ERNIE 073

by Akktri

An autobiography of a Xenomorph.

42. Chapter 42: Wooby Worm

Still didn't know what was going on.

It seemed I had somehow traded bodies with Sarah, but knew not why or how.

My soft child hands probably shouldn't have been able to rip out anyone's throat, especially the throat of a machine, but it came right out, white coolant spraying me in the face.

I reflected that maybe I should have watched this `Resident Evil' film, to learn what it was that a clone did and what its purpose was, but, alas, a little too late for me to find out.

The android could still function, even without a throat.

Worse, she looked angry now, intent on cutting open my skull without anesthetics.

The saw came on with a high pitched whine, blade spinning into a fuzzy gray circle.

I tried to squirm out of the robot's iron grip, but, being just a little girl, I found it easier to tear out her throat than fight against those mechanical arms.

With my airways thus limited, little glowing sparkly things flitted through my field of vision. Then, my life actually did flash before my eyes.

Well, Sarah's did.

Honestly, pretty sad and pathetic.

While I had spent months in Rosedale Square, she had spent years.

The blade came closer. My sensitive skin could feel the subtle tingle as it disturbed the air particles close to my scalp.

I remembered places, people, relationships, entire seasons programmed into Sarah's Rosedale Square, more than I could have ever dreamed of, with Mara, Bishop and Call conveniently inserted into the story to transition her into reality. More than a decade of educational material packaged in fiction. A lifetime isolated from a real mother's loving embrace.

I cried at the thought, but forced myself to focus.

I had to focus, or die at the robot's hands.

The tingle quickly progressed to a stinging burn when the saw cut into my skin.

I yelped, an automatic response to the intense pain.

The lights dimmed, the blade stopping harmlessly on my flesh.

The saw appeared to require a large amount of power, so the android couldn't just substitute power from her own body. Fortunately, she didn't bring along a portable backup generator or a car battery for the equipment, or I may not have survived to tell the tale.

In haste, I grabbed the saw with both hands, twisting it with all the strength I could muster from my frail little body.

The lights came back on, and so did the spinning blade.

The robot had tremendous strength but somehow I maneuvered the saw into her face, tearing a ragged hole through her cheek.

An unfairly balanced struggle of brawn. I screamed with the effort.

I kept pushing.

And pushing.

Not sure how I managed to accomplish the feat, but somehow I got the saw through her upper palate, and part of her brain.

Sparks flew and fluid gushed out. The android's body froze like a sculpture.

At this point, the saw got stuck. Since the device had been designed to cut through skulls, I doubted it a fault of the equipment, just my prone position and being too physically undeveloped to push it any further. Or maybe the power cut off during the attempt.

The android still blinked, fingers still squeezing my throat, but they had slowed, as if made of molasses. Her other hand latched onto the saw, attempting to dislodge it from her head.

With considerable effort, I pried her hand away, then, with twice as much effort, shoved her off of me.

As soon as I got free, I made use of the springy qualities of the bed, and my even springier legs, to jump on the robot's back, and with another war cry, twisted her neck until it broke off.

The body slumped on the bed, spilling milky fluid all over the blankets.

The activity had been quite tiring, and I would have just laid on the slimy bed and rested, had I not feared for the lives of my companions...and my other body, still presumably strapped to a lab table.

Gasping and panting for breath, I marched to the door, but, unsurprisingly, it didn't open.

I checked the robot's pockets for a key, but I found nothing. It seemed Call used something in her machinery to unlock things.

What to do...

My mind relaxed, allowing Sarah's memories to wash over me again.

Maria from Rosedale Square. Alive.

Muppet birthday parties, Mara present in the background.

Always Mara. Or one of the other robots.

Then I saw myself naked in a tank, squirming to get free, pulling out probes. I broke out, standing dripping cold and wet on the carpet.

I shook myself, returning my thoughts to escape.

