They didn’t explode.

Once they were out of orbit it was fairly smooth sailing. The artificial gravity kicked in and they were able to unbuckle and walk around freely.

In hindsight, the Dark Division gave Jacob major Green Meadows vibes. The creepy kind of normal. Once Gillis went back to her cabin for something, and was firmly out of earshot, he took Thatch aside to have a talk.

“Do you know anything about this Endarion guy? The Dark Division overseer, or whatever.”

Thatch looked slightly uncomfortable. “Why do you ask?”

“I think he wants something from me. Actually, I know he wants something from me.”

“I don’t know why he’d take an interest in you specifically. But if what you’re saying is true, that’s probably bad news…”

“Yeah, I’d kind of figured that out on my own. So who is he?”

“Well, he’s the head of the whole Dark Division. I don’t really know anything about him. I don’t think anyone does. He never attends interdepartmental meetings or anything, just sends someone else in his place. I don’t think I’ve even seen a picture of him. Basically, he’s an empty chair. But the Dark Division has more or less free reign from the UEC, so no one really questions it.”

“Yeah, that tracks.”

“Why do you think he’s interested in you, anyway?”

“Reasons.”

Thatch rolled his eyes. “Come on, Jacob. A little give and take here, please. I can’t help unless you give me details.”

Jacob relented with a sigh. “Well, he keeps giving me things. Not directly, mind you.”

“Like what things?” Thatch glanced around at the interior of the ship. “Ah. You think he’s responsible for you getting this thing?”

“I know he is. Gurne told me as much.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

It only took Thatch a few moments to put the other piece together. “He gave you the soul trap, too.”

“Yes. More specifically, he made a deal for it.”

Thatch loosened his tie and sat down in the one floor-bolted chair in Jacob’s cabin. “Let me guess. He wants three million flora.”

Jacob laughed. “You’re on the ball today, old man! I’ve got a bit under three months to pay him back.”

“Or what?”

“Or I die. But he must have known I would never be able to pay back a loan that size, so I’m thinking he must benefit in some way from me dying. I just don’t know how. Or maybe he predicted that I’d come into this money from banishing Akor-Goram. Gurne told me he does that. Predicts things, or whatever.”

“That would be the first I’ve heard of it,” Thatch muttered. “Then again, I don’t know anything about the guy, so I guess that doesn’t mean much.”

“Is Endarion even a real name, anyway? The intermediary I met with before called him ‘Mr. Ender’, but it’s definitely the same guy.”

“Well, it’s a weird name. I’ve never heard his first name, either. It would make sense if it was an alias.”

Jacob rubbed at his scalp. “Be honest with me, boss. How fucked am I?”

“Badly.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. What do I do? I told Gurne I wanted to speak to Endarion, or whatever his name is, but I don’t think he’ll be too receptive given how secretive this has all been so far.”

Thatch clapped a hand over his face. “Jesus, Jacob! Don’t invite disaster any more than you have to. Listen, just… Once you get the three million from this assignment, pay him back. Once we get to Mars, sell the ship. Have it taken apart for scrap if no one’ll take it off your hands. After that, pretend you never heard the name Endarion. If his people come to you with any more deals like this… as long as he gives you the option, refuse.”

Jacob nodded slowly. “All right. Yeah, that’s probably for the best.”

“And whatever you do, don’t get me involved.”

“Roger that.”

“I think I’ve aged ten years since I met you, Jacob. You’re not good for my health.”

“Sorry, old man. I’ll try to take it easy on you.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

*****

Danger estimated that the trip to the Moon would take about eight hours. It would have been shorter, but he said he didn’t want to engage the skip drive if he didn’t have to. With how the ship was put together, he couldn’t blame the guy.

Eight hours gave them a good bit of free time. Jacob made sure he paid a visit to Gillis down in her cabin. She was writing something in a ledger when he came in. Hearing him approach, she closed the book and looked up at him.

“Hello. Should I call you ‘captain’, or would you prefer something else?” There was a hint of playfulness under her formal tone.

