Alien: Covenant - Origins - The Official Movie Prequel

XVII

The club was resolutely middle-class. Narrow street frontage was crowned by a single low-key three-dimensional signbox in which a succession of full-bodied images of assorted genders cavorted in a farrago of positions, some of which defied easy mathematical description.

A simpler sign nearby proclaimed that the club was “All Natural,” indicating that its performers hadn’t been in any way cosmetically enhanced. Or at least it was so claimed. Given the skill of modern manipulative surgeons, it was usually impossible to tell where nature ended and cosmetic ingenuity began.

Even narrower stairs led down to a street sub-level at the end of which was a distant door that pulsed a deep red, like a squashed ruby. The doorman was human. Not as perceptive as a machine, but cheaper. His evident boredom matched his size. Lopé and Rosenthal were admitted without hesitation.

Once inside the club they found themselves immersed in purple lighting and the thumping base of generic music. Padded and plush, the walls were also a soft purple. He hoped the padding was intended as a decorative touch, rather than being reflective of the frequency with which patrons tended to be thrown against it.

The premise of protection continued throughout. Tabletops were fashioned of inflated lavender fabric, while their sturdier supports were wrapped in padded fabric of alternating purple and black. Lighting overhead and underfoot consisted of whorls and abstract designs that had been etched with photo luminescent paint. Bathed in proper light during the day, they would shine it back at night until the wee hours of the morning. By that time, he decided after scanning the crowd, anyone remaining in the club would be approaching a communal state of blotto.

Lopé noted the location of security cameras, ceiling-mounted vents that might dispense soporific gas, and the position of the three tenders at the two bars—one was mechanical and the other two human. There were a couple of potential escape routes, and numerous items, from chairs to bottles, that could be requisitioned in a fight.

The place was moderately crowded. Though there weren’t many couples scattered among the predominantly male clientele, he and Rosenthal drew no stares. Most likely, he decided, because the majority of male eyeballs were focused on the three figures performing on the three separate small stages.

Bathed in intense but rapidly flickering spotlights, the gyrating forms seemed to pass in and out of perception. Occasionally, the two women and one man would switch stages via some clever bit of mechanical alchemy. Neither the performances nor the performers were the equal of those found in the more expensive Covent Garden establishments, but they were a cut above the cheap grindups that clung like diseased limpets to the district’s dank, wholly subterranean byways.

Rosenthal looked bored, while the sergeant had seen it all before, in greater variety and in more interesting parts of the world. Nevertheless, their attention locked almost simultaneously on the performer undulating on the far left-hand stage. They started in that direction, and were intercepted by a hairless, convex creature with attentive eyes and thick lips.

While shorter than Lopé, the bouncer was about as wide as he was tall. Raising a hand, he gently rested on the sergeant’s left shoulder a cluster of fingers that looked like a damaged package of knockwurst.

“No more tables down front, friend,” he growled loudly enough to be heard over the music. “You and the lady need to find one in the back.”

Lopé ignored the implication inherent in the gripping fingers. “We need to talk to one of your dancers.” He nodded toward the woman on the stage in front of them. The bouncer’s expression didn’t change an iota.

“Everyone wants to talk to one of our dancers.” A flicker of interest appeared as he shifted his attention to Rosenthal. “You two boy dem?”

Shaking his head, Lopé offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile as he reached—slowly—into an inside coat pocket to remove a wallet. He thumbed through the solid piece of plastic until it stopped at his official identification. As soon as he saw this, the bouncer’s demeanor changed dramatically. Removing his fingers from the sergeant’s shoulder, his small bright eyes widened.

“Covenant Security?” He looked up at the sergeant, over at Rosenthal. “For real?” She nodded affirmatively. “You go where you want, sir and ma’m. If I can help in any way…”

“Thanks.” Lopé returned the slip of wallet to his pocket. “We just want to talk to the lady.”

The bouncer glanced over his shoulder, then returned his attention to the notable pair of visitors. “Aurora? She’s off stage in ten minutes. Break time. Would you like me to introduce you?”

“No need. Ten minutes?” The bouncer nodded again, plainly excited to be in the presence of such celebrities. Anyone outbound on a colony ship was considered a celebrity, both for having the guts to leave everything behind and for taking on the risk of settling a new and unknown world. Noting the stocky enforcer’s enthusiasm, Lopé added, “Don’t go around pointing us out to the crowd or your colleagues, okay? We want some quiet time before… you know. Departure.”

The bouncer nodded enthusiastically, and offered to guide them to a front row table. Lopé thanked him politely but declined. If their quarry was going to be off stage in a few minutes, it would be simpler just to wait for her to finish.

They took a table off to one side, and bought a couple of overpriced drinks. When asked for directions to the backstage waiting area, the bouncer eagerly pointed the way. As soon as the electronic tones of aural aphrodisia began to fade, the three performers abandoned their podiums, one by one.

