Aliens

Lit by Hicks' pack-light... a tiny cowering figure. A very dirty, very terrified NEWT JORDEN. She clutches a plastic food packet in one hand, its top gnawed partway through. In the other hand she grips the HEAD OF A LARGE DOLL, holding it by the hair. Just the head. Eyes staring. Newt is pathetically emaciated... fragile-looking as Dresden china, her hair tangled and matted.

RIPLEY

(soothingly)

Come on out. It's all right...

Ripley moves toward her, reaching slowly under the cabinet. Newt backs away, trembling visibly, her vision fixated like a rabbit blinded by headlights. Ripley's hand almost reaches her.

The kid bolts like a shot, scuttling along beneath the cabinetry. Ripley scrambles to follow... to keep her in sight. Crabbing frantically sideways. Hicks makes a grab, catching one tiny ankle. He snaps his hand out a moment later.

HICKS

Ow! Shit. Watchit, she bites.

The girl reaches a ventilation duct set in the baseboard, its grille kicked out. She scrambles inside, her tiny body barely fitting, wriggling like a fish.

In his bulky armor Hicks knows he'll never make it into the tiny duct. Ripley dives. She squirms into the duct without thinking. Just ahead she sees Newt enter a dark space and slam a steel hatch. Ripley pushes the hatch open before the child can latch it, and crawls in after her.

Newt is backed into a cul-de-sac in the tiny steel chamber. Ripley shines her light around in amazement. It is a NEST. A nest built by a child. Wadded up blankets and pillows line the space, mixed up with a haphazard array of TOYS, STUFFED ANIMALS, DOLLS, CHEAP JEWELRY, COMIC BOOKS, EMPTY FOOD PACKETS, even a battery operated TAPE PLAYER. All foraged from the wrecked colony. Ripley marvels at the child's incredible adaptability, the ability to functions even in this nightmarish environment.

Newt edges along the far wall and dives for the hatch.

Ripley grabs her, controlling her in a bear hug. The kid struggles wildly, like a cat at the vets. Eyes wide, hands lashing out in a frenzy... but silent. No scream.

RIPLEY

It's okay, it's okay. It's over... you're going to be all right now... it's okay... you're safe...

Newt goes limp, almost catatonic.

CLOSE ON NEWT'S TRAUMATIZED, VACANT STARE

Her lips are white and trembling, her eyes track wildly and she flinches from unseen terrors. We READ a dark nightmare world in her eyes.

Ripley's light falls on something amidst the debris... a FRAMED PHOTOGRAPH of Newt, dressed up and smiling, a ribbon in her hair. In embossed gold letters underneath it says:

"FIRST GRADE CITIZENSHIP AWARD REBECCA JORDEN"
 

INT. OPERATIONS – ON NEWT – MANAGER'S OFFICE

Sitting huddles in a chair, arms around her knees. Looking at a point in space.

GORMAN (O.S.)

What's her name again?

DIETRICH (O.S.)

Rebecca.

WIDER ANGLE  REVEALING GORMAN

Sitting in front of her while Dietrich watches the readouts from a BIO-MONITORING CUFF wrapped around Newt's tiny arm.

GORMAN

Now think, Rebecca. Concentrate. Just start at the beginning...

No response. Ripley enters, carrying a coffee mug.

GORMAN

Where are your parents? You have to try...

RIPLEY

(sharply)

Gorman! Give it a rest would you.

Gorman stands with a sigh of dismissal.

GORMAN

Total brain-lock.

DIETRICH

(shrugs)

Physically she's okay. Borderline malnutrition, but I don't think any permanent damage.

She unsnaps the bio-monitoring cuff.

GORMAN

Come on, we're wasting our time.

Gorman and the others exit, leaving only Ripley with Newt. Through the window of the office, out on the main floor of the operations room, we SEE Gorman join Burke and Bishop at a computer terminal.

Ripley kneels beside Newt, brushing the girl's unkempt hair out of her eyes in a gentle, maternal fashion.

RIPLEY

Here, try this. A little instant hot chocolate.

