55.
Riddick: Cry for Her
Still and pale, Jack lay on her side in the bed that had once been hers. She didn't move as Riddick began yet another stitch.
He'd set up an IV drip for her, mostly a transfusion of whole synthblood but with a touch of sedative mixed in. He glanced at it periodically. He knew it would be enough to replace the blood she'd lost, but he was still uneasy. It was the last. Until they got to Daedalus, there was no more blood in his med locker. He already knew she couldn't have a transfusion from him; that was one of the things he'd checked on right away when she'd first returned to his life.
Now he concentrated on stitching her wound shut, knotting the newest suture carefully.
She'd been amazingly lucky. The bullet had grazed her in passing and was probably buried in some lawn on the Rue Mercredi. It had sliced her like a knife, though, ripping through her flesh. Another centimeter or so over and...
No. He wouldn't think about that. She was alive and she would be well and that was all that mattered. In another week he'd see to it that her skin was flawless once more, too. This was the last bullet she'd ever take for him, he vowed.
Problem is you just run right at those things, kid, he thought wryly as he prepared the next stitch. Been doing it since I first met you.
She'd volunteered to go in after Zeke, or so he'd been told later. Carolyn had been forced to restrain her from rushing into the coring room after Ali. Paris had had to do much the same when she'd tried to run back for Shazza, and Imam himself had held her back from hurrying to his aid along with Carolyn.
"Gonna have to discuss this heroic impulse control problem of yours," he told her quietly. He couldn't feel anger about it, though. He suspected it was that sort of natural selflessness within her that had enabled him to rediscover his own humanity.
Jack's only response was a low sigh. She was still under, of course. He turned his attention back to her wound and began another stitch. At least he was familiar with treating battle wounds--
Battlefield doctors decide who lives and dies; it's called triage, a voice he knew all too well commented in his head.
Fuck off, Billy. A low growl escaped Riddick's throat. The memories, however, surged forward.
He'd never really despised William Johns until the end, when the man had tried to connive him into killing Jack. After all, he was a realist; he knew that he'd almost single-handedly destroyed the merc's life three years earlier; had very nearly killed him, in fact. But he'd been surprised and increasingly disgusted by the depths to which the former "William the Conqueror" had sunk.
The drugs had made a certain amount of sense, at least. He'd heard, through rumors, that it had taken Johns almost a year to learn how to walk again. At first he'd been grudgingly impressed by how far Billy had managed to come, but not for long.
Walking with him, ahead of the others, he'd understood and even somewhat approved of the plan; sacrifice one life to save five. From a coldly logical standpoint it made perfect sense. Until Johns tipped his hand completely.
"You do the girl, and I'll keep the others off your back."
That was when Riddick knew, for certain, how many games Johns was trying to run at once. He'd expected the man to nominate Carolyn. Those two had been locked in a power-struggle ever since the eclipse had begun, and she had seemed the logical target for Johns to pick. Or, perhaps, the holy man, who had sided with her in the latest round of that struggle. But Billy hadn't. He'd picked Jack.
Yeah, there was some logic to it. She was the one who was bleeding already, the one the creatures were smelling. But...
But.
But it would strike at all of the others like a mortal blow. Carolyn loved the girl, calling her "sweetheart" and promising never to leave her. Imam had taken her under his wing. Suleiman had shown signs, since her true gender had been revealed, of solicitous gallantry toward her. Her death would wound the group severely.
Did Johns even realize that? He had to. The man wasn't stupid, after all. Was he trying to hurt the others because they hadn't automatically turned to him for leadership?
And what of little Jack herself?
For a moment he could actually see it in his head: he'd lead the girl aside, just a little way from the others. Only far enough so they couldn't reach him in time to stop him. She'd go with him willingly, that trusting look in her face -- an ache lanced through his chest at that. He'd reach for his shiv and-- no. He'd need it to be instant. The idea of her feeling a moment's pain, even a split second's awareness of his betrayal, nauseated him. The vision fell apart.
Billy, you sick fuck, he thought to himself. Maybe I should thank you for showing me where my limits are.
Could he stand by and let Johns do it, he wondered, before the final realizations fell into place. Billy wouldn't do it. The motherfucker had a plan behind this.
Have big, evil convict Riddick kill an innocent member of the group and butcher her. Have everyone else hate Riddick for her death, but be unable to act against him. Get everyone to the skiff. Break the deal and put Riddick back in chains for transport back to Nereid. No one would stop him. No one would speak against him. His hands would be bloodless and he would be a hero.
And little Jack, the only one in the whole group who had really liked or trusted Riddick from the beginning, would be dead by his hands.
You insidious son of a bitch. That was why Johns had targeted her and not Fry. That and the fact that he would need a pilot, and the only other one available would soon be back in chains.
"It's not too big a job for you, is it?" came the fucker's voice from behind him. Suddenly Riddick realized that he needed to kill something... or someone.
There's only one person in this group I can kill with impunity, he thought, before he slowly turned around. There was only one person in the group, he realized, that he wanted to kill. This time he would make no mistake.
"I'm just wondering if we don't need a bigger piece of bait," he replied, and watched as slow comprehension came to the other man's eyes.
It was a very good kill.
In the end he let one of the creatures take Johns. But it was still his kill; Johns died by his design if not by his hand. He watched it happen, studying the way the creature moved, the way it attacked. He felt inordinate satisfaction as he watched it feed.
