DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. I do not own Alien/Aliens or the materials associated with the film/novels franchise. What I do own is this story in part or whole, the plot and set-up of the plot, and original characters that came with it.
The Captor, the Captive and the Captivated
1-3: Necessary Intent
Walter is intrigued, now.
He was curious at first to know that Mr Hastings was listed as 'independent', despite the Company's mandatory requirement that every crew member must be married and accompanied by their partner. It was even more peculiar when he found out that Mr Hastings' wife, Aine Darcy, was the daughter of the infamous biologist turned conservationist Corinne Darcy whose breakthrough invention was being installed on this ship. But his circuits and programming stumbled into an odd, baffling and inexplicable element of facts when he then figured out that she wasn't here to board the Covenant with her husband at all.
Of course, this incident explains plenty of things. For one thing, it explains why Walter wasn't able to track her movements from London to Arizona—Mr Hastings has been travelling entirely on his own all this time and this also explains the frequency of his travels here. For another, it seems to explain her sudden presence in this facility.
Walter deliberates upon that; she wasn't required to be here at all and she sure enough doesn't need to prepare her body for deep space travel. Every details of the machine her mother invented – with its blueprints and inner workings (all the manuals, instructions and emergency guidelines) – have all been submitted into the Company's systems, thereby rendering it accessible to anyone within the Company and the crew themselves (in short, Walter's databank). She could've sent someone she trusts (and apparently he could tell from her organisation's website and social media that there's a number of potential scientists to choose from) to make sure that her machine is being installed correctly and thus will be working properly for this ship.
And yet, here she is.
He pauses mid-way through the ship's belly as five workers begin shouting at him to make way for them. They were carrying a load that looked a little like a steel coffin (a part of the cryopod)—why couldn't they have some Synthetics to do it? Sometimes, the things these humans do doesn't make much logic to him. He makes a mental reminder to double check that all equipments are properly bolted into place later, considering how manual labour will strain the workers. Then he proceeds to walk through the hexagon shaped decks and make his way deeper into the large ship.
Walter now wonders just how long Aine Darcy knew about her husband's affair. Although this may breach some privacy, he has full authority to do so in the name of the Company.
So he begins to study Mr Hastings more thoroughly; he went through his social media, his family business' websites, his mother's social media, his sister's, his father's—he could even traced back Mr Hastings' high school and preschool websites. Nearly in all these media, he could spot Miss Miller in it. Walter couldn't even trace Aine Darcy's presence in his life until he tracked down Oxford University's social media; there are numerous videos of its students going through bars in town and Aine Darcy is one of them. Walter watches several of these videos at the same time as he continues to dig up more of the man's unsavoury histories.
He learns that Miss Miller is also Mr Hastings' best friend and according to the norms of social conventions, that would lead to catastrophes for a married man—well, a happily married man, that is. He learns that Mr Hastings doesn't even believe in the institution of marriage and the man confesses this to the camera in a video prior to his marriage (believe to have been recorded by his best man). Walter also learns that Miss Miller used to 'date' Mr Hastings and they've made several sex films for their own enjoyment; he finds that Mr Hastings frequently viewed this videos of late (especially whenever he was in London) and that's when Walter finds another interesting development.
He could further trace secret messages in several email accounts and chat room discussions between Mr Hastings and Miss Miller. Some of these messages – especially older ones – are perfectly innocent—just two friends reconnecting once in a while (Miss Miller has been away in Africa for work). Most of the recent ones were intimate and highly sexual—Walter figures it was what humans considered to be 'sexting'. But before Mr Hastings even knew that she was selected for the Covenant, he has been working closely with Aine Darcy and develop a physical relationship with her (at least that's what the cameras at her apartment shows). And there were text messages going between Mr Hastings and Aine Darcy about the 'things' he left at her residence too—all of this prior to their marriage. Mr Hastings had even bragged about his sexual endeavours with her to his friends as well.
Walter couldn't tell if there had been any mutual feelings at all between this husband and wife couple or if their marriage was only as physical as the paper that legitimates their lives together. He's even more surprised that it was she who proposed and no one else knew about that except for her mother.
Now he's really drawn to finding out more about her.
"Hey, you!"
He turns his head to the direction of that voice, but looks down to find a man – a technician no doubt – hidden underneath a metal plank.
"Where do you think you're going? That's a restricted area!"
"Security Code 31564-F. I'm part of the crew and I've been sent by the Captain to inspect this area," not that the man could validate that, anyway.
