2060, Heisenburg Estates, The Moon

Roland woke up in a cold sweat. He had, apparently, felt that the fetal position, fully clothed, and on top of his sheets was the most comfortable position last night. Through the lead cotton haze which surrounded his brain the events of the night previous tumbled through like ice into tumblers of gin. He smiled at his own simile, as he'd had enough fingers of the cheap oily stuff at the local pub for his own two hands and a few spare.

Him and his mates, they'd gone round to the pub for a quick drink when someone had started trouble. There were more and more of them these days, gorillas in black uniforms who thought that the crown on their shoulder gave them the sky above their heads and, more importantly, the right to spit a beer in the face of Buttons the Publican, who had personally rubbed Roland's back as he told profane secrets while lying tortured under the table and influence of wine. Buttons was a good man. He swore like a sailor and had called Roland and his upper-class friends a bunch of fairies more times than they cared to remember but, hey, that was Buttons. He was a nasty old man with one eye who drank on the job, but he was THEIR nasty old man with one eye who drank too much. And unfortunately for the offending patron and the gang of black garbed goons who had come with him, Roland was the son of Sir Kojo Pierce.

In a fight, more often than not, being drunk is a disadvantage compared to being, let’s say, sober. Very little indeed is on your side when you've got no choice but to swagger, lest you fall over. But, when you know this, you can play it off. And, when Sgt. Wood extended his hand briefly to shake Roland took it with the right and broke the half-full bottle of gin over the side of his head with the left. Young Mr. Pierce's friends, who were all fairly thick but good for a laugh, charged into the fray with chairs and laughter while Roland led the boys into glorious battle, gifted amateurs giving it to the professionals.

And the next morning, when Lady Von Heisenburg heard the news, she looked to her husband, the Knight Captain Kojo Pierce, and told him that they had a problem.

Things were not well, around the small but rich city that had cropped up around the cooling towers of the nuclear facility. Jarvis' bandits had taken a liking to the area, and the roar of their motorcycles could be heard in the distance even as they spoke. The Crown was demanding more and more tribute by the month in exchange for precious, precious uranium. People were hungry. Corporate Security was cracking down on the bulletsmiths that had cropped up around the sulfur quarry that had recently started digging just south of town. And now the horse doctor had three low-ranking security officers and two children of petty nobility because the firstborn son in the most influential noble family in the entire quarter of The Moon couldn't cool his heels.

It was time for young Roland Pierce to leave home.

2040, Somewhere Along The Red Road, The Moon

Twitch sat hunched in the bushes, feeling the tendrils of a cramp rolling along his left calf. Down the hill, he could see the carriage dragging along the road towards the ambush that his boss had so carefully planned. They were down there, ready to send a great big rock hurdling down to stop them, while he had to sit all the way up here looking down Jessica's scope and hoping nobody spotted him. And still the oxen pulled the wagon, and still he sat like a stone.

Down near the road, Beano was breathing too hard. His eyes were wide. Jarvis, the so-called bandit king, was not happy with this development. Beano was nervous. Nervous, and armed. Beano was also new, he hadn't been around as long as Lenny or Scar, not back when they used to pull 10 dollar cons selling empty boxes of treasure and maps to tourists from the castle. No, he was here to shoot shit an' make money, lacking the finesse that Jarvis had come to expect from his boys. He tied on his favorite mask on, a black silk triangle with the mouth of a demon all curly teeth and brimstone, and he leaned down next to his horses ear.

"Baby, we gotta get a new crew."

As if this were the signal, Lenny's boys up the hill let the boulder go, about a decade too early. It crashed into the road and stopped like it should, but the god damned wagon was still yards and yards up the road. So much for the old boys. Well, it’s hard to find a clever man willing to get shot at for any amount of money. Jarvis bellowed, and out his boys came, 9 on horses and 1 in the hills, popping rounds in the air. Today was the payday, he hoped. Today was the day he betrayed his lads and his horse.

