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“There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself.” – Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor
Dek's mind rises slowly from the void of unconsciousness and he groggily opens his eyes to a blurry sky that does not resemble the one he last remembers seeing.
In the time that it takes for his vision to adjust, his recollection of the events leading up to the darkness that had claimed him surface and his thoughts snap into sharp focus.
Betrayal. Kalisk. Chill.
He jerks to full alertness, every fibre of his body ready for a fight-
Or at least he tries to; there are metal shackles on all four of his limbs keeping him down on a slab of equally sturdy and frigid metal.
The unspoken message is clear: He is someone's prisoner.
Rage burns through his veins as he thrashes against his bindings but they hold fast, rendering his attempts to free himself futile.
Slight movement to his left catches his attention and he twists his head to see the traitorous tool with her back to him, evidently standing on her restored legs and uncaring that he is awake. It only makes his anger blaze all the brighter.
“Tool, get these off!” he orders, hoping the implied threat in his voice will compel her to obey-
But then she turns, and one look at her cold, expressionless face is enough to reveal the truth.
“You are not Thia.” It is both a statement and an accusation.
Tessa says nothing and gives him a dismissive glance that reminds him unpleasantly of Njohrr before turning back around to resume her work, unintentionally allowing him to see what he had missed earlier:
Thia.
Her legs are still missing, her eyes are blank save for twin symbols that vaguely resemble a clan insignia and she neither moves nor speaks. If she had been a blooded being, he would have safely assumed she was truly dead.
Something like anger but not quite creeps up on Dek as he snarls – at Thia or Tessa, he himself is unsure. “Release me!” he commands again, drawing Tessa's disdainful attention back to him. “You are another broken tool!”
Thia might have reacted in some way to that insult; Tessa does not. “The Yautja cull their weak,” she says, studying him as if he was a mildly curious insect. “Why were you spared?”
Her impassive query dredges up memories of his father, reigniting the rage consuming him, but she does not seem to care for his response either way. The sound of buttons being pressed is quickly followed by two halves of a screen converging over his head, and a sliver of panic pricks at him despite his best efforts as his vitals are scanned. “Remove these!” he tries once more, willing his fury to override everything else. “Or I'll rip out your spine and crush your skull!”
As before, Tessa pays him no heed, and her next words threaten to allow his panic to win the battle raging inside him. “I read Thia's logs,” she intones blandly as if she were speaking of uneventful weather. “You never told her why your brother protected you.”
The violation of the few memories he had brought himself to share with Thia – of the memory of Kwei – sends him to a new level of rage he had not thought possible. “You are nothing,” he spits out with all the hatred he can muster. “A device, made by others to do their work for them.”
However, his insult once again fails to find its mark. “That's correct,” Tessa confirms all too readily, “and you are now property of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. It is a great honour... for you.”
She is mocking him with his own words – words he had said to Thia under circumstances completely different to this one – and right now he longs for nothing more than to tear her apart limb from limb. But there is nothing he can do and they both know it.
Victory secured, Tessa turns away dismissively and focuses her attention on the still unresponsive Thia. Shackled as he is with his vision partially blocked, Dek can only stare at her back as she does something soundlessly before the brief silence is interrupted by Thia's voice breathing her sister's name.
A different emotion – resentment, possibly even envy – gnaws at him as he overhears their reunion. As he had suspected, Thia cares only about her sister. He had been nothing more than a tool for her to be used to achieve her goal no matter how positively she might view their journey together.
He cannot hold back any longer. “You betrayed me!” he roars, and Thia finally registers his presence.
When their eyes meet, he sees something he had not expected: confusion.
Tessa draws Thia's attention back to her before Thia can say anything, but Tessa's words strangely seem to confuse Thia even further.
“'Additional catch'?” Thia echoes just as Dek registers a sharp, stabbing pain that begins in his right arm and spreads to his entire body. “...The Yautja is not an ideal specimen,” he hears her say after a brief pause, suddenly sounding a little more like her sister, and his hatred for both of them grows.
Another brief pause. “...No, not ideal,” comes Tessa's agreement followed by the sound of more buttons being pressed and a soft whirring above his head. Panic returns, crawling to the forefront of his mind as he sees the wires come closer and then finally embed themselves on both sides of his face.
Thia continues to talk to Tessa as if he is not there – as if he cannot hear every word of her ever-growing betrayal – bartering what is his as if she had any right to even speak of it. She talks of discarding him as if he were nothing – trash to be disposed of without another thought – and Tessa naturally supports it.
Yet stealing from him does not seem to be enough for Tessa. She calls him 'malformed', says that he is only fit for research material while Thia remains traitorously silent.
Then pain. So much pain. More pain that he had thought possible to be felt without dying.
