Once Riddick finished his conversation with Zoe, he remained silent and continued to puff on the cigarette while letting time tick away. As he sat on the hood of his car, he would occasionally glance around to take mental notes of the details within the compound.

By the time he was finally done smoking, he felt he had taken note of everything he could, at least with just his eyes. If he wanted to learn more, he'd need to go searching for clues.

Looking at the house in the distance, he could see that the light in Johnny's room was still on. So, he began reaching for another cigarette, thinking he would need to puff one more.

But just as he was doing so, the light went off. This imposed a brief pause in his action before he continued and lit the second one. He really couldn't rule out the chance that they had simply turned off the light to begin having sex. If it wasn't that, then he still needed to give them some time to actually fall asleep, which is exactly what he did.

He puffed slowly, and after 15 minutes, he was done. A considerable amount of time had passed for a person to fall asleep.

‘I hope I'm just over-thinking things,’ he thought to himself as he stood off the hood of his car and thrust away the bud of the cigarette onto the ground. It wasn't strange for contract killers to over-think, with most of the things they predicted more often than not never even occurring.

But when your job was to often hunt and kill dangerous individuals, you could never be too careful. Such was the case with Riddick.

Considering just how things had been going wrong for him so far, he couldn't put it past his luck for something else to go wrong. This didn't dissuade him in the least, and he carried on, returning back into the home. Once inside, he did as Johnny had done before, taking off his shoes and leaving them by the doorway.

He then began to walk slowly and carefully since the house, made of traditional wood, was quite creaky and made it hard for even Riddick to maneuver.

‘This might not work,’ he worried, thinking that even if they were asleep, Jaime hadn't taken the tea like Johnny. So perhaps she wouldn't be in deep sleep or, worse, the child who could be awakened and then awaken the parents.

He reached this conclusion because if the ground floor was this creaky, then the one above would be creaky as well. But without testing first, there was no way of knowing.

So, he proceeded forward as if he was going to his room, and just like he thought, that was indeed the case. From the stairs up until he reached the second floor, the steps had been creaky and quite resounding.

If he were the one who was asleep, he would've definitely woken up if any sound was heard within at least 50 m of him. Without knowing much about Jaime and Johnny, there was no telling if they themselves could wake up soon.

Mindful, Riddick paused right at the top of the stairs as he contemplated whether to carry on looking for clues or to just gamble and go back to his room. For the former, there was a very high risk of waking up Jamie, or their child. But for the latter, even if there was a risk, Riddick would only need to stay awake—a feat that wasn't at all hard for him to achieve.

He gazed through the narrow hallway and looked at Johnny's door, which was at the end of the hall. Before reaching the conclusion it may was too risky to search for clues there, but maybe not in the other rooms. It was then that Riddick's gaze diverted toward the door of his room and Johnny's on the left-hand side of the hallway, with another just opposite of it. ‘That's probably the bathroom and child's room,’ looking at it from a common-sense point of view, this conclusion made the most sense as to what would be behind those doors.

But guessing was never enough for Riddick, and he had to investigate, but with the floors this creaky, proceeding via this route was not an option. So, Riddick simply turned and went into his room.

Inside, he found quite a bland setup featuring a wooden bed frame with a sizable mattress on it and a study desk opposite that of the bed—also wooden and quite bland in structure. There was a dresser beside the bed made from the same wood as the bed frame, and it had a various stack of chips on it.

Such setups were often seen in old-school hotels during the early 2200s, where virtual reality gear was beginning to take off. At that time, most hotels had virtual reality headsets equipped in their rooms with numerous chips containing anything from documentaries, movies, music, to adult content, and so on for entertainment for the guests.

Riddick approached the dresser and opened the single drawer, and he did, in fact, find virtual reality gear.

At that point, he thought, ‘Well, at least they're not as as other OT communities.’

But seeing this, Riddick quickly raised his watch and asked, "Zoe, are you able to detect any smart electronics within the house? Anything with a fourth generation chip or higher.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Riddick’s watch flashed on as a holographic projection showing Zoe’s binary figure, as she replied, "Yes, since the Morgan is in close proximity, I can interface with it and use its hardware to do a proximity sweep using the smart sensors it possesses. I'd be able to detect any electronics possessing chips, even up to the second generation."

Riddick was a bit surprised by this. "That far back?"

"Yes, the Morgan truly is a technological marvel of engineering, with the numerous electronics and hardware in place to ensure the vehicle is safe. Making it more advanced than most common EV’s today, despite its century-old lifespan."

Riddick simply answered, "I see, then carry on."

"Affirmative. However, due to the lack of similar hardware present, I won't be able to bounce signals around. So, I'll need to individually search for chips, which may take up to 10 minutes."

