Danzig watched the Professor stalk away. He was on fire with shame and frustration. She had humiliated him! Oh yes, he'd been able to summon up some confident words, but underneath he was mortified. And to make his mortification complete Marino had witnessed it all. Even now Danzig could see him struggling to keep the smirk off his face.
He turned on his heel and slammed back into the containment cell, so angry he was scarlet in the face and shaking. He had always suspected that Iversson did not have a high opinion of him professionally, but to have her tell him so directly was excruciating "And worse, she did it in front of those meathead security guards!"
More serious than that she had threatened him, threatened to expose the work he'd been doing with the Hive and Danzig certainly did not want the authorities taking an interest in his activities down here. They might start asking questions about people going missing; people who'd made trouble for Weyland Corp – or threatened to – and who'd suddenly been spirited away and never seen again. It wasn't like he'd wanted to do it, but once he'd realised it was not possible for the Hive to reproduce without living hosts he'd also seen the opportunity for the corporation to, as it were, kill two birds with one stone. He knew he had Diana Weyland's tacit approval, although … although now he came to think about it he realised now she had never directly authorised his activities "She didn't want to risk being implicated if any of this ever came out!"
This realisation opened the door for yet another unwelcome epiphany "If there were to be any sort of official inquiry she could easily say I had acted alone …" A thrill of panic ran all through him "I'd be hung out to dry, just imagine the kind of things they'd write about me, imagine the kind of sentence I'd get…"
The more he thought about it, the more anxious he became. Iversson might have her short-comings but he knew that she was a woman of her word.
"That dried-up old harpy must surely have contacts in the defence department and the security services from way back," He ground his teeth together "Probably all it would take would be one phone call from her… and it'll all be blamed on me!"
He bit his lip hard as he stared through the glass at his darlings, the fruit of three years of ceaseless work. To top it all off, he had missed moment of the birth of his new creations; they had already emerged from their hosts "I have to stop her, she can't be allowed to tell a soul."
As he watched the final twitching throes die away an idea suddenly struck him. He wondered how he could have been so stupid as to not realise it before. He had before him the perfect means to rid himself of Iversson. Perhaps there might be some unintended consequences, perhaps some …accidental deaths… but it was a small price to pay for neutralising the threat she posed.
"Anybody else would do the same in my place," He told himself as he went to dismiss the guards "When you think about it logically, I haven't really got a choice. It's self-defence!"
As the elevator door slid shut, Iversson leaned heavily against the wall and tried to regain her composure. So Lex had been right and the exotic had not been lying, there was some kind of alien lifeform kept here secretly from her! Something horribly hostile and worse, Danzig was in charge of keeping it contained!
Weyland had clearly chosen deliberately not to tell her and that in itself was ominous. The Iversson suspected her employer had wanted someone easily controlled, with a flexible conscience.
She put her hands together and offered a silent plea to the cosmos. She herself was a nonbeliever, had been for years, but her parents had been churchgoers. In times of stress she often found herself pleading with some non-specific deity to intercede, even though it hadn't made any difference when Isaac - when her son. - had been ill.
A moment's reflection stabilised her mood and as the lift hissed open on the floor above she was calm. She knew that she must go now and make sure the exotic was subdued and secure so she went, operating on automatic.
She kept going over the confrontations she'd had with Danzig and with Weyland, trying to make sense of all the evening's horrible realisations. It seemed the other woman had been deceiving her and using her all along. Even worse it also seemed likely that, if left in Weyland's custody, Isaac had a lifetime of miserable servitude ahead of him "Even more miserable than it is now," She thought guiltily "I can't pretend everything I've done has been in his best interests. I should have thought about him but in many ways I've been treating him as much like a product as Diana. I named him for my dead son but I should have served his memory better. The only question is… what am I going to do about it?"
As she entered the fiendishly hot holding cell she heard music. You could always tell who was on duty down here the moment you opened the door by the type of music being played. Of course Iversson would not have allowed them to play any sort of noise in the cell where the exotic was held – that would be cruel – but she could think of no excuse to forbid it in the outer chamber, try though she might. The nights were long down here.
Danzig would have been listening to modern classical, Ludovico Eiaudi or some other composer with a European sounding name. Tonight she could hear the mournful tones of Willie Nelson so she knew Lloyd must be on duty.
Sure enough, there he was sitting at the monitoring desk, all hairy calves and bare grubby feet up on the console in his long cotton shorts. He was eating microwave pizza.
"Has there been any change since the little upset earlier?" She asked him.
