Exo-Hunter

by Jeremy Robinson

  In this case, we went from the temperature-controlled, sixty-seven-degree interior of Bitch’n to a humid, ninety-degree jungle full of pungent smells.

  From above, the planet looked Earth-like. From the ground, it looks more like Oz. The trees are coated in brightly colored bark. Some are dark red. Others blue, green, and purple. I can’t be sure, but I think the different colors belong to different species. Instead of leaves, there are bunches of green vegetation—like heads of broccoli. They’re on all the trees, but the size and shape of the broccoli varies between species.

  “Smells like skunk,” Drago says.

  Something stinks of decay, but there’s no way to know if it’s a dead creature or just how vegetation on this planet smells. Earth had its fair share of stinky plants, including the aptly named skunk cabbage.

  I slip my rifle from my shoulder to my hands. “No idea what to expect, so be ready for a fight, but do not pull the trigger first. Copy?”

  “Copy,” Chuy says, chambering a round in her sniper rifle.

  Drago pumps an auto-shotgun that can unload twelve shells in three seconds. He calls it his ‘person eraser.’ He hasn’t had a chance to test the name’s accuracy. I hope he never does. He’s also carrying two handguns, a rifle, and that big-ass Ruskie knife. It’s less weight than he carried on previous missions, but definitely overkill.

  I hope.

  Still have no idea what to expect here, which is why we rotated a mile outside the coordinates on the note.

  “I will take point,” Drago says, and he doesn’t wait for me to agree.

  “If you want to be my meat shield, have at it,” I say, and I follow with Chuy. I’m not a fan of people risking themselves on my behalf, but I don’t really see Drago as a subordinate. We’ve become allies. Antagonistic friends. I’m the ship’s captain, and he respects that, but I have no illusions about any real control over him. Arguing with him about being on point will just start a testosterone fueled tit-for-tat that ends with creative ways to say ‘fuck you!’ And then he’ll still be on point, and Chuy will shake her head at me with a perfected judgmental eyeroll.

  “Dark Horse,” Chuy says.

  “Don’t judge me!” I say.

  “When you’re done with your imaginary argument, let me know.” Annnd eyeroll.

  Dang it.

  “I’m done,” I say, taking a deep breath and letting it out.

  “Stressed?” she asked.

  “What gave you that idea?” I ask.

  She steps over a fallen tree, its purple bark sunken in and crumbling. A line of fist-sized insect-like things are gnawing off chunks of the tree’s insides and carrying them away. I hop over the tree, trying not to straddle it for long because those things have pincers long and sharp enough to shish kebab my nards.

  “We’re kind of flying blind here,” she says. “You know I don’t mind danger—”

  She doesn’t just not mind it, she welcomes it.

  “—but aimless risks at the whim of outside forces doesn’t sit well.”

  “Even if it’s Brick?” I ask.

  “If,” she says. “We’re not sure about that yet. Finding our people was a mission I could get behind. A guiding force. Being Exo-Hunters might have been wrong, but the job was clear. We might not have liked our place in this future, but we understood it. Now… Someone else is giving the orders and we don’t know who. After this mission, that ends, no matter who or what we find.”

  Drago interrupts by snapping a fist into the air above his head.

  Chuy and I stop in our tracks, the conversation shelved for another time and place.

  Drago lifts a lump of low-hanging, dark purple broccoli and stares into the jungle ahead. He lowers it back into place without making a sound. Steps back to us. “Light. Up ahead. Fifty feet.”

  “We’re still half a click out from the coordinates,” Chuy notes.

  She’s right, but we have no idea where we’re going. Could be a rendezvous point. Could be a village. Could be another brick with a message. God, I hope not.

  But light usually means people.

  Switching to hand signals, I turn to Chuy. Motion to my eyes, and then point up into the trees. She nods and heads off to find a good vantage point. Then I turn to Drago and sweep my arms ahead, signaling for him to take the lead once more. He looks at me like I’ve just asked him to have sex with Beatrice and shakes his head. Then he repeats my sweeping hand gesture.