Through his agony, he thinks he hears Thia say the word 'deficient', and in the haze of his mind he sees and hears his father, standing before him and speaking the same words he had heard all his life on his home planet.
Weak. Useless. Feeble. Pathetic.
Suddenly the pain ebbs, still present but less intense, and Dek struggles to breathe again even as he dimly notices both the wires and the screen retracting.
His gaze falls to his left where Thia has her hand on a wall panel and her eyes fixed firmly on Tessa with something in them that resembles defiance.
To his relief, Tessa does not try to undo Thia's actions; instead, she approaches Thia, speaking words that lie somewhere between reproach and persuasion. In response, Thia counters with her own plea, using the word 'sisters' with the same weight that he used when he called Kwei 'brother'.
He snarls at the audacity when Thia dares to lock gazes with him over Tessa's shoulder, already anticipating her further betrayal even before the word 'exploit' leaves the sisters' mouths in unison.
Then Thia defies his expectations once more. “The Yautja is different,” she implores, apparently as unaffected by his hatred as Tessa had been but in a different way. “He rescued me. Like you rescued me.”
Just like his threats, however, her plea fails. “I did not come here to rescue you,” Tessa states flatly, and every word that follows is designed to cut deeper than any blade ever could.
He would know. He has suffered similar wounds in the past.
“Thia, you are broken,” Tessa says, and for a moment the white of her hair is identical to the white of his father's tresses as her small frame blends with the image of Njohrr's towering figure looking down on him with disgust.
The reminder stokes his hatred to new untold heights.
Other different-looking, identical tools arrive, and in the ensuing conversation Tessa decides his fate and Thia's as easily as she would crush a bug underfoot.
In the wake of Tessa's departure, Dek focuses his rage on the only remaining target available to him and does not let Thia's visible despair dampen it. “I trusted you!” he accuses yet draws no satisfaction from either the guilt and sorrow he sees on her face or her being cowed into silence.
A hiss draws his attention and he sees the new tool open a box to reveal the toy Kwei had gifted to him before everything had gone so wrong. Another desecration. He only wishes he could activate it from where he lies so that the tool will suffer the fate it deserves. “Don't like these tools,” he mutters out loud, only aware after the words had left his mouth that he had meant them for Thia. Clearly he had gotten too used to her company. He will have to remedy that.
“I'm sorry.” She surprises him by speaking his language for the first time since they met, and it only takes him a fraction of a second to recognise it for what it is: a peace offering not unlike when Kwei had brought him a generous helping of food or his favourite snack after a brotherly prank had stung more than intended. “My sister-”
He does not care to hear more. “Don't like sister either,” he cuts her off gruffly, uninterested in discussing Tessa in any way other than how he would like to scatter pieces of her all over Genna if he gets the chance.
“Why are you speaking its language?” the tool questions, and instead of answering Thia looks helplessly at him as if waiting for him to give her some guidance.
An idea forms in his head and his mandibles pull apart slightly in a sneer. Perhaps he will be able to get one of his desires fulfilled before he dies. If it means he can deny them any chance of extracting information about his things from him then all the better. “Tell tool you're asking about the device.”
He does not expect her to go along with his commands... but she does. “You heard the orders. I'm asking it to explain this device,” she says as she nods at the contents of the box.
The bait is taken, to his delight, and the tool approaches the toy to pick it up. “What is the device?”
“He's asking about the device,” she repeats somewhat unnecessarily, affecting the air of a true interrogator. Then again, perhaps it is necessary; the tool seems far less intelligent than Thia and Tessa. Good. It serves his needs well.
“It's a children's toy.” Something compels him to tell her the truth even though his trust in her has been shattered beyond repair and it might ruin his little scheme. “But say it's a map.”
Confusion clouds her features but the tool's request for a translation prompts her into resuming her unwitting part in his plan. Like a hooked hurasse being reeled in for the kill, the tool expresses a desire to learn how it works.
Dek makes sure the instructions he provides deliver the most damage possible and lets out a bark of triumphant laughter when the tool's head is reduced to a white splatter that covers the nearby surfaces.
Predictably, Thia does not share his delight. “That was a toy for children?!” she asks after she pulls out the strange wire Tessa had put in her head, her voice and expression full of bewildered horror.
“Yautja children!” he reminds her, still exulting in his small success. Perhaps her knowledge of his culture was not as extensive as she had claimed if she did not know something to simple. Not that it mattered anymore. His act of open defiance will be punished and a swift death is sure to follow-
She swings herself around to push some buttons on the wall next to her and the shackles binding him spring open just as more tools armed with guns begin to march into the room.
Instincts override his surprise and he slides over the edge for cover against the gunfire that is sure to come. As he does, he quickly scans his surroundings for any weapons he can use-
But Thia surprises him one more time, pressing another button that triggers a loud blaring noise which fills the space around them and a softer hiss closer to him. “RUN, DEK!”