Time, he finally told himself, to go after the others.
Shouldering his lights once more and climbing a slight embankment, he was amused to see that the four remaining survivors had gotten turned in a circle and were running back toward him. He let them come to him.
The moment that burned him inside, however, was when Jack got upset over Johns' death. The man had wanted to throw her to the flying, keening wolves that infested this planet, and she was mourning his loss! He stepped close to her, conflicting emotions passing through him. He wanted to shake her and tell her to open her eyes. He wanted to... what, hug her? Comfort her? What the hell was wrong with him suddenly, anyway?
"Don't you cry for Johns," he finally growled softly. "Don't you dare."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the holy man stiffen, comprehension on his face. So, he thought. Somebody else knows what almost happened here.
He moved past the girl and headed into the bonefield, seeking out the sled with the precious fuel cells.
Never cry for him, Jack, he thought as he walked. Not one tear.
The last of the stitches was in place. Riddick sat back, surveying his work.
They looked horrible.
Oh, there was nothing wrong with them, other than their mere presence. Each suture was precisely placed, carefully laid so that Jack's skin would heal with minimal scarring. Any that actually occurred would be regened away when they got to Daedalus station, but...
They still looked horrible. Obscene. Jack's body was not meant to be broken.
Riddick's understanding of human anatomy was absolute and had been for a long time. He knew the names and locations of every bone, every organ, every muscle group and nerve center, every blood vessel. He knew exactly where to strike an opponent to paralyze or even kill, but...
Looking at Jack now, he understood the wonder of it, the way that it all came together in grace and beauty, in a totality that went beyond miraculous. He'd been worshipping her body for days, yes, and memorizing every inch of her, but the full power of it only hit him now as he stared at her wound and was outraged by its presence.
Did other people feel this way? He imagined they did. He imagined they must. It came to him, suddenly, what the parents of his chess club friends must have felt as they looked at the broken, butchered remains of their sons. That outrage, and the devastating, soul-extinguishing loss he'd felt when he'd believed Jack to be dead.
He'd spent years trying not to imagine how they had felt. A shudder passed through him and he forced those feelings back once more. That was something that could never be undone, and could never be forgiven, no matter what he did or became now. It had to be left in the past, an ineradicable blot on his newly-rediscovered conscience.
When his psychosis had first come upon him, he hadn't been sure whether it was an exultant dream or a terrifying nightmare. Images and ideas had begun to haunt him; odd hungers and thirsts had plagued his mind and soul. He'd held out for almost five months before he was no longer able to resist the siren's call of the madness within. Pent up for so long, it had exploded out in a terrifying, devastating maelstrom.
He honestly had no recollection of killing his chess club friends, although he knew he'd done it. Sometimes hints of his memories of that evening would surface; he banished them as quickly as he could, not wanting to see the terrified, pleading faces in his mind's eye. They were mixed in with other fragmented memories from those five years of madness -- the moment when he snapped his first cellmate's neck in a prison brawl, the feel of a guard's hot blood sluicing over his hands -- but he tried not to recall any of them.
Because those memories were tainted... with unspeakable pleasure.
Yes, a part of him hungered after that violence, yearning for it still. The animal within was alive and well and knew exactly what it wanted -- blood and death. It hungered for the kill always. With every waking moment, he could feel its restless pacing within him. It had taken him five years to cage it, to become its master.
And still, now and again, it escaped and went on a rampage.
He'd been wrong, he realized. In between the night when Ruth Baker and her toy-boys had tries to poison him and the day of the space battle, there had been one other time the beast had gotten loose. The consequence of that time had gone beyond horrific -- it had been the first genuine tragedy of his adult life.
And it had happened the very same night he'd finally killed William Johns...
As one predator to another he'd understood those creatures all too well. He could feel the frenzied drives that motivated them as they completed their nocturnal revels. Fight. Mate. Hunt. Feed. The primal urges of all living things had been heightened to the screaming point as the creatures emerged for their one long, special night of freedom after twenty-two years of subterranean imprisonment.
Yes, he knew exactly what they were feeling.
On this one night the world above was as hospitable to them as the world below. Predators and prey alike had come out while they could. Riddick and his fellow survivors were really just targets of opportunity for the creatuures during their planet-wide feeding frenzy.
And he could feel that hunger. His own growled in answer. Most of the beasts skirted him, rightly sensing that they'd come up against a deadlier predator than themselves. But a showdown was inevitable.
Riddick couldn't believe his stupidity in sending all of the light ahead with the others. Crabbing backwards up the hill as a particularly huge beast stalked toward him, he could feel its animal hunger clawing at him. His own snarled back, raging at him for his idiocy, for the self-sacrificial behavior that had brought him to this low.
Move it, you stupid fuck!
He rolled over the crest of the hill and sprang to his feet, racing after the others. Around him the sounds of pursuing creatures dogged him. Only a few were really all that interested, he realized as he ran. Most hadn't gotten a taste of human flesh and blood and were only mildly intrigued by the strange beasts moving through their mating and feeding grounds. But a few were dogging him with a voracious hunger. They'd tasted the blood of his kind and wanted more.
Abruptly, he was cut off and had to duck into an alley. He kept moving, his shiv clutched tightly in his right hand. Any moment one of those fuckers would actually catch up to him and the game would end. Turning another corner, he skidded to a halt as one of the beasts glided down, landing just in front of him, its back to him. He made his decision as it began to turn.
