"So in the end it comes down to us," Weyland sighed "Just me and the woman who let my father die. It's justice of a sort, I suppose."
She stood at the top of the incline yanking Isaac's head back by his hair, the muzzle of the pistol pressed up under his chin.
"Stay where you are or he dies." She said sharply as Lex made a movement to pull herself and Selim up onto the deck "I will shoot him Woods, if you don't do exactly what I say," She went on conversationally "And then I'll shoot you and the other one you've got there. You'll all die."
Lex became still; she had her plasma cannon in her hip holster but she could not let go of either the chain or Selim to use it, certainly not without Weyland noticing.
"If I die, Weyland so will you." She said levelly "There's no way off this fortress except on my ship."
"That's a risk I'm willing to take."
One of her sons was almost insensible in her arms and the other had a gun to his head. They were dependent on her, as helpless as the tiny creature sleeping and growing in her belly. She didn't dare to gamble with their lives; "My children are all I have left …"
"Just let us up Weyland," She sighed "Let my boys live and and I'll fly you wherever you want to go."
"You think it's that easy?" Weyland snorted "I'm sorry Woods but that's not good enough."
"What does that mean?"
"We've been here before, haven't we Lex?" The CEO eyed her coldly "I hold your children hostage, you escape and cause a bloodbath – "
"I've already said I'll get you out of here, just me pull us up and I'll fly us all out of here."
"I'm not about to trust you. Not this time. I've done that before and look where it got me. No." Weyland gave a mirthless smile "This time I think you need to know how serious I am. This time, I'm going to have to ask you to choose."
Lex squinted up at her, too worn down by misery and exhaustion to decode what she was hearing "I don't understand, choose what?"
"Choose which one is going to live; the original... or the clone."
It took a few seconds for the words to penetrate; then Lex's eyes went wide "You can't do that!"
"Don't test me Woods." The CEO told her "With a gun to your child's throat I can do whatever I want. You're about to learn the hard way; nobody crosses me. Not without paying for it. Not even you."
"Weyland please, you don't need to do this!" Lex said desperately "Just let them live and I'll do whatever you want, I swear it!"
"I told you what I want; I want you to choose."
Lex stared up at her as a quake shook the platform. It could have been a massive wave or maybe another part of the structure was crumbling; through the sea spray and heavy fog she couldn't tell.
"Better hurry up, the clock is ticking."
For a few moments Lex was silent "No." She said finally "I won't choose. I'm not playing your sick game."
"Then I'll just pick one myself," Weyland arched an eyebrow and inclined her head towards the frightened boy in her grasp "Now is this one the prototype or is it the replica, I wonder? I never could tell them apart. Not that it matters to me…"
Lex's eyes were like obsidian, glinting with loathing "Any harm you do to him, I'll do to you."
"You know your problem Woods? You've forgotten that he's not a real person, neither of them are; not like a real human child! You've let yourself get far too attached to these little mongrels but then… I suppose it's not surprising for a woman who let herself get pregnant by that disgusting thing – "
A shape loomed up out of the fog to Weyland's left and she screamed in terror as it cannoned into her, knocking Isaac aside and almost throwing Weyland to the floor.
Lex stared in amazement as Professor Iversson grappled desperately with her former employer.
"Isaac, get back!" She screamed, pulling herself and her son onto the deck and dragging him out of the way as the other two women struggled dangerously close to the edge.
She could see the Professor was weak. Weyland was smaller but she still had the gun and there was blood oozing down Iversson's deathly white face. Lex dragged her plasma cannon from her hip holster but she just couldn't get a clear shot.
Too late! There was the crack of a pistol shot and Iversson reeled backwards. She stared at up Weyland as if she couldn't quite believe it and then down at the red stain seeping slowly through her clothes. Then she fell to her knees.
Suddenly Isaac leapt on Weyland, shocking them all.
"You hurt my Mommy!" He screamed, grabbing hold of her arm, sinking his teeth into her. Instinctively Weyland squealed in pain and yanked her arm away, shoving Isaac violently. He reeled sideways, thrown off balance, teetering for a split second on the edge. Lex lunged, frantically grabbing for him. Seconds stretched into an eternity of horror as she watched him teetering, trying to get his footing; his outstretched hands just beyond her fingertips.
Then he fell, disappearing with a scream into the fog.
She threw herself down at the edge, but she already knew it was futile. He was lost, just like Scar. Gone forever. Lost to the waves.
