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Alien Isolation

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Cario

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Kevin grunted as he focused on his game, the controller gripped tightly between both hands. He'd gotten the special one that worked with the computer, preferring that over using the keyboard and the mouse, but that didn't make the game any easier, particularly with the difficulty setting that he had put the Alien Isolation game, his favourite instalment from the Alien VS Predator series, onto. He rather liked a challenge, but it had been a long week too and he paused briefly, sweeping his fingers through his slightly longer hair, ruffling around his ears.

His apartment was filled with action figures and video game memorabilia that he had collected over the years, though he was to be praised for being such an avid collector, always looking for the rarest of items. They were very valuable already and he was sure that, one day, they would be worth even more, whether he needed to sell them to cover himself in a bad time or passed them on to his family.

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. Hm… He wasn't with anyone though, not right then, but that was okay. He was alright on his own too, but he couldn't help from sighing again, reminding himself, once more, that it had been an exceptionally long week.

“Maybe it is time to head to bed…"

He talked to himself, no one else there in the apartment but him, but it was good, at least, that Kevin had been able to afford a little place for himself. He had always tried to remind himself of the good things in life, what he had managed to accomplish for himself, for there were many in the world who were not as fortunate as him, who did not have what he had.

He groaned, turning off the computer and rising with a creaking sigh from the computer chair, shifting lightly on its wheels. Heading to bed, he stripped off down to his jogging bottoms, the loose, cotton pants that were soft and comfortable enough with an elastic waistband to sleep in.

It didn't take him long to drift off, though, before darkness claimed him in sweet slumber, Kevin chanced that he heard a call, just like the ones from the game, echo through his apartment…

*

_ _

The space station was not just any station – it was Sevastopol Station, no natural light reaching it, hanging in space with gravity keeping it where it was, where it had been built to orbit the gas giant KG-348. Built as if from three columns, connected by bridges, it had expanded over the ears, upwards, downwards and outwards, to cover the growing colony and the work that took place there. Though it was, predominantly, a research facility for the aliens and eggs too…

Of course, that didn't mean that accidents did not happen, even in a grey, forlorn atmosphere, people growing careless over time. Lights flickered where electricity was still generated, cut cables sparking and flashing in the corner of a corridor, down at the end where nobody went anymore. The hive had expanded after the incident, wiping out all inhabitants of the space station, though that had been their fault, initially, for bringing a drone onto the station itself.

Research, even for them, could only go so far.

Bodies lay cocooned to the resin walls of the hive, the hardened, black goo having spread through the station. Eggs grew in a hatchery that the alien drones had created for themselves, sometimes the queen herself walking among them, caring for her young, turning over the eggs tenderly in her long, curved, black claws. Fluid slopped over the floor, glowing faintly, the whirr of wings and the click of claws on the floors echoing through the hive itself.

Dark shapes moved through the hive, in and out, the worker drones going about their business, though it was only the queen who would lay eggs, of course. They were warriors and workers, there to serve a purpose, but the love of their queen was something that they would forever adore, yes. For she was good and cared for them, every last one of the drones, with her large, domed head watching over them.

Kevin didn't know any of that, the human, or his consciousness, at least, lying unconscious within an alien egg. The skin of it glowed a faint green, the darker shape of him within showing through, though he was not human, even if, in his mind, that was what he still was.

The egg was soft and warm, cocooning him gently – not at all like the bodies that lay scattered around the rest of the hive, serving their purpose for the alien drones and the queen too. Around him lay a nest of eggs, in a light hollow – as if it had been carved out just for all of them to sit in.

He would have liked that thought, if he had been awake to see it, to feel the huge, leathery cocoon of the egg softly holding him, cradling him. As it was, Kevin slept, for there was no reason for him to wake.

Ah, but he was not to remain there for long as the egg detected something that he never would have: a host on the wall nearby. And the time had finally come for him to hatch, to go through the life cycle of becoming, well…

Kevin would find out exactly what he was to become, all in good time.

The eggs around him were not ready to hatch, remaining tightly closed and tucked away as the enzymes in the fluid housing him activated. A body that was not truly his stirred, clasped in the egg, the edges of it blooming like the petal of a flower.

