I sipped on the liquid breakfast the nurse had provided and groaned as I felt it trickle down my throat. I needed to eat. The pain, as annoying as it was, wouldn’t stop the hunger pains. I had been deprived of food for two weeks so the nano-bots could do their magic on my insides. The only nourishment I had received were injections of my body's daily needs to keep it functioning.

My chest hurt the worst. The albino man had cracked most of my ribs, and one had punctured my liver. It felt like someone had lit a match in my chest that would wane and intensify at random. The doctor told me if the guards had not come in time, I might be dead right now. If they hadn’t been the ones to condone the violence, I might have been grateful. The worst part about it all is the anger. I hated the guards, I hated the albino man, and I hated myself for gambling away everything. I’m powerless.

They had stuck me away in the medical wing for my safety, yet I felt anything but safe. The albino man was waiting for me. The room itself was a specialized cell stuffed with medical technology. It was slightly bigger than my cell, but the bed was comfortable, and the white walls came with matching floor tiles. Instead of metal bars, the door was a giant one-way glass that would slide back into the wall when they needed to move me. They could be watching me or not; it didn’t matter.

As I lay there prone, a faint buzz sound filled the room. It played to tell inmates when someone was coming into the room so we could cover ourselves. My body had been in too much pain to move, but I wondered what would happen if I jumped out of bed and flashed. Maybe they would toss me in solitary. It would be quite the sight. I could imagine the nurse’s shocked face. That would earn me a couple more days away from the cell block to figure out how to pay back this money. The door slid open, and one of the prison nurses walked in, pushing a cart of dirty plates.

“Mr. Wesley, a guest is waiting outside for you. Are you finished with your breakfast,” the nurse asked. She spoke with an elongated drawl that most Martians from the underside had. Kids were not required to attend school on the moons of mars, so you could always tell an undersider from their slow speech and beady eyes. She reached in close and grabbed my cup of liquid food, and placed it on the bottom of the cart.

“I wasn’t finished yet, actually,” I reached out, trying to grab the cup, but my hand was snatched back by the cuffs that held me to the bed.

“I was making small talk. Sometimes we say stuff we don’t mean, so we have something to say. You know, it’s like talking out loud to yourself. Eat faster next time.”

She rolled the cart out of the room, but the sliding door, which showed a view of the hallway wall’s chipped light green paint, stayed open. My chest groaned from a burning sensation rather than hunger. I could not eat anything else due to the severe pain, even if I wanted to. Nevertheless, I still added the nurse to the people I hated. She was very low on the list, closer to a mild annoyance rather than a vitriol hate. I sat my torso straight to relieve pain and listened to the nurse talk to the guest.

It was the voice of a man. His voice was a deep baritone from what I could hear from the faint mutterings of their conversation. Thoughts of the albino man’s white face and red eyes flashed in my head as I softly tugged on the links of the cuffs, tying me to the bed. A bubbling sensation wound up in my stomach, and as the pressure built up, I thought a giant burp might erupt from my lips. Before the man appeared, the sound of smooth rubber soles hitting the ground reached my ears.

An older man in a classic black suit, with hair as white as snow and wrinkles like tundra cracks separating his face, smiled as he made his way into the room. He leaned heavily on a black cane with a silver handle engraved to look like a tree branch. The door slid close behind him as he limped into the room. He favored his left leg, and the other dragged forward with each step like he carried a heavy load. His bum leg was particularly fascinating to me. Any doctor would probably try to regrow parts of the leg if possible, and if not, they would recommend replacing it with a cybernetic one. He’s one of those older men who can't let go of the past. Hugo had been the same.

He sighed as he sat down at the end of the bed. “I had to come a long way to find you, Mr. Howard. I don’t say that to hold it against you in any fashion. No, I would never do such a thing. I say it, so you understand the great lengths that once stood in the path of our meeting here today and the seriousness with which I speak.”

The older man sat the briefcase he had hidden underneath his arm on the bed. It looked like fine black leather, and it was equipped with a lock with fingerprinting and retina scan. You only needed that when you had something to hide. He lifted the suitcase as if ready to unlock it but paused suddenly and looked directly at me.

“Forgive my manners. My name is Hylion Greene; it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” He said, sticking his hand out for a handshake. I reached to shake his hand, but the cuffs stopped me short. Seeing this, he leaned closer and pulled my hand into a firm handshake.

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“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Greene. My name is Wesley Howard, as you likely already know. I don't think we’ve met before, so unless you're my long-lost uncle, why are you here to see me?”

“Take it easy; we'll get to the why soon, but first, I need to ensure I have the right man. Do you mind answering some questions for me?”

