Keta-ki went to the female yautjas house again, this time with Meketre. They sat down in the living room as last time, but she did not have the suckling with her. Each of her children squeezed in around him to try and get a look at Meketre. They all wanted to poke and touch him, while Keta-ki tried to convince the female to take the pup in. He hoped that it would not be necessary for her to take the child, but he had to make sure Meketre would be cared for just in case.
Finally, the female shooed away her children and reached for the pup. She picked him up under his arms, letting his legs dangle. She examined the pup, holding it away from her chest. Her mandibles clicked occasionally as she considered the pup. Finally, her eyes narrowed.
"It is far too chubby for its age. A yautja pup would be loosing the baby fat by now." She declared.
"He will loose the weight, gain figure, then muscle I assure you. Both parents were fit, and the pup is healthy."
"Its teeth are starting to come in, which is good-however, they look more blunt than I'd expect."
"It is a feature that will not hinder its hunts."
She tilted the child some, still examining it, "It's nails as well are rounder. If they are frail like an oomans he will but be able to do anything with them."
Keta-ki used his claws quite often, and had no comment to try and make the child seem more acceptable.
"Its skin is so light. It will not burn in the sun will it? That would be a great hindrance."
"The pup seems light and heat tolerant thus far."
"And what is this?" She ran her thumb over its bellybutton.
"A scar from umbilical cord attachment." Yautjas did not have bellybuttons, and Keta-ki was glad at least that the pup didn't have male nipples like oomans did, or the female really would have picked on the pup.
Since she seemed chose to rejecting the child, Keta-ki rose and and tried to grab the child from her. He had to be careful though. A females first reaction to someone trying to grab at a child was aggression. Though the pup was not hers, she reacted the same. Her mandibles spread wide with challenge as she swept the child out of his reach. He quickly tried to drown out her growl with his deep purrs.
The female gawked at him for a second, then apologetically handed the pup over. When Keta-ki headed for the door, she said, "I'll happily take him, whether my mates agree or not. Come back with a contract when you are ready."
Meketre's future was secured. That gave Keta-ki a little comfort at least, but there was still work to do. Back at the house, once the pup was taking a nap, he sought Zuri out. She was on the bed, looking down at a tablet and reading something. The hunting hound lifted its head and let out a snarl as Keta-ki entered.
"We need to make small recordings everyday or so, showing you in distress, for evidence. There are cameras in the house that do not luck up sound, but mask recordings would be better."
She turned off the tablet, and asked, "What do you want me to do?"
"Anything, everything. Throw tantrums, act like an ooman. We need it to look like you are unhappy."
They went out for a walk in a park near the city that had several acres of woods. Zuri was better at acting than he'd expected. With his mask in and recording, they had evidence of her unstable behavior, crying, and tantrums. She went as far as making shallow cuts on her arms with a piece of rock. Keta-ki had been so alarmed at the self mutilation that be took her straight home.
He was worried that her acting wasn't acting, and she really was that unhappy. He had a tight grip around her forearm while his other arm held the child. Keta-ki forced Zuri inside the house and took off his mask. As soon as he did, Zuri wiped the tears away though and reached for Meketre, acting as if nothing had happened. She smiled and lightly bounced him in her arms.
"Medical room, now." Keta-ki demanded.
She followed him in and he grabbed her waist to haul her up into the table. He roughly grabbed her arm, looking at the jagged cuts that were still bleeding a little. Keta-ki grabbed the enzyme cream, and applied it to her cuts. They vanished quickly, not leaving so much as a scab or a scar. Then, he cleaned the blood off her arm.
"What were you thinking?" He hissed.
"Your mad about the cuts? I thought you said it needed to look real. Well, that's what some people on Earth do when they are depressed. I knew you'd be able to heal them straight away."
Keta-ki brushed his knuckles over her cheek, "I don't like it."
"Alright, I won't do it again." She put her hand on his chest, giving him a light shove before she hoped down from the table.
The final and most important piece of their plan required a hologram of her actually killing herself. It needed to look and move realistically. Taking a poison would bot look convincing, and they would ask questions about how she came in possession of poison. Keta-ki always carried at least one weapon with him, even during their walks. He needed to design a convincing hologram of her talking a weapon from him.
His mask would be recording the event, to it needed to be the right color, size, and distance away to look real. Sound would need to be perfect. He'd need to look down at some point before the event, showing evidence of the weapon strapped to him. He would have to make sure not to reveal the weapon on his hip during the event though, as the hologram Zuri would appear to have it. And even if he could get it to work, they had one problem.
The hologram would make Zuri look dead, and then he had to shut it off and grab the real body to bring back. To do that, he had to take off his mask. He didn't know if that made sense though. Her body would be laying I front of him, and what purpose would taking off the mask hold? If someone asked him that question, he wouldn't have an answer.
The only other option was to hack into the bio masks recording and flawlessly cut out the part where he takes the mask off. If done correctly, it would go from looking down at the hologram and skip to him picking up the real ooman body. If someone rewound the recording and watched it, it would appear seamless. If anyone was watching his live recordings though, they would catch a glitch. It was a reasonable risk.
The ooman body had already been modified to look more like Zuri. It was stored safely on his ship, ready to be dropped off in the woods before a walk. Zuri would have to accompany him on the walk for the house to record her leaving, but then before the hologram started, she would have to go back and hide on his ship. His personal ship did not have any severance cameras, so moving the body and hiding Zuri was not complicated. But they needed that hologram.
Yautja technology was far advanced, and his home computer was capable of constructing a hologram. What was lacking, was Keta-ki's focus and skill. He tried to graph other recordings of Zuri into the hologram, making sure it looked real. He worked for hours as the hound played, racing about, tearing up decoy animals. The baby kept crying and Zuri seemed to move back and forth around the house.
When the hologram didn't turn out how Keta-ki wanted, his temper soared. His mandibles flared wide at the tablet and he let out a booming roar. When that didn't make him feel any better, he rocketed his anger at the room. He picked up the couch and hurdled it across the room. Then, he beat his fists down onto wall.
Zuri popped her head out of the nursery, "What the hell is going on?"
Keta-ki's hands clenched into fists, his chest heaving.
She tentatively forward to place her hand on his arm, "Are you ok? What's wrong?"
Keta-ki jerked away from her with a growl, "You would put yourself in danger, leave your child, and tarnish my honor! For what? To see your pathetic ooman family? To eat chocolate? Make money? You are running away!"
She was instantly defensive, "I'm not running away from anything! Your all a bunch of brutish monsters, that's why I want to leave!"
"You're just holding a grudge because some yautjas pick on you, and give you mean looks." He hissed.
Zuri started to cry, "No one even held a funeral for Uri. This planet is all hunting, and death without remorse. There is no monogamy, no love. Honor and pride is held above all else, above family. You are a cold, narcissistic bastard!"
"Funerals are uncommon for our species, more of an ooman tradition. If you wanted one held for him, you should have asked! Everyone dies eventually, carrying the weight of it with you will only make your life miserable. You need to let Uri go."
She wiped her eyes and glared at him.
Keta-ki stepped forward and wrapped his hands around her throat, "I haven't taken a mate since I laid eyes on you. I want no one else. I would risk my life and honor for you, yet you do not appreciate it!"
A bubbling growl came from the hound, who was closing in on him. The hound was overly protective. Though Keta-ki had his hands around her throat, he was not hurting her. Keta-ki growled back and kicked at the hound, trying to get him to back off. However, that only made the hound launch an attack.