044. Bait

Riddick had been very annoyed to discover Zemma had been straying outside the ship. Don didn't immediately enlighten him about his role looking after her, and that annoyed him as well.

"Do not leave this ship alone," Riddick used his cold, threatening voice. It had very little impact on Zemma, who could be equally as stubborn as he. Had he whispered it in her ear, in that voice so full of promises, she would have agreed… and even would have tried to stick with it.

He tried to stare her down; she only kept her face passive.

"Don't pull that shit with me," he growled.

"What shit?" She didn't know.

"That Min crap."

Zemma almost choked. She hadn't intended that, but she'd thought it… and it had manifested on her face.

"Riddick," she began.

"Stay… in… the… ship."

He would accept no other answer from her. She hated to lie outright to him. She only nodded. He nodded back, satisfied, and turned to go, but did a double take. 'You're gonna do whatever you want as soon as I'm out that door,' his look seemed to say. Zemma raised an eyebrow in return: 'What do you think?'

They looked each other up and down. He didn't press, and she didn't need to lie any further.

"She's more than you think," he said as he turned away again. "Don't try to take her on alone, Zem. Let her take the bait."

"I won't. I promise." She could truthfully say that much anyway, but she wouldn't stay inside. She was making too much progress. Granted, in the day it was still impossible for her to even approach the gangplank, but at night… at night… she could step foot on the soft soil without feeling the need to throw up, as long as the hood of her cloak was over her head.

She knew Don had been watching her. She knew Hypatia had already underestimated her, and therefore Zemma's worth. She felt pretty safe. If Hypatia followed the 'call for help' then she'd have some time. It wasn't like Dame Vaako was trying to poison her or that damn captain was trying to break every bone in her body. Zemma didn't know that Hypatia was very adept at evil; there was more than one way to cause harm.

Evil… propelled by hunger. Hypatia was not supposed to perform beyond the Family laboratories. They'd severely hampered her ability to produce some chemicals, some hormones, a few essential ingredients to keeping a fleshy brain and body functioning. They didn't expect her to be able to work around the limitations they'd built in. She should never have been able to escape and stay gone so long.

But they'd made her cunning, adaptable and ruthless. So she simply took the things she needed from whoever was closest, or would cause the most interesting effect, or amused her the most. Habitually, she was a predator that hunted other predators at the top of the food chain: humans, criminals mostly, so long as they made the game worth playing. Kill or be killed was programmed in and she had no reason to fight that particular set of encoding. In fact, she rather enjoyed it.

The nanos did the rest: converting the raw product into the right elements and filling in the gaps in her system, if only temporarily. Once she found the right laboratory it had been a simple task. Her body produced nanos like humans produced white blood cells. It readily accepted the new components, effortlessly altered her code to incorporate the added instruction to the sequence and viola! She was no longer in eminent danger, and no longer tied to the Family. She still didn't produce those chemicals, but she could steal them from any human body and make use of them.

The body in question could not survive the process, even if she had been willing to let it.

Sometimes, when the job fell in sync with her needs, the bloody mess she left behind enhanced her reputation. Sometimes it meant she had to get way the fuck gone. It didn't trouble her either way.

It might have been inconvenient on this planet, at this time, when she needed to wait for Jack to get over her self-imposed hiatus. Hypatia didn't understand Jack's need to purge herself of guilt, but prison seemed to do the trick and she was always a little more eager to go back to work when she got out. It never occurred to Hypatia that both maneuvers were meant to get Jack as far from her clutches as possible. It probably would not have troubled her if she did.

Meanwhile, something had happened that caused both men to leave the frigate, and she had an amusing idea. She might be able to send Jack a more personal message than she could through the warden. It might or might not hurry the girl along. That didn't matter so much as the pleasure of the act.

Riddick doubled back to where Don was positioned, and waited. He didn't like gambling that Zemma would stay inside and that Hypatia would follow the two men. Riddick was getting nowhere with his search, which left only one avenue Jack could have taken… and he wasn't ready to storm even a minimal security prison, only to find Hypatia waiting for them both on the outside. They needed to draw her out, somehow.

