He leads the way inside. Chuy and I follow with Will. Drago next. Spunky and Poncho close the door behind us, but they don’t come inside.
The tunnel is smooth like a lava tube, carved out of solid rock and lit by glowing yellow stones that look natural. Brick powers ahead, moving quickly despite his size…and his age.
Will pushes between Chuy and me, spins around, and walks backward. His cocky edge is gone now. Might have been a show. Now he just seems intrigued. “So, you and my father were…”
“Together,” Chuy says. “Yes.”
Will gestures like his head is exploding. “Pshh. I can’t believe he never told me.”
“I know the feeling.” I shoot Chuy a look.
She’s unfazed by my displeasure.
“Is he a good father?” Chuy asks.
Will turns to look at Brick for a moment, then speaks quietly. “He’s kind of a hard ass, but I don’t blame him for that. After everything that’s happened. After mom died. It’s just been the two of us, and—”
“Your mother is dead…?” Chuy looks wounded by the news. Honestly, so am I. Brick has endured a lot, and we weren’t here for him.
“I’m sorry,” Chuy says. “When did she die?”
He rolls his eyes up, thinking. Stumbles and catches himself. Adjusts his course with the tunnel’s bend. “Fifteen months ago. He’s been leading on his own since.”
“Leading who?” I ask, but I’m quickly overridden by Chuy.
“How did she die?” she asks.
Will’s face falls flat. “That’s for him to tell you.”
“Seems like a good kid,” I say, not elevating the volume of my voice. “You did a good job raising him.”
Will is baffled until up ahead, Brick says, “Thanks.”
Subtle shifts in his body language—cocking an ear, shaking his head—revealed he was listening.
“You could hear us?” Will asks.
“I’m old,” Brick says. “Not deaf.” He stops by a metal hatch at the tunnel’s end. “What I’m about to show you is a thousand years in the making. Millions of lives were given to create it, including my wife’s. The laws of time and space were broken…” He looks me dead in the eyes, his stare intense. “…all so the final chess piece could be put into play. Understand?”
“Not remotely,” I say.
He smiles. “You will.”
Brick opens the door, steps to the side, and motions for us to proceed. I hesitate, feeling a strange weight on my chest. “What the hell is happening?” I whisper to Chuy.
She leans close. “I think you’re the final chess piece.”
I shake my head. It’s not possible. I’m a Union sympathizer who compromised his morals to pursue a personal mission, and I would absolutely do it again if put in the same position. Unless there is a ‘prick’ chess piece I haven’t heard of, I didn’t earn my place on the battlefield.
Is there a battlefield?
“Kind of taking the wind out of my big reveal’s sails,” Brick says.
Chuy takes my arm and leads me past Brick. We step through the door and stumble to a stop. My mouth expands like a black hole, and then closes. Chuy’s grip on my arm tightens, but I barely notice the pain. I’m not just speechless, I’m dumbfounded.
When Drago steps up next to us, he does a decent job of putting my feelings into words. “Svyataya perhot’ podzalupnaya…” which loosely translates to “Holy pisshole dandruff.”
30
It’s an underground hangar full of starships of varying sizes and types, stretching into the distance as far as I can see. Some are Union ships whose designs I recognize. Traders. Colonizers. Terraformers. Cargo vessels. But there are just as many that I’m unfamiliar with. Given their patched-up look, they probably saw service long before I, or Brick, arrived. I look toward the ceiling, five hundred feet overhead. “Are…are those clouds?”
“It’s a natural cavern,” Brick says. “Has its own weather system. During the summer months, it gets humid. Even rains on occasion.”
“Who cares about weather,” Drago says, “You have fleet!”
It’s not just a fleet of ships. Everywhere I look…are people. And unlike the monotone Union, I’m seeing every shade of skin color possible, representing nationalities that I thought were—like most living things from Earth—extinct.
It’s overwhelming.