Blind spot, he reminded himself. Get close up, step in.
In a second he was nose-to-nose with the great beast. With every bit of strength and grace he possessed he swayed along with the creature, staying in the one area where he was completely invisible to it. Its mouth opened and he could smell the familiar stench of human blood on its breath.
I'm doing it. I'm really doing it!
He could have killed it then. He should have killed it. He should have taken his shiv and opened it up on the spot. But he didn't, too enrapt with the deadly little dance they were swaying in.
Finally the creature moved away.
I did it, I fuckin' did--
Another one landed behind him, crying in triumph. The first whirled back, now spotting him. The dance, he realized, was at an end. He shouldn't have let it go on so long in the first place. Now he was very likely fucked.
As slowly as he could, trying not to draw attention to the movement, he raised his shiv.
Now.
Riddick lunged forward, darting beneath the first creature's arms, the shiv arcing out. Even as blue blood and gore spattered his hands he felt a sharp sting by his ear and knew he'd been clawed. The creature fell back, squealing in mortal agony and he turned to deal with the other--
--and screamed.
Fiery agony lanced through his thigh as the second predator sliced at his left leg. He could smell his own blood now, sharp and, yes, copperish. He'd been felled; he was surrounded. He was going to die...
The scream transmuted into a guttural roar as the animal burst its cage. A new dance began, the Dance of Death. As squeals and hoots echoed through the night, marking the approach of other predators, Riddick's blade flashed out and sliced through the clawed arm of his attacker. Now it screamed, falling back. He pursued, slicing open its belly and grasping at its innards with his free hand. Even as it fell, convulsing, he heard another landing behind him. He whirled, roaring his aggression.
Kill! the animal shouted, exulting. Kill everything! He would go down with the blood of as many of them on his hands and in his mouth as he could manage.
Distantly he thought he heard someone shouting his name. He ignored the call. It had no meaning to him now. Another beast fell before him, its head almost sliced off of its body, and he whirled to face yet another.
He lunged forward but this creature fell back, retreating from him. It fled into the night even as yet another sound came from behind him and he whirled, shiv arcing out toward the pale blur now before him--
Oh fuck, NO!
Pulling the blade back cost him his balance and his momentum carried him crashing into some barrels, but he did not slice Carolyn's throat open. Later he would wonder if she'd even realized that the business end of his shiv had come within a half-inch of her jugular.
Within him, the bestial side raged. Blood was blood, it snarled, and hers would be every bit as good as any of the beasts he'd been killing. His body trembled as he fought the urge to continue his berserker rampage.
Not her, he growled back at it. Not her!
She hurried to his side, oblivious to the war raging within him. He knew she was looking at his wounds and imagining him to be in terrible pain, believing him horribly weakened. True, he was hurting, but not that badly. But all of his energy was going toward reining in the animalistic violence that had been unleashed, and now did not want to stop. It wanted her.
Run, he tried to tell her. Get away from me now! But all that emerged was an agonized, incoherent wheeze.
Her arms slid around him. "Okay, hold onto me," she whispered in his ear as she tugged at him. "Hold onto me."
He didn't dare obey her. The shiv was still clutched deathgrip-tight in his hand. If he raised it the monster within him might turn it on her. He forced his arms to stay limp as she pulled at him.
The hunger stirred again as she tried to drag him to his feet. All of his energy was focused on battling it back; he couldn't help her. He couldn't even tell her how much danger she was in from him at that moment.
"We're gonna get out of here," she hissed, and tried to make him take a step forward.
Let me out, the beast demanded again. Let me feed! Images of what it wanted to do to her spooled out before his eyes and he recoiled in horror.
"Okay, I've got you, come on--"
He staggered and collapsed, too busy restraining the beast within to navigate the world without. It was roaring at him, filling his head with its fury. He could barely hear Carolyn shouting at him over it.
"Come on, Riddick! Get up! Get up! GET UP!" The fury in her voice finally penetrated the red haze swimming around his head and he managed to focus his eyes on her. An ironic smile quirked her lips as he stared.
"I said I'd die for them, not you, now let's move."
Her remark confused him. He managed to stagger almost upright, clinging to her. His shiv was still in his hand, dangerously close to her back. He tilted his wrist to keep it pointed away from her. She began to maneuver him through the alley, slowly turning the two of them around and around. Taking a deep breath, Riddick shoved the beast back further down and managed a few stronger steps of his own.
The end took them both by surprise. Even as his strength began to return and his self-control reasserted itself a shock jarred both of them. He heard Carolyn's abrupt intake of breath and saw her eyes widen and dilate with sudden pain. A new blood-scent entered the air and he knew that she was bleeding now.
For one terrible, heart-stopping moment, he honestly thought his hand had slipped and he'd stabbed her. But no, his wrist was still turned, keeping the shiv away from her. He hadn't done it. Something else had.
He could feel it as the life began to drain out of her, could see it in her face. He'd been here before, after all, many times; he knew very well what it was like to watch someone die. But he'd never, ever in his life felt such a powerful, overwhelming urge to stop it, to roll back the moment. Within him the animal had finally gone silent, stricken as well.
No... he thought in sickened denial. Not her...