And there was the fella riding shotgun, the wood beside him exploding with a round just to his left. Ain't much worth to a marksman who misses all the damn time. The horses all around were kicking and neighing, and Beano was doing his best to waste bullets before he was nearly close enough to hit anything. The pinging of rocks echoed around the sun drenched desert basin as honest men fired out of the slits of the armored wagon, dropping Beano and his stupid hat. Lenny rode down into the road on a thunderous black horse, hammers akimbo, screaming like that would make him shoot straighter, like that would make the bullets swing around him. Jarvis shrugged, shooting his own long-barreled pistol into the kneecap of the shotgun toting gentleman who had been aiming to put a fistful of buckshot into anything moving.

And his boys rode around and around the wagon in a great wide circle, just like Jarvis had told them to, getting peppered with bullets and falling one by one, all the while pinging shots against the armored sides of the caravan and generally wasting perfectly good bullets. The marksman had done his job, the driver had collapsed into a leaking slump, the man riding shotgun was 200 meters back holding his knee and bawling like a child, and Jarvis waved to him. Twitch grabbed his bag of gold and started the long walk back to town.

And in the chaos and confusion, Jarvis kicked in the door, firing madly at the three men expecting their driver to be preventing just this sort of thing. The firing of his pistols, a distant popping outside, echoed in the hot metal chamber of the wagon, deafening him. While his boys rode around like wild idiots (there most only be four left), Jarvis holstered his hot iron. He placed his hand on the cool metal of his quarry. He touched its engines, and its handlebars. Gazed at himself, in his double-breasted white shirt coated with dust. Hanging off the speedometer was a pair of dark goggles, which he placed over his eyes, and the round helmet fit nicely. He smiled at himself. The demon mask seemed to accept the look of a motorcyclist without any dilemma.

He filled it with gas, and left the can upended, sloshing petrol around the room. He kicked open the rear door, threw the machine into gear, and flew out the back on his shiny new motorcycle, the wagon behind him engulfed in flames, his men immolating themselves trying to get at the promised gold that hadn't ever been there. On the road back to town, he spent his last bullet leaving Twitch penniless and oozing in the dusty sunset, while earthrise cast long leaden shadows on the prairie. For the first time in a long time, Jarvis the Bandit King laughed like a free man.

2030, Castle Copernicus, The Moon (2)

Roland dragged the straight razor up and down his throat in a vain attempt to be rid of the tenacious remnant hairs which clung, just out of sight, under his jaw. It was maddening. He could feel them when he ran his hand under it, but no matter how he moved his chin they were perpetually out of view. And with the blade gliding up and down his neck, Private Roland of the Castle Copurnicus Security Forces learned a valuable lesson about spending time when you are on watch. For, when the train engineer who Edward had sent to find the watch booted open the door and started screaming, Private Roland very nearly slit his own throat. And, had he died gasping on the floor, the trajectory of our story would be very different indeed. Breathing through clenched teeth, he listened to the disorganized ramblings of a terrified civilian desperate for help. Clutching his throat, he grabbed his coat and rifle.

“He told me to get someone from security I’m really sorry about your throat but this is the closest watch office and I didn’t know if this is where I’m supposed to go the depot is right this way do you think you’ll be able to catch it or what are you going to do if it gets out should I go get anyone else to help?”

Roland rolled his eyes, dividing the crowds of merchants which loitered around the southern train station hoping to prey on country folk on their first visit to the big city. The slate grey uniform did more to scatter them than his broad chest or the magazine he was double checking en route. While the clumsy engineer struggled to unbolt the second story gateway. Ignoring the deadbolt behind him, he looked down from his perch at the train below, at the old moon dust stone, and at Edward with his back to the wall listening to some idiot civvies on the other side of the door.

It was not long before Edward began to feel foolish. He had done everything he ought to, everyone got out safely, the castle was safe, and the only thing he had gotten wrong was that he was on the wrong side of the door. It’s always the small details that get you in the end. Funny how things like that sneak up on you. The quarantine doors on both ends of the track slammed shut, preventing either party from escaping.

The train depot had been a recent addition to the castle, relatively speaking, but it had that kind of fake old-architecture so that it didn’t stick out too much. They had used the same moon dust concrete that the rest of the castle walls had been built out of, rising above him to form a kind of elongated dome. The soft yellow bulbs and brightly colored maps and advertisements did little to ease the stress brought on by his ears aching to hear some hint of the Ghoul’s location. Pressing his back against a smiling buxom woman endorsing The Broken Drum café and bar, Edward edged along the scraping stone toward the nearest door, his eyes darting up and along the domed roof before falling on a soldier with the pale grey uniform of internal security. He waved, terrified to make any more noise than necessary.

