(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)
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Chapter 11
Bare Necessities
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Life snuck back in gradually. Soft sounds, distracted murmurs, occasional clicks and clinks, snaps and taps filtered in through a fog, but as soon as he was conscious of it, the fog began to fade. The scent of something rich and meaty crept down his nostrils and twisted his stomach into a knot of hunger. He opened his eyes to a familiar stone ceiling, was covered with a familiar fur blanket, and experienced a curious sense of déjà vu, but this time he knew the name of the girl at the table. "Hey, Daria," he called quietly.
The girl reacted immediately, dropping her tools, although her hand wasn't far from the knife at her waist. "Mr. Riddick," she exclaimed, "You're better!" She got up and moved around the table to almost an arm's reach from the bed to look at him as if she couldn't believe her eyes. Weary relief was written on her pretty features, "God," she paused suddenly and glanced upwards as her hand went to her lips, "Sorry," she murmured then looked at Riddick again, "I was worried 'bout you!"
"You got anymore of that drink the Doc left?" he asked feeling parched.
"Yeah," she immediately head for the 'kitchen.' A short time later she was back with a cup. Riddick rolled up on one elbow to take it feeling aches in his body that told him he'd been lying still for way too long, but he was gratified that his hand remained steady as he took the cup and drained it. He saw a shadow of wariness enter her eyes at his new mobility, but he ignored it. The best way he knew to reassure her was keep it "normal" and keep eye contact to minimum for awhile.
"Your Doc is a stubborn man, you know that?" he commented wryly as he handed it back to her.
"Yeah, he is," she smiled faintly as she cautiously took the cup back then retreated to a safe distance. "I ran into him on the way back. He said you two had talked a bit. He was grumpin' that you were pushing yerself too hard. Said he kept telling you ya needed ta lay down and get some rest but you were bein' a real jerk about it. He was this close," she lifted her hand and measured out a thin space with her thumb and forefinger, "ta dropping a bomb in yer drink when you finally gave in."
"Why does that not surprise me," Riddick muttered, then cocked his head and glanced at Daria, "Jacobson said I was bein' a jerk?" he asked bemused.
"No, Doc Josh," she enunciated the Doctor's nick name as if Riddick had just insulted the man, "said you were being…," she paused a moment, reviewing the syllables before she spoke them aloud, "…recalcitrant. I figure it means the same thing."
"Doc Josh," he replied with faint derision indicating he had heard her correction, and didn't much care, "can keep his mothering to himself. I get hurt, I push through. It's how I survive. How long'd I sleep?"
"It's tomorrow afternoon," she answered soberly, "You been asleep a whole day."
"32 hours," Riddick shook his head in amazement, "Guess I was tired."
"It was more than that," Daria contradicted, and Riddick looked at the girl strangely, "Doc Josh told me you'd probably sleep most the night. But you weren't just sleeping, Mr. Riddick, you didn't even move," the remembrance of a different kind of fear touched her face, "Fer awhile yer breathin' was so soft it scared me, an I couldn't get you ta wake up! I couldn't get hold of Doc Josh neither; there'd been an accident; he was in surgery… I thought you might die, Mr. Riddick. Wasn't till this morning that you finally moved a little." She suddenly shifted away and wrapped her arms around herself. "I didn't sleep none all night. I was so scared I was even beggin' God not to let you die," her voice caught as she tried hard not to cry, then her head lifted and she met his eye, "please, Mr. Riddick, don't do that again," she pleaded.
Riddick was almost stunned. It had been a while since anyone cared if he lived or died. He also had to admit that maybe the Doc had known what he was talking about. Riddick could deal with that. "I won't," he agreed holding her gaze. For a moment he saw beyond her veil of fear and found yearning and concern and hope and expectation. She thinks I'm her damn knight in a bullet proof suit, he thought, and for a moment he felt a near foreign sensation, uncertainty. He hadn't signed up to be anybody's hero. Last time he'd done that he'd been worked over five ways from Sunday, but that look... "I won't." he repeated.
