On The Existing Aliens Sequels
One such sequel is Alien 3 [On Disney+], directed by David Fincher, which in and of itself was a failure of the studio execs to understand their fan base [On Strange Shapes] and who also failed to protect the investment that fans had made in the two characters that got ix-nayed in the beginning of the film. A fact that was not the director's or crew's fault, and you can learn more about that situation by hearing details of what went down from Corporal Hicks performance actor Michael Biehn [On Just Foolin' About - Michael Biehn on Hicks' Death in Alien 3]. In a sense, it was very much as if the studio execs were trying to finish off Burke's plan from Aliens, from beyond the fourth wall. Fincher and crew made the best movie they could with the material the studio had approved, but ut left many fans of the franchise outraged.
The second potential sequel was originally written by Neuromancer [On Penguin Random House] [On Apple TV] writer: William Gibson, who coined the term cyberspace. Gibson penned a script that was eventually adapted into a comic book and audio book that preserves the four surviving characters from the end of the movie Aliens but that was ultimately rejected in favour of the Alien 3 movie that we received. You can listen to [On Audible] or read William Gibson's Alien 3 in comic book format [On Dark Horse].
Director Neil Blomkamp had prepared an original sequel for Aliens, that would have retconned both Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection [On Disney+], however, during development, the project was canned when it was indicated by Ridley Scott that he would be working on a prequel called Alien: Convenant. You can find out more about Blomkamp's proposed Aliens sequel here [On YouTube], or you can catch up with him and his work on his latest projects under Oats Studios [On YouTube].
The fourth potential runner-up sequel? It might be this one, here that is currently a work in progress.
That's coming from a guy whose father, the day after having seen the movie Alien [On Disney+] at the theatres, came home from work and gifted me this graphic novel because I was too young to see the rated-r movie at the theatres at that time.
Thankfully, reading the graphic novelization didn't turn me into a serial killer, though it might have made me into a cereal killer, because as I recall, I ate an entire box of Shreddies by myself as I read the graphic novel that day.
Brian Joseph Johns
Are you a fan of the absolute bad asses of the United Stellar Colonial Marines?
Looking to try your merit as Ellen Ripley's daughter, Seegson Engineer Amanda as she takes on the legacy of the xenomorph?
The Alien Legacy continues...
Watch Alien: Earth and the complete Alien collection [On Disney+]
Looking to keep up with the retro and latest of the ACTION and SCI-FI greats?
Chapters
- Activation (Finished December 24, 2025 18:00 EST)
- Alienation (Finished April 3, 2026 12:15 EST)
- ASPHODEL (Finished April 4, 2026 11:30:30 EST)
- Aeolus (Started April 7, 2026 9:30 EST)
Opening Notes
Shhhh! Digital Media is an independent entity from The Walt Disney Company, and the following work is a tribute to stories and characters held as their creative and intellectual property, originally created by Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, Ridley Scott and then further solidified by (fellow Canadian) James Cameron into the titan it has become and is still known until this very day.
By the presentation of this story, neither Shhhh! Digital Media or I, Brian Joseph Johns, its sole author are claiming ownership over these properties, referring to the written story whose content is contained within the text of this online post and this post only. Shhhh! Digital Media and Brian Joseph Johns are presenting an ideal story that preserves the legacy and impacts the concept of the word family and as a whole. This trio of characters played a significant part in my life overall, and the time has come that I've decided that I'm going to bat for them and this is how I'm doing it (until court ordered otherwise, though even then it might take a lot of convincing). However, I would never claim ownership over these original characters and the original stories that brought them to life. They, meaning the characters of the Alien universe as created by Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, Ridley Scott and (fellow Canadian) James Cameron are the properties of Disney Corporation, with this creative work essentially being published as fan fiction, or as a diplomatic beacon of my intent to contribute to their works in the hope of the possibility of working together professionally in the future.
These characters, are a symbol of the strength of the emergent family. A group of people ultimately unrelated who under dire circumstances come together and form unintendedly the trio that is the foundation of society: the mother, the father and the child/children.
This is something that I have been planning for a very long time (meaning decades), but have waited until now, having the opportunity to make an impact by the profound statement delivered by the movie whose unauthorized sequel I am now writing.
This is very much intended for the fans of these characters (like myself), and as a testament to the people who created them, and the people who ultimately brought them to life - the performers who are: Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn and Michael Biehn.
I have always held them in the highest regard for the symbol of their work in the movie that precedes this story: Aliens. This story is the sequel that should have been, but never happened.
Brian Joseph Johns
Note: my writing and editing process is somewhat chaotic, and in some situations it can take several edits or rewrites of contextual sections of my work before I approve them. In most cases, it takes me two or three edits before I stick with something, especially after reading and rereading the story several times to ensure the dialog works.
This story is very different from anything I've ever written, and by that I mean getting the right tone and pacing for the characters' dialog is an ongoing challenge, especially given the dynamic of the relationship between Ripley, Newt and Hicks from Aliens and into the beginning of this story. The genius of Ridley Scott and James Cameron's writing and editing, is that every bit of spoken dialog serves a purpose in progressing an aspect of the story, not to mention showcasing an aspect of the characters' inner dynamics and motivations.
I've done my best to avoid the perpetual dialog spew that is often seen from characters like Alicia Westin or Bryce Maxwell in Butterfly Dragon, honing each dialog until it reads and sounds like it could have come from that character. Chances are if character dialog emerging from one of the familiar characters doesn't seem quite right (like any dialogue from Ripley, Newt of Hicks), then chances are I haven't subjected it to the editing process as of yet. Please be patient.
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I'd like to point out that it was the incredible Gary Sinese Foundation that brought the issue of Veteran's rights to my attention. I've always had little respect for those who'd forget the great contribution made by those who've risked life and limb to defend those values that so many of us espouse. Perhaps the true measure of one's principles are by that for which they'd risk their life.
"None can speak more eloquently for peace than those who have fought in war."
Ralph Bunche, Nobel Peace Prize 1950
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ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) is a progressive neuromuscular disease in which nerve cells die and leave voluntary muscles paralyzed. The ALS society provides a variety of programs to combat this disease and help those with it to survive.
Muscular Dystrophy Canada
Muscular Dystrophy Canada’s mission is to enhance the lives of those affected by neuromuscular disorders by continually working to provide ongoing support and resources while relentlessly searching for a cure through well-funded research.
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The Edgar Allan Poe Museum
Because Barris told me to put it here. If I didn't, he said he'd walk. Geez. Stardom really gets to some people's heads. Maybe I could kill him and bury his heart beneath the floor boards! Or I could encase him in behind a brick and mortar wall, for shaming my family name of Amantillado!