"Nah, he's cool." Lloyd told her, licking melted cheese off his fingertips "Settled right down after she left. Barely moved since."
"Good." She nodded "I'm going to go in and check on him now."
She swiped her card and the door to the holding cell slid open silently. As she stepped over the threshold she felt the same thrill of visceral fear she always felt at being in the same room with the exotic. She shivered despite the heat, then shrugged telling herself she was being silly. He couldn't move. Even if she'd taken off the restraints he'd have collapsed onto the floor.
She did a few routine checks on him, took his pulse; took a blood sample. He was hooked up to instruments but you soon learned that they weren't a substitute for human intuition. She'd been in there for about thirty to forty minutes, absorbed in looking over the printouts of his heart-rate and brainwaves when she noticed a change, some difference she couldn't immediately quantify but which made her tingle with sudden alarm.
Immediately she looked over at the exotic. He was just where she'd left him, looking as if he were asleep, eyes closed, jaws twitching occasionally but otherwise still. Then she turned towards the viewing window and saw through the glass that the door into the monitoring room was open and through it she could see into the darkness beyond "But why?" She thought "The door is supposed to remain shut to keep the heat in."
Looking through the glass she realised she could no longer see Lloyd. He wasn't sitting at the monitoring desk anymore.
She frowned "He must have gone out and left the door open. I'm going to have to have another talk with him."
She was about to go through to the control room and give him the third degree when suddenly without any warning, a huge shocking gout of blood sprayed across the thick glass of the viewing window.
Iversson screamed in shock. She stood for a moment frozen to the spot, her heartbeat just a whirr of terror. She couldn't see even where the blood had come from.
Finally she decided she had to try and find out what was going on. The door between the two rooms was automatically locked, whatever or whoever had done this couldn't get to her without a pass.
She edged forward, all the time dreading what she might see. As she came closer to the window she was surprised to see more people in the room – or at least she thought they were people at first. Humanoid figures crouched low on the floor over another shape. As she watched one of them looked up and she realised it wasn't human at all.
A man-sized thing raised its sleek, eyeless face and drew back thin lips to snarl at her, bloodied from … oh God! She pressed her hand distractedly against her mouth. Long spindly limbs carried the creature effortlessly forward, like a huge spider. Slowly at first, then with a burst of horrible speed it rushed towards the glass, knocking its long smooth head against it with a resounding clunk. It staggered backwards for an instant, dazed, and then lunged again with the same result.
Then it drew back a little and approached the window more cautiously.
Iversson felt sick with terror as it opened its chisel toothed maw, investigating, trying to find a way to get at her. Its jaws left a bloody trail smeared across the glass as it sniffed and tasted the surfaces for a weak spot.
These must be the monsters Lex had warned her about; Iversson clenched her hands together desperately.
"I'm trapped!" She thought "Danzig must have set these things on me, maybe Weyland too. It's too much of coincidence that they could have escaped by accident the very same night I asked about them!" She looked around the room desperately for a way of escape. Now she could see the first creature had been joined by another one and together they were scratching their long thin hands over the surface of the glass.
"They will find a way through … eventually." Said a deep, grating voice behind her "They are not as … stupid as they look."
She spun round; the exotic! In her fright, she'd forgotten all about him.
"You can speak!" She said, astonished.
"When it …pleases me." The diabolical yellow eyes watched her coolly. His English was a little halting but totally understandable. Even through the fear she was stunned. Her mouth opened and shut a few times whilst her brain struggled to catch up. At last she said "Are you sure they can get through the glass? It's very resilient."
"Yes." He said "They are also… resilient. And they have a few other… tricks."
Considering that if those things got in here he was unable even to move, he seemed remarkably calm about it.
"What tricks?" She asked weakly.
"Acid blood. It can eat through most… things. They throw it… around sometimes. Or just climb through… the ventilation system." He raised his eyes significantly to the large air vent covered by a thick metal grille high up on the wall "Once they know …prey is in here they will not… give up."
"I see," She swallowed "So we can't just lie low?" She had just caught sight behind the creature of what they were doing to Lloyd, or what remained of him. Her stomach lurched and she wanted to look away but somehow she couldn't.
"No…they have seen you." He eyed her speculatively "Of course… if you release me human, I could kill them… easily."
"Release you?"
"I do not know if it is … possible but … make me move again" His eyes glowed "Take this …thing out of my spine - "
She shrank away from him at the thought "How do I know you won't kill me?"
"Female, if you release me I promisssse I will not… let you be harmed. But I suggest you… decide quickly."
