Since Becca was wholly unwilling to get off of him, Jacob carried her inside the apartment. It wasn't like she was heavy anyway. Once Fenris got through, Jacob hooked his foot around the edge of the door to pull it shut behind them.
Her place was a dirty one-bedroom apartment with plain concrete walls, rumbling water pipes running across the ceiling, and the tranquil background noise of a leaky faucet going drip, drip, drip. It certainly wasn’t helped by Becca’s general slovenliness, the floor and furniture a big abstract artwork of compounded messes.
She had forgotten to clean. He gave himself a point for predicting it.
When she finally agreed to stand on her own feet again, he put her down and finally got a good look at her, holding her at arm’s length by her shoulders. She wore black booty shorts, a little white crop top, and one fuzzy slipper, as the other one had come off in the commotion.
The way her revealing attire hugged her slim frame was enough to get a dog excited, especially one that had been without a bone for a good long while.
She looked up at him with a frown. “You’ve gotten taller.”
“And here I thought you’d shrunk,” Jacob said with a smirk, mussing up her hair.
“Rude!” She started poking at him and grabbing his arms. “You’ve gotten beefier, too. You haven’t been juicing, have you?”
Jacob flexed a bicep for her appraisal. “All natural, baby. Well, you know, not really. I might have been at three or four Vigor when I saw you last. I’m at nine now.”
“That’s a lot of Vigor, my guy. I appreciate you catering to my tastes.” She gave him a playful punch to the stomach and came away shaking her hand with pain. “Ouchie.”
Then it was Fenris’s turn to receive attention after waiting patiently on his haunches; tail slowly wagging, then speeding up when Becca leaned in close and started cooing at him.
Even without his memories, he had assumed that Becca and the wolf would be good friends. He was glad to be proven right.
“Is it my little handsome man, is it?” she asked, scratching his chin and patting his flank. “Did you miss your mommy? Of course you did! Jacob probably hasn’t given you any treats at all.” They both glared accusingly up at him.
“Considering it was the end of the world, he’s been eating like a king,” Jacob said in his defense, but Becca’s exaggerated glower made it clear that he was not believed.
Letting Becca catch up with the wolf, he made his way to the living room couch and, kicking all the dirty clothes in his path into a rough pile in the center of the room. He plucked more articles from the couch and threw them on the pile as well, cleaning up the couch enough that he could sit down. He took off the messenger bag he’d brought with him and placed it down on the floor, then took a seat.
“Oh yeah, I was totally gonna clean, but then I got so caught up with prepping for tonight that I ended up losing track of time,” Becca said as she came over to join him, plopping down on the couch and nestling herself up against him. Fenris came up and laid across both their laps, his head on the armrest.
“I know how it goes,” Jacob said, unable to muster even feigned annoyance. “Honestly, I thought it’d be worse. I’m surprised you managed to survive this long without me.”
“It was hard,” she murmured against his chest. “I nearly starved to death, you know.”
“‘Cause there was no one to make you breakfast, lunch, and dinner?”
“Yep.”
“That sounds really tough.”
“Why does Fenris have an extra eye now?”
Jacob sighed. “That’s… kind of a long, extremely gross story.”
“You’ll tell me it, won’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll tell me all the stories.”
“I will. But not now.”
“Not now,” Becca agreed.
They leaned into each other and kissed.
“I’ve missed your popsicle lips,” she said with a wicked little smirk, and kissed him again. “Wanna fuck?”
“Oh, god, yes.”
Fenris groaned angrily when he was forced off the couch, and got back on the moment Jacob stood up. He hoisted Becca over one shoulder, marveling at how feather-light she was, even with the lower gravity. She gave him upside-down directions to get to the bedroom through snorting giggles. He found it down the hall, pushed the door open with his hip, and threw Becca down on the low, unmade bed.
“Wait, wait!” she said through another giggling fit before Jacob could join her. “Just tell me one thing.”
“What?”
“How did you jerk off over there?”
“I didn’t.”
“Not even once?”
“Believe it or not, it never really felt like the right time to tug one out.”
