Apprentice

Ardath Rekha


 


Chapter Thirty-two: Jack - Over The Boundary

She woke to the sound of breakfast being prepared.

Jack stretched for a moment and then stopped in confusion. Realization dawned on her: she'd fallen asleep naked. On top of her covers, without a stitch on. What the...?

It had been years, she realized, since she had touched herself, since she had felt such an overwhelming need to do so. The last time had been before the shooting. All of her natural urges had been killed in the aftermath. Now they were alive again. And last night they'd demanded her attention. An entire day in close physical proximity with Riddick had left her full of explicit fantasies.

She must have fallen asleep right after she was finished, she realized. It had been amazing; she hadn't felt anything remotely like that in more than four years. She wondered if actual sex, with another person (a person you want, anyway, she qualified) was even more spectacular. She'd dropped into sleep on her way down from the high.

It's a good thing Riddick didn't check in on me, she thought suddenly. He'd have been royally pissed.

With that in mind she got up and dressed quickly. She could hear him putting plates on the table as she finished. After running her brush through her hair a few times she opened the door to her room.

The look Riddick gave her was odd, subdued and guarded. His voice was a bit off, too, when he spoke. "Good morning, Jack."

"Hey," she answered as lightly as she could, taking her seat. Something was wrong. Shit, maybe he had checked in on her last night...

He'd told her ages ago why he wanted her to wear pajamas. Back then there had been no ulterior motives for her not to, anyway, and she'd agreed to do so. If he'd caught her flaunting their agreement, he might be really pissed.

They ate in a strained silence.

No, Jack finally decided, taking another bite of the omelet Riddick had made her, I don't think he's mad. He just seems... uncomfortable.

He'd asked her the question yesterday; now it was her turn. "You okay?"

He blinked, glancing up at her. "Yeah," he finally replied. "Just... got a lot on my mind." He stared down at his plate as if his breakfast food was deeply fascinating.

Okay, he's not mad. That means he didn't walk in on me. That's something. I mean, he'd be reading me the riot act if he'd seen me like that, right?

Unless...

Unless he liked what he saw... The thought sent a fluttery jolt through her belly and between her legs.

That, she considered as she helped herself to another piece of sausage, would be wonderful beyond belief...

And don't you start believing it, either, "kid," she warned herself. You really think Riddick's going to peek into your room, see that you have the standard equipment that comes with girls, and somehow suddenly shout "Yes! She's the ONE!" about you? Not fuckin' likely. Dream the hell on.

She drowned her sorrows with a glass of grapefruit juice.

Well, something sure is bothering him, she reflected after a moment.

The awkward silence didn't dissipate at all during the meal. Afterward, Riddick stayed quiet until she finally turned to him and initiated things.

"What's today's agenda, Boss?" She never called him that and he blinked at the title.

"Time for me to find us a cargo, kid. This place is starting to wear thin. I'm gonna head out and do some provisioning for our trip. It'll be a pretty short hop. I'm thinking we could head to Daedalus Station or one of the mining colonies. Get you familiar with how the trading is done."

Discussing ship's business, he sounded more relaxed.

"That's only a five day hop, Riddick. When do we get to hit deep deep space?"

That odd, guarded look appeared on his face again. "Not long," he answered after a moment.

An uncomfortable silence fell for a minute. Jack changed the subject. "What do you want me to do while you're gone?"

He shrugged. "We did practically everything, yesterday. If you want you can look over the manuals, or you can just read something for fun. How far did you get with Judge Dee?"

"He just saw the ghost of the dead magistrate."

"End of chapter three?"

Jack nodded.

"Keep going. It gets better."

She grinned, walking over to the shelf. "Is that an order, Captain?"

His answering grin was almost completely normal. "Damn right. That's an order. Gonna quiz you when I get back."

Laughing, Jack carried the book over to her seat in the cockpit and lay back. That was more like it.

"Jack?" Riddick's voice came from behind her.

She put the book down on her lap and looked up. "Yeah?"

Riddick was standing by the ladder, his face oddly grave. "Don't go out anywhere, okay?"

"Sure," she answered. The why? went unspoken but he must have seen it in her eyes.

