Chapter Two

In the Spider's Parlor

Riddick, Imam and Jack were now inside of the compound that Dr. Hellion had brought them to. They were taken right away to their own rooms where they could refresh themselves before meeting with Dr. Hellion for dinner.

Riddick had surveyed his luxurious room, checking for any kind of spy ware before he allowed himself to take a relaxing shower. He left the shower clad only in a towel around his waist and went in hunt of clean clothes. He found a clean pair of dark pants and a gray tank that was a tad tight across his chest.

There was a knock at his door and it opened to reveal a young woman dressed in pale green shirt and pants that looked a lot like hospital scrubs.

"Sir?" She looked at him quizzically, curiosity of someone who hadn't seen a newcomer in a long time. "Dinner is ready. If you would come with me?"

He followed her to another door where she gathered Imam and Jack, both dressed in clean clothes. Jack had managed to find a similar costume to Riddick; she was wearing a white tank and similar pants that were about two sizes too large for her small frame. He gave her a quick grin and led the small group behind him as he followed the young woman.

She opened a door and gestured within. Riddick entered first, followed quickly by Jack. Imam wasn't so fast on their heels. The room was long and the walls had a silver industrial look to them. But the long wooden table that was in the middle of the room was nothing but short of impressive with matching chairs that ran along its length. The only light in the room shined down on the table and left the rest of the large room in shadow.

"Good Evening." Dr. Hellion's voice resonated throughout the room clearly, even though she spoke just above a whisper. She was seated at the head of the table dressed in a formal black suit. She was holding a fine glass goblet in her hand. "Please, be seated." She gestured to the chairs.

Riddick elected to sit at the foot of the table while Jack sat to his right and Imam sat four chairs from him, three chairs closer to Dr. Hellion. The moment all of them were settled in their chairs, people dressed in black came from the shadows carrying platters of fruits and meats.

"Where's Mackenzie?" Riddick asked, his voice boomed through the room. He ignored the woman who was serving him some kind of meat. Dr. Hellion smiled.

"She's okay, just resting. She has been sick for a very long time and when she escaped, her health deteriorated a bit." She took a sip of her red wine. "Besides, she is not fit for civilized social activities."

"How about a tour of this compound?" Riddick challenged her as he picked up his glass and sampled the wine. He noticed that Jack had been served the same wine and was picking it up to take a taste. He reached out to take the glass from her and set it on the other side of the table near his own. She pouted at him and sulked as she picked up her water glass and took a gulp from it. Imam had declined to taste his wine and stuck only to his water.

Dr. Hellion watched with an amused air as she daintily cut her meat. "We can arrange a tour of this compound tomorrow after you all are more rested." Her eyes narrowed slightly with cunning. "And you can see Mackenzie for yourself then too." Riddick didn't reply, just turned his focus to his food. Imam started talking with Dr. Hellion about her works in the compound.

When they were finished with their dinner, the serving people came back and took their dishes away and served them dessert. Riddick took private pleasure at the way Jack's eyes lighted up at the sweet dessert that was being set before each of them, topped with a bright red cherry. She picked up her spoon and dug in and shoveled a large spoonful into her mouth. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the sweet taste of it. Dr. Hellion laughed gently, her laughter was like bells that bounced around the room and Imam was smiling. Jack looked sheepish, but delighted just the same.

Riddick opened the door of his room and peered out, his sliver shine eyes taking in the corridors. There was nobody to be seen, so he closed the door behind him and bold as brass walked along the hall. The hell he was going to wait for the official tour tomorrow, he found that tours tend to hide what people don't want revealed.

The corridors were dark, but that didn't bother him, he could still be able to see in pitch blackness because of the shine job he got for his eyes. He paused briefly by Jack's door, all was quiet and calm.

After wondering along the corridors for a time, he finally found something that looked interesting. A sign with red words that said 'Danger, keep out. Authorized personnel only.' graced the door. He tried the knob, but it refused to give. But no problem, he set his shoulder against the door and gave it a quick shove, causing the door to break open. He wasn't concerned with covering up his tracks; he knew he would be found out one way or another.

It opened into a dark room with a bright light shining down on a cube like cell that was standing in the middle of the room. There was a form lying huddled on the cot. He pulled the goggles back over his eyes as he approached the cell and rapped on the glass. The form flinched.

"Mackenzie?" At his voice, the form unfolded and large, liquid eyes peered at him from under her hair, which was now clean and combed. He could see fine white scars tracing their way across her clean, pale skin in intricate patterns. The cuts she had given herself with Riddick's shiv were red and the deeper cut had several stitches. She stood up and came forward to him and placed her hand where his rested on the glass.

"Step into my parlor the spider said, and experience all that you can be. But what the spider neglected to say, was that she wasn't what she seemed to be." She murmured softly to him, her pale doe eyes dully searching his through his goggles as if she was trying to find him, or herself. She turned away from him and started to hum to herself as she went to the corner of her cell and rested her back against the wall and sank down to a crossed legs pose. She slowly rocked back and forth in time of her humming.

