WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE - [1 OF 4] - (Revised on 4/7/24)

During the construction of their raft, Dahl used a combat knife to cut vines while Eve provided a much needed influx of brute force to wrangle logs. There were plenty of downed timbers floating in the gentle surf. As for tying the logs together, there were an infinite number of vines hanging from the redwood sized palm trees standing guard over the beach. Tarzan would have had a blast swinging through those trees.

Much like everyone else on M6-117, they needed to get to the island as fast as possible. Not that a slow float to China was optimal transportation, but swimming in an ocean that could be teaming with unimaginable sea monsters was no bueno either.

Their reason for crossing was still unclear to Dahl. All she had gleaned from earlier conversations with Eve and Lilith was that an ancient artifact of immense power- presumably the device powering this subterranean world- was hidden in the center of the ancient volcano's dormant crater. That, and the device needed protection at all costs. Although, no one had explained how she was supposed to defend anything with a knife and a walking stick.

Dahl suspected Eve knew more about what was going on than she was letting on, and those troubling omissions did little to make her trust Eve. But trust or not, Dahl's path forward was limited to two options. Go along for the ride or try to get back to the surface without Eve. And while the water crossing concerned Dahl, she didn't relish the thought of being torn apart in the dark.

Before setting out, Dahl and Eve searched one last time for their missing compatriots. They felt they owed it to them. After finding nothing, they tested their floating log jam and pushed off with heavy hearts, staring back at the shrinking beach, hoping to see them run out waving their arms. But neither did, and the more the shore shrank, the more the sense of guilt grew in Dahl.

Fortunately for them, their journey passed without incident or excitement. The sea was calm; the wind was gentle and the once foreboding currents had reversed. It was as if the island was drawing them in. They noted nothing of interest. Not even the black fin in the distance bothered them. It seemed blind to their presence.

Shortly after their uneventful beaching, they walked into the jungle where they promptly became entangled in the dense undergrowth. The calm waters may have been inviting, but the thorny jungle had other ideas. The ancient brambles were composed of razor sharp briar bushes, dagger sized thorns and grating, sandpaper leaves. Unlike the tranquil jungle across the sea, the inhospitable island jungle had grown up for one purpose; keep intruders away from whatever lay hidden at the center of the island.

During the frustrating trek inland, Dahl sustained more than a few welts on her face and arms. And once, had she not been paying attention and turned her face, she probably would have lost an eye. The offending thorn left a long, weeping gash from the outer corner of her right eyelid across her temple, sending a trickle of warm blood down her neck. Long scrapes and shallow cuts ran from the tips of Dahl's fingers to above her elbows as the jungle did its best to sever her will to go on. Eve, clad in her alter ego, seemed not to notice. Or at least, regenerated with little to no pain.

Later, when it felt like much of the day had ebbed away with little to no progress gained, the duo spent the better part of an hour hauling themselves to the top of the tallest tree in sight. The enormous tree, nearly 600 feet tall and 50 feet wide at its base, towered above everything around it. It was a foreboding, gnarled gargantuan, unlike its smooth tropical cousins on the other coast. Nature had covered it in a rough, thick bark, prone to tearing away at the most inopportune times. Eve had, by no minor miracle, caught Dahl many times during the perilous accent and would catch her many more before their feet touched the ground once more.

Gaunt green leaves the size of broken shards of china scratched and scraped at anything caught in their clutches. Everything on the island screamed get out, and it did so by either trying to cut them to the bone or rasp away their slowly reddening flesh. During that time, Dahl's will to go on deteriorated while her pension for randomly spewing steady streams of expletives increased exponentially. In fact, she was regretting not choosing the path leading back to the surface. 

After reaching the top branches, Eve and Dahl popped through the canopy only to find the surrounding foliage had grown up to block their view. They saw green vegetation, blue sky overhead and no sign of a volcanic mountain. 

