Chapter 3 Run-in
"Hey, Phillips? Come up here and give me a hand, will ya?"
Jack pulled her head out of the access panel she'd been working in, plucking a small earphone out of her ear, and looked up at her partner. Using the back of her hand, she pushed at a stray lock of dark, blonde hair that had loosened itself from the braid that hung long and heavy down her back and now stuck in the sweat beading her forehead. "You say something, Davis?"
The young man leaned over the catwalk, smiling down at her. "You know, you might be able to hear me better if you didn't have those things stuck in your ears." Jack smiled, flipping him the bird as she pulled the other earphone. Bright green eyes laughed out from a freckled face as Davis motioned her to come up to the catwalk. "Why, AJ, that's sexual harassment in the workplace. I could bring you up on charges." He winked at her as she sat down next to him. "Unless it was an actual offer, in which case I'll let it slide."
"You wish, Carson." Jack knew that her partner had feelings for her, but she wasn't prepared to do anything about it. Carson Davis was cute in every sense of the word. Irish descent for as far back as he could remember, he had his mother's eyes and a shock of curly red hair on top of his head that he always said proved he must be the milkman's baby. He was nice enough, sweet. They'd known each other for what seemed like forever, having gone through engineering school together, and heavens knew Imam would be thrilled if she brought someone like him home for the holidays, but he just didn't spark her interest.
It wasn't like she was a virgin or a prude; there had been more than a few guys she'd dated off and on. After losing her virginity to Craig Latham senior year of college, she dated some, partied, had her share of one-night stands, but there was no one she wanted anything serious with. Wiping her hands on a shop towel, she threw it playfully in Davis' face. "You know you're too wild for me, hon," she teased, "now you wanna tell me why I hauled my ass all the way up here?"
Up to their elbows in schematics, it took them all morning to find and fix the problem with the water filtration unit for section D19. Finally, by lunchtime things were back up and running as they should be. Davis helped Jack up onto her feet and looked down at his watch. "Shit, we're going to have to scramble if we're going to make it to the Pavilion in time to meet Cassie and Alej for lunch." Quickly cleaning up their workspace, they ran as fast as they could to catch the transport tube that would take them up to the Pavilion. Laughing, and breathing heavily, they dropped down into their seats to enjoy the ride.
The Pavilion was located on the largest level of the station. 40% of the commercial business was done on this level. There were stores and shops of every type you could want or imagine. What made it a popular place for the 'locals' was a large park-like area with real trees and grass. There was a four-foot thick plexi-steel wall spanning the entire length of the park and towering fifty feet tall. As the station rotated, you could see the Orion cluster, a star group that had 3 white stars surrounding a nebula of gasses, ice, and other inert materials. It was an absolutely breathtaking site.
The gigantic space station was the size of a large city. The station consisted of twenty-two levels divided into 24 sections, A to X. There were sixteen space docks situated at various points throughout the fifteen- kilometer long hull. Twenty different residential areas and at least twice as many commercial ones filled the nearly 500 square kilometers of space. It took 12 teams of engineers and maintenance staff to keep the big bitch afloat. Roughly twice the size of New York City, what were the odds of running into a long lost friend?
Riddick leaned against the customs counter as he waited for his ship's documentation to be processed, warn denim hugging the lean line of his hips as he crossed one booted foot over the other. He was tired, and hungry, and just wanted to be done with it, but there was no reason to draw attention to himself by being a complete asshole. Pushing his dark glasses back up his nose, he waited, keeping an eye out for anything unusual, anything that might indicate that he'd been noticed, but nothing in the young girl's actions indicated that she thought he was anything more than he seemed to be, a miner on his way to Tau Omicron 4.
"Here we go, Mr. Torrence." The girl looked up from her computer terminal with a watery smile, handing him a keycard that would get him back into the berth where his ship was docked, an ident-a-chip that he could use should he wish to credit anything to his ship's account, and a passkey for the public computers. "There are 500 square kilometers in Orion station, but any time you feel you do not know where you are, you can use the passkey in any public terminal and find a detailed map that will help you reach your destination. If you wish to stay in one of our lovely hotel facilities, they can be found on levels 4, 8, and 14 in various sections throughout the station."
Dropping the cards into a pocket of his leather jacket, he shook his head. "Thanks anyway, but I'm just holding over until I can get refueled. I'll be heading out tomorrow."
A frown creased the young girl's face, and for the first time she looked nervous. "Didn't the Dock Master explain to you?"
*Shit. Here it goes.* Outwardly he kept his appearance of calm, internally his guard was up. "Tell me what?"
She gave him an apologetic smile. He could sense she was nervous, but it wasn't an 'oh my god, I'm dealing with a psychopathic killer' kind of nervous, it was more a 'damnit, they don't pay me enough to deal with this crap' kind of nervous. This made him feel only just slightly better. "Well, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Mr. Torrence, but we have had so many miners coming through and all... Well, we are expecting a shipment of fuel this week." She held her hands out in a gesture of helplessness. "It will be five days, at least, before we'll be able to fuel your ship."
