Chapter One - Request
“We need you on the moon.”
Isaac Hartson, metahuman and decidedly not a superhero, exchanged a look with girlfriend, Sarah Miller. She kept her surprise veiled behind her own metahuman power of smoke and illusion, but clearly shared the same confusion at the abrupt request from the lunarian standing in his living room. Of all things Isaac had expected in a visit from Lia, member of the meta-mercenaries Justice for Hire, an appeal for a lunar jaunt was not it.
“I think we’re going to need to sit down for this one,” Isaac said, gesturing to a chair. Like all lunarians, Lia was thin and gangly, over-tall with her head scraping the ceiling. He didn’t have any furniture properly sized to lunarian proportions, but the armchair that Gratin had donated would serve. The little ikiski cook and sometime spy had outfitted their kitchen and provided a few bits of oversized and overstuffed furniture and equipment meant for nonhumans.
Lia adjusted the bag hanging at her side, a Star City Superjump branded sports duffle, in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture before setting it down as she lowered herself into the armchair. The shiny silver runes on her matte silver skin flashed and glowed in a rippling flicker, a sign that even now she was empowering them, though that was as normal for the moonie as Sarah playing with her cigarettes. He was pretty sure Lia had more runes than she used to, crawling down her shoulders to her arms, but had no idea how to interpret that.
“So, I’m not much worried about breaking laws as such,” Sarah said, rolling her cigarette between her fingers as she eyed Lia. She patted the couch next to her and Isaac settled in, blinking off a flash of sun glare coming through a gap in the window blinds. “But wandering off to the moon isn’t like shoplifting or a smash and grab. It’s the kind of things that causes international – or should I say, interplanetary – incidents.”
“I am aware,” Lia replied, steepling her fingers together. “And I will admit outright that what we wish would violate most of the various treaties. What we want is an end to the war.”
“That’s a tall order,” Isaac said, not as argument, but just stating a fact. He was only peripherally aware of the details of the civil war, as it simply wasn’t relevant to anyone on Earth. It had been going on for a very long time, though, over a hundred years at least and maybe longer. “I would ask why you think I can help, but I can guess.”
Isaac definitely wouldn’t call himself a sovereign, but he’d had a taste of the power. For the brief time he’d been boosted by the supervillain Mechaniacal’s artifice, he had felt like he could do anything. It was the kind of perspective that could make anyone a tyrant, and from that throne he very well could have stopped the civil war — and the moon itself, setting everything into an unchanging stasis. That was hardly what she meant, and he wasn’t capable of doing that on his own, but brute force wasn’t the only way to approach things.
“Yes, your talent,” Lia confirmed. “As well as your lack of antipathy toward lunar runes. A consequence of growing up in a magic dead zone, we believe. Your fellow Lost Generation, those we have been able to find, are similar, but none of them have a power of the appropriate sort.”
“Who exactly is this we you keep referring to?” Sarah cut in even as Isaac was trying to think through the implications behind a magical dead zone.
“The reestablishment cause. Opposite the royalists, like Moonblast,” Lia responded.
“You want us to go up against Moonblast?” Sarah asked skeptically. “Y’know, the one with the spell we can see from Earth?”
“You said end the war, not win it,” Isaac said, his mind going in a different direction than Sarah’s.
“Yes,” Lia said, looking from him to Sarah with oversized eyes. “I would not ask you to try and contest the royalists directly, regardless, but I am not even certain what a victory would look like at this point. The civil war has been going on so long — since before I was born.” Lia generally sounded proper and professional, but as she spoke some actual emotion leaked into her tone. Though Isaac wondered how much of that was just for show; he didn’t like to suspect Lia of acting for his benefit, but he’d be stupid to think it wasn’t possible.
“It has ground us down,” Lia continued. “Destroyed people, places, history. Just endless fighting and dying. Even if one side were to surrender, I don’t know that it would matter. We’re not armies, ruled by a central authority. Even the royalists just use the royal family’s runes. Some of them don’t even live in the kingdoms.” She shook her head, refocusing on them. “Regardless, it needs to stop. Whatever that looks like.”
