But it wouldn’t stop him from killing her.
“Wilco, Stargazer,” the merc said, tapping the comms unit at his ear.
He frowned in determination. In the wonderful fog of tranquilizers, she understood that he’d just received his orders, and that she was about to die.
Cradled in the lullaby, eyes heavy, feeling warm and happy and terrified all at the same time, she heard the air around her fill with buzz-saw whining. Blinking, she let her head loll to one side and caught sight of the roaring motorcycle as it launched off an embankment and landed with a crunch right on top of the merc who’d been about to put her to sleep for eternity. The motorcycle fishtailed but miraculously, considering the flesh and muscle and bone it had just crushed, the rider stayed upright.
Other motorcycles thundered behind the first one, landing and skidding, riders whooping like a war party. She glimpsed the first rider for another moment, saw him accelerate toward her. His tires squealed and Casey felt her eyes grow too heavy, finally, for her to open them again. Her legs went out from beneath her as the motorcycle leaped toward her and she felt herself falling into a dream at last.
In her dream, floating, she had the vague sensation of an arm around her, and of flying.
The roar of the motorcycle became her new lullaby.
A troop transport roars out of the Stargazer complex, driver up front and six black-clad mercenaries in the back. These are determined men and women. Not one of them has a clear idea of exactly what they’ve been assigned to kill, but they know it’s alien and they know it’s proven to be a nasty fucker. This doesn’t bother them. After all, each of them considers him or herself to be a nasty fucker as well.
Quiet, grim, ready for a fight and ready to be heroes, they hold on as the troop transport whipsaws into a turn.
Only one among them, Harry Curtis, Jr., hears the muffled thump on top of the truck. Junior glances up, but only for a moment. It could be anything or nothing—could be his imagination.
The Predator swings down into the truck bed. Spinning blades reminiscent of Japanese throwing stars fly from its fingers and two mercenaries go down. Then its blades come out. Harry opens his mouth to shout, tries to reach for his weapon, but the Predator’s gauntlet blades crunch through his ribcage and cleave his heart in a single motion. His brain continues to receive signals for half a second; long enough for him to see another merc die before his body realizes his life is over.
Corpses slump in their seats. Blood drips onto the truck bed. The Predator slides the last body to the floor with the quiet precision of a born hunter.
Still, somehow, the driver senses something. Perhaps he smells the blood, or the silence of death is an alarm bell all its own.
“Everything okay back there?” he asks uneasily, peeking in the rearview mirror. Into shadows.
In what little light makes it into the rear of the truck, he spots a thumbs-up from one of the mercenaries. It eases his mind, and he returns his attention to the road.
In the back, the Predator lowers Harry Curtis, Jr.’s severed arm. The alien sits back, removes his mask, and allows himself to relax and enjoy the ride, as the blood continues to pool at his feet.
In a forest clearing not far from the Stargazer base, the alien vessel squats among surrounding trees like a coiled snake awaiting passing prey. Steam rises from its sleek surface, but disperses among the trees before it can rise high enough to give away the craft’s position.
The hatch of the craft opens and a massive figure emerges, before climbing down to the forest floor. The figure stands impossibly tall, the shifting light and shadow of the night playing across its formidable body. This creature is different to the one that earlier that night had caused untold havoc at Project: Stargazer. Like the Predator, but something more.
An upgrade. That is how it thinks of itself. Something better.
It raises its head and utters a high, oddly musical chitter. Two silhouettes, stocky, rangy and powerful, slink out of the brush, padding forward on all fours.
From its tunic, the Upgrade produces a piece of mesh-like material, perhaps a scrap of clothing, which moves in the creature’s taloned hand with a slithering motion, catching the light. The Upgrade crouches down and holds out the scrap of mesh. Its two companions, shoulder muscles rippling with panther-like grace, move forward like tracker dogs to sniff it.
13
Rory sat in his basement in an old BarcaLounger that had once been his dad’s favorite chair. One of his earliest memories was of his dad reaching down and scooping him up into the chair, plopping Rory on his lap, and the two of them watching the original Star Wars together. Rory figured he couldn’t have been more than two years old at the time. His father hadn’t been around much, but most of his earliest memories of his dad had imprinted on some part of his brain that made him happy and sad at the same time. He remembered his dad taking him along on a Sunday afternoon when he’d gone to play basketball with some of his friends. Rory had been four or five, old enough to sit and behave himself in the bleachers and watch his dad and the other men play. Just some guys in a smelly school gymnasium, pretending they were still in high school, but for those two hours, Rory loved them all. When the game was over, and the men took turns hoisting him onto their shoulders so he could try to throw the ball into the basket—that was the only time he could remember ever caring about sports.
Those memories—the times his father had acted like a dad—shouldn’t have made up for all the absence and neglect. Most days, nothing could make up for that. Rory understood the way the fabric of things wove together, like numbers and language and mechanics, and he knew his father should have been a larger part of his life, that it made a difference. But he could never have put his disappointment into words his parents could have understood. It was as if his ability to evaluate his father’s parental performance existed in a locked room, and he knew he’d never find the key. All he knew was that it didn’t feel right; that far too often he was left feeling hollow, and yet a part of him understood this wasn’t fair. Rory’s brain had been wired differently from birth, and he thought—in his way—that Quinn McKenna had also been wired differently.
He was who he was.
Sometimes, especially on nights like this, when Rory sat in the BarcaLounger and remembered Star Wars and basketball—and when he had questions he needed answers to, but didn’t want to ask his mom—his memories of his father were enough for him, and he was just a regular kid who missed his dad.
Rory wasn’t sure of the time, but he knew it was late. He felt a little cold, down in the basement. In his right hand, he held a tiny keychain viewer with a little button that turned a light on inside it. Peering into the eyehole, he glanced again at the photo inside—a picture of himself and his dad. In the photo, they were both laughing. Rory didn’t remember the picture being taken. He wished he could remember.
He lowered the keychain viewer and glanced over at the tattered ottoman nearby. The helmet sat there, its blank eyes seeming to watch him. Beside it was the black doohickey that he’d popped out of the alien wrist gauntlet. It looked like some kind of tiny coffin or a miniature Lost Ark or something, except for the buttons and lights all over it.