Lex lay there for a moment as the panic gripped her and then a flood of despair, then the terrible, chest-caving guilt. She was crippled by it, flattened by it.
"Isaac …" She croaked, hardly able to speak past the huge lump of misery that was racing up her throat.
In the stillness, she heard the double rachet of the pistol reloading.
With that noise her blurry vision suddenly clicked into focus and she wheeled and launched herself at Diana Weyland, unsheathing her blades as she leapt. The other woman's hand came up, holding the weapon but for Lex it was as if time had slowed down.
She swung the dah'kte, cutting off the hand holding the gun at the wrist. As the lump of flesh and metal dropped onto the deck, she brought the other blade up underneath Weyland's arm, plunging it into her gut.
Diana's face was only inches away from hers. Her mouth fell open but no sound escaped. She stared at Lex in disbelief. Tears trembled in her ice blue eyes but Lex's eyes were dry as she pulled back her free arm and drove the knives through Weyland's heart.
She leaned in close to the other woman's tiny, perfect ear, her breath stirring a strand of hair as she felt her pulse stutter.
"Up close and personal," She whispered in a shaking voice "Just like I promised."
Lex pulled the wrist knives free, letting Weyland's body drop. Then she sank to the ground, curling in on herself in a foetal coil of pain and misery. Now hot tears of misery squeezed out between her lids and traced a path through the blood and grime on her cheeks.
"Scar," She whispered "Isaac…"
The deck shuddered beneath her again and her eyes flew open, the sobs building up in her chest sucked backwards, buried deep, deep down inside. Without a second glance at Weyland's corpse she went to where Selim sat huddled on the floor, sheathing her blades as she did so. She lifted him, folding him in her arms for a moment, rocking him like an infant.
"Baby," She cooed, kissing the top of his head "My poor baby. I'm sorry Selim but we still have to get to the ship sweetheart. Selim, I'm so sorry but I need you to go on being brave, just like when you fought the Queen!"
He clutched her even harder and she ached for him. He had lost his father and his first and only friend, all in the space of half an hour.
A cough behind her and she remembered suddenly about Iversson. Not releasing her hold on Selim, she ran to kneel by the Professor. Iversson didn't look good; her face was drawn and grey. The dark, red stain seemed bigger now as the blood soaked through her clothes.
"Alexa," The Professor held out a hand to ward her off "Go… "
"That's not happening Professor."
"Leave me – "
"No." She said. A determination possessed her. She had let Scar die and let Isaac fall, but she would not allow Isaac's mother to die.
"Selim," She said, setting her son on his feet "I need to put you down baby, Iversson needs my help." He just nodded dumbly and she grabbed the Professor's arm.
"Get up Iversson," She snapped, grabbing hold of the Professor's arm "On your feet."
"There's no point…" The older woman moaned "Isaac's dead. My little boy is dead…"
"Bullshit, he might be alive!" Lex gasped, hoisting Iversson up onto her shoulder "The faster we get to my ship the faster we'll find him! Come on!" She managed to drag Iversson a few steps when the Professor's legs buckled underneath her and she sank back onto the floor "Come on!" She railed "Stop being so weak! You're not dead yet, are you?"
Iversson gave a faint smile, hardly conscious "You sound like the exotic," She murmured. Lex didn't answer but began tearing strips off the Professor's coat, the only loose fabric she could see around, using it to form makeshift bandages, working quickly. She figured if she could just stem the blood flow Iversson might regain consciousness "Otherwise I might have to leave her," She thought desperately "I have to save my son… but I can't abandon her!"
"Mother…" Selim said uncertainly.
"Just a moment baby," Lex pressed her lips together and turned back to the other woman "Iversson you have to at least try to stand," She pleaded "I can't just leave you …"
As she said this another rumbling quake shook the deck, causing Iversson to wince in pain.
"Mei'Varsi,!" Said Selim again, more urgently this time "Mei'Varsi look!"
For a second she didn't understand; then she followed the direction of his outstretched talon.
The chain hanging down from the grapnel was pulled taught, as if by a weight hanging from the other end. It was moving; shivering and jumping. Something was climbing.
"The Queen!" A little needle of fear entered her brain "But... surely she's at the bottom of the sea!"
Scar drifted … stranded in some weird limbo-place. He opened his eyes and could see only shifting clouds of vapour. All around him was silent. The Queen and everything else had vanished like a bad dream and now he was utterly alone, floating in nothingness.
