Chapter 1: I Fought the Law (and the Law Can Kiss My Ass)

“STOP TOUCHING ME.” I heard a piercing voice shout in my ears. My eyes snapped open. Wait, where was I again? Why is there a female voice telling me to stop touching her? Why can't I see anything (try NOT lying face-down on the fucking carpet, smart guy. Maybe that'll help)? Why am I saying shit in present tense, although I'm supposed to be narrating this story as if it had happened in the past? Crap. Hold on here, gotta adjust (you done breaking the fourth wall yet?). Aaaaagh, much better. What was I sa- oh, right.

All of a sudden, I went from caressing my nude spouse in a shower to being knocked off my own bed by some girl who apparently, had been spending last night at my place. As soon as I stood up, I saw a very angry-looking girl standing across my bed, with only a bed sheet tied around her body (presumably to prevent your horny ass from coming into contact with her skin again, no doubt). She looks pretty hot: slim, tall, smooth and white skin. Probably Russian, judging from her looks. Wait, what the hell is she doing? She's holding up her right hand, and rubbing her index finger and her thumb together, as if she's asking for- Ooooooh.

So THAT'S what happened last night. That would explain why she was so pissed off at me for touching her like I did, and also why she has to use my bed sheet as a makeshift gown. Hold on a sec, does that mean I'm na- (did you really have to do that, man?) Yeeeeep. Hey there, Johnson. I take it you had a good time last night (oh, great. OK, people, nothing to see here, just a grown man attempting to have a conversation with his dick...)? Well, shit.

“Oh, right. Sorry about that. How much?” I asked the girl, still stark naked.

“Two hundred credit,” the girl chanted indifferently in an odd accent (understandable, considering her place of origin).

“TWO FUCKING HUN- OK woman, there is NO WAY I agreed to that price. You said one hundred. No more, no less,”

“What you say not entirely true. One hundred for sex, seventy for overnight stay, plus thirty for grop-”

“I was dreaming,”

“Please, everyone say that. Hmph. Men. All the same: always make false promise, then deny afterward. They say, 'I give you one hundred for head' and after night is done, they give you twenty five. They say, “I return in five minute”, then return fifteen minute. They say-”

“You didn't say anything about additional fees. You just said one hundred credits, nothing about-”

“Well, now I say it. Two hundred, now. Give me money, or I-”

“OK, FINE. Just gimme a second to find the money,” I relented. The girl looked surprised, undoubtedly astounded at how easy I cracked under her stellar skills of negotiation. She then screwed up her face a little (she's probably suspicious about how big of a pussy you are. Either that or she thinks that you're up to something) before finally speaking.

“Very well. Get me money now, then we finish business,” she said.

“THANK you,” I replied. I headed out of my bedroom into the living room, which was basically just a slightly bigger room with a sofa and a TV (what can I say? I've never been one to live large). I waltzed toward the table the TV was placed on, bent down, and opened one of the table's two drawers. The drawer contained an entire shitload of files, but the main attraction of the drawer was a tiny button hidden under one of the folders. I looked back at my bedroom to ensure that the girl was still there (Hold on a sec: I thought you had motion detectors set up on every doorframe! Why would you need to- Ah, forget it), just to be safe.

After realizing that the coast was clear. I pressed the button, revealing a secret compartment beside the TV which contained an S-34L series Duranium safe guarding my precious, precious credits. I opened the safe's fingerprint door lock (which was in turn guarded by a camera capable of facial recognition in case somebody knocks me out and forcefully uses my finger on the lock), pocketed two hundred credits, then closed the safe.

However, when I stood up, I heard the familiar clicking sound of a gun behind me, then felt its cold barrel press against my noggin. And by “cold”, I mean like, really, REALLY cold. Having no hair can be uncomfortable sometimes, ESPECIALLY when it comes into contact with the cold metal of a firearm (yes, I'm bald. I'm sorry I failed to mention that earlier. Well, at least now you know. What? It makes athletic activities a helluva lot easier. And besides, fuck mainstream haircuts. I'm a hipster). Go figure: it's one of THOSE girls. I turned around to see the chick that I had (supposedly) spent the last night banging fully clothed in a covert ops suit, holding a silenced handgun against my forehead.

“Wow. And I thought my ex was bad...” I joked.

“Hmph. They say, 'Elmer Tascot Abraham dangerous guy.'. Psscht, like hell. This easy money. Sorry, sweetheart. You seem like pretty nice guy. But alas, job is job,” she replied with a triumphant look on her face. Whilst still holding me up against the wall, the girl's eyes veered toward the still-open (not-so) secret compartment and the safe stored within.

“And what might your job be?” I inquired.

“Oh, I take care of... problem. Boss pay to take care of problem, I take care of problem,”

“A contract killer, I suppose?” I asked, forehead still pressed against the gun's barrel.