“Sure.” I gave a terse reply and steeled my mind. The older man carried himself with a pleasant demeanor on the surface, but there was something odd in the way he spoke. Mid-phrase, he would pause as if his mind couldn't quite remember what to say. He opened his briefcase and pulled out a stack of papers and a set of glasses with a wiry frame. With a finger lick, Mr. Greene flipped through the pile before yelling out, “Aha, here we are.” He pulled out a ballpoint pen and scribbled it on the corner to get the ink to draw.

“Wouldn't it be easier just to use a holo-pad?” I had been curious about the man's eccentric nature and archaic habits.

“My memory is quite hazy these days, and there’s just something about writing things down that makes my job easier,” he said.

“What is your job?”

“I’m a herald—a working man who procures the right person for the right job. Square pegs don’t fit circle holes, so I find the squares. But, enough of that; I don't have all day here.” Mr. Greene had finally got his pen to write and pulled out a thin wooden clipboard to use.

“Let's start with some of your accomplishments. I have listed here that you were a chess Grandmaster on Luna by the age of 16. A distinction you kept until you graduated from Harvard University’s Luna campus at 22, where you majored in human history. You then took your chess winnings to become a well-known high-stakes gambler on Mars, playing various games. You also married eight years ago to Annalise Howard, who you met at Harvard, and you two have a daughter together. Does that sound about right?”

“When you list it all like that, it seems a lot less grand,” I grimaced.

“Don't feel that way,” he said with a smile. “Many have accomplished less with more time.” He continued to jot down notes, and I leaned over to get a better look at the paper. I was unable to see what he wrote from my angle.

“It says you were convicted just last year for racketeering and planetary tax evasion. My notes here also have listed you were in debt to Fredrick Keenan the owner of a Martian transport company. He’s the one who got you arrested in the first place. Is that true?”

I gritted my teeth as my eyes met his. Hearing Keenan’s name put a bad taste in my mouth. It tasted like iron. I had bitten my tongue on impulse. “Yes, that's true,” I said while swallowing my blood. My tongue ached. Keenan would get him, but It was my fault for trusting him in the first place.

He smiled. “That’s wonderful.” He leaned over and grabbed ahold of my hand again, and shook it vigorously. “You don’t know how happy I am to hear that. You are the man I need to fill an opening that just presented itself.”

“What opening is that?” The man seemed giddy and began riffling through his suitcase. He flung papers all over the bed, searching for some document.

“Here it is,” he proclaimed, holding up a slip of paper. “My employer needs someone with your talents to work on a team they are putting together. An experiment is being hosted, and my patron must win.”

“An experiment?”

“I can’t reveal the contents of the job right now. Some formalities must occur before the employer can hire you and explain the task.”

“But, I’m in jail. How would the job work?”

He had readjusted his glasses and shook as if what I said was nonsensical. “If I hire you, you’ll immediately be transferred from this jail to a location my employer controls. If you succeed in your task, your sentence will be suspended. You’ll be able to return home to your wife and daughter.” There truly was something odd about this man and his offer. I wouldn't put it past Keenan or the albino man to dangle some bait to lead me further into despair. Something in me wanted to believe that his words were valid and not some story coated with honey and sugar.

“Not only that,” he continued, “You’ll also receive Billions in Universal Credit which would be more than enough to pay off your debts to that transport owner.”

My gaze had sharpened at the mention of such a vast amount of wealth. This man had to be lying through his teeth. There was no doubt about it. There are not many people in the galaxy who could wave that type of money around. Even Keenan wouldn’t be so loose with that amount, and he was one of the wealthiest men on mars. Mr.Greene gathered all the papers he had tossed out of his suitcase.

“Why should I believe what you're saying? Some man I have never met in my life comes into my room offering me the answer to every problem I face with a smile and briefcase, and I'm supposed to take his word for it. I must be grasping at straws here because I almost believed that story you were spinning.”

“You don’t believe it now, but you will. I feel good about you, Mr. Howard. Something tells me you're an opportunistic man. When the choice presents itself, I know you won’t falter.” Mr.Greene had finished stuffing the loose papers in the briefcase and shut it tight. He smiled at me and reached his hand out to shake it once more. I shook this time, putting all my strength into it. His grip held firm, and I yanked my hand back so it wouldn’t get crushed under his strength.

He stood up uneasily on his cane and limped toward the door. “When you are ready to talk about the job, call the number on that business card. You have a week to respond, or my employer will go with another candidate.” I looked down and on the bed was a pristine eggshell white business card with tiny black printed letters. On the card, it read Hylion Greene Staffing agency: +882322-678900.

“If you don’t mind me asking, why’d you give up chess? I have been trying to get my grandson into it, and it seems like such a quaint game.”

I looked away from him and stared at the cuffs on my wrist. The hospital door was slowly closing between us. “The stakes just weren’t high enough.”