Paulson was looking at her list of vehicle plates. She and Hernandez had managed to shrink it down considerably by driving between the gas station and the intersection, timing the drive as just under twenty-five minutes. Then, they had crossed out all the cars that had managed to travel the distance in this time - that had cut the list in two.

Now she was trying to cut it down again. Experience told her this was actually how you got results. Now she was bumping the time limit up further still, wanting to focus on those vehicles that had taken the longest time to cover the distance between the two points. Now she had a total of only twenty vehicles and she was using the computer to pull out the details of each one with her lunch, a cup of instant ramen noodles, in one hand as she clicked through them.

"Look at this Jim," She highlighted one of the addresses.

He came and sat next to her, "Registered to Doctor James. P. Ambrose: sounds like a catch!"

"Stop being a dick," She said absently, "I mean: this car took one of the longest times to get through those woods and the owner has medical training. If he found someone collapsed at the side of the road, don't you think that'd make him more likely to stop and help?"

"You think this doctor might have been playing good Samaritan?"

"Maybe. And then, either he took her off somewhere or she was playing possum and carjacked him, took the vehicle by force."

They looked at the address the car was registered to "Los Angeles?" Hernandez exclaimed, "What the hell was this guy even doing here?"

"I guess they haven't closed the borders yet." She said with heavy irony, typing a name into the search bar, "Look, here he is: Dr James Ambrose, LA. I'm going to ring his office, check if he's back from his vacation."

Someone she assumed to be a receptionist answered on the third ring "Good afternoon, Ambrose and Khan, how may I help?"

"Good afternoon, I was hoping to get a-hold of Doctor Ambrose."

"Oh, I'm afraid he's away on a vacation in Colorado," The woman had an attractive voice, slightly breathless. Paulson had a fleeting – probably inaccurate – mental image of an out-of-work actress, sitting behind the desk and filing her nails, glamorous and bored. "He'll be back in two weeks." The receptionist continued.

Paulson cleared her throat "My name is Sergeant Paulson. I'm with the Colorado PD."

"Oh," The woman audibly bridled, "I hope everything's ok, officer?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary," Paulson lied, "I'm trying to track down Dr Ambrose as part of a routine inquiry, I don't suppose you know an address where I can reach him?"

"Oh sure," Paulson could hear rustling as she ferreted around, "He left a forwarding address in case of emergencies. D'you want his cellphone number too?"

Scar growled in frustration and resisted the urge to smash his fist down on the console. The signal was there – he could see it! But something was preventing him from locking onto it. It was in this vicinity, but he wondered if it was malfunctioning and if all the mountains in the area might be interfering with it somehow.

"Mei'Savir, what is the matter?" Selim said, from the co-pilot seat.

"I cannot locate her," He said, "Every time I think I have her locked, the signal fades out. If she would just reply, I could pinpoint her co-ordinates."

"Maybe she cannot," Selim suggested, "Perhaps something is preventing her?"

"Or someone," His Father said.

At that moment, Isaac re-entered the cockpit. He took in the scene; Scar and his brother both entirely focused on the controls. Then he ran his eyes quickly over the console display; the glowing topography map, the faltering red pulse of the signal; the reams of data scrolling down the side of the screen, showing conditions on the surface, minute-by-minute.

"What's going on?" He demanded "Where are we?"

"The human… planet." Scar answered him without looking round.

"We're in orbit around Earth?" Isaac was suddenly all enthusiasm, "Isn't that where Mom is?"

He looked at Selim who nodded in confirmation, "Yes Mei'hswei, we are trying to find her, using the wrist-com signal, but – "

"But we cannot." Scar's head turned in his direction and Isaac almost took a step back. The hunter looked awful – both gaunt and terrifying. His eyes were pools of livid yellow, circled by shadow, his skin pallid.

Isaac looked from his Scar's grim expression to Selim's anxious face, "Has something happened to her?"

"Impossible to tell, as I... cannot raise her," Scar tapped another control, "But she is in great … danger on the human planet."

"Why?"

