Aftermath

Because Samus deserves a personality and a purpose

By Jennifer Wand

Chapter 6: Confrontation

"How could you do such a thing?"

Parr was sitting at his desk with a mug of coffee, browsing the news. He looked fairly groggy. It was still the first hour of the waking shift, and the station was deserted. Nobody had passed me in the hallways on the way here; nobody had stopped, gawked, pointed fingers and whispered. Not that I had been able to see anything but my destination. The doorway appeared to me as though it were framed in red, so blurred with rage was my vision.

He set down his coffee and grinned. "Ran," he said in a pleased voice. Then he cocked his head. "What the hell are you wearing?"

At my waist, my fingers tensed around the rim of my helmet. I'd torn it off as I'd run. It wasn't the first time in my life I'd felt my rage was going to boil the metal if I didn't remove it. "Do you have any idea what you've done? Do you have any idea what you've created?"

He stood up. "What's wrong?"

"Why didn't you just irradiate them with Phazon while you were at it? You must have a death wish!" Parr didn't have a clue and I didn't care. The anger that drove me was like acid eating at my insides and I was clawing it out, word by sharp-edged word. "The sheer arrogance! How could you possibly think you could control them? The two most dangerous parasites known to man and you had to combine them? You're sick."

Parr's face turned white, and he stuttered for a moment before finding his words again. "Ran... y-you... where have you been looking..."

He knew the answer to that question already. "Explain it," I seethed. "What in this world were you thinking?"

He sighed. "Look, Ran," he said. "We do research here. It's a research station. This was an intriguing problem, so we took it on. As far as our job goes, we did it successfully. We did our job."

"For who?" I slammed my helmet down onto the desk. Parr jumped. "Who ordered this... this madness?"

"Don't ask that question, Ran, please."

"You're creating monsters!"

"We're creating possibilities!" For the first time since I had burst in, Parr's voice was raised. "God, Ran. Don't you even know what a triumph this is? Think of the possibilities! We've taken two creatures that can extract and replicate information. The Metroids don't just suck up life force, you know. They feed on brainwave activity. Information. Knowledge. Memory. But they can't process it.

"And the X can replicate anything they touch. But when they do, they create shells, empty vessels with no knowledge, just an instinct for self-preservation. Can you even begin to imagine what we've achieved? These two abilities together..."

"...could destroy a universe! Just how much are you willing to risk for the sake of your science?"

His jaw set. "Everything. I'd risk anything for science. Don't you know that by now? It's not about my life or death. It's about possibilities."

The resolve in his voice made me feel, for the first time, like I was losing my footing. This was such a bizarre thought to me, who had always felt that my duty was to prevent danger from becoming disaster. Perhaps it was that I had grown up alongside beings who lived outside of time. My mortality felt like my one tragic flaw. Perhaps if I could keep others from dying, this short, limited life of mine would have some meaning.

I supposed that made me similar to Parr. We were both willing to risk ourselves for some (real or imagined) greater good. I tried to calm down. "But what would make you want to pursue this bizarre... this dangerous experiment? What in the world could you possibly gain from this?"

"What couldn't we gain?" He threw up his hands. "We could create virtual clones of our leaders, our great thinkers. We could create creatures with human knowledge and the physical abilities humans have never had. Imagine a bird that could tell us how it flies. Imagine a soldier with the skills of a space pirate and the memories of a Federation officer. Imagine--"

Parr clapped his hand to his mouth and muttered a muffled swear. My rage roared back to life in a heartbeat. "Don't bother," I snapped. "I knew it was the Federation from the moment I saw it. The greedy bastards want to mass-produce everything, even soldiers--" It was my turn to break off. "Did you just say space pirate?"

He said nothing. His face was ashen. The straggling dog hairs around his chin were damp with sweat.

"That space pirate you'd captured. Parr." At the sound of his name, he nodded sheepishly. "...The bastards!" I whirled and puched a wall. A picture frame fell from the opposite wall and hit the floor with a loud clatter. Coffee spilled over the edge of Parr's cup.

"Ran. Get a hold of yourself." Par tried to grab my arms. I pushed him aside, and he stumbled, crashing against his desk and sending dark streams of coffee streaming across its surface. He straightened up, now flushed. "Ran!" This time, he locked his hand around my wrist, his grip hard enough to crush it. The pain sensors in my suit flared and I howled. Parr let go of my wrist, his face pale at the thought he'd hurt me.

