She hoped she was right—not only that Lynch had had time to set the pyro before the alien had got him, but also that they were where she thought they were (she had a good sense of direction, but in the darkness of the jungle it was easy to get turned around and not know it). It was a long shot—but the comfort was, she knew that McKenna also knew it was a long shot, yet he was nodding regardless.
“Fine,” he said. “Let’s trap the motherfucker.”
He led the way along the path she had indicated. It was narrow, hemmed in by trees and brush. A choke point. Nettles passed him a detonator. Baxley squeezed past Nettles and tapped McKenna on the shoulder, and when McKenna turned he said, “Set it,” then jerked his head at Coyle. “We’ll draw him in.”
Coyle raised his eyebrows. “What is this ‘we,’ kemosabe?”
But the way he said it, McKenna knew he was committed one hundred percent. Knew that Coyle—like Baxley, like all of them—would do whatever it took to protect his buddies, and most especially Rory, even if it meant risking his own life. McKenna locked eyes with both of them for a long moment, his face solemn. He didn’t have the words to express the depth of his gratitude, his admiration, his love, for these two crazy men. In the end he nodded tersely, and they nodded back. It was enough.
Then he turned and hurried after the others, leaving Coyle and Baxley behind.
* * *
Alone, Coyle and Baxley looked at each other. Both were relaxed, both breathing deeply and evenly.
Then a faint rustle in the bushes nearby caused them both to jerk up their guns and spin round.
After a moment, Baxley frowned and lowered his gun. “Calm down,” he said to Coyle.
Coyle looked indignant. “ Me calm down? Sure, thanks… twitchy.”
“Just don’t shoot me, fucker,” Baxley muttered.
They began to walk back along the trail. As soon as it widened out, Coyle raised his weapon and let loose a burst of gunfire, strafing the foliage in front of them, shredding leaves and branches.
“Hey, asshole!” he hollered into the darkness. “What’s the difference between a golf ball and a G-spot?”
Baxley shot him an incredulous look. “You’re telling it a joke?”
Coyle shrugged. “If he laughs it’ll give away his position.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I ever—”
Before he could finish his sentence, the tree closest to him exploded. There was a blast of heat and light, and the thing simply shattered into pieces as though struck by lightning.
The two of them ducked, Baxley letting out an involuntary yelp as splinters showered over him. The echoes of the blast were still fading when another sound replaced it—a deep, booming, otherworldly laugh that reverberated through the jungle.
Baxley and Coyle looked at each other. They both recognized that laugh. Distorted though it was, it was Traeger’s laugh, mocking and without humor.
And I didn’t even get to the punchline, Coyle thought.
Then, yelling in defiance, both men raised their guns and let fly, blitzing the jungle with bullets. After five seconds they stopped, and then, in silent agreement, they turned and ran as fast as they could, back along the trail, toward the choke point, jumping over logs and crashing through bushes.
“Come and get us, motherfucker! This way!” Baxley yelled gleefully.
Just ahead of him he heard Coyle shrieking with laughter.
* * *
After maybe seventy meters, the choke hole widened out into a clearing. It was here that the hunted were hoping to become the hunters. With their trap hastily set, they scrambled for cover, diving behind trees and bushes, hoping against hope that their desperate counter-attack against a creature that was faster, stronger, technologically superior, and infinitely more vicious than they were would end this nightmare once and for all.
Typically, McKenna and Nebraska were the last to seek shelter. As the whoops of Coyle and Baxley grew louder, McKenna hurried across the clearing, and Nebraska followed, though not before kicking a little more dirt over the string of claymore mines they were all hoping would turn the Upgrade into dog food. Nebraska jumped over a boulder directly opposite the arch of tree branches that formed the clearing’s entrance, and crouched behind it, his shoulder pressed up against its rough stone surface. Peering over the top of the boulder, he took a last look around, like a party organizer checking the final details before the arrival of the special guest. In the darkness and the drifting jungle mist he caught glimpses of mercs and Loonies, what little light there was flashing on the barrels of their guns, and glinting in their eyes. Over to his left, he could just about make out Casey crouched next to Traeger, who seemed to be fiddling with that weird alien cannon he was wearing on his shoulder. Sensing Nebraska’s gaze, Casey glanced across at him and gave him a hopeful thumbs-up. He nodded back at her.
