Once they were underway, Cody shot Dom a quick look and the kid's question was unmistakable. Were they really letting this guy come along on a mission? They'd hadn't worked with a third since Mako, and he'd trained them. Cody typically acted as the tech—surveillance, guidance, maybe some sniping if necessary. Dom typically brought the muscle to the table. What they lacked in numbers they made up for in cohesion. Where would Riddick fit in the balance?
When Jack called to ask them to take Riddick along, Dom flat out refused. He didn't want to play babysitter. Then again, some deeper part of him knew what it felt like to get lost. When the military modded his memory—essentially creating a blank slate where his brain used to be—it took so much from him. Ten years later he still had a billion fragments of memory floating around in his head, looking for a place to fit.
Riddick used to be something really dangerous. When it came to kicking ass, Dom always brought the rain—but this might be too heavy for a two man team. They might need three scary motherfuckers hunting these assholes in the dark if they wanted to ever see the kids alive again.
Later, Cody would ask him why he allowed Riddick to join them. Dom would have to tell him the truth. The number one reason why he brought Riddick was to keep eyes on him. Better to let that animal rediscover itself in some remote warehouse than later on down the road, when it might ruin everything.
"So whatever happened to your shine job?" Dom asked, glancing at a stoic Riddick in the rearview mirror.
"Holy shit, he had a shine job?" Cody said, turning around in the passenger seat to look at Riddick—as if noticing him for the first time. "You had a shine job? How? Those things cost..."
"More than your life's worth," Riddick filled in for him nonchalantly.
Cody shook his head. "No, it's actually about the same. I'm worth half a million dead, three quarters alive; same range as a decent shine job."
Dom couldn't help but roll his eyes. Leave it to Vale to nail down the literal. "We aren't in the boonies here, Vale. On New Mecca cosmetic surgeries are performed by doctors who work as doctors. It's a free market system with enforced anti-trust laws. The prices are a fraction of what we see in the outlands."
"And they're a hell of a lot cleaner," Riddick chipped in, seeming to speak from experience.
Cody gaffed. "What, you actually worry about clean? Ah, come on. Where's the adventure without a few cockroaches scurrying around while you're laid out on a metal table with some butcher sorting the metal bits out of your intestines?" he asked, his enthusiasm causing both Dom and Riddick to grimace at the thought. Neither of them needed a reminder of undergoing such procedures without any anesthetic, surrounded by squalor.
"If it wasn't cockroaches, it was rats," Dom added, a look of disgust on his face.
"Black mold on the walls—mold everywhere," Riddick said.
Cody, "Scalpels that were rusty, or just covered in dried blood."
"Wet blood on the floor. Liters of it," Riddick said.
Dom, "Doctor's hands shaking because he's itching for his fix."
Riddick, "Wondering if he'll sell your organs to fund his next fix."
Cody, "Wondering if he'll call some low-life merc to come pick you up if you die on the table."
Riddick, "Wondering if you'll die on the table so he can collect the bounty himself."
"Uh, uh, not me," Dom said. "I never had to worry about that. Paid in advance, went no-anesthetic, and held a gun to the fucker's head while he worked. Wouldn't lay down on the table unless son-of-a-bitch agreed to it."
"Did that work well for you?" Vale asked, sardonic. "You never worried he'd get too busy worrying about the gun in his face and, you know?" He made a slicing motion with one hand. "Slip?"
"He woulda been dead before he hit the fuckin' floor."
"So that's three deceased doctors I have to thank," Riddick said. "One for each ball sliced off, and one unfortunate soul who halved Conte's already insubstantial dick."
"Maybe you should ask your wife about my insubstantial dick sometime, Riddick."
"Can't get a word in—what with her and your wife giggling about it all the time."
"They're giggling because you actually believe you're the one who popped Jack's cherry."
"Could've had it long before I did," Riddick said, no regret or defensiveness--just a plain fact.
A moment of silence passed.
"So whatever happened to the shine job, anyway?" Dom pressed, like the tangent of the past few minutes hadn't occurred. "Corrective contacts? Reversal procedure?"
"Didn't think I needed it anymore," Riddick said, his jaw tight—there was finality there, and a hint of anger, or maybe regret.
"We could've used it," Vale said, carrying on a conversation trying hard to end itself. "We'll hit the warehouse late tonight. I went and scoped it earlier today. Set up some equipment to record conversations inside the building and monitor transmissions. Thought maybe we'd get something from that, even if it's a bust."
Riddick made a low growling noise at the back of his throat that sounded threatening. He didn't seem to have much faith in their ability to get the job done.
Dom smirked. Eventually Riddick would figure out that he always had a contingency plan—but for now, he'd let Rick stew in his juices, and maybe find that nasty part of himself that the Seka locked away so long ago.
It seemed like they scoped the warehouse for hours. Conte sent Vale off on his own, keeping Riddick close at hand. Slowly they moved around the site, keeping to the shadows and protection of other buildings. There were no guards, no lights, nothing.
As far as Riddick could see, they were at the wrong fucking place.
He could see Cody approaching their location, but he found it eerie that he couldn't hear any footsteps. The kid loped across the gaps between protective cover, keeping his head low and meeting them at the side of a small hardware shop.
"It's all quiet on the side I checked," he said.
Conte nodded in agreement. "You see any windows?"
Vale shook his head.
"Points of entry?"
"Just the usual. Key-card locks on the doors. Ventilation shafts ten feet off the ground. Nothing serious enough to scare off a common thief. Makes me wonder what's in there that isn't worth security."