She was mid-twenties, conventionally attractive in a bland sort of way, with shortish brown hair in a bob. She was dressed fairly casually in jeans and a white sweater.

“Call me whatever you like,” Jacob said. “I just wanted to have a chat with you, since we’re gonna be traveling together for a while.”

Thatch had only just told him to steer clear of the Endarion business, but his skin was crawling with the desire to shake this woman by the shoulders and ask her who she was working for.

Gillis nodded curtly. “If you have any questions for me, go ahead. Do you mind if I work while we talk?”

“Not at all.”

Jacob tried to sneak a peek over her shoulder when she opened the ledger back up. It was hard to make anything out with her dense cursive handwriting. His bad eyesight didn’t make it any easier.

Writing on a physical medium instead of directly on her System node, especially for business purposes, could be a sign of something illicit. Like trying to keep information off-System, similar to the Red Right Hand. He wasn’t sure if he was thinking too far into it.

“You’re an accountant, is that right?”

“That’s right,” Gillis hummed with another quick flurry of pen strokes. “It’s not very exciting.”

“What is it you’ll be doing on Mars?”

“Finalizing some deals for resettlement projects.”

“Already? You work fast at the Dark Division.”

“Well, you know.” She glanced up briefly before returning to her work.

“What do I know?” Jacob asked, trying to keep his tone conversational.

She kept writing. When he didn’t speak for a while, she clicked her tongue and closed the ledger again. Turning towards him, pointing with her pen, she said: “You’re suspicious. I get it. Everyone’s suspicious of us.”

Jacob crossed his arms. “Do I have a reason to be?”

“Probably. I mean, we wouldn’t be called the Dark Division if we didn’t do some dark deeds. As for me, specifically, you don’t have anything to worry about. I really am just an accountant, although with so many employees dead they’ve expanded my duties somewhat. It’s… a mess, but you don’t care about that.”

“You realize why it might be hard for me to believe that you’re just an accountant.”

“I do. I’m not asking you to believe me.”

“Fair enough.” Jacob couldn’t hold himself back any longer. “What do you know about the overseer? Ever talk to him?”

She pursed her lips and cast him a long look. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And no, I haven’t spoken to him or seen him. Gurne has, I think, but that’s none of my business.”

“You sure that’s what you want to go with?”

“You can be kinda scary, you know that?” Gillis said with a hesitant smile. “I feel like I’m about to get my kneecaps kicked in or something.”

“You’re not.”

“I know. I wouldn’t be making a joke about it otherwise.”

“Unless you’re working for him.” Jacob let his voice turn steely. “If you’re working for him, and you don’t tell me now, and I find out later? I can be more than ‘kinda scary’ if I want to be.”

“Under… stood. Everything I told you is true, though. I don’t know anything about Overseer Endarion, and I’m not here on his orders. I’m perfectly content staying on the bottom rung of the organizational hierarchy, thank you very much.”

“Okay, then. Thank you for your honesty. Now that we’ve gotten all the unpleasantness out of the way, I think you’ll find me more reasonable moving forward.”

Sensing that he wasn’t going to get anything more out of her, he turned to leave.

“You know,” she said, halting him. “Whatever you’ve heard, we really are working towards the good of mankind. And whatever you’ve heard about him, I think Endarion is doing the same.”

“I thought you didn’t know anything about him.”

“I don’t. It’s just my opinion.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Jacob nodded in reply and made his exit.

Well, that was useless. Not that I expected anything different.

After that, Jacob went to check up on Fenris. The wolf had retreated to his cabin and was curled up against one wall in a miserable state, taking up nearly half the room. Jacob coaxed him into drinking some water from a bowl, but other than that he was largely unresponsive.

I don’t know how monster physiology works, but I imagine he can’t keep going too much longer like this.

If they were lucky, maybe whatever mystic they managed to track down on the Moon would know how to help. Beyond that, Jacob didn’t have any ideas besides simply hoping that he would get better on his own.