“Not really. Only boss have problem, ask me take care of problem,”

“Oh, really? Then who IS your boss, if I may ask?”

“That information confiden- Vy mu'dak, I forget reason of come here. Cut bullshit, tell safe combination before I blow fucking brains out,” the girl suddenly threatened, pressing the gun even harder against my temple. Well, shit. Fuck-around time is over, I guess.

“You're gonna blow my brains out regardless of whether I open the safe or not,” I protested.

“Fine. Then first, I blow leg out. Then leg. We go one by one, until-”

“OK, OK, fine. If the safe is really what you want, go ahead. It's open already. Jesus Christ,” I relented.

“Thank you, drug. You not so tough. Thanks for make this easy,” the girl replied, with an obnoxious smile on her face. Fine. Let her have this victory; I have something else in store for her...

“Watch out for the safe's contents, though. It might be a little...” I warned her as she bent down to inspect the safe. She took no attention to my warning, and reached out her hand to touch the safe's handle. As soon as her hand made contact with the safe handle, I heard a sudden “bzzzzzzt” sound and the girl's body started convulsing violently. After several seconds, the sound stopped.

“Shocking.” I finished (ba-dum tss).

The girl's unconscious body fell to the ground, still twitching from the debilitating shock it just suffered. On that note, I should also probably mention that the S-34L safe is outfitted with an automatic locking mechanism that will activate once the safe has been closed, in addition to an electric handle that will shoot a few million volts of electricity through any idiot dumb enough to even ATTEMPT to open the safe before bypassing the authorization process (just between the two of us, I have fallen prey to this security feature myself during the first few days of using the safe. You live and you learn, I guess). Moral of the story? Don't be a gold digger (and even if you DO end up becoming one, at least don't go to the point where you end up having to hold a pistol to your victim's forehead. Goddamn).

I returned to my bedroom to put on some decent clothes before searching the girl for any signs of identification (keep in mind that I was butt-naked during the entire encounter), and noticed that while she was in my bedroom, she was clever enough to avoid the motion sensor on the doorframe before stepping out of the room and holding me at gunpoint (how she managed to change into a covert ops suit in the same amount of time that it took for me to go through the process of opening the secret compartment and the safe held within remains a mystery to me). Unfortunately for her, she wasn't smart enough to predict that the safe was gonna, I don't know, STUN THE EVERLOVING SHIT OUTTA HER (to be fair, you don't normally see an S-34L series safe in every house you rob). I made a mental note to place the sensors in more strategic places when I got the time.

After putting on some clothes, I returned to the living room and searched the girl's unconscious body. After several minutes, I found her smartphone in one of the many pockets within her suit (admit it, ya perv. You had fun, didn't you?). You, shut the fuck up. Anyway, after hacking into her phone with the assistance of my handy Binary Resequencer (courtesy of an associate of mine nicknamed “Gunner”), I discovered that this snoozing psycho (look who's talking, dumbass...) was a soldier working for Nayemnik, which was a Russian private military company (read: glorified mercenary organization) known for being one of the leading PMCs around. Her name? Alina Morozov. Does that ring a bell? No? Well, good; that means we're both on the same page.

Anyway, Alina was your typical hard-as-nails PMC soldier (the only non-typical part about her being the fact that she infiltrated my apartment under the guise of a hooker), and according to her current mission objective (which had been going on for several weeks now, speaking of which), she was tasked with attracting my attention using any means necessary (well, THAT definitely explains what happened last night, doesn't it?) so that Nayemnik would be able to track down the location of my hideout (needless to say, I WOULD HAVE felt extremely flattered by the effort these people had put into finding me, if it hadn't been for the motive and the end goal). Well Alina, you did a great fuckin' job, I'll give you that much. Note to self: never invite a Russian prostitute over to your house in the future, no matter how hot), which they... already... know. Shit. On the bright side, at least that confirms my suspicions about my home's privacy issues.

After spending a few more minutes searching Alina's body (and covert ops suit), I also figured out that her strike team was ordered to capture me alive for an unknown reason (understandable; PMCs and similar organizations tend to operate on a need-to-know basis, mostly due to the customer's privacy). To back this up, I found an arsenal of non-lethal gadgetry stashed on Alina's person: Lullaby gas grenades, stun mines, shock fists... Hell, even the handgun she used to threaten to “blow my brains out” with was actually a Shuijiao tranquilizer pistol, which I made the mistake of thinking was a lethal weapon (you dumbass). Lamenting my nearly fatal mistake, I wondered in amazement at how I've managed to live this long without making a dumb slip-up that cost me my life (at worst, just a trip to a hospital that in turn ended up getting stormed by the cops. It's a long story).

