State of the art, Alex!
I was starting to feel a little numb. What, with all the bio-enhanced gangsters, information terrorists, and cyborg outlaws. It pays to be more than human. My work order was a chip smuggler with some impressive bio-engineering done on her insides. The extra ram she could carry let her charge double. Ricoh was her alias and she was hoping to download her data on a terrorist organization called the Red Army Hammerheads. Laundering data can be dangerous. You break the law, you go to hell.
It looks like someone saw me ice our friend, Ricoh. They know I’m L.A.P.D. and are after some revenge. Nothing is ever easy. Two down, but it looks like the sexy one with the short skirt is carrying some heavy hardware. Fuck this. I’m outta here. Oh fuck! If I can just make it to this building… awww fuck! That knee was brand new. I say, “Give it a rest” as I blast one of the bitches. The second tags me with an explosive shell. Now she has come to finish the job. You goddamn terrorist! She goes on about trying to protect mankind and that I am the one that protects the machines. She accuses me of being one myself, but I am still 86.5% human. She unloads into my chest and just as she is about to finish the job, I stab her with a piece of steel. Thank god for the L.A.P.D. They arrive just in time.
It looks like I’m going to have to undergo some serious repairs. It took six months for them to put me back together. After the techs were done with my body, they shipped me to Baja to recuperate. I ended up in some god forsaken refuge on the edge of existence. The thing is, I am here for another reason. I found the terrorist that did this to me. I grab a beer and as she comes over, I see the Hammerhead tattoo on her hand. I tell her I want to get even. She asks, “With who”. I say, “With you terrorist!” as I blast her. I wanted to tell her that I have given a lot of thought to what she said back in L.A. About, whether I was more machine than human. I never got the chance, so I listen to the sound of approaching engines instead.
The L.A.P.D. show up to tell me that rehabs over. Farnsworth wants me back online, but I quit, and they can tell Farnsworth that. I am hardly human anymore. Nothing has been mine since Jared and Farnsworth got me to join. They turned me into a fucking machine. I cared once for Jared and she’s synthetic. What does she care about a better world? She’s a cyborg.
It is now one year later and the place is Rio de Janeiro. I have slipped into the black market network to try my hand at smuggling. Just as I am about to give up on Brazil, I hear some hotshot systems cowboy wants to see me. Some Japanese tech wants safe passage through the network. A perfect setup. My contacts face splits open and a gun pops out and fires. L.A.P.D. has set me up. They want me for another assignment.
After they fix me up, Farnsworth comes to see me in my cell. He tells me that they added a bomb to my heart and force me to try and retrieve some stolen data. It turns out that Jared is the one who stole the data. She has gone renegade. She is selling information to the Hammerheads and is meeting with their leader in some shithole called, Shang Loo. I refuse, so some asshole pulls a gone on me. You know the old cliché, “If you pull it, you better use it.” I seriously fuck buddy up. I have three days before the bomb goes off, so I have little choice.
Shang Loo, Christ… What a dump. I reach the Shang Loo Hotel and get a room. I unpack my shit and take a hit of speed to take the edge off. That’s the last time. If Farnsworth is going to kill me tomorrow, I want to be clear. Next thing I know, three armed men break into my room. One of them dogs me in the mouth and another knees me in the face. They want to know why I’m in Shang Loo. I tell them I’m looking for someone. They know of Jared. I tell them about the bomb in my chest, so the bolt. I have a feeling when I get close to Jared, I’m fucked. Next time the try it, I’m going to kill all of those motherfuckers, but right now I could use a shower.
As I’m scrubbing my taint, two more assholes break in. As the big one is choking me out, I just reach my gun from under the towel. He tells me, “It only works if you load it, stupid.” I load it and blow his fucking head off. Thanks for the tip. I pull my gun on the girl searching my room. Who the hell is she? She tells me she is someone that can help me find Jared. She says that Farnsworth has a surveillance unit in my right eye. She asks if I am going to help her. She’s a fucking cyborg! Why should I help her? She tells me there is no time, so I agree to help. She removes the tracker from my eye. Wow! It hurts like a motherfucker. She informs me that Jared is still alive. Her body is destroyed, but they downloaded her heart and soul into a memory bank. I am supposed to take Jared to the Red Army Hammerheads. Oh fuck! Farnsworth and his men attack. How am I going to escape from this? The floor! I shoot a hole through the floor and escape out of the bottom. What an exciting resort.
Jared, why did you turn against L.A.P.D.? She informs me that she didn’t. She turned against Commissioner Farnsworth. He has been replaced by a cyborg duplicate. They intend to replace all humans with cyborgs. They have to be stopped.
I see some cyborg harassing an old lady for information. As he turns, she grabs a gun from her purse. As she unloads on him, she mutters something about, “Fucking cyborgs. Can’t even go to the market without meeting some punk.” Shang Loo takes no shit. I love this town.
I have to meet the Hammerheads, but it’s not going to be easy. Farnsworth’s men attack me every step of the way. The cyborg from Rio gets the jump on me. We fall out a window and slide down a muddy slide. Just as he is about to shoot from his face, I lift him up and crush his head into an overhead beam. Then I finish him off with a round to the face. One of the Hammerheads helps me escape. As we are walking through the jungle, I pull a gun on her. She begs me for a job as my guide. She says I can scan her to see if she’s telling the truth. Okay. As I scan her, her necklace fires a laser into my neck incapacitating me.
I wake up tied to a chair. The Hammerheads boss, Angie, wants to see me. He knows about Farnsworth. He disarms as a sign of good faith, but good faith on what? He needs my help with the cyborgs. BOMB! One of Angie’s fat asshole men jumps on it. It’s Farnsworth, but the girl gets me out as Farnsworth kills the rest of the Hammerheads. She loses it when she sees that Angie is dead. I explain that she needs me, so she lowers her gun.
Farnsworth catches up to us, so we try and get the fuck out of there. Watch out! Farnsworth just misses us with his grenades. We take shelter in a tin shack, but Farnsworth is too close. The girl is knocked out by an explosion, so I have to carry her. We jump through the window and run out the back, but Farnsworth follows. I see a zip-line and use it for a quicker route down the hill. As we try and escape into the jungle, Farnsworth’s men are close behind. I pick off a number of them, but Farnsworth catches me. He holds a gun to my head, but spends too much time spouting his bullshit. I grab my gun and empty it into him. We get the hell away from there. In the background I can hear Farnsworth yell, “State of the fucking art, Alex”. He continues his pursuit. As I jump off a cliff, I do a back flip with a twist and nail him with a grenade. Fuck! It just blows his exterior off. How do you kill this guy? We make it to the rendezvous and a jet picks us up. I take a sigh of relief, but what’s that banging? Farnsworth! He rips a whole in the side of the jet and climbs in saying, “state of the art, Alex” I give him a left hook and a right cross. We both nearly fall out of the jet, but cling on to some twisted metal. Farnsworth is holding onto my arm, so I rip it off and let him fall into molting lava. Fuck! That was close.
We escape with Jared’s data and expose Farnsworth’s plan. The world is not perfect, but thanks to me, Jared, and the Hammerheads, there is hope. What a crazy time this is.
