Кристофер Голден - The Predator - The Official Movie Novelization

His dad had a temper.

Rory took off the mask and set it on the counter. “It’s too small. The guys’ll… you know, still be able to tell.”

Emily frowned. “Tell what?”

“That’s it’s me,” he replied. He caught sight of the sad look on her face, the sudden wetness in her eyes, as he turned to leave the room, but he didn’t understand the source of her sadness. He was only being practical, after all.

“I love you, peanut,” she said, her voice breaking a little.

“ Jag alskar dig ,” he said automatically as he left the kitchen. Swedish for I love you .

Rory didn’t announce that he was going into the basement. He never did, but somehow his mom always knew when to look for him there. Now he descended into his lair and glanced around at the many recycled computers, screens glowing with online games awaiting his attention. A sign hung on the wall— CONTROL AREA .

He sat and launched back into several games at once, but something in the room kept drawing his attention. In his peripheral vision, he could see his worktable, and when he finally glanced over, he saw the parcel that had been delivered by the postal worker with all of his father’s mail. Rory had compartmentalized its presence, intending to open it just as soon as he’d made his way through the language books upstairs, but he’d forgotten.

Now he sucked in a sharp breath, went to the table, and tore open the package. He reached in, pulling back the dirty newspapers that the contents had been packed with. He reached inside, felt a smooth metallic surface, and pulled out an enormous scarred helmet that reminded him immediately of something out of one of his video games.

For a moment he stood frozen, his mind stunned into immobility, and then abruptly it began to race as he tried to determine precisely what he held. This was not a Halloween mask or a replica. Whoever this helmet might belong to—this thing his father had shipped to himself from Mexico, and which had only been delivered here because he’d forgotten to pay for his post office box—it didn’t belong to Quinn McKenna. The thing didn’t look like US Army gear. It had various markings on its surface, but not in any language Rory had ever seen. It looked like it might have some in-board technology, and he started mentally comparing it to games he’d played and movies he’d seen.

One thing was for sure. Whoever this belonged to, the guy had a massive frickin’ head.

Rory set the helmet aside and reached into the box again. What he pulled out this time made him grin. The wrist gauntlet clearly had the same origin, the same tech. He started fiddling with it, pressing nearly hidden buttons. With a click , a small door opened and a long, trapezoidal object popped out of a compartment in the gauntlet. It reminded him of a fat, old-fashioned remote control, but there was nothing old-fashioned about the sleek surface or the strange texture of the metal. It felt unusual and heavy and strangely warm, almost alien.

He studied the gleaming device—Rory was certain this thing had a purpose. It didn’t appear to be a weapon, but there were switches and buttons. Warily, he punched a button. When nothing happened, he frowned and turned the sleek device over again, cocked his head to study it, then thumbed another button.

A display blinked on. Rory frowned deeper, locked in fascination as he watched glowing red symbols scroll across the device. His eyes widened as he studied their cryptic patterns, trying to make sense of it all…

Far from Rory… far from Earth… a stealth ship, smaller and sleeker than the one that had recently crash-landed in the Mexican jungle, glides swiftly toward the Earth. Within it, a Predator quite unlike the one in Project: Stargazer’s custody taps a button and a display appears on its viewscreen. The same glowing symbols scroll, but to these eyes, its patterns are far from cryptic. Instead, they reveal very much indeed. The hunter makes several satisfied clicking noises, and flies onward.

In his basement, Rory worked studiously, scribbling a transcription of the symbols from the alien device onto the outside of one of his school folders. He knew his heart ought to be racing, but he felt calmer than he’d ever been. Excited, yes… enthusiastic… but intent upon his task. Here was a real puzzle, a real mystery that he could sink his teeth into. He couldn’t ever seem to unravel the mysteries that other people presented, and school had never presented him with a challenge, but here was something different—a true challenge. Languages, after all, had always been his specialty.

With a blip, the readout on the device changed. He scrunched up his face and furiously scribbled this new sequence, translating in his head. His eyes narrowed, and he stared at the device. He had begun to understand it, and now he tapped several buttons, causing the display to revert to the first sequence he’d awoken.

Aboard the pursuit ship, the strange Predator grimaces and glares with great displeasure at his viewscreen. The readout has changed as if it has a mind of its own. A malfunction? He taps the controls, correcting the sequence…

Rory could have laughed when the sequence altered again. It seemed to him that the device had reacted to him. For a moment he wondered if it had been programmed this way, or if it contained some kind of alien artificial intelligence that he could not hope to understand.

On second thought, he decided the odds of there being a language or technology he could not understand were very slim. Dismissively, he overrode the device again.

On the pursuit ship, the strange Predator—enormous even by the standards of its race—punches in a new code. The interior of the ship spasms. The seat beneath him trembles, but it is the outside of the ship that truly trembles. It shimmers and enters stealth mode. To the naked eye, or even to any instruments, it is now invisible…

Rory grinned, awash with sudden understanding. He would have preferred the AI solution, but this was fun, too. It’s a game , he thought. He had seen enough of these cryptic symbols, scribbled enough of them down and gotten a basic translation worked out, so that he now understood how to revise the sequence of the code to reverse a command, which was precisely what he did.

In space, the pursuit ship decloaks. What issues from the strange Predator’s mouth then, in clicks and spittle, is what passes for profanity on its home world.

“You okay down there, kiddo?”

Rory froze. He stared at the device, at the helmet and the gauntlet, and then at the steps that led up from the basement. This would be a bad time for his mom to come down to check on him.

“Just playing games, Mom!” he yelled, trying to make everything sound normal.

For a few tense seconds he waited, wondering if she would reply—or even whether he’d hear the clump of her descending footsteps. But there was silence from up above. She must have gone away.

His hunched shoulders lowered slowly as he relaxed.

The only thing Anya Martin didn’t like about her job was that she could never tell the truth about what she did. Not that she worked for the CIA or anything—she wasn’t going to have some Russian spy shoot her in the back of the head on a street corner, or poison her food in a London restaurant. Although eating in London restaurants did seem wonderfully exotic to her. It depressed her when her train of thought chugged down these particular tracks, because then she got thinking about traveling the world, and though the job of Tracking Analyst sounded fancy, her salary was anything but.