Alien: Isolation (1st POV Ripley Edition)

#11

Again in Sevastopol.

I straightened up and looked around. The interior of the airlock chamber greeted me, white as medical marble. I took off my massive suit and headed deeper into the station.

- Ripley! Is that you? - Marshal Waits addressed me, when he realized that my radio signal was active.

- Yes, me, you rotten fucking bastard! Me, whom you threw away with the detachable laboratory into a gas giant!

- You saw that monster! I had no choice! And it worked, Ripley! It worked! The station is safe!

- Yes. There's that, and there's a fact you are a cold bastard. I'm coming to your marshal's bureau so we can talk about your methods. Ripley out.

It was truly magical, like a dream.

I was passing through dark, gloomy corridors, but now everything seemed somehow banal. The chills are gone. Mystic feels. Danger. Because the monstrous one is no longer at the station. Then again...what if he is, and I just think he...it isn't? Anyway, I'm going to be cautious and hope that we've really eliminated a sole specimen onboard, and I'll believe it until proven otherwise.

And that's how I pass through the rooms and corridors I've been through before. In short, I find myself in the same chamber I passed through earlier and met that bald unfortunate guy Axel, who was brutally dangerous at first, and then I even liked him. Maybe he would have been saved if the monster hadn't rammed him from behind and dragged him into a nearby vent...

Now, well...I have new problems myself. Passing through the door, I encounter two insanely fast synthetic pieces of humanoid plastic shit babbling gibberish, heading towards me to strangle me with their bare hands.

And I just found a good shotgun full of cartridges on a nearby corpse! What luck, right?

I shoot once, the synthetic staggers. I fire twice, it's over. I repeat the process on the other, same result. Not bad, really. With bullets, a revolver often had to fire up to five bullets, while a shotgun achieves everything with two. I have to remember that. I'll be using the revolver on hostile people from now on.

I take the elevator to the level that takes me to the place where the good people are in the station. As far as I remember the place was safe and I hope it still is. 

- Ripley! You're alive - I hear the voice of Waits' deputy Ricardo in my ears.

- No thanks to Waits. He left me to die with an alien monster in a detached laboratory.

- Uh, I'm so sorry. The guy is a cold bastard, but he's always been capable. I'm sorry I wasn't of more use to you somehow...

- It doesn't matter, everything is fine. You helped me before. I'll get to you soon.

- Okay, take care, Rip.

- Yeah. See you.

What followed was a rather unpleasant amount of opening encrypted doors, activating switches, walking through narrow floor ventilation spaces. And then, I suddenly ran into several people being attacked by synthetics. One by one, they killed them. Poor unarmed, they hid and hoped that they would survive, but they didn't. Two guys with shotguns like mine were shooting, but too slowly. One was killed before the androids were destroyed. But then both guys opened fire on me, without hesitation.

That's wonderful! These are obviously local hostile motherfuckers, and not nice employees from the stations's administration offices who sow peace and order at the station, right?

I sorted them out without much trouble and continued on. Yeah, a bit hard to believe, but I had a lot of effective practice in last few hours.

Approaching through another floor vent toward the Bureau, Waits spoke to me.

- Ripley. Androids. Something is wrong with them.

- Something was wrong with them since I got here.

- No. This is new.

- What is?

- They are no longer passive and localized. They are active. As if...hunting.

- Hunting people? More than usual?

- Yes! Look, I don't know what's going on, but I'm guessing that maybe APOLLO is behind it all.

- Samuels hasn't called in yet?

- No, he did not. I hope he will soon. Wait out.

Not good. I'm more convinced that Samuels got hurt than that he has anything to do with this change for the worse. Maybe I'll find out more when I get to the marshal's quarters.

But right at the entrance to the marshal's quarters, I turn to Waits and Ricardo and instead of an answer I hear choking, cursing, gunshots, pleas for mercy and last breaths.

To hell with it! Was a battalion of fucking Seegson synthetics killing everyone in there? I am pretty sure that just happened!

Anyway, I have to check it out with my own eyes! I am confident that I have a good chance of survival as I have a loaded shotgun, a loaded revolver, 1 molotov, 2 pipe bombs and 3 EMP grenades. The EMP will paralyze them so I easily finish them off with the rest of my arsenal.

Surprisingly, moving through the ugly interiors of the station, because now everything was somehow in fire, smoke and the taste of blood in the air, I bumped into several androids who barely noticed me. I didn't waste ammo on them because I'll need it later. I rushed past them, ran down two flights of stairs, through a long covered corridor and soon found myself in the last floor passage that leads to the medical rooms inside the space marshals bureau.

Once there...everything seemed normal.

At first I saw a window with stars. Wonderful. Quiet. This was the scenery from the other side of the station than I hadn't the chance to see before. The peace of that scene was great. That image was so powerful that it seemed to me that it was black and white, yet more alive than reality itself.

But enough space sightseeing, in Sevastopol something like that can cost you your life.

And I went through the room, looking carefully around.

The first bad thing I noticed: Taylor was no longer on the medical bed. What could that mean? I better find out as soon as possible.

The second bad thing I saw when I entered the marshal's premises: everyone was dead. Bodies on the floor in pools of blood, no survivors. I go to the entrance area to check the situation there. Dead people everywhere too. Ten of them in total.

But there was not a single synthetic anywhere. And not all of them were dead. Ricardo was sitting on the bench, in shock, but definitely alive. He wasn't even wounded, as far as I could see.

- Ricardo?

- They're all dead, Rip. All.

- I know. And you?

- I was out of the office, on Waits' orders. I was checking something...nothing really, something trivial. And yet...it saved my life. I didn't come back until they left, and everyone here was already...dead.

- I'm sorry, Ricardo. This is awful. But now...I have to ask you for help.

Although he seemed traumatized, reason prevailed. We agreed that he will guide me and give me an update, because he will stay in the office for a while because I will need his help, which only the console in marshals bureau can activate.

And I will, of course, look for Samuels. I'm going to face APOLLO and see for myself what it's all about.

I moved on, hoping the synthetics wouldn't come back for Ricardo.