  With a sigh, I comply. I don’t have time to mime an argument with the last grumpy Russian in the galaxy.

  I do my best to move through the lumpy foliage without making a sound, but the broccoli heads are hard to avoid and they squeak when you brush against them. So, I push through clumps of them only when the wind kicks up. A good breeze sets the whole jungle to squeaking.

  I slow when I see the light ahead. It’s blue and ethereal, changing the hue of the tree trunks as it strikes them. Side stepping, I change positions until I find a window through the jungle and spot the light’s source.

  From a distance, it resembles a twelve-foot-tall termite colony, but decorated with baseball-sized, glowing blue ovals.

  “Is like American Christmas tree, no?” Drago says.

  “No,” I say. “First of all, that’s clearly a pile of dirt. Second, I don’t hear any Bing Crosby.”

  Remembering that we likely have Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer now, I think I might celebrate the holiday with Chuy this year.

  “Who is Bing Crosby?” Drago asks.

  I ignore the question and approach the strange mound. The closer I get, the more I’m infused with a sense of calm. The air smells better, too. It’s an oasis of serenity. I lower my guard and stop just a few feet away. It smells sweet, and a little bit like bacon. I want to touch it. Hell, I kind of want to taste it.

  “What is it?” Drago says, stepping up beside me.

  “Not sure,” I say. “But it’s kind of…”

  “…magical,” he says, reaching out a hand to touch one of the glowing blue, fist-sized jelly beans. Luminous oil shimmers and swirls beneath a thin membrane, mesmerizing.

  “Beautiful,” I say.

  “Uhh, boss,” Chuy says. “You guys don’t sound normal. Everything okay?”

  In a flicker of clarity, I say, “Dandy,” and then I reach out my hand. I don’t know what I’m doing. I just need to touch it.

  I flinch at the sound of Drago’s shotgun falling to the ground, but the effect doesn’t last long. The glowing blue has my full attention. My craving for it is almost sexual. Irresistible.

  I reach for the blue.

  “That’s a bad idea,” a man says. I barely register it.

  My fingers are just inches from the blue when a hand grasps my wrist and yanks it away.

  “No!” Drago shouts, shoving someone away. “I need it!”

  I’m about to do the same, when I see the man holding my wrist—Bighead. Most of his face is covered by a mask, but his dark skin and bright blue eyes are hard to forget. His face breaks me from the spell long enough to remember why we’re here.

  “It’s carnivorous bioluminescent bacteria,” Bighead says. “Secretes a hallucinogenic pheromone. Attracts animals, and small-minded human beings.”

  “I don’t care!” Drago says, fighting against the Asian man and the Polynesian woman I encountered on Elysium. I’m not sure how they’re holding him back. He’s twice their size. But he’s all Jell-O.

  Actually, so am I. Bighead is telling the truth.

  “Drago,” I say, slurring his name. I place my hand on his chest. He blinks at me. “We’re drugged. I think… I think…”

  Drago’s intensity fades. His body goes slack. The man and woman holding him back switch to holding him up. A smile emerges on his face. “I hear music. Is…is Gorky Park!”

  I hear it, too, and I burst out laughing. The Russian band’s biggest MTV hit, Bang, has magically started playing in the jungle.

  “This song is pretty good,”
I say to Bighead. “For Ruskie glam rock.”

  “Wouldn’t know,” he says, pulling me away from the psychedelic love pillar.

  I start belting out the lyrics, making a mess of the song. I know the English bits, but the words travel through a blender on the way from my brain to my mouth. Drago starts playing air guitar and singing the Russian bits just as poorly as I’m singing the English. As we’re led away from the spire, Drago and I bump into each other. The big Russian wraps his arms around me in a bear hug. “Russia and America! We are friends now!” The video for Bang featured both American and Russian flags. Controversial at the time. Sold records. Got lots of play on MTV in the months before our jaunt to the future. Took a thousand years, but the message of unity seems to have just struck Drago now.

  We’re separated and dragged farther away, both of us lost in the 80s, filling the jungle with incoherent wails.

