“I copy,” I say.
“Then give me the fucking shovel.” She holds out her hand. Waits.
“Just a few more minutes,” I say, and I stab the blade into the ground, stomping it down with my foot.
She rolls her eyes and picks up the second brick. Hefts it from one hand to the other. Then she picks up the first brick. She bounces them in both hands.
I pause to watch. “Warming up?”
She tosses the second brick. “This one is lighter.” She drops the lighter brick by her feet. Holds a hand out. “Shovel. Now.”
I hand it to her. With a quick stab, she splits the brick in half, revealing a cavity. She drops the shovel and picks up both halves while I step out of the hole. She tosses the empty half away and tips the other into her free hand. A folded slip of paper slides out, and she drops the brick’s remains. By the time she opens the paper, I’m looking over her shoulder.
This time, I know what I’m seeing. “More celestial coordinates.”
“The hell?” Chuy says. “Not even ‘Hey guys, I’m alive. Hope you’re okay.’”
I’m disappointed, too, but there’s a bright side. “At least it’s not a grave.”
“Find something?” Carter asks. She and Hildy are exiting the house.
“More celestial coordinates,” I say. “Anything inside?”
“Someone lived there for a while,” she says, “but it was very organized. Very clean.”
“Sounds like Brick,” Chuy says. “Big man always was a neat freak.”
I hand the new coordinates to Hildy. “Know where this is?”
She scans the page, and when she doesn’t recognize the location right away, I know something is off. Her brow furrows. She turns the page over, looking for more. Then back again. Opens her mouth to speak, and then closes it.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” she says. “I know where in space this is, but I can’t think of anything that’s there. Should just be empty space.”
“Is there any place that’s been lost?” Carter asks. “Its location forgotten?”
“Like Atlantis?” I ask.
“Sure,” Carter says. “But a planet.”
Hildy’s shaking head slows to a stop. “Actually, there is one place. Its location was removed from the database. From every database. I asked about it once. My supervisor told me that the High Council had declared the knowledge forbidden, for the safety of the Empire.”
“Hildy,” I say. “This is the point where I get annoyed from not knowing what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Right,” she says. “Sorry. Beta Prime.”
“The Australia of planets?” I ask, and then I add, “The first colony, right? The early Union used it as an experiment in colonizing new worlds. Sent a bunch of… What did Burnett call them? …undesirables. When the people survived, they all went native and killed each other. No one has been back since.”
“That’s one of several dozen rumors,” Hildy says. “The truth is that the planet was quarantined because the air itself was infected. If the infection got off planet, it could wipe out the entire human race.”
Given the method of ‘purification’ employed by the early Union, a plague capable of wiping out humanity probably strikes a nerve, even now. Who’d want to go back? Better to forget and pretend it never happened.
“Sounds like the place to be if you don’t want the Union finding you,” I say.
“It would be suicide,” Hildy says. “Who would want to hide from the Union so bad that they’d risk living on Beta Prime?”
“You know what propaganda is?” I ask Hildy.
“I…think so,” she says.
Knowing the definition and knowing propaganda when you hear it are two different things. “If there was something on Beta Prime the Union didn’t want anyone to know about, but for some reason or another, couldn’t just destroy it, what would be the best way to keep even the most curious people away?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Lie about it,” I say.
“You’re saying the planet isn’t quarantined,” Hildy says. I can see her brain wrapping itself around the new paradigm. “That there isn’t a virus?”
“Never was,” Chuy says.
“But I still don’t understand why,” Hildy says. “What could be there that they don’t want anyone to know about?”
I turn away from the group and walk to the fence. Resting my hands on a post, I look out at the nightmare neighborhood where Brick lived for a time.
Things are about to get messy, and dangerous. More dangerous. Because, if I’m right…we’ve been on the wrong side of an old war for a long time, and we’ll soon meet the people we’ve been inadvertently oppressing…until yesterday.