Roland waved his hands in a circle. From his vantage point, nothing was moving. He peered through his rifle, waiting for the sound of skittering ghoul to fill the amphitheatre. Hoping that it would take the bait of Edward as he skulked around the corner, a sharpshooter asked to assault. Praying that Edward would have the god given sense to fall back to where he could shoot, and put a bullet right through the frail thing without killing someone’s son. His finger tensed on the trigger as he lost sight of the shooter, and he waited.

When the rifle went off, he gasped with surprise. There was the sound of a scuffle, growling, fighting, somewhere unseen, a bullet hole plinking into the dusty wall. Edward emerged, scrambling, ignoring his training and firing from the hip. The Ghoul, wounded, clambered over the train, holding its arm. Roland hesitated, watching the display from above, as the Ghoul gnashed its teeth and leapt to the relative safety of Roland’s Balcony. Instinct raised his rifle, and he fired, before feeling teeth sink into his left forearm and collapsing to the dim sound of gunfire somewhere in the distance.

2030, Castle Copernicus, The Moon

Edward watched another train snake into the city gates through the notches on the top of his bolt-action rifle. He was perched lazily on the southern wall of the castle and capital like a gargoyle, watching between the ramparts for ghouls trying to get into the city. The slate grey monsters weren’t smart, which was a blessing, but they also ate iron and could latch onto the train trying to feed in order to reproduce. A pregnant ghoul dropped in the middle of the train depot would cause a panic, infection, and quarantine. There was no real way to shake ‘em off except to employ a sharpshooter. Edward had one job, and it was to put down anything with grey skin clinging to the side of that train, which seemed to crawl painfully out of the southern woods, through the fields, over the moat, and into the castle’s back door.

Edward sat up, his spine creaking like wood, and blinked in the warm sunlight of the afternoon. He knew he was lucky to have this job – army work was one of the few ways for him to pull himself and his family out of the gutter. If he did well here he’d be promoted, and a chest full of medals could maybe catch the eye of a young aristocrat with an eye for a war hero. And unlike the brutish men of his profession he’d be charming and kind, with integrity and a romantic eye. And finally when he worked up the courage to ask her for her hand in marriage she would weep with happiness to marry for love, and he’d earn the trust of her father and the favor of her mother and never have to come home to an overcrowded hovel near those smelly docks again.

Edward blinked.

Something moving caught his eye.

Something grey, climbing along chipping red paint of the train.

Some things, actually.

He grunted as he jammed the butt of his rifle into his shoulder, and fired wildly. The shot pinged off the side of the train, and his training took over. He lined up the sights, and fired. The first of the slathering grey monsters fell onto the field, writhed in the pain of the sunlight, and scrambled back to the comfort of the wooded shade. The rifle cracked again, the train shedding ghouls like fleas but growing closer and closer to the tunnel right below. Sweat pooled on Edward’s brow, one of the monsters fell off of the bridge screaming into the water, and was taken by the flow. He pulled the trigger, trained on the last of the monstrosities and heard the unfortunate click of an empty box magazine. It clicked again, and then three times in succession before the monster slipped into the darkness beneath him.

Edward had let one slip through. He had to get down there. He grabbed a handful of bullets and slung his rifle over his shoulder before hurling himself over the wall behind him, shimmying down the emergency rope left just for this occasion. Landing in an open courtyard, he shouldered his way through the crowd brutally despite cries of protest. He spilled into the downstairs tunnel towards the train depot, scattering a gaggle of schoolchildren on some sort of field trip. He leapt over the last batch of stone steps, landed awkwardly, and stumbled down the hallway toward the sound of screeching brakes and the hiss of steam. He screamed at the train guard who tried to stop him, and pulled his rifle back to his shoulder. As soon as he was in the depot he screamed quarantine and everybody fled, dropping boxes along the way. Doors slammed shut, and bolted. Silence filled the long depot, with half unloaded freight trains, and the clatter of bullets being re-inserted into the magazine. Silence. Edward was alone with the monster.

