RIVAL No. 1
In the neon-drenched haze of Rio, 05 November 2025, the waterfront bar hums like a railgun coil. I lean against the obsidian counter, white cotton shirt open at the throat, Muzha perfume – blood orange and black pepper still crackling from the morning raid – rising off my skin. The bar’s neon is bleeding into the Atlantic when the holo-screen above the rum crates flickers alive. A single drone-cam feed: a sun-bleached catamaran knifing through the Gulf Stream at 55 knots, wake glowing like molten gold. On the bow, mirrored visor flashing, stands the man himself.
I raise my zest-vodka and spit the word like a spent casing.
“Americanets. Born under Florida gators and hurricane shutters. Real name still classified, but the file I hacked says Key West, 1972. Navy SEAL wash-out turned private thunder. Late 1999 - led a night raid on a trawler full of chained kids off Marathon Key. Rules of engagement? He lit the slavers up with a stolen M60 and no radio call. Brass stripped his Trident, court-martialed him to civilian life.
That’s when the legend ignited.
Cash bounties started sliding into a blind Caymans account:
2003: Puerto La Cruz, two capos zip-tied to a crane, throats opened for trafficking virgins.
2007: Mogadishu fish markets, pirate king served on ice beside his own ledger.
2012: Benghazi rooftops, but you already know that story.
By 2015 he’d rebranded. Obsidian Legion, 180 contractors who’ll ghost an entire cartel before the sun hits the mangroves. His fortress-yacht Dust Devil is registered out of Miami, but she never sleeps in U.S. waters twice. Methanol-oxygen scramjets, sand-colored rail-spikes, drone hangar that vomits 70-knot sand-sleds painted like rattlesnakes. Crew? Sunburned wolves in plate-carriers stitched with the old Jolly Roger—except the skull wears night-vision goggles.
The holo-wall above the bar is cracked open like a bounty ledger. I flick my plasma whip; the silver strands carve glowing glyphs in the air. Each glyph is a hunt. Each hunt is a scar on Americanets’ soul. I narrate them the way wolves howl: low, slow, tasting blood.
1 – “Operation Gator Bite” – Marathon Key, 31 Dec 1999
Target: Captain “El Tiburón” Rojas, Colombian slaver running 40-foot go-fasts stuffed with Haitian kids.
Americanets, still a baby-faced lieutenant, took a 23-foot Boston Whaler into 4-meter seas. No backup, no rules. Boarded at 38 knots, zip-tied Rojas to the transom, carved the shark tattoo off his chest with a dive knife. Left the crew alive so they could spread the scent: Key-lime zest and cordite. Bounty: $400 K wired to a blind Caymans drop. He bought his first safe-house in Islamorada with the blood money.
2 – “Caracas Crane Dance” – Puerto La Cruz, 14 Feb 2003
Target: Los Zetas cell trafficking Venezuelan girls into oil-rig brothels.
Americanets, now 31, parachuted onto a container ship at midnight. Two silenced MP5s, one duffel of Semtex. Hoisted the lieutenant and his accountant 40 meters above deck on a cargo crane. Live-streamed their confessions to Interpol before dropping them into the Orinoco. Scent that night: burnt teak and frankincense drifting over diesel. Bounty: $1.2 M. He bought the first Dust Devil prototype hull with the cash.
3 – “Mogadishu Fish Market” – 03 Jul 2007
Target: “Admiral” Guled, pirate king who sold Somali boys to Qatari falconers.
Americanets ghosted in on a dhow rigged with photovoltaic sails. At dawn the market smelled of cardamom and cordite. Guled’s head ended up on ice beside his own ledger—every ransom dollar itemized. Americanets auctioned the ledger on the dark-web for $800 K, then vanished into the Gulf of Aden. Bounty + auction: $2.1 M. That paid for the methanol-oxygen scramjets now pushing Dust Devil past 55 knots.
4 – “Benghazi Rooftop Wedding” – 11 Sep 2012
Target: Ansar al-Sharia cell running Libyan girls to al-Qaeda camps.
Official story says he wasn’t there. My Krai Sentinel says otherwise. Thermal ghosted three rooftops, 29 tangos down in 11 minutes. Left a single alligator tooth on each body. Bounty: $3 M black-budget bag drop in Malta. He upgraded the Dust Devil rail-spikes with it.
5 – “Azov Amber Ghost” – 29 Oct 2025
Target: Synthetics Ring convoy smuggling cyber-kids through the Eastern gold lane.
Americanets rode a 70-knot sand-sled straight into my Serebryanyy Klyk kill-zone. We traded hypersonics for 90 seconds. He carved two freighters open, extracted 47 kids, torched the rest. Left me a calling card: one spent .50 BMG casing filled with Florida oud and a holo-note: “Your clary sage is strong, Muzha. But gator blood runs thicker.”
Bounty: $5 M wired from an anonymous Neo-Byzantine fixer (rumor says Kadeon Veyl himself).
I close the holo-wall with a snap of the whip. The bar falls silent except for the low growl of Vechny Kray’s fusion heart two kilometers offshore.
“Five hunts,” I rumble, copaiba resin smoking off my tongue. “Each one older, meaner, richer. Americanets doesn’t chase men—he harvests nightmares and bottles them as Gator Blood.”
I thumb the all-crew implant:
“Plot intercept course. Caribbean's shadow-lanes, slipping the Yucatán Channel into the Gulf's warm loop. Torpedoes loaded with Florida gator decals. Tonight we add Hunt #6 to the ledger—and this time the fragrance on the casing will be his.”
The fortress answers with a railgun thunderclap that rattles every glass from Rio to the Keys. Fade to scramjet roar and quad-thruster fury.
Somewhere south, a gator grins, counting fresh scars.
If Americanets wants a perfume war, we’ll give him one. His oud against my copaiba. Winner bottles the loser’s sweat and names it Rival No. 1.
Credits:
Crucible Perfumery