She wraps the child's hands around the cup. Raises it to her lips for her. The girl drinks mechanically, spilling down her chin.

RIPLEY

(soothing)

Poor thing. You don't talk much do you? That's okay by me. Most people do a lot of talking and they wind up not saying very much.

She sets the cup down and wipes the child's chin clean.

RIPLEY

Uh oh. I made a clean spot here. Now I've done it. Guess I'll just have to do the whole thing.

She pours water from a squeeze bottle onto a small cloth and gently washes the little girl's face. Newt's eyes seem to focus on her for the first time.

RIPLEY

Hard to believe... there's a little girl under all this. And a pretty one at that.

Newt gazes at her. Ripley smiles.

INT. OPERATIONS

The ground teams are gathered around a terminal in the computer center. Hudson has the CPU main computer on-line and reading out.

TIGHT ON MONITOR SCREEN

As an abstract of the main colony ground plan drifts across the screen. Searching.

Hudson bashes at the keyboard, his fingers dancing expertly.

BURKE

(to Gorman)

What's he scanning for?

GORMAN

PDT'S. Personal-Data Transmitters. Every adult colonist had one surgically implanted.

HUDSON

If they're within twenty clicks we'll read it out here, but so far... zip.

INT. OFFICE

Ripley is washing Newt's tiny hands with a cloth, pink skin emerging from black grime.

RIPLEY

I don't know how you managed to stay alive but you're one brave kid, Rebecca.

Newt's voice is almost inaudible.

NEWT

N-newt.

Ripley leans closer. Feels like she's breathing on coals. The sound was incomprehensible.

RIPLEY

What did you say?

NEWT

Newt. My n-name's Newt. Nobody calls me Rebecca except my dork brother.

Ripley grins inanely, not wanting to move or speak... or break the spell.

RIPLEY

Well, Newt it is then. My name's Ripley... and people call me Ripley.

Ripley picks up her tiny limp hand, shaking it formally.

RIPLEY

Pleased to meet you. And who is this? Does she have a name?

Newt glances at the disembodied doll, still clutched in one filthy hand.

NEWT

Casey. She's my only friend.

RIPLEY

What about me?

Newt's reply is flat, neutral.

NEWT

I don't want you for a friend.

RIPLEY

Why not?

NEWT

Because you'll be gone soon, like the others. Like everybody. You'll be dead and you'll leave me alone.

Ripley gazes at her, chilled both by the ominous statement and by the situation which could have produced this outlook in a child.

RIPLEY

Oh, Newt. You mom and dad went away like that, didn't they?

Newt nods, staring at her knees.

RIPLEY

(soothingly)

They'd be here if they could, honey. I know they would.

NEWT

(with cold certainty)

They're dead.

RIPLEY

Newt. Look at me... Newt. I won't leave you. I promise.

NEWT

You promise?

RIPLEY

Cross my heart.

NEWT

And hope to die?

Ripley smiles grimly at the inadvertently macabre expression.

RIPLEY

(quietly)

And hope to die.

And because she's a child, the darkest terrors, even the ones seen and not imagined, can still be banished by a smile and a single promise.

Newt's eyes brim as she gazes at Ripley. Her lower lip starts to tremble, and her face slowly deforms into an abject mask. She sobs as she clamps her arms around Ripley's neck. The sobs come in waves as Ripley rocks her, tears of suppresses terror and grief and hurt rolling down her face. It is a breakthrough.

Ripley closes her eyes, hoping that this promise can be kept.

INT. OPERATIONS

Everyone jumps as Hudson cries out triumphantly.

HUDSON

Hah! Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen! Found 'em.

GORMAN

Alive?

HUDSON

Unknown. But, it looks like all of them. Over at the processing station... sublevel 'C' under the south tower.

TIGHT ON SCREEN

Showing an amoebalike cluster of flashing blue dots clumped tightly in one area.

HICKS

Looks like a Goddamn town meeting.

GORMAN

Let's saddle up.

APONE

Awright, let's go girls, they ain't payin' us by the hour.