But it was too late. Carolyn Fry was dying in his arms. He couldn't do anything to stop it. Their eyes met, for one final moment, and an odd smile appeared on her lips. It would haunt him for years as he wondered what it meant, and what her final words had intended.
Abruptly the moment ended as she was jerked back. He lunged forward, grasping her hand, but it slid out of his grip. As he watched in powerless horror she was pulled back into the night and lost.
He really wasn't injured that badly, but now his legs gave out, completely numb beneath him, and he fell back down to the mud. This wasn't supposed to have happened... she wasn't supposed to die for me!
"Not for me," he rasped, shudders wracking his body. Gaining a little strength, he shouted it again into the pitch black night around him.
As if from a distance he observed himself with ironic detachment as, just as he'd feared he might, he begged the night to give her back. It was the animal itself that cried out in pain and remorse now, for the first time in its savage life.
"She didn't have to die..." Jack's words echoed mournfully through his mind. She'd been talking about Shazza, but it was even more true of Carolyn.
If he'd acted like a man before and gone back for the others without prodding, she would have lived.
If he'd had better control over his inner beast and had carried his own fucking weight, she would have lived.
If she'd had enough sense to cut her "losses" and leave him to the grim fate of his own making, she would have lived.
Carolyn Fry was dead, not by his hand but by his design, a design he'd scribbled in a moment of casual, brutal selfishness. Kneeling in the mud, he found himself wanting to follow her into the darkness--
"Fry? Riddick? Hello?!"
Jack.
He had to get the girl and the Holy Man off this rock.
Grimly, hating himself, he rose, picked up the dropped bottle of glowing larvae, and slowly made his way the final distance to the skiff. Imam and Jack were standing on the ramp, peering into the darkness. Their smile at his limping approach faded as they realized he was alone.
"Where's Fry?" the girl begged. "Is she okay?"
He couldn't do more than shake his head silently. Imam stepped back as he climbed wearily up the ramp. Jack followed him in, a choked, suppressed sob escaping her throat.
Turning to look at the girl, he saw the odd, pained contortions of her face as she tried to hold in her tears, attempting to hide her grief away from him. He put his hand on her shoulder without even thinking.
"It's okay, Jack. You can cry for her."
She sank down onto one of the seats against the skiff's walls, tears now in her eyes.
Cry for her, he thought again as he pulled himself wearily into the pilot's chair. He closed his eyes for a long moment as he reached for his reserves. His eyes were dry, as always. As far as he knew he hadn't shed a single tear since he was seven years old. Cry for her, Jack. Do it for both of us.
Lying beside Jack now, his hand on her still cheek, he wondered if he would have found tears at last if she'd died. Would they have finally come? Or would everything human within him have died with her, and the chance of tears ever coming again along with it?
He wished he could see normal colors again. He thought her color was improving, but he couldn't be sure. Of course it should be, after all the synthblood he'd transfused into her. His thumb gently swept over her lips, caressing them.
Jack stirred, her lips parting. "He's gonna be so upset..." she murmured before going still once more.
Now what did that mean? He wondered if she was referring to her gunshot wound... or to those blasted disks.
He'd put away all of the medical supplies just a few minutes ago. Along the way he'd found the bag of disks she'd been so determined to bring home. He had no idea what was on them, but there was no way it could have been worth the risk to her life.
Still, they were important to her. He had resisted the impulse to throw them away in his anger over what they'd apparently cost her.
Gonna be a long week, he thought to himself. He'd have to be very careful with her. The stitches were in an awkward place, a part of the body that tended to bend and stretch and so even normal movements would likely pull at them. She'd be on the lightest duty he could come up with. Training would be suspended in most areas... and sex would be just plain out of the question for a while.
That would probably have been true even if the injury had been in a less delicate place, he reflected. Physical trauma was rough on the libido, leaving all of a body's nerves raw and on edge. A simple, gentle caress might be intensely uncomfortable to her while she healed. He knew that from experience; a few of his worst wounds had even managed to kill his own sex drive for a time, as he recalled.
But at least, this time, he wouldn't have to hide his thoughts from her. This time he could admit to his feelings, rather than concealing them. If he became to aroused in her presence and had to pull away, at least he could admit to it.
It amazed him, sometimes, how much closer to humanity she'd brought him. Carolyn had made him want to be a better man; Jack had showed him how to become it.
Who knows? he thought as he closed his eyes. Maybe she'll even show me how to cry someday.
At last he slept for a time, knowing Jack was safely in his care once more.
56.
Jack: I Will Remember
Strength gradually flowed back into Jack's veins with the synthblood, but the sedative held her firmly down. She was caught, enmeshed between sleep and wakefulness. For a long time she simply floated.
It was a place she'd inhabited before. Random hours had been spent in it over the course of a two-month period. At any other time she had no recollection of it -- no idea, even, that this place existed -- but from within it she could see back to those other days. Memories stirred and opened to her.
"Sir, there's no way of determining when or how her hymen was ruptured. Strenuous physical activity has been known to--"
"I need to know. Ask her."
"Why is this so important?"
"I need to know whether he did it. Now ask her. That's an order. She can't lie to us in this state, can she?"
"No, Sir."
"Ask. Now."
One of the voices was familiar to her, conjuring an image of a gaunt, grey-haired man with hawkish features and glacial blue eyes. Reg... Uncle Reg. That was the name that came to her. Once there had been poisonous hatred associated with his face and voice... but with a different name. Now only a sad longing remained.
