A dark watcher skulked along a twisted wall in the upside down compartment. It stopped in the far corner of the room, large chrome eyes honing in on a similar creature standing beneath a distant staircase. Whatever the two beasts were, one studied the other with great interest. The watcher backed against the wall, seamlessly blending into its surroundings. It didn't want to be seen.
The watched creature stood beneath a twisted metal staircase, fixating on its grotesque hands. The endless transitions from human to monster and back again, no longer terrified the woman inside. The intense sense of body horror after her transformation had left her confused and out of control had faded.
The reclamation procedure giving Eve Logan renewed life resulted in an immediate sense of body horror. Her new body- desribed by it's creator as a bio-morphic suit of armor, altered Eve's once human genome. In truth, the armor- not really armor, at all- was actually a world programmed to survive at any cost.
She was not prepared for her new gifts, nor was she asked if she wanted them and now she questioned if she was still herself. At the time of the procedure, Eve had been little more than bits and pieces of her former self. A dissected brain hardwired into a Necromonger mainframe. A bucket of meat scraps and spine.
But if he could rebuild her body, couldnt he also add false memories? Waylan Yutani routinely implanted false memories in replicants to better humanize them. The idea made Eve's head spin. Am I real or am I just programmed to recognize a familiar face to rember a false narrative? To make her uncertainty worse Eve didn't know if there was any difference between her and the creature anymore. It came out and left of its own accord. She felt powerless to control it; although, it never controlled her.
The transformations seemed controlled by some internal force; not her own, more like something with a vested interest in protecting her. It was the uncertainty of what was controlling her new body that she found unsettling.
Her transformed fingers resembled long, hairy black spider legs with a dozen rows of tiny suction cups lining the insides of each finger. Much more impressive suction cups filled her giant onyx palms. Each knobby digit had grown an extra knuckle, allowing for even more gripping force. The thick black exoskeleton covering them protected her hands beneath a layer of fibrous hairs like shorr porcupine quills. She made a fist, imagined backhanding a Necromonger foot soldier in the face and a faint smile caressed her face. A mouthful of shark teeth dripped a viscous saliva.
The sudden and increasingly routine metamorphosis from one form to another no longer stunned Eve, nor did the transformations hurt anymore. The transformations had done both in the beginning. Eve became accustomed to the sudden changes and even appreciated them. For better or worse, they were part of the her now.
This new Eve - this post Necromonger tortured thing - was not the same woman she had been prior to her abduction on Crematoria. Thanks to Riddick, Eve lay injured and unable to defend herself when the Necromongers found her in the bowels of the infamous supermax penitentiary. In the chaos of Riddick's hasty prison break, Commander Vaako's team had come to the half empty prison looking for him and found everyone he had left behind. A squad of converted grunts dragged her away kicking, and screaming, along with everyone else. Conversion or death, for most, the choice was a simple one. Live to see another day.
A Necro science officer experimented on Eve as if she were nothing but a caged animal. He dissected her while she was still very much alive and able to feel every cruel incision. They peeled her once soft flesh away, discarding her organs, preserving nothing but a bloody head and spinal column. Everything else was meat for the pile. Mercifully, before the first pound of flesh hit the floor, Eve lost consciousness. As a result, Eve bore an almost pathological hated for the Necromongers. And... if given the opportunity,... someday Eve would get the chance to make them pay for what they had done to her. No matter what the cost. She owed them that much.
Eve struggled to push the crippling brutality of those savage torments down into the darkest recesses of her mind, but the searing images, still bloody and fresh, plagued her thoughts. Even a decade after her discarded remains had turned to dust, she felt as if the pain would always be there, dripping and raw, hiding in the background of her new life, adding a sense of uncertainty to her every encounter and threatening to jump out and turn her as dark on the inside as she looked on the outside. Eve wouldn't let that happen; she wouldn't become a monster, not even if she was one on the outside. The events leading her to the creature hadn't happened yet. Those events were still years in the future.
She looked through the black ceiling, as if searching the heavens far above. Her younger self was out there, a spoiled, childish, rich girl, unaware of the horrors that awaited her in the rapidly approaching future. Eve longed to find her, explain what would happen if she didn't make different choices. But that wasn't an option. Tampering with the time stream could be deadly. Not only for her, but everyone else, as well. Never mess with the stream, a voice in Eve's head whispered, You could kill us all.
