[November 327th, G.P.Y. 2. Choece, Ganymede. 0622. UGT.]

[Merit: -34]

Jordan stepped out of his hole to be greeted by a thick fog that hung low in the air. Scattered high above, the daylights were warming up, glowing like embers in a fire than made spots of ethereal auras and pockets of shadows repeat across the cavernous sky.

A subtle humming thrummed from within his eyes while Jordan peered around. Slowly, a gray, grainy texture washed over his vision from the infrared filters being activated and blended with the visible light. As his head turned to Gelos' house, he could only see a black aura shaped in a humanoid figure, glowing from beyond the fog next to the wall.

"You packed light." Gelos scoffed, nodding to Jordan's pack on approach.

Without his helmet, the piece of equipment sagged wistfully on his back.

"I don't need much to sustain myself." Jordan shrugged with a grin. "I have enough water and snacks to sustain myself for weeks."

Jordan waited long after Gelos shrugged and moved away to begin stretching. The seconds continued to pass on to minutes. Yet, the notifications never flashed in his eyes. His points remained the same.

'So, lying doesn't isn't frowned upon that much.' Jordan grinned to himself as he picked up a job in the direction of the habitat's spin. 'Or, at least little ones don't.'

The run to the closest transit station was uneventful, to say the least. After leaving Bronio's limits, the two veered off a few hundred meters from the main road and maintained a sprint as they passed between the sparse cities. After the first hour, they'd traveled 35 kilometers past Bronio's limits and met a large lake that required circumnavigation. Jordan's breathing became stable to the point of automacy around half an hour after. At that point, he fell into a type of trance. Vacantly watching the landscape scroll pass from within as his body assumed the duties of striding across ground, breathing and navigating around the periodic tree, stone or body of water.

The trance ended as a patch of rolling plains on the horizon abruptly ceased. Making way for a linear stretch of gray that appeared at first as a thick line, then as a small platform. Followed by a thick tower that continued to grow in size with each stride.

Jordan heard the fluctuations in Gelos' breathing the moment after the latter caught sight of the structure. Jordan, knowing his companion would interrupt their relatively peaceful morning with this excitement, consciously tuned the sensitivity of his auditory sensors down by a small percentage.

As if Gelos waited for Jordan to prepare, he filled up his lungs and split the morning air with a loud a raspberry. "Feels bad man." He groaned exasperatedly after.

"What's that?" Jordan asked. Not out of consolation. But pure curiosity.

"Being at the bottom." Gelos sighed. "As far as I understand, if we had even a little Merit we could've taken a cab. Bus. Train. Anything."

"Just be patient." Jordan snickered softly. "After we get a few points, we can live as we like in Bronio. Even move out of our holes. Things only get better from there. And even more after we rank up."

"How does that work anyway?" Gelos nearly lost his stride as his turned back to ask.

"Oh!" Jordan snorted. "All that talk yesterday about my ignorance of other nations. Yet, you know nothing of the culture you moved to!" He rocked back in wholesome laughter at Gelos.

"The guys at the Embassy of Worlds were always vague when I asked." Gelos turned away, face flush with embarrassment. "Mars or Ganymede, didn't matter where." He sighed, mumbling under his breath. "It's almost like they wanted the immigrants to figure out everything for ourselves."

"How very wise of them." Jordan snorted.

Gelos only shot Jordan a snidely glance in response. Then turned, seeming to focus solely on correcting his stride. Jordan waited until just before the look of vacancy became stamped across his face before he began his explanation.

"So, there's Merit. Then there's Ranks." Jordan panted between strides. "Merit, is a cumulative point system. You can gain or lose points at any time throughout your life by first, adhering to Galilean values: Strength, self-sufficiency, prowess; among others. Second." He continued. "By gaining the support or recognition of the citizenry in whatever endeavor you choose. Anything that's either productive to society, or that requires and showcases a skill, talent or the results of education and training. Pleasing patrons if you're a chef or store owner, for example. Or gaining fans if you're an artist or entertainer. Being a good business person. Even teaching rookies how to fight in microgravity." He pointed his grin towards Gelos, knocking off his own stride in the process. "It doesn't matter what you do. As long as you do it well, you'll get points. Campaign is just regarded as the easiest way. Like a shortcut."

"Okay. Sounds simple enough." Gelos laughed excitedly. "How do we rank up?"

"By gathering points," Jordan shrugged as if it were obvious. Because perhaps it was. "Moving up, down, or maintaining your rank, means keeping your points above a certain threshold. As advertised, each rank yields better living standards. Better service and food options at restaurants. A wider variety of entertainment options, living arrangements, purchasable goods; whatever you can think of. Each rank also yields special privileges, or Grants. Moving to different regions of the hab, owning different types of vehicles, installing weaponized implants, nanotech, AI. The list goes on." Jordan paused for a few strides to let the words digest in Gelos mind before hitting him with the big numbers. "To be promoted to D-Rank, we need one-thousand points."

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"A-thousand?" Gelos laughed. "That's not too bad! What rewards will we get?"

"Don't know." Jordan grinned wide, raising his eyebrows teasingly. "I didn't want to ruin the surprise for myself."

"Shocking." Gelos scoffed sarcastically while rolling his eyes.

