Alien: Isolation

Chapter Thirteen: Plan B

Being among people again... sane people, that is, had allowed Ripley a chance to relax her mind as well as her body for the first time in what felt like forever. Since the moment she had set foot on Sevastopol station, it had been nothing but a constant struggle to survive, mostly by hiding and running away. But now that her friends were safe, and Marshal Waits actually had a plan to do something about the creature, she was feeling a lot more confident. Of course, this feeling ended once the transit car came to a stop in the Sys/Tec Tower, and the doors opened to reveal a dark and silent Transit Hub.

Like the place where she had first been, this area looked abandoned, and aside from the random indicator lights on the wall panels, the only light was that from the inside of the transit car. The first thing she listened for was human voices, as well as the rhythmic march of the Working Joes, but there was just nothing. Her shoes caused a little sound as she quietly stepped out of the transit car, but then Ripley gasped as the door closed and the indicator light above it turned red.

"Waits, what happened?" She whispered as she pressed the button. "The transit system just went down."

"Relax, we did that." Waits' voice explained. "I had Ricardo lock down all transit from that tower so that the creature can't leave. Welcome to Plan B, Ripley... B stands for Box... within a box... within a box."

Well, the name was ignorant, but no matter what the plan was, or how it was supposed to work, she was now trapped inside of the Sys/Tec Tower with the creature. Sure, each tower was massive, giving her lots of room to run and hide if she needed to, but that thing was relentless, and having seen it in action several times, Ripley was probably the only one who truly understood how dangerous and frightening the creature was. But this time she wasn't defenseless; having almost forgotten about the jury-rigged flamethrower that was slung under her arm, she held it in a ready position, and held the lever to start the pilot-light.

A small flame was produced at the end when she did this, and although it was no larger than a candle, it gave off a surprising amount of light, bathing the area around her in a flickering orange glow. The good news about this was that she could now see at least what was around her, but the bad news was that she was going to be a lot easier to spot while using it.

"Okay, Ripley, listen up." Waits continued. "This part of the tower was built to process high-value compounds dredged up from the gas giant's surface, and piracy precautions are still in place. That means that it can be completely cut off; vents, doors, everything, so we're going to build a cage around the creature, and then Ricardo locks it down. Hence... box within a box."

"That... actually sounds doable." Ripley replied as she continued looking around. "So how do we start?"

The next part of the plan actually seemed pretty simple, at least the way that Waits explained it. There were switching stations at various points around this section of the tower, which when activated would lock down their corresponding vents and doors, and the best news was that Ricardo was tracking the creature's movements several decks away from her. This meant that as long as she didn't do anything ignorant, that it wouldn't even know that she was there until it was time to lockdown the final part of the cage.

"Hey, Ripley, it's Ricardo." The Deputy's voice said. "There are four switching stations that need to be activated to make the cage, and I'm not tracking any movement in your area, so it should be pretty easy for me to guide you to each one."

With him guiding her, and the flamethrower's pilot-light to let her see, Ripley had no problem following his directions as she left the Transit Hub and followed the signs to an area called Supplies Storage. Sure enough, there was a manual switching station right in front of the entrance to that area, and it looked like some kind of tool was needed in order to activate it, so it was lucky that she had brought the maintenance jack along.