21. Godspeed

Riddick walked the streets alone. He hated thinking about what he had to do. It wouldn't stop him, of course. He always followed through on his decisions and never looked back. Usually though, he had no second thoughts.

This was different. This was a kid. He'd have to live with this for the rest of his life.

He'd killed tyrants and presidents, clergymen and scientist, CEOs and derelicts...

…Never a kid.

He was an executioner, but he had his own rules. Probably no one who knew him would believe it. He gave the impression of a cold-blooded killer. He was fine with that. He wasn't comfortable letting anyone in enough to see otherwise.

When he got back he was gonna…

It was sinking in very slowly that he could never really go back. Not after this. What he was going to do would change his life forever. There would never be any going back. He kept saying it, but he wasn't hearing it. No friends, such as he had. No easy meals. No easy sex. He'd be alone. After almost his whole life in prison, sharing everything, that wasn't the worst idea to him.

He remembered the psych questions. He'd clearly and consistently marked those that involved kids 'no.' He'd even underlined it a few times. His handlers had respected that. They had plenty enough death to deal for everyone's tastes.

Kill a kid? It was against his own peculiar brand of ethics. Now, he would have to disappear. He could do that. He'd been trained to do that. He was good at it. Life had gotten a little boring anyway. He'd paid his dues. It was time to be a free agent.

It was a shame though, to throw away everything he'd built.

All he needed was a head start. He could find what he needed to get by, he always did; all he really required was food to eat, a safe place to sleep, somebody warm and feminine to fuck now and then.

Then what? Riddick walked and thought about his future. It was a strange sensation. Get a job? Grow out his hair? Hide for the rest of his life until somebody tracked his ass down and took him out? That part probably wasn't much different a future than where his life was leading him now.

None of it mattered. The future didn't matter. He'd just survive it like he always had.

He tried to work the problem, search for the solution, but he was pissed and that kept getting in his way. He never liked to let himself get angry because it would consume him, lead to brash behavior. He could make quick decisions only when his mind was free of troublesome little quirks like anger and guilt.

Okay. Why was he angry? Because They had asked him to do something he'd always been clear he would not do. So why ask him now?

WHO had asked him?

Riddick thought about the letter Carmen had shown him in the book. To eyes outside the Family the message seemed to offer condolences for the death of a beloved uncle and the bequeathed book as part of the estate. To Carmen, and Riddick, the code was easily read; it said a power struggle amongst the higher ups had changed the nature of her assignment; she was now in danger. The letter clearly said run, hide, and wait for future contact only from one Uncle.

The same one who had sent him.

HE was the message to Carmen. She was still in danger, but not from him. Someone in the Family still wanted the package destroyed. The Old Man had known Riddick wouldn't kill a child.

Before her actions were fully understood, before her contacts dried up as she was labeled a rogue, Carmen had inquired up the line about the nature of her package. She knew she was to deliver a live embryo to a powerful system ruler and his wife. She had been shocked to discover it wasn't in the heavily armored briefcase but in her belly, and that the secret wasn't his infertility.

Two babies were to be born to the mega-tyrant. Only one would be announced to the world, and promised in marriage to a neighboring tyrant's baby son. A long, and financially distressing, war would finally be ended. The dictators would spend the next 20 years consolidating their assets into full partnerships. Together they would become the most powerful political conglomerate the universe had ever seen…

Except for the matter of the other baby girl. Genetic twins by nature, genetic weapon by design, one girl would spread a terrible plague, the other would produce its only antidote. One girl would be doted on and loved, the other raised in quiet anonymity for her future role as an assassin of an entire political body.

How badly the plague might ravage the other system was apparently of no concern. Everything could be rebuilt on the backs of their own captive populace. The last despot standing would win all. Obviously the twin responsible would not be allowed to live, but they wouldn't lose their own precious daughter, just a genetic copy created for a specific purpose - not a real person.

Carmen didn't know what had changed, or why. Perhaps the other ruler had gotten wind of the plot and offered a better financial settlement for the Family. Perhaps some other politico had designs that would be undermined by this one. Maybe there was a simple disagreement about the exploitation of the Family's resources. Certainly Carmen and the other 'mule' (brood mare, now) would not have made if off the planet alive after being held against their will for 9 months.

