AVP: Alien vs. Predator

stuck to the tabletop. Grinning, he stepped back and raised his camera. “One for National Geographic.”

When the flash exploded, the sudden light disturbed something in the far corner of the room. For a split second Miller spied a shiny black shape. There was movement, and he heard a weird, scraping sound, like the pincers of some improbably large insect scurrying along the plank floor.

“Hello,” Miller called into the shadows.

The movement ceased, but Miller could sense that he was not alone—that something was in here with him.

“Hello!”

Louder this time, Miller’s voice reverberated inside the mess hall. He strained his ears but heard nothing. He turned to go when the scrabbling sound returned. This time the noise seemed closer.

Feeling a little anxious, Miller puffed out his chest and thumped it with his fist.

“Come out of there or you’ll be wearing your ass for a hat!” Miller shouted in a fair imitation of Verheiden’s booming voice.

The noise stopped.

Swallowing hard, Miller’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

Suddenly one of the tables was knocked aside by something below eye level. Miller stepped backwards—to collide with someone behind him as a hand grabbed his shoulder.

“Jesus!” Miller squealed, throwing his hands up.

“What’s the problem?” Lex cried.

“There’s something in here!”

Lex looked doubtful. “Like what?”

“Over there—” Miller pointed to the spot where the table fell.

Lex stared into the gloom, her flashlight beam probing the darkest recesses of the mess hall.

“Listen,” Miller hissed.

Lex heard it. A scratching sound, like claws on a blackboard. Something was crawling across the ice-covered floor, something small enough to move unseen under tables and between benches.

And it was coming closer….

“Watch out, Lex!” Miller cried.

Suddenly a black shape scrambled out from under a table accompanied by the now familiar scrabbling sound. Lex shone her light on the creature.

“For God’s sake, Lex!” Miller cried, shrinking back.

“It’s a penguin!” said Lex, stifling a laugh.

“I can see it’s a penguin,” he replied sheepishly. “I thought it might be—”

The penguin waddled right up to Miller and cocked its head to stare at the shaken engineer with one beady eye.

“Careful,” Lex warned. “They do bite.”

CHAPTER 11

Bouvetoya Whaling Station, Bouvetoya Island

Lex and Miller heard shouts as they emerged from the frozen mess hall.

“Over here! You’re not going to believe this.”

It was Sebastian calling. Hearing him, Quinn and his partner Connors dropped what they were doing. Weyland hurried forward, too, with Max Stafford at his side.

Lex’s gaze followed the billionaire as he moved across the snow-covered ice. He was moving with some difficulty, she noted. He seemed breathless and was leaning heavily on his ice pole. Yet when he spoke, his voice had lost none of its forcefulness. “What is this, Dr. De Rosa?”

Sebastian led all of them around the corner of a dilapidated processing factory and pointed. There, in the ice, was a gaping hole ten feet across. The pit was perfectly round, and if there was a bottom, it was lost in the shadows far below.

Perplexed, Weyland looked at Quinn, then at the mobile drilling platforms that were still being unpacked and assembled.

“How the hell did this get here?”

Quinn crouched on one knee and examined the pit. “It’s drilled at a perfect fifty-five-degree angle.” He pulled off his bulky glove and ran his hand along the sides of the shaft. The icy walls were perfectly smooth—almost slick to the touch.

Lex peered over Quinn’s shoulder. “How far down does it go?”

Sven ignited a flare and tossed it into the pit. They watched it bounce off the smooth walls and fall for many seconds, until the flare’s phosphorescent brilliance was swallowed by the dark.

“My God,” Weyland said softly.

Max Stafford looked at Dr. De Rosa. “Are we expected?”

Weyland dismissed that notion with a wave of his hand. “It must be another team. I’m not the only one with a satellite over Antarctica. Maybe the Chinese… the Russians…”

“I’m not so sure,” said Lex, staring into the abyss.

“What other explanation could there be?” Weyland insisted.

Lex looked around at the ghost town and the barren glacial ice fields all around it. “Where is their base camp? Their equipment? And where are they?”

Max Stafford shrugged. “Maybe they are already down there.”

Once again Quinn crouched down to examine the mouth of the shaft. “Look at the ice. There are no ridges, no bore marks. The walls are perfectly smooth—this wasn’t drilled.”

“How was it done?” asked Lex.

Quinn looked up at Lex. “Thermal equipment of some kind.”

Weyland nodded. “Like yours.”

“More advanced,” Quinn replied. “Incredibly powerful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Quinn activated his flashlight and turned its beam on a building close to the pit. A large circular hole had been cut into the structure, vaporizing the stout wooden walls and melting the metal machinery inside the building. It was clear from the trajectory that whatever had cut through the ice had also sliced through the structure.

“I told you I’m not the only one with a satellite. It must be another team,” said Weyland. He glanced at Quinn. “Whoever it is, they clearly have better equipment than we do.”

“Listen,” Quinn replied, standing up to the billionaire. “Whoever cut this, sliced through pack ice, the building, the beams and the solid metal machinery. We should find out what cut this before we proceed.”

Max Stafford locked eyes with Quinn. “And I thought you were the best.”

Quinn bristled. He rose, squarely challenging Stafford.

“I am the best,” he said.

Weyland stepped past Quinn and stared into the pit. “They must be down there.”

Lex examined the ice at the mouth of the hole. “No. Look at the ice. There’s no ridges… nobody’s been down there.”

Weyland frowned. “When does the Big Bird satellite pass over again?”

Max Stafford checked his watch. “Eleven minutes ago.”

“Get on the horn to New Mexico. Get me that data.”

While Max downloaded the satellite reports, Quinn moved one of the Hagglunds forward, directing its spotlights into the pit.

Miller and some of the roughnecks gathered to peer into the hole, but Connors waved them away.

“Don’t want nobody fallin’ in. Gettin’ them out again would be a goddamn waste of time.”

Weyland was leaning against the vehicle when Max Stafford appeared, computer printouts and satellite images in hand. He spread the papers across the hood of the Hagglunds as Quinn, Sebastian, Lex, Miller, and