Walter notes the man's reaction to his little lie—it seems to be working.
"Damn, sorry 'bout that, man! I've got to keep an eye on the comings and goings here!"
He doesn't find the need to respond to that.
"Just make sure you don't break anything in there, alright? I've already got that Sugimoto bitch so far up my ass that I can't even shit properly!"
"Understood," Walter gives off a bland smile; he wonders if he should tell Miss Sugimoto about this man—not only about the name-calling, but also the fact he seems to be too trustworthy with anyone with a code. Still, he resolves to keeping it a secret for now.
It's still a long walk there, so he starts his research into Mr Hastings' strange wife.
She was born on 27th November in 2071 and is an only child. Her mother was very close to her grandmother, a writer by the name of Ailish Liesl Darcy, and that's where she got the L in her middle name from—he finds this out through a home film on the cloud storage of her phone (Company policy requires the confiscation of all digital devices). In fact, he could trace her history from pretty much anytime of her life; she went to school in Bristol and was a quiet, accomplished child; her grades dipped a little until she moved away to London with her grandmother; she started pursuing science and joined several youth science fairs promoting invention and innovation; then she was accepted into Oxford at the age of 16 (as most scientists under the Company would normally be); and during her years in college, she shared a room with Miss Erika Sugimoto for a year.
Walter proceeds to watch several videos in which the two roommates actually spends time rehearsing questions and answers on biology—Aine comes across as such a studious young woman, so he wonders why she would end up with someone so boisterous and loud like her husband. Aine didn't seem to hang around with his friends (or anyone much), but she wouldn't have met him had she not joined Erika for a night out. He finds more videos and they seem very typical to brush off except for a particularly interesting one.
In this video, the boys were filming themselves drinking several shots of whiskey. The focus strays intermittently from the boys and then onto the girls who joined them with the boys hooting loudly when it did. In the background, Walter finds two people talking that he never had seen together before. He edits the video to tone down the foreground noise, increasing the backdrop sound instead and proceeds to play it in his head.
"If I'm not mistaken, your family has several charities in Africa," Aine is speaking clearly—she has a drink in her hand that doesn't seem like her first, but somehow she looks like she was still sober than the rest.
The blonde haired woman was none other than Miss Miller herself; she has flushed cheeks and narrow eyes. As she nods, her hand, which was carrying a margarita, almost tips over. "'s'right. I was born in Mali, you know?"
"And do you still go there often?"
"Only every time!"
"Interesting. So now you're pursuing Journalism to help your parents in a way, I guess?"
"Is it that obvious, Aine?" Miss Miller laughs and finishes her drink in one fell swoop. She takes a while to process her own words before replying, "That's how they want me to maintain the family legacy."
"And what legacy is that?"
"Oh, you know, change the world. Save the world."
Aine was silent for a while, watching the boys throwing fits of laughter at each other. "I don't believe one can simply save the world."
"Hm, why's that?"
"My grandmother has taught me that—"
"Oh, your grandmother's the A.L. Darcy, right? I loved her books! Her 'Ode to the Universe' series was my favourite!"
"—it's mine too."
"Oh, my God! What was she like as a grandmother?"
"Well, for one thing, she's taught me that you must always give way to others and listen to them."
That makes Walter smile, but he notices that Miss Miller was far too drunk to realise the insult.
"And she's taught me that if you can't change the world, you have to change how you choose to see it. And if you try to change it anyway, you must be prepared to change yourself. Because the world can't be changed from the bottom up, but from the top down!" Aine was yelling now that the music was turned up and she looked disappointed when Miss Miller got up to dance with over five boys.
Erika joined her side. "If I didn't know you better, I'd think you were flirting with Rowena."
"She's not my type!"
"Pretty sure blonde and blue eyed checked your list!"
"Shut up, Erika!"
"Hey, you're not drinking enough! The finals are over! Please have some semblance of fun tonight!"
"This is my tenth drink."
Erika stops for a moment. "Are you a Synthetic that looks just like my roommate or something? Because I'm pretty sure—"
"Don't worry. I only get drunk on my fifteenth glass."
"Can I have your superpower?"
"Can I have yours?" Aine smiled shyly. "I'm not used to a social scene like this… You're definitely better at it than I am!"