Following the bouncer’s directions, Lopé and Rosenthal headed toward the staging area out of sight of the main room. They found the tall but no longer redheaded security applicant in a small private dressing room. They entered without knocking and caused her to whirl in her seat. The tattoo work that covered the front half of her head was even more impressive close up. So was the fact that at the moment she was wearing nothing but sculpted light.

“What the hell?” Gaping first at one unannounced visitor and then the other, she raised her voice to a shout. “Hekel! Get in here! Hekel, dammit!”

Rosenthal replied calmly. “If you’re referring to the club bouncer, he’s probably busy by now letting a few close friends in on our secret.”

The woman’s outrage morphed into uncertainty.

“Letting a… who the hell are you two?” Her eyes grew wide as she stared at Lopé and recognition began to dawn. “You… I know you. You were the bastard who…”

He smiled thinly. “School’s out, Ms. Hazelton.”

She gaped at him a moment longer, then made a dash for the back of the room. There was a bathroom there, but no exit. Not below street level. Still, things could get awkward if she locked herself in the loo and began screaming. A pursuing Rosenthal forestalled any such concerns with an adept sweep of her leg. The woman went down hard. Looking up from the floor, their quarry glared.

“You broke my damn leg!”

Standing over her, Rosenthal pursed her lips.

“No I didn’t. If I’d wanted to break your leg I’d have hit you behind the knee, not the ankles. And if I’d hit you hard enough to break your leg, you’d be screaming something besides ‘you broke my damn leg.’” Extending an arm, she reached down. With Lopé’s help, they hauled the woman to her feet. Pinioned between the two of them, she found her range of motion greatly reduced.

Her gaze flicked from one to the other.

“What do you want with me?”

“Well, I didn’t come here to tell you you’re hired.” Lopé nodded toward Rosenthal. “Actually, she got the position you were applying for. To answer your question, though, I don’t want to know much. Maybe why you ran when you did.” He feigned surprise. “Oh, and why your accomplice—or colleague, or whatever the hell he was—tried to splatter my brains all over the main lobby of Weyland Tower.”

Hazelton again looked from one to the other, then slumped slightly. “Can I get dressed? We can go somewhere and talk.”

“Aren’t you afraid you’re liable to get fired?” Rosenthal prompted.

The other woman let out a derisive sniff. “From this job? Yeah, that’d be a tragedy, wouldn’t it?” She shrugged indifferently. “I can get this kind of work anywhere. Besides, this isn’t the profession I’m trained for—but you already know that, don’t you. Well, you know what teachers get paid these days? I only do this to pick up some extra money.”

Lopé offered encouragement. “Maybe we can send some more your way.” He looked around them and screwed up his face. “More than you take out of this place, anyhow.”

Hazelton’s demeanor improved somewhat. “You won’t call the blue and two?”

“For what?” The sergeant smiled amenably. “Running from a job interview?”

“What about conspiracy to commit murder?”

He shrugged. “Plenty of people have tried to kill me. They failed. You failed. So did he. No hard feelings.”

Her expression said that she was uncertain whether to believe him or not. “All right. I’ll give you the information you need to know. In return… in return, we skip opposite. Go our separate ways.”

Need to know? Not, “want to know.” Though he found the turn of phrase puzzling, Lopé saw no reason to press for an explanation—at least, not now. For the moment, he was satisfied that the woman was ready to talk. If nothing else, she seemed thoroughly resigned.

Having established that there was no other way out of the dressing room, he and Rosenthal stood back and watched as Hazelton, confirming that “modesty” wasn’t a word in her personal dictionary, used a moist chemical wipe to sweep away the luminous body paint. Donning clothes that were the antithesis of flashy, she took a deep breath and headed for the door behind them.

“Let’s go,” she said. “I know a place around the corner where we can talk quietly. Fish and chips, twenty-four seven.”

“Real fish?” Lopé was intrigued. “Real chips?”

Hazelton made a face. “If I could afford luxury goods on a teacher’s salary, I wouldn’t be working in this hole.”

Rosenthal’s expression was sympathetic. Her words were otherwise. “If you try to run, I’ll not break your other leg.”

Hazelton didn’t respond, leading them out a back door. They found themselves in a substreet alley. Narrow, constricted, the dark serviceway was the concrete equivalent of a bad sore throat. It stank of disinfectant and mutant rat urine. Discarded objects that would have sent the parents of Hazelton’s middle school students fleeing in disgust littered the uneven black pavement underfoot. Dim lights and a few desultory stripes of photoactive paint provided just enough light for Lopé and Rosenthal to see things they would have preferred not to see.

One more reason, he told himself, for leaving this world behind. Humanity had made too much of its world a toilet.

Lights and sounds appeared ahead as they neared the street. Poured concrete stairs bordered by ancient cast-iron railings were visible leading upward. Letting out a curse, Hazelton halted. Bending her right leg up behind her, she leaned against a wall as she tussled with a black faux leather boot.

“Need help?” An impatient Rosenthal took a step toward the struggling woman.