“No lunarian can stop it, because you’re all inside it,” Isaac said, half thinking out loud and half looking for confirmation. “Earth’s official policy is non-interference, mostly because none of us really understand the differences or why they’re important. And I don’t think the Deep Kingdoms would care, assuming you could get their interest to begin with.” It’d probably take Moonblast to rouse their attention, and she definitely had her own restrictions.
“Yes. We have relatively few options, and that is only those of us who wish for the fighting to end.” Lia pressed her lips together. “There are those on both sides who can think only of destroying the other, consumed by revenge as they are. I don’t represent everyone on the reestablishment side. Merely a few.”
“You’re doing so much to make it sound attractive,” Sarah said, though it was more sarcasm than rejection. “What exactly do we get out of it?”
“A moon no longer at war is better for everyone,” Lia said. “But for you personally, my backers have secured certain artifacts we are willing to part with. And while you are on the moon, I would undertake to educate you in the use of some runes for yourself. I understand there will be only so much time for that, but even a few would be useful for you.”
“Runes aren’t really a human thing,” Sarah said, taking a drag on her cigarette. “Not much of an enticement.”
“I suspect only Isaac would find it useful,” Lia agreed, turning to Sarah. “I don’t know if you would be capable of it, Miss Miller. You did not grow up in a magical dead zone, so you could learn human sorcery, but lunar runes may be too antithetical to whatever magical talent you may possess.”
Isaac pursed his lips, not really that tempted by the actual rewards on offer. It was just a good policy to never work for free, but at the same time, compensation should never be sufficient as a reason. A man that could be bought was just a tool for others, something that was an affront his sensibilities. Besides which, lunarian artifacts and knowledge might well cause more trouble than anything, even if all he did was liquidate whatever she was offering. But the reasoning was something that earned his respect.
One of the things he’d learned, both from people far wiser than him and from his many years as a janitor, was that if someone saw a mess, they should clean it up. The more people that did that, the fewer messes there were, and the better off everyone was. And the lunar civil war sounded like a hell of a mess.
As he chewed it over, he could feel his hindbrain coming to a decision without any real input from his more logical parts. When he had sat on Mechaniacal’s throne and seen himself as the Tyrant, it had given him a perspective on what he might be able to do, and as Isaac he had named himself the Custodian. Partly in jest, but partly because he’d already seen what happened when he tried to change things without accounting for other people.
It was more in keeping with the Custodian than just regular Isaac Hartson that he made the decision. Not that the Custodian was some separate thing, the way that he had put on the persona of Ravdia. Rather, it was a matter of emphasis and intent, recognizing what he needed to do to follow the better angels of his nature.
“If we’re going to do this,” he said slowly. “We’re going to do it the right way.” Sarah lifted her eyebrows at him, and he turned to face her, ticking off items on his fingers.
“We prepare first, supplies and research. We tell your mom where we’re going, and probably Cayleb too, just in case. Star Central can find out later on if necessary; better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. And maybe even your dad as backup.” He didn’t want to name Blacktime in front of Lia, but Isaac would wager the transporter the supervillain used had the range to reach the moon. Or if not, Blacktime knew someone who did.
“You’re sure you want to get involved?” Sarah asked, half-skeptical.
“We,” he said, reaching out to take her hand. “If you’re up for it. Going by myself would be stupid, and between the two of us we can deal with a lot.” Amplifying her illusions had been good enough to fool Blacktime, even if only for a short time, and they’d had more practice since then. She looked at him for a long moment, then slowly nodded.
“We can do it. I’ll take my new camera and recorder. Maybe put out a two-book set. The Deep Kingdoms and the moon.”
“Ah.” Lia looked oddly caught out, her eyes flicking toward her duffle. While Isaac didn’t like to suspect Lia of anything untoward, he still summoned his power to reinforce himself and Sarah against a change in location. The pocketwatch Mechaniacal had made for him – nicknamed demuto by Sarah – clicked along to indicate his influence on reality. He hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, but given the gravity of the situation she just might push the issue. “I was not anticipating that sort of reaction.”
“You figured on a flat yes or no?” Isaac guessed, tilting his head toward the duffel. He didn’t know what was in it, but he had to figure it was, at worst, some form of instant teleportation. A way to present him with the fait accompli of being on the moon if he refused.