At the window there were now three of the creatures sniffing around the edges of the glass, trying to find a way through.
"How do I know I can trust you?"
"You do not… believe me? Hrrrmmm that is… unfortunate for us…both."
She stared at him, paralysed herself by indecision.
"Of courssse," He said sardonically "You could wait and ssssee if … you get a better offer from them?"
The thought of setting him loose made her blood want to freeze in her veins but if she didn't… she was going to die anyway. Whatever Faustian pact he was offering, it gave her a better chance than waiting to be disembowelled by those things.
At that moment, one of the monsters reared up and slammed itself into the window again. Even through the sound deadening glass the noise was audible and tiny little hairline cracks began to appear; spurring her into action.
Without another word she darted around behind him and opened the panel in the back of the table that gave access to the back of his neck where the spinal implant was situated. Iversson tried to steady her nerves.
"The movement and feeling should come back almost immediately," She told him "But you might feel a bit weak at first." She didn't want to think about what would happen if she slipped. If his spine got damaged the movement might not come back at all.
"You had better hope for …your sake that I do not."
Holding her breath to keep from shaking she pulled the implant gently, the twin spikes sliding easily out of his flesh. Then she stepped back out of his reach. For a second or two nothing happened and she worried that she might have paralyzed him permanently after all. Then to her mingled relief and horror, his fingers twitched, then flexed.
Iversson swallowed, realising that he was still held fast by the metal restraints. She was going to have to unlock them. Before she could even make a move towards him he made a purring, clicking noise deep in his throat. The muscles in his arms, neck and shoulders strained for a moment; then the metal bands across his upper body burst apart with a groan and ping of tortured metal. She backed away even further, appalled at how easily he'd been able to break free the moment the implant was removed.
"Yesssss!" He said softly to himself, stretching and then bending and uncurling his arms "That feelsssss…goooood." He purred. Reaching down he pulled at the remaining metal restraints on his legs, wrenching them from their settings "You have no idea human… no conccception… of how good it feelsssss …to move again!"
He swung his legs over onto the floor. She expected him to collapse then and there or at least stagger but he did neither, he just stood up slowly, stretching his arms and legs to their fullest extent. His movements were perhaps a little stiff but otherwise he seemed fine.
She was astonished. She had expected him to be shaking and feeble but somehow he seemed to have suffered no ill effects whatsoever from the many long days of forced inertia, apart from looking a little pale and hollow-eyed. "His species must be even more hardy than I imagined," Thought the analytical part of her mind that never quite switched off, even when the rest of her was in fear of her life "Is it the denser muscle tissue or a better circulatory and nervous system I wonder?"
Larger cracks had now begun to appear in the viewing window as the two creatures took turns battering their heads and fists against it. She wouldn't have thought those spindly limbs capable of delivering such heavy blows but they were making short work of the reinforced glass.
She looked back at the exotic. He had finished yanking off tubes and wires and sensors from himself and was now stretching and testing his muscles with an air of one who has just woken up from a long and satisfying sleep.
She cleared her throat "I don't want to rush you but…"
His sulphurous gaze came up and he spread his jaws. At first she thought it was a threat but seeing the expression in his eyes she could almost swear he was grinning at her.
"Oh … yes," He said "Them!"
He reached over and tore loose one of the metal restraint bands that had been holding him down, frightening the way it came off in his grip so easily. Using both hands he bent the curved metal, making it straighter. Then he held it up and frowned, testing the weight of it, swinging it like a sword.
Walking unhurriedly to stand beneath the ventilation shaft he reached up and ripped the heavy four foot square metal vent grille from the wall. He forced his fingers through the metal lattice, widening the holes in it so that he could hold it like a shield.
"Get …behind something, human," He said "If you know what is … good for you." Iversson didn't need telling twice. She darted behind the huge heavy slab of a table that he'd been restrained on, the only piece of cover in the room.
At that moment, one of the creatures smacked into the glass with such force that the whole thing crazed with a network of little silver fissures. At the next blow, with a noise like several decades worth of bad luck, the window shattered and collapsed. Tiny sparkling fragments cascaded onto the floor.
Now the glass was no longer shutting out the sound she could hear their breath hissing between their clenched razor teeth. One of them lifted its head and gave a high pitched shriek as they prowled into the room and Iversson flinched at the awful sound – metal nails down a chalkboard.
As the three stealthy shapes advanced on him, the exotic hefted his improvised weaponry, his mandibles bent into a nasty grin.
"Come to Daddy!"