The Van Gogh was, in fact, could be removed from the wall, but my attempts to smash the window with it only resulted in a broken masterpiece.

I grabbed Call's disembodied head, tugging on the bone saw. After three or four tries, I got the thing out, and after waiting through another brownout, I pressed the saw against the glass.

Didn't know about its safety switch, which had been inadvertently bumped into the on position until I pulled the trigger a few times and found nothing happening. The moment I corrected the mistake and pulled the trigger again, it came on so suddenly that I screamed. Lucky thing my head hadn't been anywhere near it at the time.

I discovered the device could slice through more than bone. Despite it creating an amazing shower of sparks, and cutting with agonizing slowness, I succeeded in fashioning a sort of crude dog door at the bottom right corner of the window.

The square of glass dropped outside with a quiet thud.

I jumped through the hole, which proved to be a painful experience. Rubbing my head, I reached through the window and grabbed my weapon, yanking its cord from the wall.

Yes, pretty useless without an outlet, but I guessed I could make a bolo out of it or something.

I wanted to forget the children and run away (with or without my old body I couldn't decide) but that would not have been Christian-like. I had to save the other children before even thinking of my own.

I ran to the nurse's station, peering at the monitors again.

It took awhile of standing on my tiptoes, but I managed to figure out how to cycle through cameras.

I stared at a screen in surprise.

Right behind me, a few feet down the hall from me, stood Rebecca, casually licking a lollipop.

I whirled around and faced her, overjoyed. "Rebecca! You're all right!" I gave her a great big hug.

Amazing experience, hugging. I can see why humans do it so much. "How did you get out?"

She looked troubled for a moment. "The man gave me a shot and told me to go home." She shrugged. "Did you take your shot yet?"

Gut instinct told me saying no would be a tremendously bad idea. "Yes," I lied.

Too late. Newt's selective brain surgery had been a success. I stared at her with horror and pity. "Where's Kihoon?"

Blank stare. "Who?"

I frowned. "You don't know who Kihoon is."

That troubled look again. She licked the sucker.

I sighed in disappointment. "Never mind."

I returned my attention to the monitors, flipping through camera views.

Not difficult to spot an oddball among the clones. The solitary black haired tan skinned boy stood out like a sore claw.

I stared into his room, a place scattered with destroyed paintings and bed covers. A flood of water gushed from the bathroom. A free standing closet had fallen over, a pair of feet sticking out from underneath like the Wicked Witch of the East.

Although I saw him alone, something didn't look right.

Without thinking, my hands typed in a keyboard sequence. It seemed I, or Sarah, had done this before.

Kihoon's door clicked open, but he remained motionless in his chair.

Checking a computerized room map (another thing I seemed to have done before) I located the connecting hallway, opening its entrance with a few simple keyboard presses.

I rushed down the hallway as quickly as the little girl body could take me, dashing through the first open door I saw.

The correct room. The boy sat in a wood and leather chair, his head wrapped with bandages.

"Kihoon!" I shouted.

The boy didn't respond.

I'd arrived far too late.

He had put up a struggle, and they rewarded him with `the direct approach.'

Kihoon slouched like a vegetable, his neck tilted sideways at an awkward angle, a string of saliva dribbling out of his gaping mouth, oozing down his chin. The pose reminded me of Stephen Hawking.

The boy stared absently at a wall, showing no signs of recognizing me.

"Kihoon?"

He acted like I wasn't there. He only let out a stupid chuckle, drooling like a baby.

I grabbed his hand. "Kihoon! It's me! Sarah! Please! Say something!"

The boy just blinked, eyes never departing from that blank spot on the wall.

I broke into tears.

Crying. I'd always wondered what that felt like. Rather an annoyance, actually. Blurs your vision and doesn't exactly feel good on your skin.

Rebecca, who had followed me there, stood in the doorway, staring at the boy with the mystified expression of a preschooler trying to figure out Einstein's theory of Special Relativity. "Is that Kihoon?"

