I hate this place. I spend most of my nights here, in my cold and wooden office, whiling away what's left of my forties, watching old time movies from the 20th century and waiting for business to roll in - my favorite is Die Hard. Commando is a close second. It's slowed down a lot, ever since the Imperials actually made their presence known out here. Everyone's afraid to do anything nefarious, or shady, or illegal, for fear they'll end up black bagged and on the express shuttle out to the supermax facility on Pluto. Might as well be a death sentence.
Used to be that a guy or a girl, or a bird, or a spider could come to the moon and get their business done here, without a lot of fuss or muss. Maybe not so quietly, especially if there were bodies involved, but that was the price one paid to get ahead without playing by the rules, so to speak. And if somebody (or something) was up to no good, you can sure as shit somebody (or something) wanted to know about it. 'On the down low', as they used to say back on Earth.
When I started off, back in '03, they came in by the droves. At first it was mostly jilted husbands and wives, looking for proof their significant other(s) were fooling around town. Those were pretty open and shut type deals. I give them the holophotos, they give me the credits. The reputation grew, which happened quickly in a city where reputation was pretty much all anyone had, and soon it got to be a lot more than that. In '05, a spider came in here asking me to off his former business partner for him. It. Whatever. They still fucking creep me out. All of them except for one. I'll get to him later. Anyway, he drops a hundred thousand on my desk, tells me I get another hundred thousand when I bring him the head of Simon Magnus.
Well, never brought him the head of Simon Magnus, because Simon came in the next night and doubled his offer. So, with more money on the table, I did what any enterprising individual would do and followed through with the higher offer.
I vaporized the spider with a class 3 ion gun in its web, took the three hundred grand and the rest of the year off. I still came into the office though, and clients still came in, but at that point I could pick and choose my jobs.
And then in '07, the Imperials came in, and shit just dried right the fuck up.
Did I mention that I hate this place? I used to love it. I used to think I was so bad-ass. Mickey Martinelli, bad-ass for hire, the last of a dying breed. Expensive, shiny laser cannon in my bottom desk drawer along with a bottle of imported bourbon straight from old Kentucky on good old terra fuckin' firma. You got a problem? Go see Mickey. Something needed fixing? Go see Mickey. You wanna make somebody disappear, or just get the fuck off of Neptune?
Yeah, you got it. Go see Mickey.
And now, six years after the long arm of the Empire finally made its way here to New Boston, Neptune Prime, I'm almost a fucking beggar. The laser cannon and the Jack Daniels? Gone. Now its’ Synthbourbon in a plastic glass and an antique revolver right out on the desk. It's alright. Nobody's walking through that door tonight anyway.
On the television, John MacClane lets Hans Gruber drop from the Nakatomi. The lousy kraut deserved it - you always pay for sloppiness one way or another. I'm tired. I put my head down on my desk. Doze off.
I wake up with a pulse cannon pressed to my temple.
"Don't move, Martinelli," a familiar voice said.
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