Chapter 3 - The Agenda

 CHAPTER THREE

The Agenda

 

Dr. Shaw sat up in her pod. ‘This is the part of the job I despise most… not prepping for cryo, not staring at the boundless blackness of the space between worlds. This.’ Each time she woke from the prolonged hyper-slumber, Shaw’s body rebelled in full force against her. She swung her legs over the left side of the bed, held the foremost strands of her shoulder-length brown hair back with both hands and let loose a deep-yellow stream of vomit. ‘This is my last trip like this. I’m not doing cryo-sleep ever again,’ Shaw promised herself while in the grips of physical agony, the way an overindulged alcoholic would when waking to the pain of the next day. Before her body could eject another bout of vomit, a plastic container was thrust under her face. As she let her innards loose a second time, a complimentary hand was placed softly upon her back as she wretched.

“Try to relax, Dr. Shaw. My name is David. Your body and mind are in a state of shock from the stasis.”

Shaw quickly surveyed her surroundings with her dazed eyes. Several others were in a similar state of shock; whimpering and vomiting. David forced the catch tray politely into Shaw’s grip and quickly stepped away to attend to the other sick crew.  Dr. Ford, one of the two other women among the crew, was on her knees upon the floor, lurching and spewing into a plastic container similar to the one Shaw was using. Two of the male sleepers who Shaw did not recognize were very sick, but otherwise, the other males seemed to be holding themselves together. A gleaming, green concoction was being drunk by those who held their vomit; a compound of electrolytes and synthesized vascular accelerants that was, as rumor had it, originally a miracle cure for hangovers. The taste of the stuff was an assault of citrus and spearmint; the kind of shit a young twenty-something would drink as part of losing a bet. Truthfully, people rarely complained about drinking the rejuvenating stuff. First off, a person coming out of cryo was already sick, exhausted and in pain; drinking eight ounces of something that tasted unpleasant would hardly be adding to the person’s suffering. Secondly, if someone was able to drink it that meant that they weren’t among those shaking, moaning and vomiting uncontrollably. Finally, Elizabeth Shaw’s eyes found the person she had been looking for – thirty-five year-old Dr. Charles Holloway, an archeologist and the love of Dr. Shaw’s life.

“We did it baby!” Holloway said as he raised his glowing beverage from across the room. “We’re here!”

‘Why am I always the one throwing up while Charlie gets to sit there smirking like an ass every time?’ Shaw asked herself as she felt her stomach delivering on another promise of a torrent of upchuck. She heaved again, partially missing the catch tray and vomiting on her own dangling feet.

Following a shower and a dry, fresh pair of Weyland Corporation uniforms, Shaw and Holloway made their way to the cafeteria area of the ship. As they stood in line to get their coffee and tea, a disgruntled looking man with an orange beard and mohawk bypassed the entire line and walked right up to the coffee dispenser.

“Excuse me…” Dr. Holloway said with polite anger.

The man ignored her and began filling his cup.

“Hey! Get in line like everybody else.” Shaw said as he tapped the man on his left shoulder.

The ingrate wheeled around angrily, slapping Dr. Holloway’s hand away with the hand not carrying the hot drink.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” The man was posed as one about to enact physical violence.

After a few awkward seconds, the orange-maned man grunted and walked away hastily to the far corner of the cafeteria by himself. It took both Shaw and Holloway a moment before they noticed David standing behind them smiling plainly. It was more than likely that the physically unconquerable synthetic was the deciding factor in the man’s reluctance to escalate to violence.

“What’s his problem?” Holloway asked, still keeping his own cool.

David’s eyes followed the man until he had seated himself and began eating and drinking.

“You’ve had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Fifield, our team’s Geologist. I highly suggest avoiding him. Fifield failed the pre-mission psychological tests and was thrown off his last two voyages into space for hostility and substance abuse issues.”

Dr. Shaw’s face twisted into the expression of someone who had just suffered a grave insult.

