“Hey guys!” Mole said, smiling brightly, a transparent crystal clutched tightly in his hand. “Thanks for saving me! Kitty told me everything. Apparently, it was a really close one. But you made the right choice! I’m sure Plus would be proud.”

Every single hair on Jarne’s body stood straight up. A greeting died on his tongue. A million excuses faced the same grisly fate. “Mole?” he said, but it felt like greeting a doppelganger. “Mole, is that… are you…?”

“I’m great!” Mole said chipperly. For some reason, Jarne couldn’t really see his eyes. Or maybe he didn’t want to look into them. He didn’t want to see what was there… what wasn’t there. “In fact…” Mole continued, his intonation strange and stilted, “I feel wonderful! Never been better. Oh! Remember how I told you my arm was messed up because Kitty—the silly goofball he is—wrenched it off? Well…” He lifted his arm. His right arm. The elbow wouldn’t bend fully, and the hands were stuck in a mannequin-like half-claw, but it was moving. “It’s back! It healed! Heh, mostly, at least. Isn’t that great?”

The room swam and bobbed around him. Like standing on a ship within a dream. His stomach flipped upside down and he felt like puking.

Who was he looking at? Who was this man? It couldn’t be Mole. Sure, Mole had been acting a little strange lately, and he’d devoted himself a worrying amount into his work, but this… This was… Something different. Something worse.

Jazz stepped closer to Mole. Only now did Jarne remember that she was in the room, too. She had her hands clutched to her chest, but he could still see the tremble in her shoulders.

“Hey, Jazz! Kitty told me you healed me all the way here. Thank you. Really, thank you. I know how painful divinity deprivation can feel, so the fact that you pushed through it for me… Thank you. Really. You’ve truly saved this city. And Plus, too, and Rat, and Kitty, and even Benevil. If you hadn’t, who can tell the kind of chaos this city would fall into? Worst-case scenario, the gates would be breached, and this horrible plague would spread into the world outside! If not contained here, the whole world could end. But you’ve stopped that. In saving me, you have saved the world! And I am so glad, so humbled, to be in the same party as you. You truly have—”

“Mole?” Jazz said. She was standing right next to him now, slightly leaned over the side of the bed.

“Yes, Jazz?”

She smiled, adjusted it, shook her head, wiped a frown off her face, replaced it with another uncertain smile, and allowed herself to cry a little. “Could I have him? Please?” She held out her hand. It trembled badly.

“Have who? What are you…” His eyes fell down to the crystal in his hand. “Oh. Oh, yes, I—I see. Heh, that’s… Of course. Here you are, Jazz.” As he held out the crystal, depositing it in her hand, Jarne noticed that his hand was trembling just as badly as hers was. Her fingers closed around the little gem, and she pulled it to her chest.

Holding it, she cried. Or maybe she wept. She didn’t break down, she didn’t become incomprehensible or inconsolable. She simply held him, cried, and let the tremble leave her body. Jarne approached her. Once close enough, he put his arms around her, and let himself cry. That was as much as he could do. They didn’t remain that way for long—a minute at most. But when they separated, and Jarne now held Plus, he turned to find his eyes locking onto Mole’s. He saw his eyes.

They were dark torrents. Inky pools of empty nothings, set in a face as faceless as a mask. Despite never being one for reading others, Jarne found himself straining to comprehend the expression on Mole’s face. It wasn’t happy. It wasn’t sad. It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t anything. In his mind, he could only describe it by what it wasn’t. But the actual expression… The thing in his eyes, marked by its own absence… That lack of being…

‘Apathy,’ Jarne thought. ‘That’s it. Apathy.’

“Why—” Jazz paused to swallow her fears. “Why are you looking at us like that?”

“Like what?” Mole said. But there was some odd inflection in his voice, one that Jarne couldn’t quite place. “Oh, is…” He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. I guess it’s just… We have a lot to talk about regarding the future, so spending this time crying and hugging… Not that there’s anything wrong with that… It just felt a bit needless, is all.”

“No, I agree,” Kitty said. “There’s a lot to discuss. Like, if we want to keep living in the manor, or if we should relocate… How we want to handle the people who did this… Whether or not the incident bears investigation… Who to handle it… All that stuff. Wasting time with emotional outbursts isn’t helping.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Jarne realized with a pang of soul-crushing hatred that the odd inflection in Mole’s voice almost perfectly matched Kitty’s annoying-ass tone of speech. Following closely, a determined thought lodged itself square into his brain. ‘I need to get Mole away from Kitty, no matter what.’

“Hey, Mole?” he said. “I know what we should do.”

“Really? That’s great! Please, do tell.”

Jarne took a step closer to him, held up his hands like a great salesman, and said, “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

“Let’s…?” Mole’s smile twitched. “You want us to…?” He barked a sudden, jarring laugh that ended just as quickly, dropping down into a blank, apathetic mask; completely null. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not,” Jarne said, continuing to poke the alligator. “I seriously think we should get out of here. I know you said all that about people escaping and whatever, but… If you’re that worried about the outside world falling sick…” He hated the words he was about to speak. They were horrible. But, with Mole in this state, they might be just the right ones to get through to him. “You could have Kitty… fix it. Bar all the gates. Send him in. Have him, you know… Fifty-fifty… Listen. Kitty, how many in the city are sick right now?”

