<div class="floatright">(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e9/af/07/e9af076a4652127ac7ab64e1794fd3db--marlon-teixeira-ss.jpg)</div>I'm glad I was born a pretty boy. Honestly, I look like the puppy that inspired the "aw, so cute" movement. My historians are currently working so that future generations will recognise that as incontrovertible fact. Meanwhile...<br/><br/>The party continues in full swing and there is decadence everywhere. The pool is replete with topless women. The dance floor slowly turns into the scene of an orgy; over the clothes action, sadly. The lounge is a cross between people doing business and leering at others indulging in more. And surveying it all from my room, high atop the mansion, I can't help but smile.<br/><br/>"Now that's how the house should look."<br/><br/>The death of all pretense. Of course, if the entire world worked like that, I might never have made my immense fortune.<br/><br/>Assumptions. Everybody made them, often on the basis of a cursory glance, which is fine. Except for one simple truth. Nobody ever entertained the possibility that they could be wrong. That a vain, handsome young cretin interested in sex and drugs and rock and roll was actually sharp as a fucking tack.<br/><br/>These God-given and later carefully-sculpted surfer-boy looks actually got me places bursting with information. By the time I was 18, I had slept with the wives of every mob boss in the city, and had access to secret hideouts, bank details and ghost drives replete with evidence of illegal activity. Without anyone ever realising, I had become the San Fernando Valley's King Pin. One who valued anonymity. Even now, five years after my rise to the top, people thought Marlon Fontana was nothing more than a good lay.<br/><br/>I finally turn away from the balcony and wander indoors. A king-size bed dominated the room, and on the table beside it stood a decanter of scotch, which becomes my first port of call. It was a gift from an old friend, made in the Scottish highlands and preserved for nearly a century. I poured myself a drink, basking for a moment in the riches that stretched in every direction. My pride and joy, however, is the one that cannot be seen.<br/><br/><div class="floatleft">(https://cdn.jamesedition.com/media/W1siZiIsImxpc3RpbmdfaW1hZ2VzLzIwMTcvMDcvMDMvMTIvMDUvMjMvZjFmZTcwZmMtNzkxNS00ZjE5LWFmODMtZTJhOWIyZThlOWNlL0NBTSAxLmpwZyJdLFsicCIsInRodW1iIiwiMjAwMHgiXSxbInAiLCJ3YXRlcm1hcmsiXSxbInAiLCJlbmNvZGUiLCJqcGciLCItc3RyaXAgLXF1YWxpdHkgODAgLWludGVybGFjZSBQbGFuZSJdXQ/amazing-luxury-villa-project-la-zagaleta-spain.jpg?sha=e964e1040f10f51e)</div>Every since the Iron Man movies, I had been on a relentless - and expensive - pursuit to see if a fully functional artificial intelligence - sans the shackles also known as hardware - was possible. The mainstream companies laughed me out of the room. even after I promised them unprecedented sums of money - served me right for trying to go legit - but barely an hour after instructing my fixer, I had 10 credible engineers who were both able and willing to make my dream come true. What can I say, my job has epic perks.<br/><br/>"Rhonda, don't wait up for me, babe."<br/><br/>The response was immediate. "Oh fuck off, perv"<br/><br/>The lights in the bedroom dimmed of their own accord as I made my way down the hallway, then the spiralling staircase, through the mass of people in various states of arousal and eventually outside.<br/><br/>"Happy Fucking Birthday."<br/><br/>Everything that lay before me was the result of a stroke of luck. Or genius.<br/><br/>Confronted by a despicable problem, one that was actually big enough to take me down, I had turned to the one person that did not pigeon-hole me in a box. Joanna Fontana. She was my first. And now she was family. Or well, close enough.<br/><br/>One night, when I was regaling her with grand designs of the life I wanted, she highlighted the value of a cover identity. "Darlin, the only way you could explain away such debauched behaviour is if you were a pornstar."<br/><br/>And now here we are, celebrating the first anniversary of Fontana Films.