Alien: Isolation

Chapter Eight: Internal Comms

Chapter Eight: Internal Comms

Oh great, Ripley thought as she looked at the screen. Great, great, great, that's just fucking great. Gritting her teeth and growling as she kicked the bottom of the console, the resounding thud that resulted made her immediately calm down... well, maybe calm was the wrong word, since now she was worried that one of the Working Joes had heard the sound, but thankfully none of them came to investigate. This was a good thing, since there were really no areas in this room that she could hide in, and she didn't like the idea of having to take on an Android with nothing but a maintenance jack.

This meant that no matter what happened, she had to keep both calm and quiet if she didn't want to end up like that man she had seen back in the corridor, but it was a little difficult to stay calm with all of the lunatic shit that had been happening since arriving on Sevastopol. All she had wanted to do was collect the Nostromo's flight recorder and find out what happened to her mother, but instead she had gotten crazy people, malfunctioning Androids, and that... whatever the hell that thing was that had killed Burke's people.

"Okay, Amanda, think." She said to herself, trying to figure out her next move. "Apollo turned off external communications... so what are your options?"

Since the order to stop external communications had come directly from the station's A.I., there was no way to get around it, at least not from where she was. However, she didn't know where Apollo's interface core was located, nor was it likely that she would be able to access it, so Ripley needed to think of something else. Damn it, if only she had someone with her who knew the station that she could ask for... hey, that's it! External communication was down, but maybe she would still be able to contact someone inside the station.

Scrolling back through the menu on the console in front of her, she was a little worried about alerting more people to her presence, especially after Burke and his people had tried to kill her. But then again, Axel had been sane... mostly, so that meant there had to be at least a few normal people left on Sevastopol. Finally there was some good news as she was able to access internal communications, and as she scanned through the different frequencies, she couldn't help but smile when she heard a familiar voice.

"Hello, is anyone there?" Samuels' voice said. "If anyone can hear this, we need help. Repeat, we need help urgently, please respond."

"Samuels, you're alive!" She happily exclaimed after locking onto the frequency. "I thought you and Taylor... is Taylor with you, did you both make it?"

Finally, something was going right for a change. If she could link up with Samuels, she wouldn't have to worry about the Working Joes any more, since Weyland Yutani models like him were far more advanced, and probably a lot stronger, too. That, and he had been given the radio by Verlaine... but then why hadn't he contacted the Torrens yet?

"Ripley, thank God." Samuels replied. "Taylor, it's Ripley, she made it, too. Yes, Ripley, we both made it, but the radio booster was destroyed in the blast, and Taylor was injured. She was hit by a piece of debris, and I can't move her until I treat and pack the wound. We're at a Transit Hub near the lower entrance to Medical, but the door's jammed, and I won't be able to get in until...

"No, no, no, no, Samuels! Do not leave her alone for even a second." Ripley interrupted. "Everything's gone nuts on this station; Seegson's God damn Androids are killing people!"

Being a Synthetic himself, Samuels was quick to remind her that harming a Human Being was a violation of primary Synthetic programming, and she would have believed him if she hadn't seen it happening with her own eyes, and that wasn't even the worst of it. Beyond saying that the creature onboard Sevastopol was big and lethal, she really didn't know how to describe it. Of course, she probably sounded like a lunatic when she guessed that it could have been some kind of Alien or an illegal experiment, but instead of trying to give him further details, Ripley was using the console to bring up the station's schematics.