Can’t be a coincidence that Brick’s message was delivered just as we launched our one-ship rebellion against the Union.
How long has he been keeping track of us?
How long has he been waiting for me to wake up?
“Sorry, man,” I say into the windblown dust.
“You going to just stare off into the distance,” Carter says, “or are you going to fill us in?”
“The people who delivered Brick’s first message… On Elysium…” I turn to face them. “They weren’t white.”
“You mean, like you?” Hildy sounds excited by the prospect.
“The man I spoke to,” I say. “Bighead. He had dark brown skin and blue eyes. The woman had kind of a Polynesian vibe, and the second man might have been Chinese. At least ancestrally. Those places don’t really exist now. Point is, they weren’t white. And they weren’t Union.”
“Then who are they?” Hildy looks at me with the wide eyes of a child being told a bedtime fairytale about unicorns and magical forests.
“Undesirables,” Chuy says, oozing disdain.
“Oh,” Hildy says, sounding a little confused, and then sad realization hits. “Oh…”
“Sounds like this—” Carter taps the celestial coordinates. “—might be a good place to hide from the Union. Any reason we’re not already en route?”
A multi-cultural planet. The sterilization of the human race undone. Brick being alive. All of it sounds too good to be true. “Good place to hide could also be a good place to set a trap.”
“We’re sitting ducks down here,” Carter says. “They could have killed us on Elysium, too.”
“She’s got a point,” Chuy says. “And if this really is Brick…”
I nod. We don’t really have a choice. That puts us at a strategic disadvantage. But it’s the only path forward. “You guys go ahead. I’ll catch up.”
All three of them are about to protest for one reason or another, but Chuy understands that when I need a moment, there’s a reason. She herds Carter and Hildy toward Lil’ Bitch’n. “He’ll catch up.”
I look over the yard, trying to imagine what it would be like eking out a living in this harsh landscape. How many of those little creatures did he have to eat? How did he find water? How did he not give up? Or die? And how did he get out, ally himself with Beta Prime, and find me when the Union could not?
I pick up the shovel, looking at the painted question mark. He made a riddle of “Once in a Lifetime,” knowing only Chuy and I would figure out who left it. He also knew my favorite part of that song. Knew that I’d be asking myself, Am I right? Am I wrong? And as the curtain covering the reality of my past choices pulls back, I’m saying to myself, My God! What have I done?
He could have chosen dozens of songs to reveal himself. But he chose this one. For me.
My God…
I’ve wanted to see Brick again for five years.
Now I’m dreading it.
What have I done?
27
A knock on my door makes me flinch. I’d been lost in thought, in a near dream state, but not quite asleep.
I slide my bare feet onto the cold floor. Rub my hands over my face. “Come in.”
The door slides
open to reveal a feminine figure, silhouetted by a hallway light. Carter, I think, but she looks curvier than I remember. “If you got my number from the bathroom stall and are here for a good time, I’m afraid I’m not in the mood.”
“In your dreams, cabrón.” The lights snap on revealing Chuy dressed in a BCS, looking amused.
I wince at the light and at my error. “Why are you wearing a BCS?”
“Unlike some people on this ship, I wash my clothing on occasion.” She brushes me aside with her hand. “Scooch.”
I slide over to make room for her. Backs to the wall, the porthole between our heads, we sit in silence for a moment, arms resting on knees. The cold metal on my bare back feels good. Better than lying awake in the damn cot.
“So,” Chuy says, after an unbearable silence. She reaches up and taps on the porthole. “What are we still doing here?”
“We’ve been going flat out for a while,” I say. “Thought the crew might need a break.”
“Uh-huh.” She’s not buying it.
“The only people actually sleeping are the bear and the bat,” she says.
The bear is Drago. He sleeps in a curled nest of blankets in the corner of his quarters. Snores loud enough to hear through his two-inch thick metal door. “Who’s the bat?”