Then he faced front again. From the sounds of it, Coyle and Baxley were almost here. The party was about to begin.
* * *
Still whooping and yelling—not only a lure for the Upgrade, but also a release of tension and a sheer primal expression of joy at still being alive—Coyle and Baxley burst into the clearing.
“Contaaaaccct!” Baxley yelled, then he and Coyle were leaping through the air like a pair of Olympic long jumpers, clearing the strings of explosives that had been set up across the ground in front of them and threaded into the tree branches above their heads. They hit the ground, rolled like experts, and within a split second were up on their feet again, heading for cover, arms swinging, legs pumping. They ran either side of a big tree and met up again behind it, panting and sweating.
Suddenly, Baxley started grinning, then chuckling to himself. Coyle raised his eyebrows.
“Shit, man… your joke,” Baxley explained. “I just got it. A guy might actually look for a golf ball.”
* * *
“Come on,” Casey murmured, “come on.”
It had only been twenty seconds, maybe less, since Baxley and Coyle had entered the arena, but in this situation twenty seconds seemed like a loooong time. The jungle was full of night sounds—rustles and birdcalls and the ripple of leaves in the wind. Casey could feel her heart thumping at the base of her throat, could smell Traeger’s sweat, and feel the sharp edge of something in the CIA agent’s duffel bag—possibly the Predator mask—pressing against her leg. She glanced up, hoping the Upgrade hadn’t outmaneuvered them, that it wasn’t even now up there in the blackness of the trees above their heads, lowering itself down to snatch its prey, silent as a spider on a thread of silk…
She heard someone gasp, and her eyes immediately seemed to refocus, to sharpen. There. A suggestion of movement at the entrance to the clearing. A shimmer. She held her breath, sensed Traeger tense beside her.
And then, just like that, the Upgrade stepped into the clearing, ducking under the archway of branches, rising to its full height.
Even now, its cloaked form a rippling, shimmering mass of forest come alive, Casey found the alien both impressively beautiful and utterly terrifying. It was like something from folklore. A demon warrior. A perfect killing machine. Relentless and unstoppable. When it moved into the kill zone and got itself blown into chunks of unrecognizable meat, she knew she’d feel a pang of genuine sorrow and regret. And yet right now she wanted that to happen more than anything else in the world.
Two more steps, she thought. Two more steps and all this will be over. But the Upgrade wasn’t moving. Shit. Clearly it could sense something. Suspected a trap. Although it was cloaked, she could discern its movements—its head jerking bird-like as it surveyed its surroundings. Could it see the string of claymore mines in the dirt? The pack of explosives attached to tree branches above its head, wired to blow the instant it walked underneath? It was dark, but what if the alien had night vision? What if—
Abruptly, the Upgrade decloaked.
Now it stood there at the entrance to the clearing in all its glory. A defiant gesture. A mocking gesture. It coc
ked its head at them, and although its expression was impossible to read, Casey guessed it was chiding them, expressing a kind of mock-disappointment at how pathetic they were, how unworthy they were as opponents.
“No… no… no…” murmured Traeger beside her, weariness and despair in his voice.
She glanced at Nebraska. He was clutching his gun in both hands, half-raising it, and she wondered how much longer it would be before this turned into a straight-out firefight. Maybe if Traeger took the initiative, fired his shoulder cannon, caught the Upgrade by surprise—
But it was the Upgrade who took the initiative. Almost before she realized that the alien had moved, it raised a hand, fired something from its wrist gauntlet, something that flashed in the meager light. A blade.
She didn’t realize what had happened until she heard a grisly sound, followed by an almost regretful sigh to her right. Turning, she saw another of Traeger’s mercs fold and crumple to the ground, blood pouring from a hole in his chest. Immediately, she guessed that the Upgrade’s blade had passed clean through the tree and then through the soldier, like a bullet through soft putty. The Upgrade was showing them their defenses were worthless, that there was nowhere to hide.
“He didn’t buy it!” McKenna yelled. “Open fire!”
