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Watching their guide and the woman who claimed to be an alien prepare to enter a secret Air Force base, Barbara Morse sat expressionlessly on the hood of the car, basking in the warm autumn sunlight.
The car was stolen anyway, and she was light enough that she wouldn't dent the hood.
The wounds on Barbara's body were still seeping blood, but after being treated and bandaged, they didn't feel as bad as she had imagined. Even so, she was seriously considering whether she should pretend to be weak and collapse into that man's arms.
Unfortunately, the man who got out of the car didn't obediently stay by her side. He took Katie with him to look for food.
According to Henry, once the time came, Katie had to eat. Otherwise, no one knew what a hungry "tabby cat" might decide to put in its mouth.
Since they had left in a hurry, Henry hadn't had time to prepare a leash for Katie. He simply gave a brief instruction, and the "tabby cat" obediently followed him.
Before long, Henry returned carrying a deer, a snake, several squirrels, and some thin branches for firewood.
Seeing how quickly he'd come back with prey, Barbara stared in disbelief.
"Don't tell me you're treating today like a picnic?"
"Why not?" Henry replied. "Food is the people's heaven. If you don't eat and I don't eat, we can't exactly expect Katie not to eat, right? And if she decides to eat you or me, what then?"
The logic was flawless. Barbara had no way to argue.
Though in reality, that scenario would never happen. If anything, Katie would be the one worrying about being treated as emergency rations by the two-legged Kryptonian.
Henry removed two deer legs and tossed the rest to Katie to gnaw on. With swift, practiced movements, he cleaned out the snake and squirrels' entrails, started a fire on the spot, and set them roasting together with the deer legs.
Still, the firewood wasn't quite enough. And after running around for half a day, both of them were thirsty.
Back at Pancho's Bar, they'd been left outside and hadn't even gotten a sip of beer. Henry found a plastic bottle in the car, but the water inside had gone foul.
He sniffed it, then poured it out.
"I saw a stream nearby. I'll go get some water—and pick up more firewood while I'm at it."
"Okay," Barbara replied. With her injuries, she didn't insist on going along.
Fortunately, she didn't—otherwise Henry would've had a hard time explaining how several kilometers counted as "nearby."
After a quick trip, Henry returned with thicker, longer-burning dry wood and a bottle refilled with cool, clear stream water.
In theory, wild water sources should be boiled before drinking. But given the circumstances, neither Henry nor Barbara was delicate enough to get diarrhea from raw water—unless it was straight from the Ganges.
Handing her the bottle, Henry said,
"Thirsty, right? Go ahead. I already drank some by the stream."
Then he went back to tending the roasting animals and deer legs.
Having gone camping with Henry once before, Barbara wasn't unfamiliar with this scene.
Including Katie—the tiger—who had nearly buried her entire head in the deer's abdomen, devouring delicacies like the heart and organs. When she pulled her head out, her whole face was smeared with blood, looking ferocious enough to frighten anyone.
Yet Barbara felt no fear at all. Watching the man's back as he grilled the meat, she suddenly asked,
"What kind of person is Charlize Theron?"
"She's a smart girl who knows what she wants and what she's doing," Henry answered.
"More outstanding than me?"
Henry chuckled.
"Some things aren't about choosing the 'better' person, but the more suitable one. And you're in different fields, showing different talents. She might not be as good at studying as you, but when it comes to acting, she works very hard—and she does it well."
As he spoke, Henry peeled the charred skin off a roasted squirrel. Removing the blackened fur revealed tender, perfectly cooked meat underneath. He handed it to the girl on the hood, hoping to plug her mouth with food.
Grumbling under her breath, but unable to resist the aroma, Barbara took a bite anyway.
The snake Henry was roasting was a rattlesnake—the most common kind in California. Using his Swiss Army knife, he cut off the head and tail, skinned it, removed the entrails, then wrapped the meat around thin branches to roast.
Earlier, the little thing had foolishly tried to mimic the sound of flowing water with its rattle to lure passing animals. That trick had ended up drawing Katie over instead.
Unfortunately for the snake, its strike was far slower than Katie's reflexes—reflexes honed by BB. One swipe of a tiger paw sent it flying straight to Henry's feet.
Snake gall, heart, and blood were all good stuff. Henry wasn't about to waste them. Since it had landed right there, he naturally picked it up.
He dug out the heart and gall on the spot and swallowed them, even drinking a few mouthfuls of the snake's blood. Only then did the unfortunate snake get taken back for proper processing.
Snakes and squirrels didn't have much meat, so they cooked faster than the deer legs. Snake bones were fine and numerous, so Henry deliberately roasted it a bit extra and chewed the bones down along with the meat.
As for whether they'd even get to eat the deer legs, Henry wasn't so sure.
Because just after Barbara finished one squirrel, Nick Fury sent a message through the communicator.
"Henry, Fury says he's been placed under house arrest inside the base. He needs support. He's already contacted his superiors—Director Keller will be bringing a large team. Fury wants us to rendezvous with Director Keller and enter the base together."
"Understood," Henry replied aloud. But inwardly, he was thinking: Keller… isn't that the high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who gets replaced by a Skrull?
He asked, "Bobby, this Keller is…?"
"Richard Keller," Barbara answered. "The head of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Los Angeles office."
…Girl, are you really just casually leaking internal organizational intel to me, someone completely unrelated?
Henry really wanted to complain, but he was more worried about the implications. This was probably the very S.H.I.E.L.D. senior agent who'd been replaced by a Skrull.
So should he run now? Or warn the people inside the base?
The second thought barely surfaced before he dismissed it. With no evidence, telling Nick Fury that the reinforcements he'd called had a problem was no different from admitting that he himself had a problem.
Besides, even if someone named "Nick Fury" seemed warm and approachable in speech and manner, Henry wouldn't underestimate him that easily.
That kind of demeanor could be an act. A man who would one day become the king of spies wouldn't be someone who was muddle-headed or blind to obvious red flags.
Careless, Henry thought. He hadn't considered this possibility when he agreed to come along earlier.
But Fury had already given his orders. As an outsider, Henry had no standing to advise. Barbara was just a subordinate—and a rookie intern at that—so she couldn't offer suggestions either.
Henry now found himself riding the tiger, unable to get off.
All he could do was steel himself and meet this man who might already have been replaced by a Skrull, then decide what to do next based on how he acted.
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