“Why would Weyland hire someone like that?”

“Mr. Weyland’s original crew choices were changed after his death. Fifield and a number of others were chosen by Miss Vickers.”

Holloway lost interest almost immediately and went to sit down to his first meal in almost two and a half years. To Hell with the pissy Biologist and the bleach blonde toaster oven, Holloway didn’t even wait up for his love. He sat down at an open table, taking one last precautionary look at Fifield, who was calmly sipping something from a large bowl, before he began to drink the imitation coffee steaming in his cup. First impressions were rarely a thing that Dr. Holloway put stock in. When he had met ‘Elli’ for the first time six years ago, she thought him to be boisterous and immature for his age. It was his persistence that captured Elizabeth Shaw… and with that, the things that Charlie Holloway did which irritated her began to cause him to grow on her. Once she had let down her defenses to him, Holloway struck his blow of love. She saw how relentless Holloway’s hunger for knowledge was… not just knowledge, answers. And so was his love for Elizabeth Shaw – hungry, relentless. She saw how smart and motivated Holloway was, and nine times out of ten, that was all a good woman needed in a man. The journey that Charlie Holloway had taken from the moment of his first impression with Elizabeth Shaw to where they were now was proof of how inconsequential first impressions were. Maybe Fifield would end up being a buddy of Dr. Holloway, or at the very least someone he could have a few drinks with after Ellie had fallen asleep. Ellie wasn’t the first person to find him overbearing and at times loutish. The first and only time Holloway and Shaw met Peter Weyland in person, Weyland liked Holloway so little that he openly suggested that only Shaw be a part of the mission. Ellie could have slapped him right there in front of the most powerful man of this universe and the next for his insolent sarcasms. But most people, first impressions be damned, couldn’t help but warm up to the energetic and confident Dr. Holloway. After a few brief words with David, the synthetic walked from the beverage area and Dr. Shaw sat across from her boyfriend. Another man entered the cafeteria, a medium-sized man with rolling red curls hanging over both ears and down to the top rim of his thick spectacles. Holloway had met him officially just before going into cryo sleep. The man was nervous and abruptly introduced himself with a handshake the moment he first saw Holloway. The effects of cryo had not yet worn fully off; Holloway struggled to remember his name – Miller, Mulber, Mueller? He hoped the man would ignore him entirely, which he did. The man gathered his breakfast on one of the thick, rectangular cafeteria trays and strolled right past Holloway without as much as a nod of remembrance.  Of all the empty tables the man had at his employ, he chose to sit directly across from Fifield. And just like that, the fool was picking up right where he had left off. The moment his tray was set upon the tabletop, the man thrust his hand out to offer a shake to Fifield, who was peeling his resting eyes open with slow anger at the unwelcome presence.

“Hi! I’m Millburn, Biology!” He said with a large, dopey smile.

Dr. Holloway couldn’t help but enjoy the prospect of Fifield being harassed and having his space invaded by Millburn the friendly Biologist. He wanted to turn around and see the look on Fifield’s face, but Dr. Holloway chose to ignore the urge to drink in the well-deserved suffering of the orange-maned man. He looked upon a much more pleasing face to behold, his love, Elizabeth. Suddenly, Dr. Holloway wasn’t thinking about childish, self-serving things. His mind was upon the towel pantry in the bathroom of the quarters he shared with his girlfriend. There, under the folded pile of white bath towels was a little red and black box with the ring he was going to offer to Ellie when the mission was all over and they could take the fortune Weyland was contracted to pay them and never have to take any job they did not wish to again. They would have the perfect life together when this was all over.

“Look, um, friend… I’ve been asleep two years… I ain’t here to be your friend. I’m here to make money. You got that?” Fifield said with a tired scowl at Millburn

The Biologist withdrew his hand in embarrassment.

“Okay then…”

Meredith Vickers walked authoritatively into the cafeteria. She was met with the dank odor of burned marijuana and the sound of a deep voice singing.