In all truth, there's a good chance that thanks to the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Herbert George Wells, Jules Verne, Dr. Seuss, Stephen King, Clive Barker and Pierre Burton (for The Secret World Of Og and his ground breaking interview of Bruce Lee) that all of us are literate. Actually that goes back much farther to the Phoenecians and their first 22 character system of symbols. Literacy is important. Really it is. Literally. It allows us to approach our employer at the end of the week (with a big club) and ask: where my money?! Math important too. It help us count our thirteen fingers and toes.
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Shhhh! Digital Media Presents:
Aliens: Aeternity
by Brian Joseph Johns
Episode 1: The Eternal Sleep
Activation
K2-18
Local Group
124 Light Years From Sol
Silence was a companion to darkness, and had been since long before humankind's first steps into the dark void between the stars. Darkness had pervaded the night sky since the first of Earth's stellar bound species had peered at the Moon with curiosity, and then beyond, seeing the light of fusion emanating from distant hydrogen fueled bodies as they beckoned us from their distance, light years away.
Silence was as it were, a party to the night sky as much so as it was to dreams.
Dreams. The life essence of humanity eventually became understood as imperative to the sustenance of frontline conscious performance, for the mind was simply a muscle of a different kind, and required exercise all the same as its physical counterparts within the human body. Gravity and resistance was the impetus for musculature, as were dreams for their counterpart of the mind.
Humanity had also discovered that dreams were a phenomenon of proximity. That the extent of their extremity was dependent upon the species' nearness to others of their kind. Proximity in essence was the wind in the sails of the conscious mind, projected into the mind. Fueling though not forming, the creativity of their dreams and the distinction of which they were presented to the mind's eyes.
When humanity had taken its first steps into the stars, it quickly learned that to sustain human consciousness in the depths of its group absence, that it must produce the hidden field that fueled the mind of sleepers. No differently than the artificial gravity field that kept the body in peak physical form through the darkness and silence of the interstellar cosmos.
The same field that had kept the muscles of consciousness well oiled and exercised the mind, had also exercised the same mechanisms of psychosis, both creativity and chaos working in conjunction to destroy the form and stability of the mind. Hence, the Gauthier-Khan field had been devised on the basis of conscious field theory, stabilizing and preserving for the first time, deep temporal human experience over interstellar trajectories. Sanity had become sanitary, both to the physical form as much so to the mind.
And yet, darkness and silence, above all else, still pervaded humanity's future, as it had that of four dreamers contained there within the hull of a USMC vessel that had strayed from its phase space hyper-field lane and into the grasp of an interbody gravity well. Within the stellar system of K2-18 as humanity had come to know the home star system of its ninth local star colony.
Four dreamers lay deep in sleep within the safety of the Gauthier-Khan field, their eyelids barely flickering as they emerged from the local phase space lane and into the physical field of real space. Of the four dreamers, it was the youngest and perhaps most inspired and energetic of them that had first awoken from the depths of hyper-sleep.
The United Stellar Colonial Marine vessel Sulaco had emerged from its automated Earth bound fueling trajectory earlier than had been anticipated by its ancillary AI navigation systems, which had through the course of its travel, guided the vessel prematurely into the K2-18 system, one hundred and nineteen light seconds from the host star.
Within the lightly damaged main cargo bay of the vessel, sirens illuminated as the automated systems of the dormant Marine vessel came to life once again as they had twenty-three years earlier in the LV-426 star system. Its elongated hull appearing like a titanic firearm, as threatening and menacing as its former Marine crew had once been.
The retro-thrusters of the vessel fired to life, slowing the vessel beyond a trajectory anticipated by its AI based navigation system, pushing it via Keplerian motion closer towards the orbit of a dark and hidden moon of K2-18b. The vessel's engines suddenly stopped, having achieved their required kinetic velocity, as the Marine vessel's momentum took it towards this dark and silent natural satellite, drifting as it had initially arrived, on course towards a tiny spec of light emanating from high above that same moon.
Within the interior of the enormous Marine ship, the sirens continued to flare throughout the decks and corridors. Alarms sounded as the pod bay covers of three hyper-sleep pods slowly opened, revealing sleeping occupants there within two of them as the ship's ancillary systems sprung to life.
The first occupant was a woman who appeared to be aged towards her mid-life, which was at that time in her late fifties, perhaps early sixties. Her dark and curly hair was partially contrasted by wisps of white and grey. Now slightly longer than shoulder length, it was slicked back to her head. Her grey underwear clung to her body as she was roused uneasily from her sleep.
The second pod was occupied by a gruff and willful man, approaching his fifties. His eyes twitched uneasily as the automated medical system notified him through a cerebral interface of the medical procedures he'd undergone during his sleep. A haptic virtual interface of a medical design flashed invisibly across his eyes without the need for any special eye wear or headset.
It was projected directly into his cognition system via the same electromagnetic field that fueled their dream sleep, while an AI generated voice explained the extent to which his treatment had progressed via nano-biotic supplementation. The tissue damage and scars that he'd suffered during his most recent deployment were now but distant history, only slight blemishes marking the left side of his face, and the surface of the skin on the left side of his chest, both of which were currently hidden behind a layer of bandages that had been applied before the trio had entered hyper-sleep.
The occupant of the third pod remained obscured under the fog and hyper-thaw.
These travelers lay in their pods as the alarms and sirens blared, until one of them, Flight Officer Ellen Ripley leaned up suddenly from her slumber, rubbing the center of her chest and her stomach as she did.
"Newt?!" she suddenly said, leaping out of her cryo-pod, her bare feet slapping on the floor as she ran over to the pod next to hers.
The neighbouring pod she inspected had just opened and the fog of hyper-thaw was only just clearing. A Marine geolocation bracelet laid flat upon the soft lining of the pod, absent of its former host.
"No! She's still...! Hicks?!!!" she turned to the cryo-pod on the other side neighbouring hers and saw the scarred and lifeless body of the Marine Corporal as he awoke from his slumber, seemingly struggling.
She watched him for several seconds before she realized that he wasn't breathing.
"No! Dammit!" she slammed her hands down upon his chest several times as she watched his green Marine t-shirt bulging at his midsection.
"Noooo!" she cried, slamming her hands down again, as the bulge grew and the recognizable form of a tiny chin and mandible jaw took shape through his bloated shirt and skin.
She ran to the controls of his cryo-pod and began hammering override codes into the unfamiliar Marine console, attempting to close it and refreeze him. She turned her head to see that the thing inside of him was ready to emerge in the most perverse form of birth.
Behind her, she heard the sound of hissing and felt the strangely cool breath of a frightful monster. She turned to see the double mandible jaws of her nightmares as the biological hydraulic pressure of its inner jaw reached its critical point and then...
She awoke in her opened cryo-pod, leaning up and checking her body and face for any wounds.
