Handshakes and Back Stabs

The hit takes place outside of the Doll Factory, an after hours club, run by “The Toy Phags,” a local gang of cyborgs with perfect plastic faces.

The target is Rally Thomas, fearless leader of the gang. He is a credit to his pack as he traded legs for tank treads. He is the tallest among their number and the only one to glide. Both are traits he attributes with leadership.

The rest of his gang appears a Clockwork Orange marionette. Their faces are Furry fake. Big doe wide eyes, blue as the sky, matched with Cheshire Cat pearly whites. Their hollow personas exhume a strange eeriness like the feeling you get from a Dr. Who Villain.

Not the scariest thing you have ever seen but they invoke a deep feeling of unease. Like cartoons stripped of their comedy and morality. Like Heavy Metal: the movie.

These mechanical men have given up their mortality and operate in clock work fashion. 16:20, Thomas opens the door of the Doll Factory and meets with his street lieutenants. The gang updated and profit from the day before is handed over.

This is also the time, when random political guest stars will arrive and collect an “appearance fee”. Each name on the list is good for one show a month but the size of the list leaves a revolving door until the sun goes down.

Once business is done and the various forms of chemicals are dispensed, Thomas reaches into the head stash and the core leaders of the Toy Phags dissolve into an 8 hour designer drug binge.

Coded messages posted on various status updates from social networking sites keep the hive mind up to date with the streets, while they give up their last bit of humanity.

A night without problems closes the Doll Factory at 04:00. Fifteen minutes later, four of the largest Ariana machines, you have ever seen, walk in formation out the front door. Think Robocop on Venice Beach, sans the tiny bathing suits.

They wait for trouble to surface, but when none shows, their leader slowly rolls out the door. A few of the younger cyborgs wear sunglasses, party night fried brains forget to tint control their iris against the bright street lights.

They forget many things, operating out of standards more than any logic board. They neglect facial scans, parameter searches, and pure old paranoia.

I look down the cobble stone streets toward the glowing number, 235. The beach trolley is right on time and I roll off the curb. A large trench coat covers my body and dangles over the skate board, centimeters from the wheel’s reach.

I ride the edge of the line, daring the trench coat to catch on the wheels and propel my body ass over tea cups. On a job this simple, adrenaline junkies reach for any high they can grab.

The moment happens like fate; inevitable. One foot planted on the board, the other held in the air, I teeter forward but the plan states I can’t fall forward. Physics disagrees with the plan and says, “You can fall forward.”

At the last second, my foot catches the ground and I kick myself backwards. The skateboard shoots across the street. The trolley passes. I land on my back.

The skateboard slams into the closed gate like a gun shot, large caliber. A few cyborgs look down and a couple look back at the fallen rider, they laugh. The trolley approaches the only civic camera out of range.

I feel the jab of cobble stones thrust into my vertebra and pull the remote trigger. The EMP, strapped to the bottom of the skateboard, detonates and shuts down every circuit board for a city block.

Neon and street lights blink out of existence. Leaders of the Toy Phags, freeze and tumble over. The civil camra’s view is obscured by the trolley stop. I shed the trench coat, the fedora, and leave the anonymous cliches behind.

20 seconds and a pump action shotgun with 8 rounds. 4 for the head and 4 for the heart. Empty and spent, the shotgun hits the ground with a hollowness.

The trolley moves down the line. The civil camera shows the cyborgs as they reboot and find their leader slain. The shotgun, police issue, was stolen only an hour before. The only clue is a business card in the inside pocket of the trench coat.

Dae Ho Lee, Executive Director of the Pangea Syndicate (P.S.), Level 13, my soon to be former employer.

Tonight, Dae Ho is a happy man. The plan came together. When the Toy Phags get a package with entry codes and blue prints of P.S.’s corporate building, Mr. Lee will be most unhappy. However that’s the game of handshakes and back stabs.