Going Native

By Joseph Sidari

“Licenses, please.”

“Sure thing, Warden.” The hunter brushed back her curly red hair and leaned her rifle against a nearby pine. She patted the front of her camouflage vest, searching, turned out her empty pockets, and glanced at her burly partner.

The male hunter stuck up a finger. “Hey, maybe they never gave us . . .”

The game warden took off his reflective sunglasses and narrowed his gaze at the two of them. He was a solidly built man, thick and muscular, with ebony skin. If he’d been wearing a football uniform instead of a park ranger’s, no one would have doubted he could play in the NFL.

“Oh.” The female hunter chuckled. “Now I remember.” She produced a crumpled card from her back pocket. Her cheeks flushed.

The officer grabbed the card, studied it, and then handed it back. “Did you know that you two are hunting in a wildlife preserve?”

The male hunter’s eyebrows shot up, nearly disappearing under the brim of his NASCAR cap. He looked to his partner and back to the warden, then pulled out a card from an inside pocket of his plaid coat. “But I have a license—”

“—which does not include Central Park,” said the warden. He barely spared the card a glance. “These are for Chicago.”

“Is this bad?” said the female.

The warden nodded.

The male hunter gestured at the wooded area that surrounded them. A few kids on bicycles pedaled along a nearby path, visible through the trees. Cars and trucks honked in the distance. “But—”

The warden shook his head.

A teenage girl wrangling a disorderly collection of dogs entered the clearing. The warden replaced his sunglasses and smiled as the dog walker approached.

The female hunter eyed the girl and her dogs. “How about—?”

The warden lifted a hand to silence the hunter. “And you have a nice day, Miss.” He tipped his hat to the young lady. When she’d passed out of earshot, the warden let his hat drop and turned back to the hunters. “Now, what were you saying?”

“How can you say there’s no game here?” whispered the woman. “From what I can see, there’s plenty—”

“There’s game, all right,” said the warden through gritted teeth. “But they are protected.”

“Oops.” The male hunter shrugged. “Honest mistake. I guess we took a wrong turn somewhere. Is this ‘Chicago’ far?” He slung his rifle over his shoulder and pulled out a shiny, silver device from his pocket.

“For teleporting?” The warden shook his head. “No. But you had better change. You will stand out like a sore tentacle in those.”

The female nodded. She tapped at her device. Her image morphed. What had been a skinny, suburban forty-something human female switched briefly to a bipedal squid-thing, tentacles flailing, then settled into the likeness of a helmeted soldier. Twenty-one years old. Trim and fit. She wore tan-and-brown fatigues and hefted an M4 Carbine assault rifle over her shoulder.

“Nope,” said the warden. “Try again.”

More forms flashed by. A medieval warrior in chain mail, her hand resting on the pommel of a longsword. A six-foot-tall, spear-wielding barbarian queen, dressed in bearskin. A black-clad ninja, twirling nunchucks. The image settled on a skinny teenage girl with a crimson mohawk, a skull-and-crossbones tattoo grinning from her neck. This urban hoodlum wore a white tank top over low-hanging jeans and high-top sneakers. She brandished a .38 revolver.

“Much better,” said the warden. “Now you.”

The male hunter pulled out his device and appeared temporarily as a shorter and rounder squid-creature. After a blur of holographic projections, he morphed into a burly youth with a shaved head, tossing a switchblade from hand to hand. His leather jacket failed to cover his massive gut. “I like it. I feel totally—uh, good-assed?” He turned to his wiry, red-haired friend and cocked an eyebrow.

“I think the natives say bad-assed,” said the warden.

“But before you said we were ‘bad’ for hunting in a restricted zone.” The female hoodlum raised a pierced eyebrow. “Now bad is preferable?”

“I’ve searched through the local lexicon, and I’m not sure why sometimes it is preferable to be bad over good,” said the male punk. He flicked the switchblade open and closed.

“It’s a human thing,” said the warden with a shrug. “But at least now you will fit in.”

“So where do we go now?” asked the female. She held up her .38, its barrel glinting in the sun.

The warden told them the coordinates for Chicago. “Now don’t let me catch you two here again. We take a dim view of poaching on this planet.”

“But I’ve heard that the creatures here kill without regard for any of our restrictive rules of engagement,” said the male.

“Yeah,” said the female. She shoved the .38 into her waistband and typed the coordinates for Chicago into her handheld. “That biped—the one surrounded by the quadrupeds—would have made a splendid trophy. Why—?”

“Because we are a civilized race,” replied the warden. “So, don’t let me catch you bending the rules again, or so help me, I’ll revoke your hunting permits for the rest of the season. Just because the natives on this planet do not know the difference between bad and good, I do. So remember: One Earthling. No breeders. And no juveniles.”

“We’ll be good,” replied the male punk with the shaved head. He held out his silver device and looked over at his partner.

“Or bad,” said the female with a wink. The two tapped their devices in unison and disappeared with a soft pop.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joseph Sidari writes from outside of Boston. He has been published in Daily Science Fiction, The Arcanist, and Third Flatiron’s Anthologies, Monstrosities and Brain Games, to name a few. He is a member of Grub Street of Boston and the SpaceCrafts Writers’ Group. As a practicing physician, he works hard at caring for his patients while trying to kill off his protagonists. Follow him on Twitter.

---

More Stories | Author Website | Facebook | Twitter