“Kid, go!” Casey called, urging him on.
McKenna followed on his son’s heels. He felt the target on his back. If the Predator wanted him dead it would take only one shot, right now, and he’d be just as much wreckage as that lamppost. He wanted to scream to Rory to run a serpentine pattern, but the school was just ahead, and he knew that as long as he could keep himself between the Predator and his son, Rory would have a head start. The Loonies would buy them even more time. The only thing that mattered in that moment was his boy.
He glanced back and saw the Predator leap down from atop the RV. The Loonies moved in. McKenna spared a moment to hope they weren’t all about to die—then he faced front again.
The lobby doors were locked. McKenna kicked them open and he and Rory barreled into the empty building, footfalls echoing across the vacant lobby. Both of them were breathless, wordless. No words were necessary. McKenna knew he wasn’t as smart as his son, but he also knew they were both working overtime trying to figure out how to survive this.
Rory kept running. McKenna needed to slow him down, to keep the boy with him—protected. He reached for Rory but the kid squirted further ahead, running for the stairs. Going up seemed like a terrible idea—once they were upstairs, they’d have to find a way down that didn’t involve jumping—but Rory had nearly reached the steps and McKenna had no way to stop him.
“Wait,” McKenna gasped. “Rory—”
The lobby doors exploded inward. The blast nearly lifted McKenna off his feet. A cloud of shattered wood blew across the floor. Glancing back through the massive hole in the entryway, McKenna could see the Loonies rolling on the pavement, clutching at their ears, deafened by the blast.
In through the swirling cloud of debris stalked the Predator, its silhouette flashing McKenna back to the jungle. Yet again he cursed himself for not killing the alien when he’d had the chance.
Rory had headed up the stairs. McKenna followed at top speed, using the settling cloud of debris to buy him precious seconds, even whilst knowing that those seconds wouldn’t be nearly enough.
McKenna chased Rory out of the stairwell and into a long hallway. Rory’s sneakers slapped the linoleum. McKenna just needed him to slow down a moment, but damn, the kid was fast.
“Son, come on!” McKenna snapped.
Rory glanced over his shoulder and, at last, pulled up short. McKenna had more to say, but Rory’s dreamlike expression startled him to silence. The kid wasn’t even looking at him, just staring… past him.
A throaty clicking sound came from behind him. McKenna turned to look down the corridor, marveling that the Predator could be that fast, that it had already caught up to them. But no, it wasn’t the Predator. This sound was different. It came from outside the line of high windows set into the outer wall. Turning, McKenna spotted a massive silhouette out there in the dark and he stiffened, his mind trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
Ice flowed along his spine and he reached out a hand, instinctively trying to put Rory behind him. He had no words left for this new thing. It was a Predator, yes, but the monster framed in the window had to be some kind of next-gen bullshit, because this creature stood at least eleven feet tall.
McKenna didn’t have to say a word. As one, he and Rory began to back away from the windows. Together, they twisted around to flee for the next turn in the corridor, and found the Predator waiting for them. The one from downstairs. The original, the bastard from the jungle, who now wore a borrowed helmet and wanted his original gear back.
Rory practically plowed into the Predator. It swatted him aside and the kid went sliding along the smooth floor. Something skittered out of Rory’s hand, a long black gizmo that McKenna thought looked like a video game controller or a big TV remote. He only got a glimpse of the thing before the Predator shot out a hand and grabbed the chest of his jacket. McKenna threw a punch at its body, and realized his mistake when his fist smashed against armor.
The Predator slammed him against the wall, so damn strong it could have killed him with very little effort. Instead, it cocked its head and seemed to scan him—and McKenna realized that was precisely what the alien was doing. The tech in the helmet must have been searching him for something that it didn’t find. Still holding him against the wall, the Predator turned and fixed its gaze on Rory.
No, McKenna thought.
The Predator’s head twitched, its focus no longer on Rory but on the black gizmo on the floor. It was clear that whatever that thing was, the alien wanted it.
