Nodding at Rory, he said, “Any advice?”
“Yeah,” said Rory. “Smoking’s bad for you.”
Nebraska rolled his eyes. “I mean the Predator. How do we kill it?”
Deadpan, Rory replied, “Get it to start smoking.”
During the preparations, Traeger had slipped quietly away and he was now leaning into the trunk of the jeep he, Rory, and Sapir had arrived in. Casey had known he was up to something, and now she watched him out of the corner of her eye as he hauled out an army duffel bag. Clearly eager to do whatever it was he was doing without being seen, his movements were jerky, nervous, and as he yanked out the bag, items spilled from its open end onto the ground. Hastily, he scrambled to stuff them back into the bag, but not before Casey recognized some of the Predator tech she had seen displayed in glass cases at Project: Stargazer. She walked across, trying to make as little noise as possible, and stood over him. Suddenly, realizing someone was there, Traeger glanced up quickly.
He looked like a kid who’d been busted watching porn by his mom.
“Trick or treat bag?” Casey asked caustically.
She saw his brain working, trying to come up with an answer that might mollify her. He straightened up, took a couple of steps backward, and for a moment she thought he was about to turn tail and make a run for it.
But he backed into something that made his eyes jerk open in surprise, and when he turned around there was their old friend, the Predator dog with the bolt through its brain. It stood, mandibles clicking, wagging its tail, as if it wanted to play.
Casey waved her arms at it. “Go! Shoo! Go home!”
But the Predator dog simply wagged its tail harder and woofed at her. It was loving this game!
The creature’s appearance had given Traeger the opportunity to divert attention away from his own devious behavior. “That thing’ll give us away,” he snarled. “Get it the fuck out of here.”
Casey glared at him. Then she strode forward and snatched up one of the spilled items he hadn’t had time to scoop back into the duffel bag—an exploding cuff, like the one she had seen the Upgrade use on a merc earlier. Marching to the edge of the crater, the Predator dog capering around her, she drew back her arm and hurled the cuff as far as she could into the jungle.
Excitedly, the creature ran after it. As soon as it did, McKenna gave the word and the rag-tag team, which comprised Loonies, mercenaries, an Army Ranger, a CIA agent, an evolutionary biologist, and a highly gifted kid, double-timed it into the jungle on the far side of the crater.
By the time the Predator dog returned, the cuff clenched in its massive, drooling jaws, the clearing was empty.
Whining, the Predator dog dropped the cuff on the muddy ground and looked around, bewildered.
23
The group had death at their heels, and they needed no further encouragement than that. They moved swiftly through the jungle, ducking and dodging around trees and plants. Under the weight of their heavy clothing, backpacks, and weapons, the men grunted with exertion, sweat streaming down their faces, but not for a moment did they think of stopping for a rest, or even slowing down.
Rory could keep up with the group purely because he was smaller and lighter, and because he wasn’t carrying anything except for the invisibility ball in his pocket, which his dad had given to him. Holding Casey’s hand, he was able to negotiate the thick foliage far more easily than the bulkier soldiers in front of him.
Except for his mom, Rory was usually nervous around girls and women, and he didn’t like people touching him at the best of times, but he found comfort in the warmth of Casey’s hand in his, and he liked the way she kept glancing at him and smiling. She was looking out for him, and not in a patronizing way. It was like she knew the two of them were kindred spirits—both science-minded, both clever, both introverted—and that therefore they had to stick together.
Just ahead of them, Traeger was fumbling in his duffel bag as he ran along. Rory wondered whether the CIA agent was looking for a weapon—but what he eventually pulled out of the bag shocked Rory far more than a Predator weapon would have. Shocked him and filled his head with bad memories.
It was the Predator mask. The one that Rory had worn while trick-or-treating. The one he’d been wearing when he—it— had killed that man on his porch.
He’d thrown it into the bushes close to the man’s house, but he guessed it must have been recovered, and that it had found its way back into Traeger’s hands, as all such Predator tech seemed to do.