“We wish you a Merry Christmas!”

Vickers stopped and looked with a concoction of amazement and displeasure. The man was decorating a three-foot tall artificial pine tree with lights and shiny decorative balls.

“What in the Hell is that?” Vickers asked.

Janek took a deep pull from the smoking joint in his left hand.

“It’s Christmas,” the captain said and exhaled, “we need the holidays to show that time is still moving.”

“Mission briefing is about to start, captain,” Vickers informed, adding significant contempt to Janek’s rank, "you might want to start making your way down.”

Janek’s glazed eyes looked Vickers up and down quickly. She was an absolute peach of a woman, but far less thoughtful and kind than other women who did not possess such looks. Janek could already tell how much of a coldhearted bitch Vickers was, but what did that matter? His mind had been made up – he would shoot his shot to Vickers… somewhere hopefully in the near future. With those looks and all of that senseless aggression, she was bound to be a handful in the sack.

“Well, I haven’t had any breakfast yet,” Janek toyed with her; raising the joint to his mouth in order to cover up a stupid smirk.  

Vickers was not amused, at least not on her exterior. She exhaled sharply and narrowed her eyes at Janek.

“You might want to make your way down,” Vickers said as she turned her back and made her exit.

While the organic inhabitants of the Prometheus ate and chatted, the inorganic David had prepared the gymnasium for a presentation. Two rows of eight folding chairs had been arranged and both of the overhead basketball hoops had been folded against the ceiling. Chance and Ravel had been woken in succession to Vickers and Janek, the ship’s captain, just before the rest of the crew had been brought out of cryo-sleep. They had finished their breakfast before the last wave of the awakened was sitting down to begin theirs. Following suit, Chance and Ravel were the first two to sit down in the darkened gymnasium. The resident lovebirds Shaw and Holloway aside, the two commercial pilots were the closest pair among the entirety of the crew of the Prometheus. They shared one very intimate trait closely; loving to fly, but hating working for Weyland Corporation. Sharing the company of like-minded beings is one of the truest spices of living, and Chance and Ravel were as thick as thieves.

“I bet you a hundred credits this is a terraforming survey,” Chance said as he lazily bounced his knee and stared forward.

“If it was a terraforming survey, they’d just tell us,” Ravel countered matter-of-factly.

“It’s a corporate Run, Ravel! They’re not telling us shit!”

Ravel gave a sidelong glance at his friend.

“A hundred credits?”

Chance nodded with bravado.

“You’re on!” Ravel lowered his head and pointed at Chance.

Dr. Elizabeth Shaw and Dr. Charles Holloway could have been the opening to a comedy scene with their quiet entrance and the manner in which they held themselves as they were seated next to one another. Holloway, who had snuck in a shot of rum with his breakfast when his girlfriend had gotten up to refill her hot tea, sat in his seat smiling and as loose as a man who had a full-body massage. His body had not had alcohol in over two years, and the tiny, two ounce bottle of clear rum warmed him nicely. Shaw was fidgety, breathing more rapidly than usual, her mouth was dry… she was a nervous wreck.

“You look nervous, Ellie.”

It was about the stupidest damn thing Charlie could have said to her.

“I’ll try to keep my feet on the ground,” she answered with cryptic nervousness.

 Shaw felt one of his arms wrap around her back and waist.

“I know you will, baby.”

‘Now that’s more like it,’ Shaw thought to herself. She took a deep breath and looked Charlie in the eyes.

“They’re going to think we’re crazy…”

Holloway smiled confidently – the man who swept aside each and every dark cloud as it formed on the horizon.

“Not if we keep it scientific,” he said.

The last to arrive was Meredith Vickers. She stood in front of the gathered crew members with both hands folded behind her back.

“Good morning. For those of you who I hired personally, it’s nice to see you again. For the rest of you, I am Meredith Vickers and it is my job to make sure that you do yours. Now… on with the show.”

