The Psychotic Payback

The SA background

Jim wasn't the easiest to convince, but he knows that when someone you care about is involved there is no denying the power of persistence. As I convinced him to help me find my beautiful girlfriend, he invited me to his private office. He immediately went to his computer and started to open up some files; government, illegally linked files. I guess at this point I should tell you about our history together.

Jim and I worked for a highly secretive association called the "Specter Agency", also known as the SA; we worked with... Not-so-legal companies, industries and "off the record" missions. We robbed some stuff; we sneaked into some buildings for Intel and, well, we killed some people... A lot of people. One time, a mission went wrong and it was supposed to be so secret, a small town had to be slaughtered by our men. A group of 8 men, including me and Jim, surrounded the village: two on the north, two on the south, two on the west side and two on the east. We were not proud, but our ways were not of a boy or a man, our ways were the ways of beasts that kept the world running. In fact, in those times we weren't allowed to call ourselves Jim or Mortem. That's where I called myself "Shadow", my alter ego that didn't care about shit was born in those times; and Jim, his alias was "Gust". Why? Because he was as fast as a gust of wind; well, that's what he would say everytime we asked him.

I remember how close we were thanks to a decision that should've been obvious but I didn't follow orders to make it. This is a secret agency, unknown to even the ONU, so we're very strict with our mission laws. Law number 56-a says: "if an agent is to be inadequate or incapable of battle and/or complete the mission, then the agent must quit the SA and leave in such battle by his own hand or by the hand of a fellow agent"

In case someone didn't understand, this law in our agency says that if you can't finish the mission, you either kill yourself or another agent in the mission kills you. Jim... He got badly injured, he got shot with a shotgun and, thankfully, it missed vital organs, but it did not miss him. It got the side of his torso, a big chunk of it too. He clearly didn't want to kill himself, committing suicide was not a desire of his. We had worked hard together, I wasn't ready to just kill him to follow orders. So, what I did was no other than try to make the bleeding slow down, finish the mission myself and then come back for my friend and partner in crime. Of course I lied and said that we just ran into a bit of trouble at the end and that we were both able to finish the mission, but he lived; that's all that matters to me about that mission. He still is grateful about it and that's why we're friends, best friends. We served for a couple years. We ranked up our squadron and brought information unknown to governments and whole nations to our leaders. We were the demons of an era...

It was hard to retire. Rehabilitation was not an option for much agents, psychological help was only authorized to some high ranked soldiers. Even though it was authorized, we still wouldn't be able to talk about what has happened in those couple of years, so the problems that were solved in psychological treatment weren't the ones that were causing our insanity and outbursts to manifest.

Jim managed to fight through it and somehow created a little bar that would then become the root of his success and the place where we would hang out and take frustrations out. I was arrested, yes, but not because of my actions at SA, but because I murdered a man. I went fully on beast mode on him. He pissed me off, so I did what my instincts told me to do. I already told you guys what happened after that, so I won't go into much detail about it.

So then I saved his life, now he's helping me get mine back. That's a friend you'll never forget, no matter how much you try.