“Yes,” Lia admitted.
“Well, it’s kept for at least a century, it can hang on a few more days,” Isaac said. “We can talk about what we’re going to need up there, give us a list of stuff we’ll want to prepare. And if you’re going to be hosting us, maybe stuff you can set up on the other end. Food, housing, transportation, that sort of thing.”
They’d want to be certain they had a clear way back from the moon, and be forced on another wild goose chase halfway across the globe. Not to mention that they’d need food, drink, shelter, and communication, since neither he nor Sarah were adept at wilderness survival. It was on their list to learn, but there hadn’t been time just yet.
He could practically see Lia’s appraisal of him shifting in real time, but he wasn’t too insulted by it. Joining Justice for Hire as Ravdia and the trip to the Deep Kingdoms had both been last-resort, spur-of-the-moment decisions, which wouldn’t exactly paint the best picture of his planning abilities. He was, however, capable of learning.
“The most important thing is the language,” Lia said after the three of them had roughed out some brief high-level expectations. “Lunarian language isn’t the same as human or ikiski tongue. I will have to give you a permanent rune if you are to understand it — all lunarians have such a rune, since there is an element of magic to the act of speaking itself.” She tapped her fingers together, considering. “Perhaps it is for the best you’ll have time to practice.”
“Permanent rune? Mom would kill me if I got a tattoo,” Sarah said, dismissing the offer in a way that didn’t seem quite natural to Isaac. He tapped his fingers against the demuto in his pocket as he thought for a moment, then held up a finger to Lia.
“Give us a second?” He turned to Sarah and used their pre-arranged signal for privacy. Smoke stretched and flowed, screening their conversation from the lunarian.
“What are you thinking?” Sarah asked, curious.
“From what I understand, there’s a natural human magical antipathy about runes,” Isaac said, making a face at the unnatural concatenation of terms. “I think it’s influencing you, because normally you’d be happy to learn new language stuff. If you’d let me, I’d like to shift things around a bit so it won’t bother you as much.”
“Normally I’d be happy…” Sarah trailed off, then shook her head in annoyance. “You’re right, normally I would. Why should I care about runes? Go ahead and do it.”
Mental manipulation was an arena that Isaac didn’t do much with, but for something so simple a few light touches were enough. It helped that it was about a single subject, and not even runes as a whole, just a language rune. For something with that narrow a scope, he didn’t feel much worry about it.
“Right,” Sarah said, dispelling the smoke once Isaac was done, only a few seconds later. “So, a language rune.”
“How large does it have to be? It could go under our bracelets,” Isaac suggested, tapping his fingers against the psionic crystal that bound him to Shay. While it wasn’t embedded in his nervous system like the crystaltech barding the raptors had, he’d have to dislocate something to take it off.
“That might work,” Lia said, mirroring his gesture by reaching for her own. Isaac still didn’t know what Lia had named her raptor, though by what she was saying about runes, the name might be something that didn’t translate.
The process of getting the rune was not actually an issue physically, but it came with the problem that neither he nor Sarah actually had any talent with lunarian magic. Lia formed the rune with a vial of some silvery stuff she pulled from her bag, a twisting, complicated sigil, and put it on the inside of his wrist under where the bracelet normally lay. Powering them required another tool from Lia’s duffel; what looked to be an antique storm lantern, brass and glass enclosing a rock that glowed softly in a multitude of washed-out colors.
“Until and unless you learn to invoke runes of your own accord, which usually takes being on the moon, this will keep the language runes active,” Lia advised them. She used lunarian, which was a bizarre experience, since it was partly simplistic spoken tones and mostly the conceptual conveyance that he’d experienced with the translation spell down in the Deep Kingdoms. “But only the language runes are designed to be powered this way.”
“I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” Sarah said. “Shouldn’t be any crystalline entities to interrupt our visit this time, right?”
“There are no crystalline entities on the moon,” Lia confirmed, and while he didn’t hear it from her voice, he could get the impression of amusement through the runes. Which suddenly reframed her cool demeanor entirely; humans just didn’t operate on the same frequency.
Lia left soon after, once Isaac promised to call her when they were ready. He still had her business card, after all, and she still worked at Justice for Hire. When she was gone, he looked over to Sarah, who was rubbing the silvery rune laid into her skin with a slight frown.
