The rest of the day went by without any serious problems. Mercuri was at work, Jack had left to explore New Mecca and Riddick was hanging around the house. Well, not really hanging, more of going from room to room and mapping out each in his head. It was a habit of his that had proved helpful, to escaping quickly, more than once. He stopped at Shaen's door, because it was shut and locked, and knocked once. Movement inside the room and the shutting of a closet door told Riddick that Shaen was, in fact, still alive. She hadn't left her room since they heard her and her friends sneaking back in.

"J-Just a minute." Shaen called out in a somewhat stressed voice.

Riddick heard her stumble across the room, followed by two male laughs, and eventually unlock the door. She opened it up, expecting to see Mercuri or Jack, but was met with the view of a highly chiseled chest that was covered by a black wife beater. Trying to stifle the relieved sigh that had arisen in her throat, Shaen looked up and asked,

"Yeah?" she questioned, fidgeting. Shaen obviously didn't like being distracted with whatever she was doing.

"I need to look around your room." Riddick said, wondering what was making the teenager so angsty.

"Why?" Shaen asked.

Riddick caught the faint scent of stress radiating off of her and raised his eyebrow. She's up to something. He thought briefly before pushing Shaen aside and entering her room. He noticed one of the two boys lounging on Shaen's bed while the other one was sitting on the floor by her window, nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be going on, and then he remembered hearing the closet door shut before she'd opened her room door.

"Who are your friends?" He asked, stopping in the middle of the room and surveying it. He mentally took in the placement of the furniture, windows, door and finally…the closet. He noticed that the floor surrounding where Shaen must've just been sitting was covered with papers, which in turn, were covered with mathematical and scientific equations.

His question had caught Shaen off guard and she immediately stopped fidgeting behind him and moved in front of her closet.

"Seth." She pointed to the boy with long black hair by her window.

"Hey." Seth said and half waved at Riddick before returning his gaze to the outside world.

"And I'm Danny." The boy on her bed said. He pulled at one of the blue spikes that covered his head.

"Are you done now?" Shaen asked, leaning against the closet door with a non-chalet attitude.

Riddick crossed his arms and said, "What's in the closet?" He took a step towards the closet, noting the wy that it made Shaen fidget.

"None of your damn business. Now get out of my room." She demanded.

Riddick silently laughed at her weak attempt to get him to leave. He reached towards the closet knob just as Jack's voice floated up the stairs.

"Richard? Are you home?" Jack called. They had all decided to call Riddick and Jack by different names, for safety reasons. Riddick became Richard and Jack became Jacqueline.

Upon hearing Jack's voice, Riddick turned towards the door and silently walked out. I'll find out what's in the closet later. He thought as he walked down the stairs.

"Anything change?" Riddick asked, coming up behind Jack and wrapping her in his arms tenderly.

"Not a lot. Apparently Shaen and her buddies, whoever they are, are the shit in the underground systems now." Jack said, smiling when Riddick nuzzled her neck. "Compared to you, they're innocent, but they've pulled off some risky shit. Look at this stuff." She said and pulled away from Riddick to spread papers around on the kitchen table. "Like this one. She hotwired a police car and sent it speeding directly into a protest against allowing minors to leave the system unaccompanied."

This caught Riddick's attention. How could Mercuri let Shaen run around limitless? It really made no sense to him. She's fifteen and already the best in the underground. What else did she do? He wondered. "What else?" He asked Jack.

"Well on top of doing every petty crime imaginable and then some, she's undergone several dangerous experiments…done to her by her so-called friends." Jack picked up the file that she had gotten from one of the underground junkies and read more. "Riddick, she's smart as hell. Look." Jack showed Riddick the file that had pictures of the experiments and descriptions of what was supposed to happen and paragraphs of what actually happened. All but one of paragraphs coincided with the adjoining description. The last experiment was supposed to induce a state of total vertigo for a week. However, it actually caused Shaen to suffer from partial dementia.

"So she's a genius who just happens to be insane?" Riddick asked, leafing through the photographs of the various inventions and experiments that Shaen had created in the last four years.

"Only slightly." A new voice said from behind them. Both Jack and Riddick turned away from the files to see Mercuri standing in the kitchen doorway, holding a bag of groceries and looking disheartened.

"Mercuri, we didn't mean to int-" Jack started. She stopped when Mercuri held up her free hand and smiled a little at them.

"It's perfectly fine, I was going to tell you all about Shaen's underground reputation later on tonight. But yes, she's slightly insane. That's what causes her violent outbursts." Mercuri said setting the bag down on the counter and beginning to put the groceries away.

"Are you sure it has nothing to do with her being an alien?" Riddick asked, not convinced. He watched Jack roll her eyes and give him a look that told him to be nice.

"No. I'm not sure of anything. I don't even know what kind of hybrid she is." Mercuri said, turning to face Riddick. A flash of the old Mercuri was seen in her eyes before it flickered and faded.

Riddick saw the flash and it was then that he realized that the Mercuri he remembered was gone. Riddick only remembered her as the Mercuri that was full of unbridled passion and defiance, the one that has a strong will and a fierce heart, the one that almost lost her life saving his. But in that moment, as he watched the old Mercuri flicker back and fade away, he realized that she had changed. Her unbridled passion had disappeared and been replaced with unconditional love for the girl upstairs. Her defiance had been erased completely and, in its place, was allowance and acceptance. Her strong will was weak now and her fierce heart wasn't as intense.

"Jack do you mind if I talk to Mercuri alone?" Riddick asked. He looked at Jack, silently telling her that this was important.