Jorge Joestar

Chapter 10: The H.G. Wells

Capt. Funnier Valentine spoke into his headset.

“Houston, we have a problem.”

Just like in the movies! In no time, Narancia and I werecaught, our arms fastened tightly to a bed. Narancia was so confused he didn’tthink to use his Stand. We’d appeared out of nowhere a moment after theydiscovered the moon, and while the rest of the crew were still reeling, one mancalmly began to question us.

“My name is Enrico Pucci. May I ask your names?”

Narancia didn’t appear to speak English, so I answered,telling him my name and address. This made Pucci’s eyes widen momentarily.

“? What?”

“…nothing,”

he said. Clearly there was something. Hey! I am yourinstrument. Someone needs you. I’ll take you to him. That’s what Tsukumojukuhad said. Who was it who needed me? What did he mean, he was my instrument? Heseemed as if he knew everything, understood everything, but threw me off thedeep end without even attempting to explain. Without even explaining how hecame to be still alive. …was it even possible that he wasn’t dead? I couldn’tbelieve that he’d been faking his death. I’d seen a photograph of Tsukumojuku,his head hanging back, cut through the neck until it was barely attached to hisbody. Was there any chance that photo had been a mistake, a trap, or a fake? Icouldn’t tell from here. I stared at the pebble phone on the floor. None of theastronauts had realized it was a phone. I wondered if it would still get asignal. Stand powers could ignore the laws of physics. It would probably workjust fine. If it would connect to Morioh, then I could ask someone to look intothings for me.

“…and your companion’s name?”

Pucci asked, bringing me

back to the present. All I knew about Narancia was his nameand he seemed disinclined to speak. So I said,

“He’s a wise guy.”

‘Mafia’ was Italian, and it seemed likely Narancia wouldknow the word ‘gangster’ as well, so I did my best to allude to the truth inEnglish. Pucci glanced down at the knife he’d taken off Narancia. There was acrest emblazoned on it. The mark of the Passione Family. Pucci asked nothingfurther about Narancia’s identity, moving on to other questions, but I didn’tknow how we’d come here, so I couldn’t begin to answer them. When I said we’dcome from Morioh and Nero Nero Island, the other crew members exchangedglances.

“Morioh!? Nero Nero Island!? Seriously!? Is this part of theland sailing phenomenon?”

someone said. Was that what they were calling it?

“Very well…for the moment, you’ll have to stay put. Foryour own safety,”

Pucci said, and went back to the others. I tried to rememberanything I’d read about Pucci in the news. Enrico Pucci’s path to being anastronaut was an unusual one; he’d started out in Seminary School, and hadserved as the priest at a prison before making an dramatic career change thathad been the talk of the country at the time. When he told a reporter he wassearching for a way to get to Heaven, it caused quite a stir.

“Hey, dickhead! What the fuck is going? What did your Standdo to us?”

Narancia snarled, kicking my leg repeatedly. I ignored him.The astronauts on this spaceship were all scientists, and they’d begun talkingto Houston about our sudden appearance, the discovery of the third moon, andany connection there might be to the two mysteriously moving land masses backon Earth. I kept one ear on their conversation, stared at the view out thewindow, and thought. From the window I could see the third moon, hidden on the

dark side of Mars. From a different angle than theastronauts. But the existence of this extra moon must have something to do withme being here. The timing of our arrival also had meaning. The satellitefloating outside the window was very small. And round. An almost perfectsphere. Nothing like the other two moons – Phobos, which did two orbits of Marsa day at a height of 6000 kilometers, and the even smaller Diemos, which didfour orbits at the height of 2300 kilometers, were both misshapen lumps of iceand rock. This third moon was unusual both as a satellite and as a celestialbody. For one thing, it had no craters. No dents or bulges. It was smooth likea mirror. But it did not appear to be made of gas or liquid. The astronauts hadalready determined that much in their analysis; from the infrared properties ofthe moon’s surface it was clearly made of rock. Had it been carved out backwhen Mars still had water? I wondered, but that was impossible. There were norivers that could tumble a rock five kilometers in diameter. Not on Mars, whichhad half the diameter of Earth, and one third the gravity. What explained thelack of craters? Was it possible it had simply not been hit by any asteroidssince the universe began? But how could a sphere like this be created in thefirst place? Even more mysterious was the moon’s distance from Mars. From myeavesdropping on the astronauts’ discussion, it was only eight kilometers abovethe surface. Since the atmosphere of Mars was ten kilometers, that meant it wasinside the atmosphere. It should have either been flung away, or crashed backinto the surface of Mars, but it was staying put. Physics be damned. Just as Iconcluded that this moon was definitely the reason I’d been brought here

Kohhhhhhhhhhh……

A sound like a dull chime echoed inside of me and for amoment I got exited thinking it was caused by getting something right like thelight bulb over a character’s head in comics. Did that shit happen for real?But of course it didn’t. It wasn’t all in my head, either. It wasn’t in my headat all! It was in my belly, somewhere in my internal organs, a real sound sodeep I could feel the reverb spreading through my body. What!? I snapped myhead around and looked at Narancia. He was glaring back at me.

“Whaaat? You aren’t a Stand Master…? Or is it already out?”

He was using his Stand on me…inside me.

“Stop it. I don’t have a Stand.”

“What? Fucking liar…”

he glared at me a second longer, then broke his gaze.

“Whatever. If you don’t wanna die, don’t move your head tothe left. Got it?”

Inside me there was a pssht followed by a shuuuuuuuuunnnn assomething went rocketing forward filling my blood and flesh with bubbles. Shit!What had he done? It went past the back of my belly button, up past my heart,headed for my shoulder. Whereever it went something spread through my lungs andheart like a wake, shaking them. Making waves inside me. This could only be…amissile. No, it had a propeller…it was a torpedo! The tip of it reached theskin of my left shoulder. Bam! It burst through the skin and shirt. Bloodsplattered on my left cheek. Tremendous pain followed a moment later. If youdon’t wanna die, don’t move your head to the left. If I had moved my head,would this torpedo have passed through my neck and made my head explode!?

“Arghhhhhh!”

I screamed, covered in blood. The astronauts camerunning…or didn’t. They took a step towards me, and then stopped, staring atus suspiciously.

“Fuckers!”

Narancia yelled.

“Why don’t you come check on his wound!? Don’t you feelsorry for him!?”

Valentine, Pucci, and the other crew members, PocolocoTriple-Seven and Goyathlay Soundman, were both just staring at Narancia, nomatter how much he shouted. This wasn’t right, I thought. I wasn’t sure whatwas passing between them, but it seems Narancia and these four men werebeginning to understand each other. And whatever that understanding was was ahealthy understanding.

“You motherfuckers can see it, right?”

Narancia yelled.

“You’re all Stand Masters!? I don’t care if you are or not!Die!”

Pssht pssht pssht pssht four shots in a row echoed throughmy stomach, and shhhaaa they rushed across my back and pop pop papop longmissiles burst out of my side and ka-chunk tiny wings snapped into place in theair and they headed for the four astronauts. They were clearly cruise missiles,and there was an attack submarine inside my body that had fired them. This wasNarancia’s Stand.

“What are you doing!? This ship’s too small!”

I yelled, but Narancia didn’t give a shit.

“Shaddap, first blow wins!”

he snarled and I rolled myself into a ball a moment beforethe missiles hit the four astronauts. I braced for impact, and took a tighthold of the bed in case the hull breached, as I did not want to be sucked outinto space. I was already tied to it with a zip tie, but that was much too thinto support my entire body, although it might just cut through my wrist. I heardfour muffled explosions and something hit the wall. I looked up, and saw a sandmonster standing in front of the astronauts, all the sand swirling as itswallowed up the smoke. It was a Stand. Narancia was right.

“Shit!”

Another missile was fired inside of me, passing through meand out my back, and hitting me in the wrist. Boom!

And then aaaugh my hand was blown clean off! I thought but amoment later I noticed I could still feel my hand holding onto the edge of thebed.  The missile didn’t shoot my handoff, it shot the zip tie off. Now my hands were free! I turned to tellNarancia, but before I could he shouted,

“Wake the fuck up!”

and punched me. Crack! I felt my upper left canine break,and even though the punch left me quite woozy I clearly caught a glimpse of awhite tooth and a spurt of blood flying out of my mouth. And something hidingbehind the tooth. A submarine. Surfaced. Just as the tooth was about to reachthe famous Native American astronaut Soundman, it was knocked back by the sandmonster, and rolled sadly away into a corner. My poor tooth.