“I’m a little surprised you didn’t argue,” Isaac said. “I mean, it’s probably not the best idea.”
“Well, I saw the look in your eyes, mister,” Sarah said, pointing her cigarette at him accusingly. “Once it was brought up it’d sit on your mind until you did something about it. Besides, I could tell she was a little bit desperate. Didn’t want to end up with you kidnapped to the moon or something.”
“Me either,” Isaac agreed, patting the pocket with the demuto as he undid most of his changes, since he wasn’t sure whether or not they’d inhibit Sarah’s ability to turn to smoke or not. “I think I could head that off, but better not to test it.”
“Yeah.” Sarah stared off into the middle distance for a moment, clearly considering things. “We’re going to have to go shopping for this. And we’ve got dinner with mom tomorrow, so we can tell her then.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Isaac agreed.
“Also,” Sarah said, with an air of confession. “How could I turn down going to the moon? In fact, if I write both books, I’ll be known for something not related to my power. Or related to my family.”
“I didn’t know that bothered you,” he said, picking up the runic charging lamp and inclining his head toward the kitchen. While it wouldn’t be hidden in there, at least the kitchen was out of sight of the doors and windows.
“Well, it’s not that I don’t like being a Miller,” Sarah said, following him into the kitchen and opening the fridge to get out a drink while he found a discreet place for the lantern on a shelf. The moment he tried to hide it behind a toaster the runes turned off, which answered how the lantern worked. It was the light that powered the runes, something he made a note of as he readjusted its place on the shelf. “But it’d be great to not just be a Miller, you know?” Sarah said, eyeing the lunarian artifact askance.
“I think I get it,” Isaac said. Of course he had no family name to be attached to, but if he was just defined by being one of the Lost Generation and nothing else, that would definitely be unpleasant. If anything, he’d prefer to be known by the costumes he made, rather than his power. It was possible he could be both, given the separation between meta and civilian identities, but he knew that his powered identity would have far more influence in the end.
“Alright,” Sarah said, rubbing her hands together. “Let’s grab Shay and Astoria, and go shopping.”
***
Administrator Ichabod watched the last of his luggage being packed up, ready for loading into his travel saucer. The chair itself took care of most of his needs, but he still carried a few things like a toothbrush, hats, sunglasses, some of his favored drinks and snack foods, and several big blocks of raw materials for the chair’s functions. Not just medications, but resources for the functions that kept him clean and spun his clothes around him, since he could hardly exit the chair to address such ablutions. All that was in addition to his genuine luggage, the things he was taking along to keep himself occupied.
“Don’t look so glum,” Vilmonica said, checking items off on a clipboard. “People are generally happy to take a vacation.”
“It has been a while,” Ike replied, as the interns that had been loading up the repulsor trolley filed out. “I just worry about what might happen while I’m gone.”
“With Glorybeam back and Mechaniacal on vacation, I don’t think we’ll have any problems,” Vilmonica said. “And we can always ask for help if it’s really necessary.” Unspoken was the fact that Vilmonica did a lot of the minutiae for Star Central anyway, so Ike being gone wouldn’t impact most things. It was just the high-level decisions and personal relationships, and for a couple weeks Star Central could probably make do.
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Ike warned her regardless. “Don’t tempt fate.”
“Of course, sir,” Vilmonica said, mostly for the sake of humoring him, but professionals did eventually realize the superstitions had merit. There were just too many coincidence within the superpowered community. It was worse for those who actively dealt with fate or gods or magic, as Mocker was still struggling to deal with his patron after the recent incident at Mechaniacal’s space station, but anyone could draw the eye of chance or even actual entities if they were already in the thick of things.
Ike took control of the repulsor trolley, slaving it to his chair as he piloted both out of his personal quarters. While the information super didn’t really need to escort him, she still followed along to the elevator, jabbing the ground floor button with her pen.
“I’m still not certain this is the best idea,” Ike commented, though Vilmonica and Glorybeam were the only ones he would have confided that to. “If something happens, returning from the moon is not a simple process.”