Dropping back a little, Traeger pointed the mask in Rory’s direction and waved it like a threat. Panting, he said, “On Halloween, this thing blew up a whole house. How do you fire it?”
Despite its bad associations, Rory guessed he was kind of glad the mask was back in their possession—it might prove useful against their pursuer—but he wished it was in the hands of pretty much anyone except Traeger.
“Um, you don’t,” he said. “It just… fires by itself. When it’s attacked.”
Traeger’s lips curled into a snarl, and for a moment Rory thought the agent was going to call him a liar. But it turned out he was just frustrated. “Really?” he said. “Fuck!” And he glared at the mask, as if demanding it give up its secrets.
Up ahead, Rory saw his dad glance back, and realized he must have heard the exchange. Allowing Coyle to take the lead, he dropped back with Nebraska to speak to them. Rory felt a sense of satisfaction at the fact that neither his dad nor Nebraska was panting and sweating half as much as Traeger was. His dad did look anxious, though, as if, having been name-checked by the alien, he felt a special responsibility to keep them all alive.
Barely giving Traeger and the mask a second look, his dad addressed Casey. “Okay, so what do we know?” He waggled the fingers of his free hand at the side of his head in an imitation of the alien’s “dreadlocks.” “Casey, the… uh… Marley shit?”
“I’m thinking sensory receptors,” Casey said, glancing at Rory as if for affirmation. He liked that. He nodded. “Like cat whiskers. Weak spot, maybe?”
“You said it left you alone back at Stargazer,” Nebraska reminded her. “How come?”
Casey shrugged. “I was unarmed and naked. Didn’t pose a threat.”
“No one’s getting naked,” Baxley shouted from up ahead.
“Speak for yourself,” Nettles retorted.
Despite the situation, everyone snorted laughter, even Traeger and the mercs—it was a brief release of tension they all needed. The only people who didn’t laugh were Rory, who sometimes didn’t get jokes as quickly as others did, and his dad, who not only continued to look grim, but who looked a little irritated now too.
Seeing this, Nettles veered over to him. “Fuck your guilt,” he said.
Now his dad looked surprised. No, more than surprised—startled. “Excuse me?”
Nettles’ voice was low, but Rory still heard what he said.
“You lost men. I get it. You’ll lose some today.” He paused, and Rory saw his expression change, become determined, earnest, like an unspoken promise. “But you’re not gonna lose your son.”
* * *
The Upgrade stands on the far side of the crater, facing the ship. All is ready. It has ensured that there will be nothing left for the humans to use, nothing they can turn to their advantage. It glances at the screen, and sees the numbers ticking down—0:09… 0:08… 0:07…
At 0:05, it presses a button on its wrist gauntlet and the ship is annihilated in a flash of intense white light, a contained but devastating explosion that causes the trees nearby to sway and thrash, and that sends an echoing boom rolling through the jungle like a war cry.
As the echoes die away, the Upgrade looks again at the screen.
0:02… 0:01… 0:00…
Time to hunt.
* * *
Somewhere behind them came the sound of an explosion, and a brief column of light, which lit up the sky. Traeger wondered what the oversized crab-faced bastard was up to, and th
en it came to him with a pang of despair. The fucker must have blown up the ship to stop it from falling into enemy hands. Shit, shit, shit!
Boiling with anger, he rooted around once again in his duffel bag, thinking that if he couldn’t have the ship, then he would have the son of a bitch himself. He knew there must be something in here he could use against it— something with easy-to-follow instructions, that didn’t involve him engaging in hand-to-hand combat.
He plucked out a couple of things—a nunchucks-type device, followed by an alien throwing star, like a Japanese shuriken, that required a wrist gauntlet (and, no doubt, years of practice) to operate it effectively—but almost immediately rejected them, dropping them back into the bag. The third item he pulled out, however, was ideal. A compact shoulder cannon, connected to a tiny pad-like sensor, which you attached to the side of your head, and which responded directly to what your brain told it to do.
