He'd started shaving his scalp even before they put him in Slam. One day he'd woken up to his head itching, and when he went to scratch, his hair scratched back. Sharp, like wire. And then some of it was smooth and limp, oily. He'd looked in a mirror and seen his usual black hair interspersed with blonde. And red. And white. It had almost come as a relief.
When they finally caught up with him, stuck him away where no one would remember him-kept him, didn't kill him-he finagled himself a shine job. Not unusual for a convict who never expected to see the light again. But even after he'd escaped, the shine job was useful. Obscured the discoloration of his eyes. All the outside world saw was a common criminal, not a curse.
Some people hid themselves away, where they wouldn't come in contact with other humans. Or went out to the Fringes, where there weren't enough humans to worry about infecting. For a long time, Riddick hadn't cared. Let the whole human race touch him. Let the bastards see what the Wailing Wars had really been all about. Things happened Out There that no scientist could explain, or fix.
Pulse fire screamed through his memory-For fuck's sake, don't touch any of 'em!-making his eyelids twitch. Screams of the condemned, no judge or jury needed here, innocent of everything except being alive. He hadn't had much faith in the human race before the massacre. After carrying out his orders, he hadn't had any left at all.
The next wave came to kill off the killers, never suspecting that they were condemning themselves in turn.
Once Pandora's Box was open, no amount of murder was going to close it again. They thought orbital bombardment would stop the lives being wasted, but they were wrong.
A hot spark of consciousness shot endlessly through the stasis of his brain. Laughter. A party. Riddick shaking hands with as many ignorant fucks as he could manage. Welcome to my world. An alarm buzzing somewhere. When it got back to the politicians, when the whole Tri-System Congress suddenly and mysteriously went bald all at once, maybe this alarm would stop buzzing and he could sleep a while longer.
He opened his eyes, half expecting to wake up chained. But the clear panel before him opened at a touch, and he staggered out of his coldsleep tube and into the pilot's seat. Ship-his ship. This far out, possession was ten tenths of the law.
This far out-where the hell was he?
He slapped the alarm off. "Condition update."
CONDITION: RED. REALSPACE DRIVE DAMAGED. HULL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED. DISTRESS BEACON INOPERATIVE.
"Coordinates?"
COORDINATES: UNKNOWN.
"Reboot star chart."
UNABLE TO COMPLY.
"Run full diagnostic."
UNABLE TO COMPLY.
"Fuck!"
UNABLE TO COMPLY.
He switched on the viewscreen, but it came up black. He shut it down, switched it back on again. Still nothing. Then he looked at the sensor screen, at the impossible numbers scrolling up, giving him the specs of a ship docked at something that most definitely was not a station.
Now he knew why the screen was black, and he wondered if he should feel some kind of bitter homecoming.
The metal of the bulkhead warped and groaned, and Pierce felt herself go pale. Allis was still in the lab, still dissecting those things, completely oblivious to what was happening just outside his door. Somehow one of them had gotten loose. How could he have let that happen? And why wouldn't he have warned the rest of the crew? Jackass! she thought savagely. If he did know, if he's not dead already-he'd just want to see those things in action, and screw the rest of us. He just wasn't the same person he'd been at that first debriefing.
The bulkhead groaned again, and a handful of rivets popped out, zinging down the corridor like crazed crickets. She could see it now, see the way the numbers on the wall twisted and danced. Whispering a shaky curse-I'm not getting paid near enough for this!-Pierce took aim and let off a shot toward the visibly growing distortion. The pulse bolt disappeared half a meter away from its target. She cursed again, tried to turn and run though she knew it was already too late, and then her rifle was ripped away by invisible hands, hurtling off to land with a clang on the ceiling three meters ahead. It stuck fast. So did she.
Two pairs of feathered antennae emerged from the distortion, followed by an enormous set of mandibles. Six long, armored legs scrabbled onto the floor, making the steel shriek; a clawed tail whipped itself through, and the distortion vanished with an audible crack.
Pierce's feet turned to ice, and she could feel her hair standing on end. She looked down to see a new distortion growing on the floor beneath her; and above her, another on the ceiling. Grasping her midsection, writhing with the effort to escape, she hurled curse after desperate curse at the monster.
Bones in her feet separated, one after another, then in her ankles. She tried to fling out her arms, and felt muscles tearing. Pieces of her skull began to crunch and grind together, and she tasted blood. Her lungs were on fire, but suddenly the fact that she couldn't breathe wasn't very important anymore.
The air swallowed her last strangled scream, and the distortions popped out of existence, leaving only a spray of red.
The cracker hesitated. All four antennae tasted the fabric of existence. Mandibles clicked and chirred, and the long, chitinous neck craned in the direction of the lab, where it knew one of its fellows lay in pieces. It followed the curve of the hallway, tiny pincers on the feet grasping and pulling it along.
When the creature was gone, the rifle clattered to the floor. A minute later, it was echoed by a metallic crash from the lab.
"Who the hell are you?"
