by Alex White
“Good morning, Blue.” It’s Marcus, his voice like wet gravel. “I woke you up because I’ve changed my mind.”
She searches for him. She’s so cold. Something has gone wrong with the cryo pod, and now frost creeps up her legs.
Marcus’s hand, encrusted with android blood, falls across the glass, and he pulls himself atop her, straddling the pod. His torn right eye leers at her, and his left stares at some faraway object through a crushed orbital socket.
“You were never worthy,” he slurs, shining onyx ink dribbling up around the corners of his mouth. He leans back and takes a deep breath, flexing his neck as he does. With a sudden heave, he paints the glass canopy black with the stolen sample.
Blue shrieks and presses back into her bed, drawing her arms close. The sample smears together with Marcus’s blood, and she can see it undulating, crawling and curling. He’s blinded her as a squid might, plunging her into darkness.
“Marcus, no!” she cries. With each breath, she can smell her burned feet once more. A deafening thump splits her eardrums. Another comes, and she spies the smear of Marcus’s fist through the glass. On the third strike, the glass spiderwebs, its vertices meeting directly before her eyes.
“Please!” she begs, her voice shaking. She crosses her arms in front of her face, but he strikes again.
A tiny droplet of Plagiarus praepotens forms at the center of the web, hanging down above her. It worms around, stretching for something to touch. Then it falls onto her bare forearm, sinking into her, staining her veins black with its corruption. Its cold rush travels up her body, spreading through her, sprouting thorns and barbs in her veins. The skin of her infected arm begins to writhe, pressing hungrily toward her.
It splits, and there’s a flash of chitin.
33
RIBBON CUTTING
“You’re all right. You’re all right,” Rook says, pressing his soft hand to her forehead.
Blue opens her eyes to gentle nightlight and a breeze. A low orange glow floods her space as she awakens, falling upon a desk, a nightstand, and a plethora of medical equipment. She can’t feel her arms and legs, but that’s normal. They put her in a full-body management machine. She rests her head against the lip of her high-tech casket.
It’s been two cycles. Rook is the only face she’s seen, but he’s been kind to her, as all synthetics are. Rook has a different skin tone, bone structure, and eye color from Marcus, but somehow they’re exactly the same.
“You were dreaming,” he says.
“So I noticed.” Her reply comes through the speaker mounted over her chest. She can’t speak anymore. They’re afraid it’ll kill her, so they’ve opted for direct oxygenation of her organs. “It was about Marcus.”
“We already took care of him. He was happy not to suffer.”
“I understand.” That doesn’t make her feel any better.
A short chime sounds, and a blue light flares. Rook turns to look at it.
“You’re being summoned,” he says, and without asking he slips the net of a much sleeker brain-direct interface over her bare scalp. “Are you ready?”
Blue gives him a short nod: the most motion she can possibly display.
Rook returns to a console and keys something into it. Blue closes her eyes and the world falls away. It’s a smoother transition than her bare-bones system on the Cold Forge. They must’ve spent a pretty penny on it.
She finds herself in a brightly lit laboratory, filled with top-of-the-line equipment. Two people sit in chairs awaiting her—a middle-aged man and a woman, both wearing crisp suits. They’re probably the most non- threatening people Blue has ever seen, with a little bit of extra fat on their faces, giving them an appearance somewhere between childlike and everyman. They recognize her presence inside whatever synthetic body she’s connected to, and smile cordially.
A third chair sits empty. The woman gestures to it, but Blue remains standing.
“I’m Helen,” she says, “and this is Dan. Would you mind stating your full name for us?”
“Blue Grace Marsalis.” Her voice is female, though sonorous. She glances down at her body to find an approximation of her hands from so long ago.
Dan gestures to her. “We, uh, thought you might like a body more in line with your own, instead of forcing you to walk around in a Marcus.” His cheeks swell like a baby’s when he grins.
Blue looks both of them over. They seem so hopeful. “I prefer a male body.”
“Of course.” Helen nods. “Our mistake. We’ll get that rectified. Dan, if you could—”
“Way ahead of you, Helen.” Dan types something into his portable terminal. It couldn’t have been easy for them to make a body like this for her, but they didn’t mind her rejection at all. He looks back to Blue. “What would you like us to call you?”
“Doctor Marsalis.”
“We have cookies, Doctor,” Helen says, and Rook walks in behind her holding a plate of soft, buttery chocolate chip cookies. The scent is comically enticing, almost a parody of temptation. “Your previous body couldn’t really taste correctly, but this one has a few upgrades.”
Blue takes a cookie and bites into it, warm tendrils of chocolate pulling away where it breaks.
“Seems like the perfect time to take it for a test drive,” Helen continues. “Dan, would you like one?”
Dan pats his gut. “No thanks. The doc is telling me I need to lose a few—”
“Why did you kill everyone on the Cold Forge?” Blue asks, and Dan and Helen stop dead. In the awkward silence, Blue detects a few strains of classical music wafting in through a speaker somewhere.
Dan leans forward, steepling his fingers. “The personnel on board RB-232 were conducting dangerous and unethical experiments.”
“Bullshit,” says Blue. “I deserve to know.”
Helen looks to Dan, and they share a look. Some of her politeness grows brittle and chips away.
“The station,” Helen begins, “as well as Glitter Edifice, represented a substantial investment for Weyland-Yutani Corporation. It was a chance to deal them a significant financial blow.”
Blue remembers how Kambili rescued her, and her chest hurts.
They didn’t deserve to die.
