The Predator

by Christopher Golden

  “You gotta be kidding me!” Baxley shouted in excitement, pumping a fist.

  Hold on, McKenna thought, but he’d already turned to look back out the windshield. He spotted the alien, heading for the perimeter fence like the White Rabbit, late for a very important date. McKenna flashed back to the jungle, to the sight of his men and the way they’d been torn apart.

  “Open the door!” he barked.

  Without hesitation, Nebraska jerked the lever, the door accordioned open, and McKenna gripped the sidearm he’d stolen from one of the MPs. He threw himself sideways onto the steps, poking his head out through the open door, and took aim. A flash of Jaws went through his mind. Smile, you son of a—he thought.

  The air distorted around the alien as it ran. McKenna knew what that meant—he’d seen it in the jungle; hell, he’d used the tech himself. But before it turned invisible, the alien reached the perimeter fence and vaulted it easily. Still in midair, it threw back its arm in an almost casual gesture, and suddenly a spinning blade was flashing toward the bus.

  McKenna felt the bus turn into a skid even before his brain registered the bang of the tire exploding. The bus slewed sideways, shuddering, whipped with such force that McKenna felt himself flung out the door. He tucked into a roll, tumbled across the ground, and came up on one knee just in time to look back and see the woman staggering on the roof. She was trying desperately to keep her footing, but looked like Bambi on the ice. McKenna saw the moment when she fired the tranq gun involuntarily, and as the bus shuddered to a ragged halt he saw her totter toward the edge of the roof and tip over, as if boneless as a rag doll . Only then did he realize she’d shot herself in the leg or the foot, and the tranquilizer had already taken effect.

  By that time he was already up and racing toward the bus, wondering if he’d reach her in time, picturing her landing in his arms.

  Then he spotted a cadre of security guards—those merc bastards who’d captured him in the first place— converging on the bus from the darkness, and he hesitated. Whereupon the woman landed with a whomp on the turf.

  So much for Prince fucking Charming, he thought, as he ran to help her up.

  Chagrined, he got her to her feet, but her legs were like silly putty and she hung around his neck, barely able to stand as the tranquilizer rushed through her bloodstream.

  The Loonies scrambled out of the bus as the guards approached. Nebraska came out last, but he’d been scanning the compound the whole time he’d been driving, and it seemed he’d already figured out his plan. He pointed to a Quonset hut that looked to be the compound’s motor pool. A row of Indian Scout motorcycles was lined up in front.

  Turning to the others, he shouted almost gleefully, “Get to the choppers!”

  12

  Pinsky had tried yoga a few times. He understood the concept, the way it was supposed to relax you, let you breathe and connect with your body. He wasn’t ever going to suggest that it didn’t work, because it had worked for him, to a certain degree. But other than some useful stretching, yoga didn’t provide anything to him that flying jets didn’t offer a hundred times over… and never more so than when he had a bogey in his sights.

  “Light up your winders on my mark,” he said into his comms mic. “Go, zero-two! Go, zero-three!”

  As the other members of his squadron banked off on either side to flank the once-again-visible ship that streaked across the sky below them, a blissful calm enveloped him. The world that existed for him now was only his ride, the voices on his comms, the steady in-out of his breathing, and the UFO he’d been tasked with blowing out of the fucking sky. He smiled to himself and thought of childhood visits to the dentist and the happy gas they’d given him when he’d needed a tooth pulled. Even the oxygen mask attached to his face reminded him of that day. There was no gas in the air he breathed—he wouldn’t be seeing dragons on the wall or thinking his mom had floppy puppy ears—but he felt the same elation.

  As soon as his colleagues were in position, he opened his mouth to bark the order that would send a triple whammy of missiles from the three F-22s converging on the bogey, to what should have been devastating effect. However, at that moment the alien ship shimmered and began to vanish, engaging its cloaking mode. A split-second later, before Pinsky even had time to realize that this was his last moment on earth, the three F-22s that had been about to fire on the alien vessel were instantly atomized by a deadly, all-engulfing wave of energy expelled by the ship, similar to the way that a squid will expel a cloud of ink to mask its escape from predators.

