A/N: 09/29/2024 Man I suck at updating across all platforms. Sorry about that.
Disclaimer: I do not own Aliens.
Chapter fourteen: No Harm Prescribed~
It takes quite some time for Bishop to locate Ripley after his meeting with Burke, Carter J.
He'd tried her work first, as they had a verbal agreement to meet during her lunch period, but she was nowhere to be found. Upon checking with her supervisor, Dean, he learns that Ripley never showed up today, and that he had her logged as a no-call, no-show. Her first absence since she'd taken up the job. With this new knowledge, Bishop makes his way toward her apartment, finding no remnants of her whatsoever save for Jonesy. He makes his way to the Gardens. No such luck. Fearing the worse, he tries Health & Wellness, surmising that perhaps she'd injured herself, be it purposely or otherwise. Negative. After that, the Food Court. After exhausting all of the other logical places for a woman like her to be, he goes to the last place on his list: the Shopping District.
He spots her in a clothing store, perusing a sales rack. There is a bundle of rather colorful articles draped over her left arm. Surprising, even to him. Satisfied to find her safe and unharmed, he enters the store, passing by the complimentary fountain with all manner of coins tossed into it, an old human tradition. A young man is standing nearby, attempting to pass out flyers advertising the decommissioning of all synthetics. He pays him no mind as he walks by, though the adolescent glares quite pointedly at him.
There is a ceremonious ding! as he passes through the threshold announcing his arrival. The woman behind the counter looks up, and upon seeing that her new customer is an android, goes back to what she was previously doing and does not bother to greet him. This is fine, he decides, because she is not the human he wishes to speak to anyway.
Ripley is well aware of his presence, she simply chooses to ignore him with a more pointed vehemence than the woman working at the checkout station.
"There you are." He greets, walking up to her. He is somewhat surprised that she does not immediately begin to badger him with questions, knowing that he had intended on speaking with Burke today. He deducts that perhaps she's not letting herself get too hopeful; humans were fragile that way.
"Is everything alright? You were scheduled seven to five-thirty today."
"Took a personal day."
"I see…I did not expect to find you shopping."
Ellen pays him almost no mind, just moves another hanger along the rack. "Isn't that what normal people do with their days off? Buy stupid shit they don't need?"
Ouch, he imagines a fellow human responding. Such a cold and pessimistic response. It was good that she were speaking to him and not a member of her own species, as they would most certainly have taken offense to her tone. Logging away the data gathered from her interesting fashion choices, Bishop conducts a quick scan of the room before assessing what he is about to report back to her.
"I have spoken with Burke." A pause on the clearance rack, and her eyes shift upwards but she doesn't turn her head to meet him. He continues. "He suggests that in order for your daughter to be located, you need to demonstrate better progress in your therapy sessions."
A sound not dissimilar to nails on a chalkboard emit from the clothing rack as Ripley pushes the hanger in her hand from one end to the other as hard as she possibly can, metal scraping against metal. The sharp sound would have penetrated a human's ears most unpleasantly. Thankfully, Bishop does not have that problem.
Ellen is silent for a moment after that, her lips pursing tighter and tighter as she thinks rather than speaks. Bishop patiently waits for her.
"…Bishop? Are you telling me that in order to see my daughter again I have to pretend that those things don't exist? That all those colonists aren't in danger?"
Compiling all of the data gathered from Burke's meeting into his frontal processors, Bishop answers. "Yes. I'm afraid that is what I gathered from my meeting with him today."
The verbal confirmation is all it takes for Ellen to 'go over the edge' (he believes that is how most humans put it), and he finds that he is incorrect in his calculations of the chances of upsetting her to the extreme. She takes the few articles of clothing she'd had draped across her free arm and violently throws them to the ground, proceeding to storm out of the venue. The female worker shouts to reprimand her, but she's already halfway to the fountain. Bishop apologizes in her stead, picks up the clothes and hands them to the associate, and follows after the fuming woman.
"Ripley! Ripley!"
Catching up to her, he snags her bare arm in an attempt to slow her down. It works, but she is none too pleased at being halted.
"Ripley, I beg of you. Please take a breath."
