AVP: Alien vs. Predator

Thanks to her father, Lex had already experienced more Antarctic expeditions in her twenty-eight years than most scientists saw in their lifetimes, but she’d never before seen this amount of expensive equipment in one place.

Vehicles—including ten Hagglunds—dominated the deck, while mountains of packing crates were secured to the four walls. Most of the crates were branded with Weyland Industries’ ubiquitous W—the same W that Lex had seen on every damned vehicle, jumpsuit and flight attendant uniform during her trip to this icebreaker.

In one corner of the mammoth hold, Lex noticed a makeshift briefing area. Dozens of folding chairs had been arranged in an unbalanced circle around packing crates piled high enough to create an elevated stage.

Lex estimated there were thirty to forty other passengers milling around the hold, ogling the expedition toys. She divided them into two groups—scientists, of which she was one; and roughnecks, the folks who would be operating the heavy machinery. The latter were a different breed, common in Antarctica and one that Lex was, unfortunately, all too familiar with.

Lashed down in the center of the hold was a pair of enormous vehicles, each roughly the size of an eighteen-wheeler. Lex recognized them from her stint as an environmental specialist at the Natural and Accelerated Bioremediation Research Center at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories. They were self-contained mobile drilling rigs equipped with multi-spectrum sampling labs, though the prototypes at ORNL were nowhere near as advanced as these models. She approached the machines to get a better look. A moment later, Miller appeared at her side, sans luggage and wearing dry clothes.

“That’s some pretty fancy gear over there,” she noted, nodding toward the drilling rigs.

Miller nodded. “Wonder what it does?”

Before Lex had a chance to tell him, someone else did.

“Well,” said Sebastian De Rosa, stepping up to them. “That right there”—he pointed to a collection of pipes on the side of the machine—“is a sophisticated thermal exchanger. So my guess would be some kind of drilling device based around heat.”

Miller raised a finger. “Don’t tell me… physicist?”

“Archaeologist, actually,” said Sebastian. “My colleague Thomas and I have an interest in anything that digs or tunnels.”

“The mystery grows,” Miller said, obviously enjoying every minute of this adventure. “We have a chemical engineer, an archaeologist, and an environmentalist. I even met an Egyptologist over there. So what are we all doing on the same boat?”

Sebastian arched an eyebrow. “I presume one of us is the murderer. That is the tradition, isn’t it?”

Lex smiled, her first since her forced departure from Nepal. She could not help being charmed. When Lex noticed an unusual object dangling from a leather thong around his neck, she asked him, point blank, “What’s with the bottle cap?”

“It’s a valuable archaeological find,” he replied without a trace of irony.

Miller, meanwhile, had become so insatiably curious about the drilling rigs that he climbed a metal ladder to investigate without permission. He stood on top of one machine, then climbed down the opposite side. The cab was unlocked, so Miller hopped behind the wheel and began bouncing around like a kid on a hobby horse.

Suddenly, Miller was surrounded by four large, muscular men wearing battle fatigues. They wore tags that read Verheiden, Boris, Mikkel, and Sven. None of the men was smiling. Instead, they were looming. Sitting between them Miller looked like a thread of dental floss. The biggest man—Verheiden—had a long scar running down his cheek. He thrust his head into the cab and leaned into Miller’s face.

“Having fun?”

Miller nodded. “My first real adventure. I can’t wait to tell my kids about all this.”

Verheiden sneered. “This might be an adventure for you, Dad, but for the rest of us it’s a job. Get off the equipment and go back to the suburbs before you walk us all off a cliff.”

When Miller didn’t respond instantly, Verheiden yelled, “Keep your hands off the hardware or you’ll be wearing your ass for a hat!”

Miller quickly scrambled out of the cab as Lex approached.

“Nice team spirit,” she said.

Verheiden looked at Lex, then at Maxwell Stafford.

“Keep the Beakers away from the gear,” he barked.

Max Stafford sighed. A meticulous organizer, he had worked long and hard to put this very expensive expedition together. The last thing he needed was a personality clash, which led to bruised egos and wasted energy. The endeavor they were about to embark upon was too important for either. He stepped between Miller and Verheiden’s team.

Verheiden turned his back on Lex and Miller and contemptuously surveyed the collection of overeducated, underdeveloped brainiacs milling around the hold, examining everything as if they were peering through electron microscopes.

“Just keep the goddamn Beakers away from my gear,” he snarled again.

This time Verheiden’s remark evoked applause, catcalls and derisive laughter from his own men and some of the roughnecks.

“What’s a Beaker?” Miller asked.

Lex crossed her arms. “It’s what they call scientists out here. You know… Beaker? Like in The Muppet Show?

Miller’s face lit up. “Beaker… I kinda like that.”

“The briefing is to start in five minutes,” said Max Stafford. “Please take your seats.”

Sebastian De Rosa found a place in the front row, close to the makeshift podium. As he sat down and crossed his legs, Thomas hurried across the hold to his side.

“Weyland’s check cleared.”

“Good,” said Sebastian. “We’re going to listen to whatever he has to say. We nod, we smile, and then we politely decline whatever offer he makes, take the money and head back to Mexico.”

Five minutes later, everyone in the mammoth hold was seated in folding chairs, grouped together by profession. The muscle—Verheiden, Sven, Mikkel, Boris, and Adele Rousseau—sat together in one clique; Quinn, Connors and the roughnecks in another. The third group was more casual and was comprised of the scientists and researchers from diverse disciplines that Charles Weyland had assembled from the four corners of the world.

Stafford noticed that Lex had aligned herself with them.

As an experienced leader of men, Max Stafford felt the tension rippling through the ship’s hold like charged particles before a lightning strike. Some of the heightened emotion was due to the team’s uncertainty about why they’d been brought here and what was expected of them. But once these people were made aware of the reasons for this voyage, uncertainty would be replaced by other emotions—scientific curiosity and the joy of discovery, perhaps, along with baser instincts like greed and ambition.

Forging such a diverse group into a functional and efficient team would be a challenge, Stafford decided as he stepped onto the makeshift platform. Then again, his job usually was.

“Everybody, please, your attention!” Stafford announced into the microphone. His amplified voice reverberated hollowly in the cavernous space.

“Most of you already know me, and I know all of you, by reputation if not yet personally. My name is Maxwell Stafford and I’ve been authorized by Mr. Weyland to assemble this team—”

Suddenly a pale hand fell on his shoulder. Max turned.

“Mr. Weyland,” he said, surprised.

“Thank you, Max. I’ll take it from here,” Charles Weyland replied. Stafford stepped back, and the billionaire leader of the mysterious expedition took center stage.

Though well into his fourth decade, not a trace of gray could be seen in his thick shock of black hair. With his broad, commanding forehead, wide mouth, piercing, ice-blue eyes, and sinewy frame, Charles Weyland looked more like a sports enthusiast than an industrialist—an illusion he fostered by appearing in public with a golf club slung over his shoulder. Waiting patiently for the murmurs of surprise and recognition to fade, Weyland twirled his nine iron once, then leaned on it with both hands.

“I hope you’ve all had a chance to freshen up, perhaps catch a little sleep,” he began. “I know some of you