Jon Merz - Prey

Insane.

One of the guys must have been battling a lot of the mosquitoes. They’d obviously sensed the heat from their bodies and carbon dioxide in the air. Julia found herself swatting more of them than she cared to.

Wilkins sat close by, unfazed by them.

He glanced at her and smiled.

Julia leaned closer. “Aren’t the bugs biting you?”

He frowned. “What bugs?”

Julia swatted at another one. “These bugs! They’ve been dive-bombing me on the hunt for blood for about fifteen minutes now.”

Wilkins’ face clouded. “Julia, I don’t see any bugs over there.”

“What?” She swatted at another one. Damn, it was big! “I just nearly got one of them. You can’t see them?”

“No.”

She frowned. The last time this had happened, they’d been back in the tunnel fighting of a hoard of dinocreatures. But that had been a hologram. A trick to get Havel.

Was this another hologram?

And if so, who was the intended target this time?

Julia glanced at Wilkins again. “Check on the others.”

He nodded and slithered off through the underbrush. At once, Julia’s mosquitoes vanished.

Gone.

She glanced at her arms, but found no signs they’d been able to bite her. No red marks scarred her arms. No itchiness.

Nothing.

What sort of technology could these creatures have that would enable them to project holograms of anything they wanted, wherever they wanted? The realization of what they might be scared Julia.

And she didn’t want to think about it anymore.

Wilkins came back. “Darren’s gone.”

Julia shook her head. “Dammit!” She paused. “Nung?”

“Right here,” came the voice to her left.

“Okay,” said Julia. “I want us bunched up nice and tight. I want us in each other’s eyesight all the time. I’m not losing any more of my team.”

Nung squirmed his way through the bushes and Sat close by. Julia could smell the air tinged with body odor. It might have been her own, she concluded. Judging by how extreme the conditions they’d undergone had been, anyone would be hard-pressed to not be exuding a bit of pungent odor.

“Where’s Mick?”

Julia faced Nung. “He spotted another type of creature.”

“Another type-?” Nung’s face fell. “Wonderful.”

“Mick wanted to follow him and see what it was. I gave him the okay and he should be back within about ten minutes.”

Wilkins looked at his watch. “We’re coming up on five now.”

“He’ll come back,” said Julia. “He gave me his word.”

“As long as he doesn’t get nabbed by those creatures, first,” said Nung. “I gotta tell you guys, I’m getting a little nervous about being here.”

Wilkins grinned. “Just a little?”

“Okay, I’m petrified.”

Julia smiled. “I think it’s safe to say we all are, Nung.”

“Mick doesn’t seem to be.”

Wilkins nodded. “Man’s got a point.”

Julia considered this. Mick had mentioned he’d been scared, but his actions seemed to contradict it. He was the first to volunteer for the most dangerous assignments. He always took point, he always went ahead to see what was lying in store for them. Was he just brave or completely insane for doing so?

“I don’t know what he’s feeling,” said Julia at last.

Nung’s face clouded. Julia nudged him. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s just that — well, maybe Mick’s…familiar with these things.”

“Familiar?”

“Yeah. Maybe he’s dealt with them before.”

Julia shook her head. “How could that be?”

“You said he was in the military, right?”

“Yes. According to him, it was years ago.”

“What branch was he in?” asked Wilkins.

“Why?”

“Just tell me, boss, okay?”

“Air Force. What’s the big deal.”

Wilkins frowned now. “You know what he did?”

Julia felt guilty about saying so, as if she was betraying some sort of unspoken trust that she and Mick had developed. But then again, maybe he hadn’t been entirely truthful with her. And she didn’t think revealing what he did would compromise him in any way.

“Special operations.”

Wilkins leaned back. “No shit.”

“I didn’t even know the Air Force had specops,” said Nung.

Wilkins nodded. “Oh yeah. They do. And they keep it really quiet, too. Most people don’t realize it. All they ever hear about are SEALs and Green Berets.”

“You certainly sound like an expert,” said Julia. “How’d you come by all this knowledge?”

“I’m a closet fan,” said Wilkins. “Did Mick ever mention what unit he served with was called?”

Had he? Julia racked her memory but couldn’t think of anything. “No.”

Nung looked at Wilkins. “Why?”

“Well, it’d help pinpoint what he did in the service. We get his unit designator, we can almost determine what he might have been involved with.”

“Well, he seems damned comfortable in a firefight,” said Nung. “Unlike yours truly.”

“Or me,” said Julia.

“I wonder,” said Wilkins.

“What?”

“The rest of us,” he said, “we’ve all pretty much concluded that we were driven to this point in our lives by those dreams we had, right? Those dreams of being down here. At these mountains now that I think about it.”

“Yes.”

“That night in the galley, I didn’t hear Mick say anything that he’d had those dreams. Did he? I mean, did he really have them?”

Julia felt herself grow a little annoyed. “He told me he did.”

“But do you believe him?”

Did she? She sighed. She liked Mick. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to trust him. But was her heart able to see the any potential subterfuge? She doubted it.

“I don’t know.”

“He might just be playing us,” said Nung.

Wilkins nodded. “Could be. Worse things could be afoot, though.”

“Like what?”

Wilkins looked at her. “Like him using us for bait.”

“Bait?”

“To capture one of these things. Bring it back to study. I don’t know. He could be planning anything.”

“That sounds more like something Kendall would do rather than Mick,” said Nung.

Julia felt better having heard him say that. It did sound more like Kendall than Mick. “Good point.”

“I had a buddy of mine who worked in specops,” said Wilkins. “He said the entire force was split into several compartments. You had the guys who primarily did a lot of hostage rescue. You had units good at covert intelligence gathering, military assignments that type of thing. As you got higher you ran into the guys who got ‘sheepdipped.’”

“What the hell does that mean?” asked Nung.

“Means they got pulled out of their units for special assignments.”

“Like what?”

“Like the CIA or DIA using them for real nasty black bag type stuff.”

“Jesus,” said Julia. “You think?”

Wilkins shook his head. “My buddy said there was another level after that. They worked directly for the Space Command.”

Nung’s eyes lit up. “Space Command?”

“Yeah.”

“And you think-?”

Wilkins shrugged. “I don’t know what to think any more. I mean, here we are, down in this frozen shit and we’re in a jungle with dinosaurs? Freaky, man. It’s damned freaky.”

Julia looked at him. “you think this has something to do with aliens, don’t you?”

Wilkins smiled. “I think we all do. I think we’ve all been hiding from that idea for a real long time. It’s easier to dismiss dreams as just that. But what if they’re not? What if they’re placed there or something. By some kind of higher intelligence?”

“Pretty far-fetched,” said Julia.