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[CHAR] Straits of Steel (A South East Asian Cyberpunk Thriller)
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//YOUR SELF
Name: Xui Lin "Marcus" Yao
Age: 87
Gender: Male
Affiliation: Former officer of the New Malaccan Authority, the official state sanctioned police force of New Malacca. Currently retired as a Char Kway Teow street hawker in the Canton Canal, albeit with some connections to some unsavory groups.
Appearance: More metal than man, Marcus is a curmudgeonly and ancient octogenarian who looks the part unlike most of his other contemporaries who've used gene editing and telomeric enhancement sessions to stave off the inexorable tide of time. He is distinct in a city where the old are rare and the young are plenty.
From an up close glance, it's easy to see that Marcus is indeed old. Liver spots dot his wrinkled face with sagging cheeks pulling away at his sun-tanned skin. His bloodshot eyes are speckled with dots with jagged grey scleroses and a minor twitch in his left. Most of his lower right jaw and right face has been haphazardly replaced by cybernetic counterparts that look as if they were bolted on to his skin. The rest of his body hasn't been spared either with ceramic plates and circuitry having been welded into him randomly with no pattern. In spite of this, Marcus looks spry as ever and possesses a stout, strong build for a man of his age.
In the public, Marcus favors a simplistic poly-ester singlet, an apron and moth-eaten sandals that give him a grandfatherly look. In his more private affairs, Marcus wears a beanie along with a long-sleeved dark business trench coat and grey slacks.
//YOUR SOUL
PERSONAL GOAL: Marcus is primarily concerned with the economic wellbeing, safety and happiness of his family in New Malacca, no matter the cost to himself or others outside his family. He has no illusions about the illicit activities that he participates in and makes no excuses for himself. However, this is at odds with his code of honour and decency which has been tempered and tested over many decades.
LIKES:
- Curry Laksa
- Naps
- Cooking
- Professionalism
- Hanging out with his grandchildren
- Mahjong
DISLIKES:
- Durian
- Zaibatsus, mega-corporations, anything corporate really.
- Arrogance
- Collateral damage
- Unnecessary cruelty
- AR/VR addicts
- Threatening his loved ones
REPUTE: Marcus has two reputations to uphold: one as a kindly, old grandpa who makes an honest living on the Canton Canal and another as a no nonsense cleaner and investigator who will do any job for the right price.
In the public’s eye, Marcus is one of the foundations of the daily lunch rush at the Canton Canal with numerous workers and corpos scrambling to get a plate of Char Kuey Teow from his stall.
In the eye of the criminal underworld and his clients, Zhang San is an efficient and reliable problem fixer that may stick to old habits and traditions but always gets the job done.
HEEL: Marcus harbors extreme love for his grandchildren and will sacrifice anything to provide for them. Family is the most important thing in Marcus’s mind and he will not settle for anything lesser other than the outcome that benefits his family the most. Threatening his immediate family is a good way to convince him to work for you up until he decides to put a bullet in your head.
CODE: Marcus is morally flexible and possesses a sense of understated compassion and honor that’s downright endangered within New Malacca. He’ll help those he feels that are in need. He’ll spare people even though they were witnesses. It’s a miracle that Marcus has managed to survive this long in New Malacca. Perhaps, it’s his way of making amends or to fulfill some twisted sense of redemption. Over the years, his compassion has evolved from a rarity to a nuisance that bites him in the back. The next person that he spares might shoot him in the back after all.
QUIRKS:Marcus is oddly fond of whistling dainty tunes in public to amuse himself. During long stakeout operations or when on the job, Marcus can always be found sipping from a hot thermos full of ginseng tea to pass the time.
//YOUR PAST
Part of the first wave of migrants that came to New Malacca, Xui Lin was part of a Taiwanese family that had come to New Malacca to escape the job insecurity and wage cuts that had befell Taiwan’s economy. Xui Lin worked in his father's syncrete paving business for most of his childhood and fled away from his nest to join the New Malaccan Authority, , a group of PMCs that had been given official jurisdiction to enforce the law in New Malacca. Xui Lin adopted the name of Marcus and began working as a officer, moving his way up to Lieutenant.
Over 30 years of faithful service came to an end one fateful Wednesday. During a patrol, a IED blew up in Marcus’s face when he opened up the back of a suspicious looking jet ski. Waking up in a hospital later, Marcus’s body was completely ravaged with most of his internal organs being perforated not to mention the fact that all but one of his limbs were completely mangled. His health insurance wasn't enough to cover the staggering cost of the implants. Appeals to his healthcare providers failed. Pensions couldn't cover the cost. He was expected to be another body in the pile that had built up New Malacca to its heights.
Therefore, Marcus eventually resorted to criminal means to settle his debts. His talents accrued from twenty years in the New Malaccan Authority served him well in the criminal underworld and thus the trademark of Zhang San was born, an alias for Marcus to use to shield him from any potential blow-back that he might suffer. For the last two decades, Marcus has been accumulating a trust fund for both of his grandchildren to receive when he finally passes away along with staving off the worse of his chronic illnesses caused by the degradation of his cybernetics.
//YOUR PERSON
ATTRIBUTES:
Getting Down and Dirty: Marcus is a skilled marksman and knows how to handle himself in a shootout as well as in close quarters brawl. Due to his advanced age, he usually relies on more dirty tricks to gain an upper hand on the more youthful.
A Hunch: Marcus is a skilled investigator, partly thanks to his training within the New Malaccan Authority and the fact that no one expects an old grandpa to be capable of such things like noting down the different shift times of a parking booth.
Do It By The Books: Being part of a law enforcement PMC doesn’t just teach you to shoot things first and ask questions later. Marcus possesses a wide encyclopedic breadth of knowledge about rules, procedures and the inner general workings of modern law enforcement within New Malacca along with a decades worth of knowledge on how to conduct criminal operations.
BODY MODS:
Haoyang 2040 Full-Body Enhancement Package - Haoyang 2040 Full-Body Enhancement Package - More for life support rather than functionality, this ancient suite of cybernetic augmentations, ranging from limb replacements, pacemakers, inbuilt artificial myofibers and respiratory assistors, is what has kept Marcus alive all these years. Marcus’s enhancements allow him to hit faster, move faster and take more physical punishment than a man of his age could without suffering severe damage. A disadvantage of these ageing augs is that Marcus is required to consume a heavy amount of immunosuppressant drugs in order to ensure that his elderly body does not reject his augmentations.
EQUIPMENT:
Gao-Zhong Dragoon HA-12: Sometimes, actions speak louder than words, or in this case, getting your head blown off will. Once the standard issue sidearm of the New Malaccan Authority, the Dragoon has been phased out in lieu of more cheaper models of firearms. The Dragoon is a semi-automatic heavy pistol chambered to fire a custom modified 12mm teflon-coated gyrojet round capable of penetrating through most modern subdermal body armor. Marcus's model comes with an integrated silence to reduce the deafening noise it makes to manageable levels.
Monofilament Garrotte: When you need to strangle a fool stealthily, except no substitute but this 10 inch long boron-carbon hybrid nanotube garotte.
Disposable Burnerphones: The old school method of ensuring that someone doesn't trace you. Marcus has a pack of these to ensure that whatever call he makes will be private. Permanently private.
HongYang Vacuum Thermos: Able to keep any substance at room temperature for more than 24 hours thanks to its patented hydraulic seal vacuum tech coupled with a biometric security system. Marcus mostly uses it to store his favorite ginseng soups.
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Xiaolan Dagon — The Artist of War
//YOUR SELF
Name: Xiaolan Dagon
Age: 25
Gender: Female
Affiliation:
Having mostly fallen out of grace, Xiaolan has far more enemies than she does allies, but she continues to have a considerable amount of influence among a small circle of independent smugglers, pirates, and guerillas that operate unofficially as cooperative individuals and cells going by the name “Hekatoncheires”.
Appearance:
Xiaolan’s persona, while it may not quite fit the harrowing description often provided by her enemies, is no less magnanimous and distinct. Most often seen in between an array of bright, multi-layer outfits, Xiaolan also has a habit of wearing colorful scarves and masks, to appear as fashionable as possible. Very rarely is Xiaolan seen without her heart-shaped sunglasses, which only add to her exquisite poker-face. She also has a tendency to wear a traditional conical hat, as it makes her feel just a bit like an ancient general.
Of Burmese and Japanese descent, Xiaolan has medium length brown hair, often jostled and kept slightly unkempt by wind and action sequences. Her arms, while they appear the same tone as her flesh, have difficult-to-detect lines running along them, giving away the fact that they are ceramic to the close observer.
//YOUR SOUL
PERSONAL GOAL:
With a majority of her assets and close friends lost in the attack at sea, Xiaolan is currently in a state of reacquiring assets that can return her to her former state of glory, mobility, and comfort. Being basically homeless and rather poor save for her strange horde of possessions, Xiaolan has a long way to go. To do so, she intends to act as an independent operator for whatever war—large or small—that interests her in the moment and provides an outlet for her art. As she builds herself, she also seeks greater connections and adversaries that she would consider ‘on her level’. Xiaolan has a rather secret, underlying interest in finding and connecting with her father as well.
LIKES:
➟Puzzles
➟Competition
➟Gambling
➟Weapons
➟Old E-Books
➟Warfare
➟Competition
➟Gambling
➟Weapons
➟Old E-Books
➟Warfare
DISLIKES:
➟Losing
➟Bad Manners
➟Sharks
➟The Unambitious
➟Bad Manners
➟Sharks
➟The Unambitious
REPUTE:
Xiaolan’s reputation is very complex around New Malacca, as the city represents to her an expansive network of enemies and allies, though heavy on the enemies. Known for her prowess in tactics and strategy, crossing her isn’t taken lightly, but most who are familiar with Xiaolan still regard her with an air of mystery. Her motivations are enigmatic, and her network is constantly breaking apart and reassembling. Any outsider or observer who wasn’t careful to observe her might make the mistake to assume she has no network, nothing more than a derelict, but entitled operator who escaped the dangerous life. What remains the most important aspect of Xiaolan Dagon is that she can be a resourceful and helpful ally or a devious and undermining foe.
Xiaolan, among close associates, is known as one of the effective operators that works in close relation to the Hekatoncheires ring. As their power is heavily reliant on the individuals involved, their network is not well documented or accounted for. Among larger factions in New Malacca, Xiaolan’s reputation becomes more dodgy. She’s had more than a few run-ins with Tzu Peace Solutions, who resent her as a nuisance for involvement in undermining piracy and weapons smuggling operations. The Poppy, who her crew once pushed product to, have a subtle animosity for her but maintain a business relationship as long as she has something to offer. The Ambassadors may be aware of Xiaolan as an independent variable and competing operator, but she courteously hasn’t gotten into any trouble with them. Where the mixups start to occur is with Black Yangtze, whose cells were long time family enemies of Dachen Tet Zin, Xiaolan’s father. She, thus, can only consider they have it out for her and prepare accordingly.