  As Pinsky and his jet truly became one, their conjoined atoms dispersing to swirl and dance forever in the endless skies, the alien ship gave one final ripple, and then vanished.

  * * *

  Traeger stood with his aide, Sapir, and stared at the place where the vial ought to have been. A numbness spread over him. He tried a smile, but it didn’t hold. He glanced around, looking at the table where the goddamned Predator had been playing possum.

  “The floor,” he said to Sapir, without looking at the man. “Check for fragments.”

  “Sir, I’ve been checking. There’s debris everywhere—”

  Traeger shot him a withering glance. “Don’t you think I see that? You think I didn’t notice how trashed this fucking lab is, Sapir? I need to confirm that vial is shattered on this floor, that the contents of that vial— which we could not afford to lose, right? You know we couldn’t afford to lose it. But I need to confirm that the contents are in this fucking mess and not in the hands of someone who has no loyalty to us.”

  Sapir nodded, scanning the debris on the floor again.

  Traeger swore, staring once more at the place where that vial ought to have been.

  His headset crackled. A voice cut in. “Stargazer,” said one of the mercs in his employ. “I have eyes on the woman. Instructions?”

  Traeger lowered his head and took a deep breath. Sapir stopped trying to pretend the vial might have shattered in the melee and watched him, waiting to see what he would do—because, of course, the other significant thing missing from the lab wasn’t a vial or a sample or even a secret, it was Dr. Casey Brackett.

  “She was asking all the wrong questions,” Traeger said.

  Sapir gave a slight nod. Traeger sneered at him. He didn’t need empathy from his aide and he certainly didn’t need sympathy from anyone. Casey had crossed a line, and she had crossed Traeger.

  “Cancel her,” Traeger said. He gave a small sigh of regret— only human, after all, he thought. “Retrieve any contraband.”

  He could practically picture the hardcase mercenary with one hand on his weapon already.

  “Wilco, Stargazer,” said the merc.

  Just as Traeger was about to sign off, he heard the roar of an engine over the radio. He turned to glare at Sapir. “What the hell was that?”

  Sapir didn’t have a clue.

  Traeger wanted to shout. He wanted to break things, to add to the debris scattered across the lab. But he had a job to do, and it involved making sure that Casey Brackett didn’t leave the base alive.

  * * *

  Casey didn’t have a long history with drugs and alcohol. In high school and college, she’d partied with the best of them, but when she had too much to drink she tended to stumble off to the nearest bedroom, lock herself in, and sleep until someone pounded hard enough on the door to wake her. She’d been high, and she’d experimented with cocaine and Molly—twice each—but she had never liked the way any of that felt. She didn’t like the sensation of not being in control, like her body had become a vehicle and she had turned the keys over to someone else.

  The tranquilizer coursing through her bloodstream now didn’t feel like any of that. It felt like floating, as if she had been sleeping and now danced on the very edge of wakefulness, and at any moment she might come fully awake, when all she really wanted to do was pull the covers over her head and huddle down beneath them, warm and dry and dreaming.

  Or it should’ve felt l
ike that. If she could only have surrendered to the tranquilizer, given herself over completely to the lullaby swaddling her brain right now. Instead, she had to fight it, because while the drug tried to tell her all was well, her ears were still echoing with the explosion that had rocked Project: Stargazer only moments ago. She’d chased a Predator—a frigging space alien! She’d jumped on a moving bus and then it had crashed and she’d shot herself in the foot like the biggest dork in the universe—if the Predators were getting all of this on video to study for next time like some NFL team, they’d be laughing their asses off at what a colossal dope she must be.

  These thoughts were in her brain, but they weren’t streamlined. They didn’t progress neatly. Instead, they cascaded, they spilled in and out and sometimes left nothing behind, so that there were moments of utter blankness. She blinked, trying to remember where she was. It occurred to her that there’d been a bunch of guys on the bus. One of the guys had been shooting at the Predator. Casey had caught a glimpse of him, and maybe he’d picked her up—but if he’d picked her up, at some point he’d put her down.