At this stage, the video focused more on Miss Miller as she makes sultry dances against any male bodies she found rubbing up against her. Aine joined the dance floor soon afterwards, although she seemed uncomfortable when one of the boys moved too close. But at the end of the video, Mr Hastings jumps into her rescue when the boy started to do things she didn't agree on and she rewards him a drunken kiss—Miss Miller was in the background, watching them intently.
Despite the intense partying, all these students graduated First Class Honours for their degrees and left Oxford to pursue careers in their family business—perhaps what was the only commonality between Mr Hastings and his wife was that they both continued to study. Mr Hastings gained his Doctorate in geology (with a focus on interplanetary terraforming) at the same time that Aine obtains two Doctorates (in ecology and zoology) concurrently. They were very close during those 3 years of their lives that one would naturally assume this was how they must've ended up together.
Once again though, Walter finds another fascinating fact.
Judging from all the available personal data on Aine Darcy, it seems she was very close to her grandmother. Yet somehow she pursues an education in her mother's spectrum instead; he would think that being mentored by an experienced writer would encourage Aine to pursue creative writing, but for some reason she chose to maintain her mother's legacy. He contemplates if that conversation with Miss Miller (including that insult she threw at her) was in fact due to jealousy (perhaps because she wanted to become a writer herself and was envious of Miss Miller for that).
Walter reviews her history again and suddenly realises that he made a trivial error—he overlooked a chunk of time where she was handed to her father after the divorce. Her parents divorced in June 2075 and her father was given full-custody because the nature of her mother's at the time wouldn't encourage a nurturing household. Yet, for some reason, between then and early 2077, Aine Darcy was off the grid—only after her father's arrest did she resurfaced. Now Walter is mortified by his own curiosity.
He couldn't help himself at this point—he had to find out what kind of crime her father committed, just in case it should reflect badly on her or the Company for working with her. After all, it didn't make sense to him that the Company would choose to work with her, if anyone in her family had a criminal past.
Unless, of course, she was the victim.
He resumes his walk into the garden; it was one of the first parts of the ship that were completed within half a year (that, the cargo bay and the engine core). The garden is a large hall with an artificial biosphere housing various plants, cultivated and due to be assimilated on Origae-6. By the time he reaches a sealed court document and police statement form, he faces a door in his way. There's a screen at the side which shows that the current temperature of the whole garden – over -10 degrees Celsius – and he decides to wear his hood up just in case it gets to him.
Upon entering, he searches for any sign or shape of human form—if she had been in deeper parts of the room, she might be getting too cold for comfort by now. He contemplates calling out her name whilst at the same time attempting to infiltrate the UK government's secure servers.
"Mrs Hastings!" he hears a loud thud as soon as he's finished; he walks further into the hall and follows the sound. "Mrs Hastings!"
He spots a figure stirring at the back; she raises her hand and waves. "Right here!"
Walter quickens his steps—did he mishear her? She sounded in distress and her nose was blocked as if she had been crying. But then again, it might just be the cold.
He winds up at the much warmer climate area where plants of the mostly tropical and desert family are located. He wonders the significance as he gets closer; the plantation unit she was leaning against had several interesting cactus flowers and he makes a note of each one of them so he could ask her about it later.
He's surprised to find her sitting on the floor with her legs crossed and she doesn't even turn to look at all.
"Mrs Hastings," he greets her but still, she refuses to turn around. "Am I interrupting?"
"Oh, I'm sorry! I should ask you the same thing!" she glances up to him with a smile this time and quickly does something to her face with her hand—he knew what she was doing, though. "Am I interrupting you?"
He takes this moment to examine her full physical form.
She wasn't exactly tall or petite—her height was just right. She has flowing dark hair tied to a perfect high ponytail and there's semblance of Asian features on her face. The fringe on her forehead has fallen around her face, wrapping it up nicely like a blanket of the night sky around a pale moon. Her eyes were reddened; they were large too, but almond shaped like a leaf and she had just enough eyebrows to be distinctively English. Something about her eyes reminds him that of puppies'—maybe it was the way it gleams in an almost mahogany colour or maybe it was his facial identification software telling him that she was brown eyed. Yet her eyes at this angle looked hollow, black and rigid like the centre of black holes themselves.
If it weren't for those poppy pink lips, she looks a little too pale, ill and sombre. Was it the cold, the crying or just the overwhelming stress? Still, she was wearing the right clothes—she was dressed head to toe in wool with a hooded jacket on top her jumpsuit. He thinks her hundreds of facial muscles must be working hard too because each part of her face lights up when she smiles—almost painfully. He thinks the crying may've left her muscles swollen so much that she couldn't keep her smile firm for long enough. Walter decides that she does indeed have a somewhat pleasant countenance overall.
