The Stainless Steel Rat (Book Spoilers)

[**Contains significant spoilers for the Stainless Steel Rat books by Harry Harrison. The character, James Bolivar diGriz as The Stainless Steel Rat is said to have first appeared as a short story in a magazine in 1957**] I spawned into a world, of so-called order A place where peace grew teeth and devoured freedom They taught me to kneel I gave them disruption Not out of hate No Because the system is absurd I will always be their problem They say I steal deceive and vanish They’re right But only, when justice forgets its name When a world forgets how to smile And law forgets it was made by the flawed I remember the joke and I laugh while I run Not away But in Ohh Some call me Slippery Jim Hard to catch A flaw in their design A rat in the cracks I laugh at their futile attempts at security While I slip the net Mock their version of purity Ohh I'm the Stainless Steel Rat They tried to make me into a tool Forced me into the Special Corps Abuse shaped like honor But I found room to breathe And used their blade to slice cleaner A dictator on Cliaand Mind-enslaver of millions I broke his spell by becoming his mirror A con against tyranny I am a liar against liars When I met her That smile made me a fool She could kill with grace A kiss like a lit fuse Her chaos matched mine Too close So I saved her mind And lost some of mine Is it still a con if you do it for love They said fatherhood would tame me But my sons sharpened my edge Taught them not how to follow rules But how to work them We ran cons on criminals from different planets We saved lives with illusions Even in the shell of an empire We found freedom in motion Ohh Some call me Slippery Jim Hard to catch A flaw in their design A rat in the cracks I laugh at their futile attempts at security While I slip the net Mock their version of purity Ohh I'm the Stainless Steel Rat I faced myself once Or something close enough A world where I never rebelled Where I played their game Watched that version choke on the bile of obedience I left him there Let him taste their boots And walked away with nothing but contempt The universe isn’t kind It doesn’t punish It doesn’t reward It only spins Justice still needs a thief Not a hero Instead a saboteur Someone who knows where the lines shouldn’t be drawn And knows how to cross them with a grin