“A submarine that can dive into the bodies of living things,”

Soundman said, glaring at Narancia.

“But it could not escape my eyes.”

Narancia grinned back at him.

“Heh, submarines were made for hiding. So why do you think Ileft is surfaced?”

Drops of blood landed on Soundman’s face. My blood, fromwhen the tooth was knocked out. Narancia’s submarine surfaced briefly on top ofthe blood splatter, as if to mock Soundman, and then it began rocketingforward. I finally got it. Like Soundman said, this Stand could move freelythrough the human body, including human blood and teeth, and almost certainlythrough skin and other bodily fluids as well. And if the host body touchedanother, it could transfer to the new one. Narancia had injured me, hopingthey’d come to treat my wounds, and in the process come in contact with me.

“Nothing easier than tricking people who think they’ve gotgood eyes! My Das Boot is a fleet! Dive! Dive! Diiiiive!”

Narancia shouted. Then a strange sort of gun emerged fromhis open mouth. The hand holding it was clearly not human. This inhuman handpressed the gun’s barrel to Narancia’s forehead,

and Funnier Valentine said,

“Hold your fire. I can kill you before your missilesexplode.”

“Mm…mmph!”

With Funnier’s Stand’s arm sticking out of his mouth,whatever Narancia shouted was unintelligible. The hand vanished, and a secondlater a torpedo shot into his open mouth, hit the back of his front teeth, andexploded. Everything below Narancia’s nose was blown clean off. Narancia had asubmarine inside his own body, too. When the hand dodged his attack he’d endedup injuring himself with his own Stand, but despite the scope of his injuries,Narancia was still conscious.

“Auuuuughh, ‘otherhucker!”

he roared, and the submarine in Soundman began poppoppoppopfiring a hail of missiles that Soundman’s Stand, the sand monster, wrappeditself around, containing the explosions in the swirling sand. Thud thud thudthud.

“Hucker! Ea’ thith!”

Narancia howled, and I guess he started attacking Soundmanfrom the inside, because there was a series of muffled splats, and the back ofSoundman’s NASA suit exploded, but the hand that had come out of Narancia’smouth appeared again, emerging out of the top bunk of the bunk bed, a humanoidStand with eyes like camera lenses. It pointed the weird looking gun at theback of Narancia’s head and didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. Bang bang bangbang bang bang…! But Narancia’s head wasn’t blown off and what wounds hesustained were skin deep because the bullets Funnier’s Stand fired were allexploding just before they reached his head. A series of bright fireworks wentoff between the gun barrel and his head, and I saw the bullets themselvesbouncing off the wall nearby. Each time the gun fired, submarines floating justinside the surface of Narancia’s skin fired missiles deflecting the bullettrajectory. It was an incredible sight, but in such close quarters, in aspaceship filled with delicate equipment, firing a hail of bullets and missiles(albeit small ones)

was hardly the best idea.

“Do you wanna die here, Narancia?”

I shouted.

“Even if you survive this fight, how will we get back toEarth!?”

He was still young. Still looked like a boy. Maybe I couldwork that to my advantage.

“You’ll never see your friends again!”

Narancia hesitated for a moment; like any young gangster hiscompatriots were the only thing keeping him from being alone in the world, but,

“Sharrup…they ain takin’ ‘e here! I’d shane the Hassionenane! Ain hut ‘hamily’ neans!”

he shouted like a welltrained solider, the dark fires of atrained killer igniting in his eyes again. Shit, I thought, but then I saw himstart to sweat, beads of it running down his face, not just his face but everyinch of him, great drops of liquid that weren’t colorless at all but green andpurple all mixed together and when I looked back up at his eyes the gleam wasgone and they were hollow and unfocused. Why!? Narancia suddenly burst intotears, laughing.

“Heh heh heh, ya huckin’ done it now…I gonna diehere…don’t horget ‘e, Huccellati, Ahhacchio, Hista, Giorno…”

His face was a mess, and the drops falling off him weren’tsweat but melting flesh, and clearly Narancia’s entire body was rapidly rottingaway. I turned around, and the astronauts had stopped attacking. Behind EnricoPucci was a humanoid Stand, with a crownshaped mask, every inch of it’s bodycovered in letters signifying the DNA base sequence. Everyone but him had goneback to their duties as if the battle were over. Even Soundman looked fine, butI thought his back exploded? What happened? Pucci caught my puzzled look, andsaid,

“Mr. Soundman’s body is…almost entirely composed of sand.Since he was a child…his people are native to the desert. As he explained it,one day his body suddenly understood sand, and sand him, and he and the sandabsorbed each other. Things like this happen to humans sometimes. When

people fully accept the land they live in they become onewith that land. There are not enough examples for it to have a name, but Mr.Soundman and I call it ‘Bound’. People has always adapted to their environment.People in the Savannah learn to see far across the grasslands, and webs growbetween the fingers of professional swimmers…even without such physicaltransformations, we all grow accustomed to our surroundings, learn to fit in,but this is far beyond that. Those who are Bound completely merge with theirenvironment, or become the environment itself. They don’t adapt to it, they areit. And Mr. Soundman is lucky to be Bound. …you are not a Stand Master, areyou? Jorge Joestar.”

When he said my name, I jumped. Somehow, I’d fallen asleep.I looked up and Pucci stepped over to Narancia, reached out his hand, andpulled two discs out of Narancia’s head. Narancia had no expression, and wasmuttering under his breath, his face and body rotting, festering, bits of himready to fall off at any moment. Pucci had done something to me too; I didn’tremember wearing a hat, but sticking out of my forehead was a visor, round, andflat; some precious part of me given shape by Pucci’s Stand. I couldn’t let himtake it, I thought, but I couldn’t move a muscle. I could feel my arms andlegs, but they were not mine to command. Pucci took the disc from my head, andran his fingers across it.

“Only one disc…you really aren’t a Stand Master. Ohhh?You’re adopted. And adopted by the Joestar heir.”

!? I could hear what he said, but couldn’t understand. Icouldn’t think at all. Pucci put the disc back in my head, and it slid smoothlyback inside, vanishing without a trace. My mind returned with it.

“Do you know how to get to Heaven?”

Pucci asked. Pucci had done something to me…I assumed hehad given me enough control of my body back that I’d be able to answer hisquestion. I tried to speak, and found that I could, barely.

“Isn’t…

that what you’re supposed to tell me, Father?”

I whispered. Pucci’s eyes gleamed.

“It is. You’re a good detective. You always find the rightanswer. But not where it concerns the one who brought you here. The one whovanished soon after. You don’t understand what Tsukumojuku Kato said.Yet.”

 Hey! I am yourinstrument. Someone needs you. I’ll take you to him.

He’d read my memories. By pulling that disc out of me.Watching my surprise, Pucci smiled, as if having a very good day.

“Detectives are a wonderful thing. Everything has meaning,hunh?”

“There’s a important, inflexible law that defines theworld.”

“…………..?”

“Everything has meaning. Nothing is out of place.”

“God is everywhere,”

Pucci said.

“God is the word. The word has meaning. Thus, everything inthis world has meaning. I see! You coming here, too, has meaning. And you werebrought here because someone here has need of you. Who could that be?”

Behind him, Pocoloco Triple-Seven said,

“Hey…there’s… there’s someone else coming. He’s gonnadestroy the H.G. Wells.”

“What!?”

Funnier shouted.

“Who!?”

“I dunno!”

“Look,”

Soundman said, staring out the window at Mars.

“My sand’s been caught by something.”

I could see it out the window near me, too. Part of the sandSoundman had sent swirling into space was still floating there, but it turningrandomly, the shape of it shifting and morphing.

“You aren’t doing this?”

Funnier asked. The same question I had. Soundman shook hishead.

“It’s not me. And not the rotting Italian kid.”

Narancia’s entire body was rotted through, and he lookedready to crumble at any moment. I could tell at a glance why he’d mentionedNarancia. The prow of his Das Boot could be seen inside the swirling vortex ofsand.  Soundman must have ejected theStand inside him along with this sand…but out in the vacuum of space the sandwas moving as if there were forces acting on it that could not possible exist,and as it swirled, it was falling towards Mars, moving faster and faster. As wefollowed it’s path, the astronauts and me all saw the same thing.

“Hey…”

“What the…?”

“What are we seeing?”

