In the dream-memory, McKenna can still hear the crack of a baseball bat against the ball. He can still see the astonishment on his son’s face as Rory realizes he’s just gotten the first hit of his life. Awkwardly, in shock and disbelief, Rory begins to run toward first base, helmet bobbling on his head. It’s way too big, that helmet. McKenna said something to the coach about it the previous week, but budgets for pee-wee league baseball being what they are, what can the heart-attack-in-waiting Coach Jeff do?
McKenna’s in the stands, surrounded by other parents. People whose kids have all done this before, dads who’ve all had the remarkable pleasure of their sons having even rudimentary skills at baseball. Hit, catch, run. Now McKenna watches Rory stumbling around the bases and knows his own astonishment is even greater than his boy’s. A cheer burbles up in his throat and he begins to shout, “Go! Go!”
Rory’s headed for second base, a mixture of exultation and terror on his face. McKenna sees the ball arcing across the sky from the outfield, and he knows this dream is about to shatter.
“Slide!” he shouts. “Slide, buddy, slide!”
For a second, McKenna thinks Rory is going to make it. But that’s when his stumbling gait causes the bobbling helmet to jostle right off his head. The helmet falls, hits the dirt, and McKenna is still thinking Slide, buddy, slide! when Rory stops and turns around, crouches and reaches for the helmet.
McKenna feels himself deflate. He can only watch, helpless, as the second baseman tags Rory out. Kids in the stands erupt in laughter… and not just kids. One beefy dad sitting just over McKenna’s shoulder swears loudly.
“What are you doing, you moron?” Beefy bellows amidst his profanity.
McKenna reacts, no hesitation. Slams an elbow into the asshole’s sternum. The guy crumples, gasping for air.
Out on the field, Rory glances around in confusion. He knows he’s been tagged out, knows he screwed up, but he doesn’t understand the laughter yet. Doesn’t understand that it’s directed at him. In a few seconds he will get it, the moment will sink in. Rory will see the cruelty for what it is, the mocking, and he will be angry… but he’ll never be able to sort out just why the people are so mean. And if it happens again, if his helmet bobbles off his head, he’ll still turn around and pick it up because he needs his life to be orderly, and the helmet is supposed to stay on.
In this moment, though, none of that has happened yet. Rory hasn’t had that cruel epiphany. Half in dream and half in memory, McKenna wants desperately to wake up before he sees the sudden change that knowledge will have on his son’s features. He’s not a praying man, but this is a dream, and so maybe a little of his childhood churchgoing lingers. Maybe there’s a tiny bit of praying going on in this dream.
For once… for fucking once… it’s a prayer that is answered.
McKenna snapped awake, fully alert, just as he’d been trained. But he remembered the dream, and he was grateful as hell to have left it behind.
“Hey, Baxley,” one of the guys was shouting from the back of the bus, his eyes alight with that manic quality.
Coyle, McKenna thought. The guy’s name is Coyle. Nebraska Williams had pointed out all the other guys, and provided him with their names, before McKenna had drifted off to sleep.
“Here we go,” the guy called Baxley muttered, up at the front of the bus’s cage.
“Question for ya,” Coyle went on. “How do you circumcise a homeless man?”
Baxley’s eyes thinned to slits. It was clear to McKenna in that moment that these guys had a history.
Undeterred by Baxley’s forbidding expression, Coyle grinned. “Kick your mom in the chin!”
One of the MPs at the front of the bus turned and banged on the cage. “Shut the fuck up back there!”
Coyle cackled mirthfully at his own joke.
McKenna picked up a protein bar, which they’d given him as a meal. He turned to Nebraska Williams.
“Dinner and a show. Great.” He nodded at Baxley, who had turned away from Coyle, slumped back down in his seat. “He just sits there?”
“Oh,” Nebraska replied, “he’ll kill him one of these days.”
“What’s stopping him?”
“He likes the jokes.” Nebraska nodded toward the bald lunatic. “Coyle’s here ’cos of a friendly fire incident. He got turned around, fired on one of his own vehicles. There were fatalities.” He shrugged. “Now he tells jokes. Go figure.”
McKenna nodded in the direction of the magician, who was still shuffling his cards, one-handed. “What about him? Lynch?”
“Ordnance man. They gave him a medal for blowing up half a mountain in Mosul.”
“Why’s he here?” McKenna asked.
“Blew up the other half, too.”
Lynch overheard. His cards stopped shuffling and he glanced up at McKenna. “Entropy, boyo. That’s my game. The universe favors chaos. How long’s it take to put together a skyscraper? Five years. To knock it down? Five seconds. Things like to fall apart.”
“And you hasten the process,” McKenna said.
“I make it happen.” Lynch held up a card, flicked it, and it vanished. “Poof, just like that. I work for Entropy. I’m aligned with the universe.”
“Yeah, well, ask the universe to get us some coffee.” McKenna settled back against the bus bench, his gaze landing on the guy in the back with the neck tattoo and the long hair.
“Him?” he asked.
“Nettles,” Nebraska reminded him. “Three tours piloting Hueys. Now he gets jumpy when he’s not in the air.” He glanced toward the back of the bus. “Hey, Nettles. Is it the end times yet?”
Nettles glared at him, shifting slightly. The crucifix dangling from his neck glinted in the strobing of the streetlights they rumbled past.
McKenna kept his expression neutral. These men were broken. Crazy or not, they were certainly dangerous. They had a sense of brotherhood, and the sarcasm flowed freely, but violence simmered among them as well. All of them were used to combat, having someone to fight. McKenna had a bad feeling that if they went too long without an enemy, they might cast aside brotherhood and decide fighting each other was better than no fight at all.
Nebraska turned to him. “Everyone’s got a story. What’s yours?”
McKenna almost smiled, but thought better of it. What was he supposed to say? “You wouldn’t believe me,” he muttered.
“This is the batshit bus. Try me.”
McKenna shrugged, scrutinized Nebraska’s face as though trying to gauge what his reaction would be from his neutral, patient expression. Finally, he said, “I had a run-in with a space alien. They want to put a lid on it, so… here I am.”
They’d assume he was crazy, of course. Why else would he be among them? But Nebraska just shook his head and glanced out the window, making a disgruntled tsking noise.
“Goddamn space aliens,” he said.
McKenna stared at him. It hadn’t occurred to him that the loonies might be crazy enough to believe him.
Casey stood over the Predator, studying its skin. Its pores. The slope of its massive forehead. With gloved fingers, she touched the thick protuberances that gave it the illusion of hair, wondering what the hell they were for. Could they be mere decoration? The scientist in her didn’t think so. The alien still lived, but seemed to be dormant, and she wondered if they kept it deeply sedated or if it had entered a hibernative state. The scientists at Project: Stargazer were far from above drugging a creature they certainly considered hostile—they’d named it “the Predator” not “the good neighbor”—and she couldn’t say that she blamed them. But her thoughts were awhirl with questions that would only be answered by interacting with the Predator.