HEEL: A Portrait of the Artist as a Surrealist
Above perhaps all her other desires, Xiaolan can’t escape the elation that arises when she sees the art in warfare. She revels in conflict, strife, and difficult circumstances, particularly when those circumstances are built on her own pure invention to create unique predicaments. Xiaolan sees herself worshipping aestheticism almost as much as she does warfare itself, and will never miss a chance to turn her conflicts into art pieces built around complex surreal imagery and symbolism that border on absurdity. This arises most often with how she chooses to deal with any problems that arise in her plans. Difficult, spectacular, and eye-catching plans are a favorite of hers, and she’ll forego simplicity at the drop of a hat in favor of glamor and magnanimity, as though Xiaolan is manufacturing her own insanity based on a goalless narrative she’s inventing on the spot out of thin air.
CODE: Artist of War
Obsessed with the sport involved in tactical strategy, Xiaolan drives herself through life hellbent on laying elaborate plans that challenge her capacity for warfare. This causes her own allegiances to shift rather rapidly as necessary. She relies on honorable warfare and conflict to define herself. To keep up with her interests, she frequently lends her services to other causes, as her own is a more spiritual one, that exists in perpetuity, relying on the chaos of the world around to find any order. While Xiaolan is quite crafty at times, she always respects this game, and never tries to fool anyone into thinking she’s not playing it.
QUIRKS:
➟Xiaolan has a habit of talking in lines of poetry whenever she is struck with a moment of intense passion. In other situations, it’s not uncommon for her to provide a sort of “noir”-style narration of the events going on both around her and in her head.
➟As a great advocate for the arts across all disciplines, Xiaolan often leaves a trail of art where she goes to the best of her abilities. Whether this takes the form of AR murals left hovering in city streets or graffiti spray-painted on old brickwork, her depictions are a sure sign of her trail.
➟As a great advocate for the arts across all disciplines, Xiaolan often leaves a trail of art where she goes to the best of her abilities. Whether this takes the form of AR murals left hovering in city streets or graffiti spray-painted on old brickwork, her depictions are a sure sign of her trail.
//YOUR PAST
Xiaolan Dagon seemed misplaced from the start of her life, seeing her destiny could only be to realign her circumstances herself and become a weaver of her own fate. She was born on the Japanese mainland of Honshu and cared for by her native mother. Her father was a Burmese sailor that went on to captain a mutinous crew that turned their cargo barge into a veritable war machine for piracy. His time in Japan was not long, as the true profits lay in the South China Sea. Xiaolan, on the other hand, was raised on the eroding edges of the Pacific megalopolis. Upon the Ryukyu Islands, Xiaolan found it harder and harder to assimilate with Japanese corporate society in a meaningful way, but soon found that the underground youth cultures that raced street bikes on the still under-construction megabridges that were meant to link Okinawa with the mainland.
The action-oriented nature and deeply honorable code of her gang life did not last, however, as Xiaolan’s enthusiasm for the conflicts of such a lifestyle would only compound until harm inevitably came her way. Keen on organizing smaller outfits of her fellow street racers to launch skirmishes along the megabridges against Japanese law enforcement and zaibatsu PMCs, Xiaolan supported the violence in strangely devious and logistical ways. She would provide organizational support, tend to injured gangers, and ensure all combatants were outfitted for any attacks. Their enemies, who tolerated no such gang violence, soon apprehended her crew, which was split up and many of its members were deported despite any claims of residency.
Xiaolan, as one of the ‘deportees’, was sent on a barge as far from her old enemies as they could manage, and she ended up with a number of other criminals in a ‘free zone’ that functioned more as a labor camp within one of Burma’s growing E-Wastelands. Back in her ethnic homeland, Xiaolan’s will was not perturbed. She got in with crews in the scrap fields and resumed her plotting post-haste. When she and her newfound colleagues had sufficiently gathered enough clandestine resources gutted from old machines, Xiaolan helped structure an attack against the free zone’s enforcers and she and a contingent of fellow exiles escaped into the Andaman sea on a hijacked vessel.
With the whole world finally at their behest (at least that’s how Xiaolan felt), she and her new crew—taking up a faceless and individualistic operation calling themselves ‘Hekatoncheires’ took up running ‘shipments’ around the SESE FTZ to push onto low level associates of the Poppy. Xiaolan’s insatiable appetite returned, however, at the first sign of prosperity, and their outfit started to gain attention for pushing into New Malacca’s gun running market as well as some ‘incidents of piracy’ as the official records allege. Despite how invincible Xiaolan may have felt, her crew’s mounting list of enemies amongst Tzu Peace Solutions and the Black Yangtze caught up with them. She never saw their attackers’ affiliation, but their small vessel was no match for the war machine that hunted them down. As Xiaolan watched most of her crew slaughtered or toasted by short-range missiles, she was given the fate deserving of any who hoist the black flag.
Thrown into the sea by the unidentified operatives that destroyed her vessel, Xiaolan was condemned to drown. She had lost the art of warfare in her own pursuit of profit and chaos alike, or so she thought. Having given herself to the darkness of the depths as her lungs filled with brine, Xiaolan thought herself dead until she woke up in a daze state in what she could only presume was a submersible, rescued by a diver and salvager who soon became an associate.
With little left to trade, Xiaolan offered her savior access to the only thing she had: her services in the Art of War and her local involvement in the smuggling game. Given a second chance, she has taken to New Malacca to rise once again and pursue her arts, find those who have wronged her, and show them the extent of their failure in warfare.
//YOUR PERSON
ATTRIBUTES:
➟ Tactician’s Eye
Xiaolan’s keen sense for planning—particularly coming up with ludicrously complex and unpredictable plans—is almost unmatched. She’s spent her free time study military strategy, intelligence operation, and war philosophy stretching back centuries, and does everything in her power to incorporate those principles to every problem she encounters.
➟ Frankenmachinist
Between her time with street racers in Okinawa and E-waste scrappers in Myanmar, Xiaolan has learned the ins-and-outs of the human body and how it connects to machines. While she fancies herself “the sole practitioner of battlefield-open-heart-surgery”, she’s certainly not the most skilled or qualified to be moving around machine parts or flesh parts in a human body, but she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty and come up with quick solutions by jamming circuit boards inside her victims’ patients’ cybernetics or stapling up any unnecessary wounds with steel wire.
➟ Rhetorician’s Dance
Maintaining at least some degree of elegance, as the old warriors would have hoped of their descendants, Xiaolan is quite adept at the art of smooth talk. With a certain air of charisma and her impeccable fashion sense, she fancies herself hard to deny. Xiaolan considers conversation as much a war as knifing people up on the battlefield, and using manipulation and devious negotiation tactics are not above her.
Xiaolan’s keen sense for planning—particularly coming up with ludicrously complex and unpredictable plans—is almost unmatched. She’s spent her free time study military strategy, intelligence operation, and war philosophy stretching back centuries, and does everything in her power to incorporate those principles to every problem she encounters.
➟ Frankenmachinist
Between her time with street racers in Okinawa and E-waste scrappers in Myanmar, Xiaolan has learned the ins-and-outs of the human body and how it connects to machines. While she fancies herself “the sole practitioner of battlefield-open-heart-surgery”, she’s certainly not the most skilled or qualified to be moving around machine parts or flesh parts in a human body, but she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty and come up with quick solutions by jamming circuit boards inside her victims’ patients’ cybernetics or stapling up any unnecessary wounds with steel wire.
➟ Rhetorician’s Dance
Maintaining at least some degree of elegance, as the old warriors would have hoped of their descendants, Xiaolan is quite adept at the art of smooth talk. With a certain air of charisma and her impeccable fashion sense, she fancies herself hard to deny. Xiaolan considers conversation as much a war as knifing people up on the battlefield, and using manipulation and devious negotiation tactics are not above her.
BODY MODS:
➟ Executor’s Manipulator Kit
Housed in two cybernetic arms, the Executor Kit is considered a larger ‘borg’ conversion, as they come as a set. Both of her sleek metallic arms have a clandestine ceramic skin cover that can break apart at the user's command to reveal a number of telescoping tendrils that emerge from the forearms. On the ends of each of these manipulator ‘tendrils’, the user can graft tools and small tech. Having inherited her Executor Kit from the last thing that her camp in the Burmese E-Wastelands had to a ripper, Xiaolan became the next best at the job. As such, her tendrils are mounted mostly with surgical tools as well as small power tools for basic cybernetic maintenance.
➟ “Weaver Wires”
Fancying herself the ‘architect of her own fate’, Xiaolan’s personal masterpiece augmentation is the replacement she created in the E-Wastelands for each of her hands. On her command, small harpoons housed in the fingers can fire forth based on pulses of CO2. Strong enough to embed themselves in concrete at shorter ranges, the projectiles are attached to larger coils of retractable titanium wire that can be used to ‘weave’ complex shapes of weight-bearing wire. Xiaolan has used the wire for innumerable purposes, but it functions well as an emergency suture, tripwire, and grappling device when the wires are compounded. “Who can’t think of a thousand uses for some simple wire?”
➟ Cardiovascular Regulation Unit X — “CRUX Autosanguinator”
To help provide her some counters to the debilitating effects of her heavy augmentation, which took heavy tolls on her heart, Xiaolan installed the CRUX Autosanguinator. Implanted next to her heart is its main unit, allowing her own heart to remain beating and her cardiovascular system to continue operating in times of extreme duress. While her original heart continues to keep the system pumping, the CRUX insures her bloodstream, removing contaminants, excess viral agents, and other toxins while regulating circulation speed and internal intravenous injections to a certain degree. These minute functions are all done via a liquid metal produced and distributed by the CRUX called NanoSanguine.
NanoSanguine volume in the bloodstream can be dangerous if concentrated too highly in one part of her circulatory system. While NanoSanguine doesn’t travel as fast as thinner blood, this can be beneficial in certain circumstances, such as when a heart stops or begins beating at abnormal rates. As the NanoSanguine moves, it can push blood throughout the body or artificially clot it to an extent (though dangerous). This early model of the CRUX can’t regulate the body independently forever, as it relies on the beating heart to keep it functioning for longer periods.
Housed in two cybernetic arms, the Executor Kit is considered a larger ‘borg’ conversion, as they come as a set. Both of her sleek metallic arms have a clandestine ceramic skin cover that can break apart at the user's command to reveal a number of telescoping tendrils that emerge from the forearms. On the ends of each of these manipulator ‘tendrils’, the user can graft tools and small tech. Having inherited her Executor Kit from the last thing that her camp in the Burmese E-Wastelands had to a ripper, Xiaolan became the next best at the job. As such, her tendrils are mounted mostly with surgical tools as well as small power tools for basic cybernetic maintenance.
