Marc Cerasini - AVP - Alien vs. Predator

The worst scenario was too horrible to contemplate.

Lex well recalled her climbs to the summit of Everest. Air so thin she felt like she was breathing through a half-collapsed straw. Temperatures at 40 below, winds at 100 miles per hour. The excruciating pain of moving her body up 3,000 feet in a day and trying to breathe, let alone eat or drink, at the 29,000-foot mark.

That was a picnic compared to what Weyland and his expedition would face if something went wrong.

Without Lex, they didn’t stand a chance. As she rinsed the luxurious suds off her cocoa-hued skin, Lex tried to convince herself that their odds wouldn’t be much better if she did go with them. She lingered a moment longer under the warm water. The shower may have washed her free of any hypocrisy she felt having contemplated Weyland’s offer, but it didn’t wash her free of the guilt she was feeling leaving this team behind.

Lex dressed in a pair of Levi’s and a sweater from the stocked closet and left the rest of the clothes untouched. She didn’t have any clean clothes of her own, or she wouldn’t have taken anything.

As she was packing up her meager belongings, there was a knock at the stateroom door.

“I spoke with Mr. Weyland,” Max Stafford told her. “The money has been wired to the foundation’s account. The helicopter is refueling to fly you back home.”

Max turned to leave.

“Who did you get?”

He paused in the doorway but did not turn.

“Gerald Murdoch,” he said, closing the door.

Fifteen minutes later, Lex pounded on the door of Charles Weyland’s shipboard office.

“Come—”

Lex burst through.

“—in.”

Weyland was seated in a leather chair behind a large oak desk. Though not opulent, the office was large and well appointed. Before Lex arrived, the industrialist had been reviewing personnel records. Ironically, it was her file he was reading.

“Gerry Murdoch has two seasons of ice time. He’s not ready.”

Weyland looked away. “Don’t worry about it.”

Lex leaned across his desk. “What about Paul Woodman or Andrew Keeler?”

“Called them.”

“And?”

“They gave the same bullshit answer that you did,” said Max Stafford as he came through the door.

“Mr. Weyland. What I told you in there wasn’t bullshit. If you rush this, people will get hurt, maybe die.”

Weyland faced her again, his eyes angry. “Ms. Woods, I don’t understand your objections. We’re not going to Everest. We need you to take us from the ship to the pyramid and then back to the ship. That’s all.”

“What about inside the pyramid?”

“You don’t have to worry about that. Once we’re at the site we have the best equipment, technology and experts that money can buy.”

Lex met his anger with her own. “You do not understand. When I lead a team I don’t ever leave my team.”

Weyland slapped his palm down on the desk. “I admire your passion as much as your skills. I wish you were coming with us.”

But Lex just shook her head.

“You’re making a mistake,” she told him.

Weyland tapped the weather report on his desk. “The wind sheer is dangerous right now. Captain Leighton assures me that we’re moving out of the worst of it, but he thinks you should postpone your helicopter ride for a couple of hours.” He rose and stepped around his desk. He reached out and touched her arm.

“Think about my offer. Join the others for dinner, and if you don’t change your mind, I’ll have the helicopter fly you back in a couple of hours.”

“He wasn’t kidding about the food,” a wide-eyed Miller exclaimed between bites of succulent crabmeat.

“More wine? Chateau Lafite ’77, an excellent year.”

Miller nodded and Sebastian poured. Then the archaeologist raised his glass. “A fine vintage, for a French. And, for the record, it tastes even better out of plastic.”

Sebastian’s first meal aboard the Piper Maru was a study in contrasts. Fine food and superb wine served up, cafeteria style, on battered standard-issue metal trays and plastic glasses. The noise level inside the mess hall reminded him of college.

It didn’t look as if Mr. Weyland would be dining with them tonight, or that fellow Stafford. Fortunately, Sebastian’s dinner companions more than made up for any disappointment.

“That fellow dishing up the chow. I think I saw him on The Food Channel,” said Miller.

“Watch a lot of television?” Sebastian asked.

“Not much else to do in Cleveland…. Not since my divorce.”

“So you’re from Cleveland?” said Thomas.

“That’s right. I was born in Cleveland. Bought my first chemical set in Cleveland. Blew up my parents’ garage there, too. After I got my degree I found a job in Cleveland and got married there and I live there now.”

“Don’t get around much, do you, Miller?” Lex teased.

“No, no! Not true… I left Cleveland to go to college.”

“You studied overseas?”

“Columbus.”

Lex noticed Sebastian wince, then rub his knee.

“Are you okay?”

“Busted my knee a few years ago. I have a metal pin holding it together. Hurts like hell in this cold weather.”

“You get that in some dashing archaeological adventure?”

Thomas snickered, then took a sip of wine.

“I got it in Sierre Madre.”

Lex was surprised. “The mountain range?”

“The Tex-Mex bar in the United States. Denver. I was lecturing there. Drank one tequila too many and fell off the mechanical bull.”

Lex leaned back in her seat and laughed. So did Sebastian.

Across the mess hall, sitting among the workers, Quinn spied Lex sitting at a table with a few Beakers.

Connors, his partner, paused, a forkful of dripping steak inches from his toothy mouth. “Do you think she’s here to shut us down?”

Quinn sneered. “She can’t shut us down. Weyland is our employer. Ms. Woods and her farm team of environmentalist Beakers don’t have the clout to stop Weyland.”

“Well she sure did shut us down in Alaska. Her and that foundation of hers…”

Quinn ignored his partner and continued to stare across the room.

“I think I’ve run through all my damn unemployment insurance,” Connors continued. “I’m on welfare if this job falls through.”

“Blow it out your ass, Connors.”

Connors chuckled and poured wine into Quinn’s glass. “I think you need another drink, boss.”

Quinn slammed the flat of his hands on the table.

“Damn right I do,” he roared. “But no more of this fancy French grape juice. Get on down to the hold and grab us a case of Coronas. Hell, make it two. Let’s all get whup-ass drunk.”

“Who is that guy?” Sebastian asked, noticing the open glare being sent in their general direction.

Lex sipped her wine before answering.

“I ran into Quinn in Alaska. He and his boys were pushing for more oil exploration. Had a lot of Alaska natives on his side, too. But we shut him down—the environmental group I work for. Guess he carried a grudge.”

“I would,” said Miller. “If someone put me out of a job, I mean.”

“This pyramid,” said Lex, changing the subject. “You really think it could be under the ice?”

“I would like to think so,” Sebastian replied. “It would be the discovery of the century. In fact, it would validate some of my own theories. I believe that four thousand years ago…”

Sebastian’s voice trailed off. Lex was no longer paying attention to him. Instead, she was gazing at something over his shoulder.

“Am I boring you?”

Lex pushed her chair away from the table and touched Miller’s and Sebastian’s arms. “Come outside… all of you. You too, Thomas.”