*Fuck, fuck, fuck.* The only outward sign of his displeasure was the frown furrowing his brow, and the baseball hat he was wearing covered most of that, but damn he'd love to put his fist through something about now. "Five days? Is that the best you can do?" In five days he was supposed to be well on his way to TO4. Apparently not now.
The young girl merely nodded. "I am terribly sorry, Mr. Torrence. I thought the Dock Master had informed you." She gave him another watery smile. "But to make your stay more pleasant, all our hotels are offering rooms at half their normal rates."
He forced himself to give her a smile. "Thank you for your help, Louise." Turning on his heel, he took a deep breath and walked out of the customs office. *Five fucking days,* he thought, disgusted, as he walked out into the crowded shopping area, "shit."
Jack and Carson jumped off the transport and started running toward Pavilion Park. Laughing and joking, they weaved in and out of the crowds like errant school children running to play. "C'mon AJ, you're getting soft," Carson chided her as they neared the park.
"I can keep up with you any day, wus," she joked, running past him. A young mother, clearly agitated at being unable to find her husband, was speaking into her personal comm unit and didn't notice Jack running through the crowd. Pushing her stroller forward, she looked all around the area looking for her husband. Jack, for her part, wasn't paying much more attention and had to weave at the last moment to avoid crashing headlong into the stroller. Instead, her momentum carried her straight into a moving brick wall.
Riddick had noticed the people running through the crowd, but once he realized they weren't running toward him, he relaxed a bit, seriously contemplating finding a nice, dark, bar to hole up in for the next five days until the fuel shipment arrived. He hadn't anticipated the girl weaving into him the way she did. It was all he could do to keep from staggering backward as the full weight of her slammed into him. It was instinct that made him catch her before she could fall onto the floor, though he should have just dropped her on her ass.
At first, Jack didn't know what had happened. She knew she should probably be on the floor right now, but she was being held up by something. It took a moment for the realization that she'd hit someone to make it's way through her fuzzy brain. Shaking off the dazed feeling, she looked up, fully prepared to apologize profusely and thank the man for not letting her fall on her ass, but when she looked up into his face she was shocked into silence.
Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened as she looked at him and understood that she was actually awake; this wasn't a dream. He looked different, a baseball cap on his head, dark glasses, and he'd grown a goatee, but she would know him if he was dressed in drag doing the hula. This couldn't possibly be happening, he couldn't possibly be here, could he? His name hung in her throat, she was afraid to say it out loud, afraid he'd disappear. All she could manage was a weak, "I'm sorry."
Riddick frowned as he looked down at the girl, she was obviously pretty shaken up but she looked like she'd seen a ghost. She couldn't know who he was, could she? *Shit,* he thought, frowning, he knew his luck couldn't hold out forever. "You ought to be more careful," he said, quietly, a hint of a warning in his gravelly voice. Nothing he could do about it right now at any rate, but he'd have to keep an eye on this one until he knew it was nothing more than just her being shaken from the impact. He read the nameplate on her uniform, *AJ Phillips.* Well, he'd have to see what he could find out about Miss Phillips.
*He doesn't know it's me,* Jack thought, *how could he not know me?* The thought hurt. She managed to get her feet back under her as Carson came over to her side. "I truly am sorry," she said quietly, taking a small step back, wishing she could just throw herself into his arms.
"Is everyone ok?" Carson asked, as he put a hand on her shoulder.
Riddick looked over at the boy. "No blood, no foul," he said, a small smile on his face as he looked back at Jack. "Ain't that right?"
"Right," she agreed, offering him a weak smile. So many things were going through her head she was having a hard time latching onto any coherent thoughts. She had to figure out what to do. "Well, we'll let you get on your way." Reluctant to let him leave, afraid she'd never see him again, she forced herself to move, pulling Carson along with her, she headed toward the park. *He's here on my station, I'll find him again, or he'll find me.* That thought wasn't quite as comforting as she thought it should be.
It wasn't hard to keep an eye on the girl without being seen, especially with so many people milling about the shopping/eating area. Sitting down in a darkened corner of a small cafe, Riddick watched her as she and her friends ate their lunch. There was something oddly familiar about the girl. Something he couldn't quite place. Sipping his coffee, he watched her intently, the nagging question of what was going through her mind niggling at the back of his.
Jack looked over her shoulder as they walked away, but he wasn't there. She knew it was him. It had to have been him. It wasn't some weird hallucination because hallucinations don't feel like brick walls when you run into them, nor do they keep you from falling on the floor. He had been very alive and very real and now he was very gone. But something in her knew that he was close, watching her, now she just had to make him realize she didn't mean him any harm.