➟ “Weaver Wires”
Fancying herself the ‘architect of her own fate’, Xiaolan’s personal masterpiece augmentation is the replacement she created in the E-Wastelands for each of her hands. On her command, small harpoons housed in the fingers can fire forth based on pulses of CO2. Strong enough to embed themselves in concrete at shorter ranges, the projectiles are attached to larger coils of retractable titanium wire that can be used to ‘weave’ complex shapes of weight-bearing wire. Xiaolan has used the wire for innumerable purposes, but it functions well as an emergency suture, tripwire, and grappling device when the wires are compounded. “Who can’t think of a thousand uses for some simple wire?”
➟ Cardiovascular Regulation Unit X — “CRUX Autosanguinator”
To help provide her some counters to the debilitating effects of her heavy augmentation, which took heavy tolls on her heart, Xiaolan installed the CRUX Autosanguinator. Implanted next to her heart is its main unit, allowing her own heart to remain beating and her cardiovascular system to continue operating in times of extreme duress. While her original heart continues to keep the system pumping, the CRUX insures her bloodstream, removing contaminants, excess viral agents, and other toxins while regulating circulation speed and internal intravenous injections to a certain degree. These minute functions are all done via a liquid metal produced and distributed by the CRUX called NanoSanguine.
NanoSanguine volume in the bloodstream can be dangerous if concentrated too highly in one part of her circulatory system. While NanoSanguine doesn’t travel as fast as thinner blood, this can be beneficial in certain circumstances, such as when a heart stops or begins beating at abnormal rates. As the NanoSanguine moves, it can push blood throughout the body or artificially clot it to an extent (though dangerous). This early model of the CRUX can’t regulate the body independently forever, as it relies on the beating heart to keep it functioning for longer periods.
EQUIPMENT:
➟ “The War Purse”
When preparing for any remotely dangerous operation, Xiaolan is sure to load up her satchel with handfuls of scrap metals, broken electronic components, and chemical compounds to ensure she’s prepared to do her ‘war doctoring’. These are used for improvisational fixes for broken cybernetics or to put together basic devices for operations that require special solutions.
➟ “Heads-Up, Hearts-Up” Sunglasses
Xiaolan’s retro, heart-shaped sunglasses serve as more than just an ultimate fashion accessory. They also have basic AR connectivity that allows Xiaolan a basic heads-up display, real-time measurements, and the ability to infect small instances of the Deep to leave graffiti’d AR signatures in unused space.
➟ Clandestine Rebreather
Beneath her usual inconspicuous—but conspicuously fashionable—patterned maks, Xiaolan sometimes wears a lightweight rebreather that can cycle her breath for a few hours before she begins to suffocate.
➟Armaments
While Xiaolan often prefers to switch up her tools of war depending on the operation, she has a small cache that she likes to go back to. Among her favorites are a classic Burmese Dah sword that isn’t as imposing as it seems, though does well to pass detection since it isn’t ‘souped up’; and her ‘cyber-nunchaku' that electrify at each end with activation. Xiaolan has recently lost her gun, ‘The Big Shooter’ after a night on heavy stims and is still looking for it.
➟ “The Whip”
Feeling naked without a street bike in her possession, Xiaolan hastily ‘repossessed’ a powerful street racing rig from a Tzu Peace Solutions operative who angered her at the bar one night. Xiaolan’s done her best to rig up The Whip with as much modification as she can afford without any money to be worthy of ‘carving it up in these streets’.
When preparing for any remotely dangerous operation, Xiaolan is sure to load up her satchel with handfuls of scrap metals, broken electronic components, and chemical compounds to ensure she’s prepared to do her ‘war doctoring’. These are used for improvisational fixes for broken cybernetics or to put together basic devices for operations that require special solutions.
➟ “Heads-Up, Hearts-Up” Sunglasses
Xiaolan’s retro, heart-shaped sunglasses serve as more than just an ultimate fashion accessory. They also have basic AR connectivity that allows Xiaolan a basic heads-up display, real-time measurements, and the ability to infect small instances of the Deep to leave graffiti’d AR signatures in unused space.
➟ Clandestine Rebreather
Beneath her usual inconspicuous—but conspicuously fashionable—patterned maks, Xiaolan sometimes wears a lightweight rebreather that can cycle her breath for a few hours before she begins to suffocate.
➟Armaments
While Xiaolan often prefers to switch up her tools of war depending on the operation, she has a small cache that she likes to go back to. Among her favorites are a classic Burmese Dah sword that isn’t as imposing as it seems, though does well to pass detection since it isn’t ‘souped up’; and her ‘cyber-nunchaku' that electrify at each end with activation. Xiaolan has recently lost her gun, ‘The Big Shooter’ after a night on heavy stims and is still looking for it.
➟ “The Whip”
Feeling naked without a street bike in her possession, Xiaolan hastily ‘repossessed’ a powerful street racing rig from a Tzu Peace Solutions operative who angered her at the bar one night. Xiaolan’s done her best to rig up The Whip with as much modification as she can afford without any money to be worthy of ‘carving it up in these streets’.
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Member
Seen
8 mos ago
Age: 25
Gender: Female
Affiliation: Her loyalties are to the 404. Two members of the group cared for her after the death of her father and then proceeded to teach her everything she knew until she was ready to become and offical member of the group.
Appearance: Being of Ukrainian and Sri-Lankan descent, Nadia has a somewhat ambiguous appearance as far as ethnicity goes. Her hair (usually tied back into a pony-tail) is about to her waist and black. Her almond-shaped eyes are naturally a very dark brown, but thanks to her optical implants now bounce between a bright blue and neon green that glows in the dark- Playing hide and seek was somewhat difficult as a child. She stands at 5'6'' in height, and while she's not exactly what one would call toned, she has a strong and sturdy build that helps her when she decides to play with bigger guns in between working on coding.
//YOUR SOUL
PERSONAL GOAL: Vengeance and anarchy, or at least the money to make both possible. New Malacca is a place teeming with opportunities for jobs, contacts, and overall advancement to her end goal of ruining whatever corporate giant caused the death of her father. In the process she hopes to find dirt on whatever other corrupt organizations are out there as well and plunge them into chaos. Oh she doesn't want good people to suffer, but the idea of watching those who would take advantage of the poor burn brings a smile to her face.
LIKES:
- Playing games
- Modding the software in her body mods
- Hacking into government databases and screwing with them (she has a particular fondness for changing the names of their files)
- Looking for new guns to buy
- Baking
- Drinking
- Drawing in her datapad
DISLIKES:
- Corruption (go figure)
- Injustice
- Pears
- Being told she's crazy
REPUTE: To the old lady who lives across from her, Nadia is the sweet girl next door who always helps her with taking the trash out. Perhaps she's a little odd, but definitely driven and is bound for great things... whenever she gets out of this dump. The people she always has over though seem a bit sketchy.
To the assholes whose AR consoles have suddenly crashed in the midst of them harassing some kid, she's the echo in the white static of their displays telling them that they might want to check their bank accounts, right before a virtual cream pie with the words "You've been sliced(an archaic term that she started using ironically as a joke, but it eventually just became a part of her online persona)" gets hurled at them. As the cool sensation of the dessert drips down their tactile body suits, in real life all of their hardware begins to fry and die.
But to those who know her best, Nadia is someone with unending potential and drive, and perhaps just a tiny bit of mental instability. She's sweet, speaks softly, doesn't seem to ever intentionally get on anyone's bad side, always shows up with a smile on her face and baked goods in hand to share, and absolutely revels in the chaos that her mind can reign down on unsuspecting targets of the 404. It's whispered that sometimes she gets in over her head, that one day it's going to catch up to her, and that it's a shame such talent will die so young. But no one has the heart to say it to her face.
There are also whispers that if one were to try and follow her (though such a task is certainly not an easy one) they could find her playing in the deep. The whispers say that when she was younger, she found a way into this forbidden world and used to play with the ancient AIs whose subroutines had degraded to the point of madness, and that they were the ones that taught her how to dance through the virtual world- not her 404 associates.
Such rumors are surely just that though... right?
HEEL: Nadia is convinced that she cannot be stopped. She's too clever, too good for the self-righteous nobodies that the big organizations would hire to track her down, and there's no way she'll ever get caught. Of course she is quite skilled at her job but she forgets that there is always someone better. There is always someone who can catch her. To anyone else this reality is undeniable, but Nadia has convinced herself that there is no way in this or any world that she will be stopped before she's brought down whoever it was that made her father disappear.
CODE: Nadia believes in standing up for those who can't stand up for themselves, and generally helping the helpless. She helps her old neighbor clean the ratty apartment, she attacks the jackasses who pick on kids who just want to play a game, and she crushes the organizations that take advantage of those who rely on them. Nadia knows what it feels like to be totally helpless and she'll do whatever it takes to make sure no one else has to feel that way.
QUIRKS: She always has a baked good of some kind on her. Always. Nadia adores baking as it's the only thing she remembers really doing with her mother, and anyone who knows her is aware that if they come within ten feet of her they will be offered a cookie, cupcake, bagel, tart, or whatever else she might have made that particular day. It's so far past the point of just being a hobby. Thanks to this little quirk, Nadia always seems to smell faintly of vanilla or cinnamon- her favorite spice. She also has the habit of speaking in a sing-song voice whenever she's panicked (i.e. We're all gonna die~~~)
//YOUR PAST
Nadia grew up in West Bengal Port. Her mom kept up a job as a warehouse worker and provided for their family while her father worked from home doing odd jobs as a hacker. When Nadia was older she learned that not only was her father a hacker, but that he worked with the notorious 404. Her parents had done their best to keep this information from her. Unfortunately for them Nadia was a rather bright child that was too observant for her own good, and the random bits of coding and hacking that her father taught had been enough for her to figure out what he was doing when she was about seven years old. It might have helped that her father had been a little bit careless that day, but Nadia would never admit to that.
Her mother died in a freak accident when working in the lower levels of a warehouse. It flooded and she, along with fifteen other workers, drowned before help could get to them. This all could have been avoided if the people in charge had paid any attention to the multiple complaints from the workers, but they didn't, and the families of the deceased paid dearly for it. The corporation didn't pay a god damn thing. This was the first thing that jump-started Nadia's hatred of large corporations.
With one parent gone Nadia's father decided that she needed to learn how to protect herself should anything happen to him, and so he started taking her to a friend's house to train the young girl how to shoot. She was about ten or eleven at the time. She grew rather fond of their weekly visits to the man and his wife (who she later found out were also members of the 404) and soon began to refer to them as "uncle" and "auntie." Life continued in this little rhythm until Nadia was thirteen.
One day she came home from spending the day with her friends to find their apartment completely empty. Her fathers equipment, their furniture, her toys, clothes, even the dishes were gone. All that was left was what was in a small compartment hidden in the wall, which contained a few of the guns her father had owned. Other than that it had been wiped clean and Nadia's father was no where to be seen. She stayed their for a bit, waiting for her father to come home. Hoping and praying with every fiber of her being that he'd come home. But he never did, and eventually she contacted auntie and uncle.