"Does it matter?!" His Father snarled, jaws spread, then he stopped short, visibly reining in his temper, "Just understand… the longer she stays there… the less chance of finding her … alive, anyway."

Isaac looked again at the console with a worried frown.

Ambrose put down the bowl and turned to look at the woman who stood facing him. The dark eyes that watched him were serene and the hand that held the ice-pick pointed at his belly was steady as a rock.

"What's wrong Lex?" He said, "I thought we were getting along ok?"

"You are going to give me back my weapons and my clothes and the rest of my belongings." She said, her voice calm, but implacable.

"I still don't think that's a very good idea."

"I don't care what you think. I need them."

"What for?"

"To defend myself. People will be coming for me. It'll be a lot better for you if they don't catch up to me here."

She didn't seem afraid, just matter of fact. Part of Ambrose was intrigued. She was obviously running away from something in her life - that much had been clear to him from the moment he had first beheld her - but he still found himself wanting to help her for reasons that weren't entirely to do with the car crash.

"Who is it you think will be coming here?" He asked.

"Just give me my weapons."

He was watching her carefully now. She seemed cool and in control but he got the sense of awful violence lurking just beneath the surface, ready to be unleashed at any moment.

Ambrose had worked with disturbed individuals before, but she was different. Often, his patients didn't even know themselves when they were on the verge of a violent episode. With her, he sensed every moment the possibility of bloodshed but he also felt instinctively that this would not happen unless she judged it necessary. If he moved in a threatening way, he would die.

He decided to take a shot in the dark, "Is it... 'Scar' that you're afraid of?"

She blinked a few times, surprised, "What did you say?"

"You kept saying that word when you were delirious. The way you said it, sounded like somebody's name. Is that why you need your weapons?"

"No, Scar's not coming here, lucky for you!"

"Why is that, Lex? What would happen to me if 'Scar' did show up?"

"Nothing good, trust me."

"If I did give you your weapons, would this person show up then?" He said, looking at her with concern. "Is that why you need the weapons: in order to let this... personality make an appearance?"

"Personality?" Her black brows drew together for a moment and then light dawned "Wait…. you think Scar is... kind of like… my alter ego, is that it?"

She stared at him for a few moments and then she began to laugh, the laughter tinged with hysteria. He noticed uneasily that the hand holding the ice-pick did not move away from his stomach.

"Well now, what would my alter ego do, if he were here?" She said, when she'd got her breath back, "For a start, he'd make you give back the weapons. Right fucking now. Let's begin with that, shall we?"

Paulson put the phone down and turned to Hernandez "Our doctor has a cabin right here in Colorado." She typed the address into google maps.

Hernandez let out a low whistle, "I know that area, that's going to be some luxury property – serious money! Exactly the kind of place I'd expect to find an LA doctor."

"Well anyway I think we should go check it out." She spooned the last of her ramen into her mouth and scooped up the car keys.

"I mean if it is him, this guy's probably dead – right?" He looked dubious as they made their way outside "Because I say this has to be a car-jacking. I don't care how hot she is. You really think anyone – let alone a doctor – is dumb enough to let some heavily armed chick into their car?"

Paulson opened the door of the patrol car and slid into the driver's seat, "You're seriously asking me if there are men out there dumb enough to let a heavily armed woman into their car, just because she's hot?" She said, giving him an old-fashioned look.

He slammed his door shut with a grin, "That's a pretty sexist comment, Paulson."

"Sometimes the truth ain't pretty, Jimmy."

Standing in his garage, Ambrose watched apprehensively as she reclaimed her belongings. She had already changed back into her own clothes. Now, the strange gear he had taken from her lay spread out on the old tarp he had used to bundle it up. "She's already got the ice-pick, in any case." He told himself, "She could kill me anytime she wanted to."

As he watched her strap the strange apparatus onto her body, his unease grew. Even though he was not even sure what these things were, he could see they fitted her perfectly. Particularly disquieting were the weapons she wore on her wrists. When she lifted her arms and extended the blades, testing the mechanisms, he had a very strong feeling that these were not toys or props – as he had originally suspected they must be – but real weapons that she knew how to use.

