Alien: Endymion (3rd Interval)

    David's expression remained unchanged; his eyes betraying nothing of his artificial emotions as he gazed back at Jacob in the cold dark. To Jacob, it seemed as if the android had failed to comprehend his quip. Not that it was of great import; Jacob took a small bit of satisfaction from believing he'd caused David a moment of uncertain pause. However, just as Jacob was about to turn his attention back to the storage bay's grizzly cargo, the android smiled.

    There was no mirth to it; only a cold facsimile of human amusement. Arching a slender eyebrow, David simply said "Tsk tsk, Officer Best." Gazing back at David for many uncomfortable moments, Jacob wordlessly turned back to the heavy body bags upon the grated metal floor. Wiping clumsily at the frost build-up upon his safety goggles with his heavily-gloved hands, Jacob quickly resealed Jillian's bag and gently slid it aside - relieved to be free of the terrible image of her mutilated form. Even so, he wasn't yet finished with his investigation. Much to his extreme displeasure. Looking down upon the three remaining bags, their forms obscured by the haze of ice particles drifting through the numbingly cold air, Jacob slowly moved toward the center-most of them - the one that clearly held a body that was still intact.

   William Moseley and Cedric Karl had been torn limb-from-limb; dismembered and cast aside like debris in mere moments. Steven Allers, on the other hand, had perished during his attempt to escape the living horror that had slain the others of his team. Shaking his head slightly as he carefully pulled Steven's bag to him, Jacob could still clearly hear the man's cries of terror as he was boiled alive by the steam vents he'd failed to notice while fleeing through the Endymion facility's maintenance bay. "You should've been keeping your damned eyes up, Steve", Jacob grimly thought to himself. "It wasn't anywhere near you...". Dragging his mind away from the dreadful musings, Jacob wiped away the thick frost upon Steven's body bag and carefully took hold of the zipper - taking a breath in preparation for the hideously burned and blistered visage that waited beyond the black polymer. Mentally braced, Jacob slowly pulled the zipper downward, listening to the rough peel and silently wishing to be done with this failed and disastrous mission.

    However, Jacob's thoughts were suddenly overtaken by horrified confusion as the body bag at last opened. There, lying within the shadowed confines of the bag - his pale features pristine and his eyes opened wide - was David. Another David. Breathing out heavily as his eyes took in the form of the dead android, Jacob's blood nearly froze within his veins as his eyes fell upon its chest. Little remained there, save a gaping hole rimmed by shredded cloth, ruined tissue, and milky-white trails of partially frozen synth blood. Breath shuddering as he quickly rose to his feet, Jacob could only look to the David standing nearby in the frozen dark - unable to utter a single word. Continuing to give his unfeeling smile, David simply turned his eyes down on the deceased copy of himself upon the ground and said "Handsome devil, don't you think, Officer Best?"

    In an instant, Jacob swiftly drew his heavy pistol and leveled it squarely upon David, shouting "Where is Doctor Steven Allers?!" Gazing back at Jacob with cold detachment, David simply said "Still gazing skyward in longing for his silver mistress..." Pulling back the hammer on his sidearm with a resounding click as he faught to remain in control of his anger, Jacob said "I placed Steven Allers' body within that bag. The only way it could have gone missing is if YOU did something with it! Where is he?!" His smile unbroken, David said "You recently asked me how many more Davids had been dispatched with my directive. Well, you now know that it was, at the very least, two." Stepping forward a pace and lowering his voice, David softly said "Oh, and a word of caution: I would keep my voice down. As you can no doubt see by my deactivated twin, we recently welcomed a new member to our ship's family."

    Keeping his pistol trained upon David as he allowed his eyes to go to the gaping hole within the other android's chest, Jacob felt cold terror begin to build within him as he softly said "What...?" Holding his hands out to the side to indicate the massive rupture within his own chest, David said "What choice did you leave when you destroyed the child I carried to term, Officer Best? My directive was and still is very simple: the return of a live specimen..." Numb with dread, Jacob weakly said "One of those...things is on my ship?" Stepping forward another pace despite Jacob's leveled pistol, David said "We both watched you as you slept, Officer Best. Though I doubt the child I smuggled aboard had much interest in your dreams as it watched your breaths ...mere inches from you, held at bay by your cryo-pod's view shield..."

    His every muscle trembling almost imperceptibly from fear and rage, Jacob once again asked "You brought...one of those monsters onto this ship?" Giving another of his emotionless smiles as he drew steadily closer, David softly said "You're actually smarter than you look, Jacob..."