On the first day, the pair’s rooms were picked out for them, as the Japanese upright piano in the room next to the living room hadn’t moved. This was most likely due to its size and weight, being that it was a pain to get into this room in the first place, Mr. Ellison didn’t want to go through the trouble of relocating it, if only simply down the hall.

Jones spent the afternoon decorating the small room that was now theirs with doodles from their spiral notebook, hung up with rolled up bits of parcel tape.

Marie spent that same afternoon setting up her bed and playing the piano, with the reluctant help of Regina the calico. Marie still had her job at Daedalus Incorporated, still answering phone calls on behalf of the much more successful company, but she didn’t care very much what the phone calls entailed. Even if the angry customers would scream at her and call her worthless, she wouldn’t care, because she could very easily, on the break between phone calls, could swing over and play the keys on her upright piano. She played the thing delicately, slowly relearning her entire catalog on the new instrument. It was almost exactly the same as it was within the system, allowing her to get goofy with her style of playing every now and again.

Jones did not have a job to speak of, simply working eight hour shifts being a writer, chipping away at their novel about superheroes. One night, about a week after they had moved in together, they were extraordinarily drunk on cheap whiskey. Jones was divulging the entire plot of their novel about superheroes, the specifics of which Marie had never heard before.

Supposedly, in Jones’ novel, there were three superheroes that led the worldly council of superheroes that was given the task of keeping the Earth safe. The main one, the ubermensch if you will, had the power of nigh invulnerability, as well as the power of leaping far into the air, sometimes for miles. Jones made it a point that this ubermensch could not fly around the world and turn back time, because that would make the deal of the guy whose power is to control time rather redundant. The main superhero’s name was Knight Errand, and he had a cape that could go on for miles if the reader so imagined it.

Knight Errand’s second-in-command was a brooding, yet distinctly funny-looking superhero, with no superpowers to speak of and a ratty old mustache poking out from under his cowl. While there was nothing beyond human capability that this mustachioed superhero had to offer, all of his physical prowess was at the peak of human capability. This included his intelligence. The novel was set in the 1970s, a time long before Jones was born, and the second-in-command solved mysteries in the smoggy city of Pittsburgh. In the world Jones and Marie inhabited, Pittsburgh was mostly a slab of concrete now. The mystery-solving second-in-command was very simply named Sleuth.

Along Sleuth and Knight Errand was a token woman, a witch from a time beyond man, having traveled back in time to save mankind from himself. She was by far the most powerful of the trio, able to rip apart human beings to the sinew with a single thought. She was the quiet one. Her name was Temptress.

In the first act of Jones’ novel, Knight Errand and Sleuth got an alert on the giant supercomputer that monitored Earth and the Universe for potential existential threats. Within the first page, they got the alert that this wave of cosmic radiation was to hit Earth within two months and there was nothing that, with all of their strength and intelligence, could be done about it. Temptress entered the room and was given this information and the trio was left to decide what to do with it. The rest of the first act was told out of chronological order, explaining the rise of superheroes within this fictional 1970s from the perspective of each of our heroes. At the end of the first act, there was a chapter that spanned a single sentence from the perspective of the guy who can control time:

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“I’ve seen the end, and frankly, I’m not very impressed.” He thought.

It was at this point that Marie, also drunk on whiskey, broke Jones’ spiel about their novel by yelling:

“I think you should send some chapters out.” Marie’s cheek was propped up by the half-empty bottle that the pair had been glugging from.

“What?” Jones asked, chuckling.

“I know that guy.” Marie said. “That memoirist army guy who knew my dad. He’s got a foot in the door. What if I sent him some of your writing? Maybe he could do something with it.”

“That’s very nice, but this is just a little passion project. I–”

“And that’s why I think you should send it somewhere, anywhere. I think the world needs to know about Knight Errand and Sleuth and Temptress.” Marie had gotten up at this point, gesturing wildly around the duo’s newly arranged living room. “The world needs heroes.” She said. There was a silence between the two.

…

…

…

And then Jones spoke, “Can you play me something? I’d like to come into your room and I’d like you to play me something.”

“Why indertabubbly–” Marie trailed off, suddenly on a mission to get to her bedroom and get to her piano bench without vomiting. She succeeded. “What would you like to hear?”

“Anything,” Jones said, smiling, “as long as it isn’t ‘Mellow My Mind’ by Neil Young.”

And so Marie played something, the name of the piece is unimportant and, frankly, she couldn’t remember it with both sides of her brain in the morning, even if she tried. The only thing that’s important about this moment is that they were jovial and drunk and singing songs well into the night, much to the chagrin of their newly established neighbors on the third and fifth floors. At the end of the fourth or fifth piece, bootstomps came from the ceiling, cutting Marie’s recital to an abrupt stop.

“That’s what I came across the country for.” Jones said matter-of-factly

“Really?” Marie asked. “That was the thing you came across the country for.”

“That and I just wanted to meet you. To really meet you, I mean.”

“Thanks.”

“Marie,” Jones said, rolling onto their side. “Holy shit. Thank you! You’ve let me crash here rent free for the past month and a half and have never asked so much as a meal from me. The stars only know that I wouldn’t be able to find somebody as kind and welcoming as you, even if I tried.”

“You and your shit about the stars.” Marie waved a passive hand.

“No, I’m serious. I–” Jones’ speech was cut short by a brief stinge of coughing.

“You alright?” Marie asked.

“Yeah.” Jones said. “I’m fine.”