“Jesus, you really are blue-balling, then. I might need to use my instruments for this.” She flopped over on her belly and wormed her way to the edge of the bed, sticking an arm underneath it and dragging out a heavy box.
Her grin was in direct opposition to his scowl.
She’s not planning on making it thirteen, is she?
*****
One gratuitously long lovemaking session later…
In the end, Becca was the one who tapped out first.
She staggered out of bed, beaded with sweat, and fetched a half liter bottle of water from the kitchen that she chugged in one go.
“What the fuck, Jacob,” she panted, brushing a sweat-slicked strand of hair out of her face. “Seriously, that wasn’t all right.”
“How’s the eyesight?” Jacob asked with an innocent smile, hands behind his head. Various pieces of broken ‘equipment’ lay scattered across the bed and the floor.
“Rapidly fading, thank you very much.”
“Got one more in you?”
She threw the empty water bottle at him, which bounced harmlessly off his forehead with a hollow bonk. “That’s not funny, Jacob. You could’ve killed me.”
“If you’re gonna talk big, you have to be able to back it up.”
She got back into bed to cool herself down against his body, slowly catching her breath. “Goddamn, bro.”
“I’ll go easy on you next time.”
“I appreciate that.”
She let a finger trace the black handprint over his heart. “What’s this?”
Jacob took her hand and guided it away. “Nothing important,” he murmured.
“Won’t it heal?”
“No. It’s not that kind of wound.”
“How did you get it?”
He sighed. “Later, Becca. Let’s leave all the hard stuff for later. For now, can we just keep it perfect?”
“Okay,” she said, and planted a kiss on his chest. “Wanna know something?”
“What?”
“You look like a blind person with those sunglasses on.”
“Great.”
“And Fenris is like your guide dog.”
“Not a very good one.”
“Don’t say that! He can hear you—he’ll get a complex.”
Jacob snorted at that.
After basking in the afterglow for a few minutes, he went and fetched her souvenir t-shirt. She was going to put it on straight away, but Jacob snatched it back and insisted that she could put it on after she’d taken a shower. She relented, and they had one together under a stuttering showerhead. The water went cold halfway through, leaving them scrambling to finish up.
“How did you end up in this dump, anyway?” Jacob asked while toweling his hair.
“There weren’t a lot of options. Housing is hard enough to come by on Mars as it is, but it’s even worse for Earthers ‘cause of all the bureaucracy and this and that. The barons are always talking about how important it is to support the refugees from Earth, but they’re not so into actually doing anything.”
After drying herself off, she slipped on the large autographed t-shirt—nothing underneath—and did a little spin for him. “Whaddya think? Do I look pretty?”
He dug the boyfriend fit. The shirt was big enough on her to be a small dress, and it slid low over one freckled shoulder.
He gave the top of her head a kiss. “Beautiful,” he murmured into her hair.
Once they were at least semi-dressed, they headed out into the living room and gave some overdue attention to the grumpy and neglected wolf. Becca earned his forgiveness by feeding him old fries from the fridge. He would have worried whether those were still fresh enough to eat, but he had seen Fenris eat rotting demon corpses without any gastrointestinal mishaps, so he figured nothing was off limits.
“Seriously, though,” Jacob said, stroking the wolf’s fur after he resumed his customary position of laying across the both of them. “There was no way to get out of this place? I thought you said you were with Bob and Johnny. I assume they’ve been getting work—they haven’t been helping you at all?”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“No, they have. Bob’s really the only one getting steady work right now—he does protection for some bigshots here in the Works, but they know they can get away with underpaying him since he’s an Earther, so there’s no great money coming in there. The rest of us, well… there just isn’t a lot of work for us here. No one wants to hire Earthers, and I can’t really blame them.”
“Why?”
“Well, as part of his big push to welcome refugees into Standing, Lord Alfonse has been offering free housing to Earthers. Except space is really tight, so to make room for us he had the people already living here kicked out.”
“Ah. That explains the graffiti.”
“Yeah, Earthers aren’t so popular down in the Works. And in the Stacks they mostly look down on us, I think. Like, I guess a lot of them think it was our own fault that Earth got exploded.”