Although Traeger hadn’t risked trying out the cannon himself, he’d been present at some of the tests, and it had proved an effective weapon. Still running, he affixed the cannon to his shoulder and pressed the sensor against his skull just below his ear. He gritted his teeth, expecting to feel a little pain as it clamped itself to his flesh, but it adhered painlessly. He swiveled his head and the barrel responded, completely in sync with his movements. Bingo!
Feeling some of his old confidence flowing back, he tossed the duffel bag to the nearest merc—it was the one with the yellow goatee and the worried eyes.
“Carry this,” he ordered.
Somewhere to their left—in the darkness of the jungle it was impossible to tell how far away—a branch snapped loudly, a sound that could clearly be heard even over the tramp of their footsteps and the constant rustle-swish of the undergrowth they were running through. Flashlights turned in that direction, but there was nothing to be seen except overlapping leaves and black shadows.
Most of the group simply faced front again and picked up their pace, but Traeger saw the merc with the yellow goatee suddenly stop dead, his eyes going wide and his mouth dropping wetly open. His body shaking as he succumbed to a full-blown panic attack, he delved into the duffel bag and pulled out the shuriken that Traeger had previously rejected.
“Whoa, easy,” Traeger said, but panic had the merc in a vice-like grip now, and he was too far gone to listen. As the soldier turned to face the direction that the branch-snap had come from and drew back his arm, Traeger raised his hands and his voice.
“No, no, no,” he warned. “You need the wrist thing—”
Too late. The merc pistoned his arm forward and the shuriken flew from his hand and disappeared into the blackness of the jungle. Traeger looked at him, aghast, and began to back away.
By this time everyone else had not only slowed, but stopped, and they were looking back to see what was happening, some of them raising their guns, as if fearing an attack. As a couple of the mercs moved toward their goateed colleague, Traeger waved them back, as if the man was infected and should not be approached.
The merc, meanwhile, simply stood where he was, as if rooted to the spot, staring in fear at the black wall of jungle in front of him. All of them could hear the swift metallic whickering of the blade he had thrown, as it sliced its way with apparent ease through whatever was standing in its way. The sound, loud at first, grew fainter, and eventually dwindled to silence; a couple of the men started to relax. But Traeger knew it was not over, and sure enough, after three seconds’ grace, they all heard it again. But this time the whickering sound, faint at first, began to grow louder. The goateed merc’s eyes stretched yet wider with horror as he realized what was happening. The shuriken was coming back!
“No,” he gibbered, “no, no, go away!”
He backed off, instinctively throwing up his hand to shield himself.
Traeger saw a flash of metal, and next second the merc was writhing on the ground and squealing like a stuck pig, blood spurting from the stump of his wrist. His severed hand lay a few feet away from the rest of his body, fingers curled in toward the palm. The shuriken, having effortlessly lopped off the man’s hand instead of clipping back into the wrist gauntlet as it was designed to do, now rapidly lost momentum and embedded itself in a tree.
The merc continued to squeal. Traeger stomped over to him, furious.
“Shut the fuck up!”
He contemplated using the shoulder cannon on the man, silencing him for good—if McKenna and his crew hadn’t been watching, he might even have done so. Instead, he bent down and slapped the man hard across the face, once, twice.
Shocked, the man swallowed his scream.
But then, as though in imitation, another merc, standing on the periphery of the group, gave a sudden startled yelp.
They all turned as one to see him rising rapidly into the trees, as though yanked upward on an elasticated rope.
When he was around ten meters from the ground, legs kicking wildly, there was a shifting in the shadows somewhere in the canopy of leaves and branches above his head, and then something detached itself from the darkness and slid down the trunk like a vast snake. The group on the ground could only watch in horror as the Upgrade descended the tree headfirst. It paused to regard them, eyes glinting, mandibles stretching to reveal pink flesh inset with jagged shark-like teeth. Then it reached out with its long arms, grabbed its prey by the shoulders, and hauled him upward.
Seconds later the real screaming began, and blood began to patter down from the tree like rain.