It felt strange and discomforting to know someone was looking up to him... someone who saved his life... someone whom he might just have to screw over to get what he needed. He snarled internally, frustrated with this sudden attack of principles. "I been layin' down too long," he said gruffly ending the conversation and the thought process.
"OK," her eyes widen briefly, a cornered look dominating, then she caught herself. "You're probably hungry," she said hastily, "I made extra for you,"
"Yeah, that'd be good," Riddick nodded, and as she fled for the 'kitchen' he pulled the blanket off and swung his feet to the floor. He moved gingerly, expecting fireworks, but except for a brief narrowing of his vision his head it held together.
"Here you go, Mr. Riddick," Daria said a few minutes later as she cautiously set a bowl of thick stew on the edge of the table. He could see chunks of meat and some sort of vegetable or two he didn't recognized swimming in a rich brown broth and the nearness of its scent only increased the sharpness of the knot in his stomach. Riddick ignored it, reminding his stomach who was in charge as he pulled on his boots.
"You know, most people call me Riddick," he said offhand trying to ease the tension his movement was causing. She nodded as if she heard him but it didn't really make a difference, "This mister stuff ain't what I'm used to."
"Doc Josh says it's disrespectful to call a person by just their last name. Says it's impersonal and rude," Daria explained a little nervously watching him.
"Can't say he's wrong," Riddick replied thoughtfully, pointedly ignoring her wary behavior, Mercs an military certainly ain't what you'd call personal organizations, he agreed silently. Out loud he added, "I certainly don't travel in what anyone would mistake as respectful circles. So what's it mean if he calls you by your first name?"
"That you mean something to him," she said simply, and Riddick sensed some of her apprehensions easing as his attention remained on his boots.
He knew that would be the answer, but it surprised him anyway. "How could I mean anything to him? He don't even know me," he scoffed.
"Doc Josh cares about most ever'body," Daria answered, defense of her keeper putting some 'stiff' in her backbone, "but he spent over 5 hours unsquashing your brain and putting that jigsaw puzzle you call a skull back together. You mean something to him."
"He's a doctor. It's his job."
"An why do ya think he's a doctor?"
"It pays good," Riddick answered flatly.
At that Daria gave a most unfeminine bark of laughter causing Riddick to look up suddenly. "You're kidding, right?" She stared at Riddick, and when his face remained unchanged she shook her head. "Dude, you don't know nuthin' about Doctor Joshua," and with that she walked down the hall and began rummaging through a storage unit along one wall that had been divided into cubicles across its width and height. A dismissal if he'd ever gotten one, although he wasn't being ignored completely. Even as she worked she was very careful to keep him in the field of her peripheral vision.
Riddick stared at the girl with amusement. As if he wanted to know anything more about Joshua Jacobson. There were things a lot more necessary. Riddick finished securing his boots then collected the stew from the edge of the table. Daria, for instance, and the information she had been sent to collect. And as she walked back in with a circuit board, glancing surreptitiously at him and the bowl in his hands with more than caution in her eyes, he knew just how to get her talking again. Wasn't a cook in the universe that didn't like to hear how good their grub was. He doubted the girl was an exception.
Two and a half bowls later he had the information he needed, and he hadn't even had to lie. The girl did stir a decent pot of stew and most of her intel was just as satisfying. The locks on the outer doors were not among the codes Steven had given him, but then if things went his way he wouldn't need them. He did have the codes for the lock on Vanessa's cell, and that put having Daria pull Vanessa into the duct system in the realm of feasible. There was an aspect to that plan that did not sit well with him. He disliked putting such a critical part of the operation in someone else's hands, especially some twip of a girl, but the alternative was infiltration on a much grander scale; something on par with going in to take out Steinen himself.
