Refuge- Part 1
Author: mirawesting@hotmail.com
Content/Safety level for children: CAUTION
She stood motionless on the balls of her feet twelve meters away from him.
When she moved, she was silent but when she was still, the air around her
seemed to crackle with some sort of inhuman energy. This was the first time
that Riddick had seen her but her smell was familiar...very. After a month
on the second rate trading vessel, Riddick knew the distinct scent of all
eleven other passengers although he had only been formally introduced to
two.
"Who's she?" Jack piped up from his left. They'd been restrained in such a
way that they could not see each other and conversation had been minimal for
a few weeks.
Riddick did not answer her. Partially because he did not know. Mostly
because he was still busy watching the girl -
-As she watched him. Intently. Although he could not be sure, she looked
as if she were making a decision; like a cat poised directly between hissing
and purring. A simple once over would have convinced most that this
particular female was better suited to the latter but something in her
stance suggested hidden danger. Maybe it was the way she held herself,
perfectly positioned to either attack or defend. Maybe it was her smell -
clean, deep and dark. Maybe he'd seen enough evil to recognize in human
immediately.
Maybe it was just the fact that she was in a room that no other civilian
would even approach. And she was drawing closer to him. When she was only
a few feet away, she crouched and continued her scrutiny up close. Riddick
let her. Meeting her gaze when it finally fell on his face, he waited for
her to finish her appraisal.
"You're the killer." Her voice was husky, unexpectedly so. "How many did
you kill?"
"I didn't count." It was a lie but lying was not his worst sin.
"How long is your sentence?"
"Life."
A slight smile curled the curled the corner of her lips causing Riddick's
blood to heat. What kind of reaction was that? Fear, he'd understand.
Loathing, pity, shock even but...pleasure, fiendish glee - she was asking
for a world of pain. "What do you want?" Cool menace was evident in his
voice.
The woman winked at him almost impishly. Suddenly, there was a movement
behind her, a hand came to rest on her head. The hand of a tall,
middle-aged man. Average looks, perfect posture, non-descript dress -
clearly a synthetic life form. Ten years before Earth's government had
spent hundreds of billions of credits to create an artificial intelligent in
the perfect image of man. Problem was they were too perfect - perfectly
polite, perfectly educated, perfectly average. Humans could pick them out
of a crowd at a hundred paces. The government had sacked the program and
employed the existing prototypes in a variety of administrative positions in
schools, orphanages and prisons. Riddick wondered what one was doing out in
the middle of explored space. Synths, typically, did not venture far from
where they were placed.
"Mr. Riddick, I assure you her curiosity is not idle." The synth tapped the
girl on the head once and she stood. "Detri, you know the rules." Turning
away from Riddick she shrugged and strolled off in Jack's direction.
Before the synth could follow her, another man joined them in the holding
room. After a month of solitude, it felt like a party - a bad one. Riddick
recognized the new man as the captain of the freighter. James McMasters.
He'd introduced himself to the merc who'd captured Jack and Riddick when
they'd come aboard.
"You said you could keep her under control!" The captain was a jumpy man
too young for his position. Having a murderer on his ship had made him
uneasy but he was plainly terrified as he watched Detri slowly circle the
room. Riddick observed the situation with great interest. "Instead she's
in here comparing MOs with the other serial killers."
"Detri is not a serial killer. And she was only discussing prison terms
with this man. She has an intense interest in the legal system." The woman
under discussion had again approached Riddick, the sardonic grin back across
her face. This time he studied that face carefully. Her features were
pretty in an off-kelter kind of way - eyes and lips too large, up-turned
nose, sharp chin and high, high cheekbones. There was what he assumed was a
very old scar starting high on her forehead and disappearing into her
hairline. The surgery had robbed him of the ability to ascertain precise
colors but her skin was light as was her hair. Blonde or strawberry.
It was not the face of a killer but no one was disputing that that was
exactly what she was. Her body was firm, not willowly, but womanly with an
edge. However, she was not large. Five foot five, he concluded. "Who did
you kill? A kid? Someone sick?"
She took a step closer an leaned down so that their faces were mere inches
apart. "Soldiers."
"Get that bitch away from my prisoner!" The merc, Lucas, stomped into the
room. "Put that crazy piece on a leash, Adams."
Detri laughed deeply and touched her fingertips to Riddick's shoulder.
Then, as Lucas moved forward, she slid across the room with another chuckle.
"You forget," the synth started, "Detri is not my prisoner. She was
released. She has done her time."
"Three years for three lives. Your girl won a sympathy play, don't make her
any less of a psycho." Lucas was an uneducated but highly self-appreciative
man. He had the build of the typical merc but not the cunning. Riddick had
no doubt that he and Jack would be free very soon. They would never have
been captured in the first place if Lucas had been working alone. The other
merc had been good. Men like Lucas and the late Johns could never have
competed against Snyder in his prime. But the merc should have retired.
Riddick almost regretted having to kill the old timer.
The synth was not worried as his charge sized Lucas up. "Extenuating
circumstances, Lucas. Her childhood made her unique but I assure you, she's
perfectly sane."
"Sure." The merc used sarcasm as a veil for his uneasiness as Detri
continued her assessment. Like a predator, Riddick noticed, she circled
occasionally closing in for a better look and quickly backing down. And
Lucas acted like prey, jittery, too cautious.
"Trust me," Detri's voice was low and seductive. She slinked closer to
Lucas.
He backed away. "Why should I?"
Detri returned her gaze to meet Riddick's. "I'm rehabilitated." She winked
at the shackled man and strode out through the same door from which she'd
entered.
"She might not be your prisoner, Adams, but she's in your charge." Captain
McMasters did his best imitation of speaking firmly. "Keep her away from
the prisoners." With this he, too, left muttering something about investing
in a ship with cryo-pod capacity.
That left Adams and Lucas to square off. The odds were weighed heavily in
Adams' corner. Not because synths were so much superior to the average
human male but because Lucas was far inferior. "Maybe someone bought your
'little girl lost' defense, Synth, but I don't."
"Have you heard her story?"
"She was abandoned. Just like thousands of kids every year."
If a synthetic life form could show exasperation, this one did. "She and
tweleve others were abandoned by their own parents when she was eight
because their mining community was infested by a nest of endomorphs. The
adults saved themselves and left these children to die."
Lucas rolled his eyes. "Endomorphs."
"Ask Mr. Riddick, a nest of endomorphs can be terribly unpleasant.
Territorial beasts. And hungary."
Riddick could easily picture the gaping jaws of the creature that had killed
Fry as she stood before him. Detri was a survivor if she'd lived through a
similar experience.
"She lived for ten years, Lucas, a little girl, hundreds of angry predators,
ten years. She watched her friends be eaten, she hid, she fought. When the
military landed they didn't identify themselves. She grew up fighting
everything that moved - she simply reacted."
"I don't see a lot of remorse," Lucas sneered.
Adams shrugged. "Prison didn't help."
"So you're telling me she's stable?"
Again the shrug. "Her psych evaluation is borderline. All three of the
surviving children share a similar profile. I don't know how or what she
thinks, no one does, but I've studied her for over four years now. She
won't attack unless provoked. Leave her alone and you have nothing to
fear."
"I'm not afraid of her."
"Then, you're not very smart."
End Part 1
go to Part 2
Email: slaygalx@aol.com