I nodded. "He's our friend."

"Why does he look like that?"

"Someone hurt him," I sobbed. "He's gone."

Now that he had no secret knowledge, or a brain for that matter, I figured the androids wouldn't hurt him, and they probably knew how to care for a vegetable better than anyone.

I left him in the room, wiping my eyes several times as I shut the door, hurrying back down the hallway.

A Mara machine caught me halfway to the exit. "Well, hello, Sarah!" she said in a condescending tone. "Have we taken our medicine yet?"

I nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

She frowned. "It's not nice for children to lie to their mothers!"

I whipped the bone saw around my head by its cord, striking her in the skull.

When Mara hit the floor, I forgot being human and tried to melt her with saliva. Not terribly effective.

Not having access to a wall outlet, I ended up using the saw like a crude ax, removing her head with blows from the blade.

When I at last reached the security door, it had slammed shut, but my brain possessed the codes to reopen it.

I quickly raced to the location of my other body's imprisonment.

Locked, of course.

"You need a key?" Rebecca said behind me.

I nodded. "Yes please."

She handed me a plastic card, but as the door opened, she muttered, "That's not the way out."

I stepped inside. "I know."

The moment Rebecca saw the tanks full of Sarah clones, she froze, possessed by a sort of catatonia. Her face looked troubled again, like someone trying to start up a car engine with a missing battery cable. Her lollipop fell to the carpet.

Hoping the exposure would restore her missing memories, I left her there, rushing down the staircase to rescue myself.

I swiped the card in the door at the precise moment that the power went out. The card didn't work, but the door opened anyway.

I entered a dimly lit room. The power appeared to be staying off.

My body sat on its haunches next to one of the pregnant adult Sarahs. My other self had removed the human's IV tubes, watching the woman hopefully. All around on the floor I could see the bodies of my robotic captors.

"The mommies aren't waking up," my nonhuman body said.

"At least those robots didn't hurt you."

Ss'sik'chtokiwij Sarah nodded. "They tried, but I spitted and attacked one with a thingy from my mouth. It was hard, but I even spitted on my handcuffs and got them off, too. I can unscrew things with my claws."

She let out the sort of whine I stopped making the moment I grew up. "My tummy's hurting. I'm so hungry that I want to eat one of these mommies."

"I know," I sighed. "But you must be strong." I glanced at the pool of coolant on the floor, the machine bodies with their vital components savagely ripped out. "Stronger. `If food is a cause of my brother's falling, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall.'"

She nodded. "1 Corinthians 8. You're right. I don't want to hurt people, or give other aliens the wrong idea."

I smiled at her expanded depth of biblical insight. "Nor do I. We must find you the kind of meat humans enjoy. Until then, we must fast."

"I know how to do something," Ss'sik'chtokiwij Sarah said. "I think it might help us."

I glanced anxiously around the room. "Does it involve us getting out of here?"

She shook her head. "No, but it's important."

"Show me later. When it's safe."

We hurried back out.

Rebecca still stood in a bewildered trance in front of the tanks. "I don't know why, but this all seems familiar..."

She glanced at my alien counterpart. "What's that thing?"

"That's me. It's Ernie. Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. We, uh switched bodies."

My other self nodded. "This body feels weird."

Rebecca grinned. "Like an alien Freaky Friday?"

I didn't know what that meant. "Maybe?"

"Ernie..." Rebecca struggled to make the connection. "You...play chess, don't you?"

I nodded, but `Ernie' just looked confused.

"That's the one," I said. "That's me. Er, her, I mean."

"We should go," Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik Sarah said.

"Yes." I grabbed Rebecca's hand. "Your parents have to be worried sick!"

I thought about Kihoon and cried again. "C'mon."

We hurried up the curving tunnel, out to the main hallway.

A pair of Mara androids shouted for us to stop, but nonhuman Sarah ripped them apart, and we fled back into the base.