What were were seeing was a black string wrapped around themass of sand, pulling it…towards the tiny new moon, floating closer to thesurface of Mars. Something string-like extended from the surface of this moonout into space, and it had captured the mass of sand. Was there something onthe moon’s surface?

“Houston, are you seeing this?”

Funnier asked. The answer came over the loudspeakers.

“Yes. We can’t believe our eyes. We’re trying to analyze it,but is…someone fishing from the surface of the moon? That’s the only thing wecan imagine, but…”

“Soundman, you’ve lost all control of that sand?”

Pocoloco asked. The Native American astronaut shook hishead.

“It’s too far away. It’s gone back to being normalsand.”

Pocoloco turned to Pucci.

“Yo, wake the Italian dipshit up and see if he can move hissub.”

“Sure thing,”

Pucci said, and slid the disc he’d stolen from Narancia backinto his melting head…and submarines appeared on the surface of my skin, andPucci’s, and the other astronauts, as if waiting for their master to reboot.

“One, two, three…daaaamn, he’s got a whole fleet of thesethings,”

Pocoloco said.

“What hell has he been through to control a Stand like thisat his age?”

“He may only be sixteen, but he was abused by his father,betrayed by his friends, sent to juvie, bullied…then he became homeless andwas preyed upon by street gangs. The twenty-three people he’s killed sincejoining the mafia were all low-life scum. No sins worth calling a sin,”

Pucci said. He put the other disc back in Narancia, andspoke to him in Italian.

“God has forgiven your sins. You will no longer act againstme.”

Narancia went from looking like cheesecake left outside forten days to his old self – even the damage he’d done to his mouth was repairedsomehow. Light came back to his eyes, and he looked very surprised.

“Ehhh…! Hunh? I thought I killed all of you…”

Had he been shown an illusion?

“Why would you try to kill us?”

Pucci said.

“There is no need. We are you friends, and if you do as wesay, we won’t have to throw you off this space ship.”

That clearly didn’t entirely sit well with Narancia, but hedidn’t quite manage to argue it further, which terrified the shit out of me.Jesus. Stands could control the human mind and emotions to this degree? And Iknew for sure that Enrico Pucci was evil. If he had a good heart, he wouldnever dream of tinkering with the hearts of man like this. He would not lie tothem. ‘Good’ is evident in deeds; ‘good’ tries to influence feelings andmotives through appeals to logic and critical thought. If that deed leads to

a good result, it is good; if the intent, too, was good,perfect. The opposite was not good; if the deeds cause harm, they were evil;even if the intent was good, the extenuating circumstances render the intentmoot, and if the intent was bad punishment should be meted out withouthesitation. There are many shallow fools who put too much stock in goodintentions, and the man before me was one of them. This man was so sure of hisown good intent he paid no heed to the evil he wrought at every turn.

“Narancia, your ship out there…can you move it?”

Pucci said, pointing out the window at the mass of sand andthe Das Boot being pulled toward the third moon. They were quite small and faraway now.

“…it’s not too far to move, but I can’t move it. That sandisn’t a Stand any more, is it?”

“Strictly speaking, my Dune is almost certainly not a Stand,but…”

Soundman said, nodding.

“Once it gets far enough from my body, it becomes ordinarysand again.”

“My Das Boot can only move inside living things or otherStands. But I can still fire missiles! Should I blow this space ship up?”

“Don’t,”

Pucci said, but Narancia was grinning.

“Heh heh. Then maybe I should blow that round thing up,”

he said, glancing at the third moon. Pucci followed hisgaze.

“…better not. I believe it has great meaning.”

“Fuck that,”

Narancia said, goofing off. Pucci slapped him, and the discpopped out of his head again. Pucci ran his fingers across it again.

“I despise boys who can’t mind their manners,”

he said, and put it back. Life returned to Narancia’s faceagain.

“Ah, that was my bad, Father Pucci,”

he said, bowing his head.

“I promise I ain’t gonna be that dumb again.”

“Lack of education decides your limits,”

Pucci sighed. Narancia’s expression changed completely.

“You trying to fucking say I’m stupid!?”

he snarled, and whipped out a knife he’d kept hidden throughall this turmoil. Pucci looked surprised.

“How…?”

The human unconscious is beyond the reach of man. Puccidodged Narancia’s knife a few moments, got the disc out again, and had justmade him throw the knife away when,

“H.G. Wells, prepare for attack!”

came over the speakers. Thud! A massive impact shook theship, and we were all flung hard into the nearest wall, or to the floor.

“Whaat!?”

Pocoloco shouted.

“This is Houston,”

the speaker said.

“H. G. Wells, are you safe?”

“What was that?”

Funnier demanded.

“A break-down?”

“We took control over the ship remotely. Emergency measuresrequired the reverse thrusters fire for another five second, then you’ll goquiet and pull away from Mars.”

“What!? Is the mission canceled!?”

“No, simply a temporary measure. Once you’re at a safedistance we intend to look for an angle to return…but first you need to seesomething!”

Houston was clearly struggling to keep the panic out oftheir voice.

“H. G. Wells, we found something positively unreal when weexamined that image. First, the string towing the sand. Have a look at this.”

Everyone pulled themselves together, and looked at thelargest monitor in the living quarters. The image on screen was a 3D imageshowing the thread from the moon branching into countless other threads, allstretched upwards. It looked like a

plant, or a bacteria, but instead of a root they all ledback to that sphere. The sphere was so small and the length of the threadsstretching in all directions so great that we didn’t recognize it at first.

“The little ball in the middle is the third moon…!”

The speakers explained, as we all stood stunned.

“A great quantity of…tentacles are reaching up from thesurface of the moon. We fired the reverse thrusters before those ‘arms’ couldgrab this ship. If you had continued on course, you’d already be in a forest ofthose tentacles. It remains to be seen if they can snare you like they did thatmass of sand.”

The entire crew was thinking furiously, saying nothing.

“And that’s not the end of it,”

the speaker continued.

“The next shot is from the ultra high resolution images yousent. What it shows…we can’t believe this is really happening.”

It showed a man with long hair. He was half-naked, wearingonly a loin-cloth, and there were horns on his head, a terrifying grin on hisface. He was looking right at the camera, his eyes clearly focused directly onit.

“The fuck…!?”

Funnier whispered. I’m sure they heard him. The man inHouston somehow managed to scream without raising his voice.

“Do you see the string in his right hand?”

I glanced at the moment. There was a rope of some kindleading from his wrist towards the screen.

“That rope connects to the third moon. He’s running with afive kilometer moon trailing eight kilometers above the surface of Mars like aballoon! With a single rope, he’s kept the third moon trapped on the back ofMars! He’s hidden the moon on the back of Mars all this time by running withit!”

At the equator, the diameter of Mars was 6794.4 km. That

mean the circumference was 21,334.4 km. A day on mars was24.62 hours, so at most he would have to be running at 866.54 kph across thesurface of Mars. 240.7 meters a second. Three quarters of the speed of sound.That figure was assuming he ran constantly, without sleeping or resting. Thegravity was only a third that of Earth, but even so, was it humanly possible torun that fast?

“He appears to be standing still right now…?”

Funnier said.

“Yes…”

Houston replied.

“That’s what’s so frightening. This creature can run evenfaster…”

“Hey, Soundman’s sand reached the moon!”

Pocoloco said, looking out the window. Narancia had beenwatching all this absently, but suddenly he frowned.

“Mm? My Das Boot’s moving again. Hunh? That’s weird…it’son the surface of the moon…”

A headset periscope appeared over Narancia’s right eye, andhe peered through it.

“Hmm…I don’t know much about these things, but are moonsalive?”

What was he talking about? While I stared at Narancia,confused, Pocoloco screamed.

“Auuuughhh!”

We all looked through the window, and saw what he’d seen. Inthe distance, we could see the tiny moon hovering…and could see that it hadturned to face us. The moon was a giant eyeball, and the lid had just opened.

It looked exactly like Odilon Redon’s The eye like a strangeballoon goes to infinity or Mizuki Shigeru’s faux American yokai, Backbeard.Just as I was about to belatedly scream myself, Ka-thunk! Another huge impactrocked the ship, without any warning.

“Auuuugghh!”

Rolling the floor, I realized this lurch was in the oppositedirection from the first, which meant…? The floor seemed to heave upwards,the whole ship tilting. The reverse thrusters must still be firing. I lookedout the window and saw black threads wrapped around the H. G. Wells. They’dcaught us.

“Gaaaaawwd fuuuuuuuckin’ daaaamn it!”