"What the hell did they do to you?" Riddick asked her as he looked around the room they were in. He could see a computer that was set up monitoring Mackenzie's vitals and a storage case of sorts that held drugs. He examined some of the drugs and noted that he was unfamiliar with almost all of them but a few of them. Those few he did know were used to tranquil unstable people and one that was normally used for large predatory animals. There were a few discarded needles in the trash; it looked like she was going to be high for awhile.

"Damn." He muttered to himself, he had hoped to find her coherent, not drugged three ways to hell.

"Please don't hurt me!" Mackenzie cried out as she pressed herself tighter into the corner. "I won't hurt Step Daddy anymore." Tears fell from her eyes. "Momma!" She started beating the back of her head against the glass wall.

He quickly moved to her and crouched down so that they were eye to eye again. She didn't look at him, so he tapped the glass again. She turned her head slowly to face him and her look seemed almost demonic, causing Riddick to stumble back, alarmed.

"DIE! I want to see you DIE!" She screamed at him and clawed at the glass. He slowly backed away from her as he watched her throw herself against the glass walls in attempts to break free in her murderous rage.

"I'm afraid that Mackenzie is very sick." Dr. Hellion's voice cut smoothly over her screams, silencing them. Riddick turned to face her quickly; he was unnerved that she managed to enter the room without him noticing.

"What did you do to her?" He asked. Dr. Hellion smiled sadly as she walked to the glass cell and rested her hand on the side of it. Mackenzie looked up at her from her crouch in the middle of the cell.

"She has been away from her medications for a while and now she has to go through the dementia again. It is a side effect of the medications she needs and it only last for awhile." She smiled at him. "She'll be almost normal again, you'll see."

Mackenzie screamed and clutched at her head. "Make them stop! There's too many of them!" She wailed as she threw herself backwards onto the floor. She screamed again, her breath leaving in a fog. Dr. Hellion's calm hostess behavior changed to cold and professional as she walked to a computer and pulled up the readout and examined it. Riddick watched Mackenzie screaming, her lips turning blue and there were prints on her exposed skin that looked a lot like hands.

"What's the fuck happening to her?" He asked as her scream changed to a high wail as the glass begin to frost over. Dr. Hellion looked up at him as her men appeared from the shadows with rather big guns.

"She sees dead people."

Riddick had long since been escorted back to his room and this time, they locked his door. He didn't even have to test the knob, he heard it. He lay down on his bed and laced his fingers behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling.

Something was rubbing him the wrong way, the ways Dr. Hellion acted around her guests and Mackenzie; the way Mackenzie seemed so afraid and in pain in that glass cell and she didn't even recognized him, even though they had last saw each other only hours before.

Was she really seeing ghosts and were they really causing her to freeze like that? Or was it the meds that Dr. Hellion had pumped into her? He didn't know, but he knew that he was going to try and find out; it struck something inside of him to see that young woman crying out in pain. Just like how now he protects Jack even though normally, he wouldn't have. He grumbled, Damn it, you're getting soft, He thought and with that, he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Jack's eyes fluttered open and she stretched her arms leisurely. It was heaven with the soft pillows and clean sheets! She sighed with happiness and climbed out of bed and made her way to the shower, stretching.

Riddick was still asleep when he heard a piercing scream split through the silence. He sat up and quickly identified it as Jack's; he had heard it too many times on that planet they had left not long ago. He leapt out of bed and in just three bounds, reached the door and slammed his shoulder into it. While this door was made of stronger stuff then the one he forced the night before, nothing can stand against over 200 pounds of angry Furian. The door burst open and he stumbled forward into the corridor and ran three doors down until he reached Jack's. That door was no longer standing in its doorframe normally by the time he got in. He scanned the room quickly and not seeing Jack, he made his way to the bathroom.

He stopped in surprise at what he found. Jack was looking at him startled from where she was sitting on the bathroom floor. Next to her was Mackenzie laying on her back. He could see frostbitten handprints on her exposed skin, but her vacant stare unnerved him.

"What are you doing here?" Jack asked as she stood up. She was still clad in her pajamas, a tank and loose pants. Riddick sighed and sat down on the side of the tub.

"I heard you scream." He informed her accusingly as he rubbed his shoulder; it was a bit sore after slamming down two doors.

"Sorry, she surprised me." Jack looked down at her. "She's been like this since I found her."

"I'm surprised that she's even out of her cell." Riddick said as he examined her. Her hands were bloody and torn and she was still shaking.

"I wonder why she came here." Jack said as she grabbed a washcloth and after damping it, started wiping off the blood on her hands and face.

Riddick was on his feet, shiv drawn, before the figure of the woman who had escorted them the day before came into view. He grabbed her and pinned her against the wall of the shower, the shiv's blade touching her neck. She gasped and started to whimper softly.