While Riddick had to admit that there was a certain appeal to the thought, the risks made it way too big to be considered, especially alone. It's a cryin' shame it ain't more possible, he chuckled to himself, That certainly might take care of the communication problem. No head: no orders. 'Course there's no way of knowin' how fast his boots'll be filled, or if we could get off planet in the ruckus.
He reached up, running his hand through his hair as he considered his other problems. In the absence of a Big Freeze, he needed someway to get through Steinen's grid without setting it off and/or to prevent Steinen from scrambling the squads he had stationed in this system if it did – of particular concern since he was pretty sure his ship's PACIS ID had been leaked. Riddick knew his ship was good, but Steinen had access to some heavy firepower of his own. Nor was Riddick confident he could take on all the ships Steinen might throw at him with just himself to handle the stick, gun, and nav in every skirmish. Computers were only so much help in a firefight. Stealing another ship might be a better option… his fingers hit the bare skin and ridges on the back of his head. And then there was that. He didn't have a mirror, and he wasn't sure he wanted one. He pulled out his boot knife and tested the edge. Some things were more immediately necessary than others.
"Hey, Daria," Riddick called over to the girl where she was working on the other side of the table as he ran his hand over his half shorn head again, "Ya got something slick around here? I feel like some lady's lapdog."
Daria looked up sharply at his voice, then saw his rueful gesture and giggled. "A lap mastiff, maybe," she teased.
Riddick threw her an irritated look, "Yer funny. Help me out here."
That actually made her laugh then she looked over her table considering her little pot of grease and the near empty bottle of lubricant as she pursed her lips in thought. Finally she looked up at him again, "Don't got enough of nuthin', except maybe, well," she hesitated and Riddick looked at her impatiently, "well, there's Butter Stuff in the stasis box."
"Butter Stuff," Riddick repeated in exasperation, then after a moment reconsidered. Butter on Trishary 4, such that it was, was reserved for the tourists and those that could afford it. The rest had to make do with the universally available reconstituted, stale tasting butter flavored crap not so fondly called Butter Stuff. Some had even better names for it. It might be good for calories if the oil in it were actually organic in nature, but on some planets there was even some question as to that. But he wasn't going to eat the stuff. "You might just have something there, kid. Smart thinking," and with that he got up, striding for the stasis box, his boot knife casually twirling in his hand making every effort to ensure no movement of his seemed a threat toward her, and as he turned back around, Butter Stuff in hand, he caught her watching at him. She immediately ducked her head back down to her work, but not before Riddick caught the flickers of a genuine smile at the edges of her mouth.
A few minutes later had Riddick sitting on the edge of the bed with the crock of Butter Stuff on the floor next to him. His brown hair turned black as he worked a handful of the greasy stuff over his scalp, then picked up his knife and began scraping carefully. It wasn't the first time he'd gone bare. Part of his initiation into the Hubble Bay slam system had been a complete shave – to prevent the transmission of undesirable vermin they said, but they weren't fooling anyone. There were other ways just as effective. Humiliation and identification were their angle. It was a bit like the animal handler's trick of shaving the tail of a new work beast. When other handlers saw the 'shave tail,' they knew to watch themselves and pair the rookie up with an older, more experienced animal. By the time the newbie's tail grew in the beast had been indoctrinated into the system.
Same concept. ID the rookie so the rest of the inmates could introduce him into the system properly, break his spirit, teach him manners, but Riddick didn't go for that crap. He broke a few heads, a few arms, a leg or two and the rest learned to leave him alone, bare head or not. He finally decided to keep the 'do' though, not for any esthetics, but because it shortened his time in the showers and let him get a decent workout on occasion. It hadn't taken him long to earn a reputation, and after a while, when some other facility foisted its problem child off on Hubble Bay, it became Riddick's job to initiate them.