And the facehugger emerged, though their life cycle was to be short, blissfully and sweetly so. They only had a small, short purpose to fulfil, however, the egg neatly tucked away inside them, the one that would be implanted into the body of a healthy host to hatch and incubate. The facehugger's skin was almost scaley, crossing into grey in some parts but otherwise brown, their long legs spindly like those of a spider's tail arching up over its back like that of a scorpion.

It chattered, letting out a long, scraping shriek of a noise. Yet the host did no more than squirm feebly in the cocoon on the wall that kept them in place, nameless and faceless, no more than a source of food and energy for the alien hive that had overcome the station.

They didn't need to see the facehugger, for it was not as if they could escape it as the facehugger scurried agilely up their body, ignoring the weak struggles. The host could fight as much as their body liked, knowing instinctively that they were going to be implanted, even if there was nothing they could do about it. They would not hurt the facehugger, not with how they had been trapped there.

The facehugger held the egg containing the hero tightly, feeling it cradled in the root of its body, ready to slide down the ovipositor of its tail. Soon, yes, it would be implanted, as the facehugger firmly grasped the human's face, ripping through the green and black cocoon of hardened fluid to get there.

What had been sustaining the human host was ripped away as the facehugger efficiently clasped their face and did what they had come there to do, legs digging into their soft flesh, holding on, even as they fought. Cries muffled against the facehugger's belly, but the host didn't have the strength for anything more as they grew fainted and fainter, depositing the egg. The prehensile ovipositor slid deep, into their mouth and down their throat, the host twisting and convulsing to the limits that their bonds allowed.

Kevin didn't know anything that was happening to him, though he did wake, inside the egg, into another kind of world. The egg in which his body was encased, no longer formed into any kind of body or substance that he would recognise, was soft around him, though he felt as if he was being jostled too. What was happening? Was he okay? It felt as if he was floating in a dream, though he felt too that there were limits to where he was, a boundary that he could not cross, not that he had particularly tried to either.

He tried to groan and found that he could not. For all in his world was soft and light, something sloshing without actually making any noise. Most of all, there was no worry at all, not as he was carried by the facehugger, all carrying on without his mind and body being actively engaged in it. It was not needed anyway, not while he was safe and cared for and sound.

The facehugger implanted him deep within the host's body, making sure that he would be taken care of, though the slick fluids that had sustained the facehugger would not last much longer. They had sustained the purpose of their life in the hive, another scurrying away nearby to the other host that was ready to be taken and implanted, to act out their purpose too.

In their lives, everything had a purpose. To the facehuggers, there was no pain, not even when life faded from them, under the care of the queen, but they did not live for as long as the queen and her drones.

Yet the chest burster, yes… They were what came from the egg as Kevin shuddered bodily, feeling as if he was being squeezed on all sides at once as he was deposited into the host. The pressure bore down on him as he slid, slowly but surely, down the ovipositor of the facehugger's tail, completely oblivious as to what was happening to him.

Unff… What's…happening…

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It didn't feel like a question in his head, no, as if the thoughts were abstract and drifting, nothing that he could pull into words or phrase anything with. Yet there was no sense of fear in him, shivering faintly as the urge to grow, to be bigger, to burrow and to dig swelled through him.

Kevin followed the instinct; it was not as if he would have been able to hold back from it, not in the warm, squashy environment that he seemed to be in. He thought, dimly, that he should have been breathing, yet there was no urge in him either to breathe, not as he wormed and dug his way out and up.

He didn't know that he was a chest burster, not as the severely weakened host hung limply, just barely clinging to life. It was a blessing to them that they were not present for him squirming through their body, chewing and pushing, the wet heat around him clasping his longer, smoother body. For Kevin could only truly be born again when he emerged in a spray of blood from the human host's chest, their body gone and lifeless in the wake of him, for it had served its purpose too in holding him.

The facehugger lay gently off to the side, their legs curled. Everyone had a purpose, though Kevin did not know that, fear pushing at him, turning his head back and forth.

Was there…light there? Where was he? He was awake that time, definitely awake, but Kevin couldn't make sense of his surroundings, not as something scuttled nearby and he flinched from it. He felt…like he wanted to eat, like his stomach was ravenous, though there was something around him that could have been a food source too. It was all wet and ready and made him practically salivate, though that could have just been more of the wet redness swelling around him. It was hard to tell.

