[h3][color=#A0522D]Gravel - The Black Lung[/color][/h3]
Adrastea-1 wasn’t a place anyone chose to [i]live[/i]. It was a rock built for extraction, not comfort - a chunk whose purpose was to be strip-mined down to its bones and left hollow by generations of tired hands. The surface was a dust-blown sprawl of domed habitats stitched together by service tunnels and cargo lines, all humming under the orange glow of Jupiter’s endless gaze. Inside, everything rattled - the vents, the lighting, the people; nothing ever really stopped moving.

Gravel and Big Mo moved through the refinery concourse, boots clanging against the grated deck. Somewhere below, the two could feel the drills chewing at the rock, a low, constant groan that bled through the floor and into the bones. The corridors sweated condensation, and the walls were plastered with peeling safety posters, each of them stamped with the logo of some long-defunct mining corp. As they cut through the crowd, the miners’ faces told the same story: blank, bruised, force fed with scraps and broken dreams. Their coveralls stained grey-brown from work that never really washed off. 

Jovian corp policy kept it simple, people were cheaper than robots. After all, machines needed upkeep, their parts were both sophisticated and expensive, especially for a mining project this size. They also didn’t care for liquor, stims, or the promise of a better life. Flesh broke down just as fast, but there were far more ways for their overlords to skin that cat.

Why spend fortunes on obedient machines when you could build an economy of addicts who paid for their own chains? Keep ‘em hooked, keep ‘em hopeful, and they’d buy the very poison that kept them docile. The debt came standard, same as the housing, the food, the air they breathed. And all of it circled back to the corps, clean and profitable.

Everest had sent Gravel rockside to "sniff around for work," though the old man already knew where to start. Rix Harrow. A former associate from Callisto days.

Now, there wasn’t much worth smuggling into Adrastea; the miners already had their vices, and they were too doped and indebted to need more. Gravel wasn’t about to waste his time with that approach. Instead, he was here to see if there was anything left of the old Rix under all that corporate polish.

If Harrow could get his hands on a private vein, a stash of ore or rare metals that could quietly slip off the books, there’d be helios in it. Not a mountain of treasure, mind you, but enough of a profit to keep the boat afloat a while longer. Mo was the kind of man who could tell you if a deal like that was worth the trouble, which was why Gravel had brought him along.

[color=#A0522D]“Keep your eyes open,”[/color] Gravel said on the way down. [color=#A0522D]“All we need to do is plant the seed, see if the bastard has any [i]creativity[/i] left in ‘im.”[/color]

Mo kept pace beside him, silent but alert, nodding along to the boss's advice.

Rix had once been a mover for the Syndic Eight. He was clever, slippery, and always good at spinning vice into helios. When the Commonwealth decided it was easier to regulate their trade rather than kill it, he did what Voith could never, and kissed the ring. Now he peddled the same stims under a new banner, every gram logged, taxed in their own way, and blessed by corpo law. A legitimate businessman, on paper. A domesticated wolf.

Gravel still remembered him as a tall, wiry bastard with silver caps on his teeth and a laugh like a busted engine. Word was, time hadn’t been kind.

“Hard to believe he’s still breathin’,” Mo muttered, half to himself.

[color=#A0522D]“Men like Harrow don’t die,”[/color] Gravel replied. [color=#A0522D]“They just crawl from under one rock to another.”[/color]

Passing under a half-dead neon sign, it buzzed overhead blinking [b]THE BLACK LUNG[/b] through the haze. It was one of the few joints on Adrastea-1 where you could buy both a shot and a stim legally, courtesy of Harrow’s corporate license.

Inside, the heat hit like a wall. The air reeked of ethanol and stale atmosphere, a metallic bite from the haggard ventilators fighting a losing battle against smoke. The lighting was a sickly amber, barely cutting through the smog. Tables were patched metal, their surfaces etched with years of knife scores and spilled chemicals. A low, repetitive track thrummed from the wall speakers - music made to fill silence, not to be heard.

Rix was where Gravel expected him, back corner, under a dim bulb, flanked by two off-shift loaders. The rumours proved to be true, age had softened him, but not kindly. His once slick hairline had retreated far back, his frame thinned almost unbelievably, and his silver teeth had dulled to tarnish. But his eyes, sharp, predatory, hadn’t lost their shine.

Gravel slowed, scanning the room out of habit. No Syndic colours, no obvious muscle. Just miners, drinkers, the usuals. He nodded once to Mo. [color=#A0522D]“Stay close. Let him talk first.”[/color]

As they crossed the room, Harrow looked up, recognition flickering like a dying wick. His grin came slow, crooked.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he rasped, voice almost as rough as Gravel himself. “Didn’t think [i]you[/i] of all people would crawl off Callisto alive.”

Stopping by the table, Gravel waved him off with a faint scoff. [color=#A0522D]“Pfft. If you call this livin’, I’d rather be stuck in a grave.”[/color]

Harrow barked a laugh and kicked an empty seat out from the table. “Sit, old dog. Let’s see if we can’t make a little business outta the past.”

Gravel sat, coat settling around him like a shadow. Mo took post by the wall, silent, watching.

The air between them hung thick with history - half friendship, half rivalry.