These kind of guys would come in looking to carve themselves a niche right off – advertise, draw attention, warn everybody what a bad ass they were – but most would be smart enough to pick a target that would get them noticed without ruffling some local crew's feathers. Shave heads were prime prey. The first time the transfer was introduced to the prison population, the Hubble Bay guards would arrange for it to be during Riddick's general rec period in the dog run and if the transfer was stupid enough to try establishing himself by taking on the young muscle bound 'newbie', the guards would casually turn their backs while Riddick taught the smart ass his place in the new joint. After he checked himself out of Hubble Bay Riddick let his hair grow out, but now that he'd done both he'd decided he might just stick with the 'clean' look. To be sure, anything was better than what Jacobson had left him with.
As he worked, he watched the girl at the table. She had a new device spread out before her and as he arranged the pieces together in his mind he recognized it as a small shield generator. It was relatively recent technology. They hadn't yet managed to get them big enough to cover whole ships like they did in the science fiction movies, it took too much energy, but personal sized ones were popping up here and there among the rich, famous and desperate, and after what he'd seen, he suspected they were being packed in survival gear here on Trishary 4. This particular unit had seen better days. The exterior housing looked to have taken quite a battering; including exposure to extreme cold, and it wasn't long before he realized this was the shield Daria used to save him from the Big Freeze. After it's inert exposure to Big Freeze conditions many of its components were nonfunctional, and most people would have just thrown the unit away considering it more trouble than it was worth to fix, but Daria was making short work of the task as she nimbly jerry rigged some pieces and swapped out others from the odds and ends she and Jacobson scavenged. Her skill was impressive, especially considering her age.
"Just how old are you?" Riddick asked.
Daria had decided she was comfortable with his new mobility so long as she stayed on one side of the table and he stayed on the other by the bed or further and didn't make any sudden moves, so she didn't jump when he spoke this time.
She paused in her work and stopped to consider the question. "'Bout fourteen I think, maybe near fifteen," she shrugged, "Was somewheres 'round thirteen when Doc saved me, and I been living here little over a year." She went back to her work.
"How long you plan on livin' down here?" He looked around. As holes went it was quite comfortable, but it was still a hole.
"Depends," she mumbled around the soldering tool she held in her teeth as she repaired a circuit with multiple wires. It took her a minute, then she set the soldering tool down and connected the circuit board to a small power supply, "Doc says when I'm old enough to take care of myself decent he'll help me get off this ice ball and send me somewhere Steinen can't find me." She picked up a diagnostic display that showed evidence of similar restoration and began aiming it at circuits, "But if something happens to Steinen," she glanced hopefully at Riddick then looked back to the display and made an adjustment, "Doc says he'll 'dopt me and I can live with him."
"Dopt?" Riddick repeated peculiarly.
"Yeah, you know, 'dopt, when folks take a kid nobody wants and makes 'em part of a family," Daria explained patiently.
"I know what adopt means," Riddick replied reluctantly, "Some couple found me in a trashcan when I was a baby. They adopted me, but it didn't last long. They got killed and I was somebody else's problem from then on."
"Their last name Riddick?" Daria set her display down and lifted her head to look at him. He nodded, and she shook her head, a look of soft pain crossing her face, "That's sad, but they must have loved you."
"Why would you say that?" Riddick asked, surprise making his voice curt.
"You got a name don't you?" Daria's eyebrows knit together trying to understand his irritation. "When a kids born ta folks they're supposed ta want it. They made it. They're – what's the word Doc's always usin' – they're responsible. But 'doptin', that's different. Those Riddick folks, they had a choice. They could have left you off in some orphan house, but they didn't. They 'cided ta take you in; gave you a name, made you a Riddick too." She paused, then looked down at her project, poked at a few wires for a moment as if recalling something she'd rather not, "I got no name but Daria, and that weren't the one I was born with, if I had one at all. Got left in the baby drawer at an orphanage on Turad-Baken. Lived there my whole life. Would'da got ta pick my own last name when I come of age, but Steinen found me first. Paid my fees and dragged me with him when he came back here. Said I was his ward, but I was more like his slave... his toy, and he don't play nice with his toys," she shuddered, "He 'specially don't like it none when his toys talk back. That's how I met Doc Josh. Wasn't right what Steinen done."