Dust spray rose from the third moon; it looked like Narnaciawas attacking it with Das Boot. Dozens of submarines were riding the threadswrapped around the H. G. Wells. All fired cruise missiles at the third moon!Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom! Hundreds of missiles all rocketing forward inunison, raining down on the giant eye moon’s face…and then the face openedits mouth. A crescent moon slit right below the eyeball that split the moonfrom end to end, revealing rows of jagged teeth. The maw gaped open until itwas the entire visible surface of the moon. The moon had a thin surface layerbut the inside was hollow. It was a five kilometer balloon held by the hornedman on Mars. A living balloon, with one giant eyeball and infinite hands thatstretched all the way to outer space. Every missile Narancia’s Das Boot fleetfired was swallowed up by the moon’s mouth. Only when the last one was stuffedin its cheeks did the mouth close, and it savored the flavor of the massivearray of explosions within. The impacts shook the hands dragging us. Naranciastared in disbelief.

“Fucking seriously? I didn’t even scratch it!?”

Pucci’s eyes were open wide; he seemed equally surprised andimpressed.

“Astonishing! I feel sure we traveled this far from Earthfor just this encounter!”

“H. G. Wells, this is Houston,”

the man on the loudspeaker said.

“The President would like a word with you.”

Funnier looked grave. Pocoloco frowned.

“The Funniest…?”

Without waiting for a response from us, the voice on thespeaker changed. A calm, gentle voice, ever so slightly brisk.

“To all aboard the H. G. Wells, I am the President of theUnited States, The Funniest Valentine. Presently I am at the UN Headquarters inNew York, attending an emergency meeting of the security council. We’rediscussing how to deal with the mysterious life form discovered behind Mars –what we are currently calling The Eyed Balloon. I am here to report our currentprogress.”

Wrapped in the moon’s tentacles, the H. G. Wells spun,shaking constantly. The Funniest continued.

“I’m sending enlarged photographs of The Eyed Balloon’sinterior.”

A still image of the moon with its mouth fully open appearedon the screen, with seven different circles inscribed on it.

“Next, enlargement of the circled portions.”

Seven different higher resolution shots began cycling on thescreen. What had appeared smooth before now showed something odd. Part of somemachine floating against the back of the moon’s interior.

“….what….? Is that…a man-made satellite? No…”

Pocoloco said.

“That’s…a probe. With those armored plates and mirrors…could it be…!?”

“Yes, Specialist Triple-Seven. This is the unmanned probethe ESA launched in 1985 to survey Halley’s Comet. We’ve verified the COSPAR IDon the probe’s surface. 1985-056A.”

On one of the seven shots…there was a number written onthe two machines. …..? Two?

“No fucking way,”

Pocoloco muttered.

“But this is, in fact, happening,”

The Funniest replied.

“The seven spacecraft in this pictures are all the sameship, identical in every way. Every one of the seven passed inside Halley’sComet on March 14th, 1986, photographed the core from a distance of 600

kilometers, and vanished in 1999. They are all the Giottoprobe.”

“Father, with the time you’ve spent in space, you knowvery well we do not launch the same ship seven times, and we never repeat thesame COSPAR ID. There is no possibility that some conspiracy resulted in thelaunch of multiple identical ships without America’s knowledge. Manufacturingand launching a probe is very expensive, and there’s no way to fire a rocketwithout the citizens noticing, and no means to fund such a launch.”

So seven Giottos were eaten by The Eyed Balloon in outerspace? Snared by these tentacles? These tentacles had a range of around 100kilometers, but that was nothing compared with the vastness of space. It seemedhighly unlikely Giotto would have flown within range. As we all scratched ourheads, Narancia kept up his futile attack. Beside him, Pucci looked asastonished as I was, but was almost rapturously muttering,

“Do the fourteen words have meaning?”

The fourteen words? He seemed to be seeing and thinkingsomething entirely different from the rest of us. Seven Giotto probes…thatthe photographs found. There might be even more, but whatever truth lay behindthis mystery, the H. G. Wells was about to be swallowed by The Eyed Balloon,with us on board. Just a glance outside the window and the spinning view of TheEyed Balloon’s giant round face and eyelid was noticeably closer.

“And this photograph was collected from a Nazi base in Switzerlandduring the second World War,”

The Funniest said, over the speakers. I had not expected theword

“Nazi”

to show up here, but that surprise was dwarfed by the shockof the picture that appeared on screen. It showed the horned man, the same mancurrently holding The Eyed Balloon’s tether down on Mars. Long,

narrow eyes, long black hair. Surrounded by Nazi soldiers,yet grinning wickedly; once again his eyes were focused right on the cameralens.

“This man’s name is Cars,”

The Funniest said.

“Much about him remains a mystery, but there are five thingswe know for sure. He was one of the Pillar Men discovered by Nazi scientistsunderground in Mexico and Italy. Of the four Pillar Men they collected, onlyCars survives. It seems that Cars was somehow caught up in a volcanic eruptionat Italy’s Isulo Vulcano and flung out of the atmosphere. Shortly before that,Cars…how, exactly, is unknown, but he donned a stone mask fitted with the AjaRed Stone, bathed in ultraviolet light, and became the Ultimate Thing. The lastthing we know is that the man who beat the other three Pillar Men, and sent theUltimate Cars into space was an English man residing in America named JosephJoestar.”

……what? That was my great-grandfather’s name; thegrandfather of my adoptive father, Jonda Joestar.

“I believe you have a Jorge Joestar on board?”

asked the American President.

“Will you tell us why…and how you came to the H. G. Wells?”

Funnier and the crew all turned and stared at me. The gleamin Pucci’s eyes was especially terrifying. I did my best not to look at him,and answered in English.

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“…either way, this cannot be a coincidence,”

The Funniest said, dropping the matter.

“That’s everything we’ve discovered at present. As for theconclusion of the security council, you have ten

minutes to escape The Eyed Balloon’s tentacles. Once thatten minutes is up, we will detonate the H. G. Wells remotely. There will be norescue mission. Our top priority is preventing Ultimate Cars from returning toEarth. Are these orders understood, Captain Valentine?”

Eh? Detonate? If we didn’t escape the tentacles in the nextten minutes? Why didn’t you say that first! Then I realized the deeper meaning.They already knew it was impossible. They were going to blow us up no matterwhat. I checked the view outside the window. The tentacles were wrapped aroundand around us, and there were a lot of them. Narancia had ignored this entire conversation(since he didn’t speak English) and was still attacking, but his Das Boot fleetdid not appear to have done any damage to them at all. His efforts had been soutterly futile that there were tears in his eyes. Funnier spoke to his son.

“Understood, Mr. President. …completely.”

The transmission ended, and the image on the screen switchedback to the photo of Cars. Funnier’s eyes had been like daggers when he spoketo his son, but when he turned around he was a different man; calm, butassured, he proceeded to bark orders at his crew.

“Pocoloco! Think of a way to cut the tentacles off the H. G.Wells. While you’re at it, find the explosive device and expunge it from theship! Pucci, Soundman, Narancia Ghirga and I will do whatever we can to kill thisCars, whatever he is. And you there! Detective!”

Me.

“Yes?”

“It seems you were brought here for some higher purpose. Youdon’t have a Stand, do you? Then make like a detective and

solve some mysteries. You heard that execution order? We’vegot… nine minutes left. Whatever reason or purpose brought you here, we’reall in the same boat now. All you can do is think as hard as you can, as muchas you need.”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

I said, and attempted a salute. I didn’t intend it to becomedic. Funnier was absolutely right. I was here because I was a detective. Ihad to do my job.

“Jorge Joestar,”

Soundman said. I turned around, and found him in his spacesuit, kneeling beside me. He pointed at Narancia.

“He doesn’t speak English, right? Can you interpret? He seemsto have a number of tiny submarines, but can he combine them into one big one?”

“Arrrrrrrgghhhhhh! God fucking damn this piece of shit howthe fuck can it shake off my missiles like a 38 degree lukewarm shower!Fuuuuuuuuck!”

He was half-mad now. I tapped him cautiously on hisshoulder.

“Fuck off! Oh. What?”

I told him Soundman’s suggestion, and his eyes went wide.

“…I could…I neeeeeeever even thought of that! I’m notstupid or anything but fuuuuuuck! Let’s do this! Das Boot! Retreat and regroup!”

Dozens of submarines came rocketing back up The EyedBalloon’s tentacles. Soundman stood quietly watching them a moment, then puthis helmet on, and spoke to Funnier.

