How does the old joke go? Something about an old German (when that still meant anything) philosopher states that "God is dead." To which God replies "Nietzsche is dead." Well, I got news for the both of them. It doesn't matter anymore, because everything is dead.

I kill people. I suppose that probably makes me a murderer, but I don't really want to stop. The pay is okay and I'm good at what I do. So good that the son of a bitch sitting at the other end of the bar won't know he's dead until I pump two 9mm explosive rounds into his forehead. The bartender won't be too happy, and neither will the other customers, but who cares. Fuck 'em.

I can feel the uppers just starting to peak in my system. I'm beginning to hear my own pulse, see minute details. I slip down from the cracked leather seat of the stool and make my way towards the Asian with a tiny mole above the left side of his lip. I reach for the ceramic-plastic hybrid semi-automatic pistol in its' holster in the small of my back. The tiny ridges on the grip make some obscene sense as the ruby red laser sight finds the preys' left temple. Some blonde with a silver nose ring looks at me and starts to scream as I draw closer. He turns my way just in time to see th muzzle flash twice. His head explodes, like a melon or that American president's head, Kennedy. The rest of his body just falls to the floor like just another piece of meat. The woman he was with is covered in what's left of his head, and refuses to stop screaming. I see the cold, vacant look in her eyes and I recognize it as my own. I grab his wallet. A wife, and a young son that looks like him. Three fives, a ten, and a twenty. And his ID card. Daniel Wu. Got'im. The cool air outside hardly calms me. I did it way too early. The uppers are still raging in my system. I fight the urge to waste the street beggar on the corner. I pause in the middle of the dirty street and look up at the greay night sky. When I was little, the old folks would tell stories about being able to see stars and the moon at night, but I don't think I believe them. Life has always been Hell.

There used to be something called the idealist. Apparently, this race of humans used to believe everything would turn up roses, or something like that. It might help to understand what these people were about if anyone still knew what the hell roses were.

I got into this business by accident. One day, a couple of chummers of mine decided to have some fun, instead of waiting in line. The Infernal Hellfire. That was the name of the bar we had decided to scope. Inside we were outsiders. But the bartender with the chrome arms wasn't going to refuse our money. With ease and rapidity we were in the outer reachs. Nothing could frag with us now. So we decided to prove it. Aside from the bartender, I was the only one left alive. Since that point, I haven't been able to get the taste of blood out of my head. The blood of my chummers, or the poor fraggers who simply wanted to get high in peace. I can really only remember one other thing from that day. My brother's face as I ripped his throat out.

Of course, nowadays, they can rebuild you. Stronger, quicker, smarter, with options God never thought of. If you can swing the payments. I suppose some things never change.

One point more and I would hav been another suit, another faceless corporate slave. All I needed was one more correct answer on the entrance exam. Instead, I became one of the faceless nobodies that populate every city street, wherever you go. I found a few other Failures and we slummed together. Waited in handout lines and got totally high all the time, every day. It was chill at first, but it got stale really quick. And you can only get high so many times off the cheap shit. So we went looking for thrills. We found the Infernal Hellfire.

Only a few people remember what it meant to say "I'm German" or "I'm American" or other such bullshit. What patriotism meant before it was co-opted by advertising agencies. It's much simpler now. Don't fulfill your corporate contract, you become an expendable asset. So much easier come tax time.

For some reason I had always wanted to be a company man. It meant being another salaryman, but it held a certain appeal to me. Maybe it was the security of a lifetime contract. Maybe it was because I wanted to be like my father. He always came home tired, but he always came home. All he ever did was work for the Corporation. Now I get paid to kill people like my father. But instead of being a number, a suit without a face, I'm one of numberless, faceless masses. Big difference, neh? That might explain why I still do what I do. In some twisted fashion I'm acting out my dream of being like my father. But who the fuck really cares.

I'd been up late every night for a month studying for the corporate entry exams. I got up early every morning to study. My entire life revolved around the exams. Then I met her. She made me take her out the night before the exams. She told me not to worry, that I wouldn't have any problems with it. I'd spent an entire month with my charts and tables, and all she was asking was one night. I ended up spending the whole night with her. She was my first lay. I found out later she wanted to get pregnant. She figured I was her ticket out. With me, she would have everything she wanted. She would have too, if I'd gotten one mor point. She ended up with a miscarriage and a botched suicide attempt. The whore didn't even know how to shoot herself. Still, it was the best sex I'd ever had.

The entertainment corporations still put out holos about love and romance. Like anyone still believes in that crap. Love Story VII, the latest version of Romeo and Juliet, and Debbie Does Dallas, part 17. Nobody but the old folks watch them. Nobody even knows where the frag Dallas is anymore.

My brother was a Failure even before I was. He never even tried to pass the exams. He was too much into drugs to ever care about anything or anyone. He didn't ever come around excpet to steal from our parents. When my parents talked, they always talked about him. About how he could have been a success. The only thing he was a success at was getting totally fucked up. So I was the one left to succeed. I guess I did, but not in the way my dad ever expected. But then again I make a lot more than he ever did. I just don't know if I'll come home every night like he did. But as the commercial says, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Of course, that relates to penis enlargement. But I think the principle is the same.

A long time ago there was this thing called Chaos theory. One of the big things was the Lorenz Butterfly effect. It said that something as obscure and minute as the flapping of a butterfly's wings could cause a storm years in the future, or some such thing. And some people actually believed it. But the corporations took care of them years ago. No one is that stupid anymore.

So I sit here in another bar drinking some synthahol concoction, waiting for my next target to show. The drugs are already peaking. It's a different mix this time. Everything's in slow motion, like in some holo or something. Especially the girl without any clothes on dancing in the elevated rotating cage. It's a good thing too, or I might not have seen the ruby red laser sight dancing in front of my eyes. I look up an see a woman that looks shockingly familiar, but she hasn't pulled the trigger yet. Amateur. I'm not in the mood to die, so I start to duck. The adrenalin is starting to flood my brain. The segment of the bar just above me explodes into plastic and synthleather dust that begins to slowly drift down onto me. I pull out my hangun and roll into a defensive position, when I realize who she is. My first lay. Fuckin' bitch. She rounds the corner, but she's too slow. The muzzle erupts 9mm explosive rounds that find a new home in her chest before exploding. She opens her mouth to scream, but she has no lungs anymore. She begins to collapse upon herself, falling slowly to the floor. She fires reflexively once, then twice. I see the rounds streaking towards me. Bitch. The first sails wide, and I can see the tiny disturbances in the air as it goes by me. The must be how it feels to be the prey. To know I'm gonna die. The second round is straight on. It wasn't supposed to be like this. I should have been the executive vice-president by now. Well fuck 'em. Fuck 'em all...

The janitor curses again. Why do these bastards always have to kill each other where he has to clean up? he asks himself. You would think they would be a little cleaner about the whole thing, less obvious, he murmurs. But then again, it he had gotten one more point on his corporate entry exams, he probably would be hiring these same bastards to do the same jobs they do now. One more point, he says aloud to no one in particular, one more point...