Nothing was ever found out about the location of her father. Some said that he had simply abandoned her, finding it too difficult to care for the teenager without her mother around, but Nadia knew that was impossible. He was the man who taught her to draw, who took care of her before himself after the woman they both loved dearly vanished from their lives. The man that never forgot any birthday, holiday, or important date. Who listened when she ranted about the stupidest things that no adult would rightly care about. He loved her, and he never would have left her. The only thing that made sense to Nadia was that he must have been tracked down, and that one of the corporations he'd been working on exposing had killed him. That had to be what happened.
When she recovered enough from her grief Nadia immediately started training with the adults that had now adopted her and began the process of becoming a member of the 404, determined to one day find out what had happened to her father and to exact revenge on the guilty party.
After developing a bit of a reputation in the deep ocean that is the web, she caught wind of a job going down that would be paying a generous sum of money and figured she could use that money to help fund her cause. She immediately jumped on it.
//YOUR PERSON
ATTRIBUTES:
- Hacking
- Decent shot with a blaster
- Baking
BODY MODS:
Augmented cybernetic armware with integrated computer paneling:
Both of her arms are completely made of cybernetic material. They enhance her upper body strength and also double as a portable computer, as she has personalized the data panels in her arms to connect with her personal gear. With it she can always access all of her files at any time and work anywhere- and if she gets caught she can quickly wipe all of the drives remotely.
Intergrated Brain Chip:
In her head there is a tiny, pea sized chip that acts as a communication, search engine, and entertainment device. When she's on the go and doesn't have time to manually mess with the data panels on her arms, she can simply interface with her brain chip and continue her work from there while she's on the go.
Cybernetic optical implants:
These are mostly for the aesthetic. Nadia has two cybernetic eyes that phase from a bright blue to bright neon green, and while they do allow her to visually see what's on her data panels without actually looking at them, their main function is just to be cool.
EQUIPMENT:
SAR 9 Semi Auto Pistols: Aries and Eris
A matching pair of pistols that are small enough to be concealed fairly easily but still pack a punch. She always keeps them on her for self defense purposes, and generally doesn't use them unless she has to. While Nadia is very much willing to shoot someone she prefers to hack into their personal files and ruin their lives as opposed to just outright shooting them. Unfortunately that isn't always an option, so she keeps Aries and Eris on her for that purpose (as well as a couple extra rounds of ammo). She also has a collection of guns at home (including a non-functional ancient old fashioned rifle that her dad kept around as a family heirloom) that she keeps hidden in the wall beside her bed. She doesn't necessarily intend on shooting someone, but they're there if she needs them and its also just a hobby of hers to collect them.
C3GD Encrypted Storage Chip:
In case she should ever have to delete her files on the fly, Nadia took the precaution of having backups stored in an external hard drive of her own design that cannot be accessed unless actually inserted into a database. It is hidden in her left boot so that should she ever be captured, it can easily be kicked off and (hopefully) only found by the very few people that know it exist. On the other hand if she should simply be on the run and have to delete her files she'll still have all of her research without having to worry about someone accessing what she was working on.
Food Preservative Container:
It's what she carries her usual plethora of baked goods in.
Raymond 'Ray' Cheng
//YOUR SELF
Name: Raymond Cheng, Ray for short
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Affiliation: Formerly Tzu Peace Solutions, currently none.
Appearance:
Raymond is a big man. Standing over most at 6'4", Ray is a bear of a man, built like a truck and hitting just about as hard. He has a serious and imposing demeanor, with a rigid posture and broad shoulders. Raymond has rough facial features, age lines strongly imprinted on his face and lack of youthful enthusiasm implies this man has either seen some shit or isn't wanting to put up with yours. His face is curtained off by a short but thick brown beard, his hair is cut close and kept out of the way. The majority of the left half of his body has been replaced by cybernetics- arm, eye and leg most notably.
//YOUR SOUL
PERSONAL GOAL: A debt to pay. Raymond owes a great deal- including his life to a certain individual. New Malacca is the current hotbed of opportunity for those who don't mind some less-than-legal work, but its not exactly the kinda place you want to retire. Ray wants to get in, make his money while the making is good, then get the fuck out.
LIKES:
- Quiet nights
- Cigars
- Fishing
- Quality Rum and Whiskey
DISLIKES:
- Tzu Peace Solutions
- Liars
- People that don't keep up their end of a deal
- Being indebted to people
REPUTE:
Ray isn't well known in New Malacca, and that's just how he likes it.
To most passer-byes he's a big guy with a big gun and a bad attitude- most mundane folk avoid him because they don't want to fuck with him, the occasional gangster gets in his face because he does want to fuck with him. To fixers, he's muscle with anonymity. Someone who at least looks like they can handle themselves, and no one will ask questions about should he die.
Ray has some reputation for reliability with the local branch of the Black Yangtze. Having done only a few jobs in New Malacca for them- mostly low level work with a need for disposable assets, or people not traceable directly to the Black Yangtze.
HEEL:
Raymond is an addict. A functioning addict, but an addict nonetheless. Alcohol, tobacco, and more recently: painkillers. The severity of his addictions vary, but needless to say without regular access to his vices, he gets... crabby, to say the least. The vices haven't gotten him into trouble on a job- yet, but they're not getting any better, and New Malacca doesn't make things any easier.
CODE:
Honor, respect, honesty. Traits not easily found in New Malacca, and not entirely without warrant. Like trust, Raymond is smart enough to know that blind honesty, respect and honor can get you killed, or worse, depending on your situation. But when given the chance, Raymond prefers to act on these principles, and holds others who do the same in high regard, regardless of their current station or employment.
QUIRKS:
Raymond is commonly seen with a cigar sticking out of his mouth. He carries a variety of cigars on his person, and will use different ones depending on the situation. As a standard, he prefers a nicely wrapped cigar to puff on casually, but he'll reluctantly use an electronic cigar when in situations where light and heat are suboptimal. Occasionally he'll just stick a cigar in his mouth and chew on the end. Raymond is also a lefty.
//YOUR PAST
Raymond Cheng was born to a pair of Tzu Peace Solutions employees in a corporate arcology just a few miles off the coast of Hong Kong. His father was a corporate salaryman, and his mother was a nurse at a local trauma center. Still despite their modest means, most of his childhood was spent in relative security in the megalopolis of Hong Kong. As a child of a pair of corporation employees, Raymond was provided with relatively affordable education for the majority of his childhood- with the caveat that he would join the TPS workforce shortly after he turned 18. Raymond didn't think too much on it- that's how his parents spent their childhood, and its likely how his children would spend theirs.
Scoring well on his mental aptitude tests, but better on his physical ones, Raymond was slotted into one of Tzu Peace Solutions' physical security branches, starting off his career as site security. Performing well enough in his role and grinding his way through the ranks, Raymond was eventually moved to a Physical Asset Recovery team. Even before the corporate wars in SESE, if wasn't uncommon for major corporations to commit strikes or acts of sabotage against one another and their employees- just part of the business after all. Physical Asset Recovery teams were formed as a way for corporations to protect their own employees, with different levels of protection afforded to different levels of executive.
Physical Asset Recovery teams were less on site security teams and bodyguards and more similar to the rapid response SWAT teams of governments past. They were armed for a fight, well trained, and generally disregarded collateral damage, though wanton destruction of property was both discouraged and usually unnecessary. Their main role was to get to wherever their distressed executive was, bust in, grab the exec and get them out alive.
In this role, Raymond performed well. Not a rising star or ace to be sure, but a reliable and well grounded trooper. Raymond worked as one of the lower level PAR teams, not trusted to handle senior executives and individuals well up the chain of command, but local offices, employees and minor execs were the bread and butter of his team's rescues.
For a while, all was going well, until they didn't. One botched rescue operation, a car bomb, and three dead execs later, Raymond found himself lying on the rain and blood slicked boards of the Hong Kong docks, arm missing, leg crushed, consciousness fading and bleeding out.
By some miracle- or a fuckton of drugs and tech, Raymond survived. He came to consciousness in the backroom of what looked like the combination of a brothel and medical office. He had been found by a family friend of his mother's, who took pity on him and brought him back to safety. Most of the left side of his body had been destroyed and had to be replaced, and he found himself staring out a brand new eye at a brand new metal arm and leg. Promising to repay the doctor for saving his life- and repairing his body, Raymond returned home to put his nose back to the pavement and start getting more work done.
He arrived home to find out that he had been written off as dead by the company after his body had been noted as missing for a week. To add more salt to the wound, his family had been fined in his stead for the loss of the company's executives. With his family now left destitute and in debt, Raymond returned to them and staged a kidnapping, with the hope that they'd be worthless enough that TPS wouldn't waste the resources to find them. Raymond returned to the doctor who took his family in. To repay his debts, she directed him towards a contact she had in the Black Yangtze in New Malacca- a land of strife and opportunity ripe for the picking.
With all of his prior assets claimed by Tzu Peace Solutions, Raymond found under the table work as a shipping crew member and made his way to New Malacca, where he began applying his skills. Work has been slow and not nearly as profitable as he would like- until he got an offer he couldn't refuse: 500,000 asyuan and a one time job.
//YOUR PERSON
ATTRIBUTES:
- CQB Proficiency - while trained with firearms in general, Raymond is at his best within 50 meters and is most proficient with and prefers compact and easily manipulated weaponry. Breaching and clearing rooms, point shooting, and quick melee takedowns form the majority of Ray's experience.
- Tactical Field Care - While not a surgeon by any stretch of the imagination, Raymond is capable with a needle and a bottle of alcohol- at least capable enough to make sure you don't bleed out during a job. Part of his training as a PAR team trooper included basic trauma care, in case the asset was injured upon recovery.
- Resilience - Close fighting is never pretty, and no matter how good you are, you're bound to get a beating. Luckily, thanks to several years of getting his skull bashed and chest kicked, Raymond has gotten pretty decent at taking a beating and managing to get up and keep going.
BODY MODS:
- Verge Battletech Atlas-model cyberlimb: Left arm, Left leg - high durability frame with replaceable composite armor plates and adaptable strength limiters. Responsive, strong, and not much bulkier than a regular human limb. The arm has built in electroshock knuckle pads.
- Saewung Imugi-series cyber-eye: left eye - high resolution cybereye with built in low-light vision setting. Built in HUD and database provides basic target acquisition, adjustable FFID tags, and ammunition readouts for all weapons within current database.
- Verge Skin2.0 Dermaplating: left torso beneath the armpit to the pelvis - lightweight dermal plating beneath the left arm and stretching down the length of the side. Durability reaches about the strength of kevlar, but serves more as a quicker, cheaper skin graft than actual armor.
EQUIPMENT:
- K91 Maverick Combat shotgun - Raymond might have a distaste for Tzu Peace Solutions, but its hard to hate their guns. A compact, 12 gauge, pump action shotgun with a pair of 6 round tubular magazines- for a total of 12+1 shells. The two tube magazines allow this shotgun to load different types of ammunition simultaneously. This rugged and reliable weapon features a bullpup design, pistol grip, and plenty of space for flashlights, lasers and sights.