“I’ll go listen to the sands of Mars, and understand them.”

Funnier nodded.

“I’m sure you can befriend Mars.”

Pucci appeared beside them, also in a space suit.

“I’ll come, too. To talk to him.”

“…you have only ever cared about the way to Heaven, EnricoPucci.”

“I seem to have a higher goal, Funnier Valentine.”

“In the fog of war all will be left to destiny.”

“Pray worry not about my life. I will not yet die. Not here,at

least.”

Narancia started shouting.

“Ya haaaaaa! I did it! I fucking did it! A full power DasBoot! Anyone wants to ride, get the hell on now! We’re taking off!”

Outside the windows was a nearly life-size submarine. The H.G. Wells was a sphere with a diameter of about ten meters, with a pair of twometer tall cylinders on either side that housed the emergency escape system anda dock that allowed them to connect to other ships. Narancia’s Das Boot was farlarger than the entire thing, at least a hundred meters long. Like a buildinglying on its side.

“Soundman! Pucci! You have three minutes!”

Funnier said.

“If you don’t end the fight and get back here in that timethe H. G. Wells will leave without you!”

“Shouldn’t you join us on this ship?”

Pucci asked.

“The H. G. Wells was placed in my care. I share its fate.”

“Very well.”

Soundman and Pucci both headed for the airlock, and afterdecompression, traveled through the vacuum of outer space to the submarine. Buttheir movements weren’t the floaty movements of normal astronauts; the secondthe hatch opened they zipped right over, flying directly into the submarine.Stands came in handy.

“Narancia, let’s go,”

Pucci said, in Italian. I could hear his voice coming overNarancia’s headset.

“Right! Full power, forward thrust! Das Boot! Goooooooo!”

Das Boot swooped away from the H. G. Wells, spinning on theslender tentacles, headed for The Eyed Balloon at tremendous speed, alreadyopening fire. Psssht psssht psssht psssht the cruise missiles it fired were allfull- sized, too. Missile after missile scored a direct hit on The EyedBalloon, the explosions and shockwaves

from each impact far stronger than anything before. The EyedBalloon closed its one big eye. Was it working?

“Right, got it, Captain!”

Pocoloco shouted.

“The Right Stuff has found a way to escape the tentacle’sweb!”

I looked over and found him holding his hands in front ofhis chest, palms facing each other forming a sort of bowl, and strange littlegnomes of some kind inside. They were making tiny models of the H. G. Wells,then taking them apart, like a pit crew, analyzing the problem.

“If we release all the exterior walls of the H. G. Wellsfrom the inside, we’ll be free! The tentacles are wrapped around the cylindersand the sphere from one side, so this plan should stabilize us. If we start theengines at full power the second the walls release, we’ll leave the walls inthe tentacles’ grip, and escape like we’re shedding our skin. A space shipisn’t gonna catch cold going naked! Ha ha ha! Then we’ll move on to removingthe explosive device. The Right Stuff has already located it.”

“Good,”

Funnier nodded.

“Get to it! Keep me updated on your progress.”

“I got this!”

The gnomes hopped up on his shoulders, and Pocoloco dashedout of the living quarters. Funnier watched him go, then turned back to us.

“What do you make of this ‘Way to Heaven’ Pucci talks about?”

What the hell was he on about? Was this really the time totalk about this? The ship was going to explode in less than eight minutes. Wasit not? Was he that sure Pocoloco would pull it off? Funnier Valentine seemedtotally at ease, but not quite in the way a captain certain of his crew’sability would be. He kept talking.

“When Enrico Pucci was seventeen, he began sleepwalking. Twoor three times a month, he’d leave the house, fast asleep, and wander quite aways from home. His family moved to Cape Canaveral, Florida because they wereworried their eldest son would be hit by a car, and thought that a place withfew

residents, open landscape, and plenty of military andgovernment officials would make it easier to locate their sleepwalking son.Cape Canaveral is home to the Kennedy Space Center and an air force base, yousee. It’s patrolled 24/7. But one evening he slipped out in his sleep, andawoke outside the gates to the church his father, a priest, worked at. It wasfive AM. Normally he’d have been found by the patrol guards, and returned tohis home, still asleep, so this was the first time he’d been out all nightsince moving to Cape Canaveral. Pucci’s father and mother had a habit of wakingup at four in the morning, and checking to see if he was still in his bed, sohe imagined they were worried sick, ran home barefoot, and discovered he nolonger had a family to worry about him. Pucci’s home had vanished, replaced bya crater seventeen meters in diameter. A direct hit by a falling meteor. Butthe strangest part was that nobody had noticed the meteor falling. The meteor hadevaded both the Space Center and the Air Force radar. Standing alone in frontof this crater, stricken with grief, Pucci found the thing that had killed hisfamily. It was not a rock fallen from space, but a metal plate. A man-made heatshield. This,”

Funnier said, putting an image of a rectangular metal plateup on the screen, with two rows of letters written on it. One was painted onthe side, and read

“1985-056A”. Mm?

“This is the COSPAR ID of the Giotto probe,”

Funnier said.

“In July, 1997, it did not respond to signals from NASA whenit passed by the Earth, but it did send us one signal. It fell from the sky,killing Enrico Pucci’s father, mother, and younger brother, leaving only himalive.”

Giotto again. But that ‘again’ was not only referring to theseven Giottos

inside The Eyed Balloon. The other row of letters on themetal plate, scratched there by something sharp, also said ‘Giotto’. And therewere more words, as well. Fourteen phrases in all. A mix of Italian andEnglish.

“Spiral staircase”

“Rhinoceros beetle”

“Desolation Row”

“Fig tart”

“Rhinoceros beetle”

“Via Dolorosa”

“Rhinoceros beetle”

“Singularity”

“Giotto”

“Angel”

“Hydrangea”

“Rhinoceros beetle”

“Singularity”

“Secret Emperor”

Funnier smiled.

“You saw how flustered Pucci was before?”

Do the fourteen words have meaning?

Pucci was a priest, not a detective, so he may have found ithard to believe. But everything has meaning.

“There’s also a message on the back of the plate. This isthe main one,”

Funnier said, changing the image on screen. Another

three rows of English words scratched into the metal.

“Have the courage to cast aside your Stand, and as yourStand withers, it will gather 36 souls, and give birth to something new.”

“It will befriend he who says the fourteen words.”

“The place is 28.24 degrees North, 80.36 degrees West.”

I didn’t know what that meant, but I had an idea.

 28.24 degrees North,80.36 degrees West.

“Mars has longitude and latitude,”

I explained.

“Wilhelm Beer and Johann Heinrich Mädler made the first mapsof Mars, and they selected a small circle as a base point for the PrimeMeridian. That point is still in use today, under the name Airy-0.”

And there…

“Exactly,”

Funnier nodded.

“And on Mars, at 28.24 degrees North, 80.36 degrees West,Cars stands, holding the tether that leads to The Eyed Balloon. Cars is thereas we arrive, and we arrived as he was there.”

Funnier chuckled.

“Pucci said he’s going to talk, sure that he alone will findthe ‘Way to Heaven’. Rather selfish for a servant of God, wouldn’t you say?Will the staircase to Heaven really open for one so impetuous?”

I followed Funnier’s gaze, and looked down at the surface

of Mars. Narancia’s submarine had already landed on thesurface, and Enrico Pucci had stepped out onto the ground. He was walkingtowards Cars.

“Tch, what the hell? He’s in the way,”

Narancia muttered behind me. He hadn’t understood a word ofwhat Funnier and I were talking about in English. Despite his griping, hisattack never let up, a never ending rain of cruise missiles turning the surfaceof The Eyed Balloon into a perpetual explosion. There were holes opening in thesurface of the balloon, so he was clearly doing more damage than he had withthe submarines separated, but the holes closed up again the moment they formed.

“Arghhhhhh how is this even possible!? Fucking break, youpiece of shit! Fucking fucking fucking piece of shit!”

He sounded like someone raging at a video game. I glancedback at Pucci. Was Funnier right? Was there meaning to the fourteen wordswritten on the back of Giotto’s plate, what Pucci called the Way to Heaven? Wasasking that question in the first place a waste of time? As I thought Irealized the view through the window had settled down, the tentacles hadreleased their grip, and the ship had stabilized. Pocoloco’s voice came overthe loudspeaker.

“Right, Valentine, ready to start those engines?”

But Funnier ignored him. Instead, he turned towards me, andput his fingers to his lips. Shhh. Not like my voice would reach him andFunnier’s headset mike wasn’t even on, but…?