EXT. ACHERON - TWILIGHT

The APC roars across the stygian landscape, traversing the causeway which connects the colony to the ATMOSPHERE STATION a kilometer away. Behind it the drop-ship settles to the ground at the colony landing field.

PAN WITH THE APC TO REVEAL THE MASSIVE STRUCTURE

Like a vast foundry the conical exhaust tower flickers with spectral light.

INT. APC

The troopers sit, more subdued now, swaying and bouncing in the heavily sprung vehicle. Wierzbowski is in the saddle. Ripley and Newt sit side by side just aft of the driver's cockpit.

NEWT

I was the best at the game. I knew the whole maze.

RIPLEY

The 'maze'? You mean the air ducts?

NEWT

Yeah, you know. In the walls, under the floor. I was the ace. I could hide better than anybody.

RIPLEY

You're really something, ace.

Ripley's gaze shifts out the windshield as the processing station looms ahead.

EXT. APC / STATION

The vast structure towers above the parked personnel carrier. Deploying in front of the APC, backlit by its lights, the troopers cast long shadows. They look ominous. Hulking techno-samurai.

The base of the station is a depthless maze of conduits and pressure vessels, like an oil refinery. Or a Dantean version of one. The THRUM of functioning machine systems echoes through the labyrinth.

GORMAN

(voice over; static)

Forty meters in. Ramp on axial two-two. Access to sublevels.

The troopers start down the open rampway. Light filters down through several levels of steel mesh floor, catwalks and pipes. Below that is darkness.

GORMAN

(voice over; static)

B-Level. Next one down.

The thrumming of machines grows louder as they descend.

INT. APC

Huddles around the screens are Ripley, Burke and Gorman. Newt squeezes in from behind. Gorman is doing his video wizard bit, dancing on the buttons.

GORMAN

(to team)

We're not making that out too well. What is it?

HUDSON

(voice over; static)

You tell me. I only work here.

INT. COMPLEX

The group stands before a bizarre tableau. Among the refinerylike lattice of pipes and conduits something new and not of human design had been added.

It is a structure of some sort, extending from and crudely imitating the complex of plumbing, but made of some strange encrusted substance. It vaguely resembles the chambered nests of swallows on a much larger scale, and it attenuates so gradually into the original hardware that it is hard to see where one ends and the other begins.

The alien structure seems to extend far back into the complex of machinery. The plant thrums loudly, its functioning seemingly not impaired.

INT. APC

Ripley stares at the scene in dread fascination.

GORMAN

What is it?

RIPLEY

I don't know.

GORMAN

(to team)

Proceed inside.

INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE

They enter the organic labyrinth, playing their lights over the walls. Revealing a BIO-MECHANICAL LATTICE, like the marrow of some vast bone. The air is thick with STEAM. Trickling water. The place seems almost alive.

INT. APC

They watch in various helmet-camera POV's of the wall detail.

RIPLEY

(low)

Oh God...

CLOSE ON VIDEO

As it PAN SLOWLY... REVEALING a bas-relief of detritus from the colony: furniture, wiring, human bones, skulls... Fused together with a translucent, epoxylike substance.

DIETRICH

(voice over; static)

Looks like some sort of secreted resin.

GORMAN

They ripped apart the colony for building materials.

RIPLEY

And the colonists... When they were done with them.

(turning)

Newt, you better go sit up front. Go on.

INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE

Steam swirls around them as the troopers move deeper inside.

FROST

Hotter'n hell in here.

HUDSON

Yeah... but it's a dry heat.

INT. APC

Ripley leans forward suddenly, studying the graphic readout of the STATION GROUND PLAN.

RIPLEY

They're right under the primary heat exchangers.

BURKE

Yeah? Maybe the organisms like the heat, that's why they built...

RIPLEY
That's not what I mean. Gorman, if your men have to use their weapons in there, they'll rupture the cooling system.

BURKE

(realizing)

She's right.

GORMAN

So.

RIPLEY

So... then the fusion containment shuts down.