Day of the Predator

CHAPTER 16

2015, Texas

They landed with a wet splash on to a hard tiled floor.

‘Ouch!’ Liam whimpered.

The water sloshed noisily across the floor soaking cardboard boxes of domestic cleaning materials.

‘Jay-zus, why can’t we ever land on something soft… like a pillow?’ He grimaced as he let go of his nose and puffed out the breath he’d taken back in 2001.

‘Insufficient data to identify a soft landing loca-’

Liam raised a hand. ‘It’s all right… I wasn’t after an answer.’ He pulled a wet shock of dark hair out of his eyes and opened them, instantly wishing he hadn’t.

‘Oh-Mother-of-God!’ He clamped his eyes shut and turned away to look at the storeroom wall.

‘What is wrong?’

‘You could have warned me you were taking those wet things off!’

‘Why?’

‘Because… because…’ He bit his lip. This is so very not right.

‘Because you’re a, ah… you’re a girl now, Bob.’

Liam spotted some towels on the storeroom shelf and began to dry himself off.

‘You should assign a new ident. to this AI copy. I may be “Bob” now,’ she said, ‘but this AI will develop new sub-routines and characteristics that require a new identifying label.’

Liam nodded. ‘Yes.’ Self-consciously he found himself wrapping the towel round his waist as he hurriedly removed his wet boxers and pulled the clothes he’d brought with him out of the bag.

‘Four seconds before we were transmitted, you indicated you had a suitable ident. for me.’

‘Oh yes… so I did.’

She turned to look at him. ‘So, what will I be called?’

Liam could hear the rustle of clothes being quickly pulled on behind his back.

Good.

He really didn’t need to see that… again. He found a pair of neon green three-quarter-length baggy shorts and a navy blue sweatshirt with the word NIKE splayed across it. And, for some reason, a large tick beneath the word. He felt much better with some clothes on, even if they looked quite ridiculous.

‘I had a cousin called Rebecca,’ he said. ‘Used to call her Becks for short.’

‘Becks?’ replied the support unit, her voice rising at the end in a query.

‘That’s right — Becks.’

‘A moment… logging ident…’

‘So, are you decent now? Can I turn round?’

‘Decent?’

‘You know, got clothes on?’

‘Affirmative.’

Liam turned round and found his breath caught momentarily. ‘Blimey!’

Becks cocked her head and looked at him. ‘Are these garments incorrectly deployed?’

His eyes skittered awkwardly up from the combat boots to the black leggings, to the black lace mini-skirt to a black crop top that displayed a bare midriff, up to her… perfect… face framed by tumbling locks of flaming fox-red hair. Quite clearly Sal had decided their support unit needed to look like some sort of gothic valkyrie.

‘Uh. No, you are… you got it about… errrr… right, I suppose… I think.’

Liam felt his mouth go dry and a strange jittery, lurching sensation in his stomach.

Jay-zus… get a grip, Liam. That’s… that’s… that’s just Bob wearing a girl suit. All right?

‘Recommendation: you should refer to me as Becks from this point on,’ she said firmly. ‘It will avoid unnecessary confusion between AI versions.’

He nodded. ‘All right… uh, OK. So, you’re Becks, then. That’s that settled.’

‘Correct.’ Her smile was faltering and clumsy as always, just like Bob. But on those lips, strangely quite perfect.

Liam decided to shift his mind to other things. ‘I suppose we had better get a move on and find this Chan fella.’

Becks nodded and blinked, retrieving data from her hard drive. ‘We are located within the institute’s experimental reactor building. The reactor is very close to this location.’

Liam stepped towards the storeroom’s door and cracked it open a sliver. Outside he could see a narrow hallway and, opposite, double doors with a sign on them: AUTHORIZED VISITORS AND STAFF ONLY. Just then he heard muffled voices from the end of the hallway and glass doors swung inwards to reveal a man in a smart linen suit leading a shuffling gaggle of teenagers.

‘Yes, we’re in the correct place all right,’ whispered Liam. He watched them coming towards them, the man turning to talk to the group, gesturing emphatically with his hands. Liam gently closed the door until it clicked. ‘They’re just coming up now. We can tag along on the end,’ he whispered.

He waited until the muted sound of the man’s droning voice and the shuffle and slap of trainers on the polished linoleum floor passed them by before he cracked the door open again and peeked out. The last kids in the school party were just ahead, three blonde-haired girls deeply involved in a mumbled conversation, clearly too interested in chatting to each other to even pretend to be listening to the guide up front.

‘Now!’ Liam mouthed, and stepped out behind them, Becks swiftly following.

He fell in step at the back of the group and when one of the girls casually glanced back over her shoulder he quickly managed to mimic the laid-back swagger of one of the boys up ahead.

‘Oh,’ said the girl. ‘Thought we were, like, you know, the last.’

Liam shrugged and smiled. ‘Guess, like, not,’ he replied, doing his best to bury the Irish in his voice.

Her gaze lingered a moment longer, a flickering smile for him. Then she turned back round and was back to gossiping in a conspiratorial murmur with the other two again.

Liam puffed out a silent gasp of relief. It looked like they’d jumped the first hurdle — successfully sneaking on to the back of the tour party and managing to pass themselves off as yet two more kids who might actually have preferred a trip to Disneyland or Universal Studios than wandering around a bunch of clinically clean corridors. He grinned at Becks and then almost immediately wished he hadn’t. The smile she returned gave him that weird flip-flopping sensation in his stomach again.

Liam, you daft idiot… It’s just Bob in a dress, for crying out loud!

He wished Sal could have found some other clothes for the support unit, something baggy, drab and unflattering. And why a wig with hair like that? Why that colour? He’d always loved that copper red. His first crush at school, Mary O’Donnell, she’d had hair that bewitching colour of fiery red.

Oh, saints preserve me… she’s just a meat robot, so she is.