The pull of something soft and squishy around his body made him shudder, though he still did not understand, not until the drones came to assist him. Some cared for the eggs in the nursery, doing what the queen could not do when she was protecting and laying, and Kevin squalled in a blistering, wailing shriek.

Well, what else could he have done? There were aliens there – alien drones! Fear gripped him – and then he realised that they were not coming for him. Not in the way that he might have expected if he'd been playing the game, though he had always admired them, how their sleek, black exoskeletons framed their bodies, the smooth, rounded domes of their skulls. Their jaws were fearsome too, gnashing with teeth, and yet it was their claws that helped him up, a wriggling, squirming thing, cupping the sharp hooks around him as tenderly as a mother would hold their young.

He panted and heaved, scenting blood, scenting food. Kevin tried to turn his head back and forth, though found that he didn't have the bodily control to do so, though he still reeled.

In the hive… A hive? He was inside an alien hive, though he couldn't say how he'd gotten there. Around him rose many eggs, gleaming faintly, some slick with some kind of wetness, but he couldn't get his body to work as he wanted it to as he wriggled and flopped back and forth.

Where are my arms? My legs?

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Kevin's heart lurched and squeezed, yet no one was holding him, set down on the ground, allowed to be, allowed to grow. Even as his heart pounded viciously, threatening to increase that pressure in and on his chest even further, a drone alien lowered their head down and down and down, welcoming him with a churring click, speaking in their language.

They may not have spoken in words, but Kevin understood their meaning implicitly. After all, as a chest burster, even if he did not yet know that that was what he was, he had been born with the knowledge of their language, passed down from generation to generation.

Welcome to the hive, little one. You will be a drone.

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A drone? Well… His heart pulled, squirming, moving like a worm, though he managed to raise his head and part his jaws. That… That didn't sound that bad. Or maybe it was the fact that the aliens had not charged at him, in their beautiful, menacing way, to slice him up into nothing, for there was more to the aliens, and the drones too, than Kevin had before understood. Not that he would ever have been in a position to understand, of course.

Scooped up, once again, in the soft clasp of the drone's claws, he was taken down corridor after corridor, turning his head back and forth. His sense of smell was pulled every which way, metal and blood and sticky goo all battling for dominance in the olfactory bulb, wherever it was in his new body, of his nose. Yet he could still see where old, metal panels had connected in the walls behind the solidified goo of the hive, the insect-like network of tunnels and passages burrowing through what seemed to have been, once, a station of some kind.

With so many aliens, this can't have any humans on it now…

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Kevin shook himself, only managing a little squalling squelch as the drone carried him, their long tail whipping and undulating sinuously back and forth with the sway of their body as they walked. No, no… No, it had to have been a dream, he'd been gaming too much lately, yes, that had to be it.

But he didn't seem to be able to get out of it either, not as he was placed in a cool, dark nursery with other squirming creatures in it. He'd not seen a chest burster in the games, for they did not catch his interest all that much, but they had to grow too, after completing the initial stage of their life cycle.

He thought he would go to sleep in there, closing his eyes against the oddly fascinating horror of what he had become, shaking his head and the part of his body that, apparently, had to be shaken along with his head to do so in the first place. He thought that he would wake up again, back in his own bed, but…that never happened.

Life continued without him or his consent, for it had never been needed for him to be transported into another world in the first place.

The next day, or after resting some, Kevin had to confront what he was. They were all around him, after all, the chest bursters, brought food by the “nanny" drones, whoever they were, looking after them in the nursery. He was sure that they could be self-sufficient, latching onto a host or perhaps even feeding solely off the body that they had come from, but…well…that didn't wholly make sense to him either. He had been taken from his host body and, even though he felt his strong, biting jaws and the muscle layering his thick body, he didn't exactly want to go back and do what this new body's instinct so feverishly told him to.

I'm not a chest burster, he tried to tell a drone that he did not recognise, their large head lowered down to his level. Please… I need to get home…

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And yet Kevin's heart was not in it and, even though he could understand what the drones were saying, he could not yet speak their language. He was still in the larval stage, squalling and screeching, dependent on a food source to grow and grow, thickening up and fattening up as he stayed there, with his brothers and sisters in the nursery.

