Alien: Isolation

Chapter Three: Axel

With her fall stopped for only a brief moment when she slammed into a large pipe, where she tried to, and failed to grab onto it, Ripley's landing was somewhat softer than expected when she landed on the next deck down. She coughed and struggled to sit up, cursing to herself as the dust that had been kicked up from her fall slowly cleared, and the first thing she saw was that there was no visible way to get back up to where she had been. The second thing she saw was that her fall had been broken by what looked like a pile of luggage, and as that luggage fell to the floor, the third thing she saw was that she was on a stopped conveyer belt.

Cursing to herself as she got up, and thankfully nothing seemed to be broken, she looked around, but with only a few lights flickering, most of her environment was shrouded in darkness. Well, the nice thing about conveyer belts was that they had to go somewhere, most likely between a docking terminal and any ships that were currently docked. However, since there were no ships around, aside from the Torrens, the terminal would have to do. The other nice thing about conveyer belts was that even if they were stopped and there was no light, one could still navigate them by touch.

So she did, crawling down the belt, while also navigating around fallen sections of the hull or ducts, and realizing just how bad the condition of Sevastopol Station was. It was like the whole place was falling apart, but how could that be? It was like everyone had just up and left months ago, but with all this luggage waiting to be transported onto a ship, where had they all gone? More dust was kicking up as she crawled along, ducking under nonfunctioning check points until finally reaching the end of the belt, and finding herself in yet another room that was illuminated by only a few lights.

"Hello?" Ripley called out. "Is anyone here?"

No answer, probably meaning that this area had been abandoned as well; no passengers waiting in the rows of benches, and a grand model of Sevastopol proudly displayed in the center of the room as if it were an exhibit in a large museum. Of course, with as dark and quiet as this place was, it was starting to feel like a museum… well, if it was closed, and all the lights were off… and it had been neglected for a few months. The model of Sevastopol was a good representation, she thought as she walked past, although it didn't have any of the recent damage included, but there was obviously no one in the terminal to help her, so it was time to move on.

There a small security station past the model and up a small set of stairs, but it was empty when she walked in, and there was no power going. It was doubtful that any useful information could be gotten from a small terminal station like this anyway, so she would have to find help elsewhere. But where? There was a large door behind the security station, and at first Ripley was discouraged since there was no power to open it, but then in a flicker of light from beyond it revealed that the door was stuck open just a little bit. It was a tight fit, and thankfully she had a build that was just slender enough for her to squeeze through. But that didn't mean that there wasn't plenty of grunting and struggling going on that she was glad no one was there to see.

This next area was much larger, and better lit, giving her hope that this time there would be people around, until she realized that the light was coming from the massive windows where the gas giant could be easily seen. No, this place was just as abandoned as the rest; nothing but a courtyard full of empty restaurants and small shops like one would expect to find in the terminal of a remote station like Sevastopol… but then an explanation was offered when the increased lighting allowed her to see a notice that had been posted on the door of every one of them.

It was from Seegson Corporation, a smaller competitor of Weyland-Yutani that owned and operated the station. The notice was full of flowery, corporate talk, but the primary message was that Sevastopol was being officially decommissioned. Well, that explained why nobody was around, but there still had to be a sizable maintenance crew around to oversee the decommissioning, which would be the only reason that Marshal Waits and his people were still there. The notice also went on to explain that the station's A.I. Core, a computer system apparently named Apollo would still be there until the last phase, as well as Seegson's 'Working Joe' Synthetics… whatever those were.

There was a little more to the notice, but a slow-moving shadow prevented her from seeing the last part, and the notice was forgotten when she looked up and saw that the shadow was caused by the Torrens floating past the windows. For a second she just stood there, but then ran up to the windows when she realized that this was her chance to let them know she was still alive. Running back and forth in front of the windows while waving her arms, her only chance was that someone on the ship was looking out the windows, as unlikely as that was.

"Verlaine!" Ripley called, knowing full well that she wasn't heard. "Verlaine, I'm right here, damn it!"