The chances of Ellen Ripley actually listening to him, let alone heeding his words, are slim to none, but somehow the odds get flipped on their heads once again as she continues to do just that. What a strange human she was. She's wearing her joggers and tank top, a personal favorite of hers on her lazy days, though he's never seen her wear them anywhere except her apartment. His hand is cool on her warm skin, her body temperature above normal due to the sudden stress and exercise she'd previously demonstrated. He is unsure why, but he is compelled to face her squarely and raise his other hand to her opposite arm. When she makes neither a response nor gives any cues as to insinuate she does not want him touching her, he places both hands on her shoulders in a comforting gesture. She is 98.8 degrees.
That one human is still shouting his robotic dogma to all who can hear, and Bishop quickly assesses that they need to be in a quieter area for Ripley's wellbeing. By his calculations, she will be coming to her senses shortly and notice that his hands have been on her shoulders for far too long. Perhaps he will be wrong again.
"Can we speak further in a private area, Ripley? Can we discuss this?" She's looking at him but somehow her eyes don't quite register with his.
The adolescent male takes their nearby exchange as an opportunity to push his agenda.
He pushes none too gently against Ellen as he shoves an anti-android flyer into her body. The contact between them is broken as Ellen stumbles back a bit from the force of the thing being shoved at her, and Bishop's defense mechanisms kick in at full capacity, unable to stop himself; he tugs on Ripley's shirt to balance her and simultaneously grabs hold of the boy's arm, firmly fixing him in place and serving him with a warning look.
There is a moment of shocked silence before Bishop speaks, a few onlookers stopping in their tracks to observe the spectacle.
"You should be more mindful of others."
Facial recognition identifies the boy as Chandler Smathers, a known troublemaker among the various areas of the station. He would file a report about him later.
Recovering from his shock, Chandler finds his voice. "S…s-see, thi-this is why synthetics need to be banned! You all saw it, you saw the way he grabbed me! They're violent, they can't be trusted!"
A pair of law enforcement officers step out from the small crowd and take Chandler away, but Bishop does not stay to observe; he's too busy trying to relocate Ripley, who has once again disappeared.
Spying her at the elevators, he rushes to catch up with her, ultimately successful. The two ride up to the residential district in silence, the flyer crumpled in her fist beneath her crossed arms. Bishop wishes she'd throw it away.
When they reach her apartment, Jonesy is all over Bishop, much to Ellen's chagrin.
She stands at the table and empties her pockets, tossing the flyer, her keycard, wallet, and cigarettes, but she's careful to remove the photo of Amanda from her breast pocket. Bishop has no doubts she will observe the flyer more closely later, probably when she's alone. He hopes she doesn't, but his calculations are very, very low for that chance. He can only continue to pursue his mission, as well as his own personal agenda of changing her mind about his kind over time.
"So? What's the rest?"
Bishop responds readily to the cue to resume their conversation from the mall. "Burke has led me to believe that the company has great interest in keeping you silent, Ripley. They are pressuring him to deliver better reports regarding your case."
Jonesy circles Bishop's leg, and he picks him up. Ellen scoffs. "'Led you to believe'? I thought androids only dealt in cold, hard facts."
He gives Jonesy a much welcomed scratch beneath his chin. "This is merely what was insinuated to me. Burke was very vague."
She shakes her head. "Pfft. Of course. He doesn't want any accountability."
"Which leads me to another point of discussion-" she turns, faces him with an expression as though nothing he says could possibly surprise her at this point. "-I need to know if you are taking your medication, Ripley. The ones prescribed to you by Dr. Friedman."
Ripley's stance changes, her face becoming more guarded. "What do you think, Bishop?"
"I'd like to believe that you are taking the necessary steps to heal from your trauma. However, based on our interactions thus far, I would suspect that you dispose of them in the trash-" she smiles sardonically. "-or flush them down the toilet."
Her smile stops stretching then, and Bishop knows he is correct in his assumption. He is not disappointed - after all, he is a synthetic, and according to Ellen Ripley it is not possible for him to be so - but he does intend to sway her viewpoint on this subject, if nothing else.
He steps closer, Jonesy purring in his arms as he approaches his owner.
"May I see the bottles?"
She appears to do some calculating of her own before deciding to obey his request, and she disappears into the bathroom and comes back with the two medications in hand. Both bottles are not quite empty, which means that she must be making a daily routine of flushing one pill at a time. Bishop holds them at face level, Jonesy no longer purring now that he's stopped getting attention.