When I lean forward, hands on knees, Brick pats my back. “I had a similar reaction when I arrived. Sara—my wife—found me on the dead world. I thought it was a coincidence. Turns out they were looking for me. For all of us. But I was the only one who arrived on time. We’d nearly given up hope on you until we started intercepting communications between the Union and a prolific Exo-Hunter.”
“You identified me from my reports?” I ask.
“Only adult I know who actually uses the word ‘rad.’”
I shrug. “Man’s gotta spice things up where he can.”
“Nearly gave up a second time when it became clear that you were a sympa—that you were working for them. If not for your dramatic exit from Union Command, we wouldn’t be talking now.”
“How do you know about Union Command?”
“If you haven’t noticed,” Brick says, motioning to his face. “Not everyone here stands out in the Union. We have moles in Command. Even the High Council.
“What I don’t know, is what all that was about.”
“We were looking for a way to track a ship we tangled with,” I say.
He squints at me. “What ship?”
“The Zorak,” I say. “You know it?”
He shakes his head.
“I thought it might belong to Whip,” I say.
Brick doesn’t react to the mention of Whip’s name, but says, “Because of Space Ghost. Makes sense… You broke into Command and stole celestial data on a ship, essentially ending your truce with the Union, just to find Whip?”
I stand up straight and take a deep, steadying breath. “Of course.”
He smiles. “Of course. But…?”
“But what?” I ask.
“There’s always a ‘but’ with you. Also, informants.”
“Buuut,” I say, “we kind of also took a Predictor. Voluntarily. She’s with us, one hundred percent. Name’s Hildy. Good kid. You’ll like her. And…” I dig a hand into my pocket. Pull out the pinkie drive. “She gave us a gift.”
He looks over the drive, a twinkle in his eyes. “Please tell me this contains data on the Union fleet. Armaments. Locations. We don’t have anyone in the Union military yet.”
“I didn’t know there was a Union military until two days ago,” I admit. “But no. It’s not strategic. It’s better than that.” I smile at him. “It’s hope.” I enjoy leaving him with the mystery. A lot of that has been coming my way, and it’s nice to turn the tables. “Your turn. What the hell is all of this?”
“The Undesirables,” he says.
The story of how Beta-Prime was colonized rises to the surface of my frazzled mind. “The colony survived…”
“Thrived,” he says. “For fifty years. Then the Union returned. Tried to exterminate the population. Hundreds of thousands of people died in the battle. Just as many fled underground, and with some help, they survived the second great purge.”
“Helped? By whom?” Chuy asks.
“Later,” Brick says. “Right now, I need you to understand why you’re here.”
Before he can continue, a stout woman approaches, smiling with more joy than I’ve seen in a long time. She has a chubby face and long black hair tied back in a ponytail. She double pumps her eyebrows in my direction and then turns to Brick.
“Zeta,” Brick says in greeting. “Got a SitRep for me?”
She glances at me again, smiling, and then tells Brick, “Torque says the Orion’s slew is working, but it might have only one or two rotations left in it.”
I nearly say it aloud, but I manage to keep my realization internal. Zeta has Down Syndrome. On Earth, I woul
dn’t have thought much of it. My childhood best friend, Max, had DS. But I’ve just now realized that I haven’t seen someone with that particular syndrome, or any other kind of disability, in the past five years.
Eugenics isn’t just fucked up because it’s all about creating a master race, it also requires the eradication of less desirable traits. That’s why Morton, Porter, and Burnett were all relegated to lives as wifeless salvagers. But there’s no way to know if someone is going to be too heavy, too bald, or too scrawny at birth. And there is always a need for hard laborers. But the disabled…
Back in the 1940s, the Third Reich launched a program called Kinder-Euthanasie—Child Euthanasia. They murdered more than five thousand children, purging the master race of Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy, all kinds of malformations and a number of other undesirable mental and physical traits. It should come as no surprise that the Fourth Reich has followed the same path, but it’s still a kick in the metaphorical nuts.
“That’s okay,” Brick says to Zeta. “One or two is enough.”
I blink out of my dark thoughts and back to the current conversation. “If you need tech help with a slew drive, I’ve got a guy who works magic.”