Unable to fix a position using the surrounding terrain, they were forced to shimmy back down, demoralized and furious. When they touched down, exhausted and spent, even more scratched up than before the journey to the top of Jack's beanstalk began. They soon realized the jungle's canopy had returned to its original height. One enormous tree, standing in the middle of a jungle of much shorter trees. Add to that, the path they had trampled down was gone. Not a single bush knocked over or one leaf out of place. Neither had the slightest idea which way to go.

"What the hell is going on?" Dahl asked, squinting in frustration. "This is bullshit."

Eve said nothing. The idea that the terrain could change at will was hard enough to believe. But the thought that it could cover their tracks meant the jungle was sentient. Or at the very least, something was controlling it. Something that knew they were there and trying to keep them from reaching the volcano. No. Not the volcano. It was trying to keep them away, trying to protect the obelisk.

After a lengthy respite laying beside the tree's giant knobbly roots, Eve and Dahl rose begrudgingly and began bludgeoning their way onward at little more than a crawl. Even Eve's brute force did little to knock down the nearly impenetrable undergrowth. The two women forced their way into the unforgiving undergrowth, sweating and panting, and for the most part, bitching more with every passing hour. All the while, it was as if the swaying, creaking jungle shifted around them like a pack of circling wolves. At every turn, the thickening greenery barred their way until neither woman knew how far they had traveled from the beach. A kilometer, a hundred kilometers, or perhaps they had gone in a giant meandering circle that would eventually return them to a makeshift raft on a seldom used white sand beach. They could almost hear the jungle laughing and whispering, "Here's your ride ladies. Why don't you go back to where you came from? You're not welcome here."

Fuck you, Dahl thought, forgetting her fear. No damn plants are going to tell me anything.

With no clear frame of reference, there was no way of telling which way was the right way. Success in reaching their destination would come down to an unsettling combination of tenacity and dumb luck. Although, neither of those options seemed likely to get them to their target.

Dahl cursed the jungle, the sticky heat, her aching ankle, the welts on her body and eventually, the people who had sent her to this godforsaken hellhole in the ass end of nowhere. And as they fought ever onward, she told herself they're going to pay me a bonus for this shit. A big goddam bonus.

After 12 hours of trudging towards total exhaustion, they came upon a titanic boulder cloaked by a ring of ancient fallen timbers so large they appeared to be toppled skyscrapers. Above the clearing was the first sky they had seen since their fruitless climb. They crawled under the massive trunks, climbed to the boulder's dome and peered around, hoping to spot the volcano. Fruitless effort laughed in their red faces.

"No such luck," Eve said to herself. The sky above revealed a mockingly, empty blue. Increasing their frustration was the infernal canopy had risen around them.

"No good," Dahl said angrily, kicking a dead branch into the undergrowth. She half expected the jungle to throw it back at her. "It's like the jungle is trying to block our path."

"Seems like," Eve agreed, slowly spinning in a circle, trying to gain any sense of bearing. All she saw was the colors dark green and pale blue. She spun around bitching to herself. "We just climbed up and I'm already lost. Look." Eve said, pointing at the tree they crawled under. She was certain, but it looked like it leaned in the opposite direction."I swear that tree moved."

Dahl nodded in agreement. "If everything in here is shifting, we're screwed. How is any of this possible? I can't hear or see anything moving."

"It's like we're caught in some bizarre fun house. This island is smoke and mirrors, and if we aren't careful, no one will ever see us again."

"At least, nothing has tried to hurt us yet?" Dahl said.

"Everything has tried to kill us and nothing has to," Eve replied. "With no food or water, how long do you think you can go on?" Eve asked.

"As long as I have to." Dahl said, wishing she had a body that regenerated like Eve's. "If the invisible maze really is moving, we… I need to find a way through before it wins." she said, leaning against one of the downed trees separating the boulder from the jungle. She slid onto her backside, cursing her luck. "We can't get an accurate fix on our position. And now, we can't find our way back to the beach, either."

"With a little luck," Eve began, and looked around,"this jungle is a one trick pony. It's programmed to keep intruders out, and nothing else."

"We can hope."

