The Predator

by Christopher Golden

  The boy works at some kind of table, and the Predator thinks of the lab from which he has just departed.

  On the wall beyond the child is a crude drawing of an animal. A dog? A smaller paper is attached to the larger one, and on that smaller tag there are typewritten words. Rory Declan McKenna, Grade 6. Gordon Middle School, GA.

  Pleased, the Predator taps another button on the mask and it seals to his face. This bio-helmet will serve him, for now. He scans the gear on display in that shattered glass case—items stolen or acquired from dead warriors over many years. He selects several throwing stars, slips them into a sheath on his armor, and then taps at his wrist gauntlet…

  And vanishes.

  * * *

  McKenna had never imagined he could grow bored with being in federal custody—secret, black box, down-the-rabbit-hole federal custody at that. He’d certainly never have figured he would be bored being in the back of what was essentially a prison bus with a motley crew of military lunatics who were his new therapy group. But by the time they rolled through the gates of the mysterious compound, and he glanced out the window and saw the mercenaries guarding it—men and women much like the ones Traeger had brought to Mexico to put a noose around his neck—McKenna had reached the boredom stage.

  He’d let his thoughts play out the future like a tangled ball of string. How long did Traeger think he could be kept under wraps? What would the son of a bitch do if McKenna tried to escape, or get the truth out? Would anyone believe him, or would they think he belonged in some VA psych hospital with the other loonies on the bus?

  As the gate rattled shut and the bus rolled across the compound, he smiled, half-asleep. People would believe him—at least some would—when they saw the evidence he’d shipped home to himself from Mexico.

  Yeah, no way in hell would McKenna stay Traeger’s pet nutjob. At least not for long.

  With a shuddering squeal of brakes, the bus rattled to a halt. McKenna frowned and glanced around at the Loonies. Coyle and Lynch didn’t even glance up. Nebraska and the others appeared more irritated than curious, but McKenna glanced out the window and frowned when he saw the other mercenaries in the compound. Wherever they were, it didn’t look like any VA hospital. Maybe Traeger had other plans for him—and for the Loonies— after all.

  The bus driver cranked the door open and a mercenary stepped on.

  “Sit tight,” the guard said, “there’s been a breach.”

  Breach. McKenna didn’t like the sound of that. Wherever they were, it was no hospital—and whatever secrecy it involved, someone who didn’t belong there had entered the compound.

  He started to wonder if this might be his chance to get the fuck out.

  * * *

  Casey had taken a moment to catch her breath. Almost unconsciously, she’d opened and closed her grip on the tranq rifle and then started forward. When she’d first glimpsed the fluorescent green liquid spattered on the floor, it had made her halt, but the moment she realized what it had to be—the Predator’s blood, from its fight with the guards—she started moving forward again. She’d seen it kill the men and women in the lab, seen it murder the guards who’d tried to stop it, but now that her terror had abated, and now that she’d seen the Predator could be hurt, could be wounded, her old fascination and ambition had returned.

  With a grunt, a bleeding med-tech came around the corner. The guy flinched when he spotted her, maybe thinking she would finish the job the Predator had begun. Then he exhaled, cringing with pain from his injuries. His eyes were alight with panic and despair.

  “It… it can’t get away,” the med-tech said.

  Casey gripped the tranq rifle even tighter. “It won’t,” she replied determinedly. “Not my space animal.”

  She followed the blood trail, knowing with every step that she had left the world of safety and good decisions behind, and not giving a single goddamn fuck.

  11

  Aaron Pinsky knew he belonged in the cockpit of his F-22. Some people never felt comfortable in their work. He had friends from high school who were high-priced lawyers or doctors who told him they felt like frauds, and more than one old friend working construction who admitted they thought they were meant for more in life. Over the past year he had found his thoughts straying more and more to Shayla Woods, who’d spent high school as a waitress and then gone to culinary school. Shayla dreamed of having her own restaurant, of being the kind of chef who won awards and became the buzz of the city. For now, she was just a sous chef, but she loved it. Lived and breathed, she said, for the rhythm and the smells and the constant crisis of the kitchen. She knew in her soul that she belonged there, and that was how Pinsky felt about flying, and about the Air Force.

