My Bad Boy Werewolf Quadrillionaire Space Lord

Epilogue 4: There Are Many Tokyos in FLOWER

There were dive bars aplenty on Luna's Sea of Tranquility, beneath the domed cities of the Moon. Grungy and dilapidated buildings made with criminally expensive wood imported from Earth, and painstakingly crafted by criminally well-paid artisans to look the part of seedy taverns and near-bankrupt pubs.

Amidst this tranquil sea of phoney authenticity, lay the Neatly Wettish Liquor Pub and Brewery. It was a concrete and rock square set in the middle of a forest of mutilated trees, a square of authenticity sticking out in a line of shallow imitation — like a single construction worker in a line of hipsters waiting for worker benefits. And unlike every building around it, the Neatly Wettish Liquor had thick observation windows and airtight walls. It was built to seal itself, in case the dome above cracked.

Because unlike every other pub and bar around, its owner felt it was cheaper to build to-code, rather than bribe the local building inspectors.

The thought brought the ghost of a smile to Martin's lips as he walked across the street towards it. It was hard to imagine his former boss, the current owner and bartender, paying for a bribe in anything other than bullets. Or grenades. Rockets. The pointy end of a knife. Honestly, the more Martin thought about it, the more he was convinced Lanval Adams might rig fusion rockets onto an asteroid and steer it onto someone's home rather than paying a bribe. Even if the man was now exorbitantly wealthy.

The bar's heavy steel doors parted with a happy whir and an enthusiastic waft of wind, as if the building itself was eager to admit him inside. Which was normal for a place hoping to take your money. Martin stepped through and stopped in front of another set of steel doors, which waited for the ones behind him to shut before he stepped through.

The bar itself was poorly lit, in the way Marin swore was the only legal lighting for a bar. So dim you could barely see to the back wall, and the few patrons sitting at the tables were only silhouettes. The only well-lit part was the bar itself, where a tall man with greying hair and a fedora was polishing a glass.

The sight might have been remarkably innocuous, but the shelf behind him ruined the effect. Where there was normally a few shelves lined with eccentric varieties of expensive forms of alcohol, Lanval Adams had a gun rack.

An extensive gun rack. The wall was fully consumed by an intimidating assortment of armaments, arrayed assiduously in a such a way that every single gun was in easy reach for the bartender.

"Martin," Lanval said, and pointed to the stool just across the bar from where he worked.

Lanval Adams was the king of subtext. He was astonishingly eloquent when it came to the things he would say without actually saying them. For instance, his greeting alone managed to say 'sit down and shut up, I have something important to tell you'. His hand gesture managed to imply that he also expected Martin to be quick about sitting, and that turning around and leaving the bar might get him shot.

Martin sat down at folded his hands on the bar. "I honestly didn't think I'd see you again, boss. Figured the whole crew going their separate ways after we were bought out was the end to it."

"You can't imagine that you, I, or anyone on our crew are actually done with Luca Cardego, can you?" Lanval asked.

Luca Cardego. There were a lot of stories involving that name. Most of them were about pool parties in microgravity, abs so popular women willingly did laundry on them, terraforming a world, admitting cultural refugees like steampunk enthusiasts on a private floating island, and merfolk on a moon made of water.