"What are you doing here?" He asked her harshly. He knew he was terrifying her; he tended to have that impression on people when he was digging for information.

"I heard somebody scream and the door was broken. I came to check on Jack." She whimpered in reply to him, she was too scared to hold any information back from him.

"Do you know how she got here?" He jerked his head towards Mackenzie.

"N-no. I don't know who she is!" She wailed. "I'm just the one who keeps the rooms clean! I'm not one of the nurses!"

"You dress like one."
"Because that's what the uniforms for the staff looks like!"

He seemed satisfied with her answers and released her. She crumbled down to the ground and huddled there, hugging herself. He turned around to see that Jack was watching him, but Mackenzie seemed to be in her own world as she combed her fingers through her hair and started braiding it in complex knots that were almost impossible to see where the start came out to the end.

Riddick knelt down besides her and snapped his fingers in front of her face, but she didn't respond, her gaze was downcast as she separated out another strand of her hair and started braiding and weaving it into the existing braid.

He twisted around, already reaching for his shiv when a shadow came across the floor to see Dr. Hellion appear in the doorframe.

"I see you found Lenore." She said smoothly, pretending to not notice the shiv that Riddick slid back somewhere on his person. He frowned.

"What are you talking about; this is Mackenzie, isn't she?" Jack asked before Riddick could say anything. Dr. Hellion smiled.

"Yes, it is. But her mind has changed personalities and she is now Lenore, the more saner and gentler of the two." She explained.

"Why'd she do that?" Jack asked again, her childish curiosity winning over.

"Because when she is exposed to certain elements, she changes personalities, either from Mackenzie to Lenore or the opposite, to adapt." The doctor smoothly answered as the nurses came in and gathered up Lenore. "As long as she is treated, she will remain as Lenore indefinitely. That is what everyone wants for her."

Lenore suddenly stopped next to Riddick as the nurses were leading her out. She looked up and met his eyes and for the first time, her eyes were liquid and expressive and he could read them. But she lowered her thick lashes and turned away before he could respond.

Dr. Hellion turned to follow the nurses and Lenore, when she turned. "Why don't you join us for breakfast? Lenore can join us; she has manners of a noblewoman." She invited.

Riddick nodded once and she left. Jack was about to leave the bathroom when she noticed that he was brooding.

"What's wrong?" she asked. He looked up at her.

"I think she just asked me for help."

A different nurse came to escort Riddick, Jack and Imam to the dinning room and they chose the same seating as before. Only this time, Lenore was seated on the right hand of Dr. Hellion. Her gaze was downcast on her hands folded in her lap. Dr. Hellion gestured elegantly and servers came in to serve their food. There was steaming meats, eggs and pastries and fresh cold exotic fruits.

"Milk or juice, sir?" a server asked at Riddick's shoulder. He quickly chose to get him away from him, the server made him nervous crowding him.

"I hope that all of you had restful nights." Dr. Hellion said, raising her cup to her guests. Imam raised his to hers.

"Thank you, Doctor, I know I did." He replied cheerfully. "In fact, I hadn't slept like this since before this disastrous trip."

"Ah, yes." Dr. Hellion acknowledged, sipping at her milk. "I've visited that particular planet before. In fact, that is where I found Mackenzie."

All except for Lenore looked up in surprise.

"She came off that planet?" Riddick asked. "How did she survive?"

"She was in a very ancient cryonic suspension unit." Dr. Hellion explained, neatly cutting her meat in small pieces. "I found her almost twenty-two years ago, when I was part of a team that was sent to that planet to pick up the surveyors. Of course, you know what we found."

"How old was the unit?" Imam asked, trying a new piece of pink fruit.

"Very old, it was failing by the time I found it. The unit was estimated to be over thousands, even millions of years old." She answered. "We believe the reason that it lasted so long is because it was constructed of age resistant materials and had an old fashion nuclear fusion power source."

"I don't understand, she looks like she's in her twenties." Jack piped up, looking over at Lenore. "Did she get put in that unit when she was little?"

Dr. Hellion laughed gently. "No, child. Lenore hasn't been ageing normally, a side effect of the chemicals that were used to put her in suspension." She smiled at her guests. Suddenly, Lenore looked up; she stared across the table sightlessly.

""Step into my parlor", the spider said. "And experience all that you can be." But what the spider neglected to say, was that she wasn't what she seemed to be..." Her voice was eerie, it echoed, not from the room, but from her body. Her body spasm and she threw her head and arms back and she screamed.

"Damn it!" Dr. Hellion swore. "She's reverting!" She gestured to the servers and they quickly escorted Riddick, Jack and Imam out. The last thing they saw was the male nurses restraining her as Dr. Hellion prepared a syringe.

"She's trying to tell us something." Riddick murmured to Jack.