Eve turned to Dahl. "I suggest we let it lure us to the easiest route- the path away from our target- and then head in the opposite direction."

"Fucking stellar," Dahl said, dabbling her weeping cuts with the strip of torn off t-shirt she had wrapped around her ankle for added support. "That's our only option, to take the shit road. As if getting through this nightmare weren't already hard enough."

Eve, gifted with an unnatural ability to regenerate, didn't bother tending to her cuts. Being as most of them had already healed.

Dahl squinted at Eve from across the boulder. She envied Eve's gift sourly, but then, when she noticed Eve staring back at her, she said, "Sorry. It's just this shit really…"

"Stings," Eve said, finishing her thought in an apologetic tone. She felt bad for Dahl. Difficult times have a tendency to draw people together, and Eve and Dahl had become tight. Even if Dahl was still deciding if she trusted her.

"Yeah." Dahl replied, scratching her arms absentmindedly. "It itches like poison ivy."

"It's not." Eve said, looking at Dahl's arms. "It's because we're filthy. We need to clean up or you're going to develop a low grade infection."

"Are you sayin' I stink?" Dahl asked, holding out her arm so Eve could inspect it.

"I'm saying my alter ego has an overdeveloped sense of smell."

"You could help me heal," Dahl said. "Then I don't need to worry about infections."

"I can't. I wish I could. But I can't. I'm sorry." Then she said the worst thing possible and the one thing that made Dahl forget about the itch. "Not like Lilith could have. My cells are coded to my DNA. For all I know, my blood could provoke a fatal immune system response."

"Lilith can." Dahl blurted, face becoming a mixture of sorrow, guilt and regret. "Not could have." She didn't want Eve to speak of Lilith in a past tense. She would not allow herself to believe Lilith was dead. 

"I can't heal anyone. Or… maybe I can. I don't know what to believe anymore. Maybe I need to learn how. This body is new to me and it's not like it came with a user manual. If it did, there wasn't any time to give it to me before the attack happened. So, I never learned how this thing works. That's why most of its subsystems are a mystery."

"Subsystems," Dahl repeated. "What subsystems?"

Eve gestured at herself and said, "This isn't me. It's a machine. It's a living machine. But it is a machine, nonetheless. I'm not human. Not anymore. I only look human. So yes, this machine uses cell-sized biomechanical lifeforms to control itself."

"You mean nanites."

"No," Eve replied, "Nanites are mechanical. Every cell in my body is a sentient biomechanical organism. Capable of both independent or hive mind thought. And no, before you ask, I have no control over them. Or if I do, I don't know how to control them." Eve threw another angry gesture at herself, and added, "I was told this is the new and improved me. The monster you see is just a high-tech suit of biomorphic armor. Or so I was told. But that's a crock. Because if it's armor, why can't I take it off? And why does my neat shape-shifter armor do what it wants half the time."

Dahl looked at Eve with a grimace and said, "I've seen some of the best tech armor out there and none of it does the things yours and Lilith's can." Dahl paused, searching for the right words. "Most armor doesn't change its molecular composition or its mass. And that's just two things you do without even trying."

"It's a miracle I haven't killed myself or someone else by now." Eve blurted, voice becoming bitter. "Putting me in this is like handing a loaded bazooka to a toddler and hoping it doesn't find the trigger." She threw up her arms and ranted on, "And all I got was a quick, you're going to have to learn as you go speech. Fucking nice, right? Learn as you go. As if that's a possibility. Imagine walking around with an atomic bomb inside you and all you get is, be careful, it can go boom." She laughed sarcastically.

It suddenly became clear to Dahl, Eve had the kind of injuries her body couldn't erase with a magic wand. Her injuries lived deep in the subconscious and would either eventually strengthen her or shatter her mind completely. Dahl hadn't decided which way Eve was leaning.

"Think about it. When I went to sleep before the procedure..." Eve paused, suddenly aware of something that hadn't occurred to her before. "Oh yeah, and no one asked if I wanted this.. They just did it. I woke up like this. Before I was a prisoner in my mind, but now, I'm a prisoner in this strange body. Sure, it looks like mine, but it's not mine. It's theirs. They control it. I'm just a passenger along for the ride "

"That's horrible."