He watched in silence, not daring to make a move as she lowered her arms and pulled in the blades. Then she picked up a thick, metal gauntlet and snapped it shut round her wrist. Flipping up the cover, she consulted it for a moment, her eyes skimming over what seemed to be a glowing screen underneath the cover.

Then her expression changed. Whatever she saw there, she was not expecting it. Her face drained of colour and she fell heavily against the nearby shelves and grabbed hold of them to steady herself. For a second, she looked as shaky as she had when she first tried to get out of bed, as if her legs might give way beneath her. Her lips moved soundlessly for a moment and then she was feverishly pressing buttons.

"What is it?" He asked, not sure if he was more alarmed for her or for himself.

She said nothing, but snatched up the strange metal visor, the one he had found next to her on the roadside. She pushed it onto her face and he almost had to take a step back. The blank eyeholes of the mask glared at him menacingly, making her seem like something unearthly. She reached a hand up and tapped the mask's metal temple a few times, shaking her head as if to dislodge something. Then she pulled it off, consulting the gauntlet once more.

"Lex, what's wrong?" He was worried she might become distressed or angry.

She looked at him in surprise, almost as if she had forgotten he was there.

"OK, Doctor, change of plan." She said, after a moment, "I need to go somewhere and I want you to show me the way."

He swallowed. Now she was conscious and fully armed again, the idea of her being hunted by shadowy forces didn't seem quite as far-fetched, but against all good, common-sense Ambrose was drawn. She was just so strange and, more than any other patient he had met, he found himself almost believing the crazy things she said. Of course, it was all fantasy - it must be - but it was hard to remember that, when she was speaking. Ambrose knew he had to be careful; delusional people could be very convincing, especially when they themselves implicitly believed their own delusions. Her looks helped and Ambrose knew he had to guard against his own feelings there as well.

"I have no choice but to go along with her for now," he told himself "Maybe I can reason with her, talk her down."

"How do you think I can help you, Lex?" He asked her.

"I need to get to somewhere," She said, "Somewhere high up… and isolated. Is there somewhere around here like that?"

"There's Eyrie Falls." He said, "I've hiked up there before. It's in the mountains so it's definitely high and it's mostly deserted up there this time of year, too."

"Can I drive there?"

"Not all the way. There's a road that goes pretty near it but the snow is deep at the moment and you'd have to walk the rest of the way."

"I'll have to take your car," She said it without any softening language, nothing to allow either of them to pretend it was a request rather than a demand.

"Why do you need to go up there?"

"I think the crash damaged my gear. I need somewhere I can … get a good signal. I don't know the way, so you've got to come and show me."

"Well, I don't mean to sound selfish," He said blandly "But what's in it for me, Lex?"

"If you show me the way, I promise after you take me there… I'll leave."

"Where are you going to go?"

"A long way away. That's all you need to know."

These evasive answers filled Ambrose with a deep foreboding. Already, he had a nasty suspicion about why she wanted to go up high and what kind of escape she was planning but, although her words filled him with dread, he still wanted to help her. She was strange and, sometimes, terrifying, but he sensed in her a desperation that touched his heart. Although he told himself her tales of being hunted must surely be part of her persecution complex, he believed her when she spoke about her children. Ambrose had been a psychiatrist long enough to know what terrible acts human beings are capable of. Whether her children were really with their father or some darker fate had befallen them, he could see she deeply grieved their loss.

She was looking at him, "We have to leave now." Her voice devoid was of any expression.

"I'll take you up to the falls," He said quickly, eyes still on her blades, "I've hiked up there often enough."

"Good." She nodded, "Get in the car."

"Your Mother's wrist-com may be… damaged," Scar indicated the fluctuating rate of the signal from his Lex's device with the tip of a talon, "We are signalling it with… the Chameleon's scanners, but it returns the signal only sporadically. That is why I… cannot lock it."

"Have you sent her a message, S'Kia? And tried the mask comms?"

"Yessss," Scar nodded, "Though it is possible she is… too incapacitated to reply. Or may be… choosing not to."