Still, even if it had not been his choice…things were different down there, in the hive. He grew, feeding on scraps of meat that he tried to not think too much about where they had come from, the biggest and the strongest of all in the nursery. He'd never before gotten to see all that much of the chest bursters, as they had always been a lower-level target in the games or a part shown for dramatic effect – iconic in the movies. To be fair to him…he had always been more interested in the alien queen herself, her power and her strength, admiring her form and how the light glistened off her black hide.

The chest bursters differed in colour, just like the facehuggers that, occasionally, he saw scurrying around, though he never saw the same facehugger twice as they completed their task in implanted an egg into a host body. The bodies, however, of the chest bursters grew thicker and thicker as the days passed, longer too. Limbs had to grow, yet the process of growing those was both relieving and worrying to him, for the longer he lay in limbo there, not waking and not sleeping, he was not truly living.

Or was he? Kevin didn't know what to think, trapped in the hive, even as he grew spindly legs and arms, his back end narrowing down into a slinky tail that, later, would serve him a far greater use and purpose. The drones were all kind to him, though he struggled to tell the fully-grown ones apart but that was probably a part of them being drones. By sight alone, he was not able to tell them apart, though every single one had a slightly different heat signature and scent, as if they were releasing different pheromones or something.

He wished that he had looked into more alien lore before but…that didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered to him, not as he slowly put more and more of his old life behind him, sure that it was not going to come back to him. If something terrible had happened to his old, physical, human body and he was in a coma, dreaming of aliens, then it was not as if it was at all likely that there was a world or a life for him to return to anyway.

He could be comfortable where he was, not leaving anything all that much behind anyway. Maybe it was better to have a life there and live out his life there, with the drones that cared for him, so kind and welcoming? They were not even all that fearsome anymore, as much as he quivered still to think of himself as one of them, for he was still growing and growing, inches gained on his body with every day that passed.

Slowly, his skin darkened and he was able to stand on his hands and feet, even though they trembled and could not support his weight for long. Two drones, as he tried to stand up, flanked him on other side. He could not have said how, exactly, he felt it, but overwhelming love and warmth poured over him, as if he was being enveloped in something soft and all-encompassing, pleasantly buried. Their minds connected to his own, speaking in another manner too, and he blinked in wonder at the world and life and impressions they showed him.

Their queen, strong and sleek in her majesty.

The tunnels in the hives, working drones scuttling through, agile and lean.

The drones that cared for all around them, working together as a team.

The stars in the galaxy surrounding the space station, so bright, yet so far away.

The warmth and adoration that every member of the hive shared with one another, spreading far and wide.

Dazzled, Kevin chirped faintly, his vocal cords changing, slowly. It would not come quickly, as the drones crouched before him on all fours, showing their huge, chrome teeth, how they bared, yet there was no threat to him, no, not at all. Just greeting, just communicating.

Kevin exhaled softly, some tension inside him that he had not even realised that he had been holding.

They loved him. They cared for him. With them, he was safe.

Leaning against the drone's face, careful of the teeth, he crooned and let them nuzzle him, relaxing into their touch. Their head was still laughably larger than his and yet he held no fear at all in his heart or his mind, comfortable and confident in the knowledge that he was safe.

So it was that Kevin left his old life behind, growing in strength, bit by bit, even meeting the queen and their glorious mother. She stalked sinuously through the halls, not even turning her head back and forth for she already knew all that she needed to know about her surroundings from her connection with the hive and her drones, larger and more powerful than the drones too. She was a good third, at the very least, larger than the largest of drones, though the tighter confines of the tunnels within the hive – he couldn't really see the interior as a space station, not anymore – did force her to bend forward, taking her centre of gravity to a different nuance. He would have loved to see her standing up straight and proud and tall, showing off her form and the majesty of it.

For, just like every member of the hive, he loved his kind mother, the powerful alien who had laid his egg and brought him into the world, even when he had not been expecting it.

Facehuggers scuttled through the vents, searching for hosts. Sometimes, it seemed, the host that they had found was not suitable for the egg that they carried, so they got to live a little longer. Just another little bit of information for him, though he was not sure if he had seen that before, in one of the games. It was harder and harder to remember the twists and turns of his old life when that time just seemed to be so far set back and away from him then, as if it had not been a life that he had truly lived at all, not really.