2035, Heising Estates, The Moon

A heavy adding machine smashed into the ground at the feat of Watch Captain Kojo Pierce as he walked up the bright grassy path to the von
Heising Estate. Looking up he saw a cleanly broken window directly above him, the glass as neatly gone as if the window had never been there. Kojo found the silence eery. The grounds had suffered the brunt of the attack - the machine looked dirtied but not even dented. The captain, his blue greatcoat almost comical looking in the spring sunshine, rubbed his hands together and cradled the machine, so big he could barely see over it, and thanked the hours he spent building strength in his younger days. Trudging to the door, he briefly considered decorum before tapping the door with the toe of his left boot. He struggled to enjoy the nice weather, the presence of birds in the stately maples that lined the various paths within the estate walls, and the modestly gothic archetecture which hid the fact that construction on the mostly-empty home had just finished. It may as well have been here for ages. Counting leaves of ivy crawling up the doorframe rather than fingers going numb, the time managed to pass until the door opened.

Marcus Chevalier piqued an eyebrow at the sight of a six foot tall adding machine on the doorstep of his lady's estates. Not wishing to offend the man behind, he approached cautiously. "...may I help you?"

"Damn it Marc, it's me. Let me in before I drop this thing!"

Briskly stepping aside, he gestured to a stout table with a mirror in the entryway. "Of course, Captain Pierce. Right this way."

His face dark with the exertion, Pierce very nearly dropped the heavy machine and turned to the Valet. Marcus Cavalier was a tall man with pointed features and a pale complexion. His white hair was immaculately groomed in a manner which suggested that, perhaps, he was in need of more trying duties. He took the Greatcoat from the Captain, keeping it at arms length from his own black suit, and hung it in the adjoining closet - a facility prepared to host great parties and currently quite empty.

"I am confident Madame von Heising should appreciate the effort, Captain, but I assure you the formal dress is unnessesary. This is, after all, a simple luncheon meeting - not a military tribunal."

Chest shining with brass and silver, Kojo smiled in his sharp but admittedly fading military dress. "Trust me, Marcus. I'd much prefer to be on the wrong end of a lawyer than Miss Heising. How is your fencing arm?" Kojo took off his leather holster and offered offered his pistol to Chevalier, who immediatly waved it away.

"I should think Madame has sufficient trust in your moderated temper. After all, if I cannot trust the Captain of the Watch in Madam's estate I think we shall have no luck at all so far away from Ivansburg. Please, follow me." The Valet set off at a healthy clip up a carpeted flight of stairs. He thought, briefly, to stop the Captain from carrying the Adding machine but decided against it.

Moments later, Marcus Chevalier opened the doorway to Madame Emma von Heising's study. "Watch Captain Kojo Pierce, with Adding Machine." From behind her desk, the noblewoman looked darkly at her sarcastic Valet over her reading glasses and gestured lightly to send him off.

"Bit of a draft in here, or is it me?" It was hard to tell if the Captain was smiling over the adding machine as he set it down heavily on top of a priceless Turkish office desk from the early twentieth century. "If this is a bad time, I can come back later. Not often I have an excuse to bring out the old dress uniform."

Lady Emma von Heising, in a flowing white dress, turned her furious gaze at the dark skinned watch captain. "I called you here to discuss the nature of the Town Watch's future, but if you'd prefer to joke..."

Kojo bit his tongue. An informal luncheon indeed.

"We just recieved the last shipment of lead plating for the reactor interior. In a month, last brick for the cooling tower will be complete. We have the appropriate storage facilities for waste, and ours will be the first viable source of energy for this entire quadrant of the moon that doesn't come from a watermill within the month." her fingers made a steeple over the vast bog of paperwork. "It has been a very busy day."

"Well, um, congratulations Madame. I'm sure the power plant will be a great success." The Captain sat, unable to find comfort in the lush chair which held him.

"A great success indeed. If everything stays on schedule the Heising Electric Power Company is going to be printing money, not only for my estate but for Shaniko as well." She leaned back. "I have just agreed to power the town for free in exchange for the right to base all levels of operation away from the plant. As soon as people catch wind, they're going to flock to the city. In droves. And I don't think your town mayor appreciates that fact, and I don't think he's prepared for it. I'm also fairly certain he sees me as a giddy socialite."