"You know," Eve said. "Now that I've finally found the courage to say that out loud. It occurs to me that when someone is dying, others decide that person's final moments based on how they feel. That's what happened to me. I had a chip in my brainstem that overwrote most of my self-awareness. I didn't know what was happening to me. So, they decided for me, and this is the consequence. Kearyn told me, they didn't tell me because the shock could have killed me. But that was an excuse. This was never for me. It was for them. They didn't want to feel loss or grief. They didn't want to suffer, but what about me."

"What did they do to you?"

"A lot. Everything really. There wasn't much left of the original Eve Logan and if I'm being honest, I don't know how much is left now." she answered. "I'm sure my tiny passengers have long since replaced those original bits and pieces with new and improved units.

Dahl got the feeling Eve had never talked about it before. Although, she had thought about it often.

"Riddick called me a brain in a bucket. He wasn't lying. I was a fucking dying lab experiment my so-called family couldn't let me go."

"They cared."

"Don't side with them."

"My parents were murdered when I was a kid." Dahl replied. "I can't imagine what I'd do if I could get them back."

"Exactly my point,' Eve said. "You do anything not to feel that loss. But nothing would be for them."

"Yeah." Dahl said, and then her eyes went wide. "Hold it. You never said you knew Riddick." She leaned closer as if not wanting anyone else to hear and whispered, "I think he has something to do with all this."

Eve smiled at her, nodded and said, "You have no idea."

"I knew it," Dahl blurted. "You do know more than your telling."

"I do." Eve said. "I suppose under our current circumstances it would be okay to tell you, Riddick has everything to do with what's going on. Although, in his defense, he doesn't know anymore about this shit than either of us do. At least he doesn't in this time stream. In the future I'm sure he knows everything."

"How does a mass murderer get involved in this?"

"He is not a mass murder." Eve said, correcting her. "He's a killer."

"Like there's a difference."

"A small one, but yes." Eve replied. "A murder kills without reason and a killer kills in the defense of himself or others."

"You are saying Riddick has never killed without reason?"

"I'm saying we don't have enough time to critique all his kills and get to the obelisk in time."

"What happened to him? Why is he the way he is?"

"They altered him. Multiple times and in multiple ways. Although, It's nothing like what they did to me."

"Was it not so bad?"

Eve shook her head and said, "What they did to Riddick was a hundred times worse. But I can't say what they did exactly. I only learned bits and pieces of what's actually going on just before I was sent here. And what I learned was..." Eve paused.

"Was what?" Dahl asked, urging her on.

"Beyond belief."

"What did you learn?" Dahl asked.

"He doesn't know anything is wrong with him." Eve said in a far off voice. 

"How can he not know?"

"No idea. But he doesn't know he's changing. At least, not in this timeline."

"Is he as bad as they say?"

"He looks like he could kill you with a teacup. And he'd be the last one to admit he was a good guy. But no. He's not as bad as they say."

"How'd you meet?"

"Crematoria."

"You were in a Supermax together?"

"No," Eve explained. "I ran with the merc crew that caught him after his 3rd or 4th escape. If that's what we did. I think he just used us to get offworld."

He was there when I woke up in this body. But that was a few hours before the attack happened, and I was hurt, and they took over."

"Who are they?"

"They," Eve said, "are the seven trillion lifeforms living inside this machine. Kearyn said it's a threat level 3 self-defense protocol built into the neural chip the Necros spliced into my brain stem."

"Who? Did what?" Dahl asked.

"Necromongers. And pray you never meet them."

"If I do, I will send your regards."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"They couldn't safely remove the chip without ending neural functions. So, instead of removing it, Kearyn reprogrammed the chip to perform like a sub-systems GPU. It allows my mind to link with any surrounding networks."

"Really?"

"I can jack into any system out there from a thousand meters away. But only as long as there's an available signal or an open port to plug into." Eve held up her hand, preparing to pull a cord out of the base of her skull. 