"Quetiapine. Brand name: Seroquel. Used to relieve symptoms of psychosis and paranoia. Common side effects include hypotension, lethargy, headaches, weight gain, insomnia, dizziness, and drowsiness." Ellen watches him like a predatory Earth bird as he twists the other label around to look at it. "Zolpidem. Brand name: Ambien. Used to treat anxiety-related sleeping disorders and insomnia. Side effects include diarrhea, drowsiness, nausea, headaches, fatigue, and dizziness."
Bishop hands the bottles back to her, which she takes surprisingly gently from him. "Ripley, these medications have existed for hundreds of years. They are quite safe for you to take and coincide perfectly with the problems that you are having. If you are worried about the side effects-"
"I'm not worried about the damned side effects," she snaps, turning back to the table and picking up her cigarettes and lighter. She bows her head and lights up, taking a drag and exhaling smoke. "I'm worried about what they don't tell me."
After failing to elaborate on the issue, Bishop is left to take an educated guess that she is concerned about there being another, more deeply rooted agenda associated with the pills, and that the company wishes to achieve an off-label use with her use of them. Although these kinds of thoughts fall perfectly into the uses of Seroquel: generic name Quetiapine and the reasons it was prescribed, he is not about to openly state this fact. Instead, Bishop chooses to offer her condolence and comfort in any way he can.
"Though I can't share any private patient information with you, I can share the statistics: approximately forty-two percent of the inhabitants on this station have been prescribed and are regularly taking the exact two medications that you have, with varying dosages."
Ellen smiles, fake at first but slowly becoming genuine. Bishop is puzzled. "Does this information amuse you?"
She shakes her head, sits down and sets the two prescription bottles on the table, takes another drag before responding. "Amanda, she…her favorite books were Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy."
He conducts a quick internal search. "By Douglas Adams."
She nods. "Yep. And forty-two, that's…that's the…um…"
"…The meaning of life." He finishes for her, quite amazed at the calculation himself. He is simultaneously speaking with Ellen whilst running an ongoing search for the book in the background of his processors. There is a physical copy available in one of the stores in the shopping district.
Ellen nods, her happy face melting away into one of sadness. She must be thinking of her daughter. "…Yeah."
Jonesy becomes fidgety and Bishop releases him, watching as the orange feline trots up to comfort his human. Bishop can relate.
Carefully, he approaches her, squatting down at her knees where the cat rests on her lap and looking up at her in what he hopes comes across as genuine earnest, because it is.
"Ripley, I-" Jonesy's tail flicks across his face, and, were he human, Bishop is certain he would have sneezed. Ellen chortles "-I am not going to report any of this to Burke. In fact, I am going to tell him that you are doing wonderfully, and have been diligently taking your medication since the day it was prescribed."
Ellen's brows twitch in confusion, her eyes questioning, suspicious. "Why?"
He is honest and blunt, just as she would want him to be. "Because after my meeting with him today, I cannot help but have a growing suspicion that you are in danger if I tell him otherwise. And I will not allow any harm to come to you."
Words sinking in, Ellen Louise Ripley relaxes - actually relaxes - in his presence. He wonders how she's managed to get this far without suffering from serious muscle cramps. "Thank you…Bishop."
The sound of his name being said without malice or sarcasm is really quite refreshing, dare he say wonderful. He hopes to only continue the nurturing and growth of the tiny bud of trust within her.
He takes his leave, vowing to see her again bright and early tomorrow morning (5:30am to be exact, as that is when she will be getting ready for work and he has always insisted on walking her) and Ripley spends the rest of her day watching television and laying in bed with Jonesy.
She takes the time to un-wrinkle the flyer that kid gave her (although 'give' was putting it lightly) and look it over, her face contorting the more she reads.'DEATH TO ALL ANDROIDS!!' It reads. 'DECOMMISSION NOW!!!'. There's a portrait of a Working Joe, as well as a few other models, though Bishop is not one of them. A short article about the use of Androids and their productivity versus human productivity is shown at the bottom, as well as incident statistics in the workplace and human deaths caused by faulty Androids. Shaking her head, she tosses it into the trash can but misses, bouncing into Jonesy's litter box instead.
Just as well.