- Zeiger A-45 Pistol - A common sight in New Malacca, reliable, ubiquitous, and cheap enough to be easily replaceable.
- Field Trauma Pack - A small, waterproof combat pack that Raymond typically carries on his person, styled roughly after the PAR medical kits. Quikseal bandages, morphine, tourniquets, a compact defibrillator and scissors among other necessary field medical supplies. Raymond also keeps a supply of painkillers for personal consumption with this kit.
- Combat Knife - For when combat has devolved into punching, kicking and stabbing. For optimum performance, the leading edge should be applied to the enemy and thrust into vital regions. This should be repeated as necessary.
- Cigar Case - waterproof, stainless steel cigar carrier. Holds 2 cigars and 1 electronic cigar.
silvermist1116
Member
Seen
28 days ago
Age: 22
Gender: Non-Binary
Preferred Pronouns: Doesn't matter. He/She/They will respond to either.
Affiliation:
The Green River Snakes are a matriarchal run child trafficking ring that started in Vietnam in 2011 and has kept the organization in the family, since the first Snake Lady, Dan Thi My. The organization left Vietnam in 2025, taking a chance on booming growth of New Malacca and is currently run by Snake Lady Akanishi Miho. The Snakes have control of Shin Ryushu Docking from alliances and later marriage into a prominent yakuza family, making it easy to export and import children without anyone asking too many questions. Once the children are processed and chipped with a tracker at level one they are given a new name. Usually one that's generic, because the name doesn't matter until they earn the respect with the Snakes to change their name.
They're very secretive about how they're run. There's rumors about what goes on in the organization, but no one knows for sure. They run on a strict take it to the grave policy. Anyone that's caught saying too much, or ages out/out lives their usefulness will die. Even allies of the Snakes only know what's need to know. Most of their business, other than monetary transactions, is done on paper. If their business doesn't involve another party, then they keep it to themselves.
They're very secretive about how they're run. There's rumors about what goes on in the organization, but no one knows for sure. They run on a strict take it to the grave policy. Anyone that's caught saying too much, or ages out/out lives their usefulness will die. Even allies of the Snakes only know what's need to know. Most of their business, other than monetary transactions, is done on paper. If their business doesn't involve another party, then they keep it to themselves.
Appearance: Xia is 5'2, slight, and made of muscle. Their body is nearly straight and mostly angles. Their hair is short, black, and straight. The left side is sheared to the scalp. Their eyes are black and they have a split in their left eyebrow from a scar. Their face is angular, lips not thin or thick, their nose is straight, and their voice is medium-low and a little raspy. Their chin, left shoulder to their breast plate, and thin piece of skin on their right shoulder are discolored, paler than the rest of their skin, because of body modifications in those areas. The clothes that they wear for commissions is a skin tight full body spectrum suit that changes colors to match the time of day or background, so they don't stick out and easily hide. Sometimes they wear a matching helmet, sometimes they don't. It's temperamental and obscures their vision when it doesn't want to work right. Their every day clothes are mainly colorful loose jackets that hide their body and make them look unassuming, black tank tops, matching tight pants, and boots.
YOUR SOUL
PERSONAL GOAL: Survival. Xia wanted out of the Green River Snakes, but that's only possible through death and they don't have plans to kick the bucket anytime soon. So they've been running from assassins they grew up and trained with, going from one zone to the other, disappearing for a time before they're found again. It's a snake and mouse chase all over the aquapolis with the exception of Shin Ryushu Docking. They could try to kill Snake Lady, but they're no saint and isn't looking to create a power vacuum in that part of the city.
LIKES: Yuzu flavored anything, tea, cookies, candies, peels, boba. If it's yuzu they want it. AR is fun. They're not addicted, but AR treasures hunts are a nice way to pass the time. They also learned a lot about diving into the Deep by living in a Precipice house one time when they were in hiding. Music, mainly NM hiphop. It's a mix of traditional East Asia instruments, dialects, and synths with deep 808 bass. Most of the music is underground, because it can't compete with digital J-pop and K-pop market.
DISLIKES: Blood; they're not squeamish, but it's hard to wash out of their full spectrum suit. Peroxide doesn't take well to the fabric and it tends to leave patches of their body exposed, because the proteins in the blood conflicts with the camouflage functions. The Green River Snakes. Not because they kidnapped them from wherever the hell they came from, but because they won't leave them alone. Like damn. They just want to live their best life and they can't do that with trafficking ring out to get them. They're not going to tell any secrets. They don't have a reason to. Shin Ryushu Docking for being the only place in New Malacca to sell Yuzu products.
REPUTE: In Shin Ryushu Docking they're a threat to the safety of the Green River Snake's business. They gave a wanted poster to all the members of the organization from level one to the top. To the rest of New Malacca they're a nobody. Just an average person with the exception of old clients from their level three escort days, but that was almost a decade ago. They'd be surprised if any of them recognized them.
HEEL: Depressed, but high functioning depressed. Nothing bothers them beyond a mild inconvenience. They aren't passionate about anything. Green River Snakes sucked out what passion they could've had or rage, anger, happiness, and left a disinterested husk in its wake. They don't realize there's anything wrong with them. Each day it's the same thing, if they're not running from assassins, then they're doing AR treasure hunts or completing freelance jobs for people that don't have money to afford the Ambassadors, or hunting down all the sweet shops in whatever zone they're in to find a yuzu produce. It's rinse, wash, repeat, and Xia's content with it being that way.
CODE: Loyalty. The Green River Snakes weren't good for a lot of things, but instill loyalty in them was one of the goods Xia took with them. Their loyalty extends to keeping their mouth shut, but they also don't have the energy to go around shopping for buyers for everything they know. Is it really loyalty or are they just lazy...? Naw. Loyalty, yeah, that one. They haven't been sprung up by their toes and beaten for information about Green River Snakes yet, but if they were they wouldn't tell a soul. No point. Once the interrogators get what they want they'll kill them anyway.
QUIRKS: Xia has a knife they got from an escort client they like to do tricks with. Nothing major, just tossing it up with a forward or back spin and catching the tip of it in their fingers. It's not good for anything and it's ugly, but it's the first gift they received and it'd be weird if they didn't have something in their hands when they're thinking.
YOUR PAST
Xia could tell you where they came from. They know they're from outside of New Malacca, because they remember the boat trip being too long be close, but that's about it. They were six years old when the Green River Snakes track tagged and gave them a new name. Lang Xia is the only name they remember. Xia spent the first year and a half of their time with the Snakes at level one in the factory from lack of trying to get points. It wasn't until about nine months in that a lot of the kids that were with them on the boat to Shin Ryushu Docking either died from lack of nutrition, only so long the body can survive on congee, they disappeared while on errand runs, or they moved up in levels. Xia didn't want to be the Xia number eight to die, so they worked for points, until they were almost eight. Level two wasn't hard to get through, but they did linger on the last few hundred points they could've gotten if they did errands, since the parties or meetings were few and far between. After the first few times of being felt up by creepy yakuza, triad, or kkangpae they weren't eager to move on to sex work. None of the kids they were in level two with were, but when the first left, and everyone heard through the level grapevine that he was doing well, eating better, and got paid many were eager to go. Xia got the last few hundred over with, then went to the worst level of hell they've ever been through.
Dodging knives flying out of walls was better than having to learn Kama Sutra and taking practical exams on it. No one knew that many ways to fuck. Xia knew, because most of their clients weren't that creative. Before the cyberware surgeries and assassin training, Xia had a pretty soft face, long black hair, and looked like the type of young girl anyone would want to dress up like a doll. The only normal thing they did when they were ten was play dress up, but with creeps instead of friends. The nightmares were fun too and the vomiting from getting sick at the thought of sick fucks having their way with them. Unlike the other levels where Xia took their time, they didn't with level three. The most points came from escort or leasing business. With the escorts they ran the a higher risk of being bought and stuck with an owner forever, so they had to create a persona that was desirable to get more points, but undesirable to spend more than a night or two with. So Xia became a brat; learned to never push too far when getting on a client's nerve, but just on the right side of sweet to make them forgive whatever bratty thing she did. That pushed them to their goal points to get out by the time they were twelve.
Level four was the best level. They had more to do every day, no one touched them in a sexual way, and they learned a lot of useful skills in two years. All the classes were for twelve hours, espionage, martial arts, and marksmanship were three hours each with hour breaks in between. Xia wasn't the number one in class, but number two was okay. They got berated for always coming in second place to the girl in first, but they didn't care. They still got their required points at the end of two years to graduate and move onto something else. First in their class became a spy, while they came a assassin. Their first kill didn't bother them as much as they thought it would. Maybe it was level three that barely made them flinch at shooting a real person and not a dummy in the head. Or maybe Xia just stopped being bothered with live, death, and society as a whole. Didn't matter. None of their victims did. The next two years were spent saving money from assignments to get cyberware. Each year after that they got a new modification, something convenient to help with missions, until they left level four and went to five at eighteen.
They wanted a break from assassinations and more money to pay back the Snakes for taking part of the bill on their cyberware. Being bodyguard was the next best thing. No commitment to multiple underlings or other responsibilities would be great. The benefits of no debt outweighed anything else, until Snake Lady Akanishi Miho choice them to be her bodyguard. Not what they intended, but the paycheck was better than anything they were going to get with anyone else. It only took two years to pay back the Snakes along as they didn't spend their money on anything else. At most they couldn't give up yuzu, but that's the only thing in life worth paying for anyway. Guarding Snake Lady was exhausting. She liked to play games where she's give them the slip to wander around Shin Ryushu Docking like there weren't yakuza out there that wanted her dead. She could take care of herself, but that didn't mean her luck wouldn't run out. All the secrets and things they found about Snake Lady could set them up for a life in the East Sine Corporate Tradeplex with all the rich people if they sold the information. Which is why they now have a bounty on their heads.
It's been a year since they left the Snakes and they're getting tired of running, but they didn't work as hard as they did for sixteen years just to die at the hands of the people that made them.
YOUR PERSON
ATTRIBUTES:
Assassination - Are they best at it? No. They're plenty of others with more experience than them, but they're good enough to not only make a living, but had once been a bodyguard to Snake Lady. If they advertised that in the Deep they'd get a lot more business with higher pay, but secrets to keep and all that.
Sex Work - It's a skill Xia can't wait to die, but all information on how the human body works to get the most pleasure from is stuck in their mind. Alternatively, it also works as what causes the most pain. They don't make a habit of stabbing or shooting anyone in those areas, but it's good to know anyway.
BODY MODS:
All of Xia's mods are shoddy black market jobs. Everything doesn't work the way it should. Xia has phantom pains for the body parts they replaced, terrible migraines from the Deep interface, and blurry vision from the eye scopes.
