Predator

[Albert Wesker]

"Remind me again," Beltway's voice shouted over the noise of wind and sound of snow crunching and sliding underfoot and under-ski, "WHY we're out here tramping through Satan's freezer?" The normally boisterous and jovial giant was lacking severely in his usual good mood. "And for that matter, why the living fuck we're traveling like this?"

"Ah, come on, ya big lug!" The voice of their resident lookout was almost frustratingly chipper, from his perch overhead. "It's a novelty. Nothing wrong with finding new ways to travel, eh?" The green glow of his goggles stood out starkly even through the swirling masses of white flakes and off-white powder that whipped in front of his face as he looked down. "Captain wanted us to try not to stand out too much, so this was what we got."

"Yeah. Wanted us to not stand out. And yet look at what he sent that fucker HUNK out with." The not so gentle giant pounded a fist on the railing of the sled. "God damn attack chopper!"

"That would be because of the reputation of that man." From where she sat at the reins, the team's medic was the calmest of the group. "Where Mister Death goes, his namesake always follows close behind. He will likely need the extra firepower."

"FUCK OFF WITH YOUR LOGIC, SCHNEIDER!" Beltway hollered, turning away and dropping into a sulking, mumbled string of vehement cursing in Spanish.

"Yep, that's why we love ya, big guy," Spectre chortled. "Big guns, big mouth, big temper." He dodged a wild swing from the lumbering behemoth of a man, earning a harsh "SHADDUP, BODROVSKI!" and yet more disgruntled chatter. "Besides, look on the bright side, champ. Weather's nice at least."

"Nice." Beltway turned to look out over the landscape in their direction of travel. Beyond the team of dogs which pulled the damn sled -- if it could even be called that; the damn dogs looked (and smelled, dear god) like something that crawled out of Raccoon City and grew their fur back, and the fucking sled was almost the size of a car (so much for their low profile) -- there was nothing to see except snow, snow, piles of snow, a frozen lake, and more fucking snow. "You call this shit 'nice' weather?"

"It could be a blizzard," Bertha put in rather bluntly. "Or complete whiteout conditions. All things considered, this is relatively mild."

"Yeah, it is snowin' pretty nice," Spectre mused. "But could be a hell of a lot worse."

"What the piss ever," Beltway just gave up on that one before it got started. "I'm gonna hibernate or something. Wake me up when there's something actually entertaining going on." And he just rolled over onto his side.

"Yep. That's why you make the big bucks, big guy." Mask or not, the roll in Spectre's eyes was impossible to miss. "Still. At this rate, your nap won't be too long, buddy." He brought up his wristcomp, tapping a few keys on it and watching the data scroll by before pulling up the dataverse connection. Navigating and poking through, he pulled up the message that had caught his attention on their way here. "Coordinates given in this message say we should be reaching the site of this place in about, oh....an hour, maybe two if we hit a blizzard on the way."

"Hit a blizzard on the way." Bertha's tone was flat and unamused, the disbelief and incredulity nearly slapping the Russian in the face as she glanced back at him. "That would be highly unlikely."

"Yeah. On Earth, maybe. But we ain't on Earth." Spectre just shrugged. "You saw the Captain. Summoned us from balls of sparkly rainbow stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if Jesus swam up out of the snow and it started raining wine-blooded frogs. A blizzard dropping out of nowhere seems pretty normal compared to that."

"You have been exposed to far too much fantasy and many ridiculous ideas," the German snapped, turning back front. "This place is different, but its rules are not that abstract and ridiculous."

"I'll bet ya fifty bucks. We run into something '[i]that abstract and ridiculous' before this scouting operation is over!" Spectre chimed without missing a beat.

Bertha just scoffed. "If we run into something half as ludicrous as your second coming of Christ, I'll hand over double that amount."

The lookout man just let out a whoop and a laugh at that. "Hell yeah. Piles of worthless cash. Score!" he joked, before leaning forward to look down at their explosives expert. "What about you, pal? Want in on this bet?"

Beltway snored in response.