She once again as she had in her dream, leapt out of her pod and over to the neighbouring one, spying the waking body of a young woman just barely emerged from her deep sleep of the hyper-lanes.
"She's alright. I already checked her..." Marine Lance Corporal Dwayne Hicks assured Ripley as she turned to face the younger man.
"Where's Vasquez? Hudson? Gorman?" Ripley asked him, looking to him absent of a significant portion of their time together.
"They're gone. Ripley, you're experiencing post cryo-pyschosis," Hicks said to her, still rubbing the side of his face that had years earlier been scarred by one of the monsters of Ripley's nightmares.
"They're dead? All of them?" she asked him, as tears filled the same ridges of her eye lids that had been so by countless tears and countless times.
He closed his eyes as the pain of lost memories hit him. The times that he'd spent during R&R with Hudson, Dietrich and Wierzbowski had become post cards from a past he'd never relive in their permanent absence.
Hicks nodded affirmatively to Ripley, looking down after the fact.
"Where are we?" Ripley asked him.
"I'm not a navigation specialist, but I can tell you that its Marine protocol for a light assault starship to stop at automated refueling points on a long journey," Hicks explained to her as he fastened the quick-straps of his boots.
"Really?" Ripley looked to him again.
"Yep. We're stopping at a Marine gas station. Will that be leaded or unleaded?" Hicks asked her as he responded, recalling the fossil fuel lore of his great many times removed grandparents.
"If its automated, then why did it wake us?" Ripley asked him, an unending stream of questions lining up in her head.
"Don't ask me. I only work here," Hicks shook his head thoughtfully, trying to force a smile.
"Its standard procedure to wake the skeleton crew during fueling and rearming stops, usually that would be Bishop, and our Corp Medical Officer: Dietrich. Bishop's OOC, and Dietrich's KIA. That means that we're it," Hicks said to her, looking to the cryo-pod of the young blonde haired girl, and then back to her.
"Look Ripley, I know this is a lot for you to take in right now, but you have to believe me," Hicks said to her, both of them looking to the cryo-pod of the still sleeping blonde haired girl as she awoke.
"Ripley!" she yelled, jumping out the cryo-pod and then running over to the de-employed Flight Officer and wrapping her arms around her.
"I'm here, honey," Ripley responded, looking up to Hicks as her memory slowly started to return.
"Your wounds? They're mostly healed. How?" she asked Hicks.
"Cryo-sleep. The Marine Corp uses class 3 medical pods. They're a bit different from commercial and civilian pods. All I know is that if we're wounded when we get in, we're generally not when we wake up, depending upon how bad it is," Hicks rubbed the left side of his face, finding it smooth and mostly free of scars.
"It looks like your little girl has grown up," Hicks said her, looking to Rebecca with a smile on his face.
"My little girl? Our little girl. Are you trying to back out on me?" Ripley asked him.
Hicks smiled at the prospect of being a father, especially as the partner of such a remarkable woman as he'd seen Ripley demonstrate.
"Not quite. I'm just not assuming anything, but its nice to know you'd care enough to ask," he smiled both to her and Rebecca as he flipped a physical switch on the wall.
"Authorization: Lance Corporal Hicks, Dwayne," he spoke aloud to the listening AI security system.
The touch-screen panel controls by the door suddenly came to life, as they did for every door throughout the Sulaco. Each protected by a level of access deemed through the micro-space MILNET System database.
"Hicks! You're better!" Rebecca suddenly recognized one of her liberators as the psychosis of post cryo-sleep sickness faded from her body.
"I'm fine honey. How are you feeling?" he asked her softly, with a firm but concerned smile on his face.
"I'm... bigger...? Taller? Older?" she replied with the body of a woman in her late twenties, and the mind of a woman in her early teens.
"That happens honey, but don't worry, it looks good on you both," Hicks faced Ripley as he spoke.
"At least some men age like fine wine. I don't suppose this technology has any effect of androids?" Ripley replied, gesturing in the direction of Bishop's still closed cryo-pod.
"No. It doesn't, unfortunately," Hicks responded, looking to Bishop's cryo-pod respectfully.
The door of the cryo-chamber suddenly opened, and the air pressure difference between the spaces balanced as the oxygen levels achieved their nominal state.
"Lets go and see what we're up against," Hicks said, walking over to a panel in the cryo-chamber and pressing it once. The panel slowly opened from the top, folding downward and revealing an arsenal of Marine battle rifles.
Hicks quickly grabbed an M41A pulse rifle and checked the ammunition gauge.
"Bringing a personal friend of yours?" Ripley asked him.
"Three personal friends, but two of them can handle themselves. This one needs a capable pair of hands," Hicks responded, winking at Ripley and Rebecca.
"So we've noticed. Just stay behind us and we'll keep you safe," Ripley returned his smile, grabbing her own pulse rifle from the same arsenal.
"So I've noticed," Hicks winked to Ripley as he advanced into the corridor ahead of them, leading them towards the inner airlock of the Sulaco.
Rebecca closed the arsenal, leaving the weapons of war where they lay and instead followed Ripley and Hicks into the darkened corridors of the Sulaco as the sound of sirens and klaxons sounded around them.
They proceeded together to the deck-level airlock, Newt, now an adolescent in her late twenties standing defensively behind Ripley and Hicks, their M41A Pulse Rifles leveled before them as they made their way through the Sulaco's maze of corridors and to the main crew access airlock.
Alienation
K2-18
Local Group
124 Light Years From Sol
The three of them walked together, tightly formed as a cohesive unit, a fact that Hicks found to be quite remarkable despite the lack of Marine training of his counterparts.
Ripley had taken their right flank (a much older and taller Newt just behind her), and though there was likely little to fear, she was very much on edge.
On guard, Hicks quickly corrected his observation of her, for in the little time that he'd come to know her, as he'd suspected since their first formal briefing near bay twelve of the Sulaco, twenty-three years earlier, Ripley was in fact an enigma. A woman who'd stood amidst the company afforded comfort of mediocrity, and challenged it the entire way, never letting the illusion of financial security get in the way of her moral compass. She had a job to do and she would do it to the best, and most often, chagrin of her coworkers.
She was a pioneer of sorts as was Lambert, their interstellar navigation specialist. The only two women on board the resource tug Nostromo, in the company run core systems of what had become humankind's first effort to reach out towards the stars.
Men had initially been the most prominent of employees, while a few courageous women in the interest of opening the doors for their sisters had also come forth, seeking fame, fortune and the glory of their company promised shares.
Most women who had dared to break through the male dominated explorative expansion of humanity into the foundational worlds, had become trinkets. Sexual commodities at first, though that pressure was quickly turned on its face when the first director of new worlds in Proxima Centauri B, the first ever established human colony was in fact founded by, and run by a woman.
