Eli William - Cash Crash Jubilee

“Of course. I’ll do my best.”

“No one wants to lose you from this squadron nor from this ministry—with the exception perhaps of those hungry for your post who we can leave out of the discussion for now as the challenge they present is not imminent—least of all me, but I can’t neglect my duty to ensure that GATA employees do the job that will best assist this organization over the long term. Good luck!”

As soon as Sekido’s face had disappeared, leaving the quiet mall, Amon went back to scanning the Gutter, but found himself jittery with elation. This opportunity was almost too good to be true. The Identity Executioner position was known to be a stepping stone to higher levels of the organization, but Amon had been expecting some diddling secretarial post in say the Ministry of Access at best. Never had he imagined leaping so close to the Executive Council. It reminded him of the career path taken by Chief Executive Minister Lawrence Barrow. He had started out as a lowly Liquidator just like Amon, and eventually became an assistant to the Executive Council. There he got into politics and eventually rose to the top of GATA Japan, where he had proven himself a great leader. Amon didn’t even care about the details of the job, so long as he could follow in the footsteps of his hero.

His thoughts were interrupted by a pulsing beep, warning him that someone in his squad’s jurisdiction had gone bankrupt. Immediately, his own name flashed in front of him. Sekido had assigned him to the mission. He stood up and dashed a few steps down the aisle, hoping to get equipped for liquidation and pursue the target, when he remembered that Rick hadn’t arrived yet. Where was he? Regulations required that Liquidators move in pairs, so Amon was forbidden from going in alone. Without Rick, he would have to decline the assignment. But that would mean giving up an ideal chance to demonstrate his prowess before the meeting with the headhunter. Even worse, he would have to admit to Sekido that Rick wasn’t there and might end up looking like a lax supervisor.

The moment someone went bankrupt, they forfeit their anonymity rights, and the Blinders had already exposed part of the target’s profile to Amon. He opened it and blinked a few times when he saw the name, as though that would wipe away a scratch on a blank slate. He even flicked the screen away and drew it back, but the name didn’t change. It read Shota Kitao, but surely it wasn’t the Shota Kitao? A quick browse confirmed that it undoubtedly was. Shota Kitao. Minister of Records. Bankrupt.

The target was armed and stood at a packed intersection in the heart of Tokyo. A weapon in a crowded place was a volatile situation no matter who was carrying it, but this was no ordinary bankrupt. The Minister of Records was a renowned official, making this the most sensitive mission Amon had ever been given. It would require quick strategizing and media tact if things got ugly. If he declined and the mission went foul due to the incompetence of whichever Liquidator pair inherited it, he could take the blame. If he wavered too long, this armed bankrupt could do harm to the many nearby citizens and rack up more bad debt. It was imperative that Amon decide quickly so that someone else could be dispatched.

He began reluctantly typing a text message to Sekido recommending Tororo and Freg, when Rick ambled along the aisle towards his chair, the squashed tangle of bed-head beneath his digimade face visible only to Amon.

Rick and Amon rode motorbikes side by side along the highway. Following the neon red navigation beam streaking in zigzags ahead of him, Amon carved through tight cracks in traffic. The vehicles he passed were adorned in a multitude of overlays, from the stylish to the surreal: sports cars with fresh, shiny wax-jobs; jeeps with tinted windows and monster wheels; an SUV composed of fused-together cat bodies formed of scrunched up laundry; a melted van with warped, lopsided wheels, its wicker-like frame of steel rods dripping plastic with exposed wires casting circles of electricity.

The meandering concrete overpass led them twisting through narrow gaps between skyscrapers. It dropped into tunnels beneath the sidewalk, and then arced up through the phantasmic dance of pale InfoSmog, intersecting and wrapping through other suspended roads like one thread in an intertwining maze of industrial tongues.

The InfoSun had emerged from the rearing concrete canopy. Amon kept his eyes on the road, never looking directly at this capsule of constant imagery embedded diagonally above him in the fluctuating patchwork firmament. Yet he couldn’t stop its infolight from slipping over the rim of his helmet and striking his eyes, whereupon hazy, effervescent glimmers of an exclusive interview with a has-been teen idol appeared unbidden, as though seared into his retina. Amon couldn’t remember the idol’s name, but he recognized her from her media heyday a few years back. Her face was of incredible high-quality; literally iconic, a sculpted configuration of ornate lines; her hair individuated blue strands curlicueing to the height of her diamond-shaped nose; her eyes like stained-glass spheres glowing from within; her smooth, delicate ears like fragile seashells. A team of virtuoso digimakers had idealized away the particulars of a woman’s face, leaving only raw feminine Beauty, before adding layers of stylizing abstraction to create a work of art, an enticing mannequin somehow more human than human. Seated in a plush lawn chair against the backdrop of an empty tennis court, she spoke of her collection of whips. Amon immediately detected this blatant, sensational attempt to stir controversy for a return to fame, yet her supernaturally emotive expressions seemed to override his intellect. Her brilliant smile of bleached jewel rectangles conjured faint hints of happiness; the movements of her facial muscles tugged on his heart like strings on a puppet’s limbs, as he stooped forward gripping the steering handles and toggled lanes.

Blasting at breakneck speed between convertibles of fluttering silk and hatchbacks that jiggled like gelatine, wheeled mecha and sedan-size WWII tanks, he paid no heed to the infoscape whipping by, to the passing blur of adverpromo and datatainment squirming on the road, on highway barriers, on residential rooftops, on the windows of a looming mall. Instead he studied their target’s profile in his desktop, an overlay of transparent links and text projected over everything like a thin membrane. It was crucial to learn as much as they could about Minister Kitao now that the veil of blinding was down, for there was no telling what personality quirk, what illness, what secret desire they might uncover that would make subduing him easier and allow them to minimize any risks to themselves or others.

As though they had formed a silent pact, neither Rick nor Amon mentioned the events of that morning. They were two professional Liquidators on an important mission now. Nothing personal could interfere.

“This is the worst mission ever,” said Rick by FacePhone, his face a small box in the center-left of Amon’s perspective. “I’m as nervous as a damn rookie. Why us?”

“I hear you. This is gonna be a tough one for sure. But I’d say we’re actually pretty lucky.”

“What? How?”

“Sekido gave us this job because he believes in us. Now we’ve got a chance to show what we can do.”

“Or a chance to screw it up big time.”

“Sure, but have we ever screwed up a mission before? If we follow protocol and do what we’ve always done, there’s nothing to worry about, right?”

“Oh yeah? So what’s the protocol for dealing with an armed politician in a fucking crowd then, huh?”