Deep Interface - On left side of their scalp where their hair is shaved in place of skin is an interface that connects them to the Deep. They don't use it to Deep dive. The first they did it was because a Precipice friend convinced them it and it put them in a coma for a day. If they're not using maps or the music functions it's useless to them.
Eye Scope - Xia's eyes are augmented with scopes that can enhance anything 12 miles away. It's controlled by their thoughts, but the tech is shoddy and sometimes enhances when they don't want it to. They had to learn how to fight with their eyes closed, cause the first it glitched out when they in the middle of hand to hand they almost died. They're vision is blurry if they don't have it on all the time. They fear they're going blind. Have to save up to pay for a surgery to get them removed.
Jaw Replacement - They fell off a building during a New Year assassination attempt. It was a two story fall, but on the way down their jaw hit the corner of the building they were perched on. Shattered the bone to the point it had to be replaced, but they didn't have the money for the best job so they have a metal pale plate in its place.
Breast Plate - Their left shoulder to where their breast used to be was replaced with a cyberware bulletproof non-removable breast plate instead. Nothing says death like a shot through the heart. It wraps around to their back and is two made of two pieces, the largest part connects to the shoulder and long the edges of the plate, and the back piece connects to the back. As long as someone doesn't shoot them from an upward angle under where the plate end half way to the navel, then it'll work fine for the most part. It's been broken before by shotguns at close range and sniper shots. They've gotten lucky they didn't die both times and barely ran away with their life to make it to someone that can fix it.
Gun - On their upper right arm is a gun that constructs itself when mentality activated. It's as long as their arm when it's built up and often the weapon of choice if they can help it when doing assassin work. Unless the piece of shit gets jammed, then they have to get close an personal.
EQUIPMENT:
Arm Gun
Camouflage Full Spectrum Catsuit
Nail Gun - This one doesn't get used as much, because they don't make a habit of getting to close when they have a job, but if they have to the nail gun works. It's something they picked up on a job at a construction site once and had to use an impromptu weapon and didn't get rid of it.
Knife - Can't do anything with it. The point is dull and the handle kinda wobbly. At best it'll hurt like a bitch if they stab someone with it. At worst it could take out an eye. Everyone needs a last ditch effort weapon.
Rapid Reader
Member
Seen
3 yrs ago
//YOUR SELF
Name: Born Tamara Anatolyevna Malikova, called Toma by her friends, and known as Scrapper in a professional capacity.
Age: 25
Gender: Female
Affiliation: A consummate professional, Toma has carefully cultivated working relationships with various criminal gangs, corporations, and hacker enclaves.
Appearance:
True to her professional name, Toma appears as a figure dressed in repurposed pieces of cloth and recycled material. She is scrappy in spirit, body, and soul.
On land, she wears tank tops, short-cut jeans, and plenty of mesh. Her boots are ragged and lined with rubber to afford her purchase on water-lined decks. Enamored with all things machine, she is covered in a constant layer of oil and mechanical grime. Toma smells of salt with a subtle hint of industrial chemicals and synthetic lubricants. The polluted waters of the South China Sea keep her hair black hair dyed a shade of dirty brown. Cut in jagged self-styled lines her hair never reaches past her shoulders. Toma's eyes are a shade of metallic gray, recalling discarded metal, and pass for biological only at a quick glance. Her pale skin is colored by the sun and pollutants, darkening to a shade of light brown. Toma has a number of scars that mark physical labor and close calls scattered across her body, but none are particularly noteworthy. She has an elaborate tattoo of a sea serpent that begins on her right hand, snakes up her arm, and travels across her shoulder before wrapping around her left side.
In the water, Toma wraps herself in neoprene diving suits or encases herself in atmospheric diving suit of her own design.
//YOUR SOUL
PERSONAL GOAL: Toma is just trying to make a buck. She has gear to keep in working order. She has ammunition to restock. She has booze to buy. And she has fancy sushi to eat. Deep down, Toma has childish dreams of buying her own nuclear attack submarine and creating her own underwater empire, free from the corruption of the surface, but she knows that dreams drown first in New Malacca.
LIKES:
- The South China Sea
- Diving
- Loud and Fast Music
- Booze
- Old Western Movies
DISLIKES:
- Being stuck on dry land for too long
- Liars
- Slow boats
- Anyone that tells her what to do without paying first
- Pineapples
REPUTE: Stories of the Scrapper travel across the waves of the South China Sea. Whispers tell of a figure emerging from the dark waters of New Malacca. A being without a name, faceless, and nameless. A diver. A creature of the Deep.
Toma is a nobody in New Malacca. She keeps her head down and deals with trouble efficiently. She pays her debts on time. She prefers bribes and conversation to violence. She avoids associating openly with any dissident elements and keeps her opinions to herself. Her friends are few and carefully chosen.
The Scrapper is storied figure among those that ply their trade beneath the waves. Divers have heard of the Scrapper. Divers know of the Scrapper. Some of them have even met the Scrapper. Working with a small number of trusted fixers, the Scrapper has worked without regard to factional affiliation and raised a modest reputation as a problem solver of the depths. The most reliable way to hire the Scrapper is to contact Mr. Chang, a well-known fixer rumored to have ties with the Black Yangtze.
HEEL: Toma is an adrenaline junkie. She lives to push the envelope on land and in water. She wants to go faster. She wants to dive deeper. She wants to feel alive, which requires feeling like there's a good chance she's going to die. She is enraptured by the risky connections her direct neural interface creates and she's constantly chasing the euphoria of communing with the machine. Toma prefers to operate right at the edge of her crush depth, where pressure threatens to crush her at any moment.
CODE: Toma follows a simple code based on the idea that someone pays her and she completes the job without asking unnecessary questions. Any moral compulsions Toma had against carefully measured violence or crime were drowned in her youth. Another bloated corpse fed to the crabs. Toma counts political parties, fresh religions, startups, mega-corporations, gangs, and even pirates as valued customers. Credit chips don't care much about good or bad intentions.
However, if she were asked, and Toma generally isn't, she'd admit to harboring strong sympathies for the Fisherman Party. She knows what it's like to be hungry. She knows what it's like to dream of freedom. Real freedom. Freedom from the corporations and government technocrats. Freedom from the gangs. Freedom from the ghosts of the past.
Afraid of sinking, Toma keeps what little idealism that she retains carefully contained beneath the surface.
QUIRKS: Toma is inordinately fond of sleeping in odd places and it isn't uncommon to find her curled up in some corner of her scrapyard workshop. She prefers to sleep near the water and close to her gear, putting little trust in the gangsters she pays for the privilege of not being robbed blind while she sleeps.
//YOUR PAST
She feels Chang watching her. She's not sure how he does it with his eyes closed. But she knows he's watching. The beer in her hand is cold, a Chinese knock-off of a Bavarian wheat beer.
"Scrapper," he finally says, his eyes open. "Someone's asked for you."
"Who?"
"Don't know," he replies as he tosses her a pack of cigarettes. Japanese. Seven Stars. He had to have paid top dollar for them. His answer is a warning. Chang knows everyone. He knows all players. He knows all the players that matter and some that don't. She suspects he might know everything that happens in New Malacca. Sooner or later.
"What's the job?" She asks, fishing a cigarette out of the packet.
"Don't know," Chang replies with a frown. "The contact expressed a desire to reveal that at a later time."
"What's it pay?"
Chang pauses,"500,000 asyuan."
She doesn't manage to catch the cigarette as it falls out of her mouth.
"Is it a trap?"
Chang thoughtfully strokes his beard. She doesn't know how old he is, not really, but Chang is a fixture in Hibiscus Lane and Canton Canal. Black Yangtze, some say, but she doesn't know, not for sure. The tobacco stained grin he flashes is far from reassuring, "Hard to say. When this sort of money is involved, there's always several games being played in parallel."
"As bad as Undertow Junction #793?" she asks, managing to light her cigarette. Her hands are still shaking.
Chang laughs, "I don't think so. That was a remarkable situation"
"Reassuring. You want me to accept, no?"
The fixer shrugs, "I get 5% of your payout."
"You're a real bastard, you know that right, Chang?" She fumes.
"Good men don't last long here, Scrapper, you know that yourself."
"Mmm, they sink faster."
A child of the Flot Slums. Toma was born into an enclave of Russian refugees that had fled the civil strife and economic collapse. Her home was a leaking fiberglass that sank deeper into the South China Sea with each passing month. She could swim before she could walk.
The South China Sea claimed her mother, lost with the rest of her fishing vessel in a typhoon. Her father taught her all the he knew. He taught her how to repair ancient rusted out machines. He taught her how to study the latest technologies stolen from the corporations. He taught her much, but he could not prepare her for New Malacca.
Her first real job was working for the corporations, risking her life beneath the waves. She was one of the hundreds of commercial divers responsible for maintaining the Undertow. Protecting the secrets of the corporations and the New Malacca City Council. She watched her first friend die from an air embolism, nitrogen bubbles in his blood killing him in an instant. More of her friends died to accidents. The depths of the South China Sea were merciless and mistakes were fatal.
She branched out, diversified her skill set. Worked salvage, pillaging the skeletal remains, shipwrecks that littered the South China Sea. Feeding on the dead, she grew stronger. She cannibalized implants from corpses, from soldiers of the forgotten corporate wars. She slotted software looted off of research vessels reclaimed by the sea. She paid a small fortune to the ripper docs to commune with the machine, to feel metal as her own skin, to see through mechanical eyes, and to move as if it were her own body.
Mr. Chang found her after a job gone bad. The great raid on Undertow Junction #793. A generation of divers drowned in the waters surrounding Undertow Junction #793. They bled out, torn to pieces by steel darts. They imploded, as they sank beneath crush depth, vanishing forever into the great underwater canyons.
The old man gave her new purpose. He provided her with jobs. He was fair. He only took 5% cut from her payouts. He taught her the true nature of New Malacca, he taught her to hate the surface, the land of the corrupt and weak. Others dreamed of rising to the tops of New Malacca, but Toma dreamed only of sinking deeper. To the only free place that remained.
"What do you say, Scrapper? Ready to head beneath the waves again?" Chang says, interrupting her thoughts, driving the memories away. She curses Undertow Junction #793 as she has every day since she sank it. Burying it beneath the yellow sands.
"I'll do it," she answers. The last job had been a real Пиздец. A real clusterfuck. Her drone had been fried by state-of-the-fucking-art corporate ICE. Her suit was banged up. She was broke. She was fucked. And she'd only survive so long floating on old debts.
Chang smiles,"Suraiboshen, 7.00 PM. They'll know to expect you."
He knew what her answer would be all along.
"Scrapper," he finally says, his eyes open. "Someone's asked for you."
"Who?"
"Don't know," he replies as he tosses her a pack of cigarettes. Japanese. Seven Stars. He had to have paid top dollar for them. His answer is a warning. Chang knows everyone. He knows all players. He knows all the players that matter and some that don't. She suspects he might know everything that happens in New Malacca. Sooner or later.
