Acid and Steel (Riddick / Alien Resurrection)

Riddick estimated that roughly two day had passed when the next memorable thing happened.

Memorable besides the fact that he now knew an android who obviously had the need to drink, eat, shit and pee, of course. And damn, no one had programmed any table manners into her, it seemed. The way she wolfed down her meals reminded him of a starved animal. And she was always hungry, no matter how bad the food or how large the ration was.

That woman couldn't be anything else but an android. She didn't talk, moved soundless, didn't seem to breathe. Didn't seem to notice him; not even when he worked out in the scarce space between the bed and the sink, pumping blood through his muscles to prevent degeneration.

No human being he knew had ever not tried to watch him doing that.

But she didn't bother him, he didn't bother her. Seemed fair.

Then, one night, or perhaps it was day, he noticed something.

At first he had thought that it was a sound from the outside. A wheezing, eerie sound.

Then finally he became aware that the sound came from the bed above him.

He rolled from the bed, got up and looked at her. She was breathing heavily; her face contorted in pain, her eyes were closed, one hand pressed against her sternum.

From the way red waves of energy came from that place, he could tell that something pained her. Riddick watched her with bored fascination. He had three options: To keep looking, to get back into the bed or to call the guards.

For the moment he was hanging on to the first and watched her for almost an hour.

Then she opened her eyes and looked at him. Obviously wasn't even surprised to see him look at her, just stared into his eyes.

She opened her mouth to say something. Then closed it again. Three times. Each time, the wrinkles on her forehead became deeper as if she was trying to remember something, something that seemed important to her.

Riddick wondered what that could be. He also asked himself what this breathing and holding to the chest reminded him of, but he couldn't place it.

Her breathing had become even heavier; finally, she cramped.

That was the moment when he realized where he had seen something like that before, but it seemed impossible that this could apply here. Her stomach was flat, no way she could possibly be in labor. Not with... holding her sternum. Women who were about to give birth were holding on to their wombs, not to their chests.

Then he noticed the slight swelling of the sternum, which seemed to shake through her in rhythmic waves.

Strange. Would have probably anyone else made scream out in panic, but not him. Riddick had seen so much weird stuff, so many physically impossible seeming body modifications, he wondered about nothing. He kept staring at her.

She opened her mouth again, tried to say something without making a sound. Her eyes were practically clinging to his, begging for something he didn't understand and therefore couldn't offer.

Somehow he felt sorry for her. Perhaps it would be best if she would die here on the bed while trying to give birth to... something... that just couldn't come out of her chest. That, he knew, was physically impossible for any human-like being.

And how could she be anything else but that. Human-like. Not quite human, but, as he could judge from her shape, also not really something else.

Another quiet wheezing escaped her lips; her face was covered in sweat. Then, one whispered word.

"Riddick."

The way she spoke his name out struck him worse than any lightning could ever have. He could feel and hear the pain, the desperation, the fear behind that word. Not of him, thought; of what was happening to her.

That was also something new: Someone who wasn't afraid of him. Someone who put so much trust into him that his name sounded like a fucking cry for help.

If he wanted or not, he had to help her; but there was no way he could do that by himself. He had no idea what she was nor what she had.

He had to get someone else to help.

He broke the eye contact and jumped to the door, banging his fists against it.

"Anyone out there?" He shouted. "Think we have a problem in here with..." He thought about it, but she had never told him her name. "...the other inmate." He finished his sentence, then retracted from the door.

From experience he knew that they wouldn't open it unless he was nowhere near it.

Not even two seconds later the door was unlocked and several people came into the room; four with rifles, eyeing him in the corner where he was standing; two more with a tray and two scientists in white lab tunics.

He didn't like the way they looked at her. As if she was a white mouse, a precious white mouse in an expensive experiment. Riddick also didn't like the way they ignored him.

Without words she was hauled onto the tray and carried away, out of the cell; everyone who had come in had retracted as quickly as they had come in, without words.

He found himself staring at the door for a long time after it had been slammed shut and locked.

-------------------------

To him it seemed like a day, but probably just several hours later the door opened again. She was carried back in, placed on her bed and left alone again.

He waited several minutes to get closer and stare at her.

The first thing he smelled was ether. She had obviously been drugged. One of her hand was cramped over her sternum, which now seemed much flatter than before; but she was still unconscious.

Not that he was into touching unconscious women; he liked them participating. But Riddick couldn't help it. Using his thumb and index finger, he lifted her hand by the wrist.

Just to find himself stare at the enormous, fresh, sewn-up transection which ran between her breasts and which he could see in the deep neckline of her shirt.

What the hell had they done to her?

The hand he held up twisted, got a hold on his own wrist quicker than he could pull his arm away and just held on to it, placed his hand on her shoulder.

Still, she seemed unconscious.

Riddick thought that he found the situation more than weird, but also that he liked his hand on her shoulder. Besides, she held him in an iron like grip, also something new to him. Her hold was so hard that he thought she was about to crush his wrist. Painful.

But he decided to tolerate it, for the moment; so he leaned to the bed to give himself the most comfortable position and just let her hold on to his wrist.

What he did notice, however, was the feel of her shoulder's skin under his fingers when he moved them. The skin felt smooth, too smooth.

New.

Like baby skin.

And there was no scar on her shoulder that would indicate she had gotten a new arm at some point of time.

Just to test it, he used his other hand to touch the skin on her leg, the part that wasn't covered with the hilarious white nightgown she was wearing. Too soft.

Then the inside of her hand, the one that was limp at her side, just to make sure because he couldn't understand it.

Same there. The skin was too smooth to belong to an adult; but she was too adolescent to have skin like this all over. For a moment he wondered what the skin of this body would feel like when pressed to his own, but he shoved the thought away. Not at the moment, not in her current state, he thought.

Besides, that woman was the oddest being he had ever encountered.

After what seemed like an eternity, she slowly let go of his wrist, shifted and rolled to her side. Riddick couldn't tell if she was awake, sleeping or still unconscious.

His wrist was bruised, already taking up a reddish-purple coloring. He shook his head, sat down on his bed and massaged it. How the hell she could be that strong even while being unconscious was another mystery.

As soon as she would wake up he'd have some questions for her, definitely. And this time he wouldn't stop asking just because she turned away from him or let him be.

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The scientists had watched them in fascinated silence.

"Lost your bet." The first said. "He didn't rape her, so there."

"Can't understand why." The other one laughed.

"Well, perhaps he's into guys after those years in slam." The first commented dryly.

"He's not, but perhaps he's just not into unconscious women? Perhaps he needs them to fight to get off?"

"That'll be interesting." The other chuckled. "Let's just hope he won't have the idea to give her bitemarks or we'll need a damn good dentist here to restore his bright white smile. In case we'll still have use for him afterwards, that is."

They turned and left the observation room.