The Troubleshooter

February 12

Spam? Someone spammed me? Who the fuck still sends out spam these days? After MRX Interdectic had that public execution three years ago of that spammer (you remember, he was sending out about a billion emails a day?) the spammers stopped cold turkey. Just think, if they'd known in the days of government that all they had to do was shoot a few of them on television, I bent the spam problem would've stopped decades ago.

February 9

Well, I guess it was bound to happen again. I mean, I knew it was inevitable, but I guess I never really thought it through. The job: security testing--which is a fancy way of saying, I break into a place to see if it can be done. And my client fucked up in about the dumbest way possible.

We met at a restaurant for the details. For a change, this was an in-person meeting, which I don't do much any more, but he had to know what I looked like so he didn't mistake me for a real burglar. So I take the job. His security was a piece of cake. A few cameras, some motion sensors, and a single remotely activated ceiling gun. His locks were electronic. Tough but not impossible to crack. I got in, and there he was, waiting for me, a gun in hand.

He asked what the fuck I was doing there. I reminded him that he'd paid me to break in. He denied it. I asked his identity, figuring that maybe this was a twin or something. Nope, this was my client. I asked if he remembered that he'd paid me half up front for the job. He said he has no idea what I'm talking about.

He smiled a little when he said that, and that's when I learned that some dumbass clients will try to fuck you out of the rest of the payment. He paid half upfront for the job. Always get half upfront. Todd's number two rule. (Number one is, don't get caught.)

I completed the job, he saw the flaws in his security, and then he had the bright idea to have his corporation arrest me for breaking and entering, thus getting a 50% discount. It might have worked if he'd hired a common burglar to do the job.

I didn't forget to wipe down my fingerprints and delete all the security feeds when I left. Eight Bit has already scrambled my DNA data in all the databases. I'm not too worried about getting caught, though. The guy was pretty low on the corporate totem pole. I doubt they'll spend too many resources looking for me.

I've always heard they second one is easier than the first one. They were right.

February 1

Remember back in August I mentioned Nate, a guy I went to school with? He was arrested for selling drugs in corporate territory. I finally remembered that I'd meant to go visit him, so I tracked him down. God help me, I'm never going to prison. Maybe it was just this corporation, but holy shit, he looked like someone had beaten him senseless, then dragged him through the mud, and then got rough with him.

He could barely see out one eye. His right arm was in a sling. He had a cut across one cheek. He told me it was a shaving accident. Whenever the guards came by, he'd get real tense, like he thought they were going to hit him. He had this look in his eye, I don't know how to explain it, like he was about to snap.

I brought him some cookies. Store bought. I wouldn't want to poison him trying to bake some. He actually remembered me. Said he always wanted to ask me out on a date, but he was always scared to.

He gets out in about six years. I don't know if he'll live that long.

Jan 28

My resolve to stay away from guys lasted about two weeks. Met the cutest guy last week at the range. His name's Mahavira. He told me it means "great hero" in Sanskrit. Maybe he was just full of it. He was trying out a D-33 he just bought, that new model 45 Deakrit just came out with.

We got to talking, and then we decided to go get coffee. He asked me out to dinner and a movie for Friday. He's a plumber. Affiliated, of course. If I limited myself to guys who didn't work for corporations, I wouldn't be dating much.

It's been a slow two weeks. Haven't had any work since that job to "rescue" this guy's television from his ex-girlfriend. (Why is it, when they hire you to steal something, they can't actually use the word? It's like, as long as they don't say the words "steal" or "theft," they can pretend they're not actually doing something wrong.)

Anyway, if I don't get some work soon, I might have to actually get a legal job. Or I'll go back to picking pockets. Probably the latter.

Jan 2

Another year.

I told Keith to take a hike. We got together on New Year's Eve, like we planned. I drank a couple of beers, but I wasn't in the mood to get drunk. Keith kept badgering me. "Why aren't you drinking more? Don't you want to have fun?" Well, the main reason I wasn't drinking was because I had my weapon on me. Todd drilled into my head: never mix alcohol and weapons. Too much risk. I had my gun on me because the place where the party was held was in one of the worst districts in the city. God, the litter was horrible. Needles everywhere. Some of the saddest whores I've ever seen working the corners. People yelling. Gunshots constantly. I tried to tell Keith we should leave, but he wouldn't listen.

So we went. As far as parties go, it was okay. A lot of drinking. A lot of drugs. People slipping off into back rooms for sex. Nothing unusual. Keith was Mr. Octopus. I told him to knock it off once. He didn't. I told him to fuck off the second time. He didn't. He thought he'd slap me around, too.

