“How far down are we going?” Chuy asks.
“About a mile,” Brick replies. “Nearly there.”
The elevator slows, shifting my insides back into place. Then we stop. The doors open, annnd…nothing.
Pitch black.
Brick flicks on a flashlight, revealing another smooth, glassy tunnel. He steps into the darkness. My internal ‘This is a bad idea’ alarm is screaming like a goat in heat.
Brick says, “Stay close and keep your voice down.”
“You sure this is safe?” I ask.
“Is if you do what I tell you,” he says. “And if they decide they like you.”
“Fantastic,” I say, and I follow him into the dark.
Five minutes into our subterranean stroll, Brick says, “The first Undesirables settled just a few miles from one of the tunnels that leads beneath the surface. They lived in the caves above for years before one of them ventured into the depths. He didn’t return. Neither did the people who went looking for him. But the next group, an unarmed scientific expedition, made a discovery that would save their lives, keep the Union at bay, and allow the Undesirable population to boom. There are cities and installations like the one above, all over the planet, all of it connected through subterranean tunnels.”
“Like this one?” Chuy asks.
“Larger,” Brick says. “Big enough to fly through, though we mostly get around using slew transports, rotating from one hangar to another. Same way you both bounced around the galaxy.”
He stops in the tunnel, but I can’t see anything to justify why. He turns toward us. “Stay on the trail. No sudden movements. No loud voices. Try not to look at them, and if possible, try not to think about them.”
“Anything about this seem like a really bad idea?” I ask Chuy.
“All of it,” she says. “But don’t puss out on me.” She motions with her head for Brick to lead the way.
The flashlight flicks off.
Can’t see shit. “People here evolve night vision?”
“Give it a minute,” he says. “Your eyes will adjust.”
He’s right. And it only takes about thirty seconds for me to see a hellish red glow up ahead. “Well, that’s comforting…”
Another thirty seconds and I can see the floor well enough to walk. Brick leads the way again, walking at a steady pace, but carefully placing his feet to minimize noise. Chuy and I do the same, and I’m starting to feel like I’m walking through enemy territory, not going to meet ‘friends.’
I don’t notice that we’ve left the tunnel and entered a massive cavern until I sniff, and it echoes.
Brick stops, silently shushes me with a finger to his lips, and then carries on.
Red light fills the massive space, emanating from the cavern’s floor somewhere up ahead. We round a tall outcrop of stalagmites, and I see the light’s source. There are thousands of them, attached to the cavern floor like a crop…
A crop of red, gelatinous cucumbers.
What. The fuck.
Do the ‘friends’ we’re going to meet eat these things? I have a million questions, but I can’t ask.
The red light filling the chamber radiates from the strange vegetation. It’s bioluminescent, like the flesh-eating bacteria that tried to seduce me on the surface. As we approach, the nearest glowing dildos lean toward us.
I’m starting to hate new planets and all their weird shit.
As we follow the ten-foot-wide path through the field, the cucumbers on the sides lean in. Thin tendrils reach out as we pass, but they come up short. They don’t look that dangerous. A quick stomp, and—
Red light flares.
The tendrils wriggle, really trying to get at us.
Actually, shit… They’re trying to get at me. Just me.
Brick turns around, points at his head, and mouths the word, “Stop.”
Right. Can’t even think about them.
Can these little fuckers actually hear my thoughts?
Light flares again, and Brick shoots me a glare that confirms it. He’s afraid of the glowing red phalluses, and I should be, too.
Focus, I tell myself. Think about something else. A song pops into my head. I listened to it on repeat while taking a shower, before leaving Bitch’n. One of my favorites. The chorus to Video Killed the Radio Star loops in my head. I lose track of time. Of how long we’re walking. I just grin and think about playing the greatest hits with Brick, later on.
I bump into Brick’s back, which is as big and solid as his name suggests. He’s stopped in the middle of the path. “What is it?” I ask, reaching for a gun that’s not there, then a knife that’s missing, and finally the slew drive, which like everything else I depend on to keep people alive, is MIA.
“They were pulsing,” he whispers, looking down at the red, vertical cucumbers. They’re no longer leaning toward us, or trying to grasp our legs with their little tendrils.
“That bad?” I ask.
“You were humming,” Chuy says.
I look down at the foot-tall, warbling red vegetables, and rather than thinking about them, I fill my head with the song again and hum. The whole field starts to warble, the color flaring and dulling with the music.
“I think they like it,” Chuy says.
“They don’t like anything,” Brick says.
“Aren’t these your friends?” I ask. I’ve already guessed that ‘friends’ is a loose term. That these little things were weaponized and turned against the Union.
Brick blows that theory out of the water, saying, “They don’t think. They’re incapable of friendship. They just react to invaders. Like an immune system. Anything that’s not supposed to be here gets—”
A roar echoes through the chamber, drowning out my humming. The red light flares.
“What did you do?” Brick says.
I can’t help myself.
“I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something I loved from my childhood. Something that could never ever—”
“Not the time, Moses!” Brick says, abandoning his ‘stay quiet’ rule. “RUN!”
