“Ah, shiny-shiny!”

The trog’s voice wakes me up first. Their skeletal fingers prying open my right eyelid wakes me up second. They want to get the chrome cybernetic eye behind the lid. My left eye, the normal one, that opens up reflexively. I’m flooded by a disorienting blur of colors but the blur aligns itself to reveal the trog. He’s draped in a rotten rainbow of ill-fitting salvaged clothes, his leathery skin showing the marks and lines of a killer opioid addiction. His hair is grey and ratty. His beady, narrow eyes are sunken and dark. His teeth are yellow-brown and all crooked. His breath hits my face like a burst of hot desert air. One of us smells like piss, shit, and vomit and I desperately hope that it’s him.

“Shiny-shiny, shiny-shiny…”

He wants my eye. Could probably trade it for enough smack to put himself out of his misery. I wiggle my right hand, to confirm that he didn’t take that already. It’s buried under some trash, so I guess he missed it. No smack for him today, then.

I lift my right hand up and press my middle and ring fingers deep into my palm, nuzzling the thumb in between them. After a second the amplifier in the palm activates, and I extend my pointer and little fingers upright to activate the electrodes. Then I strike out like a snake, jamming the extended fingers into his arm. The trog howls in pain as 86 million volts of electricity cause his muscles to spasm. He’s already pulling off of me by the time my ordinary left hand starts pushing him back and in no time at all I’m free.

As he draws away from me I pull back my fingers to disarm the stun gun, then reach into my open jacket for my Timber Wolf to finish the job. Shit. All I feel is the holster. The trog scurries away from me, he’s learned his lesson. But I’ve got a new problem on my hands right now: where’s my gun?

I pull myself up out of the garbage and step out from the alleyway I was in. Time for a quick patdown. I’ve still got my shades, my phone, my wallet, my keys and my smokes. It’s just my gun that’s missing. Alright. If it’s just the Timber Wolf I probably left it back at Shooter’s. I’ve done it before, I’ll probably do it again. At least I still have my smokes. I take the pack of Marlboros out from my pants side pocket and slide a loose cigarette in my hands. I put it in between my lips before clenching my right fist and flicking my right thumb up against the inside of the middle finger to activate the internal lighter. I use the small flame to light the cig, then unclench my fist to extinguish the flame.

Time to figure out where exactly I am.

Well, I know the vague answers to that already. I’m currently in Nocturne City, an independent city-state floating out in the Pacific Ocean. And if the fact that I was rudely awoken by a Trog wasn’t enough of a hint, the searing incandescence of the fluorescent lights above me and the incessant head-pounding noise of the industrial and electrical systems that keep this city running tells me I’m in the undercity.

It also told me that I’m hung over, but that much was obvious from the get-go.

Directly across from me is a wall with “1770 RICHENBACHER STREET - NIKITA LEGAL SERVICES” painted on it. So I’m near 17th and Richenbacher. Shooter’s is on 14th and Richenbacher, and I live on 21st and Boxer. So most likely I was walking home from Shooter’s completely plastered and decided to stop and take a quick trash nap.

Evidently that little trash nap was more of a blackout. They almost always are.

I almost always stick to the undercity for my walk home. There’s no cars and very few people outside trogs and the occasional cheap whore who’s got a place I can crash at. But right now I know it’s better for my hangover if I breathe some natural air. Time to go back up.

There’s an elevator that’ll take me up to the city surface at the next intersection. I get in it and check my watch.

Shit.

It’s five past ten and I’ve got two missed calls and an unread text. Well, whoever wants to talk to me can wait: my phone battery is apparently dead. The upside is that judging by the smell, I didn’t shit or piss myself. Stomach pain tells me that I did probably did throw up somewhere at some point last night but it doesn’t smell like I got any on myself. Not too bad of a night, then.

The doors open, and fuck, the sun’s too goddamn bright. I stagger out onto the sidewalk on Richenbacher street and let my eyes adjust. Nocturne City is absolutely beautiful at night. All the neon displays and holographic banners light up the night sky in a big dazzling nighttime rainbow. When you’re drunk, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. There’s this big incandescent blur of chaotic energy that you can just lose yourself in. But when you’re hung over the next morning, you realize that it was all an illusion. You see the unlit displays and the more mundane holograms along with all the steel and stone buildings that prop them up. There’s no more magic, in fact there never was any to begin with. You realize that it’s just a city like any other, and you’re a low-life drunk just like any other.

Well, maybe I’m underselling it a bit. Nocturne City is still a seastead, and a floating superstructure capable of supporting and sustaining up to two and a half million people running entirely on clean energy is still a spectacular accomplishment for mankind. That it has the economic and political infrastructure to exist independent of any land-based nation is equally impressive. Then when you factor in Nocturne City’s ability to prosper despite being an international hub of sin, vice, and decadence, it becomes amazing that the Pacific hasn’t just swallowed the city whole. I guess I’m kind of like that myself: it’s an incredible achievement that I’m still alive.