“Every one of the personnel on board the Cold Forge were working on high-value projects,” Helen continues. “A loss this large on their books, both in terms of infrastructure and human resources, could substantially alter their share price come quarterly reporting.”
“Human resources,” Blue echoes. “Is that what you do?”
They both nod, and she wrinkles her nose in disgust.
Blue walks to the chair and sits down. “I think you would’ve liked the last HR guy I knew. I bet you’d have a lot in common.” She glares at them. “So this was all a big play to damage Weyland-Yutani stock price? Why?”
“Come the end of the fiscal year, Seegson Corporation will be a five percent shareholder,” Helen says. “That’ll get us a spot on the Board. Symbiosis is the best way to survive, don’t you think?”
“And think of the power differential when we approach them with an applied pharmacological usage of the sample you’ve brought us,” Dan adds.
Blue starts to speak, but Dan raises a hand. The prick actually interrupts her.
“We’re here to offer you a choice, Doctor Marsalis. We don’t believe your research is complete. We want you to continue with us, and we’ll sustain you for as long as you need.”
“To research a cure?”
“To design a cure is to control the sample,” Helen replies. “We want a broad portfolio of applications before we approach the possibility of a merger.”
Blue searches their faces. More of the same corporate stooges, just wearing different name tags. The problem with Dorian Sudler was that he wasn’t one in a million—he was a promotable opportunist. He contained every trait Weyland- Yutani valued in an executive: quick, cruel, creative, self- starter. He was brutally efficient, the type of man to obey a
business model over a moral compass. Those were all skills required to make it in the modern workplace.
Blue played chess with the devil. She knew his tricks, so Helen and Dan had no idea who they were fucking with. She’d design her cure, and they’d double-cross her, but she’d be two steps ahead by then. She couldn’t be sure how they’d come at her, or what she’d use to respond, but she knew some things for certain.
She was clever. She was powerful.
She was unbreakable.
After all, she’d been through the forge.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
By trade, I am not a biologist, virologist, entomologist, or physicist. Luckily, I know people who have pushed the boundaries of genetics, experimented on bugs, and shot things into space. Thanks to Dr. Stephenson, Lali DeRosier, Sola, and Dr. Granade for helping me with the science stuff. I’d be screwed without friends to undo my ignorance.
This journey began when my agent, Connor Goldsmith, asked me what my favorite sci-fi properties were. “Alien” was the first on my lips. He brought home this book deal, an incredible gift for me, and I’m so grateful.
Thanks to my editor, Steve Saffel, who worked with me to turn into reality this long dream of writing for Alien. It was nice to prove to my parents that I didn’t waste my time by wearing out our VCR on those tapes.
Thanks to the folks at Titan Books, including Nick Landau, Vivian Cheung, Laura Price, Ella Chappell, Joanna Harwood, Jill Sawyer, Paul Gill, Katharine Carroll, Polly Grice, and Cam Cornelius, as well as the team at Fox: Carol Roeder, Nicole Spiegel, and Steve Tzirlin. And, of course, thanks to Lydia Gittins for working tirelessly to promote this book. Lydia was assigned to my debut novel before moving over to Titan, and I am so glad I was able to work with her once more.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alex White was born and raised in the American south. He takes photos, writes music and spends hours on YouTube watching other people blacksmith. He values challenging and subversive writing, but he’ll settle for a good time.
In the shadow of rockets in Huntsville, Alabama, Alex lives and works as an experience designer with his wife, son, two dogs and a cat named Grim. Favored past times include Legos and race cars. He takes his whiskey neat and his espresso black.
Table of Contents
The Complete Alien™ Library From Titan Books
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1: Line Items
2: Arrival
3: The Kennels
4: Plagiarus Praepotens
Interlude: Javier
5: Rescue Puppies
6: Smoke & Mirrors
7: Wild Dogs
8: Truth Will Out
9: Adrenaline
Interlude: Dick
10: Service & Servers
11: Viable Countermeasures
Interlude: Lucy
12: Quarantine Protocol
13: Lockbox
14: Severance Package
Interlude: Dick
15: Escape Clause
Interlude: Ken
16: Exposure
17: Flight
18: Reset
19: Lines of Communication
20: Distractions
21: Going Missing
22: Decisions
Interlude: Anne
23: True Colors
24: Extinguished
25: Never, Never
Interlude: Lucy
26: Daedalus, Who Built the Labyrinth
27: Invigoration
28: The Freezer
29: Vehicular Homicide
30: Operator Error
31: The Hard Way
32: Masterpiece
33: Ribbon Cutting
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Table of Contents
The Complete Alien™ Library From Titan Books
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1: Line Items
2: Arrival
3: The Kennels
4: Plagiarus Praepotens
Interlude: Javier
5: Rescue Puppies
6: Smoke & Mirrors
7: Wild Dogs
8: Truth Will Out
9: Adrenaline
Interlude: Dick
10: Service & Servers
11: Viable Countermeasures
Interlude: Lucy
12: Quarantine Protocol
13: Lockbox
14: Severance Package
Interlude: Dick
15: Escape Clause
Interlude: Ken
16: Exposure
17: Flight
18: Reset
19: Lines of Communication
20: Distractions
21: Going Missing
22: Decisions
Interlude: Anne
23: True Colors
24: Extinguished
25: Never, Never
Interlude: Lucy
26: Daedalus, Who Built the Labyrinth
27: Invigoration
28: The Freezer
29: Vehicular Homicide
30: Operator Error
31: The Hard Way
32: Masterpiece
33: Ribbon Cutting
Acknowledgements
About the Author
