But he backed into something that made his eyes jerk open in surprise, and when he turned around there was their old friend, the Predator dog with the bolt through its brain. It stood, mandibles clicking, wagging its tail, as if it wanted to play.
Casey waved her arms at it. “Go! Shoo! Go home!”
But the Predator dog simply wagged its tail harder and woofed at her. It was loving this game!
The creature’s appearance had given Traeger the opportunity to divert attention away from his own devious behavior. “That thing’ll give us away,” he snarled. “Get it the fuck out of here.”
Casey glared at him. Then she strode forward and snatched up one of the spilled items he hadn’t had time to scoop back into the duffel bag—an exploding cuff, like the one she had seen the Upgrade use on a merc earlier. Marching to the edge of the crater, the Predator dog capering around her, she drew back her arm and hurled the cuff as far as she could into the jungle.
Excitedly, the creature ran after it. As soon as it did, McKenna gave the word and the rag-tag team, which comprised Loonies, mercenaries, an Army Ranger, a CIA agent, an evolutionary biologist, and a highly gifted kid, double-timed it into the jungle on the far side of the crater.
By the time the Predator dog returned, the cuff clenched in its massive, drooling jaws, the clearing was empty.
Whining, the Predator dog dropped the cuff on the muddy ground and looked around, bewildered.
23
The group had death at their heels, and they needed no further encouragement than that. They moved swiftly through the jungle, ducking and dodging around trees and plants. Under the weight of their heavy clothing, backpacks, and weapons, the men grunted with exertion, sweat streaming down their faces, but not for a moment did they think of stopping for a rest, or even slowing down.
Rory could keep up with the group purely because he was smaller and lighter, and because he wasn’t carrying anything except for the invisibility ball in his pocket, which his dad had given to him. Holding Casey’s hand, he was able to negotiate the thick foliage far more easily than the bulkier soldiers in front of him.
Except for his mom, Rory was usually nervous around girls and women, and he didn’t like people touching him at the best of times, but he found comfort in the warmth of Casey’s hand in his, and he liked the way she kept glancing at him and smiling. She was looking out for him, and not in a patronizing way. It was like she knew the two of them were kindred spirits—both science-minded, both clever, both introverted—and that therefore they had to stick together.
Just ahead of them, Traeger was fumbling in his duffel bag as he ran along. Rory wondered whether the CIA agent was looking for a weapon—but what he eventually pulled out of the bag shocked Rory far more than a Predator weapon would have. Shocked him and filled his head with bad memories.
It was the Predator mask. The one that Rory had worn while trick-or-treating. The one he’d been wearing when he—it—had killed that man on his porch.
He’d thrown it into the bushes close to the man’s house, but he guessed it must have been recovered, and that it had found its way back into Traeger’s hands, as all such Predator tech seemed to do.
Dropping back a little, Traeger pointed the mask in Rory’s direction and waved it like a threat. Panting, he said, “On Halloween, this thing blew up a whole house. How do you fire it?”
Despite its bad associations, Rory guessed he was kind of glad the mask was back in their possession—it might prove useful against their pursuer—but he wished it was in the hands of pretty much anyone except Traeger.
“Um, you don’t,” he said. “It just… fires by itself. When it’s attacked.”
Traeger’s lips curled into a snarl, and for a moment Rory thought the agent was going to call him a liar. But it turned out he was just frustrated. “Really?” he said. “Fuck!” And he glared at the mask, as if demanding it give up its secrets.
Up ahead, Rory saw his dad glance back, and realized he must have heard the exchange. Allowing Coyle to take the lead, he dropped back with Nebraska to speak to them. Rory felt a sense of satisfaction at the fact that neither his dad nor Nebraska was panting and sweating half as much as Traeger was. His dad did look anxious, though, as if, having been name-checked by the alien, he felt a special responsibility to keep them all alive.
Barely giving Traeger and the mask a second look, his dad addressed Casey. “Okay, so what do we know?” He waggled the fingers of his free hand at the side of his head in an imitation of the alien’s “dreadlocks.” “Casey, the… uh… Marley shit?”
“I’m thinking sensory receptors,” Casey said, glancing at Rory as if for affirmation. He liked that. He nodded. “Like cat whiskers. Weak spot, maybe?”
“You said it left you alone back at Stargazer,” Nebraska reminded her. “How come?”
Casey shrugged. “I was unarmed and naked. Didn’t pose a threat.”
“No one’s getting naked,” Baxley shouted from up ahead.
“Speak for yourself,” Nettles retorted.
Despite the situation, everyone snorted laughter, even Traeger and the mercs—it was a brief release of tension they all needed. The only people who didn’t laugh were Rory, who sometimes didn’t get jokes as quickly as others did, and his dad, who not only continued to look grim, but who looked a little irritated now too.
Seeing this, Nettles veered over to him. “Fuck your guilt,” he said.
Now his dad looked surprised. No, more than surprised—startled. “Excuse me?”
Nettles’ voice was low, but Rory still heard what he said.
“You lost men. I get it. You’ll lose some today.” He paused, and Rory saw his expression change, become determined, earnest, like an unspoken promise. “But you’re not gonna lose your son.”
The Upgrade stands on the far side of the crater, facing the ship. All is ready. It has ensured that there will be nothing left for the humans to use, nothing they can turn to their advantage. It glances at the screen, and sees the numbers ticking down—0:09… 0:08… 0:07…
At 0:05, it presses a button on its wrist gauntlet and the ship is annihilated in a flash of intense white light, a contained but devastating explosion that causes the trees nearby to sway and thrash, and that sends an echoing boom rolling through the jungle like a war cry.
As the echoes die away, the Upgrade looks again at the screen.
0:02… 0:01… 0:00…
Time to hunt.
Somewhere behind them came the sound of an explosion, and a brief column of light, which lit up the sky. Traeger wondered what the oversized crab-faced bastard was up to, and then it came to him with a pang of despair. The fucker must have blown up the ship to stop it from falling into enemy hands. Shit, shit, shit!
Boiling with anger, he rooted around once again in his duffel bag, thinking that if he couldn’t have the ship, then he would have the son of a bitch himself. He knew there must be something in here he could use against it—something with easy-to-follow instructions, that didn’t involve him engaging in hand-to-hand combat.
He plucked out a couple of things—a nunchucks-type device, followed by an alien throwing star, like a Japanese shuriken, that required a wrist gauntlet (and, no doubt, years of practice) to operate it effectively—but almost immediately rejected them, dropping them back into the bag. The third item he pulled out, however, was ideal. A compact shoulder cannon, connected to a tiny pad-like sensor, which you attached to the side of your head, and which responded directly to what your brain told it to do.