Kitty glanced down at an invisible status message. “Twenty-one thousand, three hundred and seventy-seven.”

“And how many people are there in the city right now?”

Despite making a face, Kitty lifted his head and sniffed for a few seconds, deep breaths… “Around forty-five thousand.”

Perfect. Jarne turned to Mole, already triumphant. “Hear that? Half are infected! Sure, we don’t know if it’s drake pox or dragon plague, but… Does it matter? Really. Just put Kitty to it, and half the city can be saved, the plague eradicated for good. If you’re worried about the reputation of humans…” He chuckled bitterly. “It’s already fucked. Not to mention that Kitty will be doing this on his own. And Kitty’s reputation is physically incapable of stooping any lower. If we do things right, by the time anyone realizes what’s happened, we’ll be far gone! This is the most effective way of dealing with this situation.” He leaned in closer for the final strike, whispering, “We both know if you asked him, Kitty would gladly do it.”

Their faces close together as they were, there was no distance to buffer Jarne’s vision from the perplexing, incomprehensible reality that unfolded as Mole began to cry. More confused than anything, Jarne stumbled back and away. But Mole was still crying. Unhappily enough, Jarne realized that he couldn’t really remember when he last saw Mole fell a tear.

Like someone who could actually worry about the emotions of others, Kitty crept up to Mole, putting a hand on his shoulder and showing off an expression so pathetically pitying that even Jarne felt like he’d done something wrong. “Moleman? Moleman, are you okay?”

“Y—y—yeah, I’m just… it’s…” He drew a few huffing, hoarse breaths, and looked up at Jarne. “I never thought I’d hear you say something so cruel, Rat. The people who survive that… Can you imagine a way for them to continue living? To greet the next day? It’s too horrible! Especially when Sully and I were so close to a vaccine! To simply throw away the work she spent her final days painstakingly crafting, all because you’d rather save twenty thousand with certainty, instead of letting hope lead us to saving everyone. I had thought higher of you. I really did.” He shook his head mournfully. “And to put all of that on Kitty… Treating him like a simple tool to kill or save people… It’s downright inhuman. Why would you say something like that, Rat?”

A tremble returned to Jarne’s hand. “I—I didn’t… I wasn’t…” He tried to gulp down the lump in his throat, but it only choked him harder. His eyes frantically searched for support, finding Jazz’ face at his side. She stared at him with blank disgust. “Wh—what I meant to say is…” He swallowed again and squeezed his eyes shut. ‘Ah. Fuck it.’ The tension left his shoulders, and when he opened his eyes again, a sigh fell from his lips. “We could use this as a… you know… last-stand sort of deal. That is, if everyone falls sick, then… We can do this. As a final measure. That’s what I was trying to say. Sorry, I… I worded it badly.”

Mole wiped his eyes. They weren’t even slightly red. His smile shone like a thousand suns. “Thank you, Rat. It’s a good idea, though I hope we’ll never have to implement it. This situation may be tough, and we’ve lost a lot of good people already, but…” His smile morphed. It was human now. And his eyes sparkled with clarity. He was back. “I’m glad that I have you by my side to help. I don’t know what I’d do without you guys.”

‘At this point,’ Jarne thought, ‘neither do I.’

Jarne and Jazz shared a look. “N—no problem,” Jarne said, internally cursing himself for stuttering.

“What are friends for?” Jazz said, very cleverly.

That sated him. “Thank you. It means a lot. Now, we really should discuss the future…”

And that they did. They spent the whole remainder of the night, talking about what to do in the future. Jarne attempted and failed to excuse himself to go to sleep six times in total. Kitty was chosen as secretary, and Benevil left to go work and such. Jarne spent a good majority of the night seething over how neither Kitty nor Benevil needed sleep. Lucky bastards.

Either way, unfortunately, he had a vote in the impromptu meeting, and so, he had to use it.

‘Where should we live from now on?’

Answer: the city council; at least until Mole fixed the rioting situation.

‘Should the incident be investigated? And if so, by who?’

Answer: who else? Jarne. Because obviously the college dropout was best fit to search for leads and shit. Wonderful. Lord only knew which of the three voters voted against this decision…

‘What should be done with the rioters?’

Answer: Mole would handle it. Non-negotiable. He put veto on it, and for maybe the first time, Jarne didn’t feel safe putting his trust in him.

And then a number of other questions. They discussed how to handle the situation with Plus. That is, regarding funeral arrangements. Mole brushed it off, saying he couldn’t know how much work he’d have in the coming days. They’d have to put it off. But they could leave him with Mole. He’d take care of him. This once, Jarne could agree to trust him.

Although they didn’t have too much else to discuss, they still ended up talking through the night. Mole didn’t seem too keen on going to sleep. Maybe he was afraid of what he’d see if he closed his eyes. Jarne couldn’t know.

The next day arrived, and by the end of the next day, Jarne learned exactly why he hadn’t felt too safe in entrusting Mole with the decision regarding the rioters.