"Nope," Dahl blurted, turning away. "Don't want to see it. Every time I see you change, it's like hearing someone drag their nails along a chalkboard. I can't explain it, but I can feel your pain."

"There's no pain when it happens." Eve replied, holding out the end of a long black cable.

"Maybe not for you. But I'm telling you, it affects me. So, I don't want to see it. Please."

"See, even the awesome stuff makes me a mon-"

"You're no monster, Eve." Dahl said, cutting her off. "You saved me a dozen times climbing up and down that stupid tree. Hell, you saved Lilith and I'm sure a lot of others, too. The first time I saw you, I almost shit my pants. But that's only because you're…" she looked at Eve and said, "unique. And now… I kinda think you're a little amazing too. And I'm even a little jealous."

"Thanks. But never say you're jealous. Because this isn't a gift. It's literally a curse. A curse placed on my people before this galaxy even blinked into existence."

"It's not a curse. I know curses and… well… just trust me. It's not a curse."

"What's it matter?" Eve said. "Even if it turns out I'm not a monster. I'm trapped in here." Eve said weakly. "Still, I gotta admit. Sometimes it feels amazing. The things it can do are beyond amazing. But then there are other times when it scares the hell out of me. Because of the way it thinks and feels. And I mean, it thinks and feels. Not me. It. So, where can I run when the monster that haunts my dreams is me?"

"I see what you're getting at." Dahl replied, shaking her head. "But you're looking at this all wrong. All you have to do to take back control is stop running. You're acting like there's an it and a you, or a them and a you, when there's only you. One is the Eve with normal human limitations, and the other, is the Eve with no limitations. Once you come to terms with that, you'll realize you've been deciding all along. And, no," Dahl added before Eve could protest. "It's not wrong to fear the power they put inside you. I'd be scared shitless if I woke up changed. But I've seen you control it. I know you can. I've seen you do it."

"Let's say I believe there is only one mind in here. One being. What happens if I learn I like being the monster?"

"As far as monsters go, your suit of armor is the real deal. I'll give you that. But the person inside it is far from a monster. If you were, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Because you'd already be a monster."

"And how could you know that?"

"Because we all have monsters inside us. You're no isolated case. You're a little more lethal in a fist fight than most, but you're no different from the rest of us. We've all stood in front of the mirror looking at our reflections, wondering what darkness lurks behind.our eyes."

"That's a pleasant thought."

"If there is a monster inside you," Dahl said, pointing at her chest. "It isn't the creature, it's the human." 

"Great pep talk," Eve replied, giving her a half-hearted smile. 

"It is, " Dahl replied. "Because if it's the human inside controlling the machine, you are controlling the machine."

"I'm controlling it?"

"How new is your body?" Dahl asked, doing her best to change the subject. Actually, her arms were driving her loopy, and she wanted a story to take her mind off her throbbing ankle, and the angry welts forming all over her forearms.

"Before I came here, I had only been in this body for. 6… maybe 7 days. And those are a wash of fighting and running."

"Hold on," Dahl said, looking at her with a puzzled expression. "You were being serious with the brain in a bucket thing? It wasn't some weird metaphor? This really isn't your body?"

"Not the one I was born with. That body was… taken from me and literally thrown in the garbage."

"Delightful friends to leave you to that fate," Dahl said sarcastically.

"Necromongers are fucking animals," Eve said. 

"

"My family came for me. Rescued me. Built me this new body and all my unappreciative bitching aside, they gave me a second chance at life. I was a dying lab experiment. And I didn't know it. The chip prevented that. But I know it now. So, yeah, even though I want to kick them in the balls half the time, I love them all. Even the dick who left me for dead."

"Who's the dick?"

Eve laughed and said, "Riddick."