Vickers walked stiffly to one of the open chairs and sat in it. David activated a small device sitting in his lap, which projected an enormous hologram that filled the empty half of the darkened gymnasium. It was a lavish office that looked more like some kind of throne room. A decrepit pile of a man waddled towards them from behind the largest of the desks. Strange, alien light poured in through the tall, cathedral-like windows. The old man was dressed entirely in white with a tiny brown dog following at his heels. This broken husk of a man was the most powerful, ambitious Human to ever inhabit the known universe.

“Hello friends, my name is Peter Weyland, your employer. I am recording this on twenty-two June, Twenty Ninety-One and if you are watching this, you have reached your destination… and I am long dead. May I… rest in peace. There is a man sitting among you today; his name is David and he is the closest thing to a son I will ever have. Unfortunately he is not Human, he will never grow old. And yet he is unable to appreciate these gifts, for that would require the one thing David will never have – a soul.”

Vickers scowled at the android with absolute contempt.

“I have spent my entire lifetime contemplating the questions: where do we come from? What is our purpose? And what happens when we die? And I have found two people who convinced me they're on the verge of answering those questions. Doctors, Holloway and Shaw, if you would please stand.”

Holloway stood casually and Shaw as casually as she could manage.

“As far as you're concerned they're both in charge of this expedition.”

The disdainful eyes of Meredith Vickers fell upon the turned backs of Shaw and Holloway.

“The ship you are on right now is called the Prometheus; named after the titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to early man, who was dying of frost and hunger during the Ice age. The gods felt betrayed by Prometheus so they punished him for saving mankind. The gods wished us dead because they couldn't risk us becoming equal to the gods. But now in the year of our lord Twenty ninety-one mankind's very own titan, so named Prometheus, who will bring a new kind of fire and a new Era of human evolution. Doctors please explain to these good people why they have been brought thirty nine light years from home. The floor is yours.”

The old man in white, his dog, the atmosphere of Mars, the entire office room had vanished from sight.

Dr. Holloway and Dr. Shaw walked to the front and center of the floor.

“Wow… okay… I’ve never followed a ghost before. Okay, so let me show you why you are all here.”

Shaw was more thankful than Holloway could ever imagine for taking the lead for them. Without even going to speak, Dr. Shaw could feel the promises of betrayal in her tongue. Thank God for Charlie.

Holloway places a cube-type object upon the floor of the basketball court and presses the tiny button upon its rear side. A dozen images fill the dark space all around the two speakers, each image is of an ancient tablet with an obvious theme of recurrence; tall, hairless beings pointing high to the same series of six orbs.

“These are images of archeological digs from all over the Earth. That's Egyptian, Mayan, Sumerian, Babylonian, that's Hawaiian there… and that’s Mesopotamian. We even found a thirty-five thousand year old cave painting on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. These are Ancient civilizations separated by continents and separated by centuries, some even tens of thousands of years. They shared no contact with one another whatsoever. What we found was one single connection. The same pictogram showing men worshiping giant beings, pointing to the stars was discovered in every last one of them.”

Holloway touched the holographic renditions of the cluster of stars, which magnified before the entire image became one of actual planetary coordinates: Calampos and a trio of moons LV-426, LV-133 and the foremost LV-223, which Holloway tapped on and enlarged.

“So… it’s a star map.”

Of all the people who Holloway would have to answer to first, it was Fifield, who he was one hair away from coming to blows with fifteen minutes earlier. He nodded at the Geologist in concurrence and continued.

“After years of searching we found the only galactic system that matched is thirty nine, point, four light years from Earth. This system has a sun a lot like ours. And based on our long range scans, we believe one of these moons, LV-223, is capable of sustaining life. And we arrived there this morning.”

Fifield was clearly still unstirred by the pretty pictures and fine words of Holloway.

“So we are all here because of a map you two kids found in a cave? Is that right?”