Dismissing the look of concern on Captain Pierce's face, she continued. "I'm digressing. The fact is, none of this can happen if the power lines aren't safe. There are bandits out there, Pierce. There are dozens of people who want to cut into what will be my power plants territory, though sabotage or whatever else they can think up. There are honest people who want free power for their little settlement, and I can't have any of those.'

"Let me stop you right there. Lady von Heising, I'm sure you appreciate how hard my boys work to keep the town safe, but there's no way at all they can keep your lines safe. And if the town is going to have as many people coming as you say, I'm going to need every last one of them." Captain Pierce started to stand up.

"You don't understand, Captain. I don't need the town watch. I need an order of knights. Based in the town, patrolling the territory, and I will be their patron so they'll take extra care of my power lines. But I need a military man to start one. Someone like you."

Captain Pierce sat back down and leaned in. He almost whispered across the desk, "I don't think you understand what has to happen for someone to start an Order of Knights. First of all, you have to be a Knight-"

"-and to become a knight you have to be a noble. And for you to become a noble you'd have to marry one. Which is why we are going to be married next week."

1901, London, Louis' Flat, Earth

1901, London, Earth

Jonathan Crown, 19 years old, sat naked on the corner of the bed embraced by the hazy arms of opium smoke. His clothes were scattered around a room that was not his as he stared out the window, across the horizon, at the first rays of sunlight creeping through the city. He swayed, drunk on wine and food and success, smiling distractedly. Louise shifted behind him, waking after a night of hard work.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” John said, “I’m leaving to become rich.”

“Me too, honey.” She rolled like her Irish accent, but Mr. Crown wasn’t looking at her any more.

“My father is dead,” he smiled, “and war is coming. It’s terrible, and I am going to use it to become the richest man in England. In the world. I have scientists and a gold mine that’s full of steel and I’m going to arm the world with cannons that shoot straighter than any other.” He tried to gesture, to emphasize his soul at hazard, but only managed to move the air.

The room was silent. Damning him. Already the Syphilis had come into his body, was fighting through his veins, digging its way to chip away at a brain already sore with tragedy and newfound wealth. Trenches dug by errant youth, the spikes in his veins, the poisonous breath of sweet sweet poppy and late nights prowling the streets were now flooded with gold.

“I’m going to India. To arm the world. Do you know anything about history?”

She felt his eyes upon him, and roused herself. She shrugged in response.

“The Ottomans almost took the world with cannons and numbers. Everybody pretends it never happened, but they almost did it. And you know why they couldn’t?”

With eyes longing for sleep, Louise shook her head.

“They were tied down. To a nation. Louise, I’m going to take the world. With guns so beautiful people will be begging to use them against each other. I…” He stopped, putting his fist to his chest and closing his eyes as his dinner shifted uncomfortably. “I am going to rule the world.”

Louise leveled at him, the lines of a hard life etched across her face, uncomfortable with a drunken customer unwilling to leave, forcing her to tell him everything was going to be okay. And when she asked him simply, “Why?” it seemed to cut him across the chest.

“I don’t suppose I know. But I can tell you this much. People are rotten to the core, and if you’re smart you won’t bring a boy into this world. Even if you bring him up right, someone’s going to put a gun into his hand and make a killer out of him, and he’ll thank them for the privilege. It’s a wicked, wicked world and I think I should very much enjoy being the wickedest man on the face of it.”

And they sat there, as she eased behind him and held him in an adequate embrace. He leaned backward; fell into her, his eyes never leaving the coming dawn. He spoke rhetorically for another half an hour, asking her questions with no answer, which she dutifully provided. She waited for him to leave, so she could return the statue of Mary she felt compelled to hide on working nights. As he roused himself, awkwardly replacing his many-layered attire, he smiled again and looked around the room.

“Do you want a country? Name one. I’ll give it to you. Do with it whatever you please.”

She sighed at his cruel game. “Fine,” she said, her eyes not smiling, “I want you to give me the moon.”