"What's the job?" She asks, fishing a cigarette out of the packet.
"Don't know," Chang replies with a frown. "The contact expressed a desire to reveal that at a later time."
"What's it pay?"
Chang pauses,"500,000 asyuan."
She doesn't manage to catch the cigarette as it falls out of her mouth.
"Is it a trap?"
Chang thoughtfully strokes his beard. She doesn't know how old he is, not really, but Chang is a fixture in Hibiscus Lane and Canton Canal. Black Yangtze, some say, but she doesn't know, not for sure. The tobacco stained grin he flashes is far from reassuring, "Hard to say. When this sort of money is involved, there's always several games being played in parallel."
"As bad as Undertow Junction #793?" she asks, managing to light her cigarette. Her hands are still shaking.
Chang laughs, "I don't think so. That was a remarkable situation"
"Reassuring. You want me to accept, no?"
The fixer shrugs, "I get 5% of your payout."
"You're a real bastard, you know that right, Chang?" She fumes.
"Good men don't last long here, Scrapper, you know that yourself."
"Mmm, they sink faster."
A child of the Flot Slums. Toma was born into an enclave of Russian refugees that had fled the civil strife and economic collapse. Her home was a leaking fiberglass that sank deeper into the South China Sea with each passing month. She could swim before she could walk.
The South China Sea claimed her mother, lost with the rest of her fishing vessel in a typhoon. Her father taught her all the he knew. He taught her how to repair ancient rusted out machines. He taught her how to study the latest technologies stolen from the corporations. He taught her much, but he could not prepare her for New Malacca.
Her first real job was working for the corporations, risking her life beneath the waves. She was one of the hundreds of commercial divers responsible for maintaining the Undertow. Protecting the secrets of the corporations and the New Malacca City Council. She watched her first friend die from an air embolism, nitrogen bubbles in his blood killing him in an instant. More of her friends died to accidents. The depths of the South China Sea were merciless and mistakes were fatal.
She branched out, diversified her skill set. Worked salvage, pillaging the skeletal remains, shipwrecks that littered the South China Sea. Feeding on the dead, she grew stronger. She cannibalized implants from corpses, from soldiers of the forgotten corporate wars. She slotted software looted off of research vessels reclaimed by the sea. She paid a small fortune to the ripper docs to commune with the machine, to feel metal as her own skin, to see through mechanical eyes, and to move as if it were her own body.
Mr. Chang found her after a job gone bad. The great raid on Undertow Junction #793. A generation of divers drowned in the waters surrounding Undertow Junction #793. They bled out, torn to pieces by steel darts. They imploded, as they sank beneath crush depth, vanishing forever into the great underwater canyons.
The old man gave her new purpose. He provided her with jobs. He was fair. He only took 5% cut from her payouts. He taught her the true nature of New Malacca, he taught her to hate the surface, the land of the corrupt and weak. Others dreamed of rising to the tops of New Malacca, but Toma dreamed only of sinking deeper. To the only free place that remained.
"What do you say, Scrapper? Ready to head beneath the waves again?" Chang says, interrupting her thoughts, driving the memories away. She curses Undertow Junction #793 as she has every day since she sank it. Burying it beneath the yellow sands.
"I'll do it," she answers. The last job had been a real Пиздец. A real clusterfuck. Her drone had been fried by state-of-the-fucking-art corporate ICE. Her suit was banged up. She was broke. She was fucked. And she'd only survive so long floating on old debts.
Chang smiles,"Suraiboshen, 7.00 PM. They'll know to expect you."
He knew what her answer would be all along.
//YOUR PERSON
ATTRIBUTES:
Underwater Specialist - Toma is an expert in all things underwater. She can construct, demolish, find, and salvage things underwater as easily as she can breathe.
Scrap Rigger - Toma has a gift when it comes to corralling drones and automated vehicles. She knows how they are designed. She knows how they are manufactured. She knows how they are maintained. And she knows how to use them to deadly effect. Few mercenaries in the South China Seas could compete with her particular knack for piloting a machine as if it was her own body.
BODY MODS:
Saewung Advanced Piloting System (SAPS) - An advanced targeting and piloting system that allows direct neural control of vehicles and drones. The culmination of decades of research aimed at perfecting SAPS doesn't just provide the user with greater speed and precision but quite literally links the user at a neural level with a machine. While offering considerable advantages in terms of performance, prolonged use of the system can inflict severe side effects on the user. Furthermore, dangerous levels of biofeedback can be experienced by the user as a result of damage to an interfaced machine.
Tzu Peace Solutions Nyx Combat Cyberoptics - Early in her career as a diver Toma replaced her eyes with a cyberoptics combat package from Tzu Peace Solutions. Containing a suite of vision enhancements, Nyx implants come standard with image enhancement, infrared sensors, and low light vision. Toma has had her implants further modified with an additional layer of reinforced glass to provide anti-dazzle and environmental protection. Even pitch blackness is no problem for Toma.
Custom Titanium Bone Lacing - Toma has had her bones laced with lattice chains of a reinforced titanium alloy she looted from a sunken Russian nuclear submarine. Beyond increasing her weight, the bone lacing has made her body able to handle greater weights. Additional benefits are that she punches much harder and that her body resists physical damage thanks to the plates of titanium that are now spread out across her body.
EQUIPMENT:
Tzu Peace Solutions Barracuda Amphibious Rifle - Toma favors an advanced amphibious assault rifle intended for use by combat divers. Designed by Tzu Peace Solutions in 2085, the Barracuda allows both underwater and above-water ammunition to be fired from the same chamber and barrel. The rifle sports a compact, bullpup layout and can load and fire standard 5.45x39mm ammunition as well a proprietary cartridge design for underwater by TPS engineers. Sporting a firing rate of 700 rounds per minute with a range on land of 500 meters, the Barracuda is a fearsome weapon. Underwater effective or lethal range is about 55 meters at a depth of 5 meters. The effective range of the Barracuda decreases in parallel with increased depth as the increased pressure reduces the amount of time fired rounds supercavitate which leads to a rapid increase in hydrodynamic drag. A military grade weapon, the Barracuda allows for the use of a suppressor, optical sights, and comes standard with a 40mm grenade launcher.
Freeport Metalworks Minnow Underwater Pistol - Toma's sidearm on land and in water is an electronic pistol with four barrels. An early answer to the problem of firing conventional bullets underwater, the Minnow instead silently fires 4.5 mm by 155mm steel darts. Each pull of the trigger fires a barrel sequentially and the pistol can rapidly run dry under sustained use. Ammunition comes in convenient clips of triple stacked cartridges.
Dive Knife - A serrated knife that Toma insists on calling a Diving Tool and only rarely uses as a weapon.
Malakhit Central Design Bureau Atmospheric Diving Suit (SEAWOLF) - The Seawolf is a heavily modified atmospheric diving suit that Toma owns and lovingly cares for. Designed by the Malakhit Central Design Bureau, the Seawolf was constructed for use by the Russian navy in rescue and combat operations. Manufactured from forged T7075 steel alloy it uses an advanced articulating joint design that Toma based on later scrapped American variants. Capable of operating in up to 850 meters of seawater for a normal mission of up to six hours the has a self-contained, automatic life support system. Additionally, the integrated dual thruster system allows the pilot to navigate easily underwater. Toma has applied black anechoic tiles to reduce the visibility and sound signature of the suit.
DAMAGED EQUIPMENT:
Boeing Echo Guardian (SEADOG) - The Echo Guardian is a small marine autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) designed and built by Boeing in the late 2080s. Composed of state-of-the-art alloys, the submersible weighs a mere 1.5 metric tons, is 5 meters long and is able to descend to 7,500 meters. The drone is useful for a variety of underwater inspection tasks such as explosive ordnance disposal (EOD), meteorology, port security, mine countermeasures (MCM), and maritime intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR). Toma treats the drone like a very large dog and it is her frequent companion on missions. The Seadog is tragically in a state of recent disrepair, having suffered an unfortunate encounter with some premium grade corporate ICE.
Not strictly part of my character sheet, but I wrote some related if random stuff in present tense (please forgive me):
0 meters
She glides into the water, letting her atmospheric diving suit sink slowly.
The waters of New Malacca are filthy. They always are. She's used to it. The industrial chemicals and pollutants burn with faded intensity. She prefers the darkness of the waters. The darkness suits her. She longs for it. She dreams of the warm caress of the sea. The sailors know only the surface. They're afraid of the depths. They're blind to an entire world. The real world. The only true free world that still exists. The sea beneath the surface.
She knows better. The darkness hides her presence. It protects her. The corporate sec outfit isn't monitoring for something as small as her suit. Their lights can't illuminate the vast sea. They can't hear her. They're worried about a rival corporate submarine loaded to the brim with quantum torpedoes.
She knows they've been down their for months. They're reaching the end of their endurance. She has been testing them. Slowly frying their nerves with planned intrusions. Mapping out their security system. A faint ghost vanishing on their sensors, inching closer only to melt away into the sea. Another false signal. Another error of their high-powered sensors. Another artifact looming in their AR display.
50 meters
She listens to the first ping of their active sonar.
The return signal will never reach them. It has already been distorted by the anechoic tiles that line her atmospheric diving suit. She suspects that they are sleeping. The automated defense system will not notice her. She feels the AI reaching out, seeking with its binary tendrils. She's just background noise to the enslaved AI. It doesn't even notice her. It's queries dissolving into nothing.
150 meters
She slows her descent.
The fixer told her about the close range motion sensors. He didn't need to tell her about the turrets. They were esoteric, but she knew they were there. A product of the Nine Mile War. Automated harpoon launchers meant to skewer enemy combat divers. A rarity in the current age. Deadly mementos to mad men and a mad war.
She knows she has to move slowly. She is patient. She rigs her suit for silent running. Electronic equipment going dark as the airless engine dies down to a mere hum. She knows they can't hear her. They can't ID her. She sounds like the water. She sounds like a biological creature slowly swimming through the darkness. She sounds like nothing.
She is nothing, a creature of metal coated with pitch black rubber tiles drifting downwards.
Sinking.
Sinking into the deep.
300 meters
She stabilizes her atmospheric diving suit, the propulsion system now no more than a whisper as she silently glides towards the research facility. She is a predator in these waters. They are in her environment. Clumsy creatures hiding within their underwater habitat woven from reinforced steel. The change in pressure will kill most of them.
She feels a tinge of remorse. Killing brings no pleasure. But it will be painless. And it will be quick, faster than even their enhanced nerves can react. It's better than what any corporate sec soldier can expect. It's better than what they deserve.
New Malacca offers no mercy. The South China Sea permits no hesitation. The Straits are full of bodies. What's a couple more?
She feels at peace as she begins to deploy the explosive charges.
The Georgian looks over the diver. He's seen her kind before.
Eyes dulled with vodka, a cigarette loosely dangling between her lips. He imagines she's thinking of the sea. He can almost hear the siren call that has ensnared her. Given time, he knows it will drag her to the ocean floor. Another drowned soul lost to the endless waters of the South China Sea.
