Chapter Twenty-seven: Jarvis - Disclosure

"For those of you who received your clearance before this mission, a great deal of this information will not be new and may not be interesting. Please bear with us while we go over it for the newcomers in our ranks."

Lieutenant Reginald Jarvis stopped and surveyed his audience. Everyone looked interested. Tactful bunch, or maybe just ambitious. Entrée into the Charybdis Project was a coveted achievement. It signaled the likelihood of a stellar rise through the military ranks and into the innermost circles of the Tribunal. Provided, of course, that one lived long enough.

"There were twenty-four subjects in Phase II. You have files on all of them. As you know, during the Crisis Year eleven of them committed suicide. We were able to stabilize twelve of the survivors and incorporate them into our ranks as Operatives. The final subject, Richard B. Riddick, is the one we are tracking now."

He had been pacing as he spoke. Even thinking about Riddick filled him with angry, restless energy. He turned and faced his audience once more.

"You have had ample opportunity to review the dossiers on the Operatives. You know what they are like, what they have done, what they can do. Riddick tops every single one of them. He is the one who killed Ruth Baker, the most proficient and deadly of the Phase II Operatives. Remember that."

For a moment, Ruth appeared in his mind's eye, her cold beauty and brilliance still vivid to him. She'd been both a frightening and delightful presence. Almost every man involved in the Project had been a little in love with her. Her loss was still felt, almost a decade later. Funny, though, how he hated Riddick more for Jack's death than Ruth's. For most people on the staff, the reverse was true.

He shook his head sadly and glanced over at the calm, heavyset woman in the lab coat standing in the wings. She nodded and smiled slightly, walking onto the stage.

"Dr. Aspen will go over the psychological profile with you now," he informed his listeners. "Please listen to her with utmost care. The man you may find yourself face-to-face with takes great joy in murder and mayhem. What you learn here today could be the only thing that prevents him from taking joy in yours."

Now he had them. Everyone's attention was locked on Dr. Aspen as she stepped up to the podium.

"As near as we can determine, Riddick's current biological age is thirty-three years old. He has spent only two years of his existence, since nativity, in cryo-sleep, a particular oddity when one considers that he has been loose in the Known Systems for eleven years now. This seems to indicate to us that his brain functions are probably very much like those of the other Phase II subjects. None of them succumb to cryo-sleep in terms of brain activity. They continue to experience the cycle of consciousness and dream-states that normal human beings only experience outside of the cryo-chamber.

"In all likelihood, Riddick has avoided, and will continue to avoid, going into cryo-stasis whenever possible. Should he manage to slip past us off-planet, this is something to bear in mind when checking the passenger rosters of outbound ships. If he is forced to go into cryo-sleep and you catch up with him in that state, please be warned: he will be aware of you. Do not assume that he is helpless."

Dr. Aspen opened one of her files, glancing down at it. "Riddick's weapon of choice is a knife. He is extremely skilled with knives, both in their use and their construction. He has been known to fashion deadly weapons out of the most improbable items."

She took out a long, thin blade with a slight curve to it and held it up.

"This, for example, was fashioned out of the metal arch-support in a lady's high-heeled shoe. The shoe was stolen from a fellow inmate at the Texas facility, a man with a fetish for transvestism. It is one of more than three hundred such weapons Riddick fashioned during his incarceration."

She glanced around at her audience. "Riddick likes to cut. He prefers it to all other forms of violence and murder. It's a personal act for him, almost a sexual one. He has been known to drink the blood of his victims."

A shudder, a tiny one, ran through the assembled group.

"Don't be fooled into thinking that the knife is his only weapon. 'Sir Shiv-a-Lot,' as many of his hunters call him, is equally proficient with virtually every weapon in existence. He just prefers to use a knife. Don't let him get close enough to do so, and don't assume that you're safe just because he's not close enough."

Dr. Aspen set the weapons dossier aside, her point made, and turned to the next folder.

"Riddick is heterosexual. He is very active sexually. Reports indicate that he is very skilled and has an extremely voracious appetite. I want all of you to understand, however -- especially the female operatives here -- that this is not to be viewed as an exploitable weakness. Agent Ruth Baker attempted to use his sexuality against him eight years ago in her bid to capture him. He had no qualms about killing her. Getting him into bed won't protect you from him if he realizes who you work for. He doesn't feel that kind of sentiment."

He doesn't feel any sentiment at all, Jarvis added silently.

Sighing, Aspen turned to the next folder in the pile. The one they both hated to look at. Like Jarvis, Aspen blamed herself personally for what had happened.

"For a while it appeared that he had developed an emotional attachment to a teenage girl, Audrey Jacqueline Kowalczyk, alias 'Jack Kowalczyk' or 'Jack B. Badd.' Kowalczyk ran away from home at the age of eleven and spent the next two years -- three if you count cryo-sleep time -- passing herself off as a boy. She dropped the masquerade once Riddick became her protector. We believed, until recently, that he felt a genuine connection with her. Unfortunately, we were mistaken. We attempted to use her to track him down, without her knowledge. This is what he did to her."

She keyed the coroner's photos and let them appear, one by one, on the screen behind her, listening to the murmurs of shock and horror that filled the room.

Jarvis closed his eyes, refusing to look at the images. They were burned into his brain already anyway, but they weren't how he wanted to remember her. He wanted to remember the composed beauty who had raised her eyebrow at him and then dumped the Tribunal's offer all over the carpet of Parker's office. The little spitfire who'd told him to shove his dick up his own ass for a change, when he'd visited her in the Special Forces hospital. The grave, sad woman who had watched the caged jaguar for three hours with empathy and longing in her eyes...