We had a quiet talk in the corner. He changed his mind about hitting me and apologized profusely. Probably had something to do with me pressing a nine millimeter under his chin. I left the party after that. I think I'll stay away from guys for a while. I have another job next week. Someone wants me to steal something.

Dec 26

Merry Christmas! OK, so I'm a day late, but I'm also hungover. Way too much rum last night. I went to a party with this guy I started dating last week. His name's Keith. He's an auto mechanic. Good-looking, but not too bright. We sat up all night with his friends at the party playing bullshit.

We'll probably get together again for New Year's Eve, but I think I'll break it off after that. All he ever wants to do is get drunk. Not only is that boring as hell, but drunks in my line of work get dead. I'm not ready to get dead.

Dec 5

Everything's been smoothed over. I sort of know another Troubleshooter who goes by the name of Mouseman. I don't know why, but Troubleshooters have a tendency to have handles. I used to have one that Todd gave me, but it's such a silly name, and I'm too embarrassed to admit what it is. Anyway, Mouseman gave me a phone number, said this guy could help me out for the right price. I don't know Mouseman very well, so I wasn't sure I could trust him, but I was kinda desperate. So I called the number and left the message he told me to leave.

Whoever the guy is, he's fucking weird. His voice mail recording: "You've reached the office of Dr. Recto y Cabeza, specialist in cranial-rectal separation. Please leave a message, and the doctor will return your call as soon as possible."

Weird as he is, he spoke like he swallowed a thunderstorm: his voice was deep and sexy enough to send chills up my spine.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. His name's Eight Bit, and apparently he's the best computer cracker around. He called back a few minutes later. It was a bit unnerving when he started naming off my account numbers, my address, and practically every bit of personal information available about me. He even knew what I looked like.

But, and this is the most important part, he agreed to clean up after me. His fee was a bit steep, but it's better than the alternative. He even gave me a code of my own to use if I needed to call him again. I suspect we'll be working together again.

Nov 24

Well, that was a big ol' clusterfuck. And I'm in some deep shit now, unless I can figure out some way to get out of it.

OK, here's the deal. I took a job to provide backup for this guy, Stef. All he needed was some backup, just in case some of his customers got unruly. It didn't pay well, but it wasn't supposed to be all that hard or dangerous either.

I showed up at the warehouse and got my first surprise. Turns out Stef was selling arms to Sygnet employees who didn't like their corporation's policies regarding gun ownership. Sygnet prefers its employees unarmed; that way they can't fight back when the company decides to cut benefits, like paychecks. (If I'd known Stef was poaching a corporation's territories, I would've dropped him like a hot potato; that shit is dangerous.)

Since I was already there, I figured I'd stick around and discuss with him his ideas of safe and easy work afterward. He had the weapons stored in big crates. Some people showed, started negotiating with Stef. Money changed hands.

And then the cops showed! Sygnet cops are piss poor compared to some of the other corporations, but when your employees aren't armed, there's not much they have to worry about. Still, this was a total setup, and they were prepared. Before anyone could react, they had Stef in cuffs and were starting to round up his muscle. A few of the bodyguards attacked. I had to make a decision: stick around and fight corporate cops or get the hell out of there.

I chose the latter, as you can tell. Like I said, that wasn't what I signed on for. But now I'm worried that Stef will rat me out, and I'll be tagged by Sygnet.

Nov 22

New job tomorrow. I won't say what it is yet, but it should be exciting. I'll post more in a couple of days.

Nov 13

It's been a while. On the plus side, I've had two jobs since my birthday. One was a simple retrieval. This guy thought his employer should've paid him more before he was fired (having met the guy, I'm pretty sure he was fired for incompetence). He wanted me to break into his old office building and steal a couple of computers he could sell. Pretty easy work, but it didn't pay much.

The second job was trickier. The chop shop I used to run cars for was having a problem with a rival cutting into their territory. At first they wanted me to go "break some kneecaps." OK, if you've ever met me, you know why I'm not about to face off against a few six-foot, three-hundred pound men, even with a baseball bat in hand. When Rhino said that, I laughed in his face. Or I told him to go fuck himself. I don't really remember.

But, since it was for an old friend, I still took the job. I just handled it my way. A few ounces of Emset-301, and the building is now nothing but a heap of metal. No one was hurt either, and in the end, Rhino was much happier with the results.

I have enough money to buy Christmas gifts for my family and pay rent. Rhee's been looking forward to some new video game.

Sept 6

Happy birthday to me. Yesterday was my 21st birthday. Rhee was the only one to remember, sweet kid. Even though she's only ten, she still remembered to buy me a gift. I'm wearing it today: a white blouse with dark blue sleeves. It's very elegant, much nicer than anything in my closet already. She has better taste at 10 than I have at 21.

No work to speak of. Things are slow. I've cleaned my shower very thoroughly, though.

