Agent G is an agent for the IRS.
That is NOT the agency you think it is; it is not even an American government department although we will find him moving from this IRS to working for an official agency later in the set of recorded adventures given us.
This IRS stands for the International Refugee Society, a name that conjures well-meaning humanitarian relief work all over the war-torn planet; good people doing good deeds amongst the badness. Nope. Wrong connotation, although they would love it if you kept thinking that. No, this Society has as its primary raison d'etre the "arranging [of] murder for hire". Another explanation of the function of this IRS is that it "kept the economy stable for its corporate backers, suppressed scientific development, and manipulated global politics on the side".
To get a much better understanding of the world in which Agent G operates, we the readers are given an excellent briefing by the chronicler who says the Agent G "a man without a past, having supposedly agreed to give up his memories and serve ten years as an assassin for the International Refugee Society. In exchange, the Society has cybernetically modified his body to superhuman levels and given him a life of luxury between missions but G can't help but question is masters as well as their goals. The truth is worse than he could have imagined."
The cybernetics aspect is fascinating. G himself tells us that this IRS "had access to a lot of technology well above what regular humanity did, and instead of using it to help people, they used it to make better killers. Says something about the world, doesn't it?" He describes his being able to run sixty miles per hour without breathing hard and being able to recover from a gunshot in just a couple of days. He says "maybe I was the $6 million dollar man, adjusted for inflation".
The whole process of becoming one of these heightened operatives, or a 'Letter' as they are called (which explains the 'G' as his name), involves wiping a person's memories clean so they had no allegiance to anything other than the organization, giving them these exceptional abilities, removing part of the brain to make room for nifty and scary tech inside the skull to fit awesome comms gears, and then to treat them like royalty in between missions to make the whole thing extremely worthwhile.
Of course, there are the disquieting dreams that come most nights. And the learning more truth about the IRS than the IRS wants you to learn and then having to switch sides. It is all pretty confusing in a totally dystopian cyberpunk -though immensely captivating - sort of way.
Good Lines:
- Regarding G's latest girl friend, he comments, "it's interesting having a lover who isn't either paid or trying to kill me".