In a combat body, Mae would have been able to overpower this David unit easily. However, she currently occupied her custom made, most human-like shell. Although Davids weren’t created for combat specifically, over time the public realized they still could cause harm. The company put this model out of commission after fatal malfunctioning incidents. Many attempts to staunch the secondary black-market trade proved futile. The UPP and fringe colonies, as well as companies looking to slash their bottom line, took advantage of cut-rate prices.
Much like he attempted to slash her major control micro-hydraulics. They traded blows up and down the transit tram. Mae deflected his strikes on her forearm, but leaving her upper body vulnerable. He inflicted a cut on her neck. For a human, that would have been deadly, but it still knocked her back. He’d cut a narrow slice in her skin, and a thin line of her bespoke red circulatory fluid trickled over her shoulder. The David’s gaze darted to it in surprise. All androids’ fluids were a thin, milky white.
His bewilderment gave her a moment. As the transit tram gained momentum, both reached for the rail to stabilize themselves. She activated the one advantage she possessed. Though Mae wasn’t in a combat body, she did still have the programming. Security subroutines activated, mirroring a human adrenaline rush.
Catching the David by the arm, she spun him around, throwing him into the orange vertical grab rail. The carriage resounded with the crash of his internal structure connecting, carbon fiber against metal. He rolled to his feet, though the pole remained bent to his shape.
Faster than any human could, he closed, landing three successive powerful punches on Mae’s torso. She absorbed them with a snarl she’d learned from Captain Olivia Shipp, her mother’s greatest confidante. Then, spinning, she caught the next punch he threw in her hand, squeezing and twisting at the same time.
Mae used the force of his momentum to shift him off balance. She stepped around him, and in one smooth move, pulled her bowie knife from her boot and rammed it into the side of his head.
White circulatory fluid exploded over her weapon and fist. The David’s eyes went blank. His hand twitched fractionally. It was a clean blow to his central processing core, and he dropped to his knees.
Mae jerked the knife free, and he toppled over onto his face with a thud. She might have felt a twinge of remorse, but she’d never liked the David models. Knowing their history as she did, she was pleased to take at least one out of commission.
The transit tram lurched to a stop as the station warning sounded again.
“Attention. Emergency. All personnel must evacuate immediately. Get to your nearest escape pod. You now have five minutes to evacuation protocol.”
Mae bolted out of the tram and onto the galleria deck. Only a few hours since she’d stood here watching the citizens of the station line up for noodles. Now the empty storefronts flickered with red emergency lighting. People once ate here, communed with their colleagues, and enjoyed an unhurried moment. The company designed the station to conceal its terrible experiments, but everyday people still lived here.
Now it was a broken nightmare-scape of people searching for a way out. The tang of blood filled the air, while control panels sparked with barely contained fires. The workers clustered near the safety bay on the galleria’s outer rim, which held ranks of cryo escape pods. Deep space versions like these were self-propelled, designed to travel to the nearest shipping lane or habitable world, but slowly enough to preserve its fragile cargo. However, such safety measures would take too long for her purposes. Mae needed to reach the Blackstar and get help for the Jackals immediately.
Small groups of station personnel argued by the remaining three pods. Fists were flying, and Mae’s internal protocols were at an impasse. Her orders were to seek help for Zula Hendricks and the Jackals, but these were people who needed her assistance, too. Davis, however, controlled her specifications when she was made, and he’d chosen to give his daughter free will like a genetic human. It was a tough choice. If she waited here to sort this out, she might not get off Minos. The Jackals and her mother would perish.
In the end she chose her mother and her team. Mae bypassed the fight and ran past the escape pod array, towards the door marked NO ENTRANCE.
A young woman stood by the control panel, furiously punching numbers. She turned her terrified face in Mae’s direction. A name tag on her shirt said ALICE PRIM.
“My shuttle’s in there,” Alice gasped as her eyes grew huge. “I delivered power cores a few hours ago, but now it’s locked me out.”
