"Not at all. I'll just go check on Shaen." Jack said, not questioning the look. She headed upstairs just as Seth and Danny were leaving through Shaen's window. Jack knocked on Shaen's door and heard a faint 'who is it' from the other side. "It's Jack." She said and waited to be allowed in the room.
"Oh. Come on in." Shaen said, not looking up from the parts and pieces that were scattered around her. She heard Jack open the door, step inside the room, and close it behind her.
"What'cha doing?" Jack asked, seating herself on Shaen's bed. She looked at the various screws, bolts, metal pieces and ship parts that Shaen was tinkering with.
"Making a hover board." Shaen replied, finally looking up at Jack. "Can you hand me that Shliverobo 3x over there?" She asked, gesturing to what looked liked a cross between a computer monitor and a keyboard.
"Here ya go." Jack said. She watched in amazement as Shaen deftly pulled the Shliverobo apart and wrenched several wires, chips, and holographic interfaces out of it before discarding it into the pile of other things she'd pulled apart. She then connected the wires to the ultra slim heat driven power source that she'd built and inserted it into the hover board's frame.
"How long have you been working on that?" Jack asked, looking at the slim and yet sleek machine that Shaen was constructing.
"Couple of hours." Shaen said as she strategically placed several chips into the board and finally connected the holographic interfaces into the 4x6 monitor. She bolted the monitor into its space towards the front of the hover board and then started figuring out which pieces of metal would be strong enough for her creation.
"Are you planning on painting it or are you going to leave it looking like a bunch of bolted together metal?" Jack asked, not meaning to sound snotty.
"Actually. These are just for its protective casings. I've still got to weld the sheets of Cryrithium around it. Then I'll paint it." Shaen said as she started to bolt things together and onto the hover board.
"Cryrithium?" Jack asked. "Is that another one of your inventions?"
"No. It's the strongest substance in existence. There's a little less than 15 on every planet and only about 0.0001 on any asteroid. The greatest things about it are that it's a self renewing resource, it's practically indestructible, and only a handful of people even know it exists." Shaen replied. "When I'm done putting the casings onto the hover board and welding the Cryrithium to it, do you want to help me paint it?"
"Sure." Jack responded. "But I think I just heard your mother call us down for dinner."
"Jack?"
"Hmm?"
"She's not my mom."
"I know. Come on. Let's go eat."
"Alright."
Shaen and Jack walked into the kitchen just as Mercuri was dishing out the pasta and sauce. Mercuri looked as if she had been crying and Riddick was no where to be found.
"Is he eating with us?" Shaen asked.
"Is he even here?" Jack muttered.
"No to both. I'm sorry. He just kind of up and left after I started crying." Mercuri said. "Don't ask, please. Come on and eat."
Dinner was eaten in relative silence and everyone retired to their rooms to sleep.
Riddick, meanwhile, had started to seek out Seth and Danny. He was going to deliver a little message to them. 'Stay away from Shaen or suffer.' He glided silently through the city until he finally spotted them. They were grouped together with a few others, looking at something that Seth was holding. Riddick got close enough to hear what they were talking about and settled in among the shadows.
"Alright Blaine. This is Shaen's next experiment. Or the one she's planning to do next anyway. She's going to try and reverse the insanity that she got from the last one." Danny explained.
"Alright. And this concerns me how? All I want to know is when you two are planning to pitch the idea of mind control to her. I want her for my own." The tall boy with long red hair responded. He was obviously Blaine.
"Patience my friend." Seth said with a chuckle. "Shaen's a smart cookie. She's figured out all other possible outcomes, should something go…wrong. Like it did last time."
"It should've worked last time. But you imbeciles screwed it up." Blaine spat.
"We know." Danny said with a sigh. "But this time. There's no possibility of screwing up."
"Anyways," Seth interrupted. "There's only two other outcomes. The first one is that she becomes weak minded, so you could pretty much control her like that. The second one is that she loses her free will and walks around like a slave. So it's a win-win situation for you."
"I see." Blaine said. "And what do you need for this little…accident…to happen?"
"This." Seth said and handed him a slip of paper. "It's a type of colorless liquid that they use in slave collars. You can buy it from the big guys in the underground. We can't get it though."
"Why not?" Blaine inquired. He looked at the slip of paper and then back at Seth and Danny.
"We're not important enough." Danny said.
"Alright. You'll have your ZO-45 liquid in a few days." Blaine said. "Good evening." Riddick heard and watched all but two leave. Seth and Danny.
"Seth, I don't know about this. I mean what has Shaen ever done to us?" Danny asked as they walked back through the alley. They were just passing Riddick's hiding spot when he jumped out in front of them.
"W-Who are you?" Danny asked. He couldn't see anything of the very tall very strong looking guy in a black hood and black combat clothes. "We didn't do anything."