"Hey, Phillips? Come up here and give me a hand, will ya?"
Jack pulled her head out of the access panel she'd been working in, plucking a small earphone out of her ear, and looked up at her partner. Using the back of her hand, she pushed at a stray lock of dark, blonde hair that had loosened itself from the braid that hung long and heavy down her back and now stuck in the sweat beading her forehead. "You say something, Davis?"
The young man leaned over the catwalk, smiling down at her. "You know, you might be able to hear me better if you didn't have those things stuck in your ears." Jack smiled, flipping him the bird as she pulled the other earphone. Bright green eyes laughed out from a freckled face as Davis motioned her to come up to the catwalk. "Why, AJ, that's sexual harassment in the workplace. I could bring you up on charges." He winked at her as she sat down next to him. "Unless it was an actual offer, in which case I'll let it slide."
"You wish, Carson." Jack knew that her partner had feelings for her, but she wasn't prepared to do anything about it. Carson Davis was cute in every sense of the word. Irish descent for as far back as he could remember, he had his mother's eyes and a shock of curly red hair on top of his head that he always said proved he must be the milkman's baby. He was nice enough, sweet. They'd known each other for what seemed like forever, having gone through engineering school together, and heavens knew Imam would be thrilled if she brought someone like him home for the holidays, but he just didn't spark her interest.
It wasn't like she was a virgin or a prude; there had been more than a few guys she'd dated off and on. After losing her virginity to Craig Latham senior year of college, she dated some, partied, had her share of one-night stands, but there was no one she wanted anything serious with. Wiping her hands on a shop towel, she threw it playfully in Davis' face. "You know you're too wild for me, hon," she teased, "now you wanna tell me why I hauled my ass all the way up here?"
Up to their elbows in schematics, it took them all morning to find and fix the problem with the water filtration unit for section D19. Finally, by lunchtime things were back up and running as they should be. Davis helped Jack up onto her feet and looked down at his watch. "Shit, we're going to have to scramble if we're going to make it to the Pavilion in time to meet Cassie and Alej for lunch." Quickly cleaning up their workspace, they ran as fast as they could to catch the transport tube that would take them up to the Pavilion. Laughing, and breathing heavily, they dropped down into their seats to enjoy the ride.
The Pavilion was located on the largest level of the station. 40% of the commercial business was done on this level. There were stores and shops of every type you could want or imagine. What made it a popular place for the 'locals' was a large park-like area with real trees and grass. There was a four-foot thick plexi-steel wall spanning the entire length of the park and towering fifty feet tall. As the station rotated, you could see the Orion cluster, a star group that had 3 white stars surrounding a nebula of gasses, ice, and other inert materials. It was an absolutely breathtaking site.
The gigantic space station was the size of a large city. The station consisted of twenty-two levels divided into 24 sections, A to X. There were sixteen space docks situated at various points throughout the fifteen- kilometer long hull. Twenty different residential areas and at least twice as many commercial ones filled the nearly 500 square kilometers of space. It took 12 teams of engineers and maintenance staff to keep the big bitch afloat. Roughly twice the size of New York City, what were the odds of running into a long lost friend?
Riddick leaned against the customs counter as he waited for his ship's documentation to be processed, warn denim hugging the lean line of his hips as he crossed one booted foot over the other. He was tired, and hungry, and just wanted to be done with it, but there was no reason to draw attention to himself by being a complete asshole. Pushing his dark glasses back up his nose, he waited, keeping an eye out for anything unusual, anything that might indicate that he'd been noticed, but nothing in the young girl's actions indicated that she thought he was anything more than he seemed to be, a miner on his way to Tau Omicron 4.
"Here we go, Mr. Torrence." The girl looked up from her computer terminal with a watery smile, handing him a keycard that would get him back into the berth where his ship was docked, an ident-a-chip that he could use should he wish to credit anything to his ship's account, and a passkey for the public computers. "There are 500 square kilometers in Orion station, but any time you feel you do not know where you are, you can use the passkey in any public terminal and find a detailed map that will help you reach your destination. If you wish to stay in one of our lovely hotel facilities, they can be found on levels 4, 8, and 14 in various sections throughout the station."
Dropping the cards into a pocket of his leather jacket, he shook his head. "Thanks anyway, but I'm just holding over until I can get refueled. I'll be heading out tomorrow."
A frown creased the young girl's face, and for the first time she looked nervous. "Didn't the Dock Master explain to you?"
*Shit. Here it goes.* Outwardly he kept his appearance of calm, internally his guard was up. "Tell me what?"
She gave him an apologetic smile. He could sense she was nervous, but it wasn't an 'oh my god, I'm dealing with a psychopathic killer' kind of nervous, it was more a 'damnit, they don't pay me enough to deal with this crap' kind of nervous. This made him feel only just slightly better. "Well, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Mr. Torrence, but we have had so many miners coming through and all... Well, we are expecting a shipment of fuel this week." She held her hands out in a gesture of helplessness. "It will be five days, at least, before we'll be able to fuel your ship."
