When is a machine not a machine？
When is a machine not a machine?
3. Metamorphosis
Continuing from the previous episode where the alien ambushed Hermit, Wendy follows the sound akin to bugs crawling in her ears and rushes forward step by step (Hmm?). That's right, in the first episode Wendy demonstrated her ability to leap off cliffs and sprint like a speedster; however, in a real crisis, she can only run like a normal person, one step at a time? The logic is dead... We'll just watch our alien as it becomes so idle it puts the captured Hermit in a meat freezer, luring Wendy into a trap, leading to a nonsensical chaotic battle. The merciless alien, however, never truly goes for the kill against the siblings. Instead, Wendy gets entangled in the alien's Nested Mouths and prepares to drag it into the warehouse. But as the saying goes: a gecko sheds its tail, an alien sheds its mouths; with a flick of its tail, it drags Wendy into the warehouse too. Behind a heavy iron door, there's a tumultuous scene, and a desperate Hermit resets the warehouse door, only to be met with a ground covered in corrosive acidic blood and a decapitated alien. Nearby, Wendy's forehead slowly drips with a white liquid hinting at sexual innuendo. Both exhausted, they collapse together, only to be retrieved later by Prodigy personnel, along with other alien beings from the Machino ship, and taken to Dream Island.
After this rescue experience, Wendy falls into a coma. The other Lost Boys hybrid members remain unscathed, but their mental state begins to change: after the attack by an eye-ball octopus monster, Nibs, who survived, starts to question his self-identity. Curly, transferring the consciousness of the wheelchair girl, sees Wendy acting out of control and disregarding her brother's commands. He desperately wants to show off his learning abilities to company CEO Kavalier, to display his superiority. Meanwhile, Slightly, who speaks with an Indian accent, encounters the only surviving biohuman from the Machino, Morrow. Witnessing the latest hybrid technology from Prodigy, the half-human, half-machine Morrow questions Slightly: When is a machine not a machine? When humans replace their decaying bodies and upload their consciousness to replaceable artificial substrates, the boundaries between machine and human begin to blur. Some aspects may even resemble humanity more than we do, akin to relevant topics explored in Japanese sci-fi works like Ghost in the Shell. Under the premise that memories can be altered, can this body that has undergone metamorphosis still be defined as human?
With the sound of bug legs rubbing, a awakened Wendy quietly moves to the laboratory, witnessing the white-haired hybrid Kirsh and another hybrid boy Tootles (later applied to change name to Isaac), dissecting a Facehugger and extracting a wiggling tadpole-shaped embryo, seemingly resonating with the pain of the alien. An even stronger bug noise echoes in her mind, and Wendy falls into another coma. Kirsh then places the wriggling alien embryo into a culture tank containing the lung taken from Hermit, which was attacked by the alien. The embryo quickly swims like sperm into the tender lung lobes and implants itself there...
4. Observation
Opening her eyes once again, Wendy finds herself having her sound receiver turned off. The researcher Sylvia, who sees Wendy as her daughter, is discussing with Kirsh why Wendy can receive the alien's frequency when Kavalier bursts into the lab, dismissing everyone, and Hermit, who has switched to artificial heart-lung, is also brought in. The domineering CEO Kavalier orders another researcher to reboot Wendy's receiver and even demands that she mimic a language interpreter, broadcasting the alien's high-frequency, shrill sounds, truly shocking everyone present, indicating that Wendy seems to possess the ability to communicate with the alien. In another part of the laboratory, white-haired Kirsh continues testing with the hybrid boy: on the spaceship, a half-parasitized cat's eyeball octopus is used, with the current test subject being a sheep unaware of the impending disaster. The series once again showcases a bizarre eye-drilling parasitic scene. However, from Kavalier's subsequent visit, it seems Kirsh has already planted a seed of unease in his heart toward this arrogant genius.
As the storm approaches, various unexpected situations arise. At this moment, Nibs, plagued by identity anxiety, reports to researcher Sylvia that he seems to show signs of pregnancy; this is utterly absurd for a hybrid being composed entirely of artificial structures! Sylvia patiently tries to talk to him, but Nibs remains convinced he can virginly conceive like the Virgin Mary (what do you think?). Unexpectedly, when asked whether the experience on the Machino led to this delusion, it seems to completely trigger Nibs' PTSD. In an instant, he lunges at Sylvia, almost killing her. A shocked Sylvia quickly changes the subject and discreetly contacts staff to inform supervisors to initiate a level-three incident response procedure. After all, Nibs' actions completely violate the highest behavioral guidelines for robots: do not harm humans. Perhaps the moment Nibs was attacked by the eye-ball octopus something in his neural circuits got disrupted, causing mutations.
Another variable of the Lost Boys shifts focus to the Indian boy Slightly, who is controlled by the biohuman Morrow. Due to Morrow implanting a communication chip in his neck, they begin talking heart-to-heart like friends; however, their whispers are fully eavesdropped by white-haired Kirsh, who is grasping evidence but does not report the abnormality. Instead, he secretly appears in Slightly's room, testing him with a sculpture of the three wise monkeys (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil) on the wall, asking Slightly which side he would stand on if he went against company orders. Morrow, of course, also hears this clearly. With a slight prompt, Slightly declares loyalty, saying, “I will support my friend,” temporarily ending this turbulent test of humanity. Afterwards, Morrow begins to close in on him, even managing to find Slightly's real mother amidst the city's searches, using this to blackmail him into bringing out an individual infected by an alien egg. The logic has died again (sigh~). Helpless, Slightly then sets his sights on the natural human Hermit, who is left on Dream Island enjoying family bliss with his sister, unaware that deep in the night, a Chestburster has broken free from his brother's lung and is now observing lovingly under Wendy's gentle caress.
Series images source: Alien: Earth