  Fifty feet away, I’m still feeling pretty good. A hundred feet away, I can still hear the music, but the euphoria is fading. I stop singing.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m okay.”

  Bighead stops. “You sure? The effects take a little while to wear off.”

  “I’m good,” I tell him, and he lets go of me. I stumble a few steps and lean against a tree. Feel like I’ve just run a race.

  Drago lies on the forest floor, breathing heavy, sweating. “Why can I still hear music?”

  The song stops. “Sorry,” Chuy says in my ear. “Things were getting intense. Hildy pumped Gorky Park in via the comms at my request. Thought it might distract you both.”

  Neither I nor Drago respond or react. Better they don’t know that Chuy is providing overwatch.

  I sit up and look back at the now distant pillar. “Is that thing really carnivorous?”

  “It’s full of flesh-eating bacteria,” the woman says. “Would have dissolved you, and you’d have liked it.”

  “Well, then, thanks.” I pat my own chest like I’m communicating with a cave woman. “I’m Dark Horse…but you already knew that.” I motion to my Russian friend. “This is Drago.”

  “And where is Chuy?” Bighead asks.

  “Beats the hell out of me,” I say. “She’s an independent woman.”

  “Rude future people,” Drago says. “You know our names. You share yours.” He waits, and when no one answers he persists. “C’mon. Tell names or I make you carry me all the way.”

  “Spunky,” the woman says.

  “Poncho,” the man says.

  I’m still just high enough that their callsigns strike a chord. I can’t stop myself from laughing.

  “What?” Spunky asks, annoyed by my response.

  “Brick. He named you after his pet chameleons,” I say. “Spunky and Poncho. On the plus side, he really loved those little guys.”

  “Time to go,” Bighead says, lifting me off the tree.

  I give a lazy nod, and I kick Drago with the side of my boot. “Let’s move.”

  He rolls to his feet with a grunt, complains about leaving his shotgun by the flesh-eating bacteria trap, and falls in line. Our five-minute journey is quiet, so I take the time to observe our surroundings. We’re following a game path through the jungle. It’s not very efficient, weaving a serpentine line, but it avoids several of the pillars illuminating the jungle in cool blue. Seems like a dangerous place to call home, but a smart place to set up a basecamp if you don’t want to be found. Natural defenses can turn a losing fight into a victory.

  We stop at a metal hatch embedded at the base of a cliff face that rises several hundred feet into the air.

  Bighead knocks on the door three times, pauses, and then knocks twice more. Old school. The door thunks from the inside and then swings open with a grinding squeak. A man steps out, dressed like a soldier at war. All black body armor. He’s a behemoth of a man and would be intimidating as hell if he didn’t also have gray hair, a beard, and enough wrinkles to—

  “Moses,” Chuy says in my ear, and I know something is really wrong. What did I miss? I see it in the man’s pale blue eyes a moment before Chuy speaks the realization aloud. “That’s Brick.”

  29

  “Brick?” I ask, but I know it’s him. The gray hair is out of place, but his blue eyes, pale skin, and wide smile are impossible to mistake. As is his voice.

  “Hey, Boss,” he says.

  He laughs, deep and resonating when I throw my arms around him in an embrace. Then he squeezes back, hard enough to crush the air from my lungs. “It’s good to see you, old friend.”

  “Ugh,” Drago says. “Amerikanskiys and your big emotions.”

  Brick pulls out of the hug and gives the Russian his full, intimidating attention. “You’re aware that there is no longer a United States, or a Russia, correct?”

  “Da,” Drago says, clenching his jaw.

  “Don’t worry about Drago,” I say. “He’s a toothless puppy dog.”

  Drago smirks, but flips me off.

  I return the favor.

  “Keeping the rivalry alive?” Brick says.

  “One of the only things that feels normal,” I admit. “Speaking of…what’s with all the gray? And the wrinkles?”

  “I got old,” he says.

  “Is it a side effect of time travel?” I ask. “We didn’t experience anything like that.”

  Brick chuckles. “It’s a side effect of traveling through time, at a very normal pace, for thirty-five years.”

