Summary of Hunter, Hunter by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe
Lightspeed #188, January 2026
“`Kari is a Hunter aboard the Helix, a massive cylindrical generation ship carrying the remnants of humanity through space after Earth was devastated by a virus. Hunters are tasked with descending to the lower quadrants of the ship to kill mutants—humans who were transformed by the mysterious virus into intelligent, scale-covered creatures that resemble crosses between baboons and reptiles. The life expectancy for Hunters is only ten years, and Kari wakes each day expecting to die before nightfall.
The Helix is divided into hierarchical quadrants. The Apex at the top houses the premier citizens and engineers—the most valuable members of society who must be protected at all costs. The First Quadrant contains the main control systems. The Second Quadrant is where Hunters like Kari live, forbidden from ascending to higher levels for fear they might be virus carriers. The Third Quadrant houses other workers. The Fourth Quadrant is an artificial forest, originally intended to seed ecosystems on a new planet but now overrun with mutants. Hunters are among the highest-paid professionals on the Helix, described in recruitment ads as “the wall between the remnants of humanity and apocalypse.”
Key Plot Points
- Kari and her partner Jess are experienced Hunters who’ve survived longer than most in this deadly profession
- Recently, the mutants have evolved—becoming faster, stronger, and dangerously smarter
- Kari is sent alone on a mission to the Fourth Quadrant, unusually without Jess
- During the expedition, everything goes wrong: Kari loses her weapons, breaks her left arm, suffers a head injury and a large gash in her side
- Surrounded by three mutants and certain of death, Kari is rescued at the last moment by Jess, who defied protocol to save her
Kari wakes four days later in the clinic—a rare occurrence, as injured Hunters are typically left to die rather than risk both Hunter and rescuer. She’s been healed by nanobots, with her wounds closed and her arm recovering. Jess tells her that headquarters wants a report, but more significantly, an engineer has come down from the Apex—something that never happens. Engineers are too valuable to risk in the lower quadrants.
When Kari reports to headquarters, she meets Engineer Ses’, who is half-human, half-machine with a metal face, a robotic eye, and an external memory bank that looks like a crown on their head. Ses’ shows Kari classified information far above her clearance level: video footage of a habitable planet called Gaia Two, discovered by an exploration team sent from Earth years before the Helix launched. The planet has breathable oxygen, Earth-like soil microorganisms, and three moons in a purple sky.
However, there’s a critical problem: the Helix is running out of fuel. To reach Gaia Two, they need to use a wormhole boost, but the ship is too massive to make the necessary jumps safely with its current population of fifteen million people. The engineers have made a devastating decision: they will split the Helix in two. The Apex and First Quadrant will separate and continue toward Gaia Two with the premier citizens and essential personnel, while the Second and Third Quadrants will travel independently.
The Fourth Quadrant—the forest now densely populated with mutants—will be ejected entirely, deemed too dangerous to save. The ship was designed with this emergency separation capability from the beginning. A secondary control board exists at Hunter headquarters that can steer the lower quadrants independently. The engineers have also developed a vaccine to prevent the virus from ever becoming active, meaning the few remaining mutants in the Third Quadrant can be easily eliminated by the Hunters.
Ses’ reveals why they’ve told Kari all this: she’s been unanimously chosen by the engineers to take command of the Second and Third Quadrants. As the most experienced and qualified Hunter on the Helix, she’ll be responsible for leading half of humanity’s survivors on their journey to the new world. Engineer Ses’ will remain with the lower quadrants as the supervising engineer to calibrate the systems.
The story concludes with Kari accepting this monumental responsibility. She reflects on her life—how she was a rootless foster child on Earth with no idea why the AI selected her for the Helix, how she was seventeen when the voyage began twenty Earth years ago with half of humanity already dead. When the first mutants appeared, she finally understood her purpose: killing them was something she could do, and she did it well. Now she’s being offered a different future—one where she doesn’t wake each morning expecting to die, where she might actually reach Gaia Two alive with Jess by her side. When Ses’ asks for her decision, Kari smiles and asks, “When do we start?” embracing her new role as commander with the same head-on determination that made her an exceptional Hunter.