The building, of course, had little illumination, and the air felt stuffy. I frowned. "We'd better work on getting Barbara back together."

"Wait!" said alien Sarah. "What if those ladies follow us?"

"Then we'll have to kill them."

"I hope it won't come to that."

I thought about Kihoon. "Yeah. I hope so too."

"What about those things?" Rebecca asked, pointing to my other body. "Like Ernie. There's more than just...her. Are we safe out here?"

"We should be. But let me take you somewhere safe, just in case."

I tripped and fell over a wrench, bringing Rebecca down with me.

"Ernie?" I called. "I mean, Sarah? I need your night vision."

Sarah offered me her tail. "Hold onto this. I'll lead you to the stairs."

We blindly stumbled up a floor, and after a few moments of disoriented shuffling, returned to the medical bay.

As we entered the room, the lights came on, but they looked dull and muted, like someone neglected to change the tubes. Backup power only, I guessed.

"Sarah?" Mara cried with worried desperation in her voice.

"Mom!"

A red LED in the dark indicated my Mara, not a brain surgeon robot. I ran to her, climbing up the side of a cabinet to give her a hug. "You got your body fixed."

Mara nodded. "I attached my central processor to an inactive unit." She stroked my hair. "I was so worried about you. My system was so tied up with maintaining the power that I lost track of you. And then, when they told me you were dead, I just...I just didn't know if I could go on."

Mara kissed me. I thought I even felt tears dripping on my skin. "Oh my daughter, my dear sweet daughter! Don't ever leave me again!"

I nodded. "Yes, mom."

"When I'm done with the repairs, I want you to tell me all about what happened."

"Repairs? Like fixing the power plant?"

"No. I must attend to other repairs on the base." She frowned, twitched and spasmed. "I do not have the necessary programming to repair the geothermal plant. Also, there may still be hazardous extraterrestrial lifeforms inside. If this unit is destroyed, you and Rebecca will have no adult supervision. Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik must locate Barbara's body and return it to her head in Med Lab."

I nodded. "I'll tell you everything that happened when you're finished with your work. Mom, I love you."

She kissed my head.

Now, as a human, our relationship began to make more sense. Mr. Hansen had `adopted' the Sarah clone, so to speak. Lacking a wife, he used a robot to play the role of mother.

I knew nothing of his involvement in the Damballah Project, but it seemed to have something to do with raising the girl like a normal person.

This robot, this Mara, was, and always would be the only mother she would ever know.

Wonderful, therefore, to finally reconcile their differences...Well, unless the pregnant `mommy' clones woke up. "Mom, I need you to watch Rebecca. She...hit her head, and I'm not sure if she'll be safe alone."

Mara smiled. "Don't worry. I'll watch out for your friend."

She hurried us out into the base, directing us to crew quarters while she marched off...somewhere else.

Alien Sarah, Rebecca and I returned to Mr. Hansen's dwelling, closing the door.

I turned to face my other body. "It's safe now. What did you want to show me?"

Sarah distended her jaw, and a large flatworm thing slithered out of her mouth, a series of tapeworm-like tentacles extending from the flatworm's head.

"How did you do that!" I cried. "I mean, how? It's my own body, and you, you..."

She sucked the creature back in. "I...I don't know. I guess I was...kinda sorta trying to figure out your private parts, and it came out."

"I thought we just stuck a suaakudsi in a victim's throat and deposited eggs!"

She shrugged. "I dunno. I didn't say it was a private part, I just said it was there when I was looking for them."

I scrunched up my face, another odd thing I could do with my current body. "Why where you looking for my privates?"

"I had to pee, and I was trying to figure out what muscle to use. Also, I was curious. This isn't my body, you know."

"Okay. That's great. Let me know if you figure out a gland that turns topsoil into meat."

"There's more. I think this...thingy...with the worms...it's a communication device."

You might think it unusual for a human child to speak like that, but she was in my brain, and she'd been speaking Ss'sik'chtokiwij at the time.