"This changes everything," his voice came to her out of the past. It was later. How she knew that was unclear, but it was something she knew with certainty. "Other arrangements will have to be made."
"Are you sure, Sir?" A new voice. Not the same person he'd been talking to before. "Surveillance has already been organized around Boris Kowalczyk's house--"
"I'm not putting her back in that environment. Not even if it would draw Br... Riddick out. We know what that... kindermar would do to her in the meantime."
"The General isn't going to like this."
"The General is welcome to have his own little girl accompany Audrey back there if he pleases. Otherwise, she doesn't go back."
"Then where do we put her?"
"Somewhere secure, obviously. Put together a list of juvenile homes and shelters in and around New Sacramento. Ones for girls only."
"Girls only? Why?"
"It'll minimize Riddick's ability to reach her without our knowledge."
"Do you really think he'll try to?"
"Yes, Sergeant. Sooner or later he'll come for her."
"And we'll be ready."
"That remains to be seen."
I need to remember this, she thought to herself from the haze in which she floated. This is important.
Time spun out for her and Lieutenant Reginald Jarvis's voice came to her again.
"Is the memory block in place?"
"Almost done. I just have to give the final commands. She won't remember any of the questions we asked her."
"Did you add what I asked you to?"
"Yes, Sir. She'll have full memory of what Boris Kowalczyk did to her, but the emotional impact of it will be muted. She won't have any lingering trauma or neuroses."
I will remember, Jack insisted, latching onto the conversation. I will remember, I will remember...
"If I may ask, Sir, why is this so important to you?"
"I owe her, Private. That's all you need to know."
His voice faded out even as she struggled to hang onto it. The harder she concentrated upon it, the further away it went. Jack reached out, desperate to grasp it before it was gone--
She woke to darkness.
Of course she did. That was, after all, Riddick's preferred environment. He functioned best when he didn't need shielding for his eyes and could rely on their full sensory range. Jack waited, letting her eyes adjust to Riddick's world. It happened quickly; they were already dilated from the sedatives he'd given her.
He was lying next to her, deeply asleep, one arm outstretched to drape across her shoulder.
I will remember, she thought as the words echoed through her head. She snatched at them, wondering what they meant. Hospitals, something to do with hospitals... and Jarvis... and... and...
It was gone. Whatever it had meant, she'd lost it.
Remember what? She frowned and struggled to find it, but it slipped further away from her. Uncles. It had to do with uncles, but she couldn't think how. Uncle Reg? Uncle Boris? She had the vague idea that it somehow had to do with both of them.
Ridiculous. The two men had never met and couldn't possibly be less alike. The drugs had made her a little kooky, she decided.
She could feel, now, how stiff and painful her side had become. Part of her was tempted to wake Riddick up and ask him to give her more painkillers, but he looked exhausted. No, she wouldn't wake him. He shifted a little in his sleep, a low, purring growl stirring in his chest. She wondered, suddenly, how close to the surface his inner beast had been pushed by the mistake she'd made.
Once upon a time it had been a side of him she'd been unwilling to face, or even admit existed. She was better about it now, she realized. She could accept its presence within him; she could cope with its hungers and rages. It was part of who Riddick was and had to be accepted and loved along with everything else. She'd said so, before, when he'd confided in her about his own fear of it, but she hadn't fully known it until now. Why now?
Something in her memory had shaken loose, she realized. She closed her eyes, concentrating on it, grasping at it. I will remember, she told herself again, frowning. Finally it came.
Alouette.
She'd been eight years old when it had happened, during her visit to her mother's family on New Belgium. Unlike the semi-sterile world of the mining colonies, terraforming had long since been completed on this planet and the countryside of this world was teeming with life and brightness. Aunt Josette lived on a farm with Uncle Henrí, cousins Renaud and Jeanne, and several cats. One was named Alouette.
She and Alouette became fast friends. Whenever she took a break from the fascinating but exhausting process of trying to interact with and understand the local children, Jacquí -- she was Jacquí then, after all -- would lie on her back in the guest room with Alouette resting comfortably on her stomach, watching her with half-lidded mint-green eyes and purring. She'd watched in rapt fascination, as well, as Alouette stalked mice and moles in the gardens and fields. A love had formed between them, and Jacquí had been tempted to ask her Aunt Josette if there was any way she might take the cat back with her when it was time to go home.
Those days had been full of discoveries. Jeanne, although five years older, was attentive and responsible and determined to show her cousine a good time. The nest of rabbits was found only a week before Jacquí's scheduled departure. She spent an hour or so marveling over their beauty, careful not to touch them or get her scent into their nest.
Alouette found them half an hour after that and killed them all.
She remembered screaming at the bewildered cat, her hand flashing out to strike at her flank and knock her away from the pitiful, bloodied little forms whose perfection she'd admired not long before. She remembered Alouette's reproachful hiss before the cat streaked away into the vineyards. Her aunt and mother had come running and, between her own semi-coherent sobs and Jeanne's oddly caustic comments, pieced together what had happened.
Explanations had slowly emerged. Alouette, she was told in gentle, patient tones, was a farm cat. Hunting was her duty and wild rabbits, lovely as they were to look at, bred excessively and did a lot of damage to the farm. Jacquí had sniffled and nodded, acknowledging but not really accepting the explanation. Her father had come to her later with another, simpler way of looking at it.