"No, you're not," he slurs his answer, disturbed now by his ineffective attempt to hack into the servers. His eyes flit towards her hand where she grips tightly upon a pair of garden shears—what did she intend to do with that?
"Ah, you're thinking why I have these shears, yes?" she raises an eyebrow playfully and sets the said item on the steel floor. "I was a little angry and frustrated earlier… more than I had anticipated. So I thought I could chop something off."
Walter opens his mouth, but takes his words back before he even mentions them; he wanted to ask whether she was aiming for her husband's head or his genitals. But he didn't want to seem sudden or rude, especially since she had a stressful day (and he wasn't supposed to know about it, too).
"I suppose I'm not capable of that level of violence after all," she adds on with a sigh.
"Do you need a hand?" he asks when she struggles to pick herself up by leaning against one of the plantation machines and she's recklessly holding the shears in her hand, too. He's afraid of the possibilities for accidents.
"Yes, please, if you don't mind."
"Not at all," he reaches out and catches her hand in his, pulling her up; he was about to say his signature 'I'm here to serve' line, but then he wanted to see if she could tell he was a Synthetic at all.
"Well, if I'm not interrupting you, then what are you here for?"
He assumes she thought that he was a gardener. "Actually, I came here to get you."
"Oh—"
"Captain Branson has asked me to. He's waiting for you at the cockpit."
"You mean, the bridge, right?"
He smiles.
"I have an inkling why he wants to see me," she narrows her eyes as if saddened by something.
"He needs to speak to you about an urgent matter."
"I feel I may… also need to tell him something, too."
"Here, let me have that," Walter reaches out for the shears and takes it out of her hands—he spots her fingers trembling against his own and that tickles a bit. "Best stow this away before one of us hurt ourselves!"
She quietly nods.
Walter feels her eyes following him, but he thinks it's only fair to allow her that much freedom considering he was doing the same to her earlier. He proceeds to head to the side of the room, where most of the storage area has been tucked away behind metallic walls and cryptic buttons. He presses several of these buttons and a large, vertical section of the wall opens forward. He notices that this wasn't the correct storage (as it still has its garden shears unit), but he stows it in there anyway.
"Which line are you?" she poses the question much like one would hold a gun.
He freezes for a moment before pushing the storage back in. "I'm sorry?"
"You must be new. You're much too… technical to be a David 8 unit."
He turns towards her, trying to find hints on her face that might explain just how fast she figured him out. His mind strays a little to that information—does the fact about David 8s have anything to do with her type?
"How did you know?" he finds himself asking—everything he's been doing online is now paused.
"It's in the way you all move."
"Excuse me?"
She laughs aloud. "My grandmother loves Synthetics more than I ever expected anyone of her century and thinking would…"
"But how could—"
"There is functionality in the way you move. It's as if there's purpose to everything that you do and say."
"Is that so?"
"Yes, really. Now will you tell me which line are you?"
"I'm called Walter, the first of our newest line."
"I'm guessing you're a little more technical because of what's happened with the notorious David 8 units?"
"Something like that… Do you prefer the previous models?"
She gives him a strange smile—if he didn't know better, it was flirtatious. Unfortunately, he does know better and that smile was indeed flirtatious. Does this have anything to do with David 8 units? Perhaps she kept one. Perhaps it looked like her type.
"Actually," she chuckles, "My grandmother changes her Synthetics models much like most people in the 21st century change phones! She thinks it's challenging to the human minds to detect the obscure form the obvious, so she always pushes me into the same way of thinking… To be honest, any Synthetic intrigues me—they have their own quirks."
"There are several types of Walter models, so we should all have the same quirks."
"No, Walter, unfortunately for me, there's only one of you that should matter more than the rest."
Walter raises an eyebrow.
"You."
He shrugs. "There are many of us and all of us are essentially the same."
"True, but the interaction between you and I is stored deeply into only one organic network artificial neurons—which is yours."
He pauses to wonder how she could speak like that.
"Erika Sugimoto studies nano-biology at Oxford University and she was my roommate during the time that she's there—I'm sure you already know this! She's so passionate about nanotech that she wanted to create ones that could interact organically between one another thereby forming its own synapses and neural networks. She's achieved that in a relatively short period of time—it's no wonder she was sent to spearhead the Artificial and Synthetic Intelligence division at Yutani during her internship there!"