As the big man takes off, a boom and a roar spins me around. In the chamber behind us, blocking our retreat, is a bus-sized behemoth with six legs, no eyes, and two very large mandibles extending from a mouth that looks a lot like a sphincter. It has what looks like an exo-skeleton, but I think it’s actually thick, folded skin like on a rhino. Along the creature’s back, there are hundreds of the red cucumbers, their tendrils frantically waving in the air.
“They’re controlling it,” Chuy says, grabbing my arm. “Let’s go!” She drags me a few steps until I’m sprinting alongside her, trying hard to ignore the solid rock floor that’s now shaking beneath my feet, as the immune system works to destroy its musical invaders.
34
The red cucumbers thrust toward our legs as we run down the path. The thin string tendrils wriggle and reach. Some of them have latched on to the stone floor and are pulling, like they’re trying to uproot themselves and have a go at us. The things move in unison, pulsing toward me, and I can’t help but feel a little violated. I’m being visually assaulted by a field of luminous dongs.
Then I notice that the pulse is in time with the giant creature’s thundering footfalls. The little gelatinous fuckers change in my mind’s eye. They’re no longer trying to kill us themselves, they’re fans in the stands, cheering on their favorite sports hero—Big Ass Sphincter Lips—as he closes in on his opponents.
The too-long name becomes an acronym in my mind—B.A.S.L.—and transforms into a nickname: Basil.
The path ahead bends to the right and out of view. Brick takes the turn at full speed, not looking back.
Don’t blame him. None of us is armed, and I don’t think harsh words are going to help. Hell, humming is what got us into this mess. Also, Brick is big…and old. Chuy and I are still in our prime and gaining fast. If this chase doesn’t end in the next thirty seconds, we’re going to pass him.
And I
can’t have that.
I just got Brick back. I’m not about to leave him behind now.
I can’t fight Basil, but maybe I can make the cucumber club think twice about throwing down with the U.S. Marines. They’re all connected. That much is clear. Maybe if I punt one of them, they’ll get the message: you might take me down, but a shit ton of you are coming with me. Hell, I could just charge through them, crushing them beneath my feet and forcing Basil to do the same, or back the hell off.
It’s the best plan I can think of, but it’s apparently a bad one.
“Don’t even think about it!” Brick shouts back at me.
“Get out of my head, old man!” I shout back, and I wonder how he knew what I was thinking. Have I really changed so little over the past five years that he can still predict what I’m about to do?
“You’ll get us all killed!” he shouts, as Chuy and I close the distance between us. “This isn’t Earth.”
I’m right behind him now.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, looking over my shoulder. Basil is a few lunges back. We have seconds. Two more steps and I’m executing Operation Red Smear.
Before I can, Brick stops in his tracks, opens his arms, scoops Chuy and I off our feet like some damned WWF superstar, and hauls us into a small tunnel. A few feet inside, he stumbles and pitches forward. We crash to the solid floor in a heap.
I cough and shove his meaty arm off me. Catching my breath, I sit up.
“It means,” Brick says, winded. “That you’re…not in charge… Down here…you do what I tell you…when I tell you…or you will get us killed. Do you understand?”
I might be the same old Dark Horse that Brick remembers, but he is no longer the man I commanded. He is a leader, seasoned by hardship and battle. While I’ve been hopping around the galaxy having adventures, he’s been enduring God knows what, raising a son, losing a wife, and leading an insurgency. From the moment I saw him, I’ve been treating him like my old pal, Brick. But that’s not who he is. We might not be Marines anymore, but if I’m on board with this insurgency, he’s now my commanding officer.
“Sorry, sir,” I say. “Won’t happen again.”
“Please don’t call me ‘sir,’” he says. “You’re not in charge…but you will be. Someday soon, the weight on my shoulders will be on yours.”
Yeaaah, my sarcastic inner voice says. While Brick has been carrying far more responsibility than I have for much longer, he’s clearly better adapted to bearing heavy burdens—physically, mentally, and psychologically.
Basil stalks back and forth by the tunnel’s entrance, lit by the cucumbers’ ambient red glow. The beast is too big to pursue us. Doesn’t even bother trying. It knows better. The red cucumbers aren’t just controlling it, they’re smart.
“What are those things?” I ask. “And more importantly, who doesn’t like The Buggles?”
“The big guy is a rygar,” Brick says.
“I named him Basil, FYI,” I say, “but he’s not what I’m talking about.”
“He wants to know about those red bastardos.” Chuy sounds as annoyed by our current situation as I feel.
Brick offers his hand to Chuy. Pulls her up. The tunnel is just a few inches taller than his 6’3” height.
I help myself up, and I look back to the entrance. Basil is just standing there now, mandibles twitching, sphincter-face flexing. I don’t see any eyes, but I’m sure it’s watching us.
Sure, they’re watching us.
“They don’t have a name for themselves, but they claim humanity gave them a name once…in a parallel universe, where none of this happened.”
“P-parallel universe?” I ask.
He flicks his flashlight back on and leads us down the smaller tunnel. “Have you ever heard of the many worlds theory? Or the multiverse?”
“I think you know I haven’t,” I say.
