. Predators I remember the marines called them. I made no move to run, as the Predator made no move to harm me although I was still terrified by his presence. I remember hearing stories about these guys. How they traveled entire galaxies in search of prey to hunt. Their technology was far more advanced than ours, their strength, and ferocity allowed them to take on creatures like the xenomorphs, and many other unheard of creatures we had yet to discover. I remember thinking that it was going to kill me instead, but I'd forgotten that these guys only hunt prey that posed a worthy challenge to them, most of them anyway, like they had some sort of sick twisted code of honor, that prevented them from harming any such prey. I was so fixed on the hunter that I didn't notice that three other xenomorphs had found us and were attacking. The first two made a move towards me. As I noticed them I tried blocking their blow as they made a move with their claws. One of them was moved away by the Predator, and the second that had meant to harm me had a blade driven through it's chest. The blade was also cloaked by the Predator's camoflauge, I was only able to see it by the xenomorph's acidic blood soaking harmlessly on it as it cleaved through the beast. The first one tried to recover but it was quickly decapitated by my almost completely invisible savior. The Predator's invisibility then powered off after he walked through a puddle of water, revealing himself to me for the first time.
(Beth) From the notes I managed to find concerning the Yautja's camoflaging technology, and tests I've done, with permission from Kj, the Predator's wristbracer and the fishnet mesh they wear around their bodies allows them to camoflauge into their surroundings by tapping into the frequence of light waves that are emitted around them. Their technology, then bends those light waves as they bounce around them to match the color and texture around them, allowing for almost perfect invisibility, although those waves are disrupted whenever the Yautja moves causing them camoflauge to bend and distort. The water disrupts the signal being transmited from the wristbracer that is extended to the rest of their bodies by the fishnet mesh, whenever it comes into physical contact with it.
(Jenny) What she said.
The two begin to laugh humorously.
(Jenny) At any rate. Finding out that the Predator was also their the xenomorph then pounced at him attempting to claw him to shreds, but the muscular humanoid with a swift move with his machete cleaved the xenomorph in half horizontally. The Humanoid then turned back to me, as he wipped the acid from off his blade and sheathed it. I could see him perfectly. He was huge, larger than any human male I knew. He had some armor covering his chest area and his left shoulder, but none on his other side. His muscles bore prominently across his arms and abdomen. I expected him to be alsmost completely naked, with only a cloth to cover his groin, but to my suprise he wore a pair of camouflaged pants with a belt tightly affixed around his waist with the United States Colonial Marine Corps logo welded onto it. He wore no foot prtection, and his feet revealed sharp toe-claws I suspected he used for climbing. The claws on his fingers were also razor-sharp. His skin was lightish brown, with pale yellow stripes running across his arms and abdominal area. His smooth silver mask has a xed out smiley face on it, which I humorously chuckled at because of how ridiculous it looked, and above it I saw a figure with an elongated head etched onto it with three dots forming into a triangle surrounding the figure.
I didn't see much else on him then that as I began to take off into the woods scarred that the noise he'd made would attract more xenomorphs to us. I took off in the direction I assume was home, but I quickly discovered it wasn't before I fell and hit my head on a rock causing everything to go dark.
An alarm then sounds on Jennifer's speaker requesting her to come to the medical area.
(Jenny) Sorry to cut you short but Kj needs me. I'll talk to you again soon though.
(Beth) Pleasure to see you again.
"Thank you, the both of you for your time."
(Jenny) Sorry about this.
"It's perfectly alright ,Mrs. Schaefer ,Miss Weyland."
After We schedule our next appointment Jennifer leaves us, and I have a pleasant but unimportant conversation with Beth. We eventually part ways with a kind word of farewell and the interview ends.
Finally I managed to get a chapter done on time. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Also BTW The title of this chapter "Without Warning" is an homage to a 1980 film of the same name. The movie is about an alien (of course) that hunts people (why not) for food, it's really cheesy, but alot of fun, and the alien is portrayed masterfully by Kevin Peter Hall the same actor who played the Jungle Hunter and City Hunter Predators from the first two Predator movies. Crazy huh. Anyway hope you guys enjoyed and I'll begin work on the next chapter as soon as possible. Later ;)