For the next hour, Eve related everything that happened to her after Riddick left her bleeding out in a Crematoria Supermax prison. She explained how, at the time, she blamed Riddick for her injuries. But later, realized one her own team had shot her. Or maybe not. It all happened so fast and the scene was chaotic. So, there really was no way to be certain. Either way, she just didn't want to be pissed at Riddick anymore. Especially in the light of what she and Toombs' team did to him. And what she had learned about who Richard B. Riddick really was. Eve supposed she'd had it coming. Then Eve told Dahl something she would never forget. He's innocent, you know. They made it all up. He only became a criminal because they forced him to go on the run. They murdered his wife, destroyed his home and turned him into an animal, all because of him.

"Him, who?"

"Riddick's a stand-up guy, Dahl. Even if he is a little rough around the edges."

"I like 'em rough around the edges."

"I know," she said. Then Eve told the story of when Vaako, the Purifier and the Necromongers came looking for Riddick on Crematoria. About how they found her dying with a gunshot to the abdomen and how they took her and all the others away.

Afterwards, Eve answered any questions Dahl had about what the Necros did to her and gave the best explanation of the procedure used to replace her missing body. It was pretty vague. She really didn't understand the science behind it. But when it came to the events of the 6 or 7 days before she arrived on M6-117, Eve refused to say anything more than I can't talk about it. Not yet. But I will tell you when I can.

"So, it's true then." Dahl said. "You're like Lilith. And she's from the future, too."

"No," Eve said, surprising Dahl. "Lilith has abilities I can't even comprehend. And I'm not from the future. Well, I am. But only fifteen years. This is my timeline, too." She pointed up at the blue sky and said, "I'm out there right now. Oblivious to all this shit. Fuck. I never knew how good I had it."

"No one knows how good they have it, until it's all gone."

"Lilith is from an ancient timeline. A time way before ours."

"How ancient?"

"From a time before mankind came down from the trees." Eve replied. "That means she's older than this place."

"Are you suggesting she's immortal?" Dahl asked.

"You saw her eaten alive and rise from the guts of her killers. I'd say there's a good chance she's immortal?"

"But…" Dahl began and paused. "Doesn't that mean she's still alive?"

"She must have been here when they constructed it." Eve said, ignoring her question.

"That's stretching for a connection."

 "Maybe. But she knew about this place and she knows what's down here."

 "And so do you." Dahl said, fixing Eve with a stare.

 "Only because Lilith told me."

 "Are you actually going to make me ask what's down here?"

 "Obelisk. Black onyx variety. 3 meters tall, created outside this galaxy and equipped with a powerful computer. That's all I know."

Dahl laughed at her.

Eve frowned and said, "That's all I can say."

"We haven't found any signs of the people who created this place. No markings. No signs of construction. No dwellings. This place must have taken thousands of years to construct." Dahl added. "But when you look around, it looks natural."

"Lilith may be immortal. Or maybe it just seems that way because she can move through time and space."

"Yeah," Dahl said, "I kind of figured that out already."

"When I asked Lilith where she came from, she told me she came from a time before time. And that leads me to think she's from the civilization that created this world."

"No humans ever lived here. Except for a few dozen transient miners who fell victim to the eclipses."

"I'm not talking about this planet or even this galaxy. Lilith isn't from this universe. This moon isn't natural. It was placed here."

"Are you talking about multiverse theory here?"

"No," Eve replied. "There are many universes, none are like this one. And she is from one of them."

"There is only one universe, and that's ours."

"Wrong." Eve snapped. "Have you ever noticed how Lilith knows things? Things she shouldn't know. Things someone would only know if they'd seen them firsthand. And not just things about this place, but about every place."

"Lilith has never once failed to call me on my bullshit stories. Not once. I've never been able to pull anything over on her. It's as if she can see right through me. It's like she's psychic."

"It's easy to make people think you're psychic when you already know what's going to happen before it actually does." Eve replied, laying down and placing an arm across her eyes to block out the never ending light. "Get some rest. You need to stay off that ankle for a while. Your limp is getting worse and we can't afford to have you out of commission right now."

"Yes, mom." Dahl said, rolling on her side.

Five minutes later, both women had both fallen asleep.

As they slept, the jungle watched and waited and crept around them.