“I’ll run a bypass,” Mae said. “Give me one second.”
The woman nodded, blinked back tears, and scooted out of the way. Mae withdrew her kit from inside her jacket and plugged it in. Hopefully, in the chaos, Alice wouldn’t notice she did it faster than any genetic human could. The lights swirled and blinked before letting out a low beep that was almost lost in the surrounding noise.
The door slid open, and Alice let out a relieved laugh. “Oh my god, let’s go!”
Behind her, the red emergency light flashed and Alice, in her haste to escape, didn’t notice the large ink-black shape moving in the shadows.
An artificial person didn’t attract its lethal attention, but a warm human body did. The monster moved fast, its talons failing to find purchase on the floor, skittering across the metallic floor on all fours before rising onto its back legs. It leaped on the young delivery driver as she let out a startled howl. Mae, devoid of any weapon capable of working against such a monster, froze in place. It wrapped one hand over Alice’s face and dragged her away, screaming but alive. Her fate would be far worse than death.
The group of squabbling people shouted over each other, their voices echoing in the escape pod bay. They fared no better. Their loud voices became a dinner bell.
Two Xenomorphs darted out from the kitchen of one of the abandoned noodle shops. They scrambled over overturned chairs, clambered over the counter, and vaulted among the terrified people. A woman in a white coat screamed as the subject of her research was suddenly on top of her, tearing her flesh from her like bark off a tree. The others scattered, running on primitive instincts to escape. Except there was no safety to be found on this station. The only escape was death.
Now Minos belonged to the Xenomorphs and their needs.
An older man almost made it to Mae. His glasses fell off, his white coat flapping as he reached out towards her. She tried to grab him, but the monster was faster.
The Xeno’s inner mouth punched out, kissing the man’s forehead and breaking it as easily as an egg. His panicked screams ended in a spray of scarlet. The human blood struck her on the shoulder, mingling with her own red synthetic circulatory fluid.
The Xenomorph turned to face her. Its smooth featureless head tilted as it pulled its lips back from gleaming, sharp teeth. In the flickering half-light of the galleria the slight blue tinge of the Kuebiko infection gleamed over the creature’s carapace. Blood and spittle ran down from both its mouths. A bowie knife wouldn’t help her, but if she stayed still, it should move on. Staring it directly in the eyeless sockets for a long moment, however, Mae wasn’t completely sure of that assertion.
What did this perfect organism see when it looked at her? Even after all this time, they didn’t fully understand what went on under that shiny black carapace. Elegant and brutally efficient, many corporations wanted to put it to work for their own ends. All in pursuit of its ruthlessness and evolutionary power.
Looking at it, Mae wondered at the hubris of humanity.
Its stance shifted from upright to coiled. Whatever the Xeno’s calculations, it chose to mark her as a threat. She contemplated that for a split second, and then the answer came: the queen was communicating with all her drones, and it recognized her. It remembered her from the lab on the station’s eleventh level. She must think that Mae was among the artificial people that aided the scientists who imprisoned and experimented on her children.
Mae moved to defend herself, but this body was too fragile for a fight with a drone. She might not make it to the Blackstar at all.
The dull thud of a pulse rifle echoed down the promenade. The back of the Xeno’s head exploded into acid and black chunks of carapace. Synthetic instincts, faster than a human’s, helped Mae dodge to the right, out of the way of its blood spray as it melted the deck where she’d been standing.
Rook loped across the galleria, a newly gained pulse rifle looped over one shoulder. He grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet. Are you alright?
She nodded. Never happier to see your face, though.
The corners of his mouth lifted a fraction. Not many people can say that, these days. Not since my accident. Let’s get going. We don’t have much time.
With the lights flashing faster, Mae and Rook entered the airlock. The freight deck remained pressurized, so the inner door opened without issue. On the other side was the poor young woman’s freight shuttle, right next to the Blackstar.
