The Moon, Reversed. Riddick's Past.
A hard assignment. A prison in unfriendly territory. They could only get transit offworld for five total. Since they had three targets, only two of them could go in.
Riddick slipped in first. Found the three. Contact was easy. They felt familiar to each other. He kept it light. Not supposed to use psychological manipulation on potential teammates.
The day the healer was supposed to show up, she didn't. Or the next day.
On the third day, the guards dumped her bruised and bleeding body just inside. "You're hurt," he said flatly.
"You noticed."
"Why?"
"What could I have done? I can't pull rank; I have none here. We're breaking their law. If they knew we were taking their prisoners, it would be war. If I'd killed them, I never would have gotten in. Begging didn't work. It was necessary that they think I was just some girl."
"They are dead men."
"No. That sort of indulgence endangers the mission. We do the job; get in, get out."
"It's personal."
"Personal is not the same as important."
"It is to me."
She looked at him with sharp eyes. Moral development was a good thing. But he was not at the stage she needed right now. And his oppositional defiant disorder was not fading; he was just getting better at calculating his time. Not good for them.
They finished the mission. He doubled back. Killed everyone.
Nine of Pentacles. Back in the Garden. Kyra.
New Mecca really was a good place, Kyra had finally accepted. Strong, happy, tolerant, rich. She'd definitely traded up from Tanstaafl. In nearly five years on the Helion Prime, she hadn't seen a single street walker, a single beating, a single dead body lying on the street. The schools accepted everyone. The police protected everyone, even people who didn't deserve it. Energy was so cheap it was unmetered. Water was nearly as cheap. Cheap enough that they'd created a rich ecosystem; there were fucking dragons (well, genetically modified crocodiles) near her house, and even they seemed strong, happy, tolerant, and rich. Stayed in the canal, helped keep things clean, participated in religious ceremonies. Just like any other citizen. Except something about them made her very nervous. She decided to stay until something better came up.
She knew the police watched her more closely than most. There was the way she'd gotten there. A runaway who had survived a deadly night on a deadly planet. Then there was the significant spike in the death rate that followed her around. Very significant. Then there was the slave ship. She thought she heard people say the name "Riddick," in hushed tones, but they always denied it when she asked. She didn't push.
Despite these suspicions, they had welcomed her, mostly. But she still was not really a part of this place. No one she knew had lived on the street, like she had. Almost no one she knew on New Mecca had ever seen someone die, like she had. Almost no one she knew on New Mecca had ever killed anyone, like she had. Almost no one she knew on New Mecca walked around armed. Like she always was.
With this background, she wasn't as traumatized as anyone else she knew on New Mecca when two men backed her against a wall one twilight evening. Still, when some stranger's hands seized her, when some stranger's breath was hot on her neck, she had frozen. Until he spoke. The unfamiliarity broke her paralysis. She knifed him in the lungs.
His friend died almost as fast, a quick slash to the jugular.
She hadn't been off the streets that long. She went through their kits and took anything of possible value. Cash, a pulse pistol, a scanner, first aid kit, a pretty cool bag.
She heaved their bodies into a dumpster.
It was not until she got home, saw their blood swirling down the shower drain, that she started to shake. She'd killed two men. Damn it. This was real, not one of her crazy real-seeming dreams. Real people, willing risk fairly vigorous rehabilitation on New Mecca to jump some kid.
She had not done anything wrong. Except not reporting it. Couldn't bear to hear anyone else hint she might be a homicidal maniac. Just because of her mounting death count.
The Tower and the Hanged Man
Riddick had settled into a life of general comfort, if suffused with mild regret. He felt like he was spiting someone by staying underground, though he couldn't imagine who. Whoever was sending these crazy dreams, maybe.
In this dream, Riddick stood on the balcony of the throne room, in a tower that groped the sky. Basking in the affirming flame of a late morning sun. The sea dropped below him, white sails of the ship flashing ironic messages.
Then the light darkened. A phalanx of soldiers strode across the overlapping circles carved on the floor before the throne, flanking a man with a crown and a sword. Their emperor. They stopped, a perfectly composed square imposed on a perfectly composed circle. The soldiers parted symmetrically, became columns with eyes. He knew those eyes already.
"My beloved son," the man hailed from the center. "Son of my heart. Come to me."
Riddick walked forward, slowly, past the columns that had been men. "Father," he allowed, quietly.