Sneaking onboard the yacht was out of the question. Without knowing more about her, a distraction might only give her the advantage, or she might ignore it completely. Don was already monitoring the ship electronically as best he could with equipment inferior to hers, and he was pretty sure she was circumventing him. That left only one thing, one common denominator that Riddick was willing to bet on, even if Don was less sure of it: curiosity.

If Zemma would only stay in, and if Hypatia would only take the false signal bait…

The men didn't speak. What used to be a comfortable silence was more strained now. Zemma was frustrated with them both, feeling in her gut that they wanted to patch things up and they were just too obstinate to make amends. She didn't know how to make that happen, and didn't really understand that they didn't either.

Zemma paced the bridge, staring at the monitors, hoping Hypatia would bite soon, and leave her some time on the stairs. She wanted to step away from the railing today. She had to. With Riddick's mood and Don's guilt, she had nothing else to look forward to.

Hypatia noted the signal, but didn't believe it. She would simply avoid the men and go about her own objectives. She felt charged up for a hunt, even though she doubted anyone on this planet but those two would be a challenge. The real fun would be afterwards.

She slipped out of her ship and stole into the darkness. She moved slowly, like smoke, a drifting shadow cast by moonlight. She directed her gaze into the darkness, seeking the men. She knew they were there, even though she couldn't see them. It would be there that she would lay in wait, so it must be there. She skirted the area. Looking back into the gloom she saw only one! A smile crept across her face.

'Oh, Kitten, your man is clever…' Hypatia thought, feeling giddy that there might be a challenge yet tonight.

A noise from above drew her attention, but she didn't turn there, she spun on one heel. Riddick was charging silent as a cat directly at her. That meant the other man would close from…

Rather than taking his charge, Hypatia leapt straight up. Laughter crackled through the air like dry lightening. The chase was on. Could he catch her before she chose a victim? Could he stop her before she killed? She loved cat and mouse games, but she'd never been the mouse before. Could she stop laughing long enough to get ahead of him?

Riddick stayed right on her heels for awhile, looking for a grapple or an opening. The other man tried to flank them both. She drew them further away from the open plateau of the landing strip, into the crevices of the town streets. The men dropped away behind her, seeking their own paths, looking for another ambush. Hypatia smiled.

She settled into the hunt. Dead eyed humans floated along in their lifeless pursuits. She dismissed most as soon as she looked at them. They barely glanced up from the dirt when Riddick tried again to pounce on her. A shot rang out. She scurried from the scene, adrenaline making her high and excited. They'd upped the ante. She turned her attentions to the second man; the man with the relic. A gun was cheating. He needed to be penalized.

Serious now, she seeped into blackness, her movements so slow they would attract not even the attention of the most staid predators. Unlike her rivals, her eyes did not give away her position. She did not even need to breath for small periods of time. She became a monolith of doom, patient and deadly. Time passed, she was unaware of it. She needed only to wait until…

A shadow at the end of the alley, the soft scrape of a footfall on softer ground, rather than the heavy clodding along of one of the mundanes: one of her quarry was about to pass close by! She inhaled lightly, seeking confirmation. If it were Riddick she would let him pass.

The spicy scent of gunpowder sent her springing forward, legs pumping hard against the ground like pistons. Her every movement tightly concentrated into the charge, no wasted energy. She would seem to blur to most eyes. Don's only widened a moment before she struck. No living being could move that fast. Then his arm was broken, the gun skittering in the dirt from impact, and there was only darkness.

Amped into high gear, his body never had a chance to fall before Hypatia had him swept up into her arms, bearing him away. A curse followed her, but could not catch her.

Zemma could not wait any longer. Her boys had left their position, she could only assume they were following Hypatia. She was as anxious to get out the door now as she had been reluctant the first time she'd tried. She was useless as long as she was trapped on this ship, as she had been trapped her whole life. She keyed in the smaller personnel door, and listened to the stairs extend and hit dirt. She preferred the stairs with their handhold to the cargo door's bare ramp. The door cycled open and she looked out onto the night.

It was later than she usually came out. The air was cooler, sounds from the town almost non-existent. She listened to the various chirpings of insects, wondering what they looked like. She'd seen very few nocturnal animals, glimpsing only beating wings descending and the squeal of something surprised. She sniffed the air. It was dry and dusty, lacking the sweet, green smell of the first planet they'd stopped at.