He charged Tarim with keeping an eye on the wolf until they got to the Moon, then went to check up on their supplies. Most of the food was in the form of MREs in pouches. There were boxes and boxes of the stuff, with a shelf life of several years. At least they wouldn’t go hungry. In terms of foods that could actually be cooked and maybe considered actual human meals, it seemed they were going to have to furnish that themselves. There were packs of frozen meat, but they would need to save that for Fenris.

He tried one of the MREs, supposedly a sausage and rice dish. He heated it up with a bit of hot water from a dispenser in the kitchen area and ate it straight out of the pouch with a spoon. A little on the bland side, but it was fine with a pinch of extra salt. He’d have to pick up some hot sauce on the Moon if they still had extravagant luxuries like that.

With all the housekeeping taken care of, he settled down in his cabin for a minute to finally take care of his Level 8 rewards, which consisted of more attribute points. He put them both in Vigor, bringing him up to 9, and endured the strain of the transformation with gritted teeth and clenched fists. Levels 9 and 10 would be a bit more exciting, the first one giving him another talent and the second one giving him an advancement. He wasn’t completely sure what exactly an advancement entailed, since so few Users reached that level, but he could only imagine it was something good.

At this point, opening doors and operating household machinery was becoming an exercise in restraint. The feeling of being able to crush almost any material into small pieces with his bare hands was a satisfying one. He’d like to believe that, with all his improvements in Vigor, he would at least have been able to put a dent in Starman’s armor, or wrench a piece off with his grip strength. Not that it mattered anymore.

*****

Danger slowed their descent as they entered the Moon’s thin atmosphere, a featureless gray landscape stretching out around them. Despite his initial reservations, Danger was taking to his job well, at least as far as Jacob could tell. His most heavily weighted measurement being whether or not they had crashed, which they had not, meaning he was doing great.

The Moon had evidently fared a little better than Earth, but not by much. They saw several ruined colony domes on their way to Port Longing, the settlement Thatch had established contact with. According to Thatch, one of Akor-Goram’s lieutenants had come to the Moon and wrought great devastation against the largely unprotected population until the few heroes stationed there were finally able to take him down with the help of repurposed anti-ship artillery.

Port Longing didn’t look like much from the outside, just a bubble rising out of the gray earth, but at least the habitat was intact. After a brief exchange between Danger and on-site personnel, they were admitted through a circular aperture that opened up on the side of the dome, a thin hardlight membrane holding in the air. They threaded the needle, slipping through the hardlight without resistance, and were directed to land on an open platform. Blocky buildings rose in the distance, a small town clustered together with the density of a crowded city, every piece of architecture bustling for space against each other to fit under the dome.

Danger and Gillis elected to stay on the Quickdraw. Danger wanted to check over the systems to make sure nothing was too broken, and Gillis didn’t seem like much of an outdoor person, dome or not.

Jacob, Thatch, and Tarim disembarked onto the smooth concrete landing pad and struggled not to look ridiculous bouncing around with the drastically lower gravity. Unsurprisingly, they weren’t sharing parking space with any other visitors. Instead they were met by a trio of men in plain black uniforms holding rifles.

They knew who Thatch was and had been informed of his arrival, but searched all of them for weapons anyway. Finding none, they were escorted through into Port Longing proper.

“I’ll meet with the governor and see what I can do about tracking down a mystic,” Thatch said. “If you want, you can go off on your own and take care of that business with our dearly departed villain.” He had left the Deady Bear case behind on the ship to avoid running the risk of it being stolen.

“Might as well,” Jacob replied. “With any luck we’ll get this done and be on our way in a few hours.”

They split up, Thatch following the guards towards the settlement’s tallest building and Jacob moving in the opposite direction. He received a file from the director detailing the identity of who he was looking for, as well as a picture and a short list of known associates.

Clara Friedman. Seventeen years old, born on Earth, lived on Aribel for most of her life. Her father was dead, obviously, but the status of her other family was put down as unknown. Her listed address was a ways outside of Port Longing, but he figured he’d comb through the settlement first. If she was still alive, she’d be there. If he couldn’t find her, he’d go to her address and try to find a body.

