Hack
Pairing: Possible Riddick/OFC...Not sure if they should be romantic at all (I kinda like the possibility to keep people guessing). In limbo about it.
Rating: M – Language/Adult situations
Need: A Beta reader. The storyline is warped slightly. Kill me if you need to.
Disclaimer: I do not own Pitch Black or its original characters. I do own mine, Kate Murphy.
A jolt.
My chest on the ground and I was gasping for breath as my eyes adjusted to the sudden light forced on them. A muffled voice boomed over my head and I tried to lift up to see the body. A woman, maybe about 30, blonde hair, skinny and kind of frail–looking in her large boots and grubby clothes.
"Hey, hey, girl, wake up, wake up..." she leaned down and I rolled onto my back, groaning and opening my eyes fully. Lights blinked and my cryo-chamber was destroyed, bits of plexi-glass dotting the bottom and the cords, where my hands should be, ripped from their sockets. Must've been a serious speed bump.
"Hey, you know computers, right? I need you in the cockpit..." the woman was now helping me up and I could see that I was a little taller than her. Fatter AND taller.
"What's the deal?" I asked, slowly following her into the room with blinking buttons and tons of screens. They all seemed to sync in red, yelling at us to do something. She guided me to a seat and plopped me down.
"Look, I know you're on probation and shit, but I need you to get this ship back on track," she said nervously, "and if you do, maybe I'll tell your officer back there to cut you some slack."
I shot her an incredulous glare. A criminal. Apparently, a mug shot and a few days in the Slam branded you a psychopath without a conscious. Granted it was the M.O. of every person in the Slam and most ended up slicing and dicing again out of the Slam, but I wasn't a murderer. All I did was fuck up a few Republic computers. I deserved a raise, not fucking handcuffs and a trip in an armored car.
"Listen, I don't need slack. I need space," I turned to her, putting on the safety belt and looking at the screen. Atmosphere breach. The ship rocked back and forth and I gripped the sides of the chair. Vitals were dropping drastically and fuel was flowing in buckets out of the tail.
"The fuel's going fast. Do you have any energy stores so that I can use them as fuel until we hit a station and get the hole fixed?"
"What? What hole?" She looked at the screen, scared, and I licked my dry lips, trying to stay calm. She was now pacing around, hands firmly gripping the arms of her own chair.
"Carolyn, I told you! We can't keep this thing out of the dirt. No prisoner with a capacity for fucking computer systems is going to help us now." My eyes darted to the jittery man in the seat behind the woman named Carolyn. Owens, his name plate read, and my eyes surveyed his face. He looked at me warily and I turned around, focusing on the machines. Energy stores, energy stores...pressing a hopeful button, I felt a hard push in the butt of the ship. Those were definitely the stores but we were still plummeting to the dusty ground.
"Hey, why aren't the stores working?" I yelled to Carolyn and she looked at me.
"Too much weight in the back!" she screamed back and eyed a large round button.
"NO! DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!" Owens bellowed from his bolted chair and I could see Carolyn was thinking about it. Animal instinct: save yourself. I could see her dilemma. "Make the girl do it! She's already fucked for life!" Owens was screaming again, but this time I wasn't going to keep quiet.
"I'm a hacker, not a fucking murderer!" He shot me a stern look and I could see Carolyn take her finger away from the button. We were getting closer to the ground and I entered a few more codes, activating the ship's emergency landing bottom. I could hear it creak out just as we hit the ground, the windows of the cockpit blowing out and dirt flying in.
Darkness.
I could hear sputtering and coughing beside me and I tried my best to climb up. My fingers broke to flowing air and I mustered up enough strength to lift myself up. It was the second time I had found myself gasping for air on this damn ship. As my waist broke the surface, gravity pulled me toward the broken window. I grasped for something to hold while sliding down the dirt and a hand grabbed me.
"I was wondering where the fuck your ass had gone." I immediately wished gravity had forced me into the jagged, sharp glass below and the hand forcefully pulled me up and toward the door of the cockpit. He shoved me toward my cell and quickly cuffed my wrists, leading me by my neck. "You screwed up again, Murphy," he whispered closely and I turned my head. Royston was an ugly man; of all the mercs they could have hovering over me, they picked the ugliest and most foul-smelling one for me.
"Hey, wait! She helped us." Carolyn was covered in dirt, mimicking my own dusty look, and she grabbed Royston's shirt.
"Murphy? Help? Sure she didn't fuck up your system and send us all into hell?" he spat back and Carolyn stood quietly. Royston took her silence as submission and continued to push me through the corridor. A younger merc emerged from below, arms crossed across his chest. Obviously, he and Royston knew each other.
