She nearly bolted then, but her gaze paused on the centrifuge inside the lab, and the vial of clear liquid that remained perhaps miraculously unbroken, dangling above it.
Now that the Predator had left her behind, her thoughts had begun to slow, to seek order, and, more particularly, answers. Staring at the vial, she found herself wondering how many answers the liquid inside it might contain.
The Predator strides along the corridor with purpose, disposing of irritations and intrusions as they present themselves. The guards are neither a concern nor a challenge. Only when he passes the display case near the front of the complex does his inexorable march toward freedom halt. With a click of satisfaction, he turns to look at the wide plexiglass window of the case and to admire what is displayed there.
He shatters the glass and reaches inside.
The bio-helmet does not belong to him. It was collected by these humans from some historic hunt years before. He can only assume the hunter who’d worn it had met an honorable death. The facemask is scarred and pitted from battle and the Predator tells himself it is an honor to acquire this mask, though he did not earn that damage himself.
He lifts the mask aloft and holds it over his face, taps the side. The eyeholes light up with their familiar internal readout and he taps again, making a connection. A personal connection. The bio-helmet adjusts to this Predator’s bio-signature and abruptly the internal readout blurs and shifts to static, and then a viewpoint reveals itself. The Predator wants his own gear back, his own bio-helmet, and most importantly his missing wrist gauntlet, and the vital tech sealed within it.
Matching his bio-signature, this mask connects to his own—though it is many miles from here. The two masks sync, and now through this one, he can see through the eyes of the other. See what it sees.
Through the eyes of that mask, he sees a human child. A boy. Somehow his own bio-helmet has fallen into the child’s possession and he needs to locate it immediately. Too much depends upon it, and the urgency overrides any other concerns he might have. There is no hunt, no battle, no hunger more important than this.
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.