Hey, everyone. I've been working for a while now on a new book, and I've finally got the first chapter refined enough that I'm willing to post it here. It's probably a bit slower than you're hoping for, but hey, give me some slack; it's the first chapter of a twenty-some chapter novel. Also, don't worry about the story moving too slowly; much will be revealed in the second chapter, which I'm nearly done editing. Anyway, here goes.

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Steve awoke with a start as he fell off of the couch he’d been forced to use as a bed so many times. As he looked around the dirty, poorly lit room he was in, he noticed a Messenger window flashing on the huge LCD monitor that served as the room’s only real light source. Ignoring whoever was attempting to contact him, he almost impulsively disconnected from the Messenger network. People constantly tried to persuade him to “fix their computers,” and he assumed (quite reasonably) that this message would have been no different than the rest.

As Steve stood up from the dusty old computer chair, he looked down at it. It was quite literally falling apart, and it was, as he had said many times, “about as comfortable as sitting on a fencepost.” Next to the repulsive chair, there was a massive stack of newspaper clippings, some of them as much as five years old. Steve walked to the door of his dingy apartment, looked straight down at the ground outside it, and saw just what he expected: today’s newspaper. Steve grabbed the paper, slammed the door shut, sat back down on his computer chair, and started thumbing through the newspaper. Once he was about halfway into the paper, he paused, his interest apparently piqued. He grabbed a pair of scissors off of his desk and clipped out the article that had interested him so greatly. He carefully set the article on top of the huge pile next to him, then tossed the remainder of the paper into the wastebasket across the room. As the paper landed in the basket, a huge cloud of dust erupted out of it.

Still excited, Steve picked up his phone. He dialed the number of the only real friend he had and waited as the phone rang. After the third ring, he heard a familiar voice.

“What up?” The voice said in a bored tone.

“Frank, it’s me, Steve.”

“Stevie! What’s going down, homes?” Frank anxiously responded.

“How many times have I asked you not to call me ‘Stevie,’ Frank?” Before Frank could respond, Steve continued. “Anyway, I’ve got some great news. It looks like you and I have some work to do.”

“Oh, yeah?” Frank asked, intrigued. “What’s the word?”

“Let’s just say I’d rather not talk about it over the phone. Would you mind meeting me here?”

Frank laughed. “So, you finally found us a job, huh? A’ight, I’ll roll down there in a bit.

“Great,” Steve replied. “Oh, and Frank?”

“Sup?” Frank asked, somewhat impatiently.

“Bring some energy drinks. This one’s going to be big.”

“No prob, dude. Peace out.”

Steve chuckled to himself as he put the phone back on the receiver. He stood up and faced a cracked mirror on the other side of his room. He ran his hand through his dirty brown hair, threw on a “Weird Al” Yankovic T-shirt, and let out a deep sigh. This job really was going to be big.