Curious to learn more about Nayemnik's goal, I dug deeper into Alina's mission file to discover that Nayemnik had been hired by- Emperor Arjan? Christ, what did I do to piss the guy off THIS time (weeeeell, let's begin with the fact that you robbed the Russian Federal Reserve on Mars dry of credits, kidnapped a few of his ministers in exchange for the release of several crucial American political figures held captive on the Kletka moon, and-)? I was doing my JOB, for God's sake (plus, he's a dick). For fuck's sake, Why does EVERYONE to blame the mercenary? Naturally, this course of action on the Emperor's part pissed me off so much that I booted up my NTJ-110 laptop (a gift from my friend Giorgi) and started figuring out a way to gain access to the telecommunicator in the Martian Royal Palace.

For those of you who don't know (and I'm assuming that's most of you, which shouldn't be surprising, seeing that this is probably your first time reading this book), Emperor Arjan is... well, how should I put this in the gentlest way possible? As I've said before, he's a dick, for many, many reasons. He's lazy, ruthless, egotistical as all hell, prideful, greedy... I could go on all day talking about what a WONDERFUL emperor he is, but let me just sum up everything you need to know about him in two sentences: first and foremost, he's so fucking lethargic that he insisted that the Martian Military Association (MMA for short) lend him an experimental exosuit that doubles as both a self-powered, completely independent life support device and battle dress (something like in that ancient flick called “Iron Man” or something. Sorry, it's been a couple of decades since that movie came out), that can be controlled by the user's MIND (this suit is one of a kind; it's the only piece of gadgetry this side of Martian space that can be controlled by its user's brain, and also remains being the only electric machine in history that runs on a self-sustaining power source. Needless to say, it's a truly intriguing machine). Secondly, he's a bigot who rules over Mars with an Duranium fist. I mean, come on. Who WOULDN'T give up an opportunity to piss a dipshit like him off? Anyway, back to the story.

After several minutes of pushing buttons and fiddling with binary codes, I successfully bypassed the telecommunicator's security system thanks to my magnificent black hat hacking skills. Well, that AND the computer's inbuilt iSpy software, which was yet ANOTHER handy present given to me by Gunner; the guy's such a phenomenal hacker that he has a shrine of the god Regis in his bedroom, complete with a metal bust of the deity kneeling inside the shrine surrounded by lit wax candles and all that shit (for those of you who don't know, Regis is the god of secrecy. However, he is also said to be the defiler of all secrets in the universe as well as their guardian, which is the main reason why he's supported and hated by so many different groups of people, all at the same time. It's complicated). Goddammit, I'm getting distracted again.

Anyway, back to the original topic: After successfully bypassing the telecommunicator's security systems, my laptop snapped to a view of the Arjan's personal chambers, which I assumed was also the sight that other people saw when chatting with the emperor through the telecommunicator. Although I only saw a small portion of the room through the telecommunicator screen, I could clearly see that it was about as large as a ballroom, give or take. Holy shit, what the hell do you need a room THAT big for? Royal weddings? Conferences discussing planet-wide domination? Come to think about it, it's probably the latter.

Alas, my sightseeing was quickly interrupted by someone who looked a lot like the palace cleaner, who happened to pass the telecommunicator and see an unfamiliar face on the screen, causing him to jump in surprise. Unsurprisingly, his face was covered by a frowning mask, as is the custom of the Martian people (I'll explain this bit later on). After recovering from his shock, he said, “I- Um, who this? How emperor leave telecommunicator on?”

I sighed loudly, exasperated at the fact that I was going to have to speak with another linguistically inferior human being for the second time today. Let's just hope he understands what I'm about to say.

“I am, uh, a very important American ambassador. I've come to talk to Emperor Hogevor Arjan Nordy about the... Interplanetary Human Rights defiance on Mars. Yeah, that's it,” I responded. I knew that I was speaking to a fucking CARETAKER, who probably wouldn't even give two shits about the details about his boss's associates. Still, I thought that it was worth coming up with a creative fib, just in case.

“Oooo-kay. I tell Emperor Arjan, he busy talking to cabinet in meeting room-”

“NOW, dude. If he doesn't come to this telecommunicator within the range of the next thirty seconds, I will end this call, then go over to Mars to gut your pathetic emperor myself, then hang his disemboweled corpse over the palace balcony,” I threatened, destroying my friendly facade as the “important American ambassador” that I had previously claimed to be.

“OK, OK, I get point. Sorry for keep wait. I tell Emperor now,”

“Good man.” I said.

Sure enough, the cleaner ran out of the telecommunicator's field of vision, presumably to tell his beloved ruler that a bald sociopath wanted to have a word, lest he pay a visit to the palace himself and end its ruler's reign. This guy might be shitty at English, but at least he can understand death threats, no matter how complicated they may sound. And now, I wait.