It was so far away then, as he grew into a full drone, strong and powerful, learning how to tip forward a little as he walked to find that centre of balance. It had been watching the queen and mother that had shown him how to do that, though Kevin took his steps carefully, large, black claws clicking across the floor as he walked and moved.

His mind translated the impressions, emotions, images and more that the drones “spoke" to him through less and less. Words were no longer needed, not as he slipped increasingly into the mind of the hive, scenting the air, reading the tales left on pheromones painted into the fabric of the hive.

Yet, as a full drone, he no longer had to stay within the hive at all, though he had felt bound to it initially, for his safety as a chest burster and then a growing drone. It had felt safe there, other drones around to care for him and look after him, his brothers and sisters too.

Outside, however, in the part of the station that had not been overcome by the hive, even if it was stalked by drones, he could explore with the vast sky above him, dotted with stars. Space spread on as far as the eye could see and he marvelled at the immensity of it, even if he knew where he was. And one of his favourite characters from the games too was there, Amanda Ripley, sometimes seen hiding and sometimes seen scouting the area, though he pretended not to see her, all so that he could get a better look.

Back in the games, there had been a drone hunting Amanda Ripley and he wondered if that drone was him, since he had been transferred, somehow, into the game. Just in case, he kept his distance, all to make sure that she survived and, of course, so that he didn't have to fight back against her. Even though he liked her character, he could only admire her from a safe distance, knowing that it was still a sharp, dangerous world that he had been born into.

Strangely enough, Kevin did not mind that, not all that much. Perhaps that was because the rest of the hive didn't mind it either, just the way of things for them. It was all those that had gone before them had ever known, so that was the knowledge too that was passed down to Kevin, as if he had lived their lives too.

And that was okay. He could settle into that, walking across one of the bridges connecting different sectors of the space station, though he was sure that he could have spent his entire life there and still not seen every corner of it, dug up every secret. There was plenty of time for him there too, ducking into one of the buildings, clicking down the stairs, though the new drone had to shift his weight back to keep his balance when going down them. Kevin, however, had not quite worked out how to do that and slipped, whacking his long tail on the wall.

He grunted, though the pain faded quickly, even if the rattling clatter continued to echo down the stairs. The stairs, thankfully, opened up into a wider corridor that he could step out into, swinging his head curiously back and forth, though he seemed able to paint a picture, in his mind, of where he was regardless of whether he was actively looking with his eyes or not. After mulling on it for a little while, clicking his sharp teeth together with a rap-rap-rap, he put it down to the hive mind being a part of his mind too. They were not all that obvious, not as he had grown and developed in both body and mind, though there was always a buzzing sense in the back of his mind that they were there for him, that the other drones and even their beloved queen herself would always be there for him, helping him out and feeding him their knowledge so that he did not go astray.

Hm…

_ _

Maybe, in a way, Kevin was feeding them the knowledge to not attack Amanda Ripley too? He parted his jaws in the only version of a smile that he found he could try for anymore. He rather liked that thought… What if him being in the game there saved her life, in the end? Though Kevin didn't know what kind of life Amanda was even living as he, quite fairly, had not been able to get all that close to her in the end.

The corridor was quiet and forlorn, a small drip-drip-drip echoing through as if a pipe had burst somewhere. He was surprised that the gravity field was even still strong enough around the station to keep it there, though he supposed there were still the “workers" left behind – and there may well have been more humans too. He just hadn't seen others, not beyond the Working Joes.

He paused, however, in what seemed to be an old bathroom, though the sinks were knocked off the wall, porcelain shattered, chrome taps on the floor. He did not look at the stalls, instead eyeing up his reflection in the muddied, dirtied mirror.

Yet it was still enough for Kevin to take in his frame, truly, for the first time. His head was just like that of any other drone, large and domed, smooth like a banana, though he chattered in amusement at that thought. Even though he was not actively trying to, he was drooling, long ropes of saliva trickling out from between his chrome teeth as he parted his jaws more widely.

And out came his inner second jaw, extending out, ridged with more sharp teeth, glistening with drool. He experimented, feeling the flex and the pull in his jaw, opening and closing both sets of fangs.

That was interesting… He had not used his second set of jaws, to be fair, but he had not had reason to either. He curled his tail around, taking a good look at the gleaming, deadly barb at the end, how he could flick it back and forth, the level of strength and dexterity that he had in the full length of it.