"Stay away from the girl." Riddick's thunder-like voice told them threateningly.
"Who the fuck do you think you are? You can't tell us what to do. I'll fuck you up man." Seth said and pulled out a flimsy looking switchblade. He lunged at Riddick, who stepped aside and stuck his shiv into Seth's sweet spot. Riddick then turned to Danny, who was quivering in fear.
"Leave the girl alone…or you'll end up like your friend here." With that he pulled his blade out, wiped it on Seth's shirt and threw the corpse down.
Danny took one look at Seth's body and quickly nodded his head. "A-alright, dude. We'll leave her alone. Just chill." With that he took off running down the alley.
Riddick smirked and tossed the dead body of Seth into the shadows before disappearing towards the edge of town. He stopped on the roof of an abandoned building and looked out across the sleeping city. His conversation with Mercuri replayed in his head as he fiddled with his shivs.
"What happened to you?" He had asked when he heard Jack shut Shaen's door.
"I grew up." She had responded a bit sadly.
"That's not what I mean and you know it Mercuri." He had gotten up and started cutting things for the sauce for dinner, though he'd doubted that he'd be there to eat it. "What happened to that fiery, feisty young woman that I used to know?"
"She got a reality check."
"More like you got Shaen." Riddick had been slapped at that point. "Look what's happened to you. You used to have a strong will, a fierce heart, defiance, unbridled passion…what happened?"
"Shaen grew up and made some of the worse friends I could've imagined." Mercuri had finally said.
"Why do you let her get away with everything?" he asked, looking at her with worry in his quicksilver colored eyes.
Mercuri had sighed and quite calmly replied, "I don't have a choice really. I have no control over what she does. It's my own fault, too. I didn't enforce many rules while she was young and I didn't punish her, simply because I figured that she'd been through enough, and now I can't control her. That's why I wanted you and Jack to stay for a while. To try and enforce some control on her."
Riddick looked at his friend sadly. Something has to be done about that girl. He told himself. And you're just the person to do it. "I'll do what I can, Ri. You on the other hand, need to learn to say no and start taking time to get back to being who you used to be." Riddick said. He'd seen Mercuri start to cry and that's when he'd left. While traveling through the city, he'd decided he'd start fixing Shaen by getting rid of her so-called friends.
Riddick shook his head, as if to rid himself of the conversation, and started back towards Mercuri's house. He got there and went around back to sneak in but sounds coming from the shed in the far back caught his attention. Riddick quietly glided over to the shed and looked in. There sat Shaen, hunched over her hover board and welding something around it.
"You don't have to sneak upon me, you know." She said without looking up from her task.
"How did you know?" Riddick asked. No one had ever heard him sneak up on them before. Not even Jack's hearing was that tuned.
"Hybrid thing." Shaen responded, turning off the welding spike and moving over towards the heat cutter. She placed the diamond attachment on it and started cutting along a 4x6 outline on a glass panel.
"What are you making?" Riddick asked, moving over towards the hover board. It was a like a cross between a surfboard and a long board skateboard. The length of a long board skateboard but the shape of a surfboard.
"That," She said, gesturing to the hover board. "Is what was in my closet this afternoon. It's a hover board. I made it." Shaen waked over to the hover board and fitted the shatter-proof glass panel, that she'd just cut, into the space above the holographic monitor. It clicked in place and Shaen smirked. "Now all that's left is to paint it." She said, more to herself than to Riddick.
"That's going to have to wait until later. You need to get some sleep." Riddick told her sternly, though he was impressed with the ultra slim, ultra light machine.
"Why?" Shaen questioned, picking up the board and taking it out of the shed.
"You have training tomorrow." Riddick told her, closing the doors behind them.
"Oh." Shaen said a bit dismally. "About that, I won't be able to do your little training thing. At least not with you and Jack. I kind of have a condition that makes me prevent myself from those types of things."
"Excuses, Excuses." Riddick chided.
"No. Riddick. I'm serious." Shaen said. She looked Riddick in the eyes, her bright liquid green color reflecting in his quicksilver one. "Last time I tried to train with someone, I almost killed them. It's like there's a monster in me that comes out when I start to fight. I think it might be the other part of me…the non human part." By now she looked scared.
Riddick stooped down to her level and tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ears. "Look, Shaen, there's nothing to be afraid of. Jack and I are highly skilled and pretty much wanted throughout space. If it gets out of hand, we'll deal with it, alright?" He asked, trying to sound comforting and strong.
Shaen sighed and thought a moment before saying, "Alright."
They went inside and Shaen drifted off to sleep while Riddick thought of ways to best train her. He looked at Jack, who was sleeping peacefully at his side and decided that he'd start Shaen out the same way he'd started Jack's training. All that was left to do was wait until morning…early morning.