"397-398-399-400-401-402-403-404-405-406-406-406-40…6?" A pause. "397-398-399-400-401-402-403-404-405-406-406-406-406-40…6?"
A pause then another voice says,
"407."
Pause.
"407." A hesitation and then, "397-398-399-400-401-402-403-404-405-406-407-407-407-407-40…6?"
"Does she say anything else?" A third voice inquires.
"Oh plenty." The second voice answers back. "But those are the only numbers she knows."
"Memory loss?" The third voice asks.
"Mental block. Trauma, most likely." The second responds. A clipboard is passed between these two voices and they depart to visit the others, leaving the original voice alone in the room.
"4 years, 0 months, 6weeks, 4 days, 0 hours, 6 minutes, 406-406-406. Craft, Route, Flight Path, Shipping Lane." Traumatized eyes opened wide and threatened to swallow the entirety of a sparse room with their hungry gaze. "406" The voice with those eyes breathed. A chill unlike any that would normally be experienced passed through the fragile body belonging to that voice and those eyes.
"Stranded, Deserted, Left To Myself. 406, don't go, 406, don't leave me, 406-406-406-406-40…..6?" A thud of collapse and then,
"Time to go, my child." A calmer voice echoed throughout the room, breaking the sporadic speech patterns and otherwise silence. This voice picks up the first and carries it away to safety. Carries her away to get the help she needs.
"Will she be alright?" The calm voice asks the stranger a few hours later. They're in a different environment. It's less…sterile than the first. It has an almost completely different atmosphere to it.
"She's sleeping right now, but I suspect that with time, care and effort she can stabilize." The professional voice pauses and asks, "Why did you risk your life to retrieve her? I'm sure she would've been fine back there."
"She may have been fine, but that place could've altered her emotions. There was a chance that she could've become apathetic to emotion. I think she needs mental care as well as physical." The calm voice replied.
"You're not her father, so I wonder if you have other reasons for kidnapping her." The professional voice replied, looking up from his clipboard.
"I know her. I have a small idea of what she's been through." The calm voice paused and said, "Besides, her life is worth something to an individual I know."
"What's it worth?" The professional asked out of curiosity. "I need you to sign here." He passed the clipboard over.
"Relief of guilt." The calm voice replied as he took the clipboard, signed his moniker and passed the clipboard back. The professional voice nodded and took its leave out into the warm night air. "A great relief of guilt." The calm voice repeated softly. It shut the door behind the man and walked into the bedroom of another girl. "Wake up, please." He said, shaking the shorthaired girl softly. "I've found her."
"What?" The groggy, feminine voice asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "You found who?" It paused a moment while realization dawned on her and then her eyes widened. "She's alive?" The voice exclaimed before darting out of bed. "Where is she? Is she okay?"
"She's asleep, but she appears to be physically okay." The calm voice replied.
"Physically? What about mentally?" The girl asked. Worry lined her face in the appearance of a furrowed brow. "Imam, he's coming back now, right?"
"I do not know, Jacqueline." Imam replied. "I do not know."
~.~
The next day Imam awoke to the sound of babbling and movement in the halls. He left his bedroom and watched the girl as she moved practically noiselessly down the hall and towards the stairs. When she reached the stairs, however, she stopped and looked directly at him before pointing downwards. Imam smiled and nodded before walking the length of the hall to meet her.
"Yes, child. I will help you down." He said before taking her arm and leading her down the stairs, one step at a time. They reached the bottom and she slid her arm out of his helpful hold and continued her wandering. As she wandered, she muttered numbers to herself.
"397-398-399-400-401-402-403-404-405-406-406-406-406-407…406."
Imam had heard her mutter these numbers before, but they did not make any sense to him. He left the girl to wander, but kept a watchful eye on her as he went into the kitchen.
"Good morning Jacqueline." He said cheerfully to the younger teenager, who was immersed in a section of the newspaper and her cereal.
"How is she this morning?" Jacqueline asked.
"She is aware that she is not trapped, but I don't think she recognizes anything else. She has been muttering numbers since I rescued her, but they do not make sense to me."
"She always was good with numbers. Do you think she would remember me? I mean if I went and said, hi."
"It is hard to say, Jacqueline. She may remember your face, but nothing else…or she may not remember anything. I would not create high hopes.'
Jacqueline nodded and took care of her bowl before exiting the kitchen. On her way out, she said, 'Oh yeah. Big Bad is on the front page again." Imam looked down and, sure enough, his old savior's picture was there.
Jacqueline followed the soft muttering until she reached the back door. There, framed by the iron and silhouetted by the morning light, stood her heroine. The girl who had sacrificed herself so that two killers and an innocent man could escape a merc stronghold. There was no telling what had been done to this self-sacrificed woman, but it had been a long time since she had been seen by anyone, especially the three people she sacrificed herself for. Jacqueline carefully walked up to her and laid a small hand on the young woman's shoulder. A pale, tired face turned to gaze at her with frightened eyes and nearly hollow expression. Jacqueline was taken aback for a moment, but regained her composure and smiled almost lovingly at the young woman who had seen so much.
"Everything's going to be okay now. I promise."
