Once the Hind’s shaking had subsided enough that we could actually read without our eyeballs jittering out of our heads, Milo pulled a map out from his armor and held it between me and Trip. He pointed to where we were heading. “This is the spot of the last attack.” He moved his gloved finger. “This is the closest airfield to the target. They’re a couple hundred miles an hour faster than we are, but they’ll still need to procure ground transport. Ticked as Earl seemed, I figure that won’t take too long…He’s liable to hijack somebody. They should be on site at least half an hour before us.”

“Cops and MCB are already there, so whatever it is has already moved,” Trip pointed out.

“I know, and I’m going to be really upset if I’m missing SHOT Show and this thing has just up and flew away, or ate a big lunch and now it’s going back to sleep for another hundred years, so we waste our time screwing around in the desert while it hibernates and dreams happy monster dreams. That happens all the time…I don’t get to test drive killer robots very often.”

All Hunters hate going into a situation without good intel. There was no doubt Stricken knew more than he told us, and whatever he wasn’t saying was certainly bad news. “If this thing is on the move, and if it really is ten million dollars worth of nasty, then someone else is bound to run into it.”

Holly couldn’t see the map, but she could listen to our conversation. “I’ve been flipping through the radio and the police bands. If I hear anything I’ll let you know.”

“We might get lucky. All the Hunters in airplanes will get there fast to the wrong place, and everybody else in a car will be too slow, but if the creature makes a move in that window, we’ll be in the right position to catch it. They’re too fast or too slow, we’re just right.”

“We can be Team Goldilocks!” Milo exclaimed.

“I like it,” Holly said. “Goldilocks. It has gravitas.”

I ignored them. “If it shows up somewhere else, we’ll be the first to swoop in on it.”

“Us and the MCB,” Milo said. “A bunch of them bailed out of the conference too. Just because Stricken sent all the Hunters doesn’t mean that MCB answers to him.”