She made him weak. He subconsciously submitted to the idea as he slept hours later.

Suddenly, the lights sprang to life, stinging his eye's through their lids. Once awake there was no ignoring the enticing pull of activity. Just as he slid from the hard mattress, a hefty knock came at the door. With out waiting for a reply, it was opened. Kali stepped in, the two guards close behind.

"I need to show you something," she said bluntly.

She didn't need to beckon for him to follow. They walked side by side, much to the discomfort of the two other large men. She was capable, they knew, but if she went down... they all did.

"Your little friends are indeed special," she said with an unflattering air.

"Which ones?"

She let herself smile softly, feeling she was in control. He had a way of making people overly confident, right up until the end. "The little wriggly ones."

They stopped at a pair of Plexiglas sliding doors. With a nod, she dismissed their accompaniment. Once the doors slid into place behind them, she warned casually, "Watch your eyes."

A blaring white light was blasted at them from all directions. Even his goggles could not protect him. The light shot a hot spike through his brain which forced him to behold dizzying displays of color. His neck snapped back, and he stumbled, groping blindly. He threw his hands in front of his face in a futile attempt to protect himself, roaring like a caged lion, tormented and trapped. Within seconds it was over, and as his vision cleared, his anger erupted.

He lashed out at her, latching onto her collar and hauling her up off the floor, "What the fuck was that?" he demanded.

She was taken totally by surprise, and failed to stifle the tremors of fear that racked her limbs and rendered her speechless.

Riddick had always been able to recognize the times for brutality and the times to suck it up and let others do their thing. Now was not an occasion to get messy.

He dropped her and she stumbled back into a wall. Quickly she composed herself. "I do not like surprises!" She breathed, irrefutably irate.

"Neither do I," he rumbled, crossing his arms.

"I warned you," she said. Her voice was airy, yet fierce, slightly maddened with the sudden fright. "Believe me," she brought her self up, right in his face. "I don't tolerate abuse of any kind, Mr. Johns. One more stunt like that and I blow the horn on your little charade."

"No you wont," he assured her, "You wont say a word until you know for sure who I am. Because If I happen to disappear," he stepped into her, crowding her, she had no choice but to recoil, "You wanna be sure you know who to stick the bounty hunters on."

She squared her shoulders to him, "I all ready know who you are." She slid sideways, out of his path. She punched in a code on the key pad adjacent to the far wall. A panel that spanned form floor to ceiling gaped open. "That little fit of yours just proved it." She disappeared, and he followed.

"That was a decontamination," she informed him, almost apologetic, "I'm sorry you were so affected."

They found themselves in a stark white laboratory. Except for the expected equipment, it was empty. She slipped a metal bowl off of a shelf and rested it against her hip. Striding up to the intercom, " 'Kay. Come on in boys," she said, her usual manor fully restored. Turing to Riddick, she commented tauntingly, "You'll get a kick out of this."

He clenched his fists, ready for any bout of trickery she might be planning.

In came two lab techies carrying a clear plastic tub between them. They put it on a table. Inside were three of the worms, two alive, one dead with its phosphorescence fading. Kali thrust the bowl at Riddick, holding it lightly against his torso until he took it. He didn't ask what it was for.

With a gloved hand, one of the men picked up the deceased animal. The other technician handed him a scalpel. Techie number one stood in front of Riddick and split the creature down the center, virtually right under the bronze man's nose. Faintly glowing juices, moldy looking navy blue blood, and sour guts seeped out as the flesh was torn so precisely. Riddick stared, not sure what exactly it was that he was supposed to be so impressed by. After a moment, he glanced sideways at the woman. Her eyebrows only twitched, encouraging him to keep watching.

A quiet minute ticked by, then another. The standing and waiting was becoming significantly ridiculous. Then, it happened again. His insides flopped, and stomach acid churned up into his esophagus. Clutching the basin with whitening knuckles, he tilted sideways and threw up for the second time.

She nodded to the scientists and they left. When they were alone again, she sighed heavily, "And that is why you shouldn't have been so pig headed. Weren't feeling too well after I dropped you off at your quarters, were you? Should have let my men take your boots," she tutted, "They would have cleaned them for you." As conspicuously as possible, she pulled a translucent plug from each of her nostrils, "They would have gotten all of the poison off. But, you had to be the bad ass. I have to inform you, Mr. Riddick, from this angle you just look like an ass."

He drug the back of his hand roughly over his mouth, then spit.

She continued on, "Are you interested in finding out what we've learned so far about them?" She didn't pause for a reply, "They are larva. What they become, we have yet to discover. Their DNA is not compatible with any samples we currently have on file- and we have a lot."

He rigidly threw the soiled dish on the table.

She clasped her hands lightly behind her back and began undirectedly revolving around him. "As you have experienced, their internal secretions make others physically sick. A very useful defense mechanism. Their glow, we speculate, is also a defense mechanism. Possibly used to signal that they are poisonous.

"When we submerged them in water... they grew."

His head bounced minimally towards her, his neck muscles drawing tight with the sudden movement. It rained when we left, he reminded himself.

"And those that were exposed haven't stopped growing."

"How many?" he growled.

"Fifteen."

"Fifteen," he echoed. Immediately, he stalked back through the panel, the Plexiglas doors, and into the hall.

"Wait!" she hurried to catch him. He didn't lax his pace.

The implications had hit him like a ton of bricks. He'd have to either be stupid or in utter denial not to be able to gauge what the clues added up to. He was always one to look reality in the face, and never wasted a prayer begging for things to be different. If he was wrong, then he was wrong. But he wasn't going to stick around to gloat if he wasn't.

That smoky blood... the light... the rain... the feeding... and they were larva.

When the shit hits the fan, he told himself, we better be at least twenty clicks away from this rock.

"Johns!" she called, trying to gain his attention by graciously using his alias.

He was back at his suite. No guards flanked the doors and no locks barred his way inside. He stopped before bounding over the threshold. Fisting the thin doorjamb, he didn't face her, "Tonight you and your staff learn the meaning of skull fuck."


Author's Note: I'm not one to use the F word... but Riddick is, so I couldn't shy away from it. I don't know why I don't like to, it's just the way I am. So, this is my apology to those of you with sensitive eyes.