The other drones would not have understood him looking at a particular part of his body, though Kevin had to either way. Turning around, he followed the curve of his tail down to his backside, though it was not rounded like a human backside, but smooth and gleaming with his exoskeleton, that functionality. Everything about him was designed to be a perfect killing machine, yet he was so far from a machine with the mind of the hive wrapped around him, always.

Another drone paced through, for he was not alone there, though they were hunting prey – human prey. He hoped they would still stay away from Amanda, even if his stomach felt a little on the empty side too and he would both need to hunt and feed soon.

The drone paused, glancing at him in the bathroom, though they were not interested in his reflection, not as much as he was. They moved on, their footsteps landing with heavy, clawed thumps as they worked their way down the corridor, searching for other rooms, for the bathroom stalls where Kevin was were definitely empty.

The days passed and he explored, finding more and more to capture his attention on the near-deserted station. Their prey, humans, were good at concealing themselves, an eerie silence closing around him as he walked slowly and surely, though he could be light enough on his feet too to stalk as a predator. He didn't know quite how he felt about that, for there were no impressions in the alien “language" to cover being what they were: they simply were what they were. And that was something that he would have to wrap his head around.

There were bodies there too, though he could not discern their faces, as if he lost that sense of facial recognition, somehow. Holes were ripped in them, some were missing limbs, but he couldn't see them as people anymore, not when their souls had so very clearly left their bodies.

And one thing he noticed too was that he could survive outside, not only inside the rooms or sealed vacuum of the protected parts of the station. It took him longer to realise that, for he had just followed the patterns and the tracks that the other drones had before him, but he could spacewalk too, not crushed by the vacuum of space.

Amazing.

_ _

He marvelled at it, passing over a body with a hole in its skull. That one he did not think was done by one of the drones, though they had done something to earn it, either way.

Curiously, he also found the medical bay, though he tried to be discreet as he went down to it, inside, the white-grey expanse something that tried to be clinical and yet did not quite encompass what it needed to. Of course, parts had fallen into disrepair, but it looked like there had been some humans there recently too.

He quieted his mind, suppressing his thoughts as much as he could. That wasn't something that he needed to alert the rest of the hive mind to, no. He would, of course, always put his brothers and sisters, and the queen mother, first if needed, if they were truly desperate for a food source, yet they did not seem to need as much sustenance as he might have thought initially. Which suited him just fine as Kevin relaxed into his new life, finding a way forward that suited him.

Ah, that was why Amanda was there then, he thought to himself, though he tried not to think in impressions and images, but rather the words that did not cross over into the alien hive mind language. She had to have been trying to gather medical supplies from the map in which they both currently were to save Nina Taylor, who he remembered was an admin executive from WY. She'd been injured during her mission, back in the games, but the drones had not cared about that. To them, quite fairly so, they were just humans, humans who were unimportant to the drones in the grand scheme of the world.

Still, he was glad to be able to explore the medical bay, some beds set up and curtains drawn, lights flickering where the electricity feed was not as stable as they may have wanted it to be.

It didn't affect the drones, of course, for they could see in the dark and the daylight equally – not that there was daylight out there, but different lighting conditions did not affect all that much how they perceived the world. They were able to meander and navigate easily.

He still, however, had to put on a pretence of hunting Amanda Ripley, even though he was not all that much of an active hunter within the hive, that much had to be said. He just didn't want to hunt and attack humans like that and he thought that that was fair, even if he would feed. There were other ways that he could contribute to the hive, making sure that no one was missed out.

Another drone walked with him, peeling back the curtains surrounding the medical beds, eyeing up the counter where it looked like the remains of someone's lunch, what they had been able to eat, had been left there. He ducked his head, pretending to also be looking, checking under the beds, growling softly in the back of his throat.

His sibling stepped ahead, bumping into a bed. It was not that they didn't see the piece of furniture, it was more that they didn't have any respect for it, merely pushing it aside when it did not prove to serve their needs. They knew that it was no real barrier to them, not even when the metal scarped and screeched, however briefly, across the floor.

His sibling's tail brushed his as the drone turned its great head from the left to the right and back again, silently questing, searching. Even then, it was beautiful to see such a hunter at work, though there, so far, did not appear to be anyone else in the medical bay.