Port Longing was a surprisingly normal place, given the circumstances. A dog was barking somewhere in the distance. There were food places and bars open, and there was lively trade going on in a small square. The actual goods on offer were paltry, and many transactions were made through bartering rather than payment of flora. Except for that and the armed, black-uniformed guards loitering about the place, Jacob could have mistaken it for a normal provincial town. At least until he got close enough to see the harrowed, apathetic looks on people’s faces, going about their daily lives on rote in a stubborn pretense that the world was still spinning.

He took into one of the bars, the Spacer. It was a small, dingy, and poorly lit dive, with scratched-up plasticky walls and a funky smell. There were railings along the walls to keep yourself floor-bound while walking around in the low gravity. He sat down at the bar, and Tarim took a seat next to him, grinning as though he was about to get something good. Poor kid thought that Jacob was going to buy him a drink.

Keep dreaming.

The handful of patrons scattered about the place fixed them with dark sideways looks, having worked up that drunken meanness some people got after a few drinks.

The barkeep was a thin woman with short dark hair, a black tank top tucked into a pair of ripped jeans, with a towel slung over one shoulder.

“All right, gentlemen, what’ll it be?” she said in a tired voice. She puffed on a cigarette and tapped ash into a tray beside her on the counter. She frowned deeper the longer she looked at them, like it took her a while to realize how odd-looking they were. “What are you two supposed to be?”

“Visitors,” Jacob said amicably. “I’m here about a girl. I was hoping you could tell us something.”

The barkeep shrugged. “Buy something, then.”

“I’ll have a beer,” Tarim cut in.

Jacob smacked the back of his head. “He’ll have a soda. I’ll have a beer.”

She glanced down at Tarim. “I don’t care if he drinks, you know. I’ll get him a beer if you want.”

Tarim fixed Jacob with a yellow eye, expectant.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

Tarim smiled sweetly.

Jacob rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Two beers, then.”

“All right.” She reached down behind the counter, produced two brown bottles of Red Arbor, and popped off the caps with a bottle opener. They spun lazily into the air, only lightly pulled by gravity, and she caught them both with one motion. Cigarette between her lips, she said: “If you’re paying with flora, it’s gonna be double.”

“Fair enough.”

The two beers were 50 flora. Absolutely extortionate, but times being what they were, Jacob saw no reason to complain. He still had a little over 10 000 in his account from before all the unpleasantness went down.

Tarim took a big swig from his beer and was immediately disappointed by the taste, sticking his tongue out with a grimace.

“You’ll learn to like it,” the barkeep said with a chuckle. She looked between the two of them. “What’s your damage, anyway? You both look like roadkill.”

“He’s a hero,” Tarim supplied instantly. “I’m his sidekick.”

Jacob sighed, but didn’t see the point in contradicting him.

The barkeep peered at them more closely and put out the cigarette in the tray without looking. “Wait, you’re from Earth, you said?”

He hadn’t, but there wasn’t really anywhere else they could be from. He couldn’t imagine anyone from Mars aching to see Earth and her beautiful satellite right now.

“Yeah, Earth.”

“You’re not him, are you?”

“Depends on who you’re talking about.”

“The one they say looks like a corpse. The Hanged Man.”

Jacob opened his mouth to offer her money in exchange for pretending he wasn’t, but Tarim beat him out. “Sure he is!” the kid said. “He killed two—”

“Shut up and drink your beer, or I’m taking it away,” Jacob growled.

Tarim reluctantly complied, nursing his beer and making a face with every sip.

“Is it true?” the woman asked. Her demeanor was suddenly changed, tired snarkiness replaced by attentive interest. “That you killed the one that did all this? That it’s almost over?”

He got the creeping feeling that everyone else in the bar was leaning in closer, too.

“Yeah. I don’t know about ‘almost over’, but yeah, we killed him.”

“Is it true that Paragon’s dead?”

“No. Not as far as I know. Look—”

One of the others piped up. “They say that Hanged Man is a villain who got pardoned for fighting. What do you say to that? You some kind of villain, come to make trouble?”