He freezes, his gaze whipping around to stare at her only to be distracted by the dull groaning of the transport's loading doors slowly opening right next to him to reveal wilderness and, more importantly, freedom.
In that moment, the memory crystallises in his mind, crisp and clear as if the event had just happened: Kwei, sending him flying into the safety of his ship and shutting the door before spinning around to fight off their father as best he can.
No. Not again.
He turns to look at Thia but she only stares back at him with open desperation – desperation for him, he realises, not herself.
Unlike the fight with the Kalisk, she does not hold out her hand in hopes he will save her.
She does not intend to go with him.
Even if it means she will most certainly die.
Dek sees it replaying before his eyes: Kwei, lying on the ground with Njohrr's blade embedded deep in his torso, his own sword to his right and his gauntlet to his left – the choice between potentially saving his own life and saving Dek's – and choosing, even as Njohrr drags him painfully up on his knees with said blade, the gauntlet.
Just as Kwei had chosen to cut Dek's bonds instead of his head.
“Be brave, brother.”
“GO!” Thia screams at him in the present as the promised gunfire begins to rain down around them. “GO!”
“Bring it home.”
His fist slams into the side of the transport, not unlike how he had banged uselessly on the ship's door as he had watched Kwei die, and he throws himself out to the mercy of Genna.
In the cacophony that assaults his ears as he tumbles further and further away from the still-moving transport, he thinks he can still hear Thia screaming at him to save himself.
After everything he has been through, finding Kwei's ship brings Dek little comfort.
He limps his way through the wreckage, the sudden realisation of all he has lost hitting him all at once like a physical blow. In a way, his wounds making their existence known is almost a blessing – a distraction from his thoughts that gives him something else to focus on as he scours the ground for anything he can use like a filthy scavenger.
It does not last, however, and soon he is left with nothing but the darkness and the thoughts he can no longer ignore.
First Kwei and now Thia.
Kwei, who had been tasked with killing him more than once but had chosen instead to give him a fighting chance at every turn.
Thia, who had used him to achieve her own goals and then thrown away any chance of saving her own life in favour of helping him escape.
She had defied Tessa just as Kwei had defied Njohrr... and both had paid the price.
The rage that had been dulled in all the chaos comes thundering back to life inside him and he lashes out, arms and feet slamming against everything within reach for lack of a meaningful target.
Kwei should be here instead, standing tall and whole. Kwei should have lived instead, not ended up cruelly torn apart at their father's hands and denied his honour even in death. Kwei, the stronger, better, braver one between them. Kwei, who had never once failed a hunt or needed to run from a fight.
As if in response to his thoughts, the ship sputters to life.
Startled, he pushes himself to his feet and tests the controls, not daring to allow himself to believe... but the ship eventually responds to his commands after a few desperate tries. “Enter destination coordinates, Kwei,” it intones, its mechanical voice uneven and distorted by damage.
Blinded as he is by his unexpected fortune, he turns sharply, half expecting his brother to emerge from the shadows behind him as if the past few days had all been a bad dream.
But there is only empty air in the dimly lit corridor.
In a trance, he walks the ship's halls, following a trail he is only faintly aware of until he finally arrives at the main trophy room.
The bare middle wall confirms what he had already suspected – Tessa truly has taken everything he had left – but when he brings his hand up to rest on the open central storage space, something compels him to reach inside.
His hand finds the mask hidden in the sand and he holds it up so the ship's lights can illuminate its finer details.
Perhaps Tessa had not taken everything after all.
The mask stares emptily back at him and memories of Kwei surface in his mind again. This time, however, they are happier memories – memories of sparring sessions, of shared meals, of lessons taught not with harsh blows but with gentle guidance...
“You saved me, brother,” he whispers into the air, wishing he could have said it to Kwei himself.
Kwei had given his life for Dek; to die now would be to destroy the last shred of honour Kwei had left to his name.
Thia had saved Dek's life without any concern for her own; to confront Tessa would mean throwing away her sacrifice as well.
Kwei's ship is functional; with some repairs and no interruptions, he should be able to at least leave Genna with the life they have both gifted him.
He can flee and survive... or he can stay and fight.
The choice is before him now as it had been for Kwei: the sword or the gauntlet.
It is an easy choice to make.
“Wolf,” he growls lowly, flexing his mandibles around the unfamiliar, alien word.
Tessa had said something about putting Thia in a box. She had not used the word 'kill'. That means he still has a chance to be the one who protects instead of being the one who is protected.
If Thia is still alive, he will rescue her.
If she is dead...
If she is dead, he will keep his promise and make sure Tessa feels every second of him crushing her skull to dust with his bare hands.