"I had a good job once, until my boss accused me of stealing."
"Shit! I'd better call Saul!!!"
"…"
"I was out driving, minding my own business, until I got busted for a DUI."
"Oh God! I'd better call Saul!!!"
"…"
"Hi everyone, I'm attorney Saul Goodman. Do you know what rights the Constitution gives you? No? That's okay—because I do."
"I firmly believe that in this country, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. And my job is to make sure you never get convicted!"
"Call now—better call Saul!!!"
The noisy sound of a TV echoed from inside a fried chicken fast-food joint, playing what sounded like some sleazy lawyer's commercial.
At the entrance, Rorschach, just off shift from the precinct, sat in an old pickup truck, staring blankly at the waitstaff and customers going in and out. Only the veins bulging on his right hand clenched around the steering wheel betrayed the agitation burning inside.
If he could, he would have yanked the handbrake, floored the gas, and rammed straight through the front of the place, grinding that guy named Gus into a smear of meat on the floor.
Okay, fantasy time over.
That guy inside might be one of the top drug lords in Chicago and was now tied up in a child trafficking ring, but Rorschach was just a cop with his leash in Gus's hand, forced to do dirty work for him.
Calling him a corrupt cop might be a stretch. Rorschach preferred to describe his relationship with Gus using one phrase: "Infernal Affairs."
That's right—Gus had planted him as an undercover inside the Chicago PD.
Dramatic, and tragic. That was Rorschach's life in a nutshell.
"Son of a bitch… maybe I really am the unluckiest transmigrator ever."
Rorschach flicked his cigarette away in irritation, opened the door, and walked toward the restaurant.
Strictly speaking, calling him a transmigrator was not quite accurate. When he had opened his eyes in this world, he had still been an infant.
Maybe he had not finished his bowl of Lethe water in his previous life, and this was his punishment: to come to this shithole world with all his memories intact.
By the door, Rorschach hesitated briefly when he glanced at a white-haired old man on a bench reading a newspaper, then pushed the door open and went inside.
He did not rush to the counter to order. Instead, he casually picked a seat with his back to the wall and sat down, silently watching the lawyer ad loop on the TV.
Time trickled by. Before long, it was closing time. The customers were gone, and only a few employees remained.
Once the last uniformed worker had left, a middle-aged Black man in a pale yellow shirt and gold-rimmed glasses slowly sat down across from Rorschach.
He was the owner of this fried chicken chain, and also the Chicago drug kingpin who had recently called Rorschach and placed him inside the police department—Gustavo Fring.
He might be Black, but his hairstyle and clothes were immaculate, making him look like a polished member of the upper class.
"Rorschach, I remember I've told you more than once: unless it's an emergency, only I initiate contact."
Gus studied Rorschach across the table and spoke slowly, his voice rich and authoritative, brooking no argument. "So if you've come to me now, this had better be critical intelligence that can't wait."
Rorschach stared right back at Chicago's drug emperor, and his gaze was even more intimidating than Gus's.
It carried the chill he had forged through countless parachute jumps and desperate fights through blood and corpses on the battlefield.
Like a sharpened blade stabbing straight into Gus's heart.
"Why are you kidnapping and trafficking children?"
Gus froze for a moment at the question, then the corner of his mouth curled into a faint smile. He replied lightly, "Rorschach, is that your way of interrogating me?"
Before Rorschach could answer, his expression turned cold and his voice dropped. "Don't forget who you are. Without me, you'd have died in the South Side gutter over ten years ago. I'm the one who pulled you out of the gang life. I paid for your schooling. Hell, every cent spent on your mother's funeral came from me."
"And you? Not only are you ungrateful, you actually enlisted as soon as you turned eighteen just to get away from me. Do you have any idea how much money I had to spend greasing palms in the government to get you reassigned back to Chicago?!"
Gus's voice grew louder and more menacing. "You'll never get out of my hand, Rorschach. I have video and paperwork documenting everything you've ever done for me. If I leak even one of them, you can kiss your badge goodbye and spend the rest of your life rotting in a cell!"
"So if you're feeling even a flicker of regret over that little 'question' you just asked me, then you'll get your ass back in there and find out exactly what the department knows about these missing kids in Chicago."
Rorschach fell silent. The Black man across from him was not wrong. Back when he was still a student, he had done plenty of dirty work for Gus just to survive.
He despised drugs, so he had never touched street dealing. The jobs he took were even more dangerous.
Assassinations.
That was right. As a kid, armed with a baby face and a Colt in his pocket, he had taken out multiple dealers who dared move product on Gus's turf.
Killing drug dealers never weighed on his conscience. It was a dog-eat-dog world. Maybe some people turned to crime to survive. So had he.
It was then that Gus made two discoveries:
First, bullets fired from a child's gun are just as deadly as those from an adult's.
Second, Rorschach had far more potential than he had imagined.
So Gus began grooming him, with the sole aim of planting him inside the Chicago PD as his mole.
Thinking back on everything he had done, Rorschach glanced out at the night sky beyond the window. After a long silence, he said quietly, "You're right, I do regret something. But what I regret is enlisting to avoid you—flying halfway across the world to fight an unjust war dressed up as 'counterterrorism.'"
He rose from his chair and stared straight at Gus, his voice steady and ice-cold. "What I should have done was bury my mother and then put a Colt round through your skull."
"I'm not giving you a damn thing about those missing kids, and I sure as hell won't cover for your child smuggling operation to New York. Give it up, Gus. If you want to burn this bridge, I'll burn with you."
With that, he turned and headed for the door, not wanting to spend another second in that room.
Gus's face had gone as dark as ink. He watched Rorschach's retreating back, his voice turning deadly cold. "Here's a word of advice, Rorschach. Crossing me ends worse than anything you can imagine."
Rorschach paused, then turned to look at Gus, who was barely holding his rage in check, and gave him a fearless grin.
"Here's mine: never piss off a man who has nothing left to lose."
Once Rorschach's figure vanished from the restaurant, Gus's rigid jaw began to tremble with rage.
The "dog" he had raised with his own hands had started biting its master.
——————————
Outside the restaurant.
Rorschach did not rush to his truck. He calmly pulled two cigarettes from his pocket, lit one for himself, and tossed the other to the old man still sitting on the bench with his newspaper.
"I figured you'd be dying to rush in there, stick a gun to my head, and make me do what Gus wants," Rorschach said, glancing at him with a flat look.
The old white man put the paper down, revealing a weathered, hard face.
He held the cigarette Rorschach had thrown him and shook his head expressionlessly. "He's my boss. You were once my best student. I'm not putting myself in the middle of that."
"Heh…"
Rorschach let out a mocking chuckle, snuffed out his own cigarette, and walked away without looking back. "That day's coming sooner or later, old Mike. Better hope your barrel isn't rusted when it does."
Vroooom—
A stream of dark exhaust belched from the tailpipe as Rorschach's pickup roared off into the night, leaving Mike sitting there in thoughtful silence.
Meanwhile, with his foot pressed hard on the gas, Rorschach felt a blaze of rage churning in his chest. He needed somewhere to vent the gloom and fury tearing him up inside.
Fortunately, he knew just the place. In fact, he had founded it himself.
It was a club.
A club called Fight Club.