Riddick: Unbound 3

"Cold Storage"

Author's note: What separates heat denigration from freeze? Well….one preserves while the other destroys…while on Crematoria, if one was to walk out into the sunlight at high noon one would suffer the consequences of the former, while if one ventured out on an ice planet such as UV6 one may suffer the later.

Riddick learns from a woman that….what he has been led to believe may not be necessarily what has actually accrued. Still, he is hesitant about the words spoken across a barroom table.

Riddick isn't afraid of dying or sacrificing his life, what he fears most is offering up his soul, his human spirit for nothing, for a cause that is moot.

As an Alpha Furyan, Riddick has been graced with abilities that even he does not understand, still, he is no god, he is but human, and human's aren't to know everything…. Are we?

***** Cold Storage *****

Riddick remained stunned as he stood there looking down into the face of someone he'd known as a child and then later as an adult woman, a woman not unpleasing to the eyes, however, the eyes looking back at him were now a bit older, but still as beautiful.

"Sit please," the woman spoke quietly as she patted the table before the huge man.

Riddick seated himself in a chair opposite the lady,...monk, preacher or whatever the brown robe was meant to represent of this person at this time, and he was thinking….

"This is Kyra (?) But if it is, then she seems a bit older than the Kyra I knew back on Crematoria, and the one who saved me from The Lord Marshal Zhylaw on his assault vessel. Still, I could look at her all day and be pleased, as pleased as looking at a sunrise on Aguerra Prime. Her eyes are tantalizing and her face, never seeming to me as being the one of a killer."

"You have questions I'm sure," the woman spoke, "Well Mr. Riddick I see now why my daughter became so captivated by you…"

There was a pause and the person sitting there before him was seemingly letting him digest that she was not Jack B Badd or Kyra (as later Jack had called herself) sitting there was none other than a person claiming to be a relative of Kyra, claiming to be her mother. The resemblance was uncanny; still he wasn't sure he should fall for this parlor trick.

The name Riddick was still spoken with a certain regard, whether in denouncement or acclaim, it was still spoken with respect. And bringing in the body of an escaped convict, such as himself, was still worth a substantial amount of profit. The ex-Lord Marshal of the Underverse couldn't be sure that he had outrun the noted warrants on his head, couldn't be positive that even on Bullvine he had distanced himself far enough out on the outer rim of the galaxy to have reached a planet where his face or his reputation wouldn't be recognized.

"So, you're claiming to be the mother of a girl I once knew," Riddick lifted his goggles in pretense that he was studying her more closely.

"No…." she said.

The noise in the room suddenly went to the surreal in Riddick's brain. The woman continued….

"….I AM the mother of a girl that you still know. Kyra isn't dead, she's being held in cold storage. The Purifier on Lord Marshal Zhylaw's assault ship, a fellow Furyan, recognized that Kyra was important to you, so, under his secret command the purifying process was not completed before she was totally consumed. What would have you think that Kyra could have saved your life if she had been totally absorbed?"

The woman stopped for a moment.

Riddick could see in her eyes that there was no blink, no falter, and no indication that she was not telling the truth. If he was reading her right, then there was only total honesty spilling forth from her mouth, and Riddick was very good at reading people.

"Myra Mr. Riddick….."

Richard was broken from his spell.

"What?"

"My name is Myra, and I've come to you to seek your help in regaining my daughter. She is being held in a cryo-chamber by Lady Vaako with the intent of being used as a trump-card if she or her husband (sometime in the future), become threatened by you. See Mr. Riddick you are not the only one who likes to play games. The universe, as we know it, is real, but its paradox is that it is a game, and we are but pawns being moved around on a chessboard by the gods. Lady Vaako is not stupid, you should know that she always retains a back-up plan. It is better to keep a "favor chip" under one's control, rather than chose a route with only a single option. Dame Vaako is smart, smarter than her husband even. Vaako may have assumed the position of Lord Marshal upon the claim that you were lost to the beast on some unnamed world way out in the middle of nowhere, but there has always remained the fear that you could return. You've beaten the odds too many times for them to consider otherwise."

Riddick studied her for a second.

"So you're a monk, shaman, an Elemental…."

She began to answer his question even before he'd had a chance to finish….

"All Mr. Riddick, and none of the above," she countered, " see, I cast myself as believing that all religion's show signs of worth, there are elements of value in each, however also degradation…"

"Bullshit…"

Myra stopped suddenly, startled by the big man's remark. Riddick smiled.

"What I mean is by degradation you're implying bullshit. A level where some religions express that they understand all the facts, when in truth, they have no idea what the reality of the cosmos really is. It's a form of control that they wish to instill in folk to keep them loyal. Forgive me if my intrusion into you explanation caused you think that I was considering you a liar."

Yes, Riddick's remark had taken her by surprise, and as a result she could see that his meaning was twofold. He wasn't a man easily swayed in risking his neck or gambling his head just because someone in a bar indulged in him the meaning of the cosmos, and he was right in doing so. Riddick had not lived so long a life as to swallow the first note presented to him, he kept himself reserved.

Myra looked at the man across from her. Handsome yes, and strong, she'd seen proof of that this very night... only moments ago. If anyone could save her daughter she knew she'd found the right gentleman. Well, gentleman may be a word offensive to the man sitting across from her, right candidate, that may be a better term.

Myra had not often been impressed with the men she had come across in her life. Ninety seven percent of them wanted one thing, and another two and a half percent were out to have a trophy to escort them on their arm. Riddick was neither, he was one of those rare individuals, those rare men that knew women were not toys. Knew, that as human beings they were very capable of knowing things for themselves. She looked at him and she liked what was looking back.

END PART 3