Jonathan Crown laughed at the joke, watching as the return of blue skies cast Louise’s property into obscurity. As he walked out the door of her den, he would leave behind the last pleasant evening of his life. He would think back fondly to this evening, as he built his empire and armed the nations of the world to better kill each other. He would write letters to her, pages of apology and meaningless drivel, which he would give to his valet to mail. He would dutifully place them in the fire. As his brain eroded under the weight of decision and disease, Jonathan Crown became two men, fierce in his public life and mad in his private, every night going to bed with dreams of Louise and her Moon. He would grow old and finally die, leaving behind a will and testament dedicating the direction of his entire corporate empire to the wishes of an unknown London prostitute with an Irish accent.

1944, Crown Corporation Board Room, Earth

A sudden silence filled the boardroom. Harsh white light filled the screen behind Dr. Scott as the final slide peeled away. It reflected off of his glasses and the tips of pens cropping off his double breasted white coat. Brass colored light danced around the room like a utilitarian dance party. The doctor was petrified. Having spoken for over three hours the vacuum caused by the end of his presentation was as harsh as the light behind him. Someone coughed. Papers rustled. Life returned to the room from behind the veil and, mercifully, Dr. Scott's graduate student, Harvey, turned off the projector. Smoke drifted around the tastefully Spartan room, marginally larger than the old table around which sat 8 serious men - not fellow scientists but business men, money men - who would determine how Dr. Scott and his graduate student Mr. Harvey Ivanovich would spend the next 50 years of their lives.

"So your plan, Mr. Scott", the doctor suddenly heard the sound of grinding teeth and realized it was his, "is to build the compound here, locally, divided into eight parts."

Three hours of facts and designs compressed into a sentence. Dr. Scott nodded, pleased they had understood that much.

"Then launch them all at the moon, upside down, with no consideration for entry, and simply hope that the damage is not enough to kill the 5,000 people on board."

Adjusting his tie and clearing his throat, Dr. Scott prepared to say something horrible.

"If my calculations are correct, gentlemen, we can expect casualties of 100 civilians, plus or minus 20%, which will leave more than enough men and women in the hub to find the remaining 8 parts and build a complete facility. After that, it's simply a matter of time before the atmosphere will be suitable to sustain life."

8 men, wearing modest suits, stared at him as he said this. It was absolutely devastating. Harvey's enthusiastic but ill-timed thumbs up almost made him burst out laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Another cough, more papers shuffling, some adjustment of ties. "And this will cost us fifty billion dollars?"

Raising his finger to point out that appendix F detailed the specific requirements for each element of the project; he was interrupted by a younger man, sitting farther away from the end of the table. "Before we start talking about cost: 120 lives? Green's program doesn't kill anyone."

"It also costs almost 300 billion, and won't be finished for as many years." A sneering executive with blond sideburns retorted, taking a drag off his cigar.

"To be fair," this was someone in the back, "That's only a billion a year. Easy to finance." Wave of laughter. The doctor swallowed. He was losing them to their own buddy-buddy camaraderie.

"Gentlemen, if you will consider the speed at which my program will be--"

A loud, resonating baritone came from the far end of the old myrtle-wood table, from the oldest gentleman in the room. It interrupted the doctor as effectively as a dagger.

"What will the cause of these deaths be, exactly?"

"Well, assuming everyone is prepped for the low gravity pressure change upon impact, mostly head trauma. I'd say the vast majority."

"Your budget details forty-nine billion, eight hundred and ninety five million, three hundred and four thousand, and ninety dollars. What do you say we just round up to a clean 50 billion, buy everyone a crash helmet, pay Dr. Green to come on as a consultant, and give the nice doctor here a raise? We'll let the boys from accounting thank us later."

"Well," Dr. Scott said, voice all a-quiver, "That will certainly make the tax season easier for you. Both of us, really."

A wave of chuckles, having made a business joke for business men in a business meeting, washed over the Doctor and, to a lesser extent, Harvey. As the tide went out it took with it anxiety from months of planning.

"Then it's settled!" he said, the first real faux paus he'd made all afternoon.

"Not quite. One question." Blond had raised his hand, looking vaguely interested at the dictionary-thick report. "If the eight pieces connect in the way you lay out here, the completed facility is going to look exactly like a castle."

Silence.

"Was that intentional?"

With a determined force of will, Dr Scott began to stammer. Before he could really explain himself, Harvey leaped in.

"Gentlemen, please." The cocksure voice of a man who knows he's done the lion’s share of the real research. "You're going to tell me you don't want to own a castle on the moon?"