Chapter 1: Quantum In Me Fuit

I am not a complicated man.

I do what the limited extent of my capacities allow me to. I do my own laundry. I eat my vegetables.

I kill people for a living.

It sounds like a trope all screenwriters have probably dwelled upon, and it sounds like a bad joke when I tell you that I kill people for a living in the Philippines- a dirty fucking hellhole of over a hundred million people. It is what it is though. I do the best I can.

Right now, I'm trying to fake being dead. Pretty hard to do when you're face down in mud. It's been raining the entire week, and Tropical Storm Pablo is just washing away the slum I've been laying low in since this morning. Hold on for a second.

Still there? Sorry about that, pretty hard to tell a story when there are three bullets in your left lung. Yeah, if it wasn't obvious already, they were onto me. I'm not used to blending in, see? That's not how I work. But they payday was pretty big- nearly fifty thousand US. That's over a million in pesos out here. It was worth risking it. Beginning to think it wasn't the best of ideas.

Wait, yeah? I gotta work.

The bigger of the two nudged his partner. "Go check." They were probably professionals, Jack mused- these goons had been working for the local corrupt governor for the past 4 years. However, they weren't exactly agency anymore, since they were hired away to ensure loyalty. That tends to have an effect on carefulness, due procedures. Reflexes.

The rain fell raggedly onto the filth of the narrow alley in which they had gunned Jack down. Eyes half closed, Jack watched a small candy wrapper tangled in hair swim sluggishly in the mud past him. Steady. Steady. He vaguely heard the splash of the goon's patent leather shoes a bit to the left of his hip. Steady. Steady.

Just because they weren't fresh out of security guard training meant they were stupid. When Jack rolled over with his right hand clutching the gun, Big Boy managed to kick it upwards before Jack could shoot his partner. What he wasn't expecting was the swift sweep of the butterfly knife in Jack's other hand. The narrow point buried itself into Big Boy's kneecap around an inch and a half in, and Jack's right hand had swung back to plant two between Other Goon's eyes. Big Boy barely had time to cry out into the storm before Jack had scythed his legs out from under him. A hard stomp to the jaw, and suddenly one of Governor Fernando Prado's biggest goons was at the mercy of Jack Hiraya, amateur hitman.

You gotta be sneaky man. Being unkillable doesn't ensure you'll always come out on top. I remember that fucking American Marine in Olongapo who kicked me into a garbage compactor. It took me three weeks to grow another goddamn eyeball. I also got chopped into four by the Butcher of Manila Bay, and that tends to put you off meat for awhile. I guess what I'm saying is, don't hesitate to fight dirty if you don't have the means to recover (like me, obviously).

Jack flicked a wet strand of hair away from his eyes. His lungs weren't as big a problem as the governor knowing Jack was unkillable. People like Jack were a well kept secret from the public, and were usually taken away by the Philippine government since Ferdinand Marcos' 1987 Maharlika Initiative. Jack was... an anomaly. To say the least. He quickly felt up the ragged holes in his army jacket and was vaguely disappointed to find that the bullet wounds had stopped bleeding. It would take roughly a couple of hours for them to close completely, and Jack still had to get them out. However, the two would definitely have had backup, and so maybe it was time to try artful to get close to the governor.

Jack braced himself against Big Boy's leg and pulled out the knife. No sense in keeping him alive. A quick slit to the meaty throat ensured that the backup would find three "corpses". He lay down carefully with his back to the ground and closed his eyes-hoping to whatever God there was out there that the next idiots to come along would just assume that they killed each other.

Wasn't likely, anyway. Jack ignored the sting of muddy rain in his face and focused on listening for the inevitable footsteps. His spare gun (a Sig Sauer P228) was strapped firmly to his ankle. Life was good.

Life was simple.