[III]

Why not? , thought Jackson, whom his friends called Jax.

WHY NOT?

I might get some food in my belly at last, he surmised. Real food, not that tasteless, synthetic shit that they'd feed you back at the soap houses.

They'd said it'd keep his body nutritious, but he'd never been able to get used to the taste. The problem was, there was no taste. The bastards wouldn't even waste any sort of sweetener on them. He would wander around for days with an empty belly, only to walk back resigned with his tail between his legs, holding an empty bowl, a metal tray, actually, but he liked to keep things dramatic when he thought- hoping for a colourless mass of synthetic food to stomp right down into the tray.

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! So they always slided off the ladle down into the tray.

Stomp! Stomp!

Stomp!

Stomp!

God, it was miserable.

So, why not?, he went back to his argument again.

Why not? It was easy work, just keep track on some dreamy, old-timer still hung up on the ancient past. Easy job, easy pay. Still, heavy on the purse side.

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Considering.

Uhh, to hell with it, he thought.

So what if the guy who'd asked him to track that other guy was a bit too heavy on the shady side for his liking? It was honest pay.

That or a kinetically-accelerated bullet to the brain. Yeah, that or this. This or that. Food or lead. Every job had its risks.

His more than some, less than most. A man had to make decisions, otherwise life would insist on staying on a stalemate. A stalemate would tire a man out. You had to keep on moving.

Sharks, thought Jackson whom his friends called Jax, had the right idea, as he once again connected into the mainframe of the police department, the exceptionally hot firewalls breaking under his unforgiving code one by one.

Suddenly, he had a thousand different digital eyes, eager to keep the city's doings under record. He felt like god, watching over his creations.

You had to keep moving, he concluded as he wondered where one could still even get a trenchcoat to wear at this day and age, as he watched the figure briskly walk past a security camera attached to some closed-up bar on the dull-lighted screen.

Every job had its risks.

His more than some.