"I am dead," He thought "Somehow I imagined it would be more painful… more significant…"
He wondered vaguely if he had drowned or if in fact the massive electrical shock had killed him. He imagined the former, most likely "My body must have sunk down under the waters by now," He thought "Myself and the Queen, entwined forever. I can think of more pleasant partners to share my eternity with!"
Gradually he began to hear a strange noise; a persistent hiss, like that of static. It didn't bother him much at first but then it got louder and louder. Then suddenly with a rush his hearing came back, the soundscape flooded in on him from all sides. All around, the wind was howling and above him he could hear the churning of the water. Then his brain registered that he could also feel icy water sleeting against his skin, so cold it seemed almost to be freezing onto it.
"But surely there is no sensation in the void," He groaned, blinking groggily "If I can feel I must still be alive but then… why is there water above me? It does not make sense!"
For a few seconds he was bewildered, then all at once he understood; he was hanging upside down, somehow suspended above the water. Not only that, but now he had fully regained consciousness he realised various parts of his body were transmitting information, a barrage of pain. His ankle and his leg were burning despite the sub-zero temperature and there were stripes of searing agony like whip-strokes across his back.
"But considering I was not expecting to ever wake up, a decided improvement…" He thought, bludgeoning his brain to try and unravel the situation "The Queen must have lost her hold on me after the electrical shock shut down her synaptic function – the thumper does tend to make the hard meat collapse like flayed-off skin – and the weight of the tower would have dragged her under! But then… how did I not end up in the sea with her?"
A moment's investigation revealed the answer; the grapple gun.
He remembered letting go of the chain but he had forgotten that the gun was still attached to him; the leather straps across his back had acted like a harness. He had not fired the second grapnel of the coil, so the final grapnel still lodged inside the barrel!
Scar looked around but the foggy murk shrouded everything. He reached, the movement causing a little spear of agony to shoot through his shoulder, and switched his mask to thermal vision. Now he could see the chain disappearing up and over the lip of the slope, so the grapnel must still be attached to the deck. If it had not been so, Scar had no doubt he would be far beneath the surface of the water by now.
He grinned to himself "I knew this was my favourite weapon for a reason! Fortunate that it is solidly made…" His grin faded as a strong tremor shook him "I was forgetting; the same cannot be said for this human construction – time to leave!"
He began to pull himself up the chain, the muscles in his arms and legs were complaining but the thought of the two children hanging perilously over the drop spurred him to climb faster.
Then he heard a shrill voice from above, muffled by the blanket of fog but getting louder as he listened; a child's scream
Scar's head snapped upwards; his mask gun-sights zeroing in on a small shape hurtling down the steep slope towards him. Instinctively he wrapped one fist round the chain and thrust out an arm...
Isaac slid down and down; arms flailing, trying to grab onto something, claws scraping uselessly on the metal. He could hardly even breathe; it was as if the air was rushing past too rapidly to be able to suck it in.
Suddenly something grabbed him, shooting out from nowhere, iron claws were crushing him, feeling like they had pierced his skin and he was winded, emptying his lungs in one big, shocked gasp. Then … as the pain faded away he realised he could no longer feel the strange yawning in the pit of his stomach or the wind rushing past; he was no longer falling.
Something warm wrapped around him. Isaac didn't know how long he stayed there, almost insensible, before the thing he was resting on swam into focus and he saw it was an arm. As spots flashed across his vision he noticed it was the same colour and pattern as his own mottled flesh.
"Selim?" He said dazedly "Is that you?"
"No, not Selim," Said the deep, abrasive voice right by his ear.
"Father," Isaac murmured "You're Selim's Father…"
"Do not worry boy." The voice growled "I have you…"
Isaac looked up into those blank, black eyeholes; that glowering mask spattered with blood and rain. He wrapped his arms around that huge neck, resting his head on one metal plated shoulder, hardly feeling how the edge of the armour bit into his lip; only caring that it was solid and warm and holding him tight.
The whole time the alien's words echoing in his brain, frightening and comforting all at once.
"I have you.… "
Lex pushed Selim backwards, unsheathing her blades as a clawed hand appeared over the lip of the drop, grabbing hold of the chain.
Both she and Selim stared as a he materialised out of the clinging fog, looking like he clawing his way out of the netherworld, a small shape clinging to him.
Scar was back from the land of the dead and somehow... somehow he brought Isaac back with him.
There was no room in her brain to wonder how he had managed to cheat fate or why the Queen had let him go or how he had managed to get hold of Isaac, all was washed away by the deluge of relief as she watched him haul them both back onto the deck.