To most people in this day and age, that was an incredibly long amount of time for something to process. After all, they were in the age of incredible digital speed, high-frequency communications, and so much more.

But having been mentored by Nikolai, who was very much old-school, Riddick had learned to be very patient with his time. So, 5 to 10 minutes was nothing.

"Let’s see what I can find in this room in the meantime."

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As Zoe began processing the scene for digital evidence, Riddick began searching the room.

He started by finishing up with what was in the drawer, but aside from virtual headgear, a few more chips, and a charger, he found nothing damning in the dresser.

Having already checked the corners of the room for cameras. If there were indeed cameras, he didn't care if the other party would see. After all, there was nothing wrong with him trying to be careful in an environment that was not his own. So it was a reasonable excuse if such a situation occurred, although highly unlikely.

The next place he began to inspect was a nearby closet. Upon opening it, he found there wasn't much inside apart from female clothes. At which point, he remembered that during his journey, Johnny had mentioned more than once that his girlfriend had an addiction to shopping.

It's only been recently that Johnny has lessened to how much he gives her, as they were beginning to have too many clothes within the house. To the point that she had to stuff some within their daughter's room and even the guest room. Riddick could conclude that these were just a part of those. But who's to say there was nothing within the clothes? So, he began to quickly cycle through the jackets, blouses, and jeans present in the closet.

As he was doing so, he stumbled upon a white long-sleeved shirt. But the problem was, it belonged to a male. The first thing that came to Riddick's mind was that she had likely just put Johnny's shirt here by mistake.

But from the way it looked, not only did it not match Johnny's style, but it was several sizes too big for him. In addition, upon looking at the collar, Rick found shades of lipstick staining the collar. Looking back, when he met Jamie, she wore cherry lipstick, but the one on the shirt had a slightly darker hue. This, however, didn't mean much to Riddick, as it could have also been something simply another client left behind when activities went on in this room.

Reaching that conclusion, Riddick carried on, taking note of the strange detail, proceeding to the study desk. Before he begin his search though, he saw a blouse that wasn't hung up like the rest and instead laying on the corner as if it was quickly thrown there.

He tilted his head and quickly crouched to pick it up but didn't take much time to think about it. He narrowed his gaze and reached out to the blouse, carefully picking out two hair strands he could see, however, they were black in color, matching neither Jamie nor Johnny.

So now he really began to wonder, was this perhaps from another female guest? Given the circumstances, it was very likely. Or was perhaps Johnny having an affair? Was Jamie having an affair? Were they both? Was it simply that they were an adventurous couple and were more open-minded?

Whatever the case, details were present in the room that one individual definitely came by. But one thing that struck Riddick was that Johnny claimed he hadn't done a job in a while during their journey. So, to find evidence that looked relatively fresh, he felt something amiss. After all, given how Johnny boasted about Jamie's habit of making sure everything was clean and in order, it didn't make sense for the room to be dirty unless it had been used recently. Which begs the question, who was in this room before Riddick and Johnny came?

Riddick paused these thoughts at this juncture and continued to gather evidence, starting with the drawers of the study desk. They were quite worn out, but still worked, although they had an irritating screech to them when they opened.

Within the first drawer, Riddick only found stationary equipment. He quickly glossed over the items but found nothing of interest. So he proceeded to the second, which was empty, and then he tried to proceed to the third. However, it was locked.

He immediately narrowed his gaze and felt something was amiss again. If one simply followed human nature, then they could clearly tell something was hidden here.

For one, someone knew that a person didn't spend much time in this room. The chances were high that if they did come in, they would only ever reach into the first drawer. If you're seated at a desk looking to write or read something, and if you need stationary material, you look into the first drawer first. And if you find all your stationary equipment there, then you will settle on that and won't go further.

However, even if you're the curious type and you reach into the second drawer and find nothing, you will be less inclined to look anymore. Especially if you reach out for the third and find that it's locked. Thinking of Johnny's nature, Riddick highly doubted he would even question Jamie on this if he were the one to find it. Which begs the question, was this simply a coincidence, or is there something damning within the drawer?

Not one to stand on ceremony, Riddick quickly crouched down and examined the lock. He saw it was something very, very old with no digital implementation at all.

‘Roughly from the 20th century,’ Riddick thought to himself as he reached into the first drawer to grab a paper-clip to as a picklock.

In the current day and age where most locks were electronic, lock-picking was a skill that had since gone extinct, replaced by hackers and bypasses. Riddick, however, knew that no matter how old a certain set of skills were, they could always be of certain use. In this case, it proved right.

‘Nikolai would have a field day if he saw me do this.’

Riddick took only a minute to open the lock before he heard a rusty click as the lock opened. But as he slowly slid the drawer open, he found… nothing.