THE STRUGGLE a story by Christian Fowler, Jan. '98 (Revised May '98) Disclaimer: Based on characters created by Dan O'Bannon, James Cameron and Joss Whedon The characters in this story are copyright (c) 20th Century FOX ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The red light blinked. A warning signal flashed on the screen. This wasn't supposed to happen. Obviously a problem with the new chip which had just been installed. "Shit! We'll have to patch up that new function chip. Must be a coding problem in the ROM area.", a man said. He punched a key on the keyboard in front of him and turned to the man beside him. His friend wasn't all to keen on this set-back. Time was becomming a very important factor in his project. He certainly didn't want to fail now that he had come this far. "Do you think you could burn a new chip by tomorrow?", he asked. "Sure, Bishop, but what do we need this chip for anyway?". Bishop turned to the dead being on the table behind him. "This one's special. Very special.", he said and left the room. "How's your work progressing, Bishop?". Being a typical company guy, Grey was always curious with his workers' actions. It wasn't as if he wanted to be that way. He was assigned by the company to inspect all his workers here at the Synthetic Humanoid Labs on the Jovian moon, Io. "Not too good, I'm afraid", Bishop replied. He hated to lie. It wasn't really part of his programming. Not initially, but after he was patched up after the incident on LV-426 some 20 years ago, something went wrong. He had become somewhat self-aware. He had always pondered over Descartes' "Cogito Ergo Sum", but had never understood the complete meaning. To him these words used be nothing but a philosophical motto often used by humans in connection with theories of the human mind. Now this phrase almost made sense to him. The scientists were able to bring his system fully back on-line, but they forgot to reset his memories properly. You could say, they weren't able to bring him back to his former self; a cold synthetic humanoid scientist. Bishop was constantly reminded of the way the company used him to try and bring back an alien from the colony planet. Even though he only had electronic circuits inside his head, he was still haunted by the endless nightmares. After all, it was his fault that Ripley had died, not to mention the young girl and the wounded corporal. But it was over now. All that worried him now, was the fact that the company was able to squeeze the recorded data out of his log, and from the Sulaco's computers on the crashed EEV on Fury 161. They still hadn't given up their greatest ambition. He could see it in the way they were franticly spending money on failed journeys to LV-426 and the surrounding planets. Weyland Yutani was losing money, and the pressure on them from the millitary didn't make anything easier. Bishop just crossed his fingers and prayed that the company wouldn't succeed. "What's going on?". Grey was puzzled by this sudden turn in progress. "You just told me a few days ago that you would have the new prototype ready by the end of this week! Man, if we don't get this machine up and walking by Monday, Wright is surely gonna demand some explanations!". The beads of sweat on Grey's forehead started popping out. "Calm down, sir.", Bishop was calm as always. "This prototype was just a test. We only used it for tests. The true prototype is almost ready over at Lab 16.". "God, Bishop! Why didn't you tell me this! You know you're supposed to report everything to me!". Grey knew his authoroty at this station wasn't appreciated by the workers, but now he really felt stepped on. "We didn't want to worry you too much, sir.We all know what a hard job you're doing here, and we didn't want to make it any harder for you. Please forgive me, sir. I'll make sure you'll be the first to know of changes from now on". Over the passed twenty years, Bishop had learned how to wing his way out of the company's claws. All he had to do, was act like one of them, and never mention a single word about the danger of the aliens. Grey went over to the shuttle gate nearby and was about to board. "I'm on my way over to Lab 16 now. Please join me, Bishop. I would deeply appreciate your report on the proto-type." Early the next morning, Bishop and Wright were able to patch up the ROM on the "deffect" droid. They were both anxious to get the droid properly working, but from now on everything had to be very hush, hush. Officialy this droid was nothing but heap of electronic garbage. Unofficialy, it was Bishop's way of destroying the company. "There. That should do it. Power up the CPU, Wright. I think we've finally got it this time.". Bishop was pleased. He was sure it was going to work this time. Wright opened a panel at the back of the droid, and inserted two jack plugs. He turned to his computer, punched in a sequence of digits, and hit a red switch on the side. A faint buzzing sound came out of the droid. Some of it's joints twitched slightly, then rested. Bishop gave commands to the droid. "Command: initialize boot sequence.". A few seconds passed, then the droids eyes opened. Wright checked the computer screen. Everything seemed OK. He nodded to Bishop. "Command: report self-test". A gurgeling sound came from the droids mouth. Then it spoke: "SHL Systems Synthetic Humanoid version 1.0. 06-22-01. All systems operative. ROM reports no dammaged locations. Data LOG: operative. Audio/Visual senses: operative. Directional: operative. All other functions: 100%". Bishop was overwhelmed of his success. "Command: report humanoid name". A few seconds went by. Then; "SHL Systems Synthetic Humanoid version 1.0. Name... Annalee Call"... TO BE CONTINUED...