In the darkness of the nearby corner, Eve's twin watched her, unimpressed by Eve's abilities. The hidden creature held out its black hands, watched them change from crab to spider to human and back again, and then turned its attention back to Eve. Silly girl, it thought. You do not know your true potential. But you will. You soon will.
It had been six days since Eve woke in this body, and her uneasy thoughts struggled to make sense of her new life. A life that no longer seemed to belong to her alone. She stared at the tilted hatch in the upper corner and watched her hands reform. "I need to climb." she said, looking to the twisted handrails hanging topsy-turvy from the upside down metal stairs. "Could it really be that simple? Is something inside me , trying to help?"
It was simple. Eve needed to climb new Eve 2.0 mobility device she inhabited made the adjustments to meet her changing environment. Her new body anticipated every need before Eve did. Even if she didn't see the necessity. The creature was always one step ahead. What Eve was unaware of was that every cell in her new body was sentient drone. Each an individual part of a much larger organism, acting like an ant in a hive. Eve's body was the hive; her mind was the queen the drones monitored and protected both. Eve was mother Ghia and her cells were the society that inhabited her world. And neither were aware of the other.
"They are quite terrifying," she admitted to herself, staring at her new beefier configuration. "Terrifying, but amazing." EVE said, in a detached sort of tone, suggesting they were growing on her. Both figuratively and literally.
This was not the first time Eve had seen this hand configuration. Prior to the battle on The Sheong Ja, a Necromonger Basilica class warship, the wound on Eve's head had left her disoriented and out of control. But then, the unlikeliest person had pulled her back from the abyss of utter madness threatening to engulf her. Riddick dragged her back ti control. He saved her from herself by introducing her to a far more terrifying thing. The thing that lived in him. It left her dumbstruck with horror. The thing was ancient and primal, and exuded its will on all that dared look at it.
Eve woke a second time just after the initial attack, alone and adrift in the frigid void of open-space thinking, "How am I still alive?" Her bio-morphic transformation had saved her from certain death. Her new body adapted itself to the harsh change of environment in an instant. The 3 trillion creatures existing within her had all changed simultaneously, keeping both her and themselves alive. They wanted to live.
Eve's re-creator referred to the transformations with a prideful sense of accomplishment. Nothing more. The creatures she became were nothing more than tools to be used in times of emergency. Each had a purpose. Each had its specialized abilities. But still, Eve had her doubts.
"These transformations are a threat level 3 security protocol, I added for your protection." Her creator told her. Then there was some more nonsense science speak about a new bio-morphic epidermis. It was all quite technical and confusing, and Eve stopped listening long before he finished boasting of his accomplishments.
She compartmentalized the explanation of her new body as a terrifying but cool, set of shape-shifter body armor. Nothing more. It didn't take long for Eve to realize her transformations altered more than just the skin covering her body. She suspected thr transformations went much deeper during a threat level 3 change. Surely it took a considerable amount of effort and energy to change a 5'-6", 130 pound woman into a 7', 350 pound raging beast with super strength, hyper speed and near limitless mobility and agility.
In the wreckage's darkness, surrounded by predators on all sides, Eve appreciated and understood how valuable her new abilities were. She understood what she had become. And what she may become in the future. An alpha predator, an unstoppable killer and, if left unchecked, an out-of-control monster that attacked both friend and foe. Even in the arid heat of the stifling compartments, the thought chilled her to the core. She shook off the goose flesh that crossed her black skin.
Stretching upward, she reached 12 feet above the floor, grabbed the lowest hand rail and effortlessly folded herself upward into the metal structure high above. The maneuver was effortless. The new spider leg hand configuration allowed Eve to latch onto any surface without fear of losing her grip. Best of all, her hairy suction cup fingers stuck to anything without being sticky. And once she grasped something, her new hands wouldn't let go until she willed them to. No matter how much force opposed them.
She was grateful for that much. At least she knew the force inside her did not control her actions. She still controlled her movements; controlled her own limbs; formed her own thoughts. Or so she hoped she did. She didn't know. Would I know if I was being controlled? The thought perplexed her and, in the end, it was pointless. Either way, Eve couldn't do anything about it if she was being controlled. "So," she told herself. "I suppose until I know for sure. I'll just go with it."
And that's just what Eve did. She slipped through the partially open hatch, swinging it wide and slipping into the unknown compartment beyond. All the while, completely unaware that another creature just like her stood watching her from the shadows below.
The creature waited a moment, listening to Eve move away. Then it slithered up through the stairwell following her into the darkness beyond.