Weyland-Yutani made Minos Station’s computer mainframe, Kaspar, and they were renowned for creating some of the most loyal synthetic minds. Kaspar had locked down the station and the Righteous Fury and was operating on containment protocols. The humans hadn’t realized that Kaspar would unleash hell on all of them if it meant obeying its orders. The rules of synthetic behavior did not apply in this situation.
Once they navigated the Blackstar beyond the solar system, past Kaspar’s network of satellites, they should be able to signal for help.
Mae and Rook raced past Alice’s shuttle. She glimpsed the name on its side, the Solo Cup. Despite the situation, she couldn’t stop a small smile flickering over her lips. A perfectly ridiculous thing to notice at that moment. Perhaps her ascent to consciousness was affecting her in strange ways she’d not accounted for. Humor in such a situation should be impossible.
The Blackstar awaited them, as battered and bruised as the synthetic who owned it. Long patches of paint were missing from its sides. The solar run Rook used to remove the Xenomorph resin from the ship’s side left her with long charred marks. The thought of the Blackstar filled with their enemies was more than a little unnerving, but they would have to check for stowaways after escaping Minos.
Rook led the way through the hatch, which still bore the Weyland-Yutani logo. That didn’t help Mae’s feelings towards the ship, but it was their only chance to escape.
Strange how her gut twisted when she thought about her mother and the other Jackals. She didn’t have any internal organs to behave like that. Still, leaving everyone behind felt very wrong.
Rook slipped into the pilot’s chair and buckled up. Mae took the seat next to him while he punched in the request to open the bay’s outer door. Lockdown protocol hadn’t yet extended to the hangar. Even Kaspar couldn’t mess with that.
The door opened, even as the red emergency lighting flickered. The station would soon be a sealed death trap.
Don’t jinx it, Zula always warned her, and she’d always dismissed such things as human superstition. Except just then, the hangar bay doors began grinding closed. The station was shutting down on them.
Punch it, Rook!
Hang on, he warned, firing up the engines. They didn’t need to worry about an angry station flight controller, at this point. The Blackstar was shockingly quick. Mae first noted that when it swooped in to save them, but experiencing it firsthand was another matter. While Rook gunned the Blackstar for the exit, the hangar bay doors were close to completing their descent. Kaspar seemed to playing with them, as ridiculous as that seemed.
She’d learned more than just superstitions from Zula Hendricks. Mae now possessed quite an arsenal of swear words. This seemed like an appropriate moment for them.
The ship bounced off the flight deck, metal screeching in protest. Mae feared the ship might shake itself into pieces as they made a final desperate run for the closing hangar doors. One last ‘fuck’ escaped Mae as they screamed past them. Rook narrowed his eyes as the ship blew between the descending doors.
Mae fully expected to be ejected into space with the ship exploding around them, but despite it all, the Blackstar held and they were free of the station.
Rook glanced over at her. His expression was an entirely human one. It’s okay. We’re okay.
Synthetics weren’t supposed to believe in luck, but Mae changed her mind on that one. Hope followed that realization. Perhaps they could rescue the remaining Jackals after all, and her mother too.
Rook turned back to the controls. We’re on track to make it to the shipping lanes soon. I don’t think I’m going to need to activate your Deep Protection subroutines. Things should be fine from now on.
He must’ve been able to feel her concerns. Colonel Zula Hendricks wanted to protect her daughter, and if anyone found out she was synthetic, they would tear her apart.
Reaching over, Rook placed his hand on top of hers. We’ll get her back, Mae. We’ll get them all back.
It seemed dangerous to place her entire being in the hands of another synthetic—especially after EWA betrayed her over Shānmén. Yet her mother trusted him, and it made sense. They would return to the generals, and then they’d race back to Minos Station. With a few strategic nukes, they could destroy this terrible station and its experimental training facility on the planet.
Mae nodded. I believe you.
You are your mother’s daughter. He squeezed her hand a fraction.
Mae stared out into the darkness ahead and reminded herself of how far she’d come since first awakening. They were on their way. Her mother only needed to hold out until their return. If anyone could survive, it was Colonel Zula Hendricks.