The natural ocean air fills my lungs and adds a spring to my step. More importantly, it gets the smell of vomit out from my nostrils. 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, with every block cleared I feel more and more natural. By the time I turn onto 21st street I can finally take the sunglasses off. From there it’s a few more blocks to the north and I’m finally back at my apartment building.

I don’t remember the name of the place, it’s something Chinese. It’s built like one of those old pre-Chinese Reformation housing blocks, what some people call the “commieblocks”. All I know is that it’s this big dull slab of concrete which holds twelve incredibly dense stories of low-rent housing. It’s one of the few places you can afford when you don’t have a steady job but do have a substance abuse problem. Unlocking the front gate, I pass by the security guard as he plays around on his tablet. I only live on the second floor, so it’s a short walk up the stairs and down the hall to apartment 23. Home sweet home.

The first thing I do after closing the door behind me is to hook both my phone up and my watch up to charge. Next, I go into the bathroom and turn on the shower. While that warms up, I go back to the bedroom and take some time to undress. My jacket and holster wind up on the bedroom floor. I my boots haphazardly in the direction of my closet. The belt joins the jacket and holster on the floor. After that comes the shirt, the pants, the socks, and finally the mercifully unstained boxer-briefs which all somehow make it into my laundry bin. Wait, did I leave my wallet and smokes in my pants? Fuck. I dig them out and place those on my dresser right next to my shades. All done, time for a nice warm shower.

I pull the curtain aside and step into the shower and- Holy shit it’s fucking freezing! I leap out of the shower like someone tossed a grenade in there.

That fucking cunt of a landlady. I’ll fucking scalp her one day, I swear. I’ll cut her saggy chinese tits off and feed them to pigs. I dash back into the living room,  grab my phone and immediately call her. The line rings three times and then she picks up.

“Hello twenty-three?” her raspy voice asks.

“Yeah, question, why the hell is my hot water not working?”

“Water heater broken. Repairman come later in afternoon. We send text.” Her voice is utterly disinterested, and I know that’s not because of the language barrier. “Besides, you rent always late, you apartment always mess, smell too much like drink. You bring bad company over, very bad look for building. Why you complain now about water? Why you not pay rent on time?”

“Listen here you fucking ugly little ch-”

“I no care, you pay rent on time or kiss my ass-hole.” She hangs up before I can unload on her in full. This isn’t the first time we’ve had this fight, and it always goes the same. She demands I pay my rent on time, I start cursing her out, she blows it off and hangs up. She’s a tough old bitch, I’ll give her that much. I’m sure she knows what kind of person I am and the kind of life I’ve lived, but she’s not scared of me at all. Good for her.

So now what? Well if my phone works, I may as well check my messages. Sure enough, there’s a text from the apartment services warning all tenants that the hot water isn’t working. There’s also the two missed calls, both of which have gone to voice mail. First one is from late last night:

“Hey Flynn, this is Enzo. Pops has a job for you, something real big, you’re gonna love it. I’ve got you penciled in for lunch tomorrow with me and the old man, just give me a call back to confirm, okay?”

Uh-oh. I check the second message.

“Yo, Flynn, this is Enzo. Hope you’re okay, you, uh, you never really called back. Listen, uh, it would be really great if you could pick up so I’d know that you’re coming. I told Pops that you’re pretty much the best possible guy for the job, so now it’s kinda sorta my ass on the line too. So I’d really appreciate it if you could, uh, you know, just gimmie a call back? If not we’ll try to swing by your place around, like, 11-ish to pick you up, okay? Anyway just gimmie a call back even if that works out just fine, alright?”

Oh shit. Here I am, standing naked and wet in the middle of my living room when I find out that Lorenzo Bagnoli, my most frequent employer, wants me to meet his billionaire oligarch father Filippo Bagnoli for a job. I haven’t shaved. I haven’t showered. I’m not even fucking dressed! Shit, why am I even standing around?

I drop the phone and turn to get back in the shower. Fuck the cold, I need to get going. I frantically try to rinse off, and then- oh shit, door! The fucking door’s being opened! Fuck me, I never locked it!

I dash out of the shower and into my bedroom, where I’ve got a combat knife under my pillow. I don’t know who’s come for me: it could be sea-scouts, missionaries, or traveling salesmen, or it could be gangbangers, cops, bounty hunters from the Hague, or a wigged-out trog. All I know is that I can’t take any chances. I grip the knife firmly in my hand and forcefully open the door…

…right in the full view of Enzo and two of his bodyguards. All three of them stare at me. They’re too confused to respond to the naked, dripping-wet knife-wielding maniac standing in the doorway. I look at the clock.

Ten past eleven.

I look Enzo square in the eye.

“You’re late.”