“Your lady,” she says. “Pretty sure she sleeps hanging upside down from the ceiling. I haven’t seen her, but she has a kind of ‘I vant to suck your blood’ vibe about her.”
I raise an eyebrow at her.
“You know exactly what I’m saying. Don’t try to hide it just because she took you to pound town. She puts on a good show, but underneath the good looks and the practiced charm, she’s—”
“Ruthless,” I say. “I know. Some people would say that about you and me.”
“Only bad guys.” She smiles. “And whoever gets your popcorn at a movie theater.”
“There’s a right number of butter pumps and a wrong number,” I say.
“That’s subjective,” she says.
“Three pumps in the middle, three pumps on the top. That’s a God damned universal law.”
Our laughter fades to silence until Chuy says, “I miss popcorn.”
“I miss when life was simple. Good guys and bad guys. A mission with a clear-cut objective. Deployed or not deployed. This mess… I feel confused most of the time. And now…”
“We fucked up,” she says.
“I fucked up.”
“Pssh. Wasn’t a choice you made that I didn’t support. Keeping a low profile. Working for the Union off the radar. It felt safe.”
“So, we were cowards,” I conclude.
She shrugs. “We were a thousand years out of place, living in a galaxy populated by more than a hundred billion space Nazis. Keeping a low profile was smart. Now we have a ship. And a crew. We understand the system and the people. We found Carter…who, despite her undead ways, nudged us in the right direction. I’m not thrilled that she used sex to gain your trust and extract intel from you—”
“Hey,” I complain.
“Wasn’t her coming to your door,” she points out. “You got used, compañero. You just haven’t figured it out yet. She’s a spook, man. Psy-ops. Let me guess, she used movies to get to you. Wait. No. Music.”
I frown.
“Sorry, boss. You’re an easy target.” She elbows my arm. “Worked for Hildy, too.” I’m about to complain when she adds, “But, that was organic and honest. Kid won your heart. Mine too, honestly. We needed a breath of fresh air on this flying turd. I just want you to keep your eyes open when it comes to Carter.”
“Consider them peeled open,” I say.
“You know, she’ll probably work her way through the rest of the men on this ship until she knows everything about everyone. It’s what she does.”
I laugh despite the possibility that Chuy might be right. My connection to Carter felt genuine, but she’s probably still good at her job, even if she was lost in a jungle world for three years. And right now, my fledgling relationship with her is the last thing on my mind. “Chuy…we helped the Union expand their Empire. We’re complicit to whatever atrocities are carried out on the planets we found for them. The hell were we thinking?”
“We were surviving. And now we’re going to make that right,” she says. “But we can’t do that while orbiting a dead planet.”
“I’m not sure I can face him,” I say. “Brick found us. Knows what we’ve been doing, and who we’ve been doing it for.”
“He’s still Brick,” she says. “He’ll understand.”
“The song wasn’t just a clue,” I say. “It was a message.”
“I know.” She sounds more hopeful than wounded.
“What message did you get from it?” I ask.
“‘Once in a Lifetime’ is a repetitive song, but there is one line that’s repeated more than all the others. Like twenty times. That’s the message.”
I could play the song. Hear it for myself. I’ve uploaded Hildy’s pilfered media to every hard drive and back-up storage device on Big and Lil’ Bitch’n, including a pinkie drive that I keep with me all the time. Just in case. Right now, hearing the song would be too painful, so I let the lyrics rattle through my head. And then a line stands out.
The message Chuy extracted from the song is very different from ‘My God! What have I done?’
Where I found judgement, she found forgiveness.
“‘Same as it ever was,’” I say.
“Nothing has changed,” she says. “Brick is still himself. We’re still a team. No matter what we’ve done, and what he’s gone through. ‘Same as it ever was.’”
I force a smile. “Maybe you’re right.”
“I’m always right,” she says. “You know how many people owe me fifty bucks?”