Sixty years, and over seventy-two sprawling stations and colonies later, humankind had established itself as permanent residents of the cosmos, essentially overcoming the great barrier and dark forest by their ambition and sheer numbers alone, or so the Weyland-Yutani marketing department would have had us believe. Liu Cixin's words had fallen short of the Wey-Yu marketing team's goals.
And yet, his words and warning were heard and taken seriously by a growing number of women in the Wey-Yu employ, including Flight Officer Ellen Ripley, and Mission Navigation Specialist Joan Lambert aboard the fusion resource refinery tug Nostromo.
Joan's mother had taken her hand early. Guiding her daughter's early education life and aspirations, living out her own missed ambitions through her daughter, and by the time she was twenty-one, she had become one of the most skilled navigational specialists, exceeding even the best forecasts of the AI systems that had trained her.
When during a remote job exhibition, her daughter was hired and guaranteed a conditional bonus upon her agreement to enlist as a Navigational Officer for a series of resource extraction flights imperative to the supply of mineral resources necessary to the further expansion of humankind into the local systems, and ultimately beyond as recorded by her employer: the Weyland Corporation, who by the time Joan Lambert had joined the crew of Nostromo had become Weyland-Yutani Incorporated.
Ellen Ripley on the other hand, had a very different introduction to star flight. Her father had been a notable test pilot, flying the very first electrostatic, high velocity surface to orbit craft created by the United Global initiative, who eventually became the United Stellar Conglomerate that had outsourced humanity's ambitions to the big five corporations.
Her father was a ruffian of sorts. A man who to almost a fault, dedicatedly loved her mother and yet he was a drinker, who loved fast cars and thrill rides on echo boats (don't even ask what they are because their appreciation is something only the enthusiasts could enjoy, let alone understand). He was a man who held a deep and resounding fascination of women and their potential in the effort of humanity to push forth into the cosmos. The kind of man with whom Chuck Yeager himself might have enjoyed a drink or two. A true heart seeking to ensure that humanity included as much so, the yin as it did the yang in the spirit of its push forth into humanity's expansion.
It was her father that had discovered Ellen's natural linguistic abilities. Her ability to discern meaning from seeming gibberish. That girl of mine has a real natural gift, she does! She has that thing, that distinct thing, that delineates those of us who hear noise, and those of us who hear information. Claude Shannon himself would have bowed down and kissed her feet if he'd have known my little girl, her father had often boasted. I'd have whooped him too for it, but all the same, I might have admired him for having good taste in smart women like her. My daughter and so he'd finish his words.
Ellen Ripley as it turned out, didn't stay single for long beyond her gradation. She'd met a handsome and intelligent man who'd somehow passed her father's rigid scrutiny of him, and she had become mother to a child she'd never truly have the chance to know. A fact that would pursue her for the rest of her life, in every dream and nightmare from there beyond. When Amanda was ten years old, that was the last time that she saw her mother, Amanda's education somehow ending up in the hands of her own inspiring test pilot father. Amanda's grandfather waited with his (favourite) grand daughter for the return of Lieutenant First Class Ellen Ripley of the Wey-Yu resource space tug Nostromo.
But she never returned.
Until fifty-seven years had passed.
A time when she had been drifting through the core systems until...
Hicks watched Ripley, in the same way a younger man might admire their senior. A female mentor. A woman of confidence and mystery and a quiet and restrained sexuality. Inspiring, and yet no matter how close they might be to one another, there seemed a distance between them beyond measure. What did bind them however, was their deep respect for one another and perhaps even a secret love. Two who in any other circumstances might never have come to know or understand each other, and yet somehow, through the intense pain and loss they'd shared in common, they'd become a couple, and most certainly Newt's surrogate parents.
Hicks had grown up in a very different family dynamic than had Joan Lambert or Ellen Ripley. He had been the hard working younger brother of two sisters on a family farm in Nebraska, who had been inspired by his older Canadian cousin, who had joined the ISMC: the Independent Sovereign Marine Corps of North America.
Having been a farm boy, and one very protective of his sisters, from whom he'd learned to appreciate the quick and often advantageous force of women. His own sisters had on their occasions, discussed their interest in boys, and rather than promote his own interests, he'd encouraged healthy ambition but cautious progress.
"These are my sisters. You're not getting anything from them that they don't want to give you themselves, and if they do, you'd damned well better appreciate them and what they deserve for it," Hicks would often say to the many suitors who'd arrive to claim the hand of his own kin. And as a result of his protectiveness, both of his sisters became the foundation of their own families, while he became a fit, and handsome, and yet unattached suitor.
A year later, and during Ripley's fifty first year of frozen flight aboard the Narcissus, drifting helplessly towards the core systems in the Nostromo's solitary escape module, Hicks, Dwayne D, joined the newly rebranded United Stellar Colonial Marines. 2nd Battalion, TEAM BRAVO. Anytime, anywhere their motto.
"Anytime... anywhere..." Hicks said aloud as he recalled Hudson's quip from the briefing many years ago.
"Was Hudson a close friend?" asked Ripley of Hicks, perhaps in attempt to reconnect them to their fellow humanity, from whom they'd seemingly become isolated.
"Hudson? Oh yeah. He was our unofficial morale officer, go figure. The guy that made us all laugh. Sometimes until we cried," Hicks replied to Ripley.
"I miss them. Hudson. Vasquez. Gorman..." Newt, now a woman in her late twenties, with the experiences of a woman in her teens echoed as they walked.
"Me too honey. Me too," Hicks echoed softly as they approached a shuttered observation station just short of the airlock.
Hicks pressed a button that opened a panel in the wall, revealing a display with a series of controls. He entered a code and then pressed a button labeled OBS MODE.
The sound of internal hyper-draulics coming to life echoed through the corridor as the enormous armoured shutters on the Sulaco first popped out and away from the underlying hull, then sliding along the hull towards the stern of the Marine vessel until they stopped having reached the end of their rollers.
Ripley, Newt and Hicks got their first look at the enormous station, the word ASPHODEL displayed prominently above the airlock as the boarding bridge began extending out towards the Sulaco, the gantry arm of a giant crane gaining hold of the Sulaco and holding it in place.
"Looks like the welcome wagon is here..." Hicks noted as the boarding bridge connected to the airlock of the Sulaco.
"Hicks, don't let them board. We've got to make sure that they maintain the quarantine," Ripley reminded Hicks of the obligation of their responsibility to the people of the station, and to themselves as being the only barriers protecting humanity from what the xenomorph threat represented.