"In case you've forgotten," he said in a low voice, "you're one of 'those bastards,' too." He paused, gazing at me as though he'd just seen something. There was a silence. Finally, he said, "Aren't you?"

I stretched out both arms, knocked him over, turned, and bolted. The pretending was over.

As I leapt through the doorway and rounded the corner, I saw Parr's figure in a reflective wall panel. He'd gotten to his feet in a hurry and was now talking earnestly into a communicator, his face red with rage and worry.

He'd be talking to his donors now. There was nothing more I could do here as Ran Meridian--that much I knew. My cover was blown and I'd lost Parr's trust. That was all right, though. I'd already discovered what they were up to. Now it was only a matter of getting out of here, getting back to my ship, and coming up with a strategy. So I ran. Harder and harder until the speed booster slowed down time around me and turned the gleaming walls into blurs of silver light.

The wide, inviting panorama of space was within my sight now and getting closer by the second. Parr would have revoked my clearance by now-- I wouldn't be able to authorize the launch of a shuttle. And for the first time I remembered a blinking red signal that had been in my peripheral vision when I had first seen the true nature of the Metroid-X amalgamation. I hadn't been concerned with it then, but now it was a massive problem: My missiles were depleted. What chance did I have of blasting my way out of here now? As I arrived in the shuttle bay my thoughts were glum. Lost in outrage and shock, I'd bungled this whole operation.

"Need a lift?"

The pleasant voice startled me, and I reflexively aimed my beam. But it was no monster or Federation authority, but Ethan, standing in the doorway of a nearby shuttle, grinning and rocking his thumb back over his shoulder like a hitchhiker. "Hop in," he smiled.

When fortune smiles, you don't ask how or why. All that mattered was that Ethan's security code was still active and he had cleared the shuttle for takeoff. I did as I was told.

As I moved back toward the cabin, Ethan tossed out casually, "I knew you couldn't wear it ALL the time."

It was a little later, and we were cruising comfortably toward the asteroid where my ship was moored. I was sitting on the bridge in shock, my throat dry, my head bowed. Ethan stood at the control deck, following the navigation panel.

Finally, I managed to speak, though my voice was surprisingly raspy. "H... how long have you known?"

"Almost from the beginning," he shrugged, his back to me. "Well, that's not quite true. I suspected from the beginning. I mean, if you felt you needed to destroy the first BSL, I thought it was natural you'd feel the need to investigate Two. So I get myself assigned, and my CO is a mysterious woman I've never heard of? I couldn't help but secretly hope it was true."

"And so all those stories you would tell--"

"Testing you." He turned back with a wink. "You kept your cool pretty well, Chief, I have to say. So it's not as if your cover was blown. It was actually an accident that I found out for sure."

"What kind of acci--" My dry throat caught up with me, and I choked on the last syllable. Ethan immediately made for the water bubbler in the adjoining room.

"I went to the security station," he shouted through the doorway, "to ask you a question. After my shift. Well, you weren't there, and one of the monitors was on the blink too. I figured you'd gone to get it fixed, but it stayed offline and I got curious. So I traced the line to its root and got the bright idea to set up my own camera." He came back through the doorway and crouched across from me, passing me a cup of water.

"And then you saw what I was up to," I said after gulping it down.

Ethan nodded, casting a glance at the small, gleaming ball beside me. I'd shed the suit after I boarded, opting for more casual clothes. At the time, I'd really wanted to curl up, ashamed of having my identity on display. But a morph ball doesn't speak, and I couldn't let all this go unexplained. And you can't curl up in a suit with such massive shoulders (useful as they might be in adverse climates). So for a while, the suit and I sat side-by-side, like two pill bugs that had been poked with sticks.

"Thank you for not ..."

He finished my thought. "Blowing your secret?"

I smirked at him. "I was GOING to say 'asking for my autograph.'"

"Oh, please." He laughed. "Did you really think my admiration of you was so juvenile? You're the reason I joined the GF. To find you. I didn't expect I'd meet you so soon though. I feel a little like I won the lottery.