Pyotr Nikoliavich Kowalczyk had been a man caught between two worlds. In his own family he was the Black Sheep, disapproved of but still loved even though he'd discarded academia for a life of working with his hands. To his wife's family he was an odd, somewhat aloof man who read too much and talked too little. He only truly found his sense of belonging when he was alone with his wife and daughter, in the pocket world they'd made that was perfectly suited to him. Jacquí had always understood that about him; perhaps it was why he'd understood Alouette so well, and had been able to explain things to his daughter.
"You can't expect her to be something she's not," he'd told her, sitting on the foot of her bed and resting one large, work-calloused hand on her ankle. "She's a cat. Cats are predators. It's not just her duty to hunt, it's what she is. Don't punish her for being a cat. There's nothing else she can be."
It had sparked questions, and the two had talked for some hours about the nature of instincts and the ways people could tie themselves into knots when they went against them. Her mother brought up their dinners that night; father and daughter continued talking until it was time for bed.
Alouette crept into her room after the lights were out.
The cat was hesitant and skittish until Jacquí patted the bed. Then a thunderous purr erupted and she jumped up. Soon Alouette was in her usual place, nuzzling and licking at Jacquí's chin while the girl cried silently. Forgiven so easily, she was left face-to-face with her own intolerance toward a side of her friend she hadn't wanted to see. It left her irrevocably altered.
Girl and cat had remained close for the rest of the visit, closer than ever in many ways. But she didn't ask Josette to let her take Alouette back with her. The cat would never be happy in the barren, preyless world of the mining colonies. Her nature would be denied. She was a predator and needed to be where the prey was.
It was only years later that she'd realized Alouette had been careful, after that, never to hunt when she was around.
Jacquí had never seen the cat again. By this time, Jack realized -- she was Jack now, after all -- Alouette would have been dead for years. But the lesson lived on. She opened her eyes again and gazed across at Riddick.
My dad would've liked you, she thought. He'd probably have worried, of course, but I think he would've understood you just fine.
She examined Riddick as if with new eyes, seeing both the man and the predator, inextricably linked. They were one. She knew that now. What she'd skimmed of the Charybdis files before fleeing the library had made that abundantly clear. The hunt was in his blood, an essential part of his nature. Man and beast could not be separated out.
And she loved him anyway. She would always love him. Just as she would always love Alouette.
He is what he is, she thought to herself. He is what they made him.
Riddick's breathing changed and she heard him swallow. As she watched, his eyelids fluttered and lifted. Twin pools of silver gazed at her through the darkness.
"Hey," she rasped, and then coughed to clear her throat. His lips creased in a sardonic grin in response. "Shit, I think I died and came back as a frog."
His answering chuckle was more felt than heard. "You didn't die. I wouldn't have let you." His arm shifted until the palm of his hand was resting on her cheek. "How do you feel?"
Jack grimaced. "Pretty sore."
Riddick stroked her cheekbone with his thumb. "No big surprise there. You were really lucky. You're gonna be in a lot of pain for a few days."
I will remember, she thought again. Remember what? Something to do with Reg--
"He saved me, Riddick. He helped me get away."
Beside her, Riddick went still. "Jarvis?"
"Yeah. I mean, he could have stopped me without even trying. But he let me go. He made sure none of the other soldiers could come after me."
Riddick didn't speak for a while. When he did, there was a strange note in his voice. A hint of buried pain. "Why?"
I will remember. Jack closed her eyes and tried to force the memories to the surface, but they wouldn't come. Just that tantalizing aroma again, something buried, almost within reach.
"He... everything changed... when he realized I was alive. Riddick, he was happy. Happy to see me. He wanted me to tell you something, but whatever it was, he couldn't say it." She frowned harder, struggling to grab at the elusive memory. Love? Did Jarvis love Riddick? Was that what she'd sensed?
How was that possible?
"He cares about you. I don't know why or how. I think it's what he wanted me to tell you."
Another long silence greeted her. After a moment, Riddick sighed. "Oh."
One word. But she could hear the volumes of pain in it. He shifted on the bed and whispered something else. She frowned, catching the words but not understanding them.
"There is no fucking Bryan?" What does that mean? Maybe there would be something in the files that would tell her-- shit!
"The disks..." She didn't know where they were. It'd be just her luck if she'd dropped them on the launch pad and they'd been incinerated. "Where are they?"
The annoyed distaste that suddenly entered Riddick's voice surprised her. "Those things." He nodded toward the dresser. In the darkness she could only just make out the amorphous outline of the plastic bag holding them.
The relief abruptly coursing through her was intense. "Thank God..."
"I hope they were worth it," Riddick grumbled.
She glanced back at him, confused by the sudden undercurrent of anger in his words. "Sorry?"
"Well, the damned things got you shot, Jack. They almost got you killed. There'd have to be something pretty fuckin' special on them to make it worth--"
"They're the Charybdis Project files," she interrupted. Beside her, Riddick went still. For a moment he even stopped breathing.
"Are you sure?" Was that awe in his voice?
"Yeah. I got them with Jarvis's clearances. Managed to download everything, I think."
"How?" Yes, that was awe.
"I used his retina pattern. The scanner didn't seem to care that he was unconscious when I did it." An odd pride welled up within her. It really had been a good plan. If she'd left a minute or two sooner, she'd have even managed to get away clean.
