Kingston was wrong.

Those fossils we found were not proof that life evolved the same all over the galaxy. They were common ordinary earth fossils. His so-called proof, therefore, was bullshit.

I thought about this as I glared at the ceiling mounted camera bubble.

I watched and I waited, but nobody came after me.

Desperate for a way out, I searched the room from top to bottom for a tool, anything that could help me. I threw the blankets and pillow from the bed, overturned the mattress, emptied the dresser drawers.

I found a flathead screwdriver under a bible. After bending and nearly breaking it on the windows, I decided a better idea would be to Jimmy the bolts out of the door hinges.

It took me an hour and a few cuts in my hands before the door toppled over and I could at last squeeze outside.

I found myself in a green hallway, with art deco patterned trim, French western style brass lighting sconces, and a thin carpet the color of blood.

A teenaged African American girl squatted next to the door across from me, lighting up a cigarette. Black tank top, gray-black Lycra leggings that left little to the imagination. She wore her hair in a `fro, but looked good enough to get away with it.

The girl took a drag. "There's a key in the bible, you know. They taped it right under Isaiah 45:15. `Truly thou art a God who hides Himself.'" She puffed out smoke.

I looked around. The other doors stood open, but the girl appeared to be the only person in the vicinity.

"Where am I?" I asked.

The girl only shrugged. "Dunno. I just woke up here."

"I was in Florida," I said. "Some giant asteroid crashed down, and we were mining in it. Know anything about that?"

The girl narrowed her eyes, took another drag. "I think I looked at those documents. Wasn't there some property in those rocks that multiplied alien fungus and spread a bunch of alien lice all over the place?"

I knelt next to her. "What else do you know?"

"Nothing," she said. "I just stole some papers. Al Buraq came over there and killed people. Some other shit happened. What do you think happened?"

I frowned. "I...don't know. I...think...that asteroid picked up some alien relics. Maybe some giant bug aliens. They were cloning human beings. There were insects that tried to shred my legs open."

The girl just stared at me, quietly smoking.

"It was a big elaborate production. They made it look like I was in outer space the whole time, but the whole thing was staged. They said they cloned me."

"That explains the bar code," she said.

"What bar code?"

The girl pointed to a spot I couldn't see on my neck.

I told her about the strange pod, the cloning room, the one that matched my dream. And the monster that called herself Ripley.

"I'm afraid the ride isn't over yet," she said.

I paled. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

"They moved you from one mouse trap to another. I've been in a hotel like this before. People are going to die. You never know when, or how, but they are. You'd better watch your ass."

She sighed, looking away.

I peeked into the other rooms. Other than the varying states of disarray from frantic searchers, each one looked identical, interchangeable with all the other ones.

Finding nothing of real usefulness, and no weapons, I crept down a short hallway to a landing where two more rooms stood open.

A third door, one that had remained shut, stood at the far end, near a window.

The door rattled, the knob twisted back and forth, like something were trying to get out.

Was it a lion? A tiger? Some practical joker with a computer and a stereo system? I couldn't tell what it was, but I didn't want to find out. I ran down the balustraded staircase between the balcony railings.

The thing upstairs continued to roar.

I entered a finely polished hotel lobby modeled after an old western saloon.

Eleven pairs of eyes stared back at me. Three young men and an older woman at the bar, four people at a table, and three, including a midget in leather furniture around a cold fireplace.

I took one look at them and cried, "Can someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?"

A door behind the bar swung open, out stepped "Digger Dan".

He smiled, gave me a friendly wave like he didn't try to trap me in a room with a killer insect.

"Hey, Ripley," he said. "Where were you? It's been a minute."