The Torrens was moving slow, but soon it would be past the windows, and thankfully there was an open door for her to run through into the next area of the terminal. The large windows extended into the next room, so she ran along them while continuing to yell and wave her arms, until she tripped over something, and fell to the floor. No, not the floor, it was a kind of black and rubbery material with something underneath… no, not underneath, inside, and Ripley's breath stopped when she realized what it was that she had landed on.

A body bag!

Gasping and scooting away once she was able to move again, Ripley's fear and uneasiness only got worse when she saw that it was not the only one. In fact, there were over a dozen identical bags laying on the floor in neat rows, as if this place had once been used as a temporary morgue when… well what the hell could happen for that to be needed? And if that was the case, then why had they just been left sitting there for God knows how long? She understood what was involved in decommissioning a station, and it was a well-known fact that people died all the time in space, but something was clearly wrong on this station, and… and suddenly she froze as she felt something cold and metal touching the back of her head.

"Don't fucking move." A man's voice said from behind her. "You're only alive right now because you don't look like you're from around here, but that can change in an instant, sweetheart… so who the fuck are you, and where the fuck did you come from?"

"Okay… okay." She answered, shutting her eyes for a second and slowly putting her hands up. "I'm, uh, Ripley… I came on that ship out there… the Torrens."

The man behind her was silent for a second, and then she felt the metal touching her head move away. Seeing his shadow take a step back, Ripley slowly turned around to see a nervous looking man with a bald head, wearing a mechanic's jumpsuit with the Seegson logo. For a moment she felt relieved when she saw that it was a multipurpose tool referred to as a Maintenance Jack in his hand instead of a pistol like she feared, but she wasn't out of danger, since people could easily be beaten to death with the hammer end of it.

"Well, that's good." The man continued, backing away a little more. "Because things are not so good on this station right now… see, there's something here… something you wouldn't believe… and random explosions are the least of our problems."

The man was now looking around nervously, keeping the maintenance jack held up as if he expected to be attacked at any given moment. He kept turning around, looking up at the ceiling, and down at the floor, but Ripley couldn't see anything. All she could see was that things on Sevastopol were a hell of a lot worse than she thought, but even if this man was hysterical, he was the only person that she had seen so far, and he probably knew the layout of the station, so she needed to gain his trust.

"Something here?" She asked. "What do you mean?"

"A killer, is what I mean, sweetheart." He continued, moving back up to her and pointing the maintenance jack in an almost threatening way. "I ain't seen it myself, but it's there… a few more people missing every day… and no one seen nothing."

The way he was going on, it sounded like this killer he was describing was more a monster than a person, but there were incidents she had heard about where people go a little crazy after being trapped in a tense environment for long periods of time, but although paranoid in how he kept looking around, he didn't seem like he had completely lost it. The nametape on his jumpsuit said A. Fielding, so a name was as good a place to start as any.

"Look, Mr., um, Fielding." Ripley said, still keeping her hands up. "I came over here with two others… space-walked… now I need to get to comms so I can contact them and my ship, and then we can both get off this station… if you help me, I'll get you a place on the Torrens, okay? But I can't do anything without working comms."

"A place on the ship?" He asked, suddenly hopeful. "Fine, I'll take you to Comms, but it's in another spire… we can get transit on the other side of the freight area, but you'll have to stay close, because we can get into all sorts of trouble there, got me? And its Axel, by the way… no one calls me Mr. Fielding."

Ripley nodded, and then started toward the nearby open door that he motioned to. Honestly, she didn't know if Verlaine would let him on the Torrens or not, but that could be solved after they got to the comms system. However, she hadn't gone more than two steps, when she stopped as she felt the maintenance jack gently come to rest on her shoulder from behind.

"Looks like this is your lucky day, Ripley." Axel said, moving up to an uncomfortable distance behind her. "But if you even think about dicking me over… well… just don't… now let's get moving, and remember to stay close."