Just take it, McKenna tried to mumble. Just take it and go.
Maybe, if he’d been able to get the words out clearly, the Predator would simply have done as he asked. But then McKenna heard the clicking noise outside the window again. He started to glance that way, and was aware that the Predator was also whipping its head round, alarmed by the sound—but too late. Abruptly the wall erupted, plaster debris flying everywhere, and an impossibly large arm smashed through the hole and reached for the Predator.
Stunned, McKenna dropped to the floor as the Predator let him go and raised its weapon. But before it could fire, the massive arm shot forward and the huge hand on the end of it tore the cannon-like gun from the Predator’s hand and crushed it as if it were cheap tin. Dropping the weapon, the massive arm of the Upgrade Predator swung and swatted the original Predator effortlessly aside. As the Upgrade Predator hauled itself through the hole it had made, and the original Predator scrambled to its feet and rushed forward to confront it, McKenna took his chance and jumped up. Turning away from the Predators, he ran back along the corridor, toward the stairs, scooping up a still-dazed Rory as the howl and clash of the fighting aliens resounded behind him. His only hope was that the creatures would keep one another occupied long enough for him to get his son to safety.
He and Rory clattered down the stairs, McKenna all but carrying his son, taking the steps two at a time. Through the still-drifting murk of debris he saw dark shapes moving up the stairs toward them, and for a moment he faltered, before realizing it was the Loonies, Nebraska at their head.
“Go! Go!” he yelled, waving them back. There followed a Keystone Kops moment, everyone trying to turn at once and head back the way they had come, which would have been comical if it hadn’t been for the dire circumstances. After a few seconds, however, they were all heading in the same direction, Lynch and Coyle leading the way, with McKenna and Rory bringing up the rear, just behind Nebraska and Casey.
They made it into the lobby, and were a few feet from the splintered gap that had once housed a pair of double doors when McKenna became aware of something at his back—a sixth sense kind of feeling, maybe a displacement of air—and turned to see the original Predator (it felt like too much of a sick joke to think of him as the small one) leaping straight down the center of the stairwell.
The creature landed with barely a jolt—indeed, without even bending its knees to absorb the impact of its fall. The Loonies froze, and for what felt like a long moment McKenna and his team stared at the Predator, and the Predator stared back at them.
What is this? McKenna thought. An impasse? Or is it just waiting for us to run, so it can enjoy the thrill of the chase?
So focused was he on the creature that he didn’t notice Rory sidle away from his side. Now, though, he heard him gasp, and turned. His son was a couple of meters away, almost against the right-hand wall, looking at the Predator side-on. Curious, McKenna took a tentative step to his right, and suddenly he saw what Rory was seeing— the whip-like cord, which was wound around the smaller Predator’s neck, stretching up into the dusty shadows.
The Predator hadn’t jumped down the center of the stairwell. He had been pushed or thrown. And he wasn’t standing there staring at them. He was dead.
The Upgrade had hanged him.
Now that McKenna looked more closely, he saw that the Predator’s feet weren’t quite touching the floor. As if the Upgrade was somehow aware that the humans in the lobby below had finally realized th
e truth, it gave several sharp tugs on the cord around its fellow alien’s neck, making the Predator’s limbs jerk and twitch in a ghoulish dance.
Then it gave a sudden sharp yank rather than a tug, and the cord, which was made of some type of metal, sliced straight through the meat and bone of the smaller Predator’s neck. The creature’s head flew off and hit the floor with a thud, right in front of the Loonies, the neck stump spattering them with green blood as the body dropped to the ground.
That was precisely what was needed to break the spell. As one, the Loonies, McKenna, Rory, and Casey turned and bolted out of the wrecked entranceway.
McKenna yelled, signaling toward the RV, and they all ran in that direction.
All except Rory, that is, who paused to regard the pit bull, which, despite everything, was still hunched down beneath the bleachers, too terrified to move. A thoughtful look crossed Rory’s face, and for a moment it seemed he might even veer off to rescue the frightened dog.
