Кристофер Голден - The Predator - The Official Movie Novelization

The decontamination chamber had a partition down the middle, so two people could move through it at the same time. She and Keyes entered through the airlock hatch, which sealed shut behind them with a loud hiss. She’d have jumped at the sound, but Casey felt keenly aware of the attention turned toward her in that moment. She was the newcomer here, the wild card, and she didn’t want to give them any reason to rescind their invitation. Not when she was this close to a truth denied to all but a handful of people on the planet.

She stared at the sign on the wall. MANDATORY DECON—STERILE IN, STERILE OUT.

“ Chamber secure ,” announced a recorded voice. “ Remove garments .”

Casey scanned the chamber for the speaker broadcasting the voice. Sounding braver than she felt, she said, “You’re not gonna buy me a drink first?”

On the other side of the partition, Keyes would be stripping too, but Casey was sure that anyone with a good view of this particular process would have their eyes on her. She did not hesitate, nor did she care. She’d grown used to people taking a second look at her with her clothes on, and she certainly understood why a gaze might linger on her without them. It wasn’t arrogance, just acceptance of something she had no control over—namely, her genetic make-up—and she didn’t have time to waste worrying about it.

“You do this sort of thing a lot?” Casey called across to Keyes.

“Pays the bills,” he replied through the partition. “My, uh, father headed up one of the first contact teams.”

Curious, Casey felt an urge to ask him about it, but Keyes quickly changed the subject.

“So, how’d they rope you into this?”

Through the plexiglass, she could still see the Predator on the table. Suddenly, she didn’t want to be talking anymore, didn’t want to think about Karen Silkwood or her mother. She didn’t want to answer Keyes’ question. The Predator waited for her, an answer to so many questions, but one that would lead her to thousands more. Still, Dr. Keyes was her host, so she had to make nice.

“I wrote a letter when I was six. Said I loved animals and if NASA ever found a space animal, they should call me. A couple years ago, they put me on a short list because of a paper I wrote on hybrid strains. A computer had cross-referenced my letter.”

“NASA still had the letter, huh?”

Casey shook her head. “The Oval Office. I wrote the letter to Clinton. He thought it was cute, so it’s been in there ever since.”

With a hiss, the room abruptly flared with white heat. Casey flinched as the top layer of her skin burned off. It lasted only seconds, after which she felt a prickling over her entire body. It stung a little, but just for a moment.

“ Protocol complete ,” said the recorded voice.

Still inside the decontamination chamber, they stepped past the partition and quickly shrugged into hazmat suits. Casey had worn the gear plenty of times before. Keyes went to the interior hatch and placed his hand on a palm scanner while pressing his eye to the retina scan.

“Keyes, Shawn H.”

The hatch shushed open. This time, Keyes forgot all about chivalry. He led the way, and Casey didn’t blame him. This was his territory now, and the spring in his step told her that the presence of the Predator excited him as much as it did her.

Inside the main lab, Traeger approached with his hand extended. “Thanks for coming. I’m sure you have questions.”

“Two, actually.” Casey nodded at the creature on the treatment table. “Why do you call it a Predator?”

Traeger gave a small shrug. “Just a nickname. The data suggests it tracks its prey, exploits weakness. Seems to… well, enjoy it. Like a game.”

“That’s a hunter.”

“I’m sorry?” Traeger replied, brow crinkling. His dark features gleamed in the bright laboratory lights, and she couldn’t help thinking he probably got plenty of second looks himself. Though he seemed like he knew it. The man clearly thought a lot of himself and didn’t like being corrected.

“That’s a hunter,” she reiterated. “Not a predator. Predators kill for food, to survive. There’s only one animal on Earth that hunts for sport.”

Traeger rolled his eyes.

But Casey barely noticed his reaction. Once again, her thoughts had turned away from conversations with those around her. Traeger had intrigued her for ten seconds, but Traeger was only human. She moved closer to the table where the Predator lay, studying it with a sense of wonder she had always yearned for but rarely felt.

“You,” she said to the unconscious creature, “are one beautiful motherfucker.”

Traeger slid up beside her, so silently she wasn’t aware of him until he spoke. “I’m going to assume your second question is: ‘Why am I here?’”

She turned, shot him a grin. It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out.

“Our test results yielded something a little… odd,” Traeger went on. “We were wondering if maybe you could shed some light on it.”

He nodded to Dr. Keyes, who produced a tablet and turned it to show Casey the readout on its screen. She studied it for a moment, deeply intrigued, and then she felt the blood draining from her face. No, no, no. This couldn’t be.

“Is this a joke?” she asked, hoping sincerely that it was.

Keyes shook his head. “We ran the gene sequence ten times. This specimen has—”

“Human DNA,” Casey said. She turned to stare at Keyes and Traeger, wondering how such a thing could be possible. It didn’t make any sense at all. One look at the Predator and anyone could see it was extraterrestrial. This wasn’t a lab-created monster. Humanity didn’t have the scientific knowledge to breed a creature like this.

Close to the recumbent alien she noticed a blood centrifuge. And perched above it was a vial of clear, viscous liquid, which made her wonder…

But Traeger was speaking again. “We know about spontaneous speciation,” he said. “Mostly plants and insects, but—”

“Some mammals,” Keyes interrupted. “Sheep, goats. Red wolves are known to be a hybrid of coyotes and gray wolves.”

“Exactly,” Traeger replied. “Possibly some form of recombinant technology, or—”

Casey frowned. “Guys, I get it.” Who did they think they were dealing with here? “You want to know if someone fucked a Predator.”

McKenna slumped half-asleep in the strobing darkness in the back of the rumbling bus. Not merely a prison bus, as he’d first thought of it, but a bus full of head cases being treated by Veterans Affairs. Prisoners and patients, all in one. Had they all been railroaded the way he had, or were the loonies actually loony? He thought he knew the answer, but really, what was crazy? All he knew was that the men who had captured him and put him on this bus were not about to forget about him, which meant there was nothing simple about this bus, or where it might be headed.

Exhausted, lulled by the jostling of the bus and the growl of its engine, he slipped deeper into sleep and found himself lost in something that might have been a dream or a memory, or perhaps a little bit of both.

In the dream-memory, McKenna can still hear the crack of a baseball bat against the ball. He can still see the astonishment on his son’s face as Rory realizes he’s just gotten the first hit of his life. Awkwardly, in shock and disbelief, Rory begins to run toward first base, helmet bobbling on his head. It’s way too big, that helmet. McKenna said something to the coach about it the previous week, but budgets for pee-wee league baseball being what they are, what can the heart-attack-in-waiting Coach Jeff do?

McKenna’s in the stands, surrounded by other parents. People whose kids have all done this before, dads who’ve all had the remarkable pleasure of their sons having even rudimentary skills at baseball. Hit, catch, run. Now McKenna watches Rory stumbling around the bases and knows his own astonishment is even greater than his boy’s. A cheer burbles up in his throat and he begins to shout, “Go! Go!”