"That's the plan. If they're following standard procedure, the station's computers will talk to Sulaco, which will relay a coded subnet message for MARINE HQ. It will take about a minute before the reply to come, with the quarantine instructions for station emergency personnel. If everything goes according to standard procedure, they'll keep their distance for the duration of the quarantine time, and we'll setup here and remain on guard until that time has fully expired before allowing anyone access to this vessel, at which point, if we're still alive, we can consider ourselves rescued," Hicks explained to Ripley and Newt.
"What about Bishop? What will they do with him?" asked Ripley, the recognizable look of urgency in her eyes.
"He's company property. Wey-Yu will probably perform a full diagnostic and data extraction. Probably won't be much of him left after that," Hicks shook his head at the thought.
Bishop may have been an artificial person, but he would always be one of the team to Hicks. Human or not, he'd saved all of the survivors and proven himself to more human than the company man who'd betrayed them.
"They'll try to piece everything together between the Sulaco's logs, Ferro's flight recorder data and whatever data Bishop relayed to the Sulaco before he remote piloted the dropship to the surface. We can't let them continue their experiments or follow that trail Hicks. We owe it to every single one of those colonists who died, and to your fellow Marines to make sure that they never follow up on anything to do with the xenomorphs!" Ripley said firmly to Hicks, who began considering all of the ways that they could go about ensuring the trail of data and research on the xenomorph was never found or followed.
"During the quarantine, we could wake Bishop up and have him talk us through performing a full wipe of the Sulaco's mission and media log, if that's even going to be enough," Hicks suggested to Ripley.
"That's a start, but we'll need to ensure that no biological contamination remains. We still don't know for sure that the Alien Queen didn't leave an egg or a drone somewhere on the Sulaco. Maybe something dormant that we missed, like the aliens that camouflaged themselves in the nest in the atmosphere processor back on LV-426," Ripley reasoned, looking to Newt, whose face echoed a similar expression of concern as the one on Ripley's face.
"...I seem to recall talking you through a very thorough internal scan of the Sulaco's interior before we entered cryo-sleep. I mean its been twenty-three years since we went to sleep, and nothing got us Ripley," Hicks tried to calm her enough to feel comfortable with herself and the effort she'd already made to stop the spread of the xenomorphs.
"Hicks. We need to do this. To make that extra effort. For me? So I can sleep at night?" she pleaded with him.
"We'll jettison the second drop ship and detonate it during the quarantine procedure. If even one of those things was somehow still on it, maybe hiding in the landing gear assembly, that will blow it sky high. That's the best we've got Ripley. You've gotta learn to know when you've done enough and when its time to let it go. For your sake. We need you, Ripley. Healthy, and knowing that you're a woman who has done everything she could to protect her fellow humankind," Hicks looked to Newt, who gave him a thumbs up.
"You're right Hicks, but lets get this done and over with before we pass the torch to the next generation. Let's have a talk with the station operations center, and let them know about the quarantine order," Ripley somehow managed a smile.
"They might not be scared of monsters you know..." Newt reasoned with her new surrogate parents.
"I know, Newt. And if they aren't, and they're the bureaucrats we hope they are, they might take a class one violation of standard aerospace procedure very seriously," Ripley shrugged, her knowledge of standard aerospace protocol once again coming to the rescue.
ASPHODEL
K2-18
Local Group
124 Light Years From Sol
The auto-door slid open, telescoping vertically into the upper section of the doorway, as a young and pretty Korean woman in her mid-twenties, her perpetual smile somehow igniting the energy of everyone else in the room with her arrival.
"And how is Eun-bi today, on this fine Monday morning?" asked Garth, a handsome and athletic man in his early twenties as he used an electro-static degausser to clean and neutralize any ionic charge in the operations center's console system.
"I'm raring to go, and you guys here are going to love me for this, 'cause I've got the dailies code for today, hot off the grill," she responded, stepping over to the communications array terminal and pulling forth a keycard from her belt and plugging it into the appropriate slot.
"Mr. Guo? Eun-bi's here with the dailies code," Garth raised his voice, directing it towards a Chinese man in his mid-thirties.
"You're closer Garth. Why don't you attend to her. I'll give you clearance," Mr. Guo responded, using a gesture to open a the security interface for the communications array.
Eun-bi turned and looked to Garth invitingly, and he immediately blushed. He then stood after refocusing himself and gained his confidence, sliding his keycard into the slot beside hers. This time it her that blushed.
Further into the operations center and at the command console, a blue holo-display came to life before the face of a man with thick grey and white hair, in his fifties. He was clean shaven, his deeply blue eyes somehow drawing attention from his bulbous nose as he read the Subnet command log from Earth, checking first their shipping schedule, before he noticed an arrival marked URGENT.
"Lieutenant Alen? Were you aware of any R AND R requests for light assault carrier vessels operating in the sector?" the man with blue eyes turned to face his Director of Station Security.
"We're not a resort, Director Elderman. Rest and recuperation for Marine vessels is generally serviced by Gliese 436. They're the closest resort class world, and Marines don't want rest and recuperation at a mining colony, Sir," Lieutenant Alen, a big boned, muscular Bantu woman looked over to the man who had just addressed her, almost annoyed that she had been disturbed from her protocol work over such a trivial matter.
"I realize that its Monday morning, Lucinda, but do you take me for an idiot? This isn't about rest and recuperation. Its about REFUELING and REARMING..." Director Elderman sat up authoritatively as he responded to Lucinda, and she shrunk in stature every so slightly.
"I have no record of any such request for Marine vessels operating in this sector. Sir," she responded, checking her own logs to confirm it wasn't something she'd missed.
"Its from the company. The vessel isn't operating locally. Its returning from a deep space mission and the company is requesting a full resupply of armaments, and for the vessel to remain on station until the arrival of Marine reinforcements..." Director Elderman explained her orders to her.
"Sir, I can't spare any such security supplies, even for a Marine vessel. We're already under supplied as it is. If I do and we're caught short the next time there's labour relations problems, they'll start asking questions that you'll ultimately have to answer for..." Lieutenant Alen explained to Director Elderman, who frowned with her response.
"They'll start asking questions if we don't! Look, I don't care if we have to dig into our emergency security supplies in order to fulfil their request, but this station has no blemishes on its operational record, and that's because I run a tight ship here, Lucinda. If you can't keep up, there's always work for you in the mines if you'd prefer?" Director Elderman reminded her of the grim truth of prospects for officers who disobeyed orders on ASPHODEL station.
Lucinda stared intensely at Director Elderman, and he kept a firm gaze upon her, unblinking.
"The vessel Sulaco has already arrived in this star system, and will be docked in forty minutes. I suggest that you put some of your team on making sure their resupply request is met. You have four hours be completed, at which point you'll provide a security detachment to the airlock to maintain a post resupply quarantine until their reinforcements arrive in six days. Do I make myself clear?!!!" Director Elderman's eyes pierced her senses, giving her shudders as he looked through her.
