Marc Cerasini - AVP - Alien vs. Predator

“Within how many years, Professor?” Max Stafford asked.

“Actually, it’s Doctor,” Miller replied. “And I’ll give you the exact year… I’m that good.”

“Well, Doctor Miller,” said Weyland, “I’m offering to put you right next to the thing.”

Lex stared at the image, clearly puzzled. “Where exactly on the ice is this thing?”

“Bouvetoya Island,” Weyland answered, sending a sickening jolt through Lex. “But it’s not on the ice. It’s two thousand feet under it.”

The thermal image of the pyramid disappeared from the wall, to be replaced with a satellite image of what looked like a Montana ghost town in the winter.

“The pyramid is directly below this abandoned whaling station, which will serve as our base camp.”

A babel of voices erupted from all sides.

Weyland pointed his nine iron at the tall roughneck wearing a cowboy hat. “Mr. Quinn.”

The man rose. When Lex spied him she frowned.

“Mr. Stafford, Mr. Weyland,” Quinn began. “You’re looking at the best drilling team in the world. We’ll chew to that depth in seven days.”

“Add three weeks on top of that to train everyone here,” Lex Woods said.

On the podium, Weyland shook his head.

“We don’t have that kind of time. I’m not the only one with a satellite over Antarctica. Others will be here soon, if they’re not here already.”

“Maybe I wasn’t clear,” said Lex. “No one in this hold is ready for this trip.”

Weyland offered Lex a smile meant to be charming. It reminded her of a hungry shark.

“That’s why I invited you here, Ms. Woods. You’re our expert on snow and ice.”

Lex didn’t like being put on the spot, as was obvious from her expression. But she refused to back down.

“Bouvetoya is one of the most isolated places in the world,” she said. “The nearest land is a thousand miles away. There’s no help for us if we run into trouble.”

Weyland nodded. “You’re right. It’s a no-man’s-land. But the train has left the station. I think I speak for everyone aboard this ship—”

The image behind the billionaire shifted again to show another angle of the mysterious buried pyramid. Weyland pointed to it with his nine iron.

“—This is worth the risk.”

Lex looked around the room. She saw curiosity, interest, and greed etched on the faces all around her. But no fear. Not even the slightest apprehension. And that’s what concerned Lex the most.

The projected image vanished and the lights returned.

“That concludes our briefing, gentlemen—and ladies. Mess call is in ninety minutes. I hope you enjoy it. I had the chef flown in from my hotel in Paris… the filet mignon will be excellent.”

Charles Weyland looked directly at Lex Woods. “Will you be joining us?”

Lex turned her back on the billionaire and strode across the hold.

“Find another guide,” she called over her shoulder.

Charles Weyland began to wheeze in the corridor before he even reached his stateroom. Eyes tearing, he tucked his head into his chest and choked back a cough. If he started now, Weyland doubted he could stop. So he suppressed the urge, but at a cost. He stumbled and nearly fell, the nine iron clattering onto the steel deck.

Then a powerful arm circled his waist, a deep voice rumbled in his ear. “Lean on me.”

“I’m okay, Max,” Weyland rasped.

Steadier now, he pushed Max aside and rose to his full height. “Hand me my club and open the door before anyone sees me like this.”

Using the club for a cane, Weyland hobbled to his cabin. Max quickly closed and locked the door behind them, then helped Charles Weyland slump into a padded leather chair. Max leaned the nine iron against the wall and offered his boss a clear plastic oxygen mask. Weyland took several long, deep breaths, and some color returned to his gaunt face.

“Thank you,” he said between gulps.

When his strength returned, Weyland discarded the mask and scanned the stateroom, which more resembled a hospital ward. His nose curled from the medicinal stench of the sickroom.

“The mirror, please.”

Max rolled a portable vanity table and mirror in front of Weyland’s chair and stepped away. Weyland gazed at his wan reflection for a moment, then sank into his chair and even deeper into his memories.

At twenty-one, Charles Weyland possessed a Harvard M.B.A. and a small satellite mapping company inherited from his father. Two years later he’d purchased a cable franchise in the Midwest, then a telecommunications grid in Nevada. Within a decade marked by shrewd and calculated expansion, Weyland Industries had become the largest satellite systems operation in the world, the company worth in excess of three hundred billion dollars. His financial empire secure, Charles Weyland had set out to change the world.

“Expanding the range of human endeavor” was more than the Weyland Industries catch phrase—it was the sum of Charles Weyland’s personal philosophy. His mother dead before he was two, raised by a succession of nannies under the cold eye of a harsh, agnostic father, Weyland had lacked parental love or even the comforting faith in a higher power. So he’d made progress his creed, vowing to use his wealth to advance the frontiers of human civilization.

To that end, he’d begun to lead a double life. The public Charles Weyland threw lavish parties, attended openings and charity events, bought luxury hotels in San Francisco, Paris and London. Billionaire Charles Weyland built a casino in Las Vegas and was very much a fixture of the society page, a shallow playboy who always had a beautiful woman on his arm and his signature nine iron draped over his shoulder. But like the hotels, the casino and the golf club, the women were mere props—part of an elaborate and calculated deception that enabled Charles Weyland to accomplish his real goals behind the scenes and under the radar.

While hosting the opening of the Weyland West Hotel in San Francisco, Weyland’s representatives had been secretly purchasing a nanotechnology firm in Silicon Valley. As he’d attended London’s theater season, Weyland’s lawyers had been closing the deal for a robotics plant in Pittsburgh. While he’d attended fashion week festivities in Paris, Weyland’s shell company had engineered a hostile takeover of a pharmaceutical company in Seattle and bought a genetics research firm in Kiyodo. By the time he was forty, Weyland had become the foremost financial supporter of cutting-edge scientific research on the globe.

Four years earlier, Weyland had told Max Stafford that, given forty more years on earth, the scientific research his company funded would enable Weyland Industries to open a branch in a moon base on the Sea of Tranquility. But that was before he’d been diagnosed with advanced bronchogenic carcinoma. Now, because of the cancer that was eating away his lungs, Charles Weyland no longer had forty more years. If he was lucky, he might have forty more days.

That was why the remarkable find in Antarctica and this expedition were so important. It was Charles Weyland’s last chance to make a mark on humanity. And that was why Weyland was so grateful to the one man in his organization who made this last chance possible.

“Fifteen minutes rest, and then I get back into my… costume… and go across the hall to my office.”

“Are you sure? Perhaps it would be best to retire for the night.”

“Why? I won’t sleep.” Weyland took a deep breath and forced a smile. “Over the last three months you really have become invaluable, Max. Finding the right personnel, putting this whole expedition together in days—”