  He sliced the sky and scanned both instruments and visual, searching for the bogey that had everyone in an uproar. Pinsky was totally at ease. He could breathe up here. There were no distractions, no arguments, no pissing contests. As a pilot, his confidence felt pure. He had a job to do, and he performed his duties as surely as he drew in breath.

  His comms crackled as he checked his instruments again.

  “Catfish one,” came Suarez’s voice, “triangulate SAM radar.”

  Pinsky’s hands moved confidently over the instruments as if he and his jet were simply different parts of the same organism, man and machine in a state of perfect symbiosis.

  * * *

  In his basement, Rory sat at the table with the device in his hand. He’d abandoned it for a while to play video games, and had just come back to it a moment before, tapping in the same code he’d tried earlier. Just for the hell of it.

  He smiled curiously. What the hell was this thing? And that code… what did it do?

  Rory figured he would never know.

  * * *

  There were three of them all together—Raptor jets— flying in formation. Pinsky heard hesitation over the comms, like Suarez was about to say something else. Then alarms sounded in the cockpit and something blinked onto his display. The instruments went crazy and he glanced up as a gleaming craft appeared directly ahead, right in their flight path.

  “Holy shit!” Pinsky barked.

  “Heads up! Bandit!” Suarez announced, as if they didn’t know.

  Pinsky veered to starboard. Suarez and Obie peeled off to port, missing the UFO by meters. The other two pilots were shouting profanities and generally losing their shit, but Pinsky snapped at them to lock it down. He didn’t know about the others, but he knew for sure that he belonged up here, and whatever that bogey was—it sure as hell did not.

  But when he glanced at his instruments, he couldn’t quite believe what they were telling him. They had all seen the bogey, clear as day, but according to all the readouts there was suddenly no sign that it had ever been there at all.

  * * *

  McKenna rubbed his eyes and sat up a little straighter. Breach? What the hell was going on? And where exactly were they? He craned his neck and peered through the dirty windows, trying to get a better look at the compound. Something caught his eye, and he stared as something dropped from a rooftop. It took him a moment to realize that it was a human being, a guard, their arms flailing wildly. Then the body smashed into the ground, bounced, and went still.

  Son of a bitch, he thought, putting a hand against the glass and staring up at the rooftop. There was something else up there. Something big, moving. It strode swiftly to the edge of the roof and peered over at the ground below. As light slid over it, McKenna felt a cold ripple run through his body. It was the creature he had seen in the jungle—or something like it! As he gaped at it, it flickered, and then vanished into the darkness as if it had never been there.

  Only then did McKenna realize Nebraska Williams had been staring, too. The man looked shaken, but sensing McKenna’s scrutiny he tried to hide it.

  “Your little green friend?” Nebraska asked with mock casualness.

  “Yup.”

  “Turns invisible?”

  “Yup.”

  N
ebraska grimaced. “Goddamn space aliens.”

  Out across the compound, half-lost in darkness, a guard swept his MX3 in a low arc. McKenna watched the mercenary searching the shadows between buildings, then one of those shadows took shape and the alien leaped out of nowhere—literally nowhere—and raked talons across the guard’s throat before vanishing again.

  The other guys were moving now, joining McKenna and Nebraska at the windows. The driver and the guards up at the front of the bus were whispering, all of them drawing weapons.

  “That thing killed my men,” McKenna said, starting to rise, watching the guards, ready to enter the fray.

  “Yeah, they’ll do that,” Nebraska said. “Stay on the bus.”

  McKenna scowled at him. “What are you, nuts? We gotta move!”

  “Brother?” Nebraska replied dubiously. “It’s a bus.” He glanced over at Coyle and gave him the nod, a signal to start some shit.

  Coyle picked up on it immediately. “Hey, Baxley! If your mom’s vagina was a video game, it’d be rated ‘E for Everyone!’”