I gawked at her. "Communication? With what?"

"Sit in front of me."

I did what she asked.

Ss'sik'chtokiwij Sarah crept closer, dropping her jaw again.

I trembled as she brought the flatworm thing nearer, but I trusted she would never intentionally harm me.

She couldn't talk with that organ in the way. The time for questioning had passed. I could only hold still, and trust.

I shivered involuntarily as the thing touched my face. I found the strange combination of sensations on my bare skin both disgusting and thrilling.

Multiple exterior nerve endings! Working in tandem! No wonder humans were so passionate and irrational!

The thing crawled up my face on a trail of sticky slime that tingled and irritated my flesh.

Clusters of worms wiggled over my lips, squirming up inside my nasal passages.

"What!" I exclaimed. Sarah only purred, unable to speak with all that in her mouth.

The worms dug deeper, and I saw stars.

When the flashing sparkles passed, I found myself in a place both I and Sarah found comfort in, the quiet corn field beside the wooden cabin in Rosedale Square.

We stood in a place of the mind, distant from the realities of time and space.

Having never understood the purpose of clothing, my human form appeared unclothed in this mental construct, the cool breeze tingling my bare skin. My Ss'sik'chtokiwij form, of course, never wore clothes.

Still locked together by the worms, we stared each other down, seeking avenues into each other's minds. We both felt miserable in our new bodies. We'd familiarized ourselves with every significant facet of our new bodies, enough to become sick of them. We had to get our original bodies back, or continue to be miserable.

"I don't like fasting," Sarah complained in my mind. "Your tummy is too big. I don't know how you stand it."

"And I don't know how you stand the cold. It's never warm enough. I didn't have to worry about that much before. Even now, it's way too cold."

Sarah giggled. "That's why you wear clothing, silly!"

"It feels strange. I'm not used to all these sensations. It's overwhelming."

"You like hugs, don't you?"

I blushed. "Yes, but you're weak! People can take advantage of me! I don't like it."

"When I get older, I'll be strong."

"We're both a lot alike. We both live sheltered lives."

She smiled. "There's still time to change that."

"Mother never told me about this discovery of yours. It's part of my body, and I don't even know what it's supposed to be called!"

"We can make up a name. How about the Wooby Worm?"

"Um...okay," I muttered. "Sarah, do you happen to know why they cloned you?"

"No. I think it may be to cure a disease or something."

"What makes you say that?"

She sighed. "That was the strange thing about my Rosedale Square. It seemed like once a week, someone was telling me about a disease, or talking about how I should be a doctor. There was always someone sick, someone...who just happened to need a sample of my blood. Because it was rare or something."

The moment she mentioned this, my mind recalled one of her memories of a red puppet lying in a hospital bed, being treated for cancer. A yellow one with bushy eyebrows, as I remember, had AIDS.

A horse trough full of water stood next to the cabin. When I glanced at the water, my reflection changed from that of a little girl to a large guinea pig in a lab, and back to human again. I shook my head sadly. "Do you know how we can go back to our original bodies?"

"Maybe we're supposed to...trade balls."

I giggled. It seemed I had absorbed her sense of humor or something.

"Sorry. That came out wrong."

"The orbs, you mean."

She nodded.

"But they're in us. How do we get them back out?"

"We created them. They're ours to control at will."

"But I ate your memories."

"You can un-eat them."

"How? Your memory is in my body, and mine yours!"

"Relax, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. Focus. Just like Call told us."

I concentrated, and, slowly but surely, the mental Ss'sik'chtokiwij egg I created drifted out of Sarah's chest. Well, my chest, I suppose.

At the same time, my original body gagged, coughed and hacked out a white cue ball.

I reached for the Ss'sik'chtokiwij egg, but then stopped myself when I noticed my hands.

"Careful. Grab the wrong one and we'll be back where we started."

I tried again, focusing on the cue...

