Chapter three: Rude Awakening ~
"What is your name?"
Brown eyes look condescendingly into stark blue, an expression of irritation hanging from her mouth as she responds to the woman's question.
"Ripley. Ellen Ripley."
A note is taken on the woman's company data pad, the worn stylus scratching unpleasantly against the glass.
"Your full name, please?"
She clenches her jaw and takes a deep breath.
"Ellen Louise Ripley."
She isn't sure how much more she can take of this. Ever since being transported from her stasis pod, Ellen Ripley had gone from hospital bed, to morgue (just a few minutes, or so she'd been told), to hospital bed again when her life signs miraculously flared back up. And now that she was awake, and it had become common knowledge that she had all of her senses about her, she had been bounced from one shrink to the next.
Doctors, checkups, psychiatrists, and even company big wigs had swarmed her from the second she'd opened her damned eyes, and no one would tell her why. So far, there'd been three medical checkups, two psychiatric evaluations, and now this company Barbie Doll. And where the hell was her cat?
"And your title?" Blue eyes asks, calm as can be.
Ripley blinks, not amused. "Warrant Officer."
"Very good. And what about your-"
"I am Warrant Officer Ellen Louise Ripley, third commanding officer of the commercial starship Nostromo. My birthday is January 7th, 2092, and my serial number is 5156170. I have two ex-husbands and a daughter, Amanda Ripley, who I'd like to see very much." Pausing, she adds, "And my cat. Now can I go now, or would you like my company shareholdings as well?"
Blue Eyes blinks at her, taken aback by her snappish behavior. Ripley slowly sits back in her seat and the woman across from her looks once more over her notes, setting her stylus down before locking eyes with her again.
"Miss Ripley; are you aware of the nature of our business here today?"
Ripley's face twitches at the false kindness in her tone. "No."
Blue eyes looks off to the side of the room, formulating a reply. "When you went into hypersleep, your stasis pod malfunctioned. That's why there have been so many people wanting to get a look at you." She waits for Ripley to respond, and when she doesn't, she leans across the table, a more serious expression on her face. "Ripley; you now hold the world record for longest recorded hypersleep."
Ellen blinks, kicking back in her chair and crossing her arms nonchalantly as she processes what she's just said. Shrugging, she says, "Okay. Well, how long has it been? Six months? Eight? Nine?"
Blue Eyes purses her lips, no doubt pausing for dramatic effect. "Fifty-seven years. It's 2179."
Ellen Ripley's face pales, at first from shock and then disbelief. Before she realizes what she's doing, she's reaching across the table and snatching the datapad from Blue Eyes's hands, searching wildly for today's date. She swipes down, focuses on the top corner of the screen...
And there it was.
May 9th, 2179.
The bitch was right.
Tears prick at her eyes as the weight of everything comes crashing down on her. Fifty-seven years! How was that possible? She had floated in space for that long? She hardly felt a day older, let alone six decades. She had been so sure, felt so much relief at having survived the nightmare that was planet LV-426. So sure that she was gonna calm down, go to sleep, and wake up to see Amanda's sweet little face.
Oh, God...
A heavy 'thunk' resonates on the metal alloy table as she drops the tablet and brings her hands up to cover her mouth.
Amanda...
Her eyes water and spill over, her heart feeling as though it's caving in on itself. Was she still alive? What must she have thought when she hadn't come back? What had the company told her? Certainly, they would have been the ones to reach out and make contact.
Who had raised her? Who had taken care of her? Who had been there to hold her when she cried and laughed when she was happy? How did she turn out, knowing the one person she had been told her whole life she could always count on had broken her promise?
"It was gonna be her birthday...I told her I'd be home...I told her I'd make it home..."
Appearing suddenly uncomfortable at such a strong display of emotion, Blue Eyes tries to smooth things over. She scoots back from her chair and stands, wiping her hands along her spotless, wrinkle-free skirt. "I apologize. I'm sorry for your loss. I'll leave you be."
She picks up her data pad and stylus along with her physical dossier and exits the room, the automatic door whooshing behind her. She leaves Ripley for an admittedly respectable amount of time, and when the door opens again, it's not her that returns, but a man in a black suit.
"Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley?"
She looks up, wipes the tear tracks from her cheeks and sits up straight. "Yes?"
"The Board would like to speak to you now. If you would, please."
The added 'please' at the end is really company talk which roughly translates to 'now, and you have no say in it'. She knows. She's always known. Weyland-Yutani had seemed like such a godsend, such an easy blessing for a single mother strapped for cash and trying to provide a better life for her daughter. But just like every other relationship in her life, she'd been let down and left high and dry in Shit Creek with no paddle, no raft, and certainly no help. Almost from the beginning, Ripley has had to learn to not only swim, but swim alone. Had she had the hindsight, she never would have signed on with them and their bullshit.
Wonderful, she thinks. She can't even be left to cry in peace.
Scooting out of her seat, the metal legs of the chair scrape against the linoleum floor in a most unpleasant way, but the suit doesn't so much as wince as she rises to meet his height.
He turns and she follows, wishing desperately above all else that she could just go back to sleep.
