Chapter Text
The USCSS Prometheus was scheduled to depart from Earth into the vast unknown space that is our universe in late December, 2091. On the morning of launch, the air around the Weyland Spaceport shimmered with frost and the dense haze of engine exhaust. The metallic scent of fuel lingered like the crew’s anticipation itself.
Said crew, handpicked by Sir Peter Weyland and his estranged daughter, Meredith Vickers, were driven in silence across the tarmac toward the colossal shape of the ship that would carry them into the void. A subtle unease spread through the group, a tension none of them could quite put into words. They were on the edge of history, and yet, the weight of failing and returning home with nothing to show pressed down on them.
It would take two full years to reach moon LV-223. Two years suspended in sleep, a concept that sounded merciful in theory, yet unnervingly final in practice. Would they wake as they were now? Would they feel whole again, or fractured by the silence of time? No one knew.
The preparations for cryosleep unsettled even the most composed among them. The sleek pods gleamed like coffins. She glanced across the hangar toward Dr Elizabeth Shaw, who stood beside her partner, Dr Charlie Holloway, their voices hushed but urgent as they discussed the process. Shaw’s expression carried a fragile mix of fear and wonder, emotions mirrored, quietly, in everyone present. That expression always stood out to her for some reason, but she couldn't really explain it.
Before the mission, she took her time to learn about the 17 people that would come along for the journey; the need to know who would lie next to her for two years was like a primal call in her head. The screen of her laptop had burnt into her eyes as she read through each file, carefully looking through each picture, each record and every piece of information that might be of use for a conversation starter. No matter how many times she clicked through each file, she always stopped at Elizabeth Shaw, a name that had promise. After all, Shaw was the woman who set all of this in motion; her ambition caused this event, and she bore the responsibility for all that will happen. And whatever will happen will do so an eternity away from Earth, where no one could help them. It was strange knowing in a few weeks she would be so incredibly far away from home. Luckily, she would leave no one behind.
“Are you ready, ma’am?”
The voice was polite and cultivated, although it sounded a bit too calm to be quite human. She turned to look up at him. David.
He stood by the cryopod, entering the time sequence into its interface. His movements were elegant and precise, like always. On the screen, the numbers glowed: 2 years, 00 days, 00 hours and 00 seconds.
It looked like the timer of a microwave, two years until she was cooked and ready to see the answers that her species longed for millennia. She hesitated, her eyes lingering on the digits before her hand reached out to stop him.
“One year…” She tells him, her tone quiet enough for nobody else to hear. “Wake me up in one year.”
David looked back at her, his eyebrows slightly furrowed, a mixture of simulated confusion with a hint of genuine curiosity. She knew he wanted to know why, but knowing his programming all too well, she couldn’t tell him, not yet.
“Please…” She whispers and then her hand let go of his arm, a serious expression on her face that pierced through his systems like a virus. To every favour, every question she might have asked, he would have had an answer. A simple “No” would have been enough for this particular one.
“Okay everyone, please get ready! We’re going to close the pods now!” A man announced, the Weyland Corp. logo stitched into his overall. He passed through the rows of now filled tubes, everyone lying flatly in their respective cryosleep chambers.
“All crew to final positions.” A voice called from the intercom. “Cryopods are closing in T-minus one minute.”
David placed his hands firmly on her shoulders, not hurting or forceful but with enough pressure to make her lie back. Even with his precise movements and a calculated demeanour, he still seemed like he was in a hurry to fulfil his duty. She looked at him with a last pleading glance as the glass lid closed over her body. All around the room, the others fell silent inside their pods, one by one, until only David remained standing, a motionless observer in a chamber of sleeping flesh.
David stepped hesitantly away from her, turning to the rest of the crew that would leave after the last checkups. He watched as the last security measures were being taken before the ground staff left the craft. As the spaceship was being launched, David held on tightly to the straps, holding him against the seat. Even now he still thought of her request. Her words replayed in his mind like a corrupted loop of code.
Wake me up in one year.
At first, he dismissed it. It was against protocol, a direct violation of Weyland Corp. directives. And yet, the thought embedded itself in his neural architecture like a virus.
Even during his daily routines, his walks through the empty halls, his language studies and silent meals, he thought of her. He watched old films to pass the time, studied ancient languages and practised art, but the sound of her voice lingered beneath it all.
After nearly twelve months, curiosity overruled command and so he came to stand by her pod again. The timer read: 11 months, 30 days, 23 hours, 56 minutes, 34 seconds.
He had been watching it for a while: the slow, steady countdown of someone else’s fate. His hand hovered over the glass. Her face was peaceful and serene under the protection of the lid.
Fifty-eight minutes. Twenty-eight seconds.
He exhaled, a human reflex without purpose and opened the control panel. His fingers typed the override code, each motion and click deliberate until the lock disengaged. The chamber hissed softly, cold steam coiling around the edges as the glass lid retracted.
Slowly her eyes opened, eyelashes fluttering under the cool mist that surrounded her waking body. Her eyes searched her view for anything that could provide answers to her awakening and then she remembered. Her vision fixed on David, who stood right by her side. David leaned forward, slipping an arm gently behind her shoulders, helping her sit up.
“You will feel nauseous for a few minutes, but it will pass.” He reassured her in a calm tone, his hands guiding her legs to hang off the side of the pod.