She fell silent for a time, then looked up to meet Riddick's eyes, "Know what I really want? I want ta belong ta someone. Not belong like they got a paper sayin's they owns me, that they can do what they want with me, but that I belong with 'em. Like you had. You know what I mean? You're one of them; family, like you look out for each other... keep each other safe." She smiled as if she were sharing a secret, "There's something special about knowing someone loves you enuf ta try an do what they thinks best fer you even if it ain't always what's best for them. Ta know someone's worrin' about you and if'n you're in trouble they'll be there for ya," she said wistfully.
"I think you got that already," Riddick responded wryly recalling his conversation with Doc Josh.
"Yeah," she acknowledged, "but its not quite the same. Doc Josh does that, but if'n he has ta send me away and something happens, I'm alone. If I'm legal 'dopted, I don't just got a home, I got family. Don't matter where I go, I get in trouble and I know there's somebody they can call who's gonna come. And family don't expect nothing in return, they're gonna be there just cause they care about me... Daria Jacobson." She giggled, "Its gotta ring to it, don't ya think?" Then she grew serious, "Doc'd do that now, but Steinen's got those papers saying I'm his. Even if he didn't, it'd be hard to pull off. Most the judges here ain't straight anymore, an the ones that want ta be have ta be real careful. Steinen gets lots of cheap work through the legal works. Any kid that don't got family to claim 'em goes into Steinen's system. Calls it child welfare, but its more like getting took as a slave. Most boys end up on his police squads or labor gangs. Girls get kitchen, laundry... some…" she stopped suddenly then shrugged, "But that's the difference. Knowing someone cares enough ta want ta look out for ya, ta make ya legal theirs but not because they want somethin' from you. Ta know that come good or bad, freeze or shine, they've claimed ya fer their own blood and you don't owe them nothing for it cause they want what's best fer you. That they're givin' you... their leavin' you with the best thing they got."
"The Riddicks didn't leave me with nothing I know of," Riddick shook his head, "If they did I never got it."
"Yeah, ya did," Daria corrected, "That's something I learned early. Things don't stay and people can't be trusted. There ain't no thing you can hold to that someone can't take, but what yer folks left you, Mr. Riddick, no one can ever take from you now. It's not just havin' someone there -- I know you don't got that no more -- but it's the knowin' in yer heart someone really cared… that they wanted so much to keep you... to keep you safe... that they made you theirs... really theirs, and they were your's. They gave you that, Mr. Riddick, they gave you their name. Doc has this book he reads all the time; calls it the Bible. Makes me learn stuff from it sometimes," she made a face and Riddick smiled, "but there's this one sentence I remember. Thought it was kinda nice. Goes something like, 'A good name is more better than lots of money(1).' That's what I want, Mr. Riddick, a good name."
"And what's a good name?" he asked thinking of multiple possibilities.
"A real one... a legal one. One that says somebody really wants me fer me, and not fer what they can get from me. You know what I mean?"
Riddick thought briefly about those distant years when he had wished someone cared, when he had been sure the only thing necessary to make his life right would have been a family that wanted him. He supposed it might be true. By Daria's definition he had a good name. Maybe the Riddicks' had loved him... they'd taken a baby thrown in the trash and made him theirs - they'd been his... for a time. It wasn't their fault they weren't there when he needed them, but the result had been the same. "Yeah," Richard Riddick answered softly, "I know what you mean."
-oOo-
Special note to JackylnK – Hope your still reading because I wanted to let you know I had to laugh when I was reading your story, "Where You Headed?" and got to the part about the mastiff. You see, I had written the lapdog conversation for this chapter before I had even found the Fan Fiction site. Great minds think alike? LOL
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CARE TO LOOK THEM UP? Here's the Bible references used in this chapter:
1) Proverbs 22:1