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John Mantral sat in a small apartment on Planet Manhattan, cigarette hanging loosely from his stubble covered face. He reached for his flexipad, typing in slow, relaxed movements on the scratched touchscreen. Eventually he stopped tapping, and made one simple command.

'Computer, record sound until manually stopped.'
'Yes Sir, recording sound in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.. recording now.'
Mandral continued to sit at a desk for a long moment, arranging his thoughts appropriately. Finally he spoke, loud and clear for the computer.
'Trust. In this day and age we live in trust is one of the most important things the human race has been "blessed" with. It can be used to make friends, or abused to make enemies. Unfortunately for me my life has been the latter option, although I don't really care. I like being alone, none of the idiotic neural-typicals around to piss me off.' He took a long drag from his cigarette, blew out and continued.
'My life, well, my life has been fairly lecturing. To those who look at my life story they will know that it teaches many lessons. Some are good, others are bad, thats for you all to decide. But the most important one is that trust is earned, not bought. I tried the latter and almost got killed for it, but that comes later.' He gives a wolfish grin, no apparent reason obviously displayed, only in his head did he know why.
'I shall start it from the very beginning, although i'll cut through the crap about my childhood quickly. I wouldn't want to bore the only people who have taken and interest in my life, and it's achievements.' Another long drag from the ever-decaying cigarette.
'I was born on Manhattan, 776A.S. My family was abnormal at best. My mother was a prostitute, i'm not proud of the fact but it is the truth. Notice how I said was; I hope you did. She died giving birth to me, real "shame" aswell, but I grew up from the safe and blind eye of my father. Well, for most of my childhood anyway, but I shall get to that later.
'He was a rich business, hating his wife and having an affair with my mother. My mother and father both loved eachother.' Another long drag from his cagarette, now at the end of it's life. He flicked it into a bin and continued, pulling out another one as he did so.
'At least he loved her, i'll never know if she truely loved him. Her line of work may of taught her to take advantage of men, but the fact I was not aborted begs to differ on the issue. I decided long ago to leave the fact unscathed, let it become lost in time with all the other things.
'Anyway, enough about her. My father was the sort of person who didn't care. He just, he didn't care about what went on in my life. All he cared about was if I was safe. Still, not like I would be going out to any parties.' He gives a chuckle and continues. 'Yes, Aspergers Syndrome helped me focus, helped me become what I am. Whilst all of my idiotic classmates were out partying, getting drunk and having sex; all of this by the time they were 15, I was reading, learning, getting ready for what came beyond. I don't regret a single moment of it, they were all fools and even if I tried I wouldn't of mixed in with them.
'I guess my life really started when I was 17, and my father died. A heart tumor, wasn't discovered until it was to late to help him. In those last weeks we spent so much time together. I guess,' he gives a long pause, organizing what he would say next, 'I guess he just wanted to make up for not caring before.
'And now after this I had become independant, but I didn't know what to do. I was so charged up with energy I had no idea what I wanted to do or why. For the first two years of it I made important financial decisions, building up funds for my "empire" if you could call it that.' Another chuckle, another grin for no apparent reason.
'And then I turned to crime. It was a good financial option, making me much more money then the lawful way. But there were; are risks, and thats what I like about it. You get a certain charge of energy when you've escaped the police or finished a smuggling run or killed a Bounty Hunter. The charge is a fantastic feeling, you can't escape it; no matter how long you try, once you've experianced it once you'll never be able to live without it.'
'Then I joined a gang. It was nothing big, just some small, weak organization planetside that didn't even have the resources to do anything in space. They started me off as a rookie, that pissed me off.' He examines his cigarette and finds it is at the end of it's life. He reaches for another to find the packet is empty. He frowns, and pulls out one of his special cigars from his pocket. He lights it up and continues.
'Why I did that I don't know, I guess I wanted bigger, I wanted better. Anyway, about me being pissed off. The fact was that everyone who was a higher rank than me was a dumber-than-average neural-typicals who wouldn't be able to find a cigarette if I pointed him towards a shopping centre.' A brief chuckle followed his comment. 'Anyway, soon after that a big thing went wrong.
'I was on an operation to get a small shipment of Cardamine into the heart of the Capital City of Manhattan, nothing big really. And then half way through the op one of our guys pulls a gun and shoots the guy in charge in the back of the head. The one in charge was alright, nothing special; but he could make some good decisions when needed. I pull out my gun and put a double tap in between his eyes. Lovely shot by the way, haven't made a better one since. I forgot to mention i'm 22 at the time. Anyway, the next in command was some scrawny little worm by the name of Haig, what a dickhead.
'No idea what he's doing, he orders us to carry on the op as if what happened never happened. But it was obvious that the traitor was LPI, the place would be swarming with them in minutes. One of the other rookies next to me makes a break for the alleys, hoping to make it far enough away before the police arrive. Haig gives a single shot in the leg, then casually walks towards him.
'Lying on the floor, the guy is crawling away. Haig stands over him, puts another in his head. Walks back over to the rest of us and tells us to carry on with the smuggling. And then, suprise suprise, the LPI arrive and arrest us all.
'Now, what happened next was a good way of staying out of jail for long. I blamed the next guy, little prick called Robernson. He took the fall, I claimed I wasn't high enough to have a weapon and they actually believed me. Ha, how pathetic. Robernson goes in for life on an account of manslaughter. Haig goes in for manslaughter aswell, he was lucky he didn't get the death sentence. For me, well, 20 years.
'I was instantly sent to an orbital prison in Texas, I never bothered to learn the name. Spent the first 2 years just fine, doing the work and living the life. Nobody bothered with me. They didn't talk to me; but in return they didn't pick on me.
'Then one day Robernson finally decides to pick a bone with me. I almost killed him, I wanted to so much as I strangled him on the floor. Then the guards came in and hit me with one of those tasers, damn they hurt like a bitch.
'Another few years go past, I think the year was 803A.S. when it happened. Yeah it was 803; good year. Mass breakout of course. Some Liberty Rogues who were stuck in there decided they had had enough of the ****ty food. They took down the guards around their cells and opened all of the gates. I went with them to a transport and we left.
'Simple as that. No complicated stories for you all to writh in, just that. After that I felt I owed them my life, and so I joined the Rogues. No real complicated reasons, just the same one for the gang I joined. I wanted some excitement, and I got it. Lots and lots of it.' He decides he's had enough of his cigar and forces it onto the matress sheet covers. They instantly catch alight, thanks to the petrol Mantral added earlier. He turned on the camera and pointed it at the fire.
'Why am I burning my apartment do you ask? Well it's not mine, it was Haig's.' He turns the camera towards the body of Haig. 'And I can hear the Police on their way, so I will leave you with this message.' He turns the camera towards his face. 'I'm a Liberty Rogue; and if you mess with me;' He turned the camera back towards the now burning body of Haig, 'you'll know about it.'
Mantral pressed some buttons on the flexipad, and the recording shut off. But the fire still burnt.