“Valentine! Hey! Crap, what’s going on? Right Stuff, someonego see!”

Funnier ignored the panic in Pocoloco’s voice, too.

“By the way, Jorge Joestar, do you know how to pilot thisship?”

he asked.

“I don’t imagine that to be the case, but I understanddetectives

tend to get interested in and study up on a great manythings.”

? Why was he asking that?

“No. I know the basic gist of spacecraft construction, butnot the specifics of piloting them. The computer controls a lot of systems, buteven then it requires detailed interplay between you and the engineers, right?Before and after launch? There’s no way you could fly a spaceship withoutsubstantial practice and simulation.”

“Correct. I’m relieved to hear it,”

Funnier said, and I felt something moving behind me, andturned to see Funnier’s Stand moving away from me, gun in hand. The ‘window’ itwas looking through, a weird sort of flat plane, disappeared, leaving behindonly a steel ladder. It had been behind me, pointing a gun at me.

“Your presence here seems to have some meaning,”

he said, with a smile that told me everything. He was upsomething, and was about to set that in motion. With his Stand. He’d used hisStand three times so far. It had shown up inside Narancia’s mouth, from theupper level of the bunk bed, and now from an iron ladder. When it appeared aflat area like frosted glass cut through the space around it, and the Standappeared from inside that ‘window’. It seemed like it probably required a‘frame’. He could make a window in any frame and his Stand would look out ofit. Pocoloco’s voice came over the speaker again.

“…..! Valentine, you motherfucker!”

Bang! A gunshot. No sounds followed. I turned around, andsaw one of Pocoloco’s gnomes standing still at the entrance to the living quarters.As I watched, it faded out, and vanished. Funnier had shot Pocoloco, and mostlylikely killed him.

“Mm? Yo, what the fuck was that?”

Narancia said.

“That

was a fucking gunshot…who’d this asshole shoot, Joestar!?Urp!”

The Stand’s arm emerged from his mouth mid-shout, andpressed the barrel of its gun to his forehead.

“It was a mistake to send all your submarines to Mars,”

he said, in English, knowing full well Narancia wouldn’tunderstand him.

“And you have a very foul mouth.”

Bang! Narancia fell over, blood streaming from his head, andthe Stand’s arm vanished from his mouth. I looked down at Mars from the window.The Das Boot that had been resting on The Eyed Balloon’s tentacles vanished,too.

“……..? Narancia, what happened?”

Pucci’s voice came over the speaker, in Italian.

“Something going on up there?”

“Narancia? He just died,”

Funnier replied, in English.

“How’s your conversation going?”

396

“………!”

“I’ve been wondering this for a while, Pucci. So let meask… Tell me the truth. Have you ever, even once, actually believed in God?”

“What….?”

“Of course you haven’t. You’re the most self-absorbed manI’ve ever met. You only became a priest because it made you feel good aboutyourself. You feel no love or compassion for your fellow man. I condemn you,Enrico Pucci. You are a sinner. For seeking a way to heaven for yourself alonewhen you should be leading others, you will be punished. This empty red planetis beautiful isn’t it? Allowing you to die here is an expression of the deep,genuine compassion I have for you.”

“…hmph. Being here is destiny. The will of God.”

“This Way to Heaven you speak of? You know nothing. That iswhy you cannot talk to Cars.”

“…………..”

“I’ve been negotiating with Cars for the last elevenyears. Ever since I first read the message on the plate that fell on yourhouse.”

“…………!? Rear Window!? He was peeping?”

Pucci said. Funnier glanced at me when he said this, so Iknew it must be the name of Funnier’s Stand. Rear Window…a Stand that couldmake a window in any frame, and move to it. The name was a good fit.

“Peeping? How rude. I was simply checking on a suspiciousunidentified falling object,”

Funnier said.

“Heh heh heh…I was already training as as astronaut atCape Canaveral the day it fell. Honestly, I was out on the town, and sneakingback to base. But after catching a glimpse of that plate, I never snuck outagain. It was clear evidence there was an intelligent life form outside thisplanet. If a square plate fell, then there was a square hole somewhere. It wascomparatively easy to find it. That’s when I met all the Cars.”

Hunh…? Plural?

“Your Way to Heaven ends here,”

Funnier said.

“It brought you to Mars. Let that thought comfort you inyour eternal slumber, Enrico Pucci.”

“God’s will is with me!”

“That’s a delusion.”

Bang! A third gunshot rang out. And then there was silence.I looked down at the surface of Mars, but Pucci was too far away to make outclearly. I knew he must be at the bottom of the anchor line leading from TheEyed Balloon, but…

“Now, then… Goyathlay Soundman, a quiet man despite yourname. The time has come for you to break your silence.”

There was no answer.

“………? I know you aren’t scared. What are

you doing?”

I could see it. A long shadow on the surface of Mars,getting bigger by the second. A massive pillar of sand, stretching up towardsus. Straight towards this ship. All the sands of Mars, rushing together,feeding the pillar’s growth. The pillar inhaled the sands. Soundman’s sands.I’ll go listen to the sands of Mars, and understand them. He had succeeded, andthe sands of Mars were part of Soundman now. In no time, the pillar had leftthe atmosphere, and tip was approaching the H. G. Wells. It was only a fewkilometers away.

“Ohhh, well done, Soundman.”

Funnier had come over to the window beside me, and waswatching the pillar approach.

“I take back what I said. You are a deep and sound man, asyour name suggests.”

Was that clear-eyed Native American about to die, too?

“Stop!”

I said, but saying that wasn’t going to do anything. Do youknow how to pilot this ship? He’d decided to kill all the astronauts buthimself. The only way I had of stopping him was physical. I grabbed the knifefrom Narancia’s corpse, and lunged at Funnier’s throat, but he dodged, andthud! kneed me hard in the gut.

“Be still, Jorge Joestar. Now I am paying my respects toSoundman’s finale.”

He easily took the knife away from me, and stuck it in myright shoulder.

“Auuuughhh!”

Now both my shoulders were injured, and I couldn’t lifteither arm.

“To which…good-bye, Soundman. It was an honor to come thisfar with you,”

Funnier said. There was another gunshot. Bang! ….silence,again….. I looked over my blood-stained shoulder at the window. The tip ofthe column rising from Mars to the

heavens was only a few hundred meters away. It was stillgetting closer. !? Funnier saw it too.

“? Soundman? Are you still alive?”

He could control his Stand remotely, but not see what itsaw. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! The gun kept firing, but the tip of the pillarkept advancing. It was only a hundred meters away. Close enough now that Icould see it with my naked eye; there was an empty helmet at the top of thepillar, and Funnier’s camera-eyed Stand was clinging to it, firing into thesand, opening hole after hole. But Soundman’s head was nowhere to be seen.

“Soundman!? Where are you!?”

Funnier screamed. I stood watching helplessly as the tip ofthe pillar changed shape, forming a round hole and a rim. Like a dockinghatch…! Soundman was inside the pillar. In less than two minutes, he had gonefrom the surface of Mars to the H. G. Wells; a trained astronaut could easilyhold his breath in the pillar that long. Thud! The tip of the pillar slammedinto the H. G. Wells, shaking the ship.

“Good lord…come back, Rear Window!”

At his call, the Stand reappeared in the doorway to theliving quarters. Clang! Thud, thud, creeeaak! The sounds of sand pounding thedoor, smashing it down, and then scrunch scrunch scrunch scrunch as sandyfootsteps came down the call. Soundman appeared, covered head to foot in thered sands of Mars. Even his face was hidden. On guard against Funnier’s RearWindow, the Native American astronaut was still holding his breath. Funnier’sface twisted in fear.

“Good God… Shoot him, Rear Window!”

Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang! Funnier’s Standunleashed a volley, but every bullet was absorbed into the sand as Soundmancharged, tackling Funnier.

“Aughhh!”

Funnier’s scream vanished into the sand. Shunk shunk shunk!Thud thud! Ka-thunk! Unable to see at all, Soundman went berserk, swinging andkicking wildly, flinging hardened sand in all directions. I barely managed toevade getting hit myself, but he was smashing machine parts right and left. Ifigured it was up to me to tell Soundman if Funnier was dead or down for thecount, so I looked around, and realized I couldn’t find him anywhere. There wasa door on the wall he’d been flung against, and through the window I could seethe escape pod that was supposed to be on the other side of that door. It haddetached from the H. G. Wells, and was drifting away.