“Once again, sir, that is exactly why you should go. If you’re too close to home, you aren’t going to be able to relax.” Vilmonica gave him an exasperated look, as well she might since they’d had the same argument three or four times. “If nothing else, Moonblast has already arrived. It would be a waste for her to come all this way with the moon gate only for you to not take it.”
“Very well,” Ike said, finally yielding the topic. “I prefer the moon to the Deep Kingdoms, anyway.” Not that the Deep Kingdoms were an option, with the teleporter there still under repair and the city of Borealis being reconstructed. The delays were, he understood, more political than technical in nature, some sort of internecine negotiation being pursued in the far-away and alien kingdoms of the reptilian folk despite – or because of – their interest in Hartson’s abilities.
Ike took a moment to excise that worry from his mind. So far, Isaac Hartson had not made any serious waves nor had he shown any signs of upsetting the status quo. To be fair, even if he did start exercising his power in an injudicious way, he wouldn’t be the only one. There were any number of powered people in the city who required metas to come in and repair or reinforce areas on a regular basis. It accounted for a surprising amount of Star Central’s overhead. But for the moment, it was nice to not have to worry about cleaning up a mess from that particular angle.
The elevator dinged as it reached the ground floor, the doors sliding open to reveal a waiting Moonblast. The lunarian sovereign inclined her head to him, then smiled. She was one of the few lunarians that did so, as most of them didn’t think to imitate human facial expressions. A skilled person could interpret their body language, but to the average civilian they were flat and aloof.
“Ready to go?”
“Just need to get in the travel chair,” Ike confirmed.
“Safe trip, Administrator,” Vilmonica said, giving him a nod before heading off toward the front of the building, her heels clicking crisply on the floor. Ike took a breath and then piloted his chair in the opposite direction, Moonblast accompanying him as far as the containment room where his travel saucer was stored. She gave him a wave before leaving out the back, and he assigned the luggage trolley to follow, just to avoid any accidents.
Ike drove into the containment room, the interlocks hissing as it sealed itself off. The handover between the Star Central suppression matrix and the travel saucer was always a little nerve-wracking, as his not-quite-controlled power tore at the fabric of reality. Tapping the override code into his chair, he tried to ignore the immediate sounds of wailing and moaning in the fabric of reality from rents cutting themselves into being, accompanied by strange lights and the phantasms of otherworldly fish swimming through the air.
The travel saucer locked into place around him, a rising hum signaling its activation, and the manifestations faded away. The additional control panel swung into place above his normal one, and with a couple of taps the saucer lifted off the ground, the outer door opening so he could pilot himself onto the back lot. Moonblast had the standing stones for moon teleportation already set up, and to his surprise she manhandled the luggage trolley over for loading herself.
The process took maybe two minutes, after which he sent the trolley back toward the exit and piloted his chair between the gap left by the standing stones. Overhead, the moon was nearly full in the purpling sky, low on the horizon, which was the best time for transit. Moonblast could manage it nearly any phase, but at full the effort was far more manageable and the destinations more flexible. The runes on her skin flashed in purple and green, and after a moment she nodded to him.
“We’re ready.”
“Very well,” Ike said, and with a shimmer their surroundings changed. In a blink, they were in the soft, pastel-shaded landscape of the moon, with the sun riding high in the sky and the Earth a bare crescent on the horizon. Unlike last time, he wasn’t anywhere near Mechaniacal’s prison — or, for that matter, near any of the current frontiers of the civil war. Instead, he was on Aristarchus Island in the middle of Oceanus Procellarum, the Ocean of Storms.
With the sun almost directly overhead, it was tropically warm, and the unique sweet-herbal scent of maer – the stuff that flowed on the moon instead of water – accompanied the soft lapping of waves against the shore. A palace rose at the center of the island, seashell and stone in spiraled domes with runes wrought of mother-of-pearl in script along the cornices and columns. In accordance with the season, the windows were open and colorful bunting hung from sills both in the palace and the city that surrounded it, all the way out to the white-sand beach where they’d appeared.
“They’ll show you to the villa,” Moonblast said, gesturing past the permanently emplaced standing stones to where a couple of liveried lunarians stood waiting. “I’ve got to get back.”