  The bus lay on its side about fifty yards away. Casey lay on her side, in the shadows below the walkways where she’d chased the Predator.

  Unsteady but ambitious, she forced herself to stand, and she stumbled along again as best she could. People were shouting. Alarm klaxons were blaring. Military and pseudo-military vehicles rumbled all over the place. The jets had been there—she hadn’t imagined them, or the spacecraft they’d been pursuing—but now they were gone.

  She blinked.

  Turned, only just now realizing that she wasn’t alone. One of the guys from the bus, she figured, but of course it wasn’t one of those guys. Thoughts cascaded in her mind again, images and blank spaces, and when she came back from one of those blank spaces, she saw the mercenary raise his weapon and take aim at her. He looked sad. She thought she remembered him from the laboratory, or somewhere inside the base. Sad, she thought again.

  But it wouldn’t stop him from killing her.

  “Wilco, Stargazer,” the merc said, tapping the comms unit at his ear.

  He frowned in determination. In the wonderful fog of tranquilizers, she understood that he’d just received his orders, and that she was about to die.

  Cradled in the lullaby, eyes heavy, feeling warm and happy and terrified all at the same time, she heard the air around her fill with buzz-saw whining. Blinking, she let her head loll to one side and caught sight of the roaring motorcycle as it launched off an embankment and landed with a crunch right on top of the merc who’d been about to put her to sleep for eternity. The motorcycle fishtailed but miraculously, considering the flesh and muscle and bone it had just crushed, the rider stayed upright.

  Other motorcycles thundered behind the first one, landing and skidding, riders whooping like a war party. She glimpsed the first rider for another moment, saw him accelerate toward her. His tires squealed and Casey felt her eyes grow too heavy, finally, for her to open them again. Her legs went out from beneath her as the motorcycle leaped toward her and she felt herself falling into a dream at last.

  In her dream, floating, she had the vague sensation of an arm around her, and of flying.

  The roar of the motorcycle became her new lullaby.

  * * *

  A troop transport roars out of the Stargazer complex, driver up front and six black-clad mercenaries in the back. These are determined men and women. Not one of them has a clear idea of exactly what they’ve been assigned to kill, but they know it’s alien and they know it’s proven to be a nasty fucker. This doesn’t bother them. After all, each of them considers him or herself to be a nasty fucker as well.

  Quiet, grim, ready for a fight and ready to be heroes, they hold on as the troop transport whipsaws into a turn.

  Only one among them, Harry Curtis, Jr., hears the muffled thump on top of the truck. Junior glances up, but only for a moment. It could be anything or nothing— could be his imagination.

  The Predator swings down into the truck bed. Spinning blades reminiscent of Japanese throwing stars fly from its fingers and two mercenaries go down. Then its blades come out. Harry opens his mouth to shout, tries to reach for his weapon, but the Predator’s gauntlet blades crunch through his ribcage and cleave his heart in a single motion. His brain continues to receive signals for half a second; long enough for him to see another merc die before his body realizes his life is over.

  Corpses slump in their seats. Blood drips onto the truck bed. The Predator slides the last body to the floor with the quiet precision of a born hunter.

  Still, somehow, the driver senses something. Perhaps he smells the blood, or the silence of death is an alarm bell all its own.

  “Everything okay back there?” he asks uneasily, peeking in the rearview mirror. Into shadows.

  In what little light makes it into the rear of the truck, he spots a thumbs-up from one of the mercenaries. It eases his mind, and he returns his attention to the road.

  In the back, the Predator lowers Harry Curtis, Jr.’s severed arm. The alien sits back, removes his mask, and allows himself to relax and enjoy the ride, as the blood continues to pool at his feet.

  * * *

  In a forest clearing not far from the Stargazer base, the alien vessel squats among surrounding trees like a coiled snake awaiting passing prey. Steam rises from its sleek surface, but disperses among the trees before it can rise high enough to give away the craft’s position.