Recognition flashed across the woman's eyes briefly, but they turned back to the frightened ones she expressed during her waking hours. Jacqueline felt pained for the young woman's loss of strength and also felt guilt for abandoning her for so long. If they had gotten to her sooner, they might have been able to save her from the trauma she had obviously experienced.
The day went much like the morning had, until around noon when the young woman stopped talking all together. Nothing else had changed, she had simply stopped talking. When Imam and Jacqueline offered her lunch, she ate very little and only when no one was watching her. The afternoon, she spent wandering around the house, but never leaving it and never going back up the stairs, until Jacqueline finally helped her up them as Imam had helped her down in the morning. Then the young woman wandered the upstairs and eventually rested in the room she had woken in. She looked out the window and touched her hand to the glass, as if she could touch the horizon that way.
Her fingertips met the smoothness of the window and her mind used the feeling to trigger her memories…
"Jackie! Duck!"
A blinding flash…
"No!"
Gunfire…
"Run!"
Bullets ricocheting…
"Now! What are you waiting for?"
A pained scream…
"Get moving Damn it! You too…"
The girl came back to reality before the name could cross her mind. She withdrew her fingers from the glass and just stared out through the glass, watching the children on the street below. "406." She whispered to herself, as if it were a secret for her only. She felt the atmosphere of the house shift and watched as the children were called home for dinner. The setting sun played a melody of color across her face, down her arms, and to her fingertips; twilight did the same, until finally it was dark outside and she was surrounded by the perpetual shadows.
"397…398…399…400…401…402…403…404…405…406…406…406…406…he's here." She said, pausing between each number, as if she were counting the seconds. It was a change from the rapidly muttered string of numbers. She watched the city settle down for the night and her fingers played lightly against the glass, making almost no noise at all.
"You're alive."
She closed her eyes tight when she heard his voice.
"What? You forget how to talk?"
Her hands flew up to her ears and tried to shut out his voice.
"She thinks she's imagining you." Jacqueline said, stepping into the doorway. "She's been staring out that window since a little after lunch. I know it's not your style, but you've got to be patient with her. She's really fucked up." With this, Jacqueline stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her.
"Not my style…" He repeated to himself. He then turned his mercury gaze towards the young disturbed woman. "I know you remember me." He said his voice low and rolling, like thunder. But he spoke to her in vain, for her hands were still over her ears. With a stride that would rival even the smoothest of men, he crossed the room and closed the physical distance between himself and the young woman. Then his hands held her wrists in a grip like iron and he pulled her hands away from her ears. She struggled, but barely and weakly, and he leaned his head down near hers; waiting until she had settled before speaking quietly in her ear.
"I know you can hear me, so listen carefully and try to keep up." He murmured softly. "Do you remember anything from before?" He asked her. She shook her head and once more tried to cover her ears, but his grip held fast. "Your name? Do you even remember your name?" She shook violently in his grip and he sighed before turning in half a circle and letting her fall onto the bed. "Your name is Mercuri Freya Cartiér. You're about twenty-seven now. You came from an unimportant planet in the Axel system. You boarded a ship four years ago that crashed on some shit-hole planet. You, Jack, Imam, and I were the only ones who left that planet alive. And…we abandoned you on a merc stronghold." He paused and noticed that the young woman had stopped rocking and was now deathly still, as if everything were coming back to her. Essentially that's what the man wanted. Just give her all of the important information and boom, like magic, she'd be back. He knelt down and asked, "Is any of that familiar to you?"
He hadn't expected what came next but his reflexes were fine-tuned, so blocking the violent punch that she threw at his face was fairly easy.
"You bastard." She hissed softly.
"That's my girl." He said and grinned in the darkness. Fine-tuned as though his reflexes were, he didn't expect it when she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. It confused him at first, but eventually he hugged her back. Then he felt himself being shoved to the ground and the memories of their play sparring came back to him. With an effortless gesture, he rolled over, pinning Mercuri underneath him. It was all fun and games to him until he felt her nails dig viciously into his upper arms and her knee connect with his sternum. Then she shoved him off of her and snaked her tiny fragile hands around his throat. But this caused no alarm to the man. He merely frowned, grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her off of him. Then he substituted her hair for her upper arm and shoved her against the wall. A whimper escaped the young woman and the look of fury that had been in her eyes was extinguished and replaced with fear. Then she slipped back into her memories…
"Come on. You've got to move faster!"
Footsteps against hollow metal flooring…
"You can't fall behind, come on! It's only a little further."
Wheezing and gasping for air…
"Imam, tack Jackie!"
Burning pain…
"Come on! You of all people! I'm not leaving you..."
"Riddick." The word was barely audible, but yet as loud as if she had screamed it. He looked down at her and understood. Locked away inside her head were names, memories, pieces of her. But she remembered him. He could tell, just by the way her eyes suddenly opened a little wider, that she remembered. Mercuri looked down at her arm, the same on that Riddick still held, and her eyes took in the white blemish. She'd been shot before. By what, she didn't know. But she remembered the pain.
"Yeah, kid. It's me." Riddick responded, though less viciously then he'd intended.