But now, right now, she's an asset. He's never hired her before. He doesn't even know her name. Chang recommended her. Sent her to him. The Georgian smiles, showing a mouth full of gold and silver teeth. He remembers his old teeth shattered and broken. A parting gift from some unnamed American intelligence agency. The unspoken price for his integrity and silence. They had made him a legend. They had made him a man of great standing. They had made him an honest thief. The precious metals that lined his mouth were shipwreck salvage, one of the many bounties of the South China Sea.
"It's simple enough job," he begins, drawing in the air with his hands, a little showman's flair.
"Chang told me the details," she says with a dismissive wave of a hand.
He nods. He prefers it this way. He hates having to tell a story to sell a job. Time is money. And money...money is everything in New Malacca.
"Can you do it?" he asks, wrapping his hands around his still cold drink.
"No problem," she replies, the ghost of accent playing across her voice. "The crew will cost you extra, though."
"Of course," the Georgian answers. He slides a credit chip across the table. "Just make sure to recover the files. The situation is unique. Mistakes would be problematic."
The diver takes his credit chip without comment and nods at his instructions. He tries to place the accent. Russian he thinks with a flash of anger. He hasn't forgotten. Generations later and he remembers. He remembers the stories of the Dark Crash. He remembers his grandfather, a broken man full of steel parts and shrapnel. He swallows the bitterness with whiskey. He is a fixer. He is a professional. He has no time for personal grudges. He is not concerned with national enmities. Not unless it means a profit.
He holds out his hand and the diver shakes it. He wipes the oil off of his hand after, but she doesn't seem to be offended. He registers a faint smile.
"What do I call you?"
She pulls her legs close against her chest and looks at him with hungry eyes. Like a cat, he muses as he watches her carefully. Demanding and full of threat.
"Scrapper," she drawls lazily, taking a drag from her cigarette. The Georgian smiles again. He's heard of her. He's heard of the Scrapper. He's heard of her reputation. Of course Chang sent him a professional.
Eyes dulled with vodka, a cigarette loosely dangling between her lips. He imagines she's thinking of the sea. He can almost hear the siren call that has ensnared her. Given time, he knows it will drag her to the ocean floor. Another drowned soul lost to the endless waters of the South China Sea.
But now, right now, she's an asset. He's never hired her before. He doesn't even know her name. Chang recommended her. Sent her to him. The Georgian smiles, showing a mouth full of gold and silver teeth. He remembers his old teeth shattered and broken. A parting gift from some unnamed American intelligence agency. The unspoken price for his integrity and silence. They had made him a legend. They had made him a man of great standing. They had made him an honest thief. The precious metals that lined his mouth were shipwreck salvage, one of the many bounties of the South China Sea.
"It's simple enough job," he begins, drawing in the air with his hands, a little showman's flair.
"Chang told me the details," she says with a dismissive wave of a hand.
He nods. He prefers it this way. He hates having to tell a story to sell a job. Time is money. And money...money is everything in New Malacca.
"Can you do it?" he asks, wrapping his hands around his still cold drink.
"No problem," she replies, the ghost of accent playing across her voice. "The crew will cost you extra, though."
"Of course," the Georgian answers. He slides a credit chip across the table. "Just make sure to recover the files. The situation is unique. Mistakes would be problematic."
The diver takes his credit chip without comment and nods at his instructions. He tries to place the accent. Russian he thinks with a flash of anger. He hasn't forgotten. Generations later and he remembers. He remembers the stories of the Dark Crash. He remembers his grandfather, a broken man full of steel parts and shrapnel. He swallows the bitterness with whiskey. He is a fixer. He is a professional. He has no time for personal grudges. He is not concerned with national enmities. Not unless it means a profit.
He holds out his hand and the diver shakes it. He wipes the oil off of his hand after, but she doesn't seem to be offended. He registers a faint smile.
"What do I call you?"
She pulls her legs close against her chest and looks at him with hungry eyes. Like a cat, he muses as he watches her carefully. Demanding and full of threat.
"Scrapper," she drawls lazily, taking a drag from her cigarette. The Georgian smiles again. He's heard of her. He's heard of the Scrapper. He's heard of her reputation. Of course Chang sent him a professional.
BingTheWing menace to society
Member
Seen
11 mos ago
//YOUR SELF
Name: Nicolas Edgardo Tuaño dela Rosa
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Affiliation: Black Yangtze (enforcer)
Appearance: Stocky, broad-shouldered visibly healthy male of Malayan descent. 5’9, 170 lbs, brown eyes and black crew-cut hair. Elaborate black-colored dragon tattoos on his neck, back and arms, a clear sign of his allegiance to the Black Yangtze. Square, muscled face with minimal facial hair and a very stark, soldier-like jawline. Prefers plain T-shirts, cargo pants, and military boots.
//YOUR SOUL
PERSONAL GOAL: To make enough money to leave New Malacca and find his family in the United States.
LIKES: Pork dishes, science magazines, target shooting
DISLIKES: Kimchi, gambling, hangovers
REPUTE: To his bosses in the Black Yangtze, Nicolas is a reliable enforcer: imposing and intimidating, yet professional and discreet. The average person on the street would recognize the tattoos on his arms and wisely back away on the assumption that he is on “official” business. To his colleagues on the job, Nicolas is a bit of a square - doesn’t do women, doesn’t do drugs, and less alcohol than most. Most of the time they just attribute it to his religiosity and have a good chuckle.
HEEL: Nicolas likes to consider himself a generally “principled” person, but he very well knows his single biggest weakness is the desire to see his Family again. He is willing to take any job, kill anyone who needs killing, and betray anyone if only to get a chance to be reunited with his wife and child.
CODE: The traditional churches of old are barely more than museum relics in New Malacca, but Nicolas tries to follow what is left of the tenets of his Catholic faith. He takes communion and confession at a small hole-in-the-wall chapel nestled within an alleyway in Hibiscus Lane.
QUIRKS: Nicolas generally has very specific and exacting preferences for food and drink. He insists on certain combinations of beer and squid chips, soy sauce and fish, wine and cheese, etc. The most reliable bar chow combo for him though, is roasted pig skin with Handakoro apple cider.
//YOUR PAST
Nicolas was born in an age between ages, when the dying political dynasties that ruled the Philippines raged against the rising influence of the megacorporations. His father, a taxi driver, was shot in the streets of Manila in a shootout between a real estate corporation and squatters defending their shanty towns against demolition. Nicolas’s mother worked as a casino receptionist by day and a wares merchant by night to make ends meet. Growing up in the neon-lit reclaimed slums by Manila Bay, Nicolas was surrounded by severe wealth inequality, all sorts of vices in virtual reality, and the looming threat of random violence hanging like a dark cloud over everyone he met.
Nicolas hated school and spent most of his time playing esports in the virtual reality cafes nearby, much to the chagrin of his mother. At one point he seriously considered going pro, until one fateful day when the internet cafe he was in was being robbed at gunpoint. Nicolas also witnessed the subsequent shootout between the robbers and police, and wondered if the warriors he played as in his virtual video games could also exist in real life. Lacking the actual ambition to make it to university, Nicolas instead opted to enlist in his local police academy after high school.
The Philippine National Police in the 2080s was a corrupt, underfunded, poorly regulated excuse for a national law enforcement body. But for Nicolas, it was home, and sooner or later he began to almost enjoy the place. By being willing to put himself in danger in the many raids the force conducted against Chinese drug runners, Muslim pirates, and the occasional anarchist cell, he rose up through the ranks to become a respected senior corporal. He even managed to find a woman and raise a son. Though the pay could have been somewhat better, things were going well until the boy caught the wasting disease.
His condition needed a steady supply of medicine so consistent Nicolas had to resort to stealing from the department’s infirmary. His meager salary wasn’t enough to cover the hospital bills. He had to stop taking on dangerous cases for fear he would die and leave his family without a father. He could only be promoted so much until his salary hit a ceiling. From then on, he was on his own.
Out of desperation, he turned to the colleagues he hated the most. They were the “bad” apples in the ranks: they took bribes, ran drugs, and did the occasional hit, but they made way more money than anyone else in the force. And for a while, he was part of them, his typical responsibilities being raiding a warehouse with a certain amount of amphetamines while the next one over was shipping ten times the amount. But he could keep the medicine flowing and the child happy, so he didn’t think much of it - and neither did his wife. Until the day that someone snitched, and they needed a fall guy.
It happened all so fast. The sirens in the dead of night, his own brothers threatening to break down his condominium door, and one panicked, final decision made in a dark, quiet room: they would split up, temporarily, and find each other again.
That was the last time Nicolas ever saw his wife and child.
He wandered on the streets for several months, until being recognized by one of the rivals of the gangs he used to do “business” with. They knew who he was and the grudges he held, and so they recruited him for a similar line of work - with no pretenses this time.
It has been five years since Nicolas saw his family. While rising up in the ranks of the Black Yangtze, being shipped from place to place, he’s thrown thousands of asyuan at private investigators who have failed to find a single lead except one: there were reports of two persons matching the descriptions of his family sighted somewhere in Los Angeles. Coincidentally, the job also came up. Nicolas requested from his superiors that he be deployed on this specific contract for official Black Yangtze purposes, knowing full well this would be his last. All he needed was one more score to escape New Malacca, wipe himself from the grid, and make his way across the Pacific one last time.
//YOUR PERSON
ATTRIBUTES:
- Sharpshooter: Nicolas is a very reliable shot with almost any sort of firearm, honed from years of combat experience in a variety of environments.
- Drug sniffer: Nicolas knows how to identify all sorts of illegal narcotics from black ganja to synthetic opium, and has a rudimentary knowledge of how they’re manufactured.
- Bad cop/good cop: Nicolas kinda knows how to deal with people in general. Wine and dine them, or cut them up, or somewhere in between - he has a way with extracting information and “compelling” people to do what needs to be done.
BODY MODS:
- Verge Battletech Orion-model Biosystem: composite neural network and muscle bioweave in his limbs to make Nicolas more responsive and reflexive to stimuli while enhancing his overall physical ability.
- Paradigm Plus BioID Network: neural implant embedded in Nicolas’ eyes to identify a person’s physical and psychological states, and from that determine the possibilities of them doing certain actions e.g. drawing a weapon, fleeing an altercation, etc.
EQUIPMENT:
- Nandago TC-39 Tactical Rifle System: base assault weapon template with a plethora of customizations to adapt it to sniper fire, CQC, explosive rounds, non-lethal rounds, etc. Favorite amongst elite Malaysian PMCs and well suited for unpredictable combat situations.
- Zeiger A-45 Semiautomatic Pistol: reliable sidearm and staple of New Malaccan gang violence. Is almost impossible to jam due to its simplicity of design. Has two main ammo options: stun and kill.
Combat knife: never runs out of ammunition.
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