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"In the universe, every race tries to seize powers that were never meant for them."
"And in the end, they always pay the price."
Natsuki turned his head. Jared was sitting on the ground of the ruined cabin, drinking. Natsuki looked at him for a moment, thinking of all the civilizations he'd seen across his travels, before speaking in a low voice.
"Sounds like you've been to a lot of places."
"How'd you manage that? Spaceship?" Jared looked at him, genuine curiosity lighting up his eyes.
This was his first time seeing an actual alien in the flesh. Even at forty-something, he couldn't help himself. The sci-fi novelty of it was just too much.
This guy had literally fallen out of the sky. So where was the ship?
"Spaceship?"
"That thing wouldn't even keep up with me," Natsuki said.
"What?"
"If you don't have a ship, how did you fly here from space?" Jared frowned. Something wasn't adding up.
"Just flew."
"That's a vacuum out there. Temperatures away from the sun drop below minus two hundred Celsius. The pressure is at an absolute extreme. You're telling me you survived all that with no equipment, nothing?" Jared stared at him, this guy who looked completely, infuriatingly human, and his face said it all.
How?
This is insane.
"Suit yourself if you don't believe me."
"But what about you? What's your real story?"
"Former Monarch?" Natsuki studied him with open curiosity.
He'd been to enough Earths across enough universes to have a decent read on things. A regular drifter didn't carry around that kind of knowledge. His best guess was that this guy had history with Monarch and that somewhere along the way, things had gone sideways.
"You're giving me way too much credit."
"I'm exactly what I look like. A drunk who lives in the slums."
"And some bastard just demolished my home, so now I'm a full-time hobo." Jared took a long pull from his bottle, swept his eyes over what remained of the cabin, and finally landed on Natsuki with a look that carried just a hint of accusation.
This alien fell out of the sky and flattened his beloved little nest.
And here he'd been, ready to drag the guy to the clinic. Now that he was up and walking around, not a single word about compensation. Alien manners, apparently.
"Uh..."
"Don't worry. Members of the Space Garrison go through rigorous training. We hold ourselves to high standards."
Natsuki caught the look and immediately understood. He'd done it again. He opened his mouth, trying to recover some ground.
"You're the first person I've met in this world. In Earth terms, that's fate. I'll get you a proper house to replace this one, I promise."
He reached into his bracelet and produced his wallet.
Stepping over to Jared, he pulled out a thick stack of bills.
"You're an alien. Why do you have money?" Jared stared at the stuffed wallet, baffled in a whole new direction.
"Don't worry about it, just take it."
"And I'll buy you something good to eat later." Natsuki pressed the bills into his hand with genuine enthusiasm.
Money was just stuff. He'd never been particularly attached to it.
"What?"
"You're serious right now?" Jared took the bills, one eyebrow climbing.
"Why would I lie? I'm a member of the Space Garrison. We don't lie."
"Then explain this to me. It's 2019. Why are you handing me a stack of bills issued in 2020?" Jared stared at the design year printed right there on the face of the notes, his eyes going wide.
What?
Did you print these yourself on the way down?
Natsuki: "..."
Right. Forgot about that.
This was money from the Pacific Rim world. Marshal Stacker had given it to him.
Over there, it was already 2025. The Kaiju disaster had halted all new print runs, so they'd been running on the 2020-issue bills ever since. Perfectly valid currency in that world. In any other world, just paper.
"Hold on."
"I've got something else." Natsuki took the bills back and dug out a second wallet.
He produced a handful of yen.
"This'll definitely work."
The EVA world's Earth was only at 2015. No way this one had issues.
'Find a bank after this and we're fine.' He gave Jared a confident, reassuring look.
Jared took the bills.
He looked at the face printed on them.
His eye twitched.
"The Japanese Prime Minister on this yen... why does he look a little different from the one I remember?"
Natsuki: "..."
HISS!
This one too?
Damn. Acted without thinking. Again.
He really wanted to explain that he had absolutely no intention of making the Space Garrison look bad. But things had unfolded the way they'd unfolded. What was there to say?
Whatever. It wasn't like this was the first time.
"Let me write you an IOU."
"I'll pay you back once I get my hands on some local currency." Natsuki said it with complete sincerity.
For an Ultraman veteran, getting money was trivial. He just never bothered to think about it in advance. He'd be in this world for a while anyway. He'd settle the debt.
Jared: "Fine."
"I don't know how much an IOU from an alien is worth, but we need to move."
He glanced toward the edge of the slum. People had heard the commotion and were starting to drift over.
And in a far corner, he caught a glimpse of something that didn't belong: a face too clean, too composed to have any business being in a place like this.
Time to go.
"Where?"
"The bar."
"Good whiskey and fries."
...
They left the slum and pushed into a tavern that looked like it had been assembled from the ruins of three different disasters.
A radio in the corner played music that crackled and skipped, the audio barely holding together.
Jared steered Natsuki through a crowd of loud, filthy, thoroughly unbothered drunks and pulled up at the bar.
"Two whiskeys." He addressed the middle-aged owner behind the counter, the man's beer belly resting against the bar like it had always lived there.
"Whiskey?"
"No fake stuff today?" The owner set down the glass he'd been polishing and gave him a greasy smile.
Jared was a known face around here. No job, no scavenging, just card games. The man had a gift for it — cheating or not, nobody could say for sure, but he always walked away up. Still, he drank the cheap stuff, and nobody had any idea where the rest of the money went.
This stretch of San Francisco had been ground zero for two Titans. The buildings were mostly rubble, the streets mostly wreckage. Nobody came here by choice. Nobody with options, anyway.
The place had been soaked in radiation for years after the battle. Only recently, the last couple of years, had it faded away on its own, and the people who had nowhere else to go had started filtering in.
"Today, maybe someone else is picking up the tab." Jared's gaze drifted casually to a corner of the tavern, clocking two sets of eyes that didn't belong, and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
He took the whiskeys from the owner and slid one across to Natsuki, dropping his voice.
"The trouble you stirred up — you're going to have to earn your keep when it kicks off."
➤ Next: The Thing Hidden Underground
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