Episode 1: Infiltration

I know what some of you are thinking.

You're confused. I know. Still, this is a new chapter in my life since my self-insertion into the sprawl of Night City, NJ. I still can't wrap my head around the fact that I'm here. It still seems so foreign to me.

Right now, Misty's cooking and we'll both be sitting down to a dinner of teriyaki steak and tri-color Tortellini. I can't wait.

Maggie and Jessy, her two cats, are still getting adjusted to having Daddy around. I still miss Izzy. I wonder where he is, what he's doing, why he didn't want to come with me. He was like my kid. It's hard to let your kids go. It's what I had to do. I had no choice in that matter. I loved waking up next to him. I'd wake up, his paws would be on my shirt. He'd start kneading and attempting to eat my shirt. I'd smooth the fur on his head. I never stopped loving him. He was my little buddy and I'll forever miss him. I still don't understand how it came to this. One day, he was passing out on my shoulder, draping himself over me and sleeping peacefully. He'd lay in my arms like a baby and I'd smooth the fur out on his body. The next day, he didn't want to be around me. I still don't know what changed. I wanted him to come with me to our new home but he'd decided that something changed. I think Maggie senses my sense of loss. She's very affectionate and loves the attention that I once gave Izzy. Izzy, if you're still out there, I still love you little buddy. Nothing will ever change that.

Things have been going increasingly good for me. The job hunting isn't totally petering out. There are actually plenty of jobs and one of the applications landed me a job the very next day. It was AMP Marketing in Philadelphia. I cruised over to Philly and spoke with them. Aggressive, fast-paced marketing. Sounded like my kind of thing. I'm not waiting on them to call me back, though Joel said he loved my first impression, because there are lots of other things out there that I can do and I'm applying for them all.

I think I've worn a tie more here than I ever have when I was in Louisiana. Here, people seem to like my sense of style and I'm not always stuck in the house because there's nothing to do. Oh no, there's plenty out there to do and see, the thing is, I just want to hang back for now. No knee-jerk movements yet.

So here we are, Episode One in this series of chronicles. The new chapter to open the new book. It's time to access the files, let the chips fall where they may.

On Friday, all I did was apply, apply, apply. When I was job hunting ten years ago, my hand cramped from all the applications there were to fill out manually. Now, everything is done in cyberspace. Bankers Life and Casualty emailed me, I went to that interview/questionnaire fill-out/presentation. They called me back. Interview number two for this one. Looks as though things are going to look up for this job. Many of the "applicants" who were invited did not bother expressing interest in returning. I've got a couple of questions for them when I get there because, let's face it, I'm sick of being unemployed. It was a great vacation but it must end at some point. It can't last forever.

Once I get the infiltration set up and done then it's time to bide my time and just get myself locked in and then...the fun begins.

So far, Night City has been something really interesting. I've gotten lost more times than I care to count. I seem to have already made one enemy in the squatter in Zone Two. Seems I was coming back from the Corporate Sprawl when I noticed something rattling in the truck. The problem was that it stopped once the speed reached 20 but slowing down or stopping...well, it got louder.

Last night, Misty's Bro-In-Law and fellow geek, Darrin was looking at it. He's learned a lot from mechanics and wanted to see if he couldn't figure it out before I did something stupid like waste some mechanoid mercenary's time with it. It sounded to me like it was coming from the rear passenger side but it wasn't. It was coming from the passenger front side. We couldn't find anything loose in there until we opened up what serves as a hubcap in the center of my rim only to find that two of the six lug nuts were off the lugs and happily frolicking in my goddamned hubcap.

Of course! Why wouldn't it be? I only pulled shit like that in high school to people I didn't like. I'd pry a hubcap, drop a couple of marbles, ball bearings, rocks or whatever in there and pop it back in place. Those idiots would be worried all weekend until they started to get wise that someone was fucking with their shit but never, ever would I loosen someone's lug nuts.

"Would someone have done this to you?" Darrin asked.

"I've only been here two and a half weeks, D," I said, "That's not really long enough to make enemies."

We both dismissed it until Misty brought it up again. Again, I made my same appeal as we were tightening the nuts.

"You've been parking in Zone Two's Port," she said.

Oh shit, that's right. Zone Two's squatter lost his space when the super allowed me to park there due to an eviction on his part. Squatter had come in, run the woman who lived there out and then neglected the rent for two months. Now, Squatter's transport's front end is shit due to an accident he had. It is pretty conceivable that he could have popped the cap with a big screwdriver, loosened the two nuts and then let nature take its unholy course with me. Still, it's speculation. If I do catch Squatter fucking with Pearl (again?) he's going to find himself in a very nasty surprise forced eviction with immediate accomodations he won't like.

He'll probably return to find the locks changed. A service I'll happily lend for free complete with note that reads, "What did five fingers...say to the face?! SLAP!"

So now that I'm here and I'm settled in and looking, I have decided to go ahead and start downloading more podcasts from Coast To Coast AM. All I have to say is that it's about damn time they made it mass-downloadable from iTunes. Geez, trying to catch up by downloading four individual hours from each show for four months was fucking tedious. Diving into cyberspace has never been more fun for me.

God, What A Trip...

One more thing before I jack out of this beautiful place. If you have an iPhone and you play iKnights, iMob or iVampires, add me (Friend code 139622997) and watch cross promotion on iVampires because of two users (named bs kenshin and samurai757) who are apparently a couple of emo kids with a god complex stuck on Edward from Twilight. Maybe they have a thing for him, who knows?

Anyway, add me and let's have some fun with these assholes.