"Perfectly so, Ronald!..." Lieutenant Alen responded to him by his first name, enraging him further.
"Are you testing me?!!!" Director Elderman kept his gaze firm.
"No," Lucinda responded.
"No what?!!!" Director Elderman confirmed with her.
"No Sir, Director Elderman," Lucinda yielded to him, finally getting up from her desk and making her way to the station cargo and supply area.
Outside of the station, the Sulaco slowly slid into view as it lined itself up for the gantry crane and crew bridge.
Eun-bi, Garth and Fei Guo all stared in the direction of the Director, not daring to utter a word as Lucinda stormed by them, clearly angered by his dressing down of her only moments ago.
"Come on people! They aren't paying you by the hour! Get your asses in gear!" Lucinda yelled at Eun-bi, Garth and Fei Guo as she walked by, crushing her palms with her tightly closed fingers.
"Somebody's having a bad Monday..." Garth smiled at Eun-bi, retrieving his keycard from the terminal.
Fei Guo looked to Director Elderman, who was now focused on the Sulaco as its retro-thrusters slowed its movement to a standstill outside of the gantry crane arm.
Fei turned quietly to Eun-bi and Garth, addressing them both.
"Look, you two had better be careful. Interns are very expendable around here. If you like having a comfy job here in orbit, stay out of their way. Director Elderman and Lieutenant Alen. There's lots of room for interns in the mines. I've already lost one that way, and he's now doing hard labour as an apprentice down there. I'd hate to see either of you end up there," Fei pleaded with Eun-bi and Garth, who nodded affirmatively.
"I'm not an intern anymore! I'm like two weeks in. A full company employee!" Eun-bi responded to Fei with a big smile on her face.
"Eun-bi! Do you have somewhere to be?!!! Its against the law for employees to loiter in operations!" Director Elderman was now focused upon her.
"I was just on my way... Director..." Eun-bi's smile faded slightly, and she backed away and stepped out through the door into the corridors beyond.
"I'm just taking my break. Ten minutes, before ten thirty?" Garth said to Mr. Guo, who nodded affirmatively.
"Ten minutes, Garth," Mr. Guo asserted himself.
...
"Did you happen to see that girl with the pretty smile?" Garth asked of Eun-bi as he ran to catch up with her.
"Did he follow us?" asked Eun-bi, not daring to look for herself as Garth arrived by her side.
"Director Elderman? Nah. He sat down again at his console and began doing his messages. Probably kissing the ass of someone back at Wey-Yu resource extraction headquarters," Garth explained to her as he snuck a peak at the the face of his crush.
"Lets hope. Maybe get us a resupply detail a lot sooner than they've been coming lately," Eun- bi responded, acknowledging the growing problems of the station quartermaster.
"Eun-bi, do you mind if I ask you something?" Garth moved a little closer to her.
"Sure, go ahead," she smiled at him.
"Have you ever noticed how there's no androids..." Garth began.
"You mean artificial persons..." she corrected him.
"...artificial persons. There's like none on the station, and when I was back home training for my placement here, we were taught that androids... I mean artificial persons could generally be found in any modern operations center at a ratio of about one for every six real people..." Garth continued.
"Just because they're artificial, doesn't mean they're not real," Eun-bi once again corrected him.
"You know what I meant. Like us having a real beating heart. So how come we have none here?" Garth asked her.
"Maybe the same reason that we've been running so short on supply shipments lately. You know what I think?" Eun-bi turned it around and began asking him the questions.
"No. What do you think it is?" he asked her.
"I think we're hitting the first ever interstellar recession... but don't tell them a company girl told you that. Its our little secret," she winked at him and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
Garth, immediately stopped in the corridor, gently rubbing the cheek where she'd kissed him, as Eun-bi kept going. He examined her as she departed, tracing every curve on her body and the motion of her hips as she walked away.
"I am never going to wash my face ever again," Garth said as he blushed profusely.
...
Most of the docking procedures, especially those involving Marine warships were entirely automated, but on occasion there arose obstacles that prevented even humanity's most advanced AI systems from solving the nature of the menial tasks involved to arrive at a solution, and this particular situation involving the light assault carrier Sulaco was one such instance.
The docking engineer, Jonathan Boorman, pulled his keycard from his belt and plugged it into the industrial control override console. A door slid open on the surface area of his workspace, revealing a pair of joysticks, slider controls, and a proximity sensor trackball.
"Lets give this another try..." he said as the sound of an alarm pierced his ears.
DEUTERIUM FUEL LINE CONNECTION ERROR: UNRESOLVED CONTINUITY
"Oh great. Something's jamming the fuel line again..." Jonathan said as he grabbed the controls of the actuator arm. A periscope descended from the ceiling arriving in front of his eyes and coming to rest on his nose, as he maneuvered the nozzle of the fuel hose into the intake valve. When he was certain that it was lined up, he pressed a flashing button marked: THREAD LOCK, and watched through the camera as the valve flywheel spun, drawing the nozzle of the hose into the fuel tank and sealing mechanism.
From nowhere, another alarm suddenly burst to life, causing him to jump in his seat. As he did, he bumped his head on the assembly of the periscope above him and cursed:
"F#ck. When are they going fix that!!!" Jonathan said as he removed his baseball cap and began rubbing his tender head.
His eye a caught an industrial hazard prevention sign posted by the station's Manager of Mining Operations.
"HELMETS: DON'T GET CAUGHT WITHOUT YOURS. IT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE."
The sign blinked those words while depicting a cartoon worker that wasn't wearing his helmet being impacted on the head by falling debris.
"F#ck you Andrew!" Jonathan cursed at the sign, bumping his head again when he tried return his eyes to the periscope viewfinder.
This time, he stopped and opened the cabinet beneath the console and found his helmet, donning it carefully before resuming his task at hand.
He looked at the console display, and another error message flashed repeatedly:
NOZZLE ERROR: INTERMITTENT OBSTRUCTION
"So says my wife every time we go to bed..." Jonathan cursed once again, grabbing the nozzle controls once again and backing the flywheel in reverse until the nozzle was once again free if the flywheel assembly and in his control with the actuator arm.
On the top right corner of the camera, he caught a glimpse of something as dark as the night sky on K2-18B, and yet it appeared wet. Shiny. Biological. There was a moment where the thing, whatever it was, stopped and he could clearly see what appeared to be a pair of clenched teeth, complete with razor sharp canines. Interference momentarily blurred the screen with static, and then when by the time the image cleared up again, whatever it might have been, it was gone.
"Good thing it wasn't inside of the fuel tank..." Jonathan remarked, once again resuming his attempt to insert the nozzle into the valve. When he'd lined it up in the pipe, five by five, he hit the THREAD LOCK button once again. This time, the nozzle was pulled into and locked in position by the flywheel mechanism.