Then McKenna grabbed him roughly enough to make Rory yelp out in pain. “Goddammit,” he said, unable to rein in his exasperation at his son’s lack of urgency, “we have to go!”
He leaped into the RV, all but dragging Rory after him, as Nettles threw himself into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine. McKenna hated to retreat without finishing a job—which, now that he had found Rory, he saw as both ridding the Earth of the alien threat, and gathering enough evidence to expose Traeger and his goons, and clear all their names. Thing was, the Upgrade was more than he had bargained for. If they were going to fight it, they needed a plan, and standing here dying wasn’t anyone’s idea of good strategy.
He didn’t let go of Rory’s arm until the RV’s door was shut behind them and they were heading away from the kill zone, but as soon as he did, the boy crawled under the table of the dinette and curled into a fetal ball. McKenna felt a twinge of guilt and shame at how roughly he had handled his son, but he told himself it was necessary— in this case, rough love might have proved the difference between life and death.
Around him the Loonies were whooping and hollering—more a release of tension than anything else— but they quieted down fast when the Upgrade suddenly appeared behind them, stooping through the shattered doorway and rising to its full height, its massive form spattered in the glowing green blood of its enemy. The Upgrade was clutching the weird remote control doohickey in its taloned paw, and as it watched them go it had a look on its face that McKenna couldn’t help interpreting as a kind of calm contemplation. Perhaps it was something in the creature’s eyes. From this distance, they looked almost human.
He glanced again at Rory, cowering under the table, and couldn’t help but feel a pang of dismay as the boy winced—almost as if he was more terrified of the violence inflicted by his own father than he was of an eleven-foot-tall alien killer with the face of an angry crab.
Then he became aware of Casey beside him, holding on but still staggering against him as the RV swung around a corner and the school fell out of sight.
She caught his eye, and he could see that she had been shaken to the core by what she had witnessed tonight.
“Holy shit,” she muttered. “They’re hunting each other now?”
* * *
On the baseball field, the Upgrade stands in the moonlight and examines his prize. The black box gleams in the dark. The Kujhad, it is called, in the language of his people. He feels a certain satisfaction at the death of his prey, but there is more to be done. The massive Predator raises his wrist gauntlet and a hologram display blossoms into light and life.
It depicts the young human, the one previously in possession of the Kujhad. The boy appears to be staring at the Upgrade, examining him, assessing him, though the Upgrade knows that what the young human is really assessing is the Kujhad itself, and that this footage was recorded by the device earlier that day.
The Upgrade is intrigued by the boy. There is intelligence in his eyes. More than intelligence. For a human—and, more particularly, one as unformed as this—to work out the intricacies of the Kujhad so quickly takes something very special indeed.
In some ways, he could consider this boy his nemesis. He had the intelligence to adversely affect the workings of the Upgrade’s ship, after all, and that alone makes him far more dangerous than all those bigger humans with their primitive weapons.
The Upgrade tweaks a control and suddenly there is sound to accompany the holographic image. The voice is scratchy, high-pitched, and to the Upgrade his words are meaningless.
“Just playing games, Mom!” the boy says.
17
The grounds of the school had been cordoned off, and the basement hurriedly converted into an autopsy room/ pathology lab. It wasn’t an ideal room for such purposes, as the school boiler, old and in need of an overhaul (if not outright condemnation) chugged and burbled away in an alcove on the far wall, filling the damp space with a stuffy warmth that encouraged mold and fungi to sprout in shadowy corners.
Dominating the center of the room was a large table— in truth, four tables requisitioned from the school dining hall and clamped together—on which lay the now deboned, headless corpse of the Predator that had broken free from the Project: Stargazer complex. The white sheet laid over the corpse was stained with patches of alien blood, which glowed a luminescent green whenever the flashing lights of cop cars, strobing through the bank of high windows on the outside wall, passed over it.
Traeger strode into the room, wrinkling his nose at the heat and the raw, fetid stench of dismembered alien, and marched up to the table. His aide, Sapir, scuttled behind him like an obedient pet rat.