"Rising to D-Rank my be easy. It only gets exponentially harder from there, however." Jordan chuckled dryly. "Getting promoted C-Rank means gathering a hundred times more points. One-hundred-thousand." His head hung as he paused. Chuckled softly in despair. Or humility, perhaps. "To get to B-Rank, we need one-million. To A, one-billion. And if you manage to get a trillion points. You become an S-Ranker, and get to live as free as any of the founders."

"Uh-huh." Gelos nodded slowly before turning to Jordan. Squinting inquisitively. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"No one knows." Jordan shrugged. "The Powers was formed in the Earth-Year, 2101. Only 2 Jovian-years, and 11 months ago. A small percentage of Galileans, mostly immigrants who arrived back then, have amassed a billion points or more. But no S-Rankers, yet. Everyone assumes you'll be able to build your own habitat, somewhere around Jupiter. A cluster of them, even. Impose your own laws there. Build your own economy, military, or do whatever else you want. Essentially creating another Power."

After a long pause full of stomping feet, rhythmic breathing and the calls of nature, Gelos whistled low. "Makes sense." He chuckled nervously. "It'd take much more than a single lifetime to get that far. Gather that many points. Who knows how many people you'd meet; have following you, after that much time."

Jordan opened his mouth to reply, but was cut short by a notification flashing overhead.

[Message Received: James Astros. 1/1]

Jordan eased himself to a lazy walk, to which Gelos matched a few meters ahead. Jordan motioned to his ear, silently mouthing his reasoning as James' bear like voice played in his ears.

"Why am I not surprised?" James' laugh echoed around the hills, falling upon no one but Jordan's ears. "To tell the truth, I expected as much. And my hopes that a lesson would be learned seems to have done some good. No hard feelings, little brother." He growled out a small laugh. "As for the Campaign, I wasn't slain, like you. I gained a few points and returned to the safe zone in one piece. After learning you were slain, I waited until I could verify your body was recovered safely. Then, I departed for Himalia, as promised. I've been waiting since I got here, but." He heaved a great sigh of frustration. "I think I'm due to begin training soon. I'll be done in two months. Then, I'm returning to Europa to start bruising. See you there, Jordan."

With that, the connection ended. Snapping Jordan's mind back to his body, still walking lazily before the titanous support structure.

'Good for you, big brother.' He smiled to himself.

Bringing his full attention back to the situation, Jordan jogged up to Gelos' location. Scanning the surroundings as he did so.

The hollow, rectangular pillar's primary function, was that of a support structure. Yet, it was much like a city in itself. As far a dimensions, it was only a few hundred meters to a side. Around five-hundred, if not larger. The towering facades were riddled with building-size screens that showered the light of ads, events and news down to the thousands of wandering citizens.

If Jordan focused on them, he could hear their voices drone on with their various topics. Instead, he followed Gelos and huddled into one of many crowds. Waddling like a ripple of bodies through a pair of tall, wide arches. For around ten meters they followed. No alcoves or branching hallways broke apart the assumed solid wall.

Once the inside however, the structure opened to the city-like, cavernous interior of the pillar that was just as bright as the outside. Shops, hotels, and gyms lined the walkways around the perimeter of the walls. While the interior was reserved for the apartment complexes and other residential structures. Emplaced throughout the interior were thick pillars marked with letters E through S, filled with glass cabins moving towards or away from the floors.

Much to Jordan's delight, there were dozens of them per pillar. Hundreds, overall. The E-Rank lifts were in a constant motion. To the point there was almost a line forming at the base upon their approach. The next rank's pillar was roughly half as busy and twice as fast while the others were void of motion.

After only a few seconds of waiting, they entered a cabin big enough for five and held on tightly to the handrails as they were pulled from the innards of the surface. Towards the rotational axis.

"Well start with the basics." Gelos began to explain as the fell and disappeared around them, pitching the glass walls into a dark black. His face was pocked with shadows thanks from the soft, corner lighting of their small cabin. Giving him the faint appearance of a sadist. "As a space dweller, you must always remember the Laws of Motion," he said. "First. Rest or motion remains uniform, unless acted upon by a net external force. When you crawled into a charge at the knight, for example. You got lucky with blocking his spear. It let you ground your feet and land a few blows. But." He held up a bony finger with a grin. "He could've simply dodged. Let you keep drifting. Or, he could've simply held out his spear. Let you continue on without resistance. You have no source of propulsion. So, explosive movements are your worst enemy in microgravity. With only ice surrounding you, mag-boots and gloves are useless. Move light. Dodge gracefully. And strike swift."

He punched at the air a few times and let out a small chuckle.

Second." He rose two fingers next to his grin. "Force equals mass, times acceleration. I'll come back to that later." He chuckled again as he gave Jordan a dubious wink. "Third. Every action yields an equal and opposite reaction. If you punch someone in microgravity, you'll be sent flying backwards as well. If you and your opponent punch each other with equal force, it'll cancel out. If you have to box, I'd advise you to stay low, punch high. Use uppercuts. But I'd go for the grapple. With a grip like your, you should never let them go. Strike as hard as you can with your free limbs."

"Quite the insight. Do all Martians learn this in school?" Jordan snorted semi-rhetorically.

"No." Gelos assumed his distancing act with a soft, nervous chuckle. "My parents and grandparents taught me growing up."

"What, are they soldiers or something?" Jordan let out a friendly laugh. In an attempt to lighten the mood.

"Yeah." Gelos nodded without an ounce of humor. Only looked emptily at the still opaque glass before him.

"All of them?"

"Yeah." Gelos nodded again. "Except me."