That was good…

Yet they must have missed something as a small object flipped up in front of them. It landed noisily, in a clatter that sounded vaguely like plastic on the hard floor, old linoleum, cheap for their use, and he dropped his head inquisitively. He had not yet learned where to employ caution, to be fair, but that was not the point as the device vibrated.

His sibling reeled before he did, screeching as it blasted an ear-splitting sound, wailing through his mind. It felt like it was making every last part of his body ache lightly, drawing his attention and focus to it. The reeling, apparently, had only been because he was startled, for it was not hurting either of them.

On the contrary… The sound was fascinating!

His sibling scuttled over, head lowered, crooning and clicking. What was it? What was going on?

Kevin shook his head, knowing but not knowing, though they turned their heads, inspecting it from every angle, even poking at the strange device to make it skitter across the floor.

He didn't look back, not even when he caught the patter of footsteps, the presence of someone that he had not realised was there before, though no one would be of any threat to the drones that day. Kevin was glad of that, for he didn't want to defence himself against Amanda. She would have been a formidable opponent and he still wasn't completely sure that he had all the control that he needed over his alien drone form.

What is it?

Food?

_ _

Danger?

_ _

Impressions crowded in on his mind and he sent confusion back at them, the rest of the hive chiming in with their own thoughts on what may have been going on there. But he wanted Amanda to get away, silently and quietly urging her on to escape, just so that he could keep catching glimpses of her.

She would never have any idea, of course not, that he was not just another alien drone. Most likely, she would not even know that he had been a human before, though that part of his life seemed so very far away then, as if it had all been a dream. That was funny, in hindsight, considering that he had once thought that living and birthing as a chest burster had been a dream.

Oh, how times changed…

Amanda got away that time and his drone sibling hissed, smashing the device under a foot. They didn't know what it was, but it served them no purpose. Therefore, it did not need to remain.

He shook his head, his tail rippling, comforting his drone sibling by bumping his shoulder, lightly, with his.

Everything was okay. They were safe there and there was more than enough to feed on. They didn't have anything to worry about.

So, the hive prospered.

Not having anything in particular to do, no specific job, daily allowed him to explore and expand his range within the space station, crossing the bridge to another area that looked like there might have been more human activity there, not too long ago. The Working Joe's from the game were prolific there and must have been part of the reason why the electricity was even still working there, at least in some areas, though the station was not populated, not technically. It was not operating under its original purpose, even though humans seemed to still be hiding there and coming by, from time to time, to collect supplies. He couldn't remember too many of the specifics about the space station, but it seemed that his memories of it were not going to matter.

He paused behind a Working Joe who was fixing a metal panel on the exterior of one of the buildings, something that seemed to have once housed a security system, if he was seeing all correctly. He was dressed in plain clothes, though he was not there to hunt down aliens. In fact, they had been ordered by Weyland-Yutani to hunt down human survivors, but that was not something, at that time, that Kevin knew of.

The Working Joe lifted its head, the android pausing in its work to inspect him.

“Unidentified Species," it said, speaking without moving its lips, only parting them to expose the speaker within. “What are you? Identify yourself."

If he could have done so, he would have rolled his eyes. Well, it was not as if he could communicate with the android in any way that the Working Joe would understand. He hissed and rattled his tail, eyeing up the android's bald head with a surely distrusting look in his eye. Kevin didn't need to have a mirror before him to know exactly how he was in that moment.

Strong. Powerful. Sleek and rippling with a chrome exoskeleton, his head even larger than before, swelling as his strength grew within him. He was quicker and stronger, muscles layering his frame within his exoskeleton, though he was far from merely that. Power coursed through with every breath of air into his lungs, his frame expanding and contracting lightly with every breath.

The Working Joes had been violent in the games, he remembered, but those didn't seem to pose any further threat to him, not as the Working Joe turned away, expressionless and, to him, faceless. They were just another machine, another thing to explore on the space station. He wondered why he had only encountered one or two of them before? Perhaps they had been woken up again with a remote order sent through their communication systems. The world that he was in, after all, was far greater than just the space station that he was on.