“So this time they’re hunting their own,” Traeger said, and huffed out a sound that translated as: Go figure. He favored Sapir with a glance. “Now tell me again.”
“Eleven feet,” Sapir said.
Traeger whistled. “That’s really fuckin’ tall.” He whipped the white sheet back from the corpse. Sapir recoiled at the sight of the Predator’s head perched on its neck stump at the end of the table, above the body, its piercing, fish-like eyes glazed now in death. Traeger, though, leaned in closer, baring his teeth in a spiteful grin. “Shoulda stuck with us, buddy.” He turned to Sapir again. “You said they had a kid with them?”
The aide nodded. “Yes, sir. Captain McKenna’s son. Wife confirms—he has the operating system to the missing ship. Thinks it’s a video game.”
Traeger rubbed his chin. He paced around the sheeted corpse, looking thoughtful, while Sapir waited patiently.
At last he said, “I’m thinking this guy was a rogue. A runner. The big one was damage control. Sent to take him out.”
“Retrieve the ship?”
“Or destroy it.” Traeger came to a halt. His eyes narrowed. “We need to find that ship. Before he does.”
Sapir licked his lips. Tentatively, he said, “Sir… we’ve been looking for forty-eight hours solid—”
Traeger raised a finger, cutting him off. So pompously that you could almost see the speech marks around his quote, he said, “‘The difficult is done at once. The impossible takes a bit more time.’” He gave Sapir a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “The kid. He has the device.”
Sapir spoke the words eagerly, to show that he was in tune with his boss’s wishes. “Find the kid.”
* * *
It was late enough that all good girls and boys should have been asleep. The RV sat, cooling and dark, beneath a bridge at the far edge of a patch of rural farmland so vast it was impossible to tell where it ended and the next property began. Despite technological advances, there were still places in America where a squad of military deserters/mental patients and a startlingly fearless and physically capable scientist could vanish for a few hours.
Despite the late hour, Rory was still awake. He had a stick in his hand and was drawing in the dirt. The stick made an imperfect artistic implement, but he thought he had the basic design and measurements of the alien ship correct. He drew it from memor
y, recalling the holographic image he’d summoned up from the gizmo that had popped out of the Predator’s wrist gauntlet. The gizmo was gone now, so he wanted to solidify the memory in his head, just in case it was important. At the same time, he kept running through the symbols that had appeared on the readout, trying to understand what it all meant.
Nebraska Williams kept looking over his shoulder. He seemed like a nice man, but Rory grew antsy. He didn’t like being the focus of anyone’s attention.
“I heard you got a hole in your head,” he said.
Nebraska smiled. “People been tellin’ me that since I was five.”
Rory frowned, but stayed on topic. “What happened?”
“Well… you get to be my age, your brain’s like an attic,” Nebraska replied. “All musty and cobwebby. Sometimes you need to air it out.”
The soldier resumed the task of placing grenades gingerly into a box. Rory frowned. He wondered if Nebraska realized he was recommending a middle-school kid solve his problems with a bullet to the head and decided that, no, the man had no idea. Apparently, that was one of the side effects of shooting oneself in the head.
* * *
Casey had lost track of time. Ever since childhood that had been her MO. She’d find a thread that intrigued her, some bit of information or a word she didn’t understand or a scientific idea, and she’d follow it down the rabbit hole, learning as much as she could until she fell asleep or her mother forced her to go to bed or come to dinner or go to school. It was warm inside the RV, the air heavy and close now that the engine had been turned off for a while, but she had her microscope—and more importantly, she had the Predator’s gauntlet that had been in Rory’s possession.
When McKenna entered, Casey had the gauntlet on her arm, studying it. She knew it was important to learn as much as possible about the Predator and its tech, but she also relished this time. The rest of the world, and the danger she was in—both from the gigantic Predator 2.0 they’d encountered and from her own government—all fell away while she focused on unraveling the mysteries before her.
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