Millburn wheezed with laughter.

“Yes.”
“No.”

Shaw and Holloway answered simultaneously. They looked to one another in amused puzzlement.

“No,” Shaw finally took the reins, “not a map, an invitation.”

“An invitation… from whom?” Fifield went on.

Shaw smiled, finally relaxed and firing on all cylinders.

“We call them Engineers.”

“Engineers?” Fifield went on speaking on behalf of the entire audience. “Mind telling us what they engineered?”

“They engineered us.”

A moment of silence fell upon the crew. For a moment it seemed as though the asshole Geologist had had his fill of misbehaving, but no.

“Bullshit,” he said with arms crossed.

Another wolfish laugh came from Millburn.

“Okay, so, uh, do you have anything to back that up? Now look, if you're willing to discount three centuries of Darwinism, that's… wow… but how do you know?” Asked the Biologist.

“I don’t,” Shaw said, “It’s what I choose to believe.”

Following the conclusion of the presentation, Dr. Shaw marches angrily out of the gymnasium with Dr. Holloway not far behind.

“You know, you could have backed me up in there maybe just a little.”

“Come on!” Holloway protested quietly. “How did you expect them to react?”

“God, you’re impossible!” Shaw griped as she went to outpace her boyfriend and get away from him.

“Hey! Hey, Ellie! Hey!” Holloway quickened his step and grasped her forearm gently, stopping Dr. Shaw in her tracks.

“They’re laughing now but they won’t be when we show them proof. Trust me!”

“Doctors?”

Shaw and Holloway looked behind them – it was David.

“Miss Vickers would like a brief word with you before the adventure begins,” the android said as he bowed his head slightly.

David led the pair into the lavish quarters of Miss Vickers

“Wow, nice place, looks different from the rest of the ship,” commented Holloway with an impressed gaze around the pristinely-kept room.

“It's actually a separate module with its own self-contained life support.” David informed, “Air, food… Anything Miss Vickers would need to survive a hostile environment.”

“So… she lives on a giant lifeboat.”

“Yes I do,” Vickers said as she entered the room, “I like to minimize risk. David, why don't you make the good doctors a drink?”

“Yes, mum.”

“I’ll take a vodka, up.”

Elizabeth Shaw did not drink and frankly, hated when Charlie did. When he did not ask for a drink of his own, she was somewhat relieved. Shaw took to wandering about, before curiously approaching a medical pod.

“Charlie, look… it's a Pauling Med-Pod. They only made a dozen of these!” Shaw said as her fingers reached for the control panel.

An unfriendly mechanical tone came from the console as her fingers touched it, a scolding robotic voice followed.

“Please verbally state the nature of your medical emergency.”

“Miss Shaw? Please don’t touch that. It’s a very expensive piece of machinery,” Vickers scolded calmly as David handed her the glass of vodka she had ordered.

“It does bypass surgery. What do you need it for?” Shaw knew she had crossed the line the moment the words came out of her mouth.

Vickers was visibly annoyed. David returned to her side the way a butler would.

“I think their might be some confusion about our relationship. Weyland found you impressive enough to fund this mission. But I'm fairly certain your engineers are scribblings of savages living in dirty little caves. But let's say I'm wrong… and you do find these beings down there. You won't engage them… You won't talk to them. You will do nothing but report back to me.”

Charlie smiled and gave a sidelong glance at Dr. Shaw.

“Um… Miss Vickers, is there an agenda that you're not telling us about?”

“My company paid a fortune to find this place and bring you here. Had you raised the money yourself, Dr. Holloway, we'd happily be pursuing your agenda. But you didn't… and that makes you an employee, my employee,” Vickers did all but spit on the floor at Holloway.

“If we aren’t allowed to make contact, what do you even have us here for?” Shaw protested.

“Oh… Mr. Weyland was a superstitious man. He wanted a true believe on board,” Vickers explained as she raised her rocks glass sarcastically, “Cheers!”