"Thanks. When I get back I need to talk to you about something."

The temperature inside Jack's body dropped sharply with those words. She hoped he couldn't see the dread filling her suddenly. "Okay," she managed to choke out, hoping it sounded as natural as possible.

He nodded, still looking serious, and began climbing down the ladder. Jack didn't move a muscle until she heard the ramp descend and rise again. Finally she let out a heavy, shaky breath.

It's coming, she thought miserably. Oh God, it's coming.

Years ago, in their late night space station bull sessions, her friend Ben had clued her in on this, too: After "Let's Just Be Friends," the worst four-word phrase in the galaxy was "We Have To Talk." It always meant the end of something.

He must have come into my room last night, she decided morosely, feeling a hollow ache settle in her chest. He saw me and now he's upset with me.

She could almost hear the lecture in store for her. He'd start with how she'd promised him she wouldn't do that, how irresponsible she'd been over the last few days, how young she was...

Even if he had been turned on by what he saw, she realized, it wouldn't help. He saw her as a child in a woman's body, assuming he even saw the woman's body at all.

What if he had figured out how she felt about him?

God, then it'll be even worse, she agonized. "you're so young, you don't know what you want out of life yet, and anyway I just love you like a sister..."

She rubbed a cold, shaky hand against the flushed skin of her face.

Please, God, strike me down now. If my world's about to end, let's just get it over with, okay?

If she ached this much already, how much worse was she going to feel once he actually said his piece?

I have to do something, she thought suddenly. I need a distraction. God knows how long he's going to be gone; I can't just sit here and wait for the axe to fall.

She picked the book back up and tried to turn her mind to the tribulations of ancient Imperial China and the deductive acumen of young Magistrate Dee, but the words on the page wouldn't stay in focus. Her fears kept intruding, more strident each time they barged in. Finally she returned the book to the shelf and shut the cover to the bookcase.

All of Riddick's bookcases were "barrister" style, a sensible precaution in a ship that might depressurize or lose gravity in a crisis. She wondered if he'd done that of his own initiative, or if someone who had learned through bitter experience had suggested it to him. Probably the former; Riddick almost never seemed to need the advice of others to find his way.

She spent the next two hours straightening the ship, putting the few odds and ends that were actually loose back in their places. When she finally ran out of things to do, the interior of the ship was fully flight-ready. Everything was locked down and able to withstand takeoffs, landings, hull-breaches, and gravitational anomalies.

Riddick was still not back.

She'd gone into his room to tidy up there as well, but there had been nothing to do. It was every bit as flight-ready today as it always was. She could almost swear he hadn't slept in his bed at all the night before.

The idea that he might have spent the whole night with someone didn't help her emotional state at all. What if that was what he wanted to talk about? What if he'd fallen in love?

The scenarios were just getting worse and worse, more and more painful.

Come on, Riddick. Come home and give me the bad news already, she thought, trying to somehow will her mind's words directly into his brain. She couldn't stand this much longer.

She needed to find another distraction.

She considered another round of "try to kill the punching bag," but everything in the exercise area was locked down now. What else was there to do?

Research. She could use the terminal and do some exploring while she waited.

Oh yeah, that'll really distract you from thoughts of Riddick, she told herself sarcastically. She knew, after all, exactly what subject she'd end up researching. But she was already sitting down in his seat, switching on the terminal and slicing into the Law Enforcement system once more.

For fun, she read the physiological profile on Riddick, noting that his blood type was AB-positive, making him a "Universal Receiver" and totally useless to blood banks. She pored over his body measurements with a little too much relish and blushed when she realized how intimate some of the measurements actually were.

No cavities, she thought with bemusement. No history of illness. Not even strep or chicken pox, for god's sake. Just that one bout with the stomach flu when he was eleven, and maybe that was food poisoning...

Nobody had medical records that spotless.

There it was again, she suddenly noticed. Under "tissue type" there was a notation that Class Seven or higher clearance for the "Charybis Project" was needed.

Why would his tissue type information be classified? she wondered. What is this Charybdis Project, anyway?