Summary of Hunter, Hunter by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe
Lightspeed, January 2026
“`Kari is a Hunter aboard the Helix, a massive cylindrical generation ship carrying the remnants of humanity through space after Earth was devastated by a virus. Hunters are tasked with descending to the lower quadrants of the ship to kill mutants—humans who were transformed by the mysterious virus into intelligent, scale-covered creatures that resemble crosses between baboons and reptiles. The life expectancy for Hunters is only ten years, and Kari wakes each day expecting to die before nightfall.
The Helix is divided into hierarchical quadrants. The Apex at the top houses the premier citizens and engineers—the most valuable members of society who must be protected at all costs. The First Quadrant contains the main control systems. The Second Quadrant is where Hunters like Kari live, forbidden from ascending to higher levels for fear they might be virus carriers. The Third Quadrant houses other workers. The Fourth Quadrant is an artificial forest, originally intended to seed ecosystems on a new planet but now overrun with mutants. Hunters are among the highest-paid professionals on the Helix, described in recruitment ads as “the wall between the remnants of humanity and apocalypse.”
Key Plot Points
- Kari and her partner Jess are experienced Hunters who’ve survived longer than most in this deadly profession
- Recently, the mutants have evolved—becoming faster, stronger, and dangerously smarter
- Kari is sent alone on a mission to the Fourth Quadrant, unusually without Jess
- During the expedition, everything goes wrong: Kari loses her weapons, breaks her left arm, suffers a head injury and a large gash in her side
- Surrounded by three mutants and certain of death, Kari is rescued at the last moment by Jess, who defied protocol to save her
Kari wakes four days later in the clinic—a rare occurrence, as injured Hunters are typically left to die rather than risk both Hunter and rescuer. She’s been healed by nanobots, with her wounds closed and her arm recovering. Jess tells her that headquarters wants a report, but more significantly, an engineer has come down from the Apex—something that never happens. Engineers are too valuable to risk in the lower quadrants.
When Kari reports to headquarters, she meets Engineer Ses’, who is half-human, half-machine with a metal face, a robotic eye, and an external memory bank that looks like a crown on their head. Ses’ shows Kari classified information far above her clearance level: video footage of a habitable planet called Gaia Two, discovered by an exploration team sent from Earth years before the Helix launched. The planet has breathable oxygen, Earth-like soil microorganisms, and three moons in a purple sky.
However, there’s a critical problem: the Helix is running out of fuel. To reach Gaia Two, they need to use a wormhole boost, but the ship is too massive to make the necessary jumps safely with its current population of fifteen million people. The engineers have made a devastating decision: they will split the Helix in two. The Apex and First Quadrant will separate and continue toward Gaia Two with the premier citizens and essential personnel, while the Second and Third Quadrants will travel independently.
The Fourth Quadrant—the forest now densely populated with mutants—will be ejected entirely, deemed too dangerous to save. The ship was designed with this emergency separation capability from the beginning. A secondary control board exists at Hunter headquarters that can steer the lower quadrants independently. The engineers have also developed a vaccine to prevent the virus from ever becoming active, meaning the few remaining mutants in the Third Quadrant can be easily eliminated by the Hunters.
Ses’ reveals why they’ve told Kari all this: she’s been unanimously chosen by the engineers to take command of the Second and Third Quadrants. As the most experienced and qualified Hunter on the Helix, she’ll be responsible for leading half of humanity’s survivors on their journey to the new world. Engineer Ses’ will remain with the lower quadrants as the supervising engineer to calibrate the systems.
The story concludes with Kari accepting this monumental responsibility. She reflects on her life—how she was a rootless foster child on Earth with no idea why the AI selected her for the Helix, how she was seventeen when the voyage began twenty Earth years ago with half of humanity already dead. When the first mutants appeared, she finally understood her purpose: killing them was something she could do, and she did it well. Now she’s being offered a different future—one where she doesn’t wake each morning expecting to die, where she might actually reach Gaia Two alive with Jess by her side. When Ses’ asks for her decision, Kari smiles and asks, “When do we start?” embracing her new role as commander with the same head-on determination that made her an exceptional Hunter.