"So, you got the other, Roy? Put her down there with Riddick," the other said, smiling at me. His badge read JOHNS in bold letters and I looked him in the eye. He leaned down to my face and grinned. "How's a cute girl like you end up in the Slam?" I ignored him, turning my face away and Royston pushed me toward the bottom of the hull. It was dark and dusty, still warm from the speed and heat of our landing, and Royston pushed me to sit on the edge of a cooling unit, chaining my arms, spread-eagle, across the columns of the cooling tubes. Royston then turned to the dark space right in front of me, leaning in my ear.
"I know you two are going to be best friends." I could have bitten him. Two eyes glowed from behind the shadows and my heart began ramming against my ribcage. Fuck. With my luck, it was a hideous cannibal who would slowly eat my face until I bled out. I strained to touch my face, but was checked by the chains still attaching my wrists to the tubes. Royston grinned and slowly turned on one of the working overhead bulbs. He then walked away and I could hear the door shut firmly.
A head. Then the eyes. Then broad shoulders attached to strained arms. His features were almost perfect, no scars, no pits. He surveyed me and took in a deep breath through his nose.
"Scared?" His voice was deep and I swallowed. What the hell was I supposed to be? Excited I was chained like a whore on a bed in front of a big, scary man with robot eyes who would probably enjoy eating more of me that what was between my legs? I was silent. My own voice sounded minute compared to his.
"You in the Slam?" He spoke again, but this time, he didn't seem as menacing. Trying to make some conversation.
"Yeah," I managed and he looked me over.
"Don't look like it." He leaned back and I titled my head, trying to relax my shoulders.
"Then what the hell do I look like?" I was going to overstep my boundary. He blinked and cocked his head to the side.
"You look like a bitch." He began to smile and I sighed, slumping my shoulders and adjusting myself in my seat.
"Well, you look like a moron who got his eyes shined because he can't stand being in the dark."
"Baby, you haven't been in the dark."
"Don't start that fight. You don't know me."
"I know you were in the minimum wing. What'd you do, steal a few credit chips from Mommy and Daddy?"
I lunged at him, my chains snapping taut. He better pray to God I don't fuck him up in the system. He laughed slightly and cocked one eyebrow. I sat back, slightly fumed, and he looked me over again.
"What'd you do? You don't have a Mommy and Daddy. Must be angry."
"I hacked into a few Republic computers for a few thousand dollars. Changed a few minor details in the structure of the Code."
"A few thou?"
"More like 500 thou." He smiled at my answer. A cocky grin, but a smile nonetheless. He sat back and tilted his head between the rafters.
"You make the bottom drop out? All the landing gears came grindin' out and got stuck. Coulda had a smoother landing." His head came up slightly, listening for my answers.
"Yeah. But we were already fucked. I don't know why she let me out...not hard stuff, ship computers."
"Maybe she had somethin' else in mind. Needed another head to be cool."
"But I wasn't cool. I've had shivs at my neck but I can't even fix an analog without having a fit. Plus, the other guy thought I was some murderer, which I'm not. I don't understand it."
"If you been in the Slam, you thought about killing."
I looked up at him; his eyes were now looking into mine. "I have. I'm not denying that. But I won't kill on command."
"Smarter than I thought." His eyes were now closed as footsteps creaked down the steps. A short figure was climbing down, followed by a woman and man, both dark-skinned and had dark hair.
"See? There are two," the short figure, a kid, pointed to both Riddick and I and the two adults crossed their arms across their chests. They looked dissatisfied, slightly angry at the vision of Riddick and I. I tried my best not to care but it didn't work.
"The girl doesn' look that bad," the adult woman stepped toward me and bent down, almost like I was a child, to examine me. I didn't move, unsure of what to do. I had a feeling they had come down, not out of sympathy, but to gape and maybe even taunt. I was a prisoner, not a person. The kid suddenly came up and moved the woman out of the way, looking at me.
"My name is Jack," the kid bellowed, in a loud obnoxious tone, like I couldn't comprehend English. I flinched.
"I speak English, kid. And I'm not deaf." I looked at them all and the woman put her hand on the adult man. The kid smiled and looked up at the adults.
"See? Harmless." I cocked an eyebrow.
"You sure about that?" I asked and the kid paled slightly. The adult man came up to me, his hands on his hips.
"We read your file. You ain't nothin' but a hacker. You probably hacked all into our computers and brought us down, hoping you'd get outta here by killing us all," the adult male said sternly and I laughed. Was he serious? Yes, the look on his face was serious.