Would he ever travel to other parts of the world? Kevin was not sure that he would like it that much. He had no idea if he would still be in contact with and able to communicate with the hive if he was far away. Besides, if he left, that would most likely mean that he had been captured by the humans and that wasn't something that he was all that keen on finding out the “what ifs" of, no.

Best to stay there, exploring, with the hive. There, he could hunt and he could explore, fulfilled in a way that he never could have been if he had been human and back on earth.

He'd never regret falling into the dream and the new world, oh no. It was much better there, even if there were dangers too.

He took to exploring the vents, though it was not a particularly quiet endeavour, even though Kevin tried to be stealthy. It was interesting to see how he could move around and not be noticed by the Working Joes, working on his stealth and his abilities, for there was far more to knowing his body than simply walking around. Smaller things, such as crawling, managing the swing of his tail back and forth, made him concentrate even more on his sense of where his body was in the space around him.

Still, the dangers were there, regardless.

He was leaning beyond a grate opening up into a corridor below, trying to see if there was anyone down there, when a blast of flame seared through, licking at the metal. He shrieked, scrabbling back as the dull roar of the flame jetted forth. Too late, he caught Amanda's heat signature, which he recognised after spending so long watching her and trying to catch onto what she was doing on the space station, but he would not have acted like a predator, to her, if he had known she was there.

It was too late for him to get away, dropping into the room with a hiss, the startled woman glaring him down with a hard look in her eyes and her lips pressed into a thin line. She shouted something, though he could not understand her, too loud, clanging in his ears – yet he didn't have to.

His drone sibling raced in, having heard him squeal, darting straight past Kevin and leaping at Amanda. With her flamethrower in hand, she was chased into the next room as Kevin charged after them, though seeing her ducking through a small gap into a storage room that seemed to be mostly sealed shut still made him sigh softly in relief. Even though she'd tried to hurt him, he didn't want to see her get hurt. If he was using the vents, it made sense that Amanda knew about using them for herself too and he made a mental note to be careful about how he moved through them in the future.

The drone stomped, hissing in fury, tail whipping back and forth. Kevin gulped, awed. A Working Joe, who would have been able to fit through the small gap, came in, focusing on the human target, and his sibling lunged for it, tearing it in two with a spark of electricity, circuit boards shattered and the speaker letting out a whirring, clacking noise.

Beyond the door and the half-wedged-closed door, Amanda crouched, levelling the flamethrower at them. The drones shook their heads, hissing, recognising the weapon.

The prey was not for them that day.

He crouched on all fours, allowing her space to escape, not ripping at the door or trying to get through. For her, it was all that he could, closing his mouth to show that he was not a threat, even as his tail swished back and forth, over and over again. His sibling was more frustrated at the lack of prey that day, though Kevin knew too as well as anyone else that he would have made a pile of Working Joe bodies if it meant that he could keep Amanda safe.

Alas, they could not stay there forever, his sibling his partner, always with him. They protected each other – and that was just how they had the chance to escape when Marlow's ship – which he remembered from the games, exploded outside the station. He hissed and ducked his head, but the stabilisers to keep the station in orbit had been destroyed and they couldn't stay there. If the station fell, the hive would fall. He already knew how the game would end and he was not prepared for that.

Come!

_ _

He sent the impression to his sibling, chasing up to the ship, the USCSS Torrens. It was just like being in the game, but he couldn't, alas, control the actions of his sibling, no. For, while he slithered into the vents, the other drone chased Amanda, who was also seeking her escape.

From a distance, his stomach churned and heart lurched, watching her, from the vents, as she lured the drone into the airlock. She was wearing space gear, that time, protected from the vacuum, but those on the ship were not all that keen on having them on board either.

As the airlock sealed shut with a hiss and a snap, there was nowhere for them to go, except where the ship crew sent them. On the wrong side of the airlock, Amanda faced off with the drone – and then they were gone, whisked away, the airlock emptied as they were jettisoned off into space.

He lowered his head, all alone again, though the buzz of the hive was still there in the back of his mind, worried for him, for their drone brother. He would have liked to have his sibling with him, but they would not have understood not to hunt there either, leaving him conflicted and alone.

Later, Amanda would be rescued, but he was alone on the USCSS Torrens, lurking in the vents, waiting to see just where the ship would take him…

He could only play out his life as the world and the game wanted him to.