* * *
McKenna was the first to start shooting, blazing away at the darkness above their heads into which the Upgrade and its victim had vanished. The man immediately stopped screaming—either put out of his misery by McKenna’s bullets or killed by the Upgrade—but nothing fell from above. Nebraska, Nettles, Coyle, and Baxley were all firing too, but the remaining three mercs had already turned tail and fled. The noise was tremendous, bullets causing sparks to flare in the trees like a multitude of angry sprites. After a few seconds, McKenna waved an arm to call a halt to the shooting—if the Upgrade hadn’t crashed dead to the ground by now, that meant it was no longer there—and indicated that they should beat a hasty retreat.
As they lowered their weapons and began to hightail it out of there, Casey grabbed McKenna’s sleeve and indicated the merc with the severed hand, who was still lying on the ground, sweating and groaning. McKenna looked anguished, but shook his head. If they were going to have any chance of surviving this, they couldn’t allow themselves to be lumbered by anything that might slow them down. He half-expected Casey to protest, but she simply nodded, and mouthed “Sorry” at the man.
Then they cleared out, leaving him alone.
* * *
The merc’s name was Bruce Willis, a handle that had proved both a blessing and a curse throughout his thirty-six years on this earth. Partly because of his namesake’s reputation, he had become a tough guy almost by default, developing from an amiable fat kid from a middle-class family (his dad was a pharmacy manager, his mom a school secretary) into one who did weights, and boxed, and eventually dropped out of high school to take a job first as a nightclub doorman, and then as a prison guard. He had become a merc because a friend of his told him the money was good, but he had always felt like a phony. He felt like he was never quite as committed, or ruthless, or downright batshit-crazy as the guys around him, that one day he would be found out, and when that day came he would find himself in deep shit.
And now that day had come. Because here he was, in a jungle clearing, at night, on his own, being hunted by a monster. He had lost a hand, and a fuck of a lot of blood, and was in indescribable pain, and probably dying. There was a part of him that wished he could just pass out, slip into oblivion, but he couldn’t, because he had so much adrenaline racing through his system right now that it felt like his whole body was screaming. On the other hand (ha-ha), maybe now that everyone had gone away and left him, he would be left alone too. The monster would chase after the others,
and he would be free to live or die at his own leisure, depending on what God (because he did believe in God, despite his mom’s insistence that, by choosing the path he had chosen in life, he had forsaken his faith) had in mind for him.
He was still thinking these vaguely comforting thoughts when he heard a heavy thump to his right. Although it hurt to move—funny how losing a hand could make every other part of your body bellow out in pain too—he turned his head. What he saw chased all thoughts of God’s mercy from his mind. The monster was standing right beside him, its colossal legs stretching up to its equally colossal torso, and from there to its hideously ugly head.
Bruce began to whimper, to plead. With great effort, he held up his remaining hand, palm out.
“I’m unarmed…” he said. “I’m not a threat… I’m not a threat…”
The monster leaned over him. It tilted its head to one side, its weird, dreadlock-like appendages slithering across its shoulders.
His voice became a whisper. “I don’t pose a threat… I don’t…”
He only stopped pleading when the monster rammed a taloned hand between his lips and ripped his spine out through his mouth.
* * *
The triumphal, ululating screech of the Upgrade echoed through the woods, chilling them all even though they were sweating and panting with exertion.
“Sounds like we lost another red shirt,” Coyle gasped, his pack bouncing on his back as he ran. Then he gestured to his left and shouted, “Glimmer, on your nine!”
They turned to look, saw shadowy movement in the trees. Several flashlight beams picked out a hulking, dark shape, moving at panther-like speed through the jungle. Then it vanished.
Everyone thumped to a stop. Casey looked around and knew that they were all thinking the same as she was: running was pointless; their enemy was so much faster than they were; all they were doing was expending needless energy. Yet what else could they do?
They were looking to McKenna, but for once he looked as clueless as the rest of them.
“Up ahead,” Casey said, pointing. “This way.” When McKenna gave her a questioning look, she explained, “Lynch. He set some pyro to cover our back trail.”
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