  One of the MPs up front rattled the cage with his baton. “Knock it off!” he snapped, as nervous as the rest of them.

  “Seriously,” Coyle said, leering at Baxley with those mad eyes. “What’s the difference between five big black guys and a joke?” He glanced around, as if hoping for an answer, then grinned. “Baxley’s mom can’t take a joke!”

  That did it. Baxley lunged from his seat, a blur, and wrapped the chain connecting his manacles around Coyle’s throat. Coyle gasped and sputtered, grin still on his face until he began to claw in strangled panic at the chain.

  The MP who’d shouted at them swore again, key ring jangling as he grabbed hold of the gate. The other guard unclipped his sidearm and stepped to one side to get an angle on them.

  “Everyone on the floor, face down!” shouted the one aiming his gun.

  Everyone but Coyle and Baxley obeyed—Baxley because he was trying to murder Coyle, and Coyle because he was trying not to die. McKenna ground his teeth as he went to his knees with his head bowed and his hands behind his head. He glanced up to see the MP with the keys grabbing a Remington 870 pump action shotgun from its mount outside the cage. Then the two guards were rushing up the aisle, weapons drawn, sweeping the barrels as they went to Baxley and Coyle and started to drag the troublemakers apart.

  Coyle and Baxley struggled, spitting, trying to get at each other.

  The first MP reached for the baton at his belt. McKenna saw the surprise, and then the fear, in his eyes as his hand closed on nothing and he realized the baton had gone missing. Alarm bells were clearly going off in the guy’s head as he started to glance around, but too late. Baxley had snatched the baton while they were grappling, and now he swung it swiftly and savagely at the back of the MP’s legs. The guy went down hard on his knees.

  The second MP raised the shotgun, but he barely had a second to register what was unfolding before Coyle brought his hand up, smashing his palm against the barrel of the shotgun. The weapon’s stock slammed back into the MP’s forehead with a loud crack, dropping the man to the aisle floor.

  Coyle grabbed the shotgun and tossed it to Nebraska, who cocked it even as he spun and leveled the weapon at the driver.

  “Whoopsie,” Nebraska said.

  The driver put up his hands. Baxley and Coyle, the best of friends now that their bit of theater no longer had a purpose, relieved the two MPs of their keys and swiftly began to unlock the other prisoners’ shackles.

  The moment Nebraska’s manacles were removed, he hurried up to replace the driver. Baxley unlocked McKenna’s cuffs as Nettles and Lynch bustled the two MPs back out through the open cage door and then shoved them off the bus, followed by the driver.

  Unsure what the ultimate motives of his fellow prisoners were, McKenna said, “Hate to interrupt your little prison break, but I could use your help.”

  Nebraska fired up the engine, glancing over his shoulder at McKenna. “Does this green boy of yours have a bus pass?”

  McKenna narrowed his eyes. He’d been half afraid the Loonies would want to try to run. Fortunately, they seemed either too brave or too crazy to do that. Maybe both.

  “Just get me close,” McKenna told him. “I’m a sniper.”

  Nebraska jerked the bus into gear. “Oh, you wanna kill him. Hell, why didn’t you say so?”

  With a look of grim purpose, he hit the accelerator, gunning the engine, and the bus lurched forward.

  * * *

  As Casey raced up another flight of stairs, following the trail of green blood, she felt grateful for all the spin classes she’d taken. She reached a metal door that hung open, its lock torn out, the hinges twisted. With a shove, she pushed through and burst into the night air.

  Heart thundering, she glanced around. Her skin prickled with fear as she oriented herself. The Stargazer compound was on one side of a hydro dam, part of the base and the lab built into the dam itself. Now her pursuit had led her out onto the roof of one wing of the facility. To one side, she could see yet more of the base still under construction. Below her was the wide dam, the road that went across it, and the compound just in front of the base. She turned to look out at the dark water.

  Casey was terrified, yes, but she felt far more determined than afraid.

