Chapter 0

There’s a Russian proverb:

“Free cheese is only found in a mousetrap.”

Looking back, I can’t help thinking that everything about that day was someone’s mousetrap. I’d been fired from the job I’d held for seven years, the weather was brutally hot, and I lived in a poor hillside neighborhood you had to cross two hills to reach…

I’d barely made it up and was still catching my breath when I spotted it.

An old game capsule beneath a streetlamp.

What happened next? You can guess.

I’d become unemployed overnight. I was a hungry rat who couldn’t possibly ignore the free cheese right in front of me.

Wouldn’t someone have clapped and laughed as they watched me grunt and strain with the capsule on my back?

The fool got caught in the trap!