“Have you tried getting a meeting with this Lord Alfonse? Both Bob and Johnny are decent Users—surely there’s a big demand for them here, too.”
Becca pulled her lips into a tight line. “Yeah, we have. A lot. Grim thinks they’re waiting them out until they get desperate enough to take bad offers. Johnny ended up with a really useful new ability, but it’s kind of limited use, so there’s not much he can do right now. I’ll let him explain it for himself later.”
“These people are real charmers, huh?”
“It’s not so bad. Like I said, the housing is free, so that’s something.”
“If I knew you were living like this…” The pipes in the ceiling began rattling loudly as if to illustrate his point.
“I thought you wanted to keep it perfect,” Becca said, rubbing his arm.
Jacob sighed. “I do. I’m sorry. Just know that all this is over now. I’ve got okay money saved up, and it appears I’m a bit of a minor celebrity these days, so I’ll be able to swing that into something useful with the dorks in charge here.”
“Okay.”
“If it comes down to it, I’ll get the ship overhauled and we can live out of that.”
“Ship?”
“Yeah, my ship. You’re looking at the not-so-proud captain of the Quickdraw.”
Her eyes went wide. “You have a ship? Like a spaceship?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Is that where you called me from before?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s so awesome! How did you get it?”
“It was a gift from this really annoying guy. Also a long story.”
“Jacob Sorenson, savior of mankind and spaceship captain. And here I thought you couldn’t get any sexier.”
Jacob chuckled. “I’m just getting started. Wait until I’ve conquered a planet or two.”
“I won’t let you become an evil tyrant.”
“I’d be a very kind tyrant, I promise.”
She smiled, dimpling her cheeks and bringing a sparkling light into her eyes. “That’s all right, then.”
*****
Luckily, Jacob had suspected a certain level of rough-and-tumble play and had brought a precautionary change of clothes with him. Just a black t-shirt and some jeans, which was just about the most formal attire he owned at the moment. Becca put on a pretty mint-green dress and a pair of flats. She excused herself saying that she hadn’t gotten the hang of walking in heels on Mars yet. Not only did she look just as cute in flats, but heels would have been dangerous overkill anyway, considering the neighborhoods they’d be passing through.
The place they were going to for dinner was in the Stacks, as the upper part of the city was called. It was a not entirely run-down bar and grill that Becca and company had rented out for the night—which, from the sounds of things, meant it was coming out of Bob’s pocket.
A number of tables had been pushed together and covered with a long tablecloth to accommodate the party. A few people had already showed up when Jacob and Becca came in, and the rest of them came at a steady trickle.
Those in attendance, aside from Jacob himself, were: Becca, Fenris, Tarim, Clara, Danger, Thatch, Lucky Johnny, Bob, and Mr. Beau. No sign of the mysterious ‘Grim’, however. Becca said that he was often late for things, and that he would show up sooner or later.
Jacob was mostly pleased that the kid had found his way there, and hadn’t gotten lost or mugged somewhere. He had evidently spent the day shopping with Clara, as they both wore new outfits.
At first everyone was mostly mingling with a bit of social lubricant from the bar. Jacob got to reacquaint himself with Bob and Mr. Beau. He was surprised with himself at how pleased he was to see the robot again. He’d changed a lot, too. His old body had been replaced with a new statuesque frame, covered in thick, red-painted plating. He looked more like a combot model now. Downright intimidating until he opened his mouth.
“Hello, Jacob,” he said. “I’m happy you’re here. Becca has missed you deeply.”
“Happy to be here, too,” Jacob replied, giving the robot an affectionate thump on his chassis. “Becca says you’ve been taking care of her. I appreciate that.”
“Of course. We are all friends, after all.”
From the other end of the establishment, Jacob heard Becca cry out: “Your name is Danger? That’s so fucking cool!”
Still smiling at that, Jacob said: “Yeah. Maybe we are.”
Next, he tracked down Johnny. He had a few burning questions for that guy. One more was added onto that pile when Jacob saw his face—all purpled with bruises, his lower lip swollen and split on one side. Despite that he was in high spirits, wearing an open-front blouse with his blond curls perfectly styled. He sipped strategically from a glass of red wine to avoid disturbing the bad half of his mouth.