Weapons blazed from all around the clearing, and suddenly the darkness was lit up by staccato flashes of gunfire. Bullets tore up trees and bushes, the air filling with the confetti of splinters and shredded foliage. Through it all, Casey tried to keep track of the Upgrade, which had moved even before McKenna had finished giving his order. She saw it dart to its left, weave in and out between the tree trunks so swiftly she couldn’t even tell whether it had reengaged its cloaking mechanism or not. Big as it was, the alien was a fleeting shadow, gone before the bullets could reach it.
Although she wasn’t a soldier, it was obvious to Casey what McKenna and his guys were doing wrong. They were all concentrating their gunfire on one place, which invariably was always the place the Upgrade had just vacated, instead of strafing the entire area, which would effectively have created a barrier of bullets in front of them and given the Upgrade nowhere to hide. She moved out of hiding and waved her arms, trying to snag either Nebraska’s or McKenna’s attention. But they were in the zone, fully focused, and so instead she simply tried yelling at the men to spread the barrage over a wider area, but she couldn’t make herself heard above the noise. She glanced back at Traeger, hoping for some help, but despite toting the only weapon that might prove useful against their enemy, he was cowering behind his tree, keeping his head down. She wondered briefly whether to risk breaking cover entirely and rush across the short stretch of open ground between her and Nebraska—but then the decision was taken out of her hands.
She was vaguely aware of something flashing past on her left-hand side and instinctively ducked, whilst at the same time following its trajectory with her eyes. She only realized it was the Upgrade’s throwing blade returning when she saw the Upgrade’s arm snake out from behind a tree and the blade snap neatly back into place on its wrist gauntlet. She was surprised to see the Upgrade way over to her left. Last time she’d been aware of it, it had been darting between the trees to the right of the entrance to the clearing—and indeed, that was where McKenna and his men were still concentrating their fire.
“Over there!” she yelled, pointing at the Upgrade as it moved forward, keeping to the shadows, striding with one massive step over the string of claymore mines—but no one saw her or heard her.
No one, that is, except the Upgrade itself.
Casey felt herself go cold all over as the Upgrade’s head suddenly snapped round, its eyes boring into her. She saw it reach for its throwing blade again, and dived back behind her tree, but having already witnessed how easily the blade could slice through thick bark she knew she might as well have been standing out in the open. Desperately, she lunged for Traeger’s duffel bag and grabbed the first thing that came to hand—the Predator mask. As the Upgrade flung out its arm, releasing the blade, she dived to one side and swung the mask out wildly in front of her, using it as a tiny makeshift shield.
She was only aware the blade had hit the mask and deflected away when she felt the mask jerked from her hand. She yelped, her fingers stinging, the force of the blow causing the mask to fly one way and she the other. She came down in a heap, which knocked the breath from her, and heard the mask land several meters away with a clanging thump. What happened next happened suddenly and without warning.
The mask came alive.
Casey heard a whirr and a click, and sitting up she saw something extending from an aperture at the side of the mask that was parallel to the eye sockets—a tube of some kind. All at once she remembered Rory telling them how the mask had instinctively responded when it or its wearer had been under attack—how it had reduced one of his neighbors to ash and obliterated the front porch of the guy’s house.
Locking onto its target, the mask now fired a bolt of pure concentrated energy at its attacker. So swift and accurate was the streak of light that not even the Upgrade was quick enough to dodge out of its way. The energy bolt hit it in the center of its chest, knocking it off its feet. The creature flew backward, smoke coiling up from its body, and crashed down right in the middle of the makeshift minefield they had created.
The shooting stopped and an almost stunned silence filled the clearing. Casey rose shakily to her feet, hardly daring to hope.
Was this it? Was the thing dead?
As the alien lay there motionless, some of the men began to emerge cautiously from hiding.
Then the Upgrade stirred, flexing one of its huge hands.
Seizing his chance, McKenna yelled, “Light him up!”
Whoever was closest to the remote—Casey thought it might have been Nettles—grabbed it and pressed the button. They all flinched back, shielding their eyes and ears as best they could from the colossal BOOM! that shook the clearing. The Upgrade’s body lifted into the air and slammed back down again, orange powder—phosphorous—settling over it. If it had been a man, Casey thought, it would have been blown to smithereens twice over. But the creature, though barely conscious, still seemed to be intact.
