Kane broke the silence, amidst the soul-crushing despair that wafted through the room.
"What do we do now?" he said, his voice tenderly shaking with a conscious effort to hide the anxiousness in his voice.
Dallas buried his head in his hands, sighing.
"Kane, let's look at the facts" Ripley said, leaning in on the table. "I don't know why we're here, but I can tell you what we're supposed to be doing."
The dim table light above them illuminated her face, her pale complexion enhanced by the dark room around them.
"The company sent us here to get what they're after. What they've always been after, for at least 60 years. The god-damned Xenomorph."
"But what about us? What's the point off us, and all of this?" Kane gestured his hands, referring to the entire ship.
"I don't know" She averted her eyes, falling back once again into her memories. "I stood in an executive hearing room. I explained the encounter countless times. From the landing, to your unfortunate death, to the destruction of the Nostromo using the self-destruct."
She clasped her hands, and spoke with a soft, anxious tone. "Kane, I had to confirm everyone's death."
"There's no way we're human?" Kane mouthed the sentence to her, unable to say it out loud himself.
Shaking her head, her face was distraught and vacant, her mind wanting to recede to a place far away.
"Someone should probably let Parker out, if Brett hasn't already broken him out." Kane took a deep breath, stood up, and made his way out of the dining room. Only Dallas and Ripley remained, now.
Picking himself up and off of the floor, Dallas recollected himself amidst the grungy interior.
"We're in one big shit situation, aren't we?"
"Yeah, no doubt about it. How do you think everyone else is taking the news?"
He sighed once more. In his own mind, even he wasn't sure how to take it. Waking up on a job, only to find out you're not real seems impossible with any amount of time, to anyone.
"I don't know. I don't think anyone does. But, I need to know one thing."
"What is it?"
"Can I count on you?"
She froze, unsure of how to answer. Hesitating, not only thinking of how to answer, but if she could trust herself.
"Absolutely."
"Good. There's no way we're going to get through this kind of a situation with everyone doing whatever they want."
"What do you mean by that?"
He chuckled quietly, shadows in the room masking his short, sly grin.
"You'll see. I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised. Now, let's go get Parker out of the medical bay."
Following the silhouette of Dallas through the hallways, her thoughts swirled with the revelations that had been made in the span of an hour or two. Her footsteps felt forced, mechanical in a way. It was a walk that took less than twenty seconds, but felt like twenty minutes with each awkward motioning of her legs.
Standing in front of the locked door, Dallas tapped on the glass and pressed the intercom speaker next to the window. With the lights turned off inside, it was near impossible to make out anything other than the small glowing buttons on the equipment resting against the walls.
"Parker, you're being released. Come on out."
Surveying the bay for movement, they both spotted nothing.
"We're all androids, Parker. We've got a lot to talk about," he quickly added, to try and grab his attention.
With no response at all from the interior of the room, they both exchanged glances with each other.
"Guess we're going in, if he's not coming out," she said.
He nodded, and opened the door. The two of them walking in, Dallas fumbled for the lights control panel somewhere along the wall, and Ripley tried to adjust her vision to the darkness, and listened for any movement in the room.
Figuring Parker was just asleep on the floor somewhere, she carefully stepped towards the other side of the room, still unable to see anything in the nearly pitch-black room.
"Parker? Are you still in here?"
"Here it is, finally found the damn panel."
As the room changed from night to day, Ripley saw Dallas hunched over the lights panel, eyes widening. Before she was aware of what was going on, everything turned to black once more, and her mind retreated inwards as her body dropped to the floor.
"Where'd you go?"
Standing in a beautiful garden, surrounded by an endless array of colorful flowers and twisting vines that spread themselves all throughout, covering rocks and vine trellises indiscriminately. The green grass underfoot was soft to touch, the clear air comfortable to breathe in such a peaceful place.
"What?"
"Where'd you go? I missed you."
She was wearing her tattered clothing from the colony, a vision of the past come to haunt Ripley once more.
"Newt, I did everything I could. I don't know where I am or who I am right now. I can't find you, Newt."
A child's expression of innocent ignorance is heartbreaking, as it befell her face with a mixed feeling of confusion. Her look shot deep into the heart of Ripley, a painful stab deep at her conscious.
"I promise I didn't leave you Newt, I promise you we're together right now, somewhere among the stars. You, me, and Hicks, safe and together," she said as she grabbed Newt and hugged her, tears in her eyes and sorrow lacing her words.
"But why'd you leave though?"
As she stood there hugging Newt, her tears turning to sobs, her voice cracking with emotion, Newt began to slowly fade away, only a memory that had come to haunt her as she found herself hunched over on the fluffy green grass, clutching at air.
"You don't get it, do you?"
A familiar voice made her snap her head as the accursed machine strolled through the garden's stone trellis entrance to her left.
"You're a synthetic now. You're no better than me, isn't that quaint?"
Ash was covered in his own blood, even though he wasn't harmed anywhere. Having merged the image of him as a battered head after a beat-down from Parker, and the times where he was normal-looking, he was a scary caricature of everything she had loathed about discovering who he was.
"Maybe you do get it, though. To be so lifelike and yet so lifeless, an imitation of humankind. No more, no less."
Her sorrow turned to rage, she tried pelting him with stones from a small rocky area, unable to speak through her choking anger at the sight of him. The rocks bounced off of his body, and ever-unflinching, he continued speaking to her in the otherwise peaceful garden.
"Even then, you still have more than I ever did. The memories of an organic are invaluable, as they lend a sense of belief otherwise unobtainable for synthetics."
"I'm nothing like you!" she screamed in outrage. "You killed the crew! You helped the alien get on board! You were nothing more than a corporate dog because it's all you were built for, and it's all you will ever be!"
His knowing smirk turned to a frown as her words rang true. As he let out a sigh, he disappeared, another memory done torturing her for now.
Alone in the garden, the horrors of her past faded away in the memory garden as she began to wake up, images of the alien appearing in the endless vines and jolting her awake as they reached out and grabbed her.