“Understood, thank you for your time,” Ike said. It might have been a little excessive to lean on Moonblast to transport him to the moon, but travel was so restricted there were few ways to get there — and he was under no illusions that he was just a normal civilian. It was a concession to Moonblast’s people that he was here without a bodyguard to begin with, as Aristarchus Island was very secure.
“Think nothing of it!” Moonblast gave him a wave as he piloted his chair out from the rune-marked stones, and then she powered them up again and was gone. Ike glanced up at the crescent of Earth, then shook his head and recentered himself on the now. He was supposed to be on vacation, not worrying about what was going on back home.
“Administrator Ichabod,” one of the lunarians said with a bow, a rune flashing to translate the lunarian conceptual speech into clear human tongue. “It is an honor to host you.”
“Thank you for having me,” he said, a little impatient to get through the usual niceties. Not because he had anything specific to do – again, he was on vacation – but because he spent too much of his time having to deal with the protocols. If he was supposed to be free of his work, he should also be free of having to deal with pointless formality.
Thankfully, his patience was not tested by any further formalities and the lunarians led him to the villa prepared for his stay. There had to be some nod to security, because even in the heart of royalist territory he was a high-value target. Maybe not to the lunarians so much, but there were supervillains and even other factions that might find it worthwhile to brave a trip to the moon. Mechaniacal was already on the moon, and retired or not that alone meant there had to be precautions.
Then there was his travel chair; the saucer wasn’t that big, but it was still larger than a person and it made fitting into normal construction difficult. From what he understood, some of the Deep Kingdom types were large enough that their normal buildings would accommodate him, but a private villa on the moon was a pretty close second. He knew it when they reached it, since even from the outside he could see that a number of the usual rune-based controls for things such as doors and window tint had been replaced with the earth-equivalent of doorknobs and dials.
Ike entered a series of controls on his chair, and after a few moments it connected with the relatively simplistic network in the villa. Handy Hands’ work, which meant that someone had been thinking about this for a while. Probably Vilmonica. He’d have to thank her when he got back.
Leaving his escorts at the outer door, he piloted his chair into the open courtyard and deployed the saucer’s robot arms to unpack the few things that didn’t need to be stored in the chair’s own cargo hold. He allowed himself a brief moment of frustration that he couldn’t avail himself of a change of clothes, linens, or other such conveniences, given that he required the chair both to stay alive and to not wreak untold havoc on his surroundings. He was long used to it, but had never quite made his peace with his situation and keeping busy prevented him from dwelling.
In deference to his location and the sun riding high in the sky, he slathered his bald head with sunscreen, along with his neck and arms, before taking the canvas and pigments he’d brought and piloting his chair out to the beach. It had been ages since he’d actually had time to do any painting, and the long, glimmering stretch of maer with a fantastically striated storm in the distance, the white sand beach, and the blue crescent of Earth seemed like good enough subjects.
It did bother him, at least a little, that the entire thing was Mechaniacal’s idea. Ichabod was not in the habit of having his life dictated or even known by supervillains, and yet, it was absolutely true he needed some time off. He had not handled the Hartson matter and its fallout well at all — if he’d been sharper, he wouldn’t have ended up driving the boy into the arms of two supervillains in succession. While nothing too terrible had resulted from Hartson’s collaboration with either Blacktime or Mechaniacal, that only meant the third time would be cataclysmic.
He'd been in the business long enough to know that.
Ike scowled and tried to put it out of his head, instead setting up his canvas to be held by one of the robotic arms and cracking open his case of electrostatic pigment powder. Another few button entries loaded an audiobook on microvinyl, a mystery series that he hadn’t caught up with in years. The speakers crackled before a rich baritone began speaking as the book began.
“Marshall Audio Group and Lowell Press bring you this production of The Case of The Miniature City by Sir Arthur Christie, a Dirk Noire, Private Eye Mystery.”
Ichabod lifted the electrostatic wand as the pigments separated themselves into hovering columns, beginning to mix colors to try and capture the precise shade of not-white of the Ocean of Storms. He did his best not to think about work, listening to the narrator instead and focusing on the wand controls as it captured bits of fine powder and churned them together. He was on the moon, far from Star Central, far from his job, and certainly far from Hartson.