Relative Strangers (Book 2) No Man Is An Island

11. Know Your Enemy

Connor entered the cinema screen room first, with his gun raised, and E at his back.
"All clear" he said quietly, once he had checked the room.
"The claw marks in here confirm that there were creatures in this room" he continued.
E ignored him as she already knew that there was a creature incursion, so she continued making her way towards the anomaly at the far side of the room.
"Right, let's get this thing locked" Connor announced as he bent down to the ground and pointed the locking mechanism he had been carrying, at the anomaly.
"Wait, Matt wanted to me to check if anything has come through, and I can't do that if its closed" reminded E.
"I don't think you need to bother, since we can clearly see that something has come through. Once it's locked I can use the dating calculator to see if you're right about this anomaly leading to the future".

"Don't bother, I'm just going to go through and have a look" revealed E.
"You know full well that we're not allowed to go through the anomalies" replied Connor.
"Oh right yeah, because no one's ever broken that rule" E said sarcastically.
"We try not to. But it does happen from time to time, in emergency situations. Which this is not"
"That rule doesn't apply to me. The only reason it exists, is so that people don't get trapped on the other side. But we don't need to worry about that when I'm here, since I can make my own anomalies"
"I still don't think that it's a good idea for you to go through"
"Well, I honestly don't care what you think".

E walked past Connor and stepped through the anomaly despite his protests.
Once on the other side she began to take note of her surroundings, and she instantly recognised where she was.
A part of her almost wished that she had been wrong about Predators being in the building. But now that she could see the future around her, she knew that she had been right.
After scanning the area with her watch, she knew it was time to head back.

E sighed and made her way back through the anomaly, which Connor locked the second she was through.
"Were you right?" Questioned Connor.
"Yeah, I was" answered E.
"Normally my calculator gives me an exact year, but it just just has the current year, and a plus sign on it. Why is that?" Asked Connor as he raised his dating calculator to show E.
"I may have tampered with it a while ago"
"E!"
"What? I can't have you guys knowing exactly when that future happens"
"You're impossible"
"I know".

"Now that we know you were right, we should tell the others" admitted Connor.
"Normally, I would agree with you. But I don't want the teams comms to go off, when we're surrounded by creatures that hunt using sound" replied E.
"I guess that means we can't text them either, in case their phones aren't on silent" sighed Connor.
"No, we can't, and if they were on silent they probably wouldn't answer them".
E knelt down on the ground and began rummaging through her bag until she found her belt.
She then stood back up and tied the belt around herself.
This was no ordinary belt though, as it contained numerous knives that were strapped to it.
"Woh" gasped Connor.

"Do you like it?" Asked E.
"It's certainly very lethal looking" commented Connor.
"Well, now that we know we aren't dealing with creatures from the past, I don't need to worry about keeping them alive" admitted E.
"I guess that's true, killing Predators certainly won't mess up the timeline"
"To be honest, the chances of me killing a Predator with one of these knives, is slim, but I feel more confident when I have this on. I also have a secret weapon, that will make it easier for me to take them down".
E removed another item from her bag, and held it out in her palm.
"What is that?" Questioned Connor.
"This helps even the playing field. It emmits a high pitch frequency, way above our hearing, and overloads the Predators minds. In some circumstances it can even kill them. But without a speaker system to amplify the sound, it won't be as powerful, so will only work on a small radius, like this room" answered E.

"So we need to get that to the others, or better still, play it over the entire building to disable the Predators" announced Connor.
"Hold on, not all buildings have a speaker system, and this is an old broken one" reminded E.
"I'll talk to Jess and see if she can find out for us" replied Connor.
"O.K".
E sat back down and began setting up her device so that it was ready to be used when they came across a Predator.
"You know a lot about the Predators" commented Connor once he had finished talking to Jess.
"I probably know more than anyone else" sighed E.
"How come?" Asked Connor, as he sat down opposite her.

"I've spent a lot of time around them. True, I didn't see one until I was 8. But since then I've spent more time with them, than any other creature. My favourite place to live is the future, because it's mostly abandoned, and full of advanced technology, but that's also where the Predators live, unfortunately" admitted E.
"You must know how they came to be then?" Questioned Connor.
"I wish I didn't" sighed E.
"Care to enlighten me then?"
"You don't want to know"
"I think you'll find that I do... My gut tells me that they aren't naturally occurring creatures"
"No, they were made in a lab. At least the original ones were, they've bred a lot since then".

"Why would anyone want to create them?" Quizzed Connor.
"It's complicated. But what you have to understand, is that the people in the future were desperate. The planet was dying, that had nothing to do with the Predators, and humanity was looking for a way to survive. They had turned their planet against them, and it was too late to undo what they had done to its ecosystem. Humans really are the worst" admitted E.
"How does experimenting on animals save humanity?" Asked Connor.
"Animals are better at adapting quickly than us. The ones that didn't adapt to the warming planet, died. So scientists were looking for a way to combine human DNA with animals, to help us survive"
"I still don't understand how that experimentation ends with the creation of Predators".

"Honestly Connor, sometimes I find it hard to believe that you're the smart one in the group... When you first found the Predators at Abby's zoo, what animal's did the lab say the DNA was closest too?" Asked E.
"The DNA appeared to be from a weird bat and an ape" answered Connor.
"Well bats are good at adapting to live in all different habitats" reminded E.
"But the ape DNA still doesn't make sense"
"What other form of life is closest to an ape, just a bit more sophisticated?"
"No"
"Yep"
"They experimented with human DNA?"
"Yes".

"That's horrible" shuddered Connor.
"I know. Unfortunately the embryos they made never survived, because human DNA doesn't like being mixed with things. So they moved on to apes, to try and get that right first. But the goal was always to make humans that could survive the apocalypse that was coming. The Predators escaped eventually and overthrew humanity" revealed E.
"Helen used to say that the ARC had a hand in ending the world" Connor said quietly.
"Yes, it was their advanced technology that helped make the Predators. Which is why we wanted to destroy the ARC all those years ago. I've done everything I can do stop the Predators from being created but I always fail. I even joined the ARC team once in the future, to try and stop them, but that didn't work out too well".

"Why not?" Asked Connor.
"When the team realised that I was actually trying to hinder their work, and mess up their results, they turned on me, and made me pay for what I had done. They believed that they were going to save the planet, and they thought that I was some kind of terrorist who wanted to stop them" admitted E.
"I'm sorry. I know how hard it can be to convince someone that what they are doing is wrong" mumbled Connor.
"Don't worry about it... I've survived everything I've been through, and become stronger. One of my many skills is hunting Predators, and not getting killed" replied E.
"Which is why you were so certain that there were Predators here"
"Yes".
"Are you guys there?" Asked Jess, speaking through the comms.
"Yes Jess, what is it?" Questioned E.
"I've got that information about the speaker system that you asked for"
"Alright then, tell us what you know".