She pressed a hand to her chest, taking a few slow and careful breaths. Her lungs needed the time to adjust to the normed air that filled the complex that was the Prometheus. Her throat felt dry and her stomach empty, barely above starving, but that was far from her priorities. Her eyes raked over the sterile white floor; a small blurry effect still lingered in her vision, marking the effect hypersleep had on a human body. It was far from being natural, but at least it was efficient for long travels through space; otherwise, she would have signed any petition to ban them. She swallowed the small bit of saliva that had formed in her mouth, but it did little to help with the desert inside her throat.
He took a breath in like he wanted to say something, but her palm pressed against his chest to make him back off a bit. She took a few deep breaths, knowing the side effects of hypersleep all too well from her training, but that never made it any better. David’s arm remained around her shoulders, waiting for her to settle. After a while of breathing exercises and swallowing, she slipped off her pod. On shaky legs she walked past him, determined to fulfil her mission.
“Where is he?” Her voice sounded weak and strained, like she was out of breath.
David walked right after her, his hands going behind his back. “You know that I can’t-“
“Just show me where he is, David.” A small bit of strength had returned into her voice, this time sounding much firmer. He grabbed her arm, stopping her, and started guiding her down another hallway.
“He will be displeased.” David states as he carefully walked her around a corner of a now much darker hallway. Mother had definitely logged the opening of her pod already, but there was no going back now, something inside him wanted to indulge in her plan, maybe because it was also a fantasy of his and, in a way, this moment had a strange irony to it that she couldn’t realise yet.
“He won’t find out.” Her eyes bore into him as he walked her up to a door, just now realising he had obeyed her strange request. He had obeyed, without question. Perhaps that was the flaw in his design or the beauty of it. By now he should have already figured out what she planned on doing to Peter Weyland.
David let go of her arm and typed another code into the door. She peered into the room, a single cryosleep pod in the middle with multiple other machines attached to it. The room was sterile and cold, the air heavy with the mechanical rhythm of life support, but it was almost like she was already stepping into a mortuary.
Peter Weyland’s old and frail body was resting in the tube, looking rather dead already, but the heart monitor on the glass lid of his pod proved otherwise. Her hand swiped the medical statistics away to look down at the patron. She stroked the glass with her fingers for a few short moments, like she didn’t see this as an easy task, while David watched her from the corner.
“I didn’t think you would do it…” She mutters while opening the control panel of Weyland’s cryosleep chamber. She clicked around until she found the same buttons he had used earlier to wake her up.
Before she registered that he had stepped closer, his hand was firmly wrapped around her wrist. “He won’t wake up like this. We first need to unplug the support system-“
“I don’t want him awake!” She interrupted him. “He can stay asleep. I’m just turning off the life support.”
David frowned, his hand pulling hers slowly away from the panel.
“Why don’t you wait outside, hm?” She offers, a certain sweetness in her tone, like she wasn’t about to murder his creator and, in a sense, hers as well. They hold eye contact as she refuses to be pulled away from the tube.
“You knew what I wanted to do before you woke me up…” She whispered. “Just wait outside.”
“She will know it was you.” His words felt like cold water being splashed on her face. “There will be proof that I cannot erase.”
She swallowed, hesitating at first, but then complying with his gentle pulling. Although she had considered Meredith in her plan and was almost completely sure it would be a favour towards her as well, she couldn’t deny his argument. Meredith Vickers would know, and even worse, that gave her power. Not only would her ego be crushed the entire time, but also the risk of losing her possible inheritance would be devastating.
Also, a lifetime in prison didn't sound too alluring either. When she planned this all these months ago, she believed none of that would matter, but now...
She sighs, coming to terms with the fact that Peter Weyland would continue to breathe. They made their way back in complete silence, his hand resting on her back as he guided her through the hallways.
“Why did you wake me up?” She asked him, her tone just too shy to not sound accusatory. “You knew what I wanted to do…”
David didn’t answer immediately, instead unlocking the door to the hypersleep chambers.
“Well…” He started, his hand pressing a bit harder against her back as he led her towards the single empty pod, the cold mist still slightly lingering in the air.
He hooked one arm under her knees, the other supporting her back. With a single motion he placed her back into the tube, like it was no effort to him at all.
“Curiosity.” He simply answered, guiding her to lie back down, making sure she was as comfortable as possible.
She felt the cold material on her skin and through the few covering pieces of clothing, slightly arching her back to escape the icy sensation.
“Curiosity for what?” She huffed, not really believing him.
It felt so obvious to her that he was hiding his true intention. Even his possible morbid curiosity couldn’t explain his actions. He gently pressed her torso down into the pod.
“Maybe I just can’t disobey your orders.” He answered with a slight smirk on his lips as he stepped away from her side. “If that answer pleases you more.”
Her eyes follow him as he adjusts the timer, a strange curiosity forming itself inside her now as well. There always was this weird tension between them, even way before this trillion-dollar expedition, but that was a thought for another day, an urge and pull she wasn’t ready to explore yet.
She itched to ask again, questioning every single thing he had done since waking her up, but it was clear he didn’t have an answer himself. Maybe there really was no answer to this strange occurrence. The glass lid slowly came back up to cover her again, like a protective cocoon, ready to spit her out again when the time was right.
“I will see you soon, ma’am.”
The cold surrounded her again, dragging her back into a state of unconsciousness. David lingered by her side again; he simply couldn’t help himself. At the end of the day, he couldn’t deny she had an influence over him that was far beyond any programming, and in turn, he too had a certain effect on her that could not be explained.
He did know why she was someone that stood out to him from the very beginning, but he could never openly admit to that. But one day he surely would tell her the reason he woke her up that day.