“One of your Union crew?” Brick asks. “I don’t think so.”
“They’re not Union anymore,” I say. “They’re rebels, along with the rest of us.”
“We prefer the term, ‘insurgents,’” Brick says. “Less Star Warsy.”
“Makes sense,” I say. “But seriously, he can help.”
“How good could he be?” Brick asks.
“Umm,” I say, and I trigger my PSD. I rotate away and emerge from the fourth dimension two hundred feet away, standing atop a starship. Fingers to mouth, I whistle. The sound reverberates through the chamber and silence follows. Thousands of people are looking at me. Never one to pass up an audience, I rotate back, appearing beside Brick. “He’s pretty good.”
Brick nods. “That was… I’ll think about it.” He turns to Zeta. “Let Torque know that’s good enough for now.”
Zeta gives a nod and starts walking past me. Then she stops, turns toward me, and snaps a salute. “Glad you’re finally with us, General.”
Before I can respond, she’s off, headed toward a large starship that looks like two battleships turned on their sides and fused at the bottoms. That must be the Orion.
“‘General,’” I say with a smile. “I get a half dozen promotions I don’t know about?”
When I look at Brick, he’s not laughing.
My smile fades. “Did I?”
“Chess piece,” Chuy whispers.
Brick’s cryptic hints hit me all at once. I’m the chess piece. The final chess piece. And they broke the laws of time and space to get me here. To summon me here, from the past, but I arrived thirty years later than Brick, who has revealed a fleet of insurgent undesirables representing the diverse Earth I once knew, but had thought lost for the past five years.
I was brought here to lead.
Not just to lead. To defeat the entire, God-damned Union.
“Why me?” I ask.
Brick hesitates.
“It’s a simple question,” I say, losing my patience.
“Not a simple answer,” he says. “And I think you’re going to want to sit for it.”
“Can’t be crazier than this.” I motion to the fleet, still astounded by its vast size and the diverse personnel tending to the ships.
“C’mon,” Brick says, and he walks down a catwalk, his heavy feet thumping on the grated metal floor, beneath which is a several hundred-foot drop.
I look at Chuy for her thoughts.
“After you, General,” she says.
“Not calling you ‘General,’” Drago says. “‘Shit for Brains,’ yes. ‘General,’ no.”
“Good,” I say.
“But you should probably try to get used to it,” Will says. “To everyone here, that’s who you are. It’s what they were promised. So maybe try not to do or say anything stupid.”
“No pressure,” I say, and I follow Brick. He leads us in silence, giving us time to take in the immense fleet, all waiting for what? A direct assault on Union Command? Even with all these ships, I don’t see how it’s possible. The Union is vast. Their fleet is modern and fast. And no one knows just how large it is. A direct assault on the high council might cut the head off the snake, but it would likely start a galactic war.
I don’t see a good way to get this done.
“In here,” Brick says, holding up a door.
Inside is a generic conference room with a long table. Nothing special about it aside from the large man covered in thick gray hair, seated at the table. He looks at me with indifference. Chuy, too. But when Drago enters, the man stands up, eyes wide. “Comrade?”
“Adrik?” Drago says, sounding stunned.
“It is you!” the big man, who is apparently named Adrik, says. “Vladimir!”
The two big men round the table and embrace, slapping each other’s backs. Leave it to Spetsnaz to turn a hug into a beat down. “Stop!” A man’s voice shouts. “Stop, God dammit.”
I recognize the voice, but I can’t place it, probably because it’s muffled. Is there someone behind the two Russians?
When Drago hops back, looking down, I realize that voice came from Adrik…but not from his mouth.
Drago motions to Adrik’s torso. “Your chest is talking.”
“Is not chest,” Adrik says, and he yanks open his shirt.
At first, I’m not sure what I’m looking at, but then I see a face poking through a forest of curly, gray chest hair.
What…the fuck?
When the face says, “Hey, Dark Horse,” I understand who I’m looking at, but not how it’s possible. “Heeey, BigApe… How…how are things?”