  At her feet, she saw a spattering of that gleaming green blood, and wondered just how wounded the Predator was, whether it had been weakened, incapacitated— she hoped so, though conversely she didn’t want it to die; despite everything, she still harbored the hope of communicating with it. Before she could talk herself out of it, she ran, following the Predator’s trail. Below her, vehicles roared along the road that ran atop the dam. Alarms wailed throughout the complex, both up top and down below, and echoed from within.

  Casey followed the blood trail out along a catwalk. Breathless, she reached the end and saw the fresh green ichor dripping off the edge. A frown creased her brow. Had the Predator jumped, or…

  Motion above drew her attention. She glanced up into the new construction to see the creature moving along a gantry overhead—moving easily, as if it hadn’t been wounded at all. As if aware of her scrutiny, it paused and cocked its head, like it was listening to the sky. Casey held her breath, thinking it would turn and leap at her, but instead the Predator glanced up with a sudden quick movement, as if something had alarmed it.

  Good, she thought. Whatever had gotten its attention, she was grateful for the diversion. She raised the tranquilizer rifle, thinking it was probably out of range. Even so, she was desperate enough to take a shot.

  Maybe it was her heart pounding in her ears or the intensity of her focus or the rumble of military vehicles behind her, but she didn’t hear the ship coming until it blasted across the sky—a silver pod that sheared through the atmosphere overhead with a boom that reverberated across Stargazer base. Casey froze, so caught up in the moment that when the sky opened again, her heart nearly stopped. A pair of F-22 fighter jets flashed overhead in the blink of an eye, their noise deafening, as if they’d just shattered heaven in two.

  But heaven was somebody else’s problem. Casey’s was here on the ground.

  * * *

  The bus punched through a fence with a brittle clang and thundered forward, chain link whipping across the windshield and away. McKenna held onto the cage with one hand and knelt on a seat, scanning the compound. Nebraska drove like they were on a minefield, swerving back and forth, but he wasn’t avoiding anything—he kept bending to peer out the windshield, trying to get a look at the jets and the damn spaceship even as he eyed the buildings around and below them.

  “Eyes on the fucking—” McKenna began.

  The next word would have been road, of course. But McKenna lost track of his thoughts the moment he spotted the woman off to the right of the bus, running along a catwalk twenty feet off the ground. As he spotted her, the woman swung up onto a metal bridge, taking the high ground. McKenna tracked her, wondering if she was
running away from something, or toward it. He checked her trajectory, and then he saw it.

  For all its bulk, the alien moved fast. It leaped, agile as an ape, from one steel beam to another, above her, the woman just about keeping pace. McKenna’s eyes widened as he realized this one woman, who didn’t even look like a soldier, was the only person in the entire complex who seemed to be in foot pursuit of the space creature that had murdered his men. She had some kind of rifle in her hand, but from this distance he couldn’t identify the weapon.

  What the hell does she think she’s doing? he thought.

  The bus jerked to the left, Nebraska cursing at an obstacle that McKenna hadn’t seen. McKenna took a jolt, but held onto the gate, and when he glanced out the window again, he saw the woman raise the rifle—some sort of tranquilizer gun, like a zookeeper might use. She got off a shot, and then another, but whatever her ammo was, it smacked impotently into the steel beams. The creature leaped out, away from her, but McKenna didn’t think it was out of fear. It wasn’t fleeing its pursuer—it had a goal in mind.

  As the bus roared forward, the alien suddenly dropped from overhead. It touched down dead ahead of them, but McKenna was only half paying attention as Nebraska swore and twisted the wheel to avoid it, the Loonies shouting from the back. The creature corkscrewed away from them, disappearing into the darkness. By this time, Coyle and Lynch had become aware of the woman as well. Together they watched her race to the end of the bridge she’d been on.

  No way, McKenna thought. No fucking way is she going to—

  But she did. He caught a glimpse of the determination on her face, and the terror that bloomed in her expression when she realized what she was doing, and then she was out of sight. The bus had passed right beneath her.

  McKenna whipped his head back and stared at the ceiling of the bus, even as he heard the thump and roll of the woman landing on the roof above them. Coyle and Lynch grinned at each other.