August 23

I saw a guy I went to high school with today. We went to a Guthrie school in Marblecreek, so as you can imagine, we didn't have the best education available. I was never much of an academic, though. I've always preferred being outside to sitting around with books all the time.

Anyway, I saw this guy, Nate. He was always the guy who tried his best in class. The teachers loved him, since they don't see a lot of that. Hey, even the teachers don't want to be teaching at a Guthrie school. Nate's parents didn't work for a corporation, though, so Nate really didn't have many chances no matter how hard he tried. It's really hard to get corporate affiliation if your parents don't have it, or you don't have the money to buy into the company.

I keep getting sidetracked. Nate was being arrested for selling drugs on corporate territory. I don't know which corporation arrested him, but their police officers looked very well dressed, so I don't think it was some little startup. He looked beat up, so I don't think prison is going to be very kind to him. I always liked him in school. He was a bit quiet and nerdy, but he was always nice to me. I feel sorry for him. Maybe I'll visit him in prison, bring him some cookies or something.

August 6

There are some days I regret not being affiliated with a corporation. I could've been, since Mom is. She works for a department store chain as a shift manager. She's apparently an awesome worker, and they love her there.

Anyway, the reason I regret it is because it means I can't visit corporate doctors when something goes wrong. There aren't many non-corporate doctors around any more, and they're so poorly trained you wonder if they got their medical license out of a vending machine. Hm, maybe they did. For example, when I got shot last month I had to visit Dr. Meddleston. He operated out of an office at the back of his house, which was located in one of the few unnamed districts left in Marblecreek. The waiting area was dusty, and his examining room wasn't much better. He only washed his hands because I insisted, and I swear he tried to hurt me in retaliation when he examined the bullet wound. If I'd gone to a corporate doctor I would've gotten pain medicine and probably antibiotics. Instead all I got was an x-ray and a bandage, and this thing is still bothering me. I could get some stuff from A.J. for the pain, but I won't. I'd rather die than ask anything of my brother.

I heard there are a few doctors working as Troubleshooters, but I don't know any. I really don't know anybody else in this business except Ladybug, and she lives in San Francisco.

My birthday is in less than a month. I'll be 21. I heard that used to be some sort of magic number, like you could vote and drink and stuff like that. Now it's just another age.

Updated: Almost forgot to mention that yesterday was Rhee's 10th birthday. I bought a couple movie tickets, and I promised to take her out to eat and to the movies this weekend. I'll let her eat all the junk food she wants at the theater. I'd buy her something she could take home with her and play with, but I'm afraid Morgaine would just steal it and sell it.

July 23

I just spent the last three days protecting some rich kids. That may well have been the most awful three days of my life, and that includes the time I spent in the hospital after Harvey, my stepdad, jammed a knife in my back. (I still have the scar, by the way, and that was five years ago.)

They're 6, 10, and 12. God, I hated them. I don't think I'll ever have kids. Their dad is some sort of engineer. He makes bridges or something. He got my name from another Troubleshooter I met when Todd was still alive. Her name's Ladybug. She's about thirty-five, I guess. I know now why she didn't want the job.

My client was worried his mom would try to kidnap the kids and ship them off to boarding school, because she thinks they're spoiled. Imagine that. They wouldn't listen to me, and they wanted me to take them everywhere. The 12-year-old wanted to go shopping, but the 6-year-old wanted to go to the park. And the 10-year-old kept trying to take my guns from me. Rhee's barely ten, and she's more mature than any of them. I don't think their parents give them much attention. I never once saw their mom, but they insisted she lived at home with them.

The job only lasted three days because the dad finally realized no one wanted his stupid kids. OK, not really. He had a talk with his mom, and they worked things out or something. I didn't ask what happened; I just took my money and got as far away from them as possible.

Why did I choose this career path again? Oh, yeah, it's because boosting cars wasn't working out so well.

July 17

I met my mom's boyfriend yesterday. Yeesh, what a total scumbag. His name's Mike Laramie, but everyone calls him Mikey. He kept giving me these looks that made me want to take a bleach bath. Mom already had a fresh bruise on her cheek. She sure picks some real winners.

I miss Dad. It's been eight years now and not a word. Rhee doesn't even remember him, and Crumb barely does.

Speaking of Crumb, he's been doing stupid stuff lately. Yeah, stupid stuff and 13-year-old boys kinda go hand-in-hand. But he wants to be like A.J. so much. So you know what he did? He tried to pimp out his 12-year-old girlfriend! When I found out, I about lost it. Fortunately, the girl has better sense than that and dumped his scrawny ass.