That gets a genuine smile. “Does Brick owe you any money? Maybe that will help.”
“Nah,” she says. “He’s smart enough to not bet against me.” She punches my knee. “Or you.” She pushes herself to the edge of the bed. “C’mon. I’m getting bored.”
“Life on the run has you addicted to adrenaline,” I say, following her toward the bridge, until I realize that I am, once again, just wearing boxers.
Ten minutes later, I’m dressed, Drago and Carter are awake, and the crew is ready to go, but not very enthusiastic.
“Mount up!” I say to Morton, thrusting my palm in the air.
Once again, the crew just stares…until Chuy snickers and says, “Dickbrain.”
“It means,” I say, “get on your horses.”
“I think Mr. Horse needs more sleep,” Drago says.
And then Hildy gasps. “This is that social thing, where you quote something obscure and then someone else says the next bit, and you bond over knowing the same thing?”
“Yes,” I say.
With the brightest smile I’ve yet seen on her face, she waves her arms around in the air and sings, “For he’s a Jolly good fe-el-loooow. Which nobody can deny!”
I snap my fingers and point to Morton. “Go.”
While Hildy unleashes a second “Which nobody can deny!” doing an impressive impersonation of the Singing Bush from The Three Amigos, Bitch’n rotates away from the dead planet and emerges from the fourth dimension in orbit above Beta-Prime.
I’m pretty sure Hildy would have kept singing, but the view silences her.
The planet below…
“Is that Earth?” Carter asks. “Did you take us to Earth?”
“No, ma’am,” Morton says. “I followed the new coordinates.”
“Continents are wrong,” Drago says. “More water.”
“We’ve been to Earth,” Porter says. “This looks—”
“Cleaner,” Burnett says and turns to me. “If the virus was a fabrication, why would the Union give this up?”
“They wouldn’t,” I say.
“And they’d do anything to get it back,” Hildy says.
I stand from my chair. “That’s why we’re
not taking any risks.”
“Let me guess,” Drago says. “I am staying on board, blah, blah, blah.”
“Actually, no. I have no idea what we’re walking into. I want you with me.”
He pumps his fist. “Yes.”
“Burn,” I say.
Burnett snaps his head toward me. “Yes, sir?”
“You’re in charge while I’m gone.”
“What?” he and Carter say at the same time, him astounded, Carter angry.
“Sorry,” I say to Carter. “Burn’s my number four. Been with me for five years. He’s earned it.”
Morton and Porter start clapping, genuinely excited for Burnett’s apparent promotion.
“Well done, Burnett,” Porter says. “Or should I say, Burn?”
Burnett is bowing when Carter sighs, shakes her head, and then exits the bridge.
“Morton,” I say. “First sign of trouble. Bug out.”
“Won’t leave you behind,” he says.
“Well, yeah, don’t do that. Just come up with a plan and then come back for us.”
He salutes.
“Porter… Same thing.”
Porter salutes.
“Anything I can do?” Hildy asks.
“Keep these knuckleheads out of trouble,” I say.
“Okay.” She smiles. “How do I do that?”
“Just keep an eye on things. Spot anything weird, let Burnett know. Or contact me directly. You remember how to use your comms, right?”
She taps her neck, says, “Dark Horse. Right.”
Hearing her voice in my ear twice is a little weird, but it demonstrates her point.
“Good,” I say. Then I turn to Chuy and Drago. “Let’s rock.”
28
Drago shoves me away from him, repulsed by the idea of my arm around his waist. He stumbles a step and blinks his eyes a few times before rubbing them. “I do not like personal rotation. Feels strange.”
He’s not wrong. Everything about slipping between dimensions of space, shifting from one part of the universe to another, is disorienting. It’s less noticeable in a ship, because your immediate surroundings don’t change. Using the PSD means everything changes in an instant. Temperature. Air quality. Smells. Ambient noise. It can be a shock to the system if you’re not ready for it.
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