Like piranhas around a much larger but ailing enemy, Loonies and mercs alike closed in for the kill. They opened fire from all directions, the Upgrade’s body jerking as a multitude of bullets spanged off its armor, and maybe even off its alien hide.
Casey turned to her right to see Nebraska leap up onto the boulder he’d been hiding behind, a flare gun in his hand. Shouting at the men to stand clear, he pointed it at the prone body of the Upgrade and pulled the trigger. The projectile arced across the clearing, a mini blazing comet. Nebraska’s aim was perfect. The flare hit the Upgrade dead center, the phosphorous on its body ignited, and suddenly the alien was engulfed from head to toe in flames.
That’s it, Casey thought with a kind of wonder. It’s dead. We’ve killed it. But as though it could read her mind, and wanted to prove her wrong, the Upgrade suddenly leaped to its feet, roaring and flailing, causing men to fall back before it. As it beat at the flames that had transformed it into a fire demon, McKenna kept circling it, kept firing at it—until suddenly his gun clicked empty.
“Mag,” he shouted, and Rory tossed one across to him. He caught it cleanly, but even before he could load it and resume firing, Traeger was emerging from hiding, shouting across at him to stand back.
McKenna had barely done so when Trager faced the Upgrade and let loose with the shoulder cannon. Oh, so now he wants to be a hero, Casey thought cynically. He fired once, then again, each shot a direct hit, each shot rocking the Upgrade back on its heels.
How much more punishment can it take? Casey wondered. One thing was for sure. The Upgrade was an incredibly tough motherfucker. But it wasn’t indestructible. Because nothing was indestruct—
All at once, glancing at Traeger, Casey noticed that the left leg of his pants had caught fire. The Upgrade’s flailin
g had caused little fires to break out everywhere, clumps of blazing foliage flying around the clearing like dying fireworks. Most fizzled out as they landed, but one must have drifted down onto the back of Traeger’s leg and set the fabric of his pants alight. Even now, flames were licking up his calf toward his knee—and he was so caught up in the assault on the Upgrade that he hadn’t even noticed.
“Hey! Traeger!” she yelled, gesturing at his burning pants.
Distracted, he jerked his head around, saw the flames, and panicked.
Big mistake.
As his head swiveled round, so did the shoulder cannon, in sync with his movements. Only now it was pointing at the back of his skull, and the sudden surge of adrenaline in his brain was enough to trigger it. There was a whoosh! as the cannon fired, and suddenly Traeger’s head was nothing but flying offal. As the merc standing closest to him was splattered with blood and shards of bone and porridgey lumps of brain matter, Traeger’s headless body staggered sideways a couple of paces, and then tumbled forward, hitting the ground with a graceless thump.
“Fuck me!” Casey blurted, and clapped a hand to her mouth. Traeger had been a ruthless fucker with a rotten black soul, but she still felt guiltily responsible for his death. If she hadn’t pointed out that his pants were on fire…
If she hadn’t pointed it out, he’d have burned to death anyway, she told herself firmly.
She still felt bad—though it was perhaps a good thing that she didn’t have the luxury of wallowing in remorse for long. With a bellow of rage, the Upgrade, still burning, rallied again, surging to its feet like a boxer on the ropes who refuses to go down, and swinging one vast, burning arm in the direction of a merc who had ventured too close to it. The merc leaped back with a yell, the Upgrade’s clawed hand missing his face by mere inches and smashing into a tree. Sturdy as it was, the tree splintered in a shower of sparks, several of its branches shaking loose and crashing to the ground. One of them embedded itself into the soft earth and toppled sideways, its torn end coming to rest against the thicker branch of another tree that jutted out from the trunk at an almost perfect right angle. Now the fallen branch, canted sideways, resembled a ladder leaning against the side of a house. And suddenly Casey saw Baxley leaping onto that ladder and scaling it like a monkey, his face twisted demonically, nothing in his eyes but the raging desire to bring their enemy down.
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