I'm just glad A.J. got busted trying to take another pimp's girls. The idiot doesn't have any more brains than our stepdad, or he wouldn't have tried to fuck with a pimp who has a corporation backing him up. He's serving six months in a LKG Inc. prison. Maybe I can get Crumb straightened out in the meantime.

Yeah, I know. Family dramas. Maybe I'll have more work stories soon.

July 15

Sorry for the late post. I got shot last week, and I'm still recovering. Who knew it would hurt so fucking bad?

I was going to talk about what happened on May 26. It was supposed to be a pretty simple job: rescue some kidnapped children. Sounds positively noble, in fact. Hey, I get paid for the noble ones just like I get paid for the rest.

In case you were wondering, they were being sold to rich people who didn't want to go through their corporation's adoption programs. God forbid those rich fucks actually wait for kids without parents first. No, they just thought they could take whoever the hell caught their fancy. One of the parents knew about me and convinced the other kids' parents to pool their money to hire me.

So anyway, I had locked the kidnappers in a room and just put the little rugrats into a van to take home when a woman showed up. She must've been the head kidnapper or something, because she was pissed, let me tell you. She pulled a gun on me and fired.

Well, Todd's training must've finally kicked in, because before I knew it, I'd emptied my Corizil's clip into her. (No, the kids didn't see; they were already in the back of the van.)

So that's what happened on May 26. I killed someone. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. I've never killed anyone before. I suppose it was inevitable in my line of work. I'm pretty sure Todd took on some paid killings, but I never asked him about that. We didn't talk much about some things.

I have to visit Mom tomorrow. Rhee said she has a new boyfriend. Mom, not Rhee.

July 7

Just a quick post. Got a job to do, but I keep getting this question.

It's pronounced FEE-druh. No, my mom didn't make the name up. She's not smart enough. It's Greek, and no, we're not Greek either. Phaidra (or Phaedra) was the daughter of Minos and the wife of Theseus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaedra_%28mythology%29

July 6

Isn't it weird how we still celebrate Fourth of July? I mean, we haven't had a government for decades now, but we still celebrate our freedom. I guess old habits die hard. Or maybe everyone just wants an excuse to grill steaks and drink beer.

I was going to tell you about May 26, but instead I'll talk about the last week. Talk about crazy! I had this job. It was supposed to be pretty simple: break into this guy's house and trash the place. Pissed off girlfriend or something, I guess. I didn't ask her what her relationship to the guy was. So I cased the house--OK, fucking mansion is more like it--you know, to get some idea of the security. Wasn't anything major. No dogs, just a few cameras, a laser fence. The laser fence is a bit tricky, of course. Worse than electric, since it'll slice you in two.

Anyway, I figured out how I was going to get in and out (and no, I won't tell you; a girl's gotta have her trade secrets), so I made plans for the next night. Night comes, everything's going great, I'm past the fence, avoiding the cameras, when I accidentally kicked a rock. And holy fuck! It landed on a goddamn landmine! The sonofabitch must've known I was going in, because they sure as hell weren't there the day before.

Of course, skirting landmines wasn't part of the deal, and I'd made enough noise to wake the dead when the damn thing went off, so I got the hell out of there. I thought about refusing to return the money to the bitch, but I can't afford the hit to my reputation. She was pissed, as you can imagine, but I told her she'd have to double my pay before I'd consider it.

June 18

OK, so I'm not posting every day like I said I would. Sue me. That's a joke, of course. I have no corporate affiliation, so you can't sue me. You could get your corporation's police to throw me in jail, I suppose. Good luck with that.

Next post, I'll tell you what happened on May 26.

First post - June 15

I never thought I'd be doing this, writing my thoughts down for everyone to see. But what the hell.

It's been nineteen days, and I think I'm more bothered by not being bothered by it than anything. Does that make sense? Maybe I'll talk about it in another post, but not today.

After Todd's death, I wasn't sure if I was good enough for this job. Can you believe it's been six months since he died? Maybe one day I'll track down the sonofabitch who killed him and take care of him. Yeah, I know that's stupid. Todd died because he got caught. It's the nature of the business; it wasn't personal or anything.

Rhee seemed more upset by his death than I thought she would be. She barely knew him. Of course, I told her his death was from a car accident. What, like I'm going to tell my ten-year-old sister my boyfriend was gunned down by a CEO's bodyguards because he was trying to steal a rare book for a client?

The Troubleshooter

Tuesday

February 12

February 9

Wednesday

February 1

Jan 28

Thursday

Jan 2

Monday

Dec 26

Wednesday

Dec 5

Nov 24

Nov 22

Friday

Nov 13

Monday

Sept 6

August 23

Tuesday

August 6

Monday

July 23

Thursday

July 17

Tuesday

July 15

Saturday

July 7

July 6

June 18

First post - June 15

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