“Soundman! Outside! Funnier Valentine’s escaping in the pod!”

I could see Funnier grinning through the pod’s window. RearWindow was in a hole Soundman had punched in a computer, waiting. For Soundmanto stop flailing and take a breath.

“Don’t show your face! Rear Window’s still got his gunpointed at you!”

I yelled, but too late; out of breath, Soundman let thesands part, and Rear Window’s bullet struck him right between the eyes. Bang!Soundman’s head jerked back, and the sand suit crumbled.

“Ahhhh! Soundman!”

I could hear Funnier laughing over the loudspeaker.

“Ha ha ha ha ha! Good-bye, Soundman! Jorge Joestar, I doapologize, but that ship will explode in two minutes. If you really are broughthere by fate or destiny, then I’m sure you’ll find a way to survive thatexplosion!”

On my knees on the floor, my shoulders throbbing with pain,I couldn’t summon the energy to stand. I just vacantly watched his escape poddrift slowly away, not even noticing the

submarine that had appeared behind him on The Eyed Balloon.

“Tch, astronauts suck ass at murder. They don’t evenknow the basics! Double tap, motherfucker! One shot ain’t enough. Always gottahit them again to be sure. Every fucking gangster knows that shit.”

I turned to find Narancia behind me, a small submarinesitting in the hole the bullet left in his forehead. The bullet was caught inthe side of the ship. He’d left one ship from his Stand inside his body.

“Heh. Takes too long for Das Boot to get back to me if Isend it away, so Buccellati and Giorno are always yelling at me to leave one ortwo inside me,”

Narancia grinned. Funnier noticed him, and I could see himlooking through the tiny window in the pod, surprised…and oblivious to thecruise missile coming up behind him. It hit the pod head on. Booooooooooom! Icouldn’t actually hear the sound, but the escape pod exploded with Funnier onit, scattering debris all around. Rear Window faded out, and vanished.

“Ha! Suck on that!”

Naranacia yelled, pointing his middle finger at the remainsof the pod outside. Then he turned to me.

“Don’t just fucking stand there, we’re getting outta herepronto.”

“Eh? But how?”

“Let’s start by hopping on my sub and going down to Mars.”

“But don’t we need to depressurize?”

“What does that even mean? It’ll be fine!”

“Eh? It really won’t.”

“I said it will, it will. Think positive, motherfucker!”

“…………!?”

While we were talking the giant submarine had come up withtentacles from The Eyed Balloon and rammed into the side of the H. G. Wells.

Claaaaaaaang! The deafening crunch was accompanied by aviolent impact that shook the entire ship, followed by the whoosh of airrushing out. There was a hole in the front of the sub, too.

“Fffuck yeah! Get the fuck in there!”

Narancia yelled, diving headlong across the rubble, ridingthe rush of air, essentially letting the submarine inhale him.

“Auughhh here goes nothing!”

I shouted, and threw myself after him, aiming for the hole,but my shoulders hurt and I lost my balance; I slipped right past the hole,heading for the gap in the side of the H. G. Wells. There was nothing outthere! Just outer fucking space!

“Auuuuuuuughhh!”

I screamed and the submarine’s engines fired. It passed me,placed its hole just outside the gap in the H. G. Wells, and caught me afteronly a moment of suitless space walk.

“Holy fuck, dude! You’re really shit at this,”

Narancia said, laughing. I couldn’t argue with that.

“On your feet! We gotta get in back.”

Narancia said, helping me up, and giving me his shoulder forsupport. We ran against the air rushing out the gap in the hull, down a narrowhall towards the tail of the submarine.

“Ha ha ha! I’ve never been inside my Stand before! It’spretty real looking!”

Indeed there were instruments and pipes and everything areal submarine would have inside it. We ran the entire length of Das Boot, wentthrough a tiny hatch, and Narancia closed the door behind us, locking the doorwith a round wheel.

“OK! Do a U-Turn and get us out of here!”

The submarine groaned, and started moving. I could hear gasrushing through the pipes. Narancia had lowered his headset periscope over hisright eye, and was piloting Das Boot, running it down the tentacles to The EyedBalloon, around the surface of the moon, and then down the tether rope. InsideMars’ atmosphere, the planet’s gravity took hold, and we were forced to hangoff the

pipes crossing the long hallway, now a vertical shaft, asthe submarine descended straight down. Narancia held on with both arms, but Iwas forced to hang on with my legs. Peering through the periscope, Naranciaasked,

“So…what are we gonna do about this half-naked long-haireddude?”

Cars. The Ultimate Thing. What should we do?

“It’ll be useless, but I could shoot him again?”

Narancia suggested, half-joking.

“Nah,”

I said.

“You’ve attacked him plenty, and like you said, it wasuseless. And he hasn’t done anything to us yet.”

But what should we do? Try to talk to him? Pucci hadtried…and that got him exactly nowhere, apparently.

“Right, when we’re three meters off the ground, stop!”

There was a horrible screeching, and we stopped. We wereinside the atmosphere and near the surface of Mars, but we had no space suits,the air outside was less than 1% the atmospheric pressure of earth, and was 95%carbon dioxide. We wouldn’t be able to breathe at all. But we couldn’t stay inDas Boot forever; we had a limited amount of breathable air on board. We werebetween a rock and a hard place. But we were still alive.

“Ah, the space ship blew up,”

Narancia said, showing me the view through his headset.There were massive fireworks in the skies of Mars. There was also a moon withan eye rising in the sky. The eye met my gaze.

“Creeeepy,”

I said. As I handed the headset back to Narancia we heardcreaking outside the hatch. Someone was coming up the vertical hall. There wasstill a big hole in the front of the sub, and outside that hole was…

“Uh, the half-naked dude’s gone,”

Narancia said. Cars had invaded Das Boot. That meant he mustbe able to see Stands. The ultimate life form was getting closer. My body went

rigid, but Narancia yelled down at the hatch below us,

“Hey! I dunno what the fuck you are, but don’t smash my sub!This room’s the only place with air left! I’m sorry about attacking youearlier! Seriously, like, super duper sorry, like legit sorry.”

…it was clear he’d never been taught how to apologize toanyone. He may be only sixteen, but he was abused by his father, betrayed byhis friends, sent to juvie, bullied… There was a groan outside, like metalbending, then a scuttling sound as something moved through the pipes, gettingcloser, into the room we were in…here. Narancia and I gulped in unison, and thepipe in front of us popped open, and flesh spilled out, and the flesh tookform, becoming a tall, long-haired, half-naked man. Cars. He could shape-shift?He turned and twisted the pipe like a twist tie, cutting off the hiss ofescaping air. He looked around the interior of Das Boot as if he couldn’t seeus, and then took a deep breath. In. And out.

“Earth air,”

he said, in Italian.

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed it.”

He smiled.

“It’s time to go home.”

Home?

“Where?”

Narancia asked, but Cars ignored him.

“This air…with three of us, it should last four hours.”

“Hey! Don’t fucking ignore me, Fabio!”

Narancia snarled. This boy knew no fear. I poked him.

“Dude, back to Earth, obviously!”

“Hunh? He’s not, like, a Martian?”

“He’s speaking an Earth language, right? He must have beenthere, originally.”

“Oh, I see. But how’s he getting back home? The space shipblew up.”

True, but then I remembered.

“He’s got a ship.”

At least seven of them. The Giotto probes. Those weretechnically space ships, but they had no power, and were pretty busted up, andno fuel…as I thought, Cars said,

“I have a ship.”

…….!? We could communicate?

“But they’re broken, right?”

I asked. Cars looked at me. His eyes were a really beautifulblue.

“I can fix them. Since I rode them here from Halley’s Comet,I’ve been studying how these machines function.”

When Giotto has passed Halley’s Comet, something had gonewrong with the antennae, and all contact with it had been lost for thirty-twominutes. Had that not been because comet dust struck it, but because Carsjumped on board?

“…but we’ll need fuel.”

“I have plenty.”

“Where?”

“Floating above us.”

? The Eyed Balloon?

“Eh? Is that…? What is it?”

“Extra mes.”

“Extra…?”

“Yes. The universe has looped thirty-six times, and as itended and began anew thirty-six additional mes arrived.”

The ultimate life form could even survive the end of theuniverse!? If the universe looped, then history repeated itself, the same fatebefell Cars, and he became the ultimate thing thirtyseven times, was flung intospace thirty-seven times, made his way to Mars thirty-seven times, and then allthirty-seven Cars had a

team up?