"Wait. Right now, as you, if I grab the cue, wouldn't that make you me?"

"Yes. And me you."

I growled in frustration. "Is that what we want?"

"I don't know. Is it? I mean, this isn't a terrible body..."

"No..." I paused. "But what happens to me when I cease being you?"

"Hopefully you'll go back to where you're supposed to."

I swallowed. "This doesn't make sense. I already ate the cue. That's how I got into this mess to begin with."

"But you're in my body, so that's actually the one I need to grab to make me me."

When the cue came floating away from her, I grabbed it.

At the same exact time, Sarah mirrored me, reaching for the socmavaj egg.

An electric jolt coursed through my body, an explosive force causing us to fly away from each other.

I found myself sprawled on the concrete floor of the medical bay. I touched my body and felt a covering of hard chitinous plates. Thank you Lord, I thought.

The Wooby Worm crawled back inside my mouth again, but I knew how to summon it now.

I rolled to my feet, staring at my little human friend with newfound respect.

"Does this make me an honorary Ss'sik'chtokiwij?" she said in my language, her speech flawless.

"You are as true a Ss'sik'chtokiwij as my sisters," I replied in like tongue.

She smiled at this.

I faced the door. "We must help Barbara fix the power."

Sarah's smile dropped. "How do we do that?"

It seemed not all of my memories had transferred.

The task ahead of us proved to be deceptively simple.

I had no difficulty retrieving the robot's body. Since the plant no longer had a door, I only had to climb across the fragments of concrete, clomp down some walkways and carry out the headless machine.

The plant had deteriorated rapidly in my absence.. Most of the lights remained dim and darkened, the main source of illumination being the volcano.

Sarah wanted to help, but I couldn't find the gas masks, so I ordered her to stay outside.

Exhaust fans only worked intermittently, meaning that fumes had been flowing into the base for some time.

I supposed, in itself, that wasn't a total catastrophe, as the doors to the rest of the facility remained sealed, everyone on the power plant side too dead to care what they didn't breathe. Even the Sarah clones rested safely behind a security door. That only left my human sister and Rebecca to worry about. Still, incentive enough.

As soon as she got repaired, Barbara would have her work cut out for her. The machines had frozen haphazardly in a wide assortment of useless and ineffective positions. Some parts had fallen into the lava, and, of course, we had machines hidden inside the walls, or stuck halfway into the wall, the retracting mechanisms having at last surrendered to burned out or damaged motors.

Not positive, but it seemed that the water distribution system had also broken, decreasing the amount of steam, and sparks shot out of a few turbines, indicating that spinning fan blades may not have been enough to restore power, even if the lava hadn't been at its ebb.

Barbara's body still lay where Mother left it, the blood of Kihoon's mother and white robot coolant swirling together beneath her like old strawberry yogurt.

Even without its head, the android's body wasn't exactly light, but at least I didn't have to scale a vertical wall to move her.

As I lifted my burden over my shoulder plates, I sensed motion. I dropped the robot again.

My night vision caught the heat signature of an eight legged object hurriedly darting toward the ragged hole that served as the plant's entrance.

"Stop!" I shouted, running after it. "Shadrach, come back here!"

The socmavaj sensed the children, and wanted to lay eggs. I couldn't let that happen.

I ran and jumped, closed the gap. My claws clamped down on the creature's tail.

"You can't be running outside, Shadrach!" I yelled as I scoldingly dangled her upside-down. "It's a no-no! I have friends who don't want to be egg receptacles!"

I couldn't tell if Shadrach understood. Mostly she just tried to wiggle away from me.

When I laid her on the floor, she scampered toward the hole again.

"No!" I yelled, stomping her tail. "Bad socmavaj!"

The creature slumped on the concrete in surrender, but the moment I let go, it tried to escape once more.

I picked her up and shook her violently. "No! You can't go out there! Leave the humans alone! You hear me! Leave the humans alone!"