So when she was told to run, she did: fast, long and far. She never had time or clearance to find out which child she carried. With the sudden appearance of Riddick, Carmen thought she knew the answer. Uncle had told her to wait for a message from only him. Uncle must think she had the girl who could cure, not kill.

Carmen was ready to run again. She was always ready; Family training hadn't faded from her. She told him she would be gone by morning; all he had to do was walk away. She knew what to do. If he would just cover her back that long, maybe he wouldn't be faulted when his target disappeared from his sights. She was more than just an average mark.

Riddick felt his anger drain away, his thinking became crystal clear.

He was more than just the average assassin. They wouldn't believe she could have just slipped his noose. They would know he had let her get away. They would ask why. Eventually they would ask a more dangerous question… 'How' would lead to 'who', and the one man who was trying to do the right thing, in a business full of wrong things, would be found out. Who and what that man knew would be found out. Everyone would be eliminated; loose ends and lives clipped short.

He could cover her back for a little while... then he'd have to cover his tracks. It was the only way to cover the fingerprints of the Uncle. It meant painting a target on his own ass, but what choice did he have? What choice?

He'd walked for an hour in the darkness. Carmen should be gone by now. He needed to keep up pretenses for just about 12 hours, maybe 24. He needed to check in with the Family at least once in that time frame, he needed to lie to Them. That was okay, They had taught him how to do that too. Keep it simple.

He also needed a little information. He needed to know what this Uncle expected of him.

Riddick stood opposite Carmen's apartment in his usual place. He never slept much, which made surveillance easier. He stood looking at the dark, and he hoped empty, apartment as if it was his whole world. They might have someone watching him. Certainly they'd had someone on her before he got there; someone who'd found her before he caught the assignment.

Was that agent still here? Riddick hadn't noticed, but he hadn't been looking. Carmen hadn't mentioned it, and she was always looking. Still, it was better to assume he was being watched watching her. Riddick would stick to routine. Later he would contact the Family and ask again about the nature of his target of acquisition. At least he understood now why the Old Man had been so ambiguous about it.

A movement caught his eye. Riddick melted further into the blackness around him and focused on the shadow leaving the building he was watching. Carmen must be leaving later than he thought. But the shadow was too large to be a woman, even if she were hiding the child. Riddick watched the recognizably stealthy movements of a hulking masculine body.

Assassin.

He couldn't tell who, if it was even someone from the Family, only that no man naturally moved like that. It had to be taught, and only for one reason. Riddick followed at a distance, his mutant eyes giving him the advantage in the dark.

The man moved slowly, Riddick sensed, more that saw, the tiny limp in the hired-gun's slightly stilted pace. Carmen should be gone, how had he been hurt? Kicking the door in? Or had Carmen left a booby-trap? That idea made him smile a little.

The would-be killer entered another run-down apartment. Riddick waited outside for evidence of which flat the man used. After an expected interval, a light went on. Another advantage of his mutant eyes, he never evidenced to the outside world what room he might be in. Riddick watched and waited. After awhile the lights went out, but the assassin didn't emerge. Riddick waited a little longer until he was sure the man was in for the night, then doubled back to Carmen's apartment to see what nasty surprise she had left.

It was Riddick who was in for a nasty surprise.

He found Carmen still there. She was dead. The formerly tidy apartment was wrecked. There was no sign of the child. Riddick cursed and kicked over the little nightstand that had formerly held the book and its telltale letter. He looked down at Carmen's dead face and felt anger rise up in him again. Sloppy. She'd died slowly and badly.

The bastard would pay.

He noticed the smell before he found the evidence of Carmen's retaliation. She'd blooded him. Good for her. He'd finish it for her.

He was too pissed to think about what he'd do with her kid afterwards. As it was, he never had the opportunity to decide.