She was tempted to try the link, but what did she care about his tissue type, anyway? Wasn't like anybody actually did transplants anymore; even backwater planets relied on regen technology these days.

She left the physiology file and began exploring the "Criminal History" file, which recorded his exploits across eleven systems and enumerated his sixty-three known victims. She was interested to note that she was the official sixty-third notch on his belt.

That's me, the Dead Girl, she thought with a grin. She wondered, suddenly, why Riddick had never faked his own death.

She spotted another Charybdis Project link, under "Additional suspected killings."

Weird, she thought. The people he's suspected of killing, but not yet proved to have killed, are classified?

This time she was unable to resist. Whatever this Charybdis thing was, it seemed to have a lot of information of interest. Yeah, she did want to read the rest of Dr. Aspen's profile--

Yes, she admitted to herself, especially the sex stuff...

But there was something else going on here, something that seemed wrong. Why would an escaped con, even a "Terminally Dangerous" one, have half the pertinent details about him hidden away from the people who had to try and catch him?

She switched on the remainder of Riddick's hack-and-slice hardware and keyed the link. After a moment the screen cleared and an odd, stylized icon appeared in the center.

A whirlpool, she realized after a moment.

Below it, a menu had appeared, with places for input.

WELCOME TO CHARYBDIS. PLEASE ENTER YOUR FULL NAME AND PASSWORD.

Crap, she needed a name. The hardware might be able to come up with the password pretty quickly, but she'd still need a name...

She grinned and keyed one in. ASPEN, MARTINA C.

Surely Dr. Aspen would have Level 7 Clearance. She'd have to be able to read and update her own profiles, wouldn't she?

She activated the Password Slicer and sat back, interested to see how long it would take to get in, or if she would be kicked out after a moment.

The image on the screen suddenly came to life. The whirlpool began to rotate and expand, until its center had moved out to the edges of the screen. Now a new message came up in the blackness.

CLEARANCE GRANTED. WELCOME, DR. ASPEN.

She glanced over at the Slicer. It had gotten the password on the fifteenth try. Unbelievable. Some people had no sense...

She examined the menu that had appeared. What a letdown, everything looked very mundane. She keyed in a request for a site map.

The map took forever to load. The whole terminal seemed to be cycling much more slowly than before. She felt like she was plodding through electronic mud.

"Come on, you piece of shit, load already..."

The map appeared at last, simpler than she'd have expected given the amount of time it had taken. Dr. Aspen had personalized it, she noticed. And there was the section on Riddick...

She hit the link to Riddick's files. Now she was getting somewhere!

Once again, the loading took forever. She could hear the terminal working busily, but what appeared slowly on the screen didn't justify the amount of effort it was expending. It was just another freakin' menu, for god's sake.

"Any time this century would be nice, computer. I could go into cryo-sleep while you're working if you'd like..."

"Jack."

She jumped and turned at the sound of Riddick's voice. She'd been so busy concentrating on the terminal that she hadn't heard him re-enter the ship, hadn't so much as felt his approach. Now he stared, not at her but past her, at the terminal.

"Hey! I didn't hear you come--"

"What the fuck are you doing, Jack?" His voice was hushed and intense.

"Nothing, just a little light reading." She nonchalantly moved her hand over to the terminal, to switch off the monitor. He moved forward in a flash, faster than anything human could be, catching her wrist in a tight grip.

"Are you in the Charybdis System?" The expression on his face was suddenly almost frightening. His hold on her wrist was painfully tight. If he squeezed any harder, he might snap her bones.

"Riddick, please, you're hurting my arm--"

"FUCK, Jack!" he shouted, releasing her. He turned to the terminal and broke the connection. She stared at his face in awe, not able to believe the emotion that had appeared.

Terror. Riddick looked scared to death.

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO!?!" he roared.


Artificial Intelligence was still in its infancy. Computers still did not feel emotions, did not feel such things as loneliness or anticipation, hatred or joy. Wakened after its sleep of two years, the Charybdis Trap did not exult in its rebirth or rejoice in the arrival of a stranger in its maw. It simply did what it was programmed to do.

The jaws of the Charybdis Trap snapped shut.

 

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