The socmavaj snapped her legs angrily, trying to whip her tail. Without tails, these creatures had few defenses. While they do have an egg laying organ with which to attack, using it on me would have been...unnatural.

"Shadrach," I whimpered. "I don't want to throw you in the lava. You seem like a nice socmavaj. Could you please refrain from running outside and hurting my friends?"

The socmavaj stopped squirming, appearing to understand, but the moment I put her down...

I grabbed her, scowling at her disobediently squirming legs. It seemed, for all intents and purposes, a socmavaj was nothing but mindless Ss'sik'chtokiwij genitals on legs, understanding nothing except the urge to reproduce.

It sorrowed my heart to destroy this thing that the Lord had spared, but there didn't appear to be any options. The creature had a relentless drive to lay eggs, and had to be stopped. I threw it into the magma.

I picked up Barbara's body, tried to move it again, but when I had gone a couple steps, I glimpsed another socmavaj scurrying toward the exit.

Like her sister, I caught Meshach by her tail, attempting to talk some sense into her little brain, hoping desperately for a change of heart, or obedience at least.

She failed to obey, joining Shadrach in the magma. If the Lord wanted them to crawl out of that alive, I thought, I'd be pleased to see them live up to their names.

Taking the proactive approach, I checked the other eggs.

Mother had laid a total of eight eggs, two of which I had destroyed with Molotov cocktails. Counting the two I'd already thrown below, that left me four to deal with.

I lifted one off its bed of sticky slime.

Heavy. Twice as heavy as a human, due to all the yellow birthing fluid mom's body pumped into it.

Straining with the effort, I lifted the egg, staggering to the edge of the concrete.

I didn't so much throw as roll the weighty thing over the edge.

Its blackened neighbor seemed lighter, perhaps due to the fluid draining out through a burn hole in the bottom. Like its predecessor, the socmavaj inside had been hard boiled before it could run around and cause damage. I sent it to join its companion.

When I carried the next egg to the ledge, a slender pink `finger' attempted to push out through its slime caked top flaps. I dumped it below.

I took a shortcut on the next one, puncturing it on the bottom to drain the fluid out.

Unfortunately, this provoked the socmavaj to emerge early, so I had to heft the egg, as-is, to the edge, dripping slime as I went, like a child with a ripped bag of sugar.

The moment I pushed it off the side, I slipped on the ooze and fell on my back. Getting up felt like recreating the ice skating scene from Bambi. It would have been humorous had I not been performing these shenanigans so close to an unsecured ledge above a volcano.

I shakily regained my footing, working my way around the slime to the remaining eggs.

I picked up the next egg, took one look at the slime and set the egg down.

One word popped into my head: Toboggan.

I scooted the egg onto the slippery slime, gave it a vigorous shove, and it soared off the walkway like a cannonball.

Two left.

When I attempted to dispose of the subsequent egg in a similar fashion, I found the flaps already open, the creature's legs protruding, ready to climb out.

"No no no!" I scolded, shutting the flaps. "You stay there! Just a little longer!"

I used a glob of saliva to patch it shut, whimpering a little when I thought about how I'd just literally `sealed its fate.'

I got more distance with this one, probably because I didn't want the socmavaj getting out.

Bang! I heard the egg striking a hollow metallic object, then a crunching sound like the front end of a car smashing into a semi. A huge cloud of black vapor erupted from the depths.

I peered over the edge. The loose ladder and a bunch of electrical machinery had disappeared, leaving only bolts and fragments of shredded metal in their place.

One egg to go.

`Abednego', I assumed its name to be, though clearly more than three had survived the Molotov cocktails.

It's all alone, I thought.

The last one.

The last egg mother ever made. I thought it a shame to destroy it.

Yet, if it got out, it would hurt someone. How would I solve this dilemma? Could I cage it somewhere? Like they'd caged me?

The Biology lab seemed like miles away. Abednego would get out. Already I could see the folds of the egg stretching.