“That was another guy, and trouble is the last thing I want. Like I said, I’m looking for someone. That’s all.”

“Yeah, well, I heard—”

“Bertil, no one cares what you heard!” the barkeep shouted. “Sorry, go on. I’ll help however I can if you give me some more news from Earth.”

The ornery fellow, Bertil, snuck out of the front door with a stream of muttered curses. The door swung shut behind him on creaking hinges.

Jacob brought up the picture he had been given. “Clara Friedman. Know her?”

The barkeep shook her head while sucking in her lips. “Nah, doesn’t look familiar. She looks about my son’s age, though. I could see if he knows her. It’s a small place, so there’s a good chance.”

“Please do.”

She called him up on her System node. After a bit of back-and-forth, she hung up. “Yeah, he doesn’t know her. But apparently he has a friend who might.”

“All right. Where’s this friend?”

“My son’ll get a hold of him. If he knows something, he’ll get him down here.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“While we wait, you can fill us in on all this hero business.”

Jacob blew out his cheeks, relenting. “Fine, fine. What do you wanna know?”

*****

The barkeep’s son and his friend, both a little older than Tarim, came in half an hour later. The kid had battled through most of his beer by then, and Jacob was on his second.

“One of you knows Clara, then?” Jacob asked as they sat down at the bar on his left.

“I do,” said one of them, a boy with shaggy brown hair wearing a big puffy jacket. “I mean, I’m not friends with her or anything. She’d go to these end-of-the-world parties I went to. Some of my friends liked her ‘cause she always knew how to score, but I think most of them stopped hanging out with her. I think because she’s, like, a a bit much? Like, um… kind of a mess? I don’t really know.”

“Right. Do you know where she lives?”

“Pretty sure. I think she lives over by the metalworks.”

“Show me.”

Jacob swept his beer, paid the barkeep’s son 50 flora for his trouble, and took his friend with him, Tarim in tow.

“Uh, there were some guys outside, by the way,” the son called when they were halfway to the door. “I think maybe they’re waiting for you.”

For fuck’s sake. I haven’t even done anything yet.

“Thanks. I’ll keep an eye out.”

Sure enough, there were six men in sweaty work garb outside. Unemployed, bored, and drunk, he surmised, leaving them hungry for trouble. He vaguely recognized one of them from the bar, the one the barkeep had called Bertil. He had red eyes and fleshy lips, spinning a hollow pipe around with a whoom, whoom, whoom sound.

Jacob directed the two boys to stand off to the side by pointing and snapping his fingers. To Bertil, he said: “Whatever you’re thinking about doing, it’s not a good idea for you.”

One of them shouted something incoherent about him being a villain and came bounding towards him. There was something comical about a gruff manly-man coming at him in anger while hopping like a bunny-rabbit.

Jacob didn’t trust his mobility in this gravity, so he stayed where he was and let the man come to him. He wouldn’t need his death sense for this. When he got close and cocked his arm for a punch, Jacob anticipated the movement and caught his wrist mid-swing. With barely more than a light squeeze, it snapped, and Jacob let him fall down screaming. He put a foot on his back to keep him where he was, ignoring his weak wriggling.

“Still think this is a good idea?”

They all suddenly looked a lot more sober. They all hesitated except Bertil, who apparently had some kind of wounded pride to recover. He charged ahead and toted his pipe around like it was supposed to scare anyone. Jacob let him get close, then removed his sunglasses and looked into the man’s rheumy eyes.

His death-guise flashed, and a moment later he was on the dirty ground, weapon discarded and forgotten. He screamed at the top of his lungs and dragged himself away on his elbows until his eyes rolled back and he passed out.

None of his friends were willing to pick up where he left off. Jacob let them carry the two idiots away and put his aviator shades back on with a sigh. He’d gotten these ones from Thatch after losing his own in the battle. They looked slightly less goofy than the last iteration, so that was a plus.

The boy they’d brought was staring at him, frozen and silent. People had stopped in the street, too, looking at him like he was an escaped zoo animal.

“What!?” he shouted, arms spread.

They quickly continued about their business.

That’s better.