"I've brought you a gift," he said, with a rich and satisfied smile. A veiled woman was brought forward by two soldiers, their hands hard on her arms. The emperor lifted her veil. The light brightened. "Your sister."
Riddick paused. Sister, perhaps, in the way this man was his father. In the dream he knew this man had killed his father before he was born. He fathered no more children. In the dream he knew this man had killed his mother before he was born, and ripped him unready from her dying womb. She bore no more children. In any world, he knew, this raven-haired girl, at least a decade younger than him, could not be the child of either, could not be his sister.
He took her face in his hands, gently. "Do I know you?" he asked, softly. She did feel familiar. Like a child he knew once, all grown up.
She looked up at him with glazed eyes, sweetly narcotic drugs clinging to her. Drugged. Bruised. Something clanked. He looked down and saw heavy chains wrapped around her wrists; so heavy she could scarcely lift them. Must hurt like hell. He gathered her wrists up in one hand, relieving her of the weight. He saw sudden tears in her eyes. Gratitude? Something twisted inside of him.
As if from a long way away she answered at last. "We stood together at the creation. You went into the darkness. I went into the light."
"I don't remember," he responded, quietly.
"Every eclipse, the enemies of life tell you to kill me. Every eclipse, you refuse. Every eclipse, you slay the dragon sent to eat me.
"Every sunset, you do kill me. Every night, I sleep in your arms. Every dawn, I kill you. Every day, you sleep in my arms."
Humoring her, he pointed out softly. "That's why I don't remember you. It's late morning. I'm dead asleep."
"You are asleep," she agreed. She paused, searching his face. "He's almost right," she continued rapidly, a sideways look at the Emperor, "the trick is dying at the right time, by the right hand."
Riddick looked sideways at the Emperor too. "A strange present. No one's given me a sister before. Not sure how to take care of one."
The Emperor smiled. There was a triumphant lilt to the smile that Riddick suddenly longed to wipe off. "I'm not giving her to you to keep, I'm giving her to you to kill."
Riddick shook his head. Not refusing, just not understanding. He traced a finger down her face, her swollen lips, the bruises purpling her throat. He raised her hands to his face, taking in the bruises on her wrists. He laid his hand on her chest, felt her heart beating strongly. He laid his hand on her neck, marveling at how fragile it was. He could smell her fear through the opiate haze. She'd be beautiful, if she ever healed. If he didn't kill her. He said, with a lightness he did not feel, "Looks like someone started without me."
"I didn't want to come," she whispered, pulling as close to him as she could. "It's not time yet. If they killed me, you would go into the darkness, bring me back. You've done it before. If they killed you, I would go into the light, bring you back. I've done it before. Kill us both, we wake up in each other's arms. You and I, we serve the cycle. Life and death. Creation, destruction. Growth and decay.
"If you kill me now, at the wrong time, it will shred the cycle, and it all ends. And not even you could bring me back."
He shook his head again.
"Kill her," ordered the Emperor, from the center of the circle, from the center of the square. "Kill her, or go back to the outer darkness. You who have slain brothers in arms, fathers, sons, husbands, balk at the death of one little girl?
"Kill her. Create a new world from her blood. Death itself will die."
"And no one will ever be born," the girl whispered. "Nothing will ever change. The light will fade. The darkness will gray. Time will stop. World without end." Despite the plea, she stood passive, her throat under his hand, her hands immobilized. His choice. He could make it painless. Mount the throne over her dead body.
Some day, a voice said in his head, you will have to make a choice. And if you can't make ethical choices, you are just a pawn; just a blade in someone else's hands.
He caressed her face, strangely gentle. Turned to his father, the emperor. Their eyes met. He saw pride and love his father's eyes, and a shadow of something else playing across his face. The face he punched so hard his fist went through bone and brain.
And as what once seemed to be a man crumpled, a howling void opened in the center of the circle. The square of soldiers began to transform into hissing dragons. He grabbed the girl and ran, diving off the balcony into the sea as the tower exploded. He could hear the wet flap of ancient wings, the screams of ancient throats as the waters closed around them.
Riddick woke up in a cold sweat. He could still feel the warmth of the girl in his arms, the cold slap of the water every place else. He had to get off of this planet. He was going crazy here alone in the dark, drowning in the amniotic fluid of an alien world.