"The most disturbing new development, from a tactical perspective, is that Riddick may now be killing for money as well as pleasure," Aspen continued. Jarvis opened his eyes. "This could complicate matters because it means that he may have the protection and/or assistance of the local crime syndicates. It means that our tactic of spreading the word among such organizations about his presence and the reward for his capture is no longer one we can use. Any of them could be his friend. Or at least, as close to a friend as he is capable of having."

Jarvis nodded to himself. One of their most effective means of smoking Riddick out had been taken away. He wondered how long it had been since it really was effective.

"Finally, I want there to be no mistake about this. Richard B. Riddick is a certified genius. His adjusted IQ is 240. He was discovered, by one of his grammar-school teachers, to be solving math problems using calculus when he was eleven. As far as we can tell, he is fluent in at least fifteen languages and taught himself how to pilot. He is, in his lucid periods, every bit as organized and meticulous as he is savage during his bouts of psychosis. He will kill in either mental state. His dream patterns are highly abnormal. The closest equivalents the analysts have come up with, in comparison, are the dreams of people suffering from high fevers, or the visions of those using LSD or experiencing epileptic seizures. This is particularly disturbing as none of the other Phase II Operatives have reported anything of the kind. The full meaning of this anomaly, and its relationship to his psychosis, is undetermined."

She glanced over at Jarvis, her eyes questioning. He nodded.

"Until recently," she continued, "we believed that his psychotic episodes had disappeared completely. The discovery of Miss Kowalczyk's body changed that. You may note that none of the other Phase II subjects have been assigned to this mission. There are two very simple reasons for this. First, it was decided after Ruth Baker's death that none of them would be sent against Riddick any more. He outclasses all of them. Ruth was the best of the lot and he killed her entirely too easily. Secondly, and much more importantly, if Riddick has somehow destabilized, and it appears he has, there is the possibility that they may do so as well. All eleven of them have been put under observation."

Aspen stepped back from the podium. Jarvis sighed and stepped back up.

"The Phase II Operatives will be out of action until we've caught Riddick and determined what the hell happened to him. We need these people back in business, kids. Phase III, which was scheduled to begin in four months, has also been suspended pending the outcome of this matter. So we need a good, clean capture. You've been given your assignments. When we reach Troubadour, most of you will be infiltrating New Paris, since that's where his activity seems to be centered. We reach the planet in four days, and you'd better be ready. This is the acid test for all of you. I'm opening the floor to questions now."

He surveyed the room and selected one of his veterans to begin with. It would let the newcomers better understand the protocols involved.

"Lieutenant Jarvis, the official tally of Riddick's murders, according to public record, is sixty-three people. How many additional kills has he actually made that are still classified?"

"We believe that Riddick has personally killed one hundred and forty-seven individuals, Corporal. Our information is sketchy in places. We know that he was one of only three survivors of the Hunter-Gratzner crash, but we're not sure how many of the other survivors he may have killed. There is also a two-year period immediately following the Barracks Incident where we completely lost track of him. God only knows how many people he murdered in that time."

He nodded to another of the soldiers. This one, a woman, was new to the group.

"Isn't he just doing what he was programmed to do? The Charybdis Project, from what I have read so far, was intended to create an Ultimate Killer. Isn't that what he is? What all of the Phase II Operatives are?"

"Yes, Private," Jarvis answered after a moment, his smile bleak. "Riddick is the Ultimate Killer. The problem is, he was supposed to be under our control. He never has been."

He nodded to another of his veterans.

"How much risk is the civilian population in if we encounter Riddick in a public place?"

Excellent question.

"As strange as it may sound, very little. Most of the risk will come from you. Try not to shoot the civvies by accident, people. Riddick has no history of taking hostages or using human shields, surprisingly enough. Most ordinary civilians who encounter him pass by unscathed. The mouse just isn't big enough to interest the tiger, most of the time. The bulk of his kills have been among four groups: military, law enforcement, mercenaries, and fellow convicts. This predator likes the taste of other predators best. His remaining kills all seem to have occurred during the worst of his psychotic periods when his bloodlust was completely out of control."

He closed his eyes for a moment. "Unfortunately, that includes his murder of Jack Kowalczyk last month. The full details of the man Riddick tortured to death in a New Paris alleyway last week have not been made public, but the crime was meticulously executed, and the victim, we have learned, falls into the 'fellow predators' category. He seems to have regained his lucidity. For how long, we can't speculate."

He nodded to another of the newcomers.

"What do we do if we find ourselves in a kill-or-be-killed situation with him, Sir?"

This one hurt. He hated the answer he had to give. "The Tribunal insists on a live capture. They want to find out what's gone wrong with his mind, not just examine his brain in an autopsy. The short answer is, if you find yourself in that situation, you die."

He swept his gaze over everyone. The room was deathly still.

"Don't find yourself in that situation."

No one else raised their hands. He waited a moment, until the silence began to grow painful.

"Dismissed."

He hated telling them that. It was the worst part of the restrictions the Board had saddled him with. There wasn't one of them that he didn't value more than the waste of humanity that was Richard B. Riddick. He watched them as they left the briefing room, subdued and disturbed by what they'd learned. Most of them would spend the next four days studying every detail they could find about their quarry.

He'd keep them safe, he promised himself. Orders or not, Riddick would die on Troubadour. He would see to it.

Accidents, after all, do happen...