“The fuck happened to you?” Jacob asked.
“Jacob!” His face lit up and he spread his arms at the sight of him. “My lucky charm! I’ve been waiting forever for you to show up!”
“That so?”
“You betcha.”
“I’m happy to see you too, I guess, but how did you end up with Becca and the others in the first place?”
“Oh, well, you didn’t think you were my only lucky charm, did you? Becca’s plenty lucky, too, so my Blessing made sure I ran into her.”
“Right. Obviously.”
“And now that you’re both here, I’m getting double dosage!”
“You look like you need it. Seriously, what happened to your face?”
“Oh, just a little neighborly scuffle. I guess word got out about my Blessing, and suddenly some people weren’t so happy to be bumping elbows with me. They think my good fortune comes with their downfall. Personally, I think they’re just jealous.”
Jacob could imagine how a Blessing like Johnny’s might become a curse in certain situations. It certainly hadn’t endeared Jacob to him when they first met.
“Becca says you got some new ability.”
“Oh, yeah.” With a flick of his wrist, Johnny suddenly had his shining gold coin pinched between two fingers. “I got this new aspect; the Aspect of Gambling. Wanna hear about it?”
“By all means, go ahead.”
“Well, it works like this. Basically, Favorite Child boosts my luck by a set amount. With the Aspect of Gambling, I can bet something by calling it out, then flip the coin. If it lands heads, my luck is boosted proportionally to the value of the thing I bet for the next ten minutes. If it lands tails, well, I lose what I bet.” He held up his other hand, wiggling the stump of what had once been his pinky finger. “Gone for good.
“But the neat thing is that my luck works on the flip itself, too. Based on the attempts I’ve made so far, I win about 99 out of 100 coin flips. Sadly it doesn’t go up from there as I gain more luck, or at least the diminishing returns are so severe that any gains are not measurable. Still, those are good odds.
“And the really neat thing is that the luck boosts stack with themselves. If I bet my life, that doubles my luck. So if we call my base luck from Favorite Child one unit, if I win a flip after betting my life I’m at two units. Then if I keep going it’ll be four, then eight, and so on. If I win ten coin flips in a row, I’m at over 1 000 units of luck.”
“Huh,” Jacob said. “That’s… actually disgusting.”
From first-hand experience, he knew that even Johnny’s base level of luck was a fearsome tool. Multiplied by 1 000? He had no idea what that would be like. Certainly high S-Rank in terms of utility. Maybe even U-Rank.
Instant Paragon for ten minutes.
Jacob cleared his throat. “I mean, it’s great unless you hit a bad flip and kill yourself.”
Johnny gave a sheepish smile, slightly warped by his fat lip. “Yeah, that’s the tiny drawback. The efficiency is not too good if I bet other things—about a 20% increase at most, even if I bet something significant like an arm or whatever.”
“Can you wager things that aren’t part of you? Like possessions?”
“Sure. I’ve tried that a bunch, but it’s the same problem—I just don’t get that much luck back from it. Still useful, obviously, but if I want to rack up those high numbers I’ve got to bet with my life.”
“Right. I see why Becca said you’ve been holding yourself back.”
“Yeah, gotta blow my load on something big. I’ve got a feeling that I’ll get the chance soon. Especially with both of my lucky charms here. Speaking of which…” He motioned with his glass towards Becca, who was busy talking to Thatch and inspecting his atrocious tie with great interest. “The two of you are just the cutest thing. It’s like you’re a stick of salted licorice, and she’s a gummy bear.”
“No one likes licorice,” Jacob pointed out.
Johnny flipped his hair back with a grin. “It’s an acquired taste, for sure. But those who like it go really crazy for it.”
“I get what you mean, but it still sounds like an insult.”
“That’s a very licorice reaction to a compliment, Jacob. Staying consistent, good for you.”
Jacob realized his beer was empty and went to fetch another one. Johnny followed him to the bar and whistled appreciatively when Jacob flicked the cap off with his thumb.
“So you just happened to run into Becca, you said,” Jacob said. “How does that even work? I mean, were you even operating anywhere near Arcadia?”