Already feeling a yawning dread in the pit of his stomach at the thought of his Mother injured or in trouble, Isaac looked at his Father's expression and, despite himself, actually felt a tiny sliver of pity for him.

"I'll bet she's having tech problems," He said carefully, "If the device is damaged?"

"I think that more likely also." Selim backed up his twin. "I cannot think Mei'Varsi would not wish to be reunited with us, if she had the choice."

Isaac frowned, "So, our scanners are pinging the wrist-com to try and locate it, but if it's shorting out a lot, then maybe it's not returning our signal for long enough or high enough frequency for our navicom to lock onto."

"Yes, we agreed this," Scar said impatiently.

"So, what if we make the rate of pings much higher? If the scanners need a certain number of pingbacks to be able to lock onto the wrist com, then we just need to increase the number of our pings per second? If we can ping her multiple times before it has a chance to short out again, it might give our systems the chance to lock her signal before it shorts again."

"Or it may… overload the already damaged device and cause it to malfunction permanently, so that we can… never find her." Scar's jaws curled up on themselves with displeasure, "And it will broadcast our presence beyond doubt… to any other yautja vessels in the vicinity."

A tense silence followed his words, both brothers watching their Father while he stared at the red blip, fading mockingly in and out on the screen. Then his talons curled into fists and he looked over at his sons, shifting back into his own language once again.

"We will do it," He snarled, "Whatever it takessss!"

Paulson and Hernandez were driving the long road that wound up to the Doctor's cabin as the sun was just beginning to its journey down towards the mountains, turning the sky gold and grey.

"You really think this woman is as big a piece of bad news as the feds say she is?" Paulson asked, dubiously.

"Well, if it's true she's killed sixteen armed men on her own, then she must be."

She slowed the car as they rounded a particularly sharp turn, "But it's not like she's been linked to any of the usual terrorist groups or any of the extremist groups either."

"She's gotta be, why would they want to take her alive, if she's just a lone nutcase? They were very hot on that."

She frowned at the road, "Y'know, I looked up her profile on the FBI website. Story is, she managed to break into a military base for undisclosed reasons, killed a bunch of soldiers, take a hostage and then somehow managed to get out again."

"It's not impossible."

"Breaking into and then killing her way out of a secure facility? On her own?" Paulson shook her head "Does that sound at all believable to you? And what did she want to go in there for in the first place?"

"Alright, so why do they want her?"

"I don't know! I'm just saying the official version sounds like bullshit."

"Gimme your best conspiracy theory, then."

"OK, so she must have outside help – be part of some group. That's why she's got crucial info and that's how she managed to escape. They just don't want to tell us which organisation it is."

"Why wouldn't they?"

"I don't know!" She shook her head "Maybe it's a group they don't talk about publicly."

"Now that's some grade A conspiracy theorist bullshit!"

Both of them fell silent. At that moment, a dark blue SUV materialised unexpectedly around the upcoming turning in the road. The vehicle corrected its course slightly and sped past them in the opposite direction. As it disappeared around the previous bend, Paulson slammed the brakes on, causing the cop car to skid on the icy road as she executed a turn at speed.

"Woah!" Hernandez braced himself as she pulled the vehicle around.

"That was Ambrose's car!" She barked "I recognise the plates from the CCTV!"

"OK! You want to kill us both?!"

"Hernandez, if I'm right then either the guy is in that car being held hostage or our felon is in that car on her own: We have to keep eyes on it!"

"Ok, we'll keep eyes on it!"

"And radio it in!"

"But we don't know if he's even involved – "

"Just tell them we suspect Woods is in the vehicle and we're in pursuit!"

He did it, then turned back to her "What happens if you're wrong?"

"If I'm wrong, I look like an asshole – but if I'm right… do you really want to be following her without backup?"

This weekend has gone by way too fast. Happy Saturday/ Sunday!

LovyDovy7, loved that you love it. Scar isn't giving up anything yet, but he is learning all about the consequences of rash actions - something of an unfamiliar concept for him! He likes to act first and then deal with the fallout later, a trait that Spyrro has also inherited.

Love and hugs,

ScifiTrash xx