He says nothing, just admiring at the way she fires up. He can only imagine how her brain might look like under an MRI scan right now.
"It's how I know so much about Synthetics too… and my grandmother plays a huge part, of course! She finds them fascinating and I had to ask Erika some questions for her book's research!"
Walter nods. "Yes, I see that her Ode to the Universe series is still being sold off today."
"Classic colonisation sci-fi—apt for this ship, don't you think?"
He nods. "Yes, it is. But I guess you'd also keep a Synthetic for yourself to know so much?"
"Unfortunately, no! My mother doesn't fancy them at all—so I avoid having them around at my own place."
He was about to ask her regarding her relationship with her mother and grandmother when she starts walking off towards the end of the hall.
She turns around, "Aren't you coming, Walter?"
"On my way," he quips as he takes his first step; when he joins her side, he feels compelled for another question. "Do you mind if I asked… how do you know where you're going?"
She smirks. "What?"
"This is the fastest way to the cockpit. I'm wondering how you would know that at all."
"I've made my own mind map by memorising all the main stations in this ships. I created landmarks out of certain places and used it as a guide for certain headings."
He stares her at in disbelief. "I'm surprised you'd want to memorise at all."
"Like I said, my mother. She never stops urging me to… use my brain cells. She even used to call me the pathfinder!"
Walter holds back a wider smile at that.
As they walk together, side by side, their footsteps make a booming metallic noise across every lengthy decks and halls. It's gotten on his nerves (or at least it felt that way) that this silence bears his secret and the guilt (or was it fear?) of being caught rolled into his consciousness as more time passes by—this annoying sound was like the soundtrack to his illicit vice of privacy invasion. Still, he has the right to do whatever he so pleases with the data that nearly everyone here has given up upon signing the NDA and entrance into this facility. So he will continue trying his best to research Aine Darcy's mysterious past and find out why almost 2 years of her life was missing from records—whatever means necessary.
Walter finds himself watching her; she has a strange pace – not limping – but she seems to drag her feet for a nanosecond before raising them as she walks. Her gait is almost shifty as if she phases through the corridor with her back against the walls—no one should know she was coming. She's trying to be as inconspicuous as possible and perhaps just like Walter, this loud echo was getting to her too.
Nevertheless, he was going to find out why she has to be so inconspicuous in the first place.
He now attempts his third try to hack into the secure servers. He hopes that he gains entry this time and that will end this bizzare fog that's clouding up his proper mental state, but what will he do in the meantime? Perhaps the quickest way to get to know her is to ask her straight on. But would she appreciate his gesture as rude, intrusive or even creepy? He was designed to be more attentive and attune to human emotions, even though he may not be able to fully emulate it. And he was programmed to ensure that he is capable of giving trust as well as receiving it.
What he's done so far has been quite the opposite. Not to mention, she is not officially a crew of the Covenant—another error. He's so caught up in the puzzle that is Aine Darcy's life that he forgot (no, dismissed) that important element. How will he look now if she'd known what he's been doing?
"Mrs Hastings," he murmurs almost reluctantly, "Do you mind if I asked you a personal question?"
She's eager; her face lights up once more when she glances over her shoulder before shaking her head. "Sure! By all means, Walter!"
"Why did you visit that particular set of cactus flowers when they're not even in bloom yet?"
She stops walking, but doesn't turn around or speak.
Walter begins to regret ever asking her that question. He had perfectly pose the question without sounding too invasive and yet it was innocuous enough to have been derived from pure curiosity—she must think that he has plenty of that, considering what he is. Or perhaps curiosity can really kill the cat. Whatever it is, Walter thinks he's about to find out.
He's already gotten past the server's firewall. He's downloaded the file. All that's left is to read it. And read her.
Author's Notes: I was half-way through my Naruto fanfic update and I got this scene appearing into my head. It's gotten longer than I imagined (as ALWAYS!) but it makes sense. lol
*The Company - as you Aliens fans know, it's Weyland-Yutani. I thought it would great to see Walter refer it as "The Company" just like that.
*David 8 - oh yeah, plot's thickening on that one.
Did I get Walter right? lol If you enjoyed this please follow, fav and leave me a small review! Much appreciated!
**MIGHT EDIT THIS LATER I DUNNO