31
“Oh, Dios mío,” Chuy says, and she performs the sign of the cross.
“Dude,” I say, chastising her for the reaction. I feel the same mix of shock and revulsion, but somehow, I manage to keep it inside. For years I have fantasized about what it would be like to reunite with each member of my team. So far, none have worked out even close to what I dreamed up. Brick is old and has a son. Carter was a cavewoman. Someone who might or might not have been Whip opened fire on Bitch’n. And now BigApe…is fused to the chest of a Russian bear-man named Adrik.
“Don’t worry about it,” BigApe says. “I have that effect on people. And I’m okay with it.”
“Now,” Adrik says. “For first ten years it was, ‘oh, I am so sad,’ ‘wah, is hot under shirt,’ ‘boo hoo, have hair in mouth.’”
It takes a lot of self-control not to put a bullet in the Russian’s head. His disregard for BigApe’s horrifying condition triggers my inner serial killer. But killing Adrik would also kill BigApe. And maybe that would be for the best? Who wouldn’t want to die in his situation?
“I’d have killed myself if I could have,” BigApe admits, confirming my thoughts.
“He tried a few times,” Adrik says.
“How does face man kill self?” Drago asks.
“I have control of our right leg,” BigApe says.
“And left pinkie.” Adrik holds up his left hand. Just the pinkie wiggles.
“I tried to throw us over the catwalk a few times,” BigApe says.
Chuy sits, elbows on the table, head in her hands. “Hostia puta…”
“But I’m good now,” he says. “Have been for a long time. Better now that you’re here. Means all of this—” Adrik’s left pinkie extends toward BigApe’s face. “—wasn’t for nothing.”
I take a seat beside Chuy. “How did you end up like this?”
“When the Surge was triggered in Antarctica—”
“What is surge?” Drago asks.
“The event that brought us all to the future,” Brick says, as he and Will take seats at the table. “We call it the ‘Surge.’”
“When it was triggered,” BigApe says, “Adrik and I were fighting. This
was the result. The Surge isn’t a perfect science.”
“Not really science at all,” Will says.
“But it brought us here,” I say, “from the past? Can it send us back?”
Brick shrugs. “No idea.”
“How about we attempt it,” I say, more eager than ever to leave this future hell.
“It’s not that simple,” Brick says.
“Do you need dilithium crystals or something? Whatever it is, I’ll get it.”
“What we need,” Brick says, “is you.”
I deflate. Right. The insurgency. General Dark Horse to the rescue. “Have any of you stopped to think you might have put all your eggs in the wrong basket?”
“More than once,” Brick says, and it actually stings a bit. “But history is history, and everything the Undesirables have been working toward hinges on you.”
“How is that possible?” Chuy asks, feeling annoyed on my behalf. “Dark Horse is just…one man. He’s a competent Captain. A good friend. But the leader of a rebellion? Against Nazis? In the future?”
“Thanks for the confidence boost,” I say.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’d follow your gringo ass to hell. And we sure as shit were going to be a headache for the Union until we retired, or until they took us down. But this? A planet full of people putting all their hopes in Dark Horse? C’mon.” She focuses her attention on Brick. “You know the burden he carries for his people every time he leads them into danger. The responsibility he feels when someone is hurt. Or lost. It’s been eating him alive for the past five years. And now you want to multiply that by what? Thousands?”
“Millions,” Brick says.
Chuy throws her arms up, muttering a string of Spanish curses.
“As much as I don’t want to agree with Chuy on this,” I say, “she’s not wrong. I think you should choose someone else.”
“I didn’t choose you.” Brick tilts his head toward the door. “They did. Long before I arrived.”
“But why?”
“I would like to hear why as well,” Drago says.
Will nudges Brick. “Can I? Please.”
Brick gives a nod and leans back, arms crossed. Will has a big smile on his face, like we’ve been sitting around a damn campfire singing This Land is Our Land, and now he’s going to tell us a spooky story.
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