“Basically, it means that there are an infinite number of universes.” He pauses at a T junction in the tunnel. “Every time you make a choice, left or right—” He shines the light left, and then right. “—and choose between them, you split reality.”
“In one you head left,” Chuy says. “In the other, right.”
“Exactly,” Brick says, and heads left. “But it’s more complicated than that. Because there are an infinite number of choices. This conversation. Every footstep. The timing of each breath. And it’s not just you, it’s everything. Every person. Every animal. Even bacteria. From the beginning of time to the end. The result is that everything that can happen, does happen. Somewhere. Somewhen. All of it.”
“Hold on,” I say. “You’re telling me that Aliens is a true story?”
“In another universe,” he says. “Yeah.”
“And this is for real?” I ask. “You’ve seen it for yourself?”
“The intelligence that revealed these things to me is the same one that plucked us out of 1989.”
“So…there’s a universe where Basil ate me?”
He shakes his head. “Not just one. An infinite number. And there is an infinite number where we escape.”
“Anything that can happen has happened,” I say. “Does that mean there are an infinite number of universes where Basil pinned me to the floor and had his way with me?”
Brick has a laugh. “Rygars are asexual. But there are probably an infinite number of universes where rygars mate. So…yes. Anything you can imagine has happened, is happening, or will happen. Fun, right?”
“No,” I say, remembering some of the things I’ve dreamed up, and then remembering that there were people like Ted Bundy and Josef Mengele in the world. “Not fun.”
Brick stops at the tunnel’s exit, his big body filling most of the tunnel. “Try not to focus on the negative. For every evil committed in the multiverse, there is every extreme of the opposite.”
“Like, somewhere there is a reality where Sesame Street is real? And Mr. Snuffleupagus is alive and my friend?”
He nods. “An infinite number.”
“Okay, that’s better, but also weird, because it means there is also an infinite number of universes where you are Big Bird’s bitch.”
Brick snorts. “And an infinite number in which I like it.”
“Oh, Dios mío,” Chuy says, hand to her head. To Brick she says, “He’s never going to sleep again, you know that, right?”
“It’s the price we pay,” Brick says, and for the first time I notice the dark circles under his eyes. They have nothing to do with age, and everything to do with that weight he’s carrying… The weight that will soon be mine.
Chuy is right.
“Back to your question,” Brick says.
“About the evil electric bananas?”
Brick squints at me.
“It’s slang,” I say.
“For what?”
I grin. “Dildos.”
“Bananas are yellow,” he says. “You got the color wrong.”
I sigh. “About the…cherry-flavored vagsicles.”
“Better,” he says. “Could have just gone with popsicles. Not everything has to be dirty.”
“What are you, my dad?” I ask, and then I realize he’s old enough to be.
“Apúrate, cabrona,” Chuy says.
“Okay,” Brick holds out his hands while tamping down his grin. “Okay. Back to business. What look like jelly-filled, glowing krullers to you and me are actually a highly intelligent network of living creatures. Individually, they’re not much, but when they’re rooted together…they’re an intellect far beyond our comprehension, experiencing time, space, and all the layers of reality in ways far beyond the human experience. People encountered them in parallel universes twice before, both times on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. In one of those realities, we called them Europhids. So, that’s what we call them now.”
He steps to the side, giving us a view outside the tunnel.
There’s another cavern ahead. It’s bright, from wall to wall Europhids, but they’re n
ot red this time.
They’re blue.
35
As I step out of the tunnel and into the massive cavern coated in wall-to-wall blue Europhids, I feel like some kind of sweeping soundtrack should be playing. The theme song for 2001: A Space Odyssey or something.
This time, as the music plays in my head, I do my best to not hum. But I don’t think these Europhids will attack. Brick said that those red bitches were like an immune system, attacking and killing invaders. All of it in place to protect this. The intellect. And if we’re here, past the metaphorical blood-brain barrier, then maybe we’re safe.
The blue Europhids aren’t leaning toward us.
I don’t see any little tendrils reaching out.
In comparison, these guys are docile. They just kind of wave back and forth slowly. The motion rolls through the field that covers floor, walls, and ceiling. The undulation, coupled with the calm blue light, is soothing.
I feel…at peace.
More than is normal for me.
“What are they doing to me?” I ask, more curious than worried. “Are they like the flesh-eating bacteria on the surface? Are they seducing me with their love stank?”
Brick shakes his head. “What you encountered on the surface evolved over millions of years to look like Europhids, their pheromones working in a similar, but less complex manner.”
“They’ve been around for millions of years?” Chuy asks.
“Is that impressive?” I ask.
“Homo sapiens first appeared somewhere between two and three hundred thousand years ago. If the Europhids have been around for millions, they must be incredibly evolved.”
“Don’t look very evolved,” I say.
“They’re found on thousands of planets and moons throughout the universe,” Brick says, “many of which would kill us if we tried to visit without protection. Their intelligence dwarfs the combined thinking power of the entire human race, and spans layers of reality. And they haven’t been around for millions of years, they’ve been here for billions. Don’t let their lack of opposable thumbs fool you—this is the dominant species in the universe.”
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