"A trap, maybe?" Riddick reminded, feeling morbid enough for blatant sarcasm.
Conte used his head to motion toward the building. He led the way—the kid falling in right behind him. Riddick waited, his back to the wall. He'd go when he was damn well ready, and not a second sooner.
Three seconds later, he turned the corner and trailed after the boys ahead of him.
They made their way cautiously to the building's blind side; a wall with no entrance, and some building cover. Upon reaching the actual building, right under an air vent, Conte crouched down, cupping his hands to give Vale a foothold. He easily boosted the kid high enough to tear off the grate, and hand it silently down to Riddick. Cody pulled himself up and inside, disappearing into the tight-fitting depths.
With Vale safely out of sight, Rick took a knee next to Conte against the wall.
"Handy little guy, ain't he?" Dom commented under his breath.
Rick glanced up; amazed he couldn't hear the boy banging around in the metal ventilation system. "What's he doing?"
Dom shrugged. "A little recon. A little sniping. Nothing too stressful. He had an accident a while back, so I mostly keep him in reserve."
Riddick slowly turned a hard glare in Conte's direction. "What kind of accident?" he asked, sounding dangerous.
"The kind that's none of your damn business," Dominic shot back, dropping out the clip out of his handgun, checking it before popping it back in. He repeated the process with his other gun before rising from his knee to a crouch and starting to move.
Riddick's hand on his shoulder restrained him.
The Con-X's face appeared as smooth planes in the darkness—planes that betrayed nothing of his thoughts. Riddick felt his back teeth grinding together in agitation while he glared at the younger man.
He didn't have to say it; Conte could read between the lines. "You know the rules, Dick. You don't ask guys like us about our mistakes. If you forgot that one, you're way too civilized to be out here with us. You weren't that different from me once; try to remember that, before you get anyone else kidnapped, or killed."
What a line of bullshit. Riddick let him go, but on the inside he seethed.
Conte paused, glancing back at him. "By the way—if you ask him what happened, I'll kill you. He doesn't remember, and if I have anything to say about it, he never will."
A piece of the puzzle fell into place. "You modded his memory," Riddick stated, his eyes narrowing.
Dom shrugged. "It was the only way. If you lost everything enough times, it would crush you too." The Con-X again started to move away before pausing, looking back at Riddick over his shoulder. "Why the fuck aren't you packing?" he asked.
A knife slipped into Riddick's hand, and he demonstrated flipping it over and under so fluidly, it looked like an extension of his arm.
Conte rolled his eyes, pulling a handgun from a holster and offering it to him. "Here. I hope you know how to use that. If you lose it, I'll kill you."
At first Riddick didn't take the weapon. "I don't work that way," he stated coldly. This was a blatant lie. He'd used a firearm to kill many times—but taking help from Conte? That cut too close for comfort.
Dom slapped the gun into his hand. "Yeah, well, get over the fear, old man. Come on, let's go."
Riddick paused a second, looking down at the gun in his hand.
Over twenty years ago, Dominic Conte used him as bait. According to Jack, Dom followed him around, knew him inside out. An assassin would've known his kill record from his prison escapes. An Assassin Guild member like Dom should've known exactly what Rick was capable of—including weapon preference, or lack thereof.
"He shoulda known it was a lie," Riddick thought out loud, his deep voice gravely and dark. Storing that discovery away for later, Riddick moved to follow Dom.
Conte used a virus card to hack the locking mechanism on one of the entrances, and they slipped inside—guided by Vale's recon of the place from above. The kid whispered the locations of waiting guards in their ears. Conte took point—doing the quiet killing of the men they stalked in silence.
The logical side of Riddick's brain told him this was the way it had to be. He'd fallen too far out of practice to know for sure he could end a man's life silently. Dominic's skills were like the edge of a good razor—deadly, and well maintained. Rick stood back in the shadows and watched a master at work, glad to know he still desired a piece of the action when it came down to it. He wanted to kill each and every one of these bastards for taking part in kidnapping Cam and Rachel—but at the back of his mind self-doubt pestered him, no matter how he tried to force it out. Maybe he didn't have it anymore.
Not that he let the experience go to waste. It wasn't every day he observed a killer trained by both the Assassin's Guild, and the Empire's Special Forces. Whatever the military did to Dom, it suited him. Riddick breathed a little easier knowing Conte no longer took sick pleasure in his work. It was all business for the Con-X. Cold, quick, and efficient.
Riddick slipped off Conte's six when the path split off between larger crates. Dom didn't even pause—just walked on along his chosen path.
"There's one ahead of you. He's twenty feet away from crossing your path from right to left, two crates down." Cody's voice came to Riddick through the bug in his ear, a condition Conte had insisted upon.
Riddick lightened his steps, sliding along the crate on his right at a silent lope. He paused at the corner, his back pressed against the metal surface, knife in hand. Above on a cat-walk, he spotted another guard walking along.
"Your position's good. He's walking his route straight. Automatic weapon, safety on, finger well off the trigger. You've got two inches on him, and at least thirty pounds. Recommend letting him walk out and taking him from behind. He won't see it coming. Five steps. Three. Two. Don't think, just do it."
Good advice, Riddick thought, his eyes flicking up when the man wandered past him. The guy didn't even look around.
Riddick didn't think about it. He stepped forward and reached around, clamping one large hand over the man's nose and mouth, slipping the blade into his back.