  His meaning sinks in slowly. “You’ve…been here for thirty-five years?”

  He takes my chin in his big hand, turns my face one way, then the other, looking at my face. “And you have not. Three years?”

  “Five,” I say.

  He gives a slow nod, but he looks sad. “I wish I’d known. I would have reached out sooner. We could have forgone all the cloak and dagger.”

  “Speaking of, what was the point of all that? Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the Talking Heads riddle. But I don’t understand why it was necessary.”

  “I needed to make sure that you were still you. That you remembered who you are…and who I am.”

  “Because I worked for the Union?” I ask, shame creeping up on me. I’ve been dreading this conversation, but now that I’m here, I just want to get it over with.

  He nods. “Yes.”

  “And now? You’re sure I’m not?”

  “You’re the most wanted man in the galaxy,” Bighead says. “We know you’re not working with them anymore.”

  “I just wasn’t sure if you’d work with me,” Brick says.

  “Look,” I say, feeling a bit defensive, “I didn’t become an Exo-Hunter because I liked the Union, or because I believed in their expansionist dogma. I was out there looking for you. For everyone. Did I compromise my morals to do it? Sure. Did the ends justify the means? Probably not. Would I do it again? You’re God damn right I would.”

  Brick smiles. Rests his meaty hand on my shoulder. “Good. That’s good. Your dedication to protecting your people is why you’re here.”

  “Thought I was here because you summoned me.”

  “You misunderstand,” Brick says. “Not here, in this place. Here, in this time.” He turns and steps inside the open door. “Follow m—”

  A blur drops between Brick and the doorway. He staggers back a step, caught off guard. Before any of us can react, a pistol is raised and pressed against the big man’s forehead.

  I lean to look around Brick’s broad body. “Chuy…”

  “He tested you,” she says. “Now I’m going to test him.”

  There’s anger in her eyes, until she looks at him a little closer.

  “Been a while, Chuy,” he says, and there is something strange about his voice. Barely contained emotion, but it’s squelched. “I missed you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Am I missing something?”

  Drago leans over. Whispers in my ear. “Is obvious. They were ‘thing.’ Before. Is love lost. Separated by time and space. Romantic, no?”

&n
bsp; “But for how long?” Chuy asks, and then she turns to Bighead. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-five?” he says, like he’s not sure, but I think he’s just confused. Like I am.

  Chuy and Brick were together? How did I never see it? Why didn’t they tell me? Even after all this time in the future, where potential conflicts of interest don’t exist, I was kept in the dark.

  “Ten years,” she says, anger settling. “You waited ten years?”

  “Nine,” Brick says.

  She lowers the gun. “That’s a long time, I guess.”

  And then it all clicks. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Bighead is your son?” I take stock of the kid again. So much of him doesn’t look like Brick at all, but the eyes… How did I not see it before? The Bighead name makes more sense now. It’s the kind of callsign a father would give to a son whose ego needs to be checked.

  Brick opens his arms, and Chuy steps into his hug. It’s a quiet embrace, full of joy, sadness, and regret. When they separate, Chuy turns away, attempting to hide that she’s wiping a tear from her eye.

  “William,” Brick says to Bighead. He motions to me. “This is my oldest friend, Moses.” He motions to Chuy. “And this is Sophia.” He plants his big hand on Bighead’s shoulder. “Guys, this is my son.”

  “Can we stick to callsigns?” I ask.

  “You can call me Will,” Bighead says. “Please.”

  “You’re not on a mission,” Brick tells me.

  “My whole life is a mission,” I say, and then I turn to Drago. “Eh? Not bad, right?”

  He waggles his hand. “Eeeeeh. Is so-so for catchphrase.”

  Brick has a good, hearty laugh that gets the rest of us going. Even Drago.

  “I missed this,” Brick says. “People in the future don’t banter.”

  “Hard to banter when people are dying all the time,” Will says.

  “Who…is dying all the time?” I ask.

  “Come with me,” Brick says. “We have a lot to talk about.”