“No, I’m okay, thanks.” Pausing in mid-effort, Hazelton smiled at the two security officers. It was a strange smile to flash in that dim, dingy concrete crevice, Lopé thought. Almost beatific. The teacher-stripper looked at him, then at Rosenthal.

“I did my best,” she said. “The Prophet knows I did my best. It’s not such a bad thing to finish this way.” Her eyelids flickered. “I can’t stop the departure of the Covenant. Others may. It won’t matter to me. It won’t matter to you. You’re going to die somewhere out there. It’s inevitable. The Prophet knows. The Prophet speaks but not enough listen. They will, they will.

“Oh-tee-bee-dee.” Her hand slid down her raised boot, toward the heel.

Eyes widening, Lopé grabbed a baffled Rosenthal and all but threw her toward the stairway as he yelled.

“NAPOULE!”

A second later middle school teacher Glynis Hazelton, her face alight with the expression of an ascending angel, twisted the heel of her right boot. There was a whoom as the footwear ignited. Like a fiery genie freed from its lamp, a ball of orange flame shot upward. It scorched black the walls on both sides of the alley.

Just behind Rosenthal, Lopé felt the heat on the back of his neck and head, saw the glare through his closed eyelids. The flare was intense but over quickly. There was nothing in the alley that would burn. Nothing but a few scraps of grimy discarded plastic and other soiled materials, and three human beings.

Two of them rose shakily to their feet to regard what was left of the third. Most of Hazelton’s flesh was gone, leaving only a kneeling, flaming skeleton to stand out starkly against the dark narrow background. After a minute the bones began to crumble.

Lopé looked at Rosenthal. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” The private checked herself, nodded. “Thanks. For saving my life.”

“Forget it. Time’s running down and I didn’t want to have to go through the interview process all over again.” Turning, he looked toward the top of the stairway. Having been close enough to hear the explosion or see the resultant glare, a few pedestrians on the street had gathered to peer down into the alley. No one inquired if Lopé and Rosenthal were all right.

Climbing back to the street, the two members of the Covenant’s security team soon lost themselves in the evening crowds.

“What was all that about a ‘prophet’ she was on about?” Rosenthal asked.

“Don’t know—yet.” Lopé was thinking hard. “This makes me wonder if the attempts to stop the Covenant mission have nothing to do with the corporate merger, and a lot to do with something outside the company. Outside, but making use of people who are inside.”

He looked around as ordinary people struggled to enjoy themselves in the city’s increasingly shabby entertainment district, fighting to survive on air that at times was barely breathable.

“Any ideas?” Rosenthal asked.

“You already singled it out.” Lopé’s tone was thoughtful. “We need to find ourselves a ‘prophet.’”

She eyed him uncertainly. “But a prophet of what?”

“Doom and gloom. The Covenant’s failure,” he told her. “Our deaths.” He gestured back the way they had come. “We’re all going to die ‘out there,’ she said. This ‘prophet’ says it’s inevitable. Yet if the Covenant mission is stopped, we don’t die out there, so it’s not inevitable. Kind of a confusing prophecy, I’d say.”

Her bemusement matched his. “And what the hell is ‘oh-tee-bee-dee’?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “If it’s Chinese, then the company might be right in their suspicions. Although nobody said anything to me about a ‘prophet’ before now.” Seeing that she still didn’t understand, he explained. “The leading theory is that Jutou might be behind it all.”

Her gaze narrowed. “The Jutou Combine?” When he nodded, she turned thoughtful. “I’ve had a couple of experiences with corporate warfare. Company agents will fight for an employer, and even die for them if the matter is serious enough—and so’s the pay.” She shook her head dubiously. “But this is the first time I’ve ever heard of one committing suicide.”

“Same here,” he said. “Doesn’t add up.”

They were walking briskly, and pedestrians parted before them, happy, alert, intent on having a nice evening out no matter what came their way.

They were no closer than they had been before they located Glynis Hazelton. If anything, there was more confusion, and his head hurt. The ship would be leaving soon and he didn’t have time for nonsense.

“As a rule, corporate professionals don’t kill themselves,” Rosenthal said as they walked. “Fanatics do, for a cause.”

“In that case we’ve got two things that fit together,” he concurred. “‘Fanatic’ and ‘prophet.’”

“How does that tie into the Jutou Combine?” she wanted to know. “From what I know about them—which admittedly isn’t a lot—they’re strictly about business. Not fanaticism.”

He nodded agreement. “Fanatics make poor businessmen. The triad running the Combine may be ruthless, but that’s a very different motivation. And I never heard of anyone involved with Jutou referred to as a prophet. I’m starting to think that Weyland-Yutani is looking for the wrong people in the wrong places.”

“So,” Rosenthal prompted him, “who or what do we look for now?”

“I don’t know.” Lopé turned a corner. They weren’t that far from Piccadilly, and he suddenly felt the need to drown himself in the lights of the buildings and the laughter of young people.

“But I know someone who might.”