*Fuck, fuck, fuck.* The only outward sign of his displeasure was the frown furrowing his brow, and the baseball hat he was wearing covered most of that, but damn he'd love to put his fist through something about now. "Five days? Is that the best you can do?" In five days he was supposed to be well on his way to TO4. Apparently not now.
The young girl merely nodded. "I am terribly sorry, Mr. Torrence. I thought the Dock Master had informed you." She gave him another watery smile. "But to make your stay more pleasant, all our hotels are offering rooms at half their normal rates."
He forced himself to give her a smile. "Thank you for your help, Louise." Turning on his heel, he took a deep breath and walked out of the customs office. *Five fucking days,* he thought, disgusted, as he walked out into the crowded shopping area, "shit."
Jack and Carson jumped off the transport and started running toward Pavilion Park. Laughing and joking, they weaved in and out of the crowds like errant school children running to play. "C'mon AJ, you're getting soft," Carson chided her as they neared the park.
"I can keep up with you any day, wus," she joked, running past him. A young mother, clearly agitated at being unable to find her husband, was speaking into her personal comm unit and didn't notice Jack running through the crowd. Pushing her stroller forward, she looked all around the area looking for her husband. Jack, for her part, wasn't paying much more attention and had to weave at the last moment to avoid crashing headlong into the stroller. Instead, her momentum carried her straight into a moving brick wall.
Riddick had noticed the people running through the crowd, but once he realized they weren't running toward him, he relaxed a bit, seriously contemplating finding a nice, dark, bar to hole up in for the next five days until the fuel shipment arrived. He hadn't anticipated the girl weaving into him the way she did. It was all he could do to keep from staggering backward as the full weight of her slammed into him. It was instinct that made him catch her before she could fall onto the floor, though he should have just dropped her on her ass.
At first, Jack didn't know what had happened. She knew she should probably be on the floor right now, but she was being held up by something. It took a moment for the realization that she'd hit someone to make it's way through her fuzzy brain. Shaking off the dazed feeling, she looked up, fully prepared to apologize profusely and thank the man for not letting her fall on her ass, but when she looked up into his face she was shocked into silence.
Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened as she looked at him and understood that she was actually awake; this wasn't a dream. He looked different, a baseball cap on his head, dark glasses, and he'd grown a goatee, but she would know him if he was dressed in drag doing the hula. This couldn't possibly be happening, he couldn't possibly be here, could he? His name hung in her throat, she was afraid to say it out loud, afraid he'd disappear. All she could manage was a weak, "I'm sorry."
Riddick frowned as he looked down at the girl, she was obviously pretty shaken up but she looked like she'd seen a ghost. She couldn't know who he was, could she? *Shit,* he thought, frowning, he knew his luck couldn't hold out forever. "You ought to be more careful," he said, quietly, a hint of a warning in his gravelly voice. Nothing he could do about it right now at any rate, but he'd have to keep an eye on this one until he knew it was nothing more than just her being shaken from the impact. He read the nameplate on her uniform, *AJ Phillips.* Well, he'd have to see what he could find out about Miss Phillips.
*He doesn't know it's me,* Jack thought, *how could he not know me?* The thought hurt. She managed to get her feet back under her as Carson came over to her side. "I truly am sorry," she said quietly, taking a small step back, wishing she could just throw herself into his arms.
"Is everyone ok?" Carson asked, as he put a hand on her shoulder.
Riddick looked over at the boy. "No blood, no foul," he said, a small smile on his face as he looked back at Jack. "Ain't that right?"
"Right," she agreed, offering him a weak smile. So many things were going through her head she was having a hard time latching onto any coherent thoughts. She had to figure out what to do. "Well, we'll let you get on your way." Reluctant to let him leave, afraid she'd never see him again, she forced herself to move, pulling Carson along with her, she headed toward the park. *He's here on my station, I'll find him again, or he'll find me.* That thought wasn't quite as comforting as she thought it should be.
It wasn't hard to keep an eye on the girl without being seen, especially with so many people milling about the shopping/eating area. Sitting down in a darkened corner of a small cafe, Riddick watched her as she and her friends ate their lunch. There was something oddly familiar about the girl. Something he couldn't quite place. Sipping his coffee, he watched her intently, the nagging question of what was going through her mind niggling at the back of his.
Jack looked over her shoulder as they walked away, but he wasn't there. She knew it was him. It had to have been him. It wasn't some weird hallucination because hallucinations don't feel like brick walls when you run into them, nor do they keep you from falling on the floor. He had been very alive and very real and now he was very gone. But something in her knew that he was close, watching her, now she just had to make him realize she didn't mean him any harm.