The killer's apartment was on the second floor, the windows less secure than the door because of it. Sloppy, again. The man inside should have realized the door would be the last option. Riddick climbed the outside of the building as easily as he had already climbed the stairs inside to verify the man was still where he wanted him. Riddick quietly let himself in and looked around.

Bandages and blood at the kitchenette table, a half drunk beer, and Carmen's little gun, were all the evidence he needed to prove he was in the right place. Soft snoring led him to his victim. In the darkness Riddick looked carefully at the face of the sleeping man.

Faces were tricky with his mutant eyes, he couldn't see features very clearly, but had learned to recognize members of his Family by the combinations of shapes and planes that made up each individual, as well as their personal body movements and voice patterns. He vaguely remembered a long ago time when it hadn't been that way. But he seldom thought about it anymore. In the long run it made him much more observant. Common disguises were useless against his perceptiveness.

This man he knew. This man he had never liked. This man would pay for his sloppy murder, for stepping on Riddick's toes, for just being an arrogant prick when Riddick was mad enough to kill for the pleasure of it.

Riddick picked up the gun on the bedside table and tucked it into his waistband at the small of his back. He wouldn't use it; he almost never used guns, and never when he wanted to feel the death he was dealing. Carefully, quietly, he looked for other weapons in the room and liberated them from their hiding places, stashing them about his body. When he felt he had all but the predictable pistol under the pillow, Riddick was ready to confront the snoring soon-to-be corpse.

He was calmer now; he would be careful, systematic. The latent anger was still there. This man would still die, but he was in control of himself. He hunkered down to the sleeper's face-level, his hand poised.

"Wakey, wakey…" he whispered in his cold, gravelly voice.

The reaction was instant. If Riddick hadn't been absolutely silent before, this was the response he could have expected. However, Riddick was cool, fast and experienced; his hand snaked under the pillow before the sleeper's and stole the last weapon hidden there.

"Nuh-uh! None of that for you. You've done enough damage for one night." He spoke slowly and coldly; letting his words, and more importantly the recognition of his voice, sink in.

"What the fuck are YOU doing here?" The dead man asked.

"I was just gonna ask you that very same question." Anyone who didn't know him might have heard lightness and humor, his fellow assassin heard the danger.

"Same as you, man, I'm on the job."

"You're on MY job."

Still they hadn't moved. Riddick still crouched inches from the man's face; the man still lay still as stone on his pillow. It was as if two bulls stared at each other, knowing one twitch would send the other into a dangerous charge.

"I…I didn't know you were here, man," the man lied badly.

"Wrong answer. But let's move onto more important things. Why'd you kill the mule? She was never the target."

"She wouldn't give up the kid, man," this rang true, but made things less clear.

"What do you mean she wouldn't give her up? The kid was right there in the other room."

"No man, she was gone when I moved in, right after you left. I searched that whole place. Bitch wouldn't tell me where she was hiding her."

'Bitch' was the wrong word to use right then. Riddick wasn't in love with woman he'd been watching for the last few weeks, but she'd certainly earned his respect in the last few hours. The blow would have seemed impossibly fast to anyone watching, and was invisible to the target in the pitch-dark room. The results were predictable. The man was knocked off the bed, but bounced up like the professional he was trained to be.

It didn't matter. The fight was brief, the man at a serious disadvantage in the dark, and against a superior fighter, a superior human.

Riddick didn't learn any more as he released the animal within to wreak payback. That didn't matter either. He was committed to action. He was without guilt. He was in the Now.

It was much later, when he came to his senses enough to wonder why the kid was already gone. Had Carmen already sent her away? Riddick searched the apartment and the building unsuccessfully. He never found a trace of the child whose real name he'd never learned.

His last communication with the Family was equally uninformative. When he finally reached the Old Man he had time to say only, "This is Riddick. Carmen's dead, the girl is gone." Before getting the last word he would ever get from Them. It was as if his actions were already known, though no one could have communicated the incident so quickly. Perhaps the results were merely predicted, his plight understood, his actions expected. Riddick didn't think about it, he merely kicked into high gear, that one word sending him into a survival mode that would last most of the rest of his life.

"Godspeed."

7