She laid one hand on the cold metal of the handrail and pulled the hood of her cloak up with the other. She moved from the security of the doorframe, that first step feeling confident. She kept her eyes on her feet, not looking around now, just concentrating. She would not fly off into space. Gravity would hold her as firmly to the ground as to a deck. The words repeated in her head automatically as she took to the second riser down. By the third, some minutes had passed and the words were barely more than a comfortable sound in her head, diluting the buzzing noise that set her nerves on edge.

It was only blood pressure against her eardrums, but it was maddening if she couldn't drown it out. Words flew her head, repeating like a code. It didn't matter anymore what they were so long as she focused on the next word and the next step, and not the over-bright image that kept trying to overcome her mind. She felt utterly alone, and that frightened her as well.

He'll come back. He'll come back. He'll come back…

She wouldn't get stuck out here. He would come back when Hypatia was dead. She only had to take another step. He would come back…

The softness of the dirt under her feet always nauseated her. She focused now on the darkness ahead of her; it softened the contours, brought the horizon in close. She wasn't alone and the world was not too big. The shadows were her friends as long as she did not twitch up her lenses and look too deeply into them. The flattened perspective of night was a comfort. Another step and the handrail was just barely in her reach. Her fingers lightly caressed the bare metal as she shifted her weight, lifted one foot and set it a little ahead of the other. She only had to lean forward now and she would lose contact with the metal behemoth.

Coherent words were harder now. She only blanked her mind. White light tried to press against her consciousness. She leaned on her right foot, her fingers trailing away behind her, then only floating in mid-air. She froze. Nothing was holding her down, nothing to hold onto… nothing was trying to make its way across her vision. Her breathing was fast and hard, burning her throat. Her mouth was dry, leaving her nothing to swallow. She felt dizzy.

"No!"

She thought she had shouted, but couldn't be sure. Zemma bit her tongue, hard, and balled up her hands into fists, nails cutting into her soft palms. Pain was her friend. She realized her eyes were closed, and opened them slowly.

Friendly darkness cloaked her. She got her breathing under control. She looked to her left. The ship was still there, solid and real, glinting minimally in the starlight. She only had to lean a little to reach it. She turned forward again, towards the soft glow that marked the slightly distant town. She shuffled her left foot forward. Another step! Her heart still pounded so hard in her chest that she imagined it could burst, but she was still standing.

Right foot. Another step. She felt dizzy but hung on, waiting for it to pass. She wanted to scream, but was afraid the sound of her own voice would tip her over the edge of reality. She could no longer just lean back to touch the ship.

Left foot. She no longer seemed in control of her feet, each one moved forward of its own volition. She looked only straight ahead, not thinking about how far she would go before turning back, or even if she could turn. Her right foot was already carrying her forward again. She felt like a passenger in her own head, looking out through tiny view ports with no control of her destination.

Left foot, again, so soon! Then right foot. How many steps? Not a full pace at any time, but still, she was moving too far away now. She had to stop. She had to turn.

Movement caught her attention. She forced herself not to twitch up her lenses. It would only be Riddick and Don. Would he be angry she was so far from the ship? Or happy that she had made it on her own? Of their accord her feet stopped their slow shuffling. Every muscle in her body ached with tension. Her throat was raw from breathing so hard. She held her breath as the figure moved closer.

Someone was carrying a body towards her. Oh, Don! She thought, because she could not conceive that Hypatia would best Riddick twice. He would never allow it…

The walk was all wrong. No man walked like that. An exaggerated step, hips swinging confidently from side to side: A woman on the prowl. Zemma knew that kind of walk, though had never dared to do it. Frightened now, she turned her head to look back at the ship, the stairs, the door… it seemed to recede from her. Too far away! Cold fear trickled down her back and closed up her throat like a hand.

Somewhere, an alarm was sounding.

Somewhere else, Riddick felt the rushing sensation that sometimes accompanied his vision woman. She walked from the darkness, reaching for him, calling to him…

'Deinen! Deinen! Hurry! Help her!'

He knew Hypatia had Zemma.