"And you got... everything?" Still that amazement in his tone. Of course. He'd been trying for almost five years to get to his records. Now she'd gotten them for him.
"Everything." She reached out and touched his arm, even though the motion stirred sharp pain in her side. "But I want to look at the files first, Riddick."
She couldn't see his frown in the darkness but she knew it was there. She could feel it. "Why?"
Jack sighed. Here we go, she thought. Make it good.
Riddick was waiting patiently for her answer.
"I already know... some of what's on there. I've read bits and pieces. And I know you're going to find it very upsetting." She swallowed and wished she could see his face better. She knew he could see hers perfectly, after all. "Painful. I want to look it over first so I can help you prepare yourself for the things you'll be reading. What they did to you, and to others like you--"
She felt his sudden flinch.
"Yeah, Riddick, there were others. And what was done to you -- all of you -- was really horrible. So... give me a while to look the files over? So I can help you deal with it?"
He was silent for several minutes. Finally: "That bad, huh?"
Jack nodded.
"Okay. You paid for them with your blood anyway; you call the shots."
She felt him take her hand and draw it to his face. As his lips brushed her palm, she closed her eyes once more.
So tired... so tired... She fell asleep with her hand still resting against Riddick's mouth.
It was another day before she felt strong enough to get up and walk around. Riddick's attentive care of her during that time was absolute and amazing. She snagged the set of data disks as he helped her out of her old room.
"Why'd you put me in there, anyway?"
He chuckled. "Didn't want blood all over our bed. Plus, I wasn't sure if I was gonna have to strap you down to keep you from hurting yourself, and the straps are sized for that bed."
"Oh. Makes sense. What are you gonna do with that room now, anyway? I mean, we sleep together now."
"I've got an idea."
She glanced over at him and caught a secretive little smile on his lips. "Really? What?"
"Something that should keep you out of trouble. I'll tell you all about it soon. In the meantime..." He grinned more broadly at her and steered her toward their bedroom. "...I got a surprise for you."
Jack gasped as they entered the room.
"You like it?" He waited for her to answer and then chuckled when she continued to stare, her mouth agape and speechless. "I'm gonna take that as a 'yes.'"
"How did you -- when did you--?" she managed at last.
He chuckled again. "I did it while you were at the library. Remember how I was taking apart the cockpit comm system? I was getting ready to hook all of this in."
He gestured, grinning, at the huge screen dominating one wall. His hand moved again, drawing her eyes to the data ports and peripherals discreetly mounted on panels on either side of their bed.
"I can't believe it..."
"We were going to have a big Movie Night when you got back from the library, originally. But that'll wait until you're healed up again. Until then..." He steered her over to her side of the bed. "You still need to rest and heal. If you're gonna study those disks, better you do it here in our bed than sitting in the copilot's seat. Deal?"
Jack found herself laughing, glancing up at him as he sat her down on the bed and took off her shoes. She'd only just put them on, doing so despite Riddick's mysterious insistence that she wouldn't need them. Now she knew why he'd said that. "So I'm on bed rest?"
"That's right." He lifted her legs up and moved them onto the bed. Jack grinned and let him arrange her position.
I'm probably the only person in the galaxy who knows this side of him, she thought. The memory of Alouette, similarly tender, stirred again and made her eyes sting.
Riddick's eyes met hers and he frowned quizzically. "You okay?"
She nodded. She couldn't explain it to him yet. Soon, maybe, but not yet.
"You sure?"
"Yeah. Just... a lot of old memories got stirred up while I was under. Don't know why." She gave him a wry grin.
Understanding appeared on his face. "Ah. Yeah, I kind of had the same problem, myself." He leaned in and kissed her forehead before rising from his crouch. "I'm gonna be down in the engine room for a while. Gonna give the atmospheric thruster system an overhaul. That should keep me out of your way for a while so you can look at the disks. You need anything, you buzz me, okay?"
"Okay." He bent down and gave her another kiss, this one on her mouth. She watched as he headed for the door. "I love you, Riddick."
He paused. The face he turned to her was gentle. "I love you too, Jack."
They watched each other for a long moment, both of them unmasked and vulnerable, before a smile quirked his lips. He stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him, leaving her alone with the new comm system and the disks.
Jack took a deep breath and powered up the system. Taking a disk at random from the bag, she inserted it into her terminal. She had to take another deep breath as she opened the first file.
Everything, she quickly realized, was out of order. It was as if she'd opened a book she'd heard about but never read at a random page and was trying to deduce the story from that spot. Her first few hours were spent just shuffling through the disks, seeking something -- anything -- that would lead her to a good starting place. Tantalizing hints of what she suspected came to her along the way, but nothing that she could use to ground and orient herself.
Finally she found her way in. The story revealed itself to her at last.
I was right, she told herself with a deep, unhappy sigh. Dammit, I was really hoping I'd been wrong about this.
She began to read in earnest, following the records of Riddick's conception and birth and the links they led her to. The Project was larger and more pervasive than she'd ever realized--
There it was, the story of Evelyn Broward, the first Scylla Child. Riddick's kin? Maybe. A little less than kin and more than kind, she misquoted ruefully. She read the logs of the girl's care. For five years Evelyn had been kept at a medical lab on the edge of the Frontier Systems, until it was determined that she posed no biological threat to her caretakers. Then the Tribunal had ordered her brought to Earth for further study.