While my mind boggled at the sheer scale of that time,Narancia stopped staring at us open-mouthed, peered through his periscope, andsaid,

“Hey, the moon broke.”

He showed me the view. The Eyed Balloon had crumbled, andthe thirty-six pieces each turned into Cars. They’d combined their flesh, andhad stretched their combined mass out into a giant sphere. Now they and thethirty-six Giottos they’d held inside the sphere all began falling towards us.

“We’ll use a few to repair the machines, and the rest willbecome fossil fuel,”

Cars said. Cars began laying parts from the Giottos out onthe surface of Mars, and assembling them bare-handed into a space ship way morefuturistic than either the Giotto or the H. G. Wells. When he didn’t have apart, he’d have one of the Extra Cars transform part of their flesh,transforming it into the material he needed. Once the ship was complete, the remainingExtra Cars all melted away without complaint, pouring themselves into the fueltank. Narancia witnessed this horror show with a series of yelps and squeals,unable to watch it directly, but shocked as I was, I couldn’t stop myself fromwatching the whole thing. The completed spaceship was conical, with smoothcurves. The one remaining Cars came back up the pipes to us, and spoke toNarancia.

“Shrink this vehicle to the size of the two of you. I’llcompress the remaining air.”

Narancia did as he was told, and soon Das Boot was so smallthe two of us could barely fit inside. Cars then inhaled all the air into hislungs. Narancia and I clung to each other inside the miniature submarine, andCars doubled the size of his upper body, lifted the submarine onto his back,and carried it into the spaceship. He released the air inside, and Narancia put

Das Boot back inside his own body. The interior of the shipwas beautifully designed; it was hard to believe it had been pieced togetherfrom scrap. It looked like a modern sci-fi movie set.

“If you could build all this,”

I asked, summoning my nerve.

“Why not head to Earth on your own?

“At first, I didn’t have enough materials or extra mes toturn into fuel,”

Cars said.

“My calculations showed that it would be the thirty-seventhuniverse where I would finally have enough. Twice, I rode Giotto close to theEarth. The first we passed too far from it; the second time I altered Giotto,and turned part of myself into fuel in an attempt to enter the atmosphere, butI had no idea what the correct angle of entry was. If the angle was tooshallow, I’d bounce off the atmospheric wall; too steep, and my calculationssuggested that at my bulk, the convection and radiation heat would be so greatI would vaporize faster than my cells would regenerate. Even if I survived longenough to land I would be critically injured. I would be captured by humans whodetected my entry, and sent even farther away on a different rocket. I had tocome up with a plan to protect myself while attempting my return to Earth.”

After the Giotto probe had surveyed Halley’s Comet, it haddone a flyby of Earth at a distance of 16,300,000 kilometers, and used theEarth’s gravity to accelerate, heading off to survey Comet Grigg-Skjellerup.After that it approached the Earth again, but did not respond to signals, anddisappeared. This must be the two occasions he mentioned. Countless asteroidshit the Earth daily, but almost none of them ever reach the surface because thespeed with which they strike the pressurized atmosphere causes high temperatureconvection heat, and the magnetic energy in the pressurized air causesradiation heat, which burn the meteors up before they land.

“Once I reached Mars, I patiently waited for the righttime. The universe looped thirty-six times, and I had enough fuel andmaterials. And in this thirty-seventh universe, I met an astronaut namedFunnier Valentine. Funnier helped me draw up a plan for reentry, and negotiateda mutually profitable arrangement in which, in exchange for his help, I agreedto not eat any Americans. I accepted his offer, and waited for him to arrive.”

I see…but why would Funnier want to help such a dangerouslife form get back to Earth…wait. Eat?

“You…eat people?”

I asked. Cars looked me right in the eye.

“Why do you think I would let you live? Like I said, we onlyhave four hours worth of oxygen. Fueled by the extra mes, this ship will takeapproximately six months to reach Earth. You would never survive it. Remaincalm and allow me to eat you.”

Eh……?

“Wait, you’ve survived all this time on Mars without eatinganything, right?”

Narancia yelped.

“You can damn well last another six months, asshole! So whatif we only have four hours worth of air? There’s shit we can do in four hours!”

“As the universe looped thirty-six times, I have done lapsof Mars, without eating…until today. While it is not my usual custom, thinkof it as a celebratory feast.”

“No, no, no no! Eat when you get to Earth! Someone otherthan me!”

“…you are very loud. Your life will only last another fourhours either way, and if I stop releasing the air inside my lungs you will allsuffocate. Your lives are already at their end. Give it up.”

“No! No! No, no!”

Narancia said, stamping his foot, tears in his eyes.

“? The air in your lungs? That goes in and out of you everytime you take a breath. It’ll run out fast, won’t it?”

“I do not need to breathe. I am releasing the airgradually.”

“Eh? But you said four hours for the three of us.”

“The two of you, and the astronaut. Funnier Valentine diedwithout telling me his plan for reentry, you see.”

I looked around, and saw Pucci lying in the corner, still inhis space suit. There was a round hole in the helmet where Funnier’s RearWindow had fired a bullet, and a bullet hole in the center of his forehead, butthe bullet was stuck in that hole, and when I tapped the bullet with my fingerit fell out. It had not reached the brain. The holes in his head and helmetwere stuffed with red sand, so it was immediately clear who had saved Pucci’slife. That forthright Native American. He’d saved our lives, too. As I honoredhis memory, Pucci’s eyes fluttered open.

“Oh, you’re awake?”

I asked. Pucci ignored me.

“Thirty-six extra Cars…?”

he muttered. He’d been awake and listening this whole time?

So, with a boom we bounded off the surface of Mars, left theatmosphere for outer space, and Mars was soon vanishing in our wake. Naranciawas lying in a heap on the floor, sobbing. Suddenly an electronic jingle nextto him went plu pon pin para para pon and Narancia bounded up, the pebble cellphone in his hand. I’d forgotten it even existed.

“Ahhhhh, Buccellatiiiiiiiiiii! It’s you, right? It’s me,Narancia! So much has been going on I forgot I had this phone!”

he shouted, excited. Buccellati said something that clearlyinfuriated him.

“Hunhhhhhh!? What the fuck are you talking about? It’s allgone to shit here! We aren’t even in Morioh any more! We’re on fucking Mars!MARS! The planet! Yeah! Hunh?”

Then his face shifted to a

sulk, and he handed me the phone.

“Buccellati wants to talk to you.”

I took the pebble, and put it to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Where are you and what are you doing? I will not toleratefooling around.”

Fooling around…we were on a spaceship about to be eaten bythe ultimate thing. I wanted to yell as loud as Narancia, but I restrainedmyself.

“We have a large number of Morioh citizens hostage. We aretreating them well, but we don’t mind treating them less well.”

What the hell was he talking about?

“You gangsters sure like to talk like gentlemen,”

I said,

“But I know you were massacring people on Nero Nero Island,trying to find your boss.”

The Nijimuras and I had witnessed it. The islanders tryingto get to the harbor, ambushed by those gangsters, and slaughtered mercilessly.But Buccellati answered,

“Massacre? What massacre?”

“Don’t play dumb! Those islanders were trying to escape byboat, and you guys killed them!”

“….? We don’t kill civilians.”

“Not officially, anyway.”

“No…we swore an oath not to.”

“Well, you’ve broken that oath.”

“Wait. Where did this massacre happen?”

“On the West side of Nero Nero Island, at the harbor.”

“…….? We did a circuit of the island, but there was noharbor.”

“………?”

But I’d seen it.

“I’m not lying.”

“…it seems not. I don’t smell a lie…as strange as thatmay be to say on the phone.”

“………..”

“Someone must be hiding part of that island so it can’tbe seen from inside…? Only one person can do that. Secco Rotario and his EvilDead.”

Heh heh…oh, Secco Rotario’s there, too, NYPD Blue hadsaid.

“Well done, Jorge Joestar!”

Buccellati said.

“I’ll thank you when this is all over.”

And with that he hung up. He clearly hadn’t managed theslightest bit of understanding of the nightmare Narancia and I were in. Ihanded the phone back to Narancia.

“Joestar?”

Cars said.

“You’re a Jojo, too?”

Oops.

Cars grinned at me.

“Clearly there’s a lot you have to tell me before I eat you.”

Trying not to panic, I prayed that this conversation wouldlast more than four hours.

“Ehhhhhhhhhh? But what about me!?”

Narancia shouted. Uh…good luck?