I searched around the transformers for an appropriate prison, but found none.

I marched back and forth, visual receptors constantly glancing at a heavy steel locker.

Aha.

I unlocked it with the key dangling from its side, looking in.

Equipment. Tools, gas masks, shelving.

Excellent, I thought, dragging the egg to its doors.

The flaps on the egg puffed open, threads of yellowish slime stretching from their surfaces like a wad of chewing gum on the bottom of a shoe, or sticky white fly paper.

"No no no!" I cried.

Too late. The socmavaj burst from its egg, landing on my back.

To my surprise, it didn't try to go anywhere, it just crawled up my spine, embracing my body.

Sort of...adorable. I viewed it like you might view being hugged by a baby.

More importantly, it didn't try to run anywhere.

This behavior made me change my mind about them being mindless reproductive agents. I therefore felt even more eager to ensure this socmavaj's safety.

Singing Robert Glasper's Afro Blue as a lullaby, I lowered the creature inside the egg like it were a crib, sealing the flaps closed around it. I then emptied the locker of anything a human could possibly need from it.

After ripping out a few shelves, I had a working cage for Abednego. I shoved the socmavaj inside, slammed and locked the door shut, scratching the following message across the doors:

DO NOT OPEN! DEADLY ALIEN INSIDE!

I added a crude skull and crossbones, in case they couldn't read my chicken scratches.

It looked like something Winnie the Pooh would write, but I couldn't do any better. I could only pray they took it seriously.

I hefted the robot onto my back. At long last, I could complete the mission I and everyone else had fought so bitterly to complete.

After a few long minutes of slowly lugging her decapitated body down the walkways, I at last reached the entrance, negotiating the hole in the floor. I had little difficulty getting her to the medical bay, especially with my two little friends assisting me.

Mara disengaged herself from the computer system to assist us with reattaching Barbara's head. In between her robot eye and my heat vision, we didn't need a light.

Sarah's mechanical mother used lasers, medical tools, and a few odds and ends she'd pocketed from the tool room to secure the head back on, but Barbara still lacked important components.

We went on a convoluted treasure hunt across the base. With the children armed with flashlights and the cel phone the dead Sarah had left charging in the lab, we traveled from room to room, gathering strange unfamiliar looking bits of metal and plastic objects.

As we worked, I noticed the girls becoming very...drowsy.

At first, I assumed them merely exhausted from their harrowing adventures, but Mara said the ventilation system hadn't been functioning. They were slowly asphyxiating. She directed us to some oxygen equipment, and the girls regained their liveliness.

The automation room looked pretty much like a warehouse in a cave. Androids stood rigid in rows of metal coffins, eyes closed, as if asleep. Electrostatic free work stations blocked up the floor like some big aircraft company's electronics department, piles of unfinished products scattered along the tables. It seemed no one had activated a cleaning robot for some time.

Mara, Bishop and Call units stared back at me, menacing me with their blank expressionless faces. I hissed and backed out.

"They won't hurt you," our Mara said, instructing me on which cabinets to ransack.

I had difficulty finding what we wanted on the messy, cluttered shelving. "Couldn't we just take off one of these robots' heads and replace it with Barbara's?"

"That option has been considered, as well as the option of transferring Barbara's operation matrix to another vehicle, but OM transfers can take days, and the body we have will be perfectly serviceable once the neck has been repaired."

It took us hours, but we at last got all the parts necessary to reassemble our repair woman, and, with the aid of a quart of green battery chemical, we had the android on her feet, running to the power station.

Rebecca, Sarah and I followed behind, watching her restore the machinery with astonishing speed.

Inhaling oxygen from her self contained apparatus in calm, even breaths, Sarah took my claw in one hand, holding it lovingly.

This is not the end of my tale, for I have not yet begun to describe my encounters with Rebecca's parents, nor the uncouth but courageous "spacemarines".