FUEL NOZZLE CONNECTED SUCCESSFULLY. FUEL LINE CONTINUITY CONFIRMED.
"Fill her up," Jonathan flicked a few switches, and the periscope rose from view, concealing itself into a compartment in the ceiling. He then hit a green button labeled: BEGIN FUEL INJECTION.
A digital animation played on the console screen, depicting the movement of liquid DEUTERIUM into the ignition system of the Mark III Zero-Point Fusion Igniter System: the starter-motor that essentially kickstarted the fusion process that maintained the Zero-Point Hyper-Engine system that powered nearly all Marine interstellar capable vessels.
"Phil? You taking a break? Wait up..." Jonathan got up from the console, allowing the rest of the refueling system to run in fully automated mode as he ran to catch up with his coworker.
On the exterior of the Sulaco, something moved, crawling slowly across its surface, its endoskeleton armour camouflaged and nearly invisble against the Sulaco's hull.
It moved slowly and purposefully in a direction towards, and into one of the heat sync vents, beside the enormous engines of the vessel. Inside, where it found its tiny nest, also perfectly camouflaged with its surroundings on the exterior of the Sulaco.
Hicks had just unfolded the legs of one of the UA 571-C Automated Sentry Guns and was now powering it up. He turned to the laptop on the floor beside him, and checked the screen:
SAFETY ENGAGED, the words flashed on the screen.
He used the joystick to navigate the menu and enabled the motion detection system, readying it for calibration.
"Alright, lets make sure this one's got its eyes," Hicks said as he hit the calibration button on the interface.
A few moments passed, and the sentry gun's automated matter detection system traced a localized map of its surroundings, out to a distance of twenty-five meters, the exact distance that Hicks had selected for the detection system, as it was the length of the crew bridge between the airlocks of the ASPHODEL and the Sulaco.
OBSTACLE MAP CALCULATED. MOTION DETECTOR DIAGNOSTIC STARTING.
As soon as those words had ceased flashing on the display, the speakers of the device emitted a high pitched pinging sound. Hicks examined the display to find the source, confirming it wasn't a false positive.
"Must be hallucinating...? Ripley? You having any luck yet?" he asked her, carefully checking the screen again as a blip momentarily appeared and then disappeared.
"Hicks? That's affirmative. Newt and I ran into an old friend on our way to the market, didn't we Newt?" Ripley confirmed with Newt, who was standing right beside her in the cryo-chamber.
"We certainly did... But he's looking a little rough around the edges," Newt added to Ripley's reply.
Ripley affixed a headset to the artificial person's ears and head, and he spoke for himself.
"Hicks? Looks like I might live a bit longer than it says on my warranty..." Bishop said to Hicks, looking to Ripley and Newt in turn as he spoke.
"How are you feeling there Bishop?" Hicks asked him.
"Not half bad. Pun intended," Bishop replied.
"Hopefully its the half you still have. Did Ripley bring you up to speed yet?" Hicks asked of Bishop.
"Affirmative, but I'm going to have to go with them to help initiate the systems override to authorize the purging of all recorded data on the Sulaco. An act that is in violation of company policy, I might add," Bishop explained to them.
"I don't think we're in a position to be expecting a pension anyway. How long do you figure you'll need?" Hicks asked Bishop.
"I'll need hands on the command console on the bridge for at least half an hour," Bishop explained to Ripley, Newt and Hicks.
"Can't we just plug you in directly to the ship's data center?" asked Ripley thoughtfully.
"No. The override codes need to be entered manually directly from the command console on the bridge. They're purposefully difficult to enter, hence ensuring they're never accidentally used, and that doesn't even include the fact that I'm going to have to manually write a worm, that will unlock the protected memory of the backup systems, which will take another twenty minutes at least. Thirty with testing," Bishop explained to Ripley.
"Assuming they observe the quarantine law of twenty-four hours, that should give us plenty of time. Hicks, will those sentry guns keep the station techs out?" asked Ripley of Hicks.
"They should. We're not using the standard light armour piercing explosive tipped caseless rounds. We're using riot rounds. Rubber bullets. They're non-lethal. They hurt a lot, and they will leave a mark, but they won't penetrate the station's hull. Anyone trying to get onto the ship through the crew bridge will be in a for an unpleasant surprise to say the least," Hicks assured her as he lined up the first sentry, positioning it in the airlock, aiming down wind along the crew bridge and directly at the station's airlock system.
As he lined it up, there was another ping as the motion detector detected something moving about twenty meters from his position. He checked it once again, and the blip disappeared.
"Everything alright Hicks?" asked Ripley, having heard the sound of the pinging through his headset, the sound sending shivers down her spine.
"Its hallucinating. A lot," Hicks said to Ripley as he checked the connectors to ensure there was no electrical short.
"Hicks, we need to be sure of this," Ripley underlined the importance of what they were doing once again.
"I know. We need to send a drone outside to examine the hull. Its the only way to be sure," Hicks said to Ripley.
"Fine. We're going to see if we can't hook Bishop up to one of Vasquy's smartgun harnesses and power packs. We can fasten him to Newt's back, and she can be his legs, getting him around to do what he needs to do," Ripley told Hicks.
"Don't you think that it might be safer if you take Bishop, rather than putting him on our little girl's back? She's already carrying a lot, honey," Hicks confirmed with Ripley, starting to sound like a worried father and husband to her, opting for a little jest as a form of stress relief.
"That would be alright, but I'm going to be busy keeping watch with a pulse rifle, and running errands for Bishop. Our little girl is all grown up now. She'll be fine. Even with a Bishop on her back," Ripley responded with a bit of a smile on her face.
"I'll try not to be too heavy on her..." Bishop assured them, with a quirky smile on his face.
"Sounds like a plan. Once I've got the sentry guns in place, I'm going to run a full scan of the exterior with a drone. I'll be closer than you know if either of you need me," Hicks assured them.
"Us too, Hicks," Newt smiled as she fastened the belt that contained the power-pack of the M56 Smart Gun. The spare power-packs from Vasquez' and Drake's lockers on board the Sulaco.
As Ripley helped Bishop slide over to the edge of a gurney to which they'd managed to transfer him, lining him up in place to be fastened to Newt's back, Hicks unpacked and unfolded the second sentry gun in the airlock, then turning to the command laptop and navigating the interface and pressing the DUPLICATE TO ALL NODES button.
Hicks stepped back inside the Sulaco side of the airlock, closing the inner door. He then unlocked and opened the outer airlock door, giving access to the crew bridge from the perspective of both sentry guns. They began peering from left to right and back again as they continuously scanned for any motion emerging from a ninety degree arc afore of their position.