"But really, Samus ..." He paused, blushing, as he called me by my true name for the first time. "All I wanted to do was work with you. And that wasn't going to happen if I started going ballistic the moment I figured out who you were."

"I suppose I can understand that," I said with a weak smile. And I found myself grateful that he was there. After the monstrous nature of what I'd seen, a little human contact was a welcome respite. And there was nothing like an ego boost to make one forget about failure.

Ethan was a little disappointed to see that my ship was nothing more than a standard hunter-class gunship with barely enough room to move inside. But he liked the orange color, saying it fit my personality. I had no clue what he was talking about.

Immediately I went into the computer bay and started to input what I'd learned of BSL2 and the Metroid-Xs -- Met-Xs, I'd started calling them in my head -- hoping I could puzzle out some of the intricacies and find a way to destroy them without endangering the other lives on board BSL II. My onboard computer contained the wealth of information I'd gained in my travels among the stars, and there was a lot in there that came from planets and cultures lost forever to the rest of the world. Perhaps in that infinity of lore, there was a solution.

When I was finally convinced I had input everything I could remember, I set the machine to process the query and returned to the bridge. "We should go back," Ethan said nervously. (He looked more claustrophobic than anything else.) "I don't like the idea of just making off with their shuttle. We're supposed to be on the side of the law."

"'Supposed to be' and 'are' are two very different things," I lectured. "But don't worry, we are going back. You can even take the shuttle." His shoulders relaxed. "In fact, I'll need you to open the ports for me."

"What'll you do?" he asked, hovering anxiously near the tight portal that connected my ship to the loading dock of the larger shuttle.

"I don't know yet," I admitted. "But I'll figure it out by the time I get there." In the background, I could hear the busy hum of the processors. It was a sound that filled me with comfort and confidence. There was a universe of answers in that machine -- I just had to find the right one.

"That's not what I mean," Ethan frowned. "Are you going to kill them? The monsters you told me about, that is. Or are you going to capture one? What's your plan?"

They had to be killed. That was the only way to ensure the safety of the scientists onboard BSL2. But what of the Federation? Would I be able to expose them, put a stop to their dangerous ambitions? Perhaps if I had managed to get Parr on my side after all that...

It was frustrating. "I'll figure it out," I snapped. "Go back to the shuttle and head back. Wait for me to arrive. I'll tell you then." I made a shooing motion toward the loading dock.

He retreated a step. "But Chief --"

"Go, go!" I motioned impatiently. "We don't have time to waste." In my head, I was already seeing Met-X versions of Parr and the scientists, hunched over the bodies of their victims, flickering in and out of their assumed shapes as they lay in wait to devour us. It was a nightmare scenario, but one that became more likely with each passing moment.

Ethan shrugged and began to move back toward the shuttle. But a noise from the computer bay stopped him. We both turned, stared at the door.

There was a figure back there, something tall and lean. Shrouded in shadow as it was, its movements seemed to speak to me of something familiar. Not daring to guess what had made its way aboard my ship in my absence, I nevertheless trembled, my heart in the grip of warm and cold flushes of apprehension.

Ethan reached for his pistol. Reflexively, my hand stretched back to stop him. At the same time, I wished I had never shed my power suit. It seemed I couldn't leave one den of dangers without creating another.

And then the figure had a voice. "Don't go back yet," it said.

My blood froze.

"Ethan," I whispered, "go back to the shuttle."

"What?"

It was too much of an effort to even answer him. I couldn't move, but every cell in my body felt like it was racing at the speed of light. I was sure my bones would crack from the vibration. Something huge and wet seemed to be rising up through my sinuses like an awful cloud of fog.

"Chief..."

His presence was choking me further. "Head back. Now." I couldn't turn my head to stare him down; it took all my effort to even move my jaw. But I heard the portal open, heard his boots clang on the planks of the loading dock and fade as the portal whirred closed.

And I was alone with ...

"Don't go back yet," repeated the figure in the shadow. It started to move forward."

I saw, rather than felt, my hands extend, saw my fingers spread into wild, shaking shields. "Don't--" I hissed. "Don't come out. Don't."

"Before you go anywhere, you and I need to have a talk."

"Stop --"

But it didn't stop. My eyes were blurred by this time, but I still knew the face that moved into the light.

"What do you say, lady?"

To be continued...