Selim leapt to his feet "Daddy!" He screamed "Isaac!" He ran to his father, throwing himself into his arms so fiercely that Scar was almost knocked back over the edge, taken by surprise. He managed to keep his balance, grabbing hold of Selim with his free arm while the boy squeezed him as if his life depended on it.
Lex's face remained calm she had to stay calm for the sake of the children – but her voice cracked as she said "You're alive."
"Of course!" He glanced around, his gaze flickering indifferently over Weyland's bloodied and mutilated corpse and Iversson's limp form "Why are you not on the shuttle?" He growled, as if all the intervening violence and bloodshed had not happened "This structure is going to collapse at any moment!"
Lex shook herself back awake; his words echoing her thoughts. Over the wailing of the wind, they could hear the complex creaking like a ghost ship.
"Scar I cannot move her," She gestured to the Professor "We have to get her onto the ship!"
Immediately he lowered the children to the floor and went to snatch up the crumpled body of the woman, "Careful!" Lex warned "She's been injured!"
Scar nodded, lifting the scientist as carefully as he could; Iversson looked to be out cold "Probably for the best!" He thought. He could feel the warmth of the blood seeping through her clothes. With his mask he could see where the bullet had pierced her; he grimaced.
Then another tremor shook the complex, stronger than before. There was a sound like an angry Tyrannosaur as, behind them, another part of the deck crumbled into the sea. At the same moment, the floor reverberated, as if the complex had jumped.
"Come on!" He snarled as she seized the hands of both children and all of them began to run, staggering first to one side and then the other as the deck shifted under them, Scar carrying the unconscious Iversson in his arms. They thundered up the gangway onto the Chameleon, almost losing their footing as the unstable structure rocked.
"Take her to the medipod!" Lex bawled at Scar over the rumbling as she dragged the children inside the airlock "I can take off!"
He snorted, but he didn't argue with her as she ran to the cockpit. Scar had no problem with Lex flying the shuttle; in fact he privately suspected that she was a better pilot than he was, though he would never have admitted it.
He deposited Iversson in the medipod and flipped the control to close the lid, racing back to the cockpit to find her frantically pushing buttons to wake the shuttle console. As the desk hummed into life, red characters scrolling quickly across the screen, there was a louder rumble. A tremor shook the Chameleon like an earthquake, nearly knocking the two children off their feet.
Leaving him to start the engines, Lex whirled round from the desk and hurriedly pushed the two boys into the co-pilot seat, pulling the huge turbulence harness across them both. She spun back towards Scar as his talons flew across the controls and they heard the whirr of the turbines start. Both of them held their breath, listening to the sound getting stronger, ramping up gradually to a throbbing drone as the engine power gauge crept slowly up and up towards the point where they could take off.
Before the gauge could reach its apex, the shuttle was rocked by a seismic vibration and the deck finally gave way under the Chameleon. The cockpit was turned on its side and Scar grabbed hold of the console, throwing an arm round Lex to stop them both being hurled against the wall. As the shuttle dropped towards the freezing ocean, the engine gauge finally peaked. Lex lunged in Scar's arms, seizing the steering column and thrusting it violently forward. The Chameleon shot away, the blast of super-heat from the engines disintegrating the falling section of deck and sending the ship skimming out across the waves just a short distance above the surface. It banked sharply for a moment but Lex hauled on the steering column, managing to bring the nose up and get the craft to right itself.
Gradually they began to gain height. As the floor of the cockpit became level again she pulled back more gently on the column. The Chameleon continued to climb smoothly until she was able to bring it around in a gentle curve, back over the complex.
When finally they had reached a safe altitude, she set the autopilot to circle the ruined fortress. Scar pushed a few buttons on the desk, switching to EMI vision that could penetrate even the thick grey mist. Still in each other's arms, they watched silently as another huge chunk of North Island crumbled into the sea. South Island was already a blackened ruin, smoke still rising despite the rain and the clinging water vapour.
"We have to finish it." Lex said flatly and Scar turned to look at her, pulling off his mask "It has to be completely destroyed," She said "We can't risk any of the hard meat reaching the mainland."
"Yes," He hissed "We will annihilate them." Then he grinned down at her "So perish all of our enemies, demon!"
She smiled back at him, and then her eyes went wide "Oh God!" She hissed "Iversson!"
He set her down gently "Do what you must." He said "Leave the bugs' nest to me."