Johnny shrugged and allowed the bartender to refill his wine glass. “It’s really not that complicated. My Blessing, it speaks to me. I see the way my luck acts itself out in the world, and sometimes it’s like it makes a path for me to follow. So I let it take the wheel, because if I go along with it, things always turn out for the best. Through a series of coincidences, I found myself in Arcadia, and through another series of coincidences I found myself in the Sleeping Cat. And then, through yet another series of coincidences, we ran into Grim. The rest is history.”
“Who is he, anyway? I assume he’s a wayline navigator or something.”
“He prefers the term ‘wizard’, actually. He’s cool when he’s around. He usually isn’t, though. Not so good at staying in one place for too long.”
“I see. Do you trust him?”
“Sure. I mean, we wouldn’t have gotten off Earth without him.”
“He doesn’t exactly sound like the most reliable guy ever, though.”
“Nah, he’s all right. You just have to get used to him.”
Jacob was still suspicious, but let it go.
Johnny eventually got distracted hitting on the handsome bartender. Jacob had only just started looking around for another avenue of conversation when Thatch came up and took him by the shoulder.
“You’re seeing Lord Alfonse tomorrow,” he said. “As soon as he found out that one of the Nine was in his city, he said he simply had to meet you.”
Jacob nodded. “All right, good. I was going to try and get a meeting with him anyway.”
“‘Good’ depends on how you handle it. The baron is a fickle man. I don’t think you’ll like him.”
“Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll be on my best behavior, as always.”
“I hope so. There are big things happening right now, Jacob. For Earth, for Mars, for everyone. You’ll probably hear the baron mention the Crusade of Reprisal.”
“The thing Gurne was talking about?”
“Yeah.”
“What is it? Some kind of revenge against the urgeks?”
“Pretty much. We’re going to war, Jacob. Like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Mars and Aribel, obviously, but they’re making deals with the thunes, too. And the kithraxi. And the duroks. Even the Arantharans—those negotiations fell through quick, obviously, but the fact that they tried shows how seriously they’re taking this.”
“I take it that means I’ll have plenty of work for the foreseeable future.”
“I’d imagine so. It’ll mostly depend on how much you’re willing to take on.”
“I’ll decide when I see how much Alfonse is willing to pay.”
“Send me the address of where you’re staying and I’ll pick you up sometime after noon tomorrow. Lord Alfonse is a late riser. Doesn’t do anything before 12.”
“Roger that.”
Eventually everyone found their way to the table as plates, bowls, and platters of various foods were brought out from the kitchen. Martian cuisine turned out to be bizarre. There was stringy purple meat from an animal he could not begin to guess the origin of, chicken wings that definitely didn’t taste like chicken, pizza with clumpy, pale cheese that gave off a pungent smell, sliders with tiny tentacles sticking out of them, and lots of configurations of what looked and tasted like tofu, except it was very firm and chewy.
After some trial and error, and a bit of help from Becca, he found a few relatively safe options that acceptably emulated Earth foods. Becca herself had acclimated well to the Martian palate, and was especially fond of the bitter pizza.
In the middle of the meal, the door to the establishment came open and a man walked in. He was unshaven and hollow-eyed, with a pair of low glasses on his nose. Grim, no doubt.
In his dress pants, white button-up, and disheveled tie, he looked more like a washed-up private detective than a wizard, or whatever he called himself. As he stalked across the dining area to find a seat, Jacob caught an overpowering smell of cigarettes coming off the man. After muttering an apology for being late, he immediately started eating in silence.
Jacob leaned towards Becca. “Charming guy.”
“He’s just a little awkward,” Becca countered. “I don’t think he’s much of a people person, but he’s nice once you get to know him.”
“Mmhmm.”
Once Grim had scarfed down a plate of food about ten minutes later, he excused himself to go for a smoke break. Slowing as he walked past Jacob, he said: “Join me outside.” Then he left without waiting for any kind of acknowledgement.
Becca just gave an apologetic shrug when Jacob looked at her. Conceding that he would need to figure out Grim’s deal sooner or later, he got up to follow him.
Let’s see what kind of person you are.