The first complication had come when she arrived on Earth and was brought out of cryo. The girl had gone into a catatonic state; it took three months to bring her out and another two before the cause was determined. The discovery that she'd spent the full eleven months of her inbound trip awake and aware in her cryo-tube led to pages of vehement debate. No one was at all sure how that was possible or what could be the cause. When Evelyn finally committed suicide at the age of fourteen, the debate flared up again; had her ordeal in cryo-sleep been the cause of her mental instability?
Tests with some of the first-generation Scylla Children showed that they all stayed awake in cryo.
A link from there took Jack back into Riddick's own personal information. Evelyn's ordeal was cited when the Tribunal refused to grant the Jarvis family permission to have Riddick join them in cryo-stasis while his "Uncle Reg" was on assignment.
He lived with Lieutenant Jarvis? Jack thought in surprised wonderment. How come he never mentioned that?
Was it part of the oddness between them? The hints of love, of longing, of bitter betrayal? When they'd squared off in the space battle it had been deeply personal. Enmity born of curdled love? Maybe.
She would have to ask him soon.
She began examining more of the links. One -- file FP74E -- caught her eye. It was about neurological regeneration, she noticed, a supposed medical impossibility. She hunted through the disks until she found it.
The first portion of the file was dull and difficult. Jack waded through the technical language slowly, managing to absorb most of it. The researchers were attempting to use the Scylla Spore's properties to promote brain cell regeneration, somehow. How they'd come up with that idea, she couldn't even begin to guess.
The clinical trials had started almost a year before Riddick went insane. Twelve Alzheimer's patients had been treated with inert Spore RNA. Although five had begun to show promising results, the tests had abruptly ended with Riddick's arrest. His volatility was cited, along with the fact that the events in file SCRBR27 -- the very events that had initiated the clinical trials -- might be responsible for that volatility.
It took Jack ten minutes to find file SCRBR27 on the disks. She realized what the "events" had to be almost immediately. It was the night Riddick's foster parents had beaten him, back when he was seven years old. She found herself staring in horror at the file's photos of his injuries.
Riddick had mentioned that his skull had been fractured, but he'd never even hinted at anything like this! She scanned the accompanying notes and began to understand why, very quickly. He'd never known.
Massive cerebral hemorrhaging, she read, and felt her stomach turn. Riddick hadn't merely been beaten; he hadn't merely cracked his skull. He'd been annihilated. What the hell had they done to repair that kind of damage?
Nothing. She studied the notes further. His fate had been sealed, as far as the doctors were concerned. All they were waiting for was the arrival of an authorized party to allow them to disconnect life support. They were waiting for the arrival of Lieutenant Reginald Jarvis.
Then the EEGs began registering activity. New CAT scans were run. Jack gasped as she viewed their results.
That's not possible, she thought. Her limbs felt oddly weightless. Brain cells don't regenerate! And they don't get replaced! Even Regen clinics can't make that happen! How the hell...?
Scylla. Of course. What else could it be? The Spore had made fundamental changes to every cellular -- and even sub-cellular -- structure in his body; why not his brain cells?
Jarvis arrived even as Riddick's brain-waves settled into normal, healthy patterns. The next pages were filled with details of the ensuing cover-up. Doctors and nurses were bribed, reassigned, or transferred to other hospitals in other cities. New charts were written up for the public records, designed to indicate that Riddick had never been in any danger of death.
Riddick himself was spirited out of the hospital and placed in Lieutenant Jarvis's custody and care. He would spend his summer as a guest of the Jarvis family, undergoing a battery of aptitude tests, while the cover-up continued. Officially, he'd been moved to another facility. In fact, he was fully recovered and playing with other children -- Reginald Jarvis's children.
I will remember. It stirred again. That was why. That was what she'd seen in Jarvis's eyes. He'd come to love seven-year-old Richard Bryan Riddick, while the boy had stayed with him. Everything that had followed -- the psychosis, the imprisonment, the pursuit across the stars -- had been personal for him. He'd been attempting to recover the little boy who'd climbed into his heart that summer, or to avenge his apparent spiritual death on the beast that had seemingly evicted and replaced him.
Jack exhaled a shaky breath and turned back to her reading. Amazing how much they'd had to do to hide Riddick's miraculous recovery.
The police had had to be handled with the greatest care, of course. They'd had to be given the impression that Riddick's recovery was due to a successful experimental treatment, which the military was only slightly involved in, and not in any way due to his own unique nature. The impression had been meticulously constructed for them. Finally, when they had come to accept it, they were told that Riddick was expected to make a full recovery. Only one charge of homicide could be filed against the Moffets--
Oh fuck.
One charge of homicide. Jack shuddered, knowing what she was about to read. She linked over to the connected file and felt her gorge rise.
Christina Elaine Frost, age seventeen. Raped by Joshua Terence Moffett and stabbed to death by Claire Montgomery Moffett. Pronounced dead at the scene... pronounced dead in seven-year-old Richard Bryan Riddick's bedroom.
And they'd never told him. For twenty-five years, he'd believed that his foster sister was alive somewhere; he'd believed that she'd survived the abuse and cruelty "Mr. and Mrs. Holy Roller" had put her through. For twenty-five years he'd had no idea that Christina had been murdered that night.
Jack only realized she was crying when the tears began dripping off of her chin and onto her arms. Of everything she'd learned, this was what she dreaded telling him most of all.