  The hatch of the craft opens and a massive figure emerges, before climbing down to the forest floor. The figure stands impossibly tall, the shifting light and shadow of the night playing across its formidable body. This creature is different to the one that earlier that night had caused untold havoc at Project: Stargazer. Like the Predator, but something more.

  An upgrade. That is how it thinks of itself. Something better.

  It raises its head and utters a high, oddly musical chitter. Two silhouettes, stocky, rangy and powerful, slink out of the brush, padding forward on all fours.

  From its tunic, the Upgrade produces a piece of mesh-like material, perhaps a scrap of clothing, which moves in the creature’s taloned hand with a slithering motion, catching the light. The Upgrade crouches down and holds out the scrap of mesh. Its two companions, shoulder muscles rippling with panther-like grace, move forward like tracker dogs to sniff it.

  13

  Rory sat in his basement in an old BarcaLounger that had once been his dad’s favorite chair. One of his earliest memories was of his dad reaching down and scooping him up into the chair, plopping Rory on his lap, and the two of them watching the original Star Wars together. Rory figured he couldn’t have been more than two years old at the time. His father hadn’t been around much, but most of his earliest memories of his dad had imprinted on some part of his brain that made him happy and sad at the same time. He remembered his dad taking him along on a Sunday afternoon when he’d gone to play basketball with some of his friends. Rory had been four or five, old enough to sit and behave himself in the bleachers and watch his dad and the other men play. Just some guys in a smelly school gymnasium, pretending they were still in high school, but for those two hours, Rory loved them all. When the game was over, and the men took turns hoisting him onto their shoulders so he could try to throw the ball into the basket—that was the only time he could remember ever caring about sports.

  Those memories—the times his father had acted like a dad—shouldn’t have made up for all the absence and neglect. Most days, nothing could make up for that. Rory understood the way the fabric of things wove together, like numbers and language and mechanics, and he knew his father should have been a larger part of his life, that it made a difference. But he could never have put his disappointment into words his parents could have understood. It was as if his ability to evaluate his father’s parental performance existed in a locked room, and he knew he’d never find the key. All he knew was that it didn’t feel right; that far too often he w
as left feeling hollow, and yet a part of him understood this wasn’t fair. Rory’s brain had been wired differently from birth, and he thought—in his way—that Quinn McKenna had also been wired differently.

  He was who he was.

  Sometimes, especially on nights like this, when Rory sat in the BarcaLounger and remembered Star Wars and basketball—and when he had questions he needed answers to, but didn’t want to ask his mom—his memories of his father were enough for him, and he was just a regular kid who missed his dad.

  Rory wasn’t sure of the time, but he knew it was late. He felt a little cold, down in the basement. In his right hand, he held a tiny keychain viewer with a little button that turned a light on inside it. Peering into the eyehole, he glanced again at the photo inside—a picture of himself and his dad. In the photo, they were both laughing. Rory didn’t remember the picture being taken. He wished he could remember.

  He lowered the keychain viewer and glanced over at the tattered ottoman nearby. The helmet sat there, its blank eyes seeming to watch him. Beside it was the black doohickey that he’d popped out of the alien wrist gauntlet. It looked like some kind of tiny coffin or a miniature Lost Ark or something, except for the buttons and lights all over it.

  Rory had never wished for his father’s presence more than he did right now. Where had his dad found these things? What were they? Obviously, they were a secret, because this sort of thing didn’t just get mailed from Mexico to an Army Ranger’s private PO box every day, but what was the story behind them? Rory felt like that information would have been very useful to him in his efforts to figure out how to use the doohickey.

  He leaned out of the Barcalounger and grabbed it, then sat back and tapped buttons, trying to wake it up again. At first nothing happened. He frowned and toyed with it some more, felt pleased when the lights glowed red, but then he began to chew on his lip. What next? He felt like his understanding of this instrument and the language behind it was just out of reach, that he could learn to translate it all with just a little push, a little more insight.