Cheetah lead the group through the post-apocalyptic streets of New York. They travelled in silence and with constant vigilance. Ryan was in the centre, the others believed he should be in the centre so he would have the best protection should they be ambushed.
Ryan now saw the full destruction of the city; the damage got more extensive the further into the city they went. But oddly enough, the further they went in the more stable and intact buildings they found. The well built skyscrapers were still intact though a little beaten up. Though all that passed away as they then moved towards the outskirts of the city on the opposite side of the centre.
The group soon reached a huge metal gate. It was at least ten metres thick and at least fifteen metres high. The gate was connected to a huge circular wall. The gate had the Weyland-Yutani Corporation logo painted in the middle of it.
Cheetah walked up to the gate and pressed a button on the side. He then spoke into a speaker next to the button.
"HQ, this is Cheetah, open up." He said.
"Rodger Cheetah, opening her up now. How did you go?"
"We have another survivor, he's a little clueless on what's going on but he's in good health. That's the good news."
"The bad?" the radio asked back.
Cheetah paused.
"…we lost Wolf…"
The radio was silent.
The gate suddenly began to open. It swing slowly open, its immense size was breath taking. The thickness coupled with the height made it seem impenetrable. The group walked through the gap in the gate and it began to close behind them.
Ryan finally saw what was behind those gigantic gates. It was a Weyland-Yutani research base. It was about one and half square kilometres in size and was surrounded by ten metres by fifteen metres wall.
Cheetah lead them into a huge conference room. It had lost all it's glamour since the survivors had taken hold of it. Things were all over the floor, papers, chairs. There were computers on the main table connected to a gigantic CPU system. Basically it was a super computer.
A man sat in a chair in front of the main computer. He turned around in the swivel to look at the arrivals. He wore square glasses and had ruffled hair.
"Ryan, I'd like you to meet HQ." Cheetah told Ryan. "He is our computer wiz, he can do anything. He has made a 3D map of the whole city since the destruction of it by only what we have said over the radio, he has a radar system that picks up the skin type of the aliens so he can pinpoint an ambush on our base within a five kilometre radius. Now he is working on a radio headset system so the pack can remain in constant communication with HQ."
HQ stood up and shook Ryan's hand. He had a fairly weak grip but it was strong for his appearance. He smiled at Ryan, this made Ryan feel better. A smile always makes someone feel better, and in this situation, it was a big thing to have someone smile; this was Ryan's perspective, he was sure that from the other's perspective that people smiled a lot, but they were used to the horror that Ryan had seen today.
Ryan then asked his question again.
"What happened here?"
Cheetah looked at him.
"Alright, time for the grand unveiling."
He pulled up a chair and sat in it. Ryan did the same, but the other's preferred to stand.
"Say about a month ago, we believe Weyland-Yutani got their hands on the most deadly species in the universe known to man. It was a fast creature with acid blood, sharp teeth, amazing chemical properties and can adapt to any climate they find themselves in. They were strong, quick and lethal; the perfect killing machines.
"The aliens also had a strange life cycle. The Corporation said there was a lead female or 'Queen' who lays eggs. Inside the eggs were a small creature that looks kind of like a hand only with too many fingers and a tail. This creature jumps onto its victim's face and clamps its fingers around the victim's head and ties its tail around the neck. The victim can now only breathe through their mouth or they suffocate. Instinct makes them breathe through the mouth and the creature shoves a tube from it's underbelly down the victim's throat."
Ryan looked horrified. The thought of a tube being shoved down hi throat while he was conscious was not pleasant.
"Horrible isn't it." Cheetah continued. "But that's not the worst part. The creature will eventually come off your face and die. But it has already put a baby alien that you have already seen in your chest. For a few hours the baby will grow and when it is big enough it will eat its way out of your chest."
Ryan had to swallow back vomit at that thought. Horrible images of someone's chest being torn open from the inside flashed through his mind. He shut his eyes and willed them away.
Cheetah continued in the hope of to stop Ryan thinking about it.
"The baby then grows into the creatures you've already seen. The 'drone' aliens are the ones you've seen and they help take people back to the hive. If victims are close to the hive when they meet aliens then the aliens will attempt to take them to the hive alive. That's when they can subdue you and put one of the spider aliens on you or 'facehuggers' as we call them."
Ryan interjected.
"Ok. But what happened here? Why are the aliens running free through the decaying streets of New York? Why are the streets decaying? What the hell happened?"
Cheetah looked at him hard. He pondered Ryan's tone, he seemed very stressed. The shock of finding his home like this would do that to a man.
"Well, three weeks ago, an alien organism escaped into New York. We don't where from or how, but we suspect that Weyland-Yutani must have underestimated the creature and it took its chance. So now that alien built a hive all by itself, there was no massive damage but there were reports of people going missing. Those people were being taken to the first hive and having aliens breed in them. On Thursday that week, police found the hive. Out of a group of fifty police, three made it out alive. They told people what they saw and the Colonial Marines were brought in, they destroyed the hive but some of the aliens had spread elsewhere, building more hives. By Friday it had reached epidemic proportions.
"Police were frantic, the Colonial Marines destroyed hive after hive but more kept appearing. Nothing could stop them from spreading; they attacked shopping malls, apartment buildings, power facilities, everywhere. On Saturday they pulled the Colonial Marines out. The citizens panicked, they massed in the streets trying to leave the city, but the police knew that if they were all outside then they would be easy pickings for the aliens. They tried to urge people to go back to their homes but they wouldn't hear of it.
"The government knew that it was time for drastic action. They wouldn't dare nuke the city, they wanted minimal civilian casualties. They decided to use an experimental weapon that they had been making. It was a bomb that didn't explode but it changes the atmosphere in a certain radius. They knew that that bomb would kill all the aliens and leave the city intact. It would kill people though so they instructed everyone to go into a bomb shelter or concrete basement. Some people got underground, yourself included obviously.
"When the bomb hit, the atmosphere changed dramatically. The air became denser and full of nitrogen. Unfortunately the aliens have the ability to adapt to any climate change, so they were unharmed. Also any above ground building not with a very advanced structural integrity disintegrated and crumbled. Everyone underground was unharmed, but most of the population was outside when the bomb hit.
"The atmosphere changes were only temporary and lasted about a week. The Colonial Marines conducted an extraction operation to any survivors, but the alien population had not been dented. They pulled out about fifty percent of the survivors and suffer heavy casualties. So they pulled out and left the remaining fifty percent to our chances in the city.
"We formed little clans and learnt to use the alien's abilities against them. As far as I know, now after a week of surviving in the streets, we are the only clan still surviving. Well that's about it."
Ryan stared off into space. Everyone he knew or loved; everyone he had seen; nearly every man, women and child; they had all been wiped from existence or left to die in this wasteland.
I hope the person responsible was among them! He thought baring his teeth. Wait that's it!
"Weyland-Yutani is responsible…" he said.
"How do you know?" Fox asked.
"I don't, but somehow I know they're right in the middle of it."
Suddenly an alarm sounded, red lights flashed. Everyone looked up at the lights, HQ ran to a computer.
"That's a proximity alert! They're closing in!"
Cheetah stood up and opened a desk draw. He pulled out a Desert Eagle .50 pistol and handed it to Ryan.
"Here you go." He said.
"What's this for?" Ryan asked.
"You'll need it." Snake said.
Everyone walked to the door, grabbing there weapons on the way.
"Where are we going?" Ryan asked.
Cheetah looked at him.
"You're going to get your equipment."