Meanwhile, on the outer hull of the Sulaco, the same exoskeleton armoured monster with the gritted teeth finally settled back into its tiny nest camouflaged on the exterior of the hull.
There within, the biomechanical creature adjusted itself, its spinal arms navigating the wall behind it as it spied an ovoid shape in front of it. Leathery and pocked with bulbous blisters.
It was an egg.
Aeolus
K2-18B
Local Group
124 Light Years From Sol
Fifty years earlier, the eighteenth probe sent from Earth to confirm earlier geological findings with regard to the unusual natural satellite of K2-18B. Earlier probes had confirmed many interesting such details, including the fact that it harboured frozen water deep within its crust, making it potentially suitable for operations, and a way station providing fuel resources allowing humanity access to the rest of the Local Group.
The eighteenth probe also confirmed undeniably that the natural satellite also possessed a geodynamo: a magnetic core, though it was frozen in the ice resulting from the unusual orbital dynamics of the satellite. Aeolus as it was eventually named, possessed a highly eccentric elliptical orbit, meaning that K2-18B's lunar cycle took the equivalent of two Earth years.
Aeolus would literally whip by K2-18B during its periapsis, taking only one hundred and eight Earth days. For the remaining six hundred and eight days, Aeolus would be rapidly reduced to a crawl. With such an elliptical orbit, Aeolus had spent much of its life in the shadow of K2-18B, in fact ninety five percent of its time. This kept Aeolus shielded from the heat of its host star, allowing its liquid water surface to rapidly freeze and condense, despite the tidal forces of its orbit. Over the three billion years of its development, the surface water retreated into the satellite's interior, trapping its geodynamo, hence preventing it from developing its own atmosphere.
The eighteenth probe also contained a considerably risky experiment, for the probe landed upon Aeolus and using an automated autonomous drilling drone, it was able to "inject" Aeolus' water core with crystal formation-disrupting and anti-freeze producing Von Neumann Nanites. These tiny molecular robots set about making copies of themselves (into the sum of quintillions), roughly half of them converting the ammonia present on Aeolus's surface into anti-freeze, while the other half produced heat by igniting unsustained fusion reactions using the water's own hydrogen atoms as the fuel.
Over the course of forty years, Aeolus slowly developed a magnetosphere and a thin oxygen atmosphere, just in time for the arrival of the first settlers to Aeolus. After constructing ASPHODEL orbital the first year, within two years, the atmosphere processor was constructed on Aeolus' surface, and within another five, the air of Aeolus became breathable without the need for artificial respirators.
The colony, much like its counterpart on LV-426 was mostly inhabited by its mining and geological engineering workforce, the remainder of the population being mostly operational, administrative and amenities support staff for a total population of one hundred and sixty seven.
On this particular day, into the five hundredth morning of their six hundred Earth-day lengthed night, Marcus Dougherty, already wearing his uniform, quietly snuck from the micro-kitchen of their unit, to his double bed, within which a modestly curvacious woman in her forties slept soundly.
He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the forehead and she was roused from her sleep.
"Mmmmm. You smell nice..." she said to him.
"The coffee's on, and there's a plate ready for you in the cooler. Gotta go," Marcus smiled to her.
"Not before I get a real kiss..." she demanded of him, leaning up slightly in bed to meet him halfway.
They locked lips passionately, before pulling away.
"Very tempting, but I've gotta go, and you need to brush your teeth..." Marcus told her, and she laughed.
"Alright, but you owe me a night in tonight. No late night at the office. Understand?" she asserted herself.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world. Bye..." with that Marcus got up and left, locking the autodoor behind himself.
Outside of the colony residential building, a bus shaped vehicle waited, its driver honking a horn. Marcus heard the sound and picked up his pace, and when the driver saw him, he rolled down his window and greeted him.
"I thought you were going to be a no show," the driver said to Marcus.
"Not me. Not a missed day in ten years," Marcus reminded the driver.
"Well that's kind of hard, on account of the fact that you've only been here for nine," the driver responded.
"That's my point," Marcus replied, quickly finding his favourite seat on the bus as the vehicle accelerated to its cruising speed.
To be continued...
Brian Joseph Johns
Credits and attribution:
Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...
Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, PhotoPea (a great web based Photoshop stand-in if you're on a low budget or in a pinch), Borderline Obsession...
DeepSeek AI for suggestions on exercises to improve aspects of describing scene and settings with a more sensory focused grammar.
InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.
Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.
Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.
Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)
Magic (performance, illusion and perhaps the real thing): Magic Week Archive (I'm currently growing this section so stay tuned)
Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Mickmumpitz, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.
Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life
Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life
Jesse Enkamp: Karate Nerd
Jesse, a reknowned Sensei who runs his own dojo, explores the world of Martial Arts, traveling to many exotic locations to meet practitioners of a variety of different arts
Sensei Rokas: Martial Arts Journey
A reknowned Sensei of Aikido who in seeking to understand the roots of Aikido and its applications, seeks to stress test its effectiveness in a number of real world situations while studying its history
Iaido: Train For Katana Mastery Like Samurai
The original weapons focused curriculum under which Samurai became masters of their art
Extensive courses for calisthenics and body strength, stamina and flexibility
Special thanks to Captain Crunch and his wonderful sister!
Special thanks to Bandcamp for giving indie music artists a home under one roof
Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.
Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, PhotoPea (a great web based Photoshop stand-in if you're on a low budget or in a pinch), Borderline Obsession...
DeepSeek AI for suggestions on exercises to improve aspects of describing scene and settings with a more sensory focused grammar.
InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.
Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.
Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.
Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)
Magic (performance, illusion and perhaps the real thing): Magic Week Archive (I'm currently growing this section so stay tuned)
Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Mickmumpitz, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.
Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life
Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life
Jesse Enkamp: Karate Nerd
Jesse, a reknowned Sensei who runs his own dojo, explores the world of Martial Arts, traveling to many exotic locations to meet practitioners of a variety of different arts
Jesse, a reknowned Sensei who runs his own dojo, explores the world of Martial Arts, traveling to many exotic locations to meet practitioners of a variety of different arts
Sensei Rokas: Martial Arts Journey
A reknowned Sensei of Aikido who in seeking to understand the roots of Aikido and its applications, seeks to stress test its effectiveness in a number of real world situations while studying its history
A reknowned Sensei of Aikido who in seeking to understand the roots of Aikido and its applications, seeks to stress test its effectiveness in a number of real world situations while studying its history
Iaido: Train For Katana Mastery Like Samurai
The original weapons focused curriculum under which Samurai became masters of their art
The original weapons focused curriculum under which Samurai became masters of their art
Extensive courses for calisthenics and body strength, stamina and flexibility
Special thanks to Captain Crunch and his wonderful sister!
Special thanks to Bandcamp for giving indie music artists a home under one roof
Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.
This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.
Click image for contact information...
This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.
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