firecracker has cooties

[Firecracker_]

It's 2007. It's been fourty-four weeks since the first outbreak. Europe is up in flames as "The Rage in the East" has continued to decimate the region, starting with the United Kingdom. The fires of Europe are becoming too hot for the world community to avoid, as the Far East deals with it's own vulnerabilities in the wake of millions of refugees fleeing their destroyed or dying countries. Most of the United Kingdom, France and now even Germany has been overrun with these crazed beasts, which destroy and murder anyone they can.

American life has nearly come to an absolute halt, as the loss of entire nations and economies has crippled the west, and has left most Americans stuck at home, trying to find work, or joining the protests in the streets, as more and more Americans demand action from their government.

Some Americans want a peaceful, humanitarian solution, while others advocate for the preemptive destruction of anything that could possibly doom the West to fall victim to the same rage that has brought the East to it's knees. Many of them want jobs, many of them want protection, but all of them want the same thing; action.

With the Red Fleet stuck ever too closely off the coast of New England, and an apparent tropical storm brewing in the Atlantic, it looks like Halloween is definitely going to be interesting this year.

Extended Backstory

Petrified, stuck with our hands in hot water, the world watched as Britain was eaten alive, from the inside out. Cries for isolationism and security spread like wildfire, which burned just as hot as the cries for intervention and assistance. Each and every citizen’s paranoia and anger was clear as day, as it was shouted from rooftops and paraded at every street corner, everyone carrying picket signs and megaphones ablaze with demands and attacks, aimed at both their government and opponents. What wasn’t clear, however, was the best way to address the collapse of Humanity in the U.K.. With unrest and security issues at home, and a virus spreading faster than any other they’d seen before overseas, the United States government was cemented in a tough spot, frantically yanking at it’s ankles in an attempt to react.

Great Britain was destroyed entirely by the Rage Virus, with her population being decimated and any semblance of society falling apart, with scattered pockets of humans left to fend for themselves. That is, until, a U.S-led NATO force entered Great Britain in an attempt to rebuild her. As they began to find out, the majority of the infected had actually died out, having starved to death, leaving Britain a broken, empty husk. District One was established, but the Rage Virus found its way even into the military guarded settlement, once again spreading the Rage Virus, and repopulating the streets of London with the horrifying infected.

At home, the news of the U.S withdraw from Great Britain and her reinfection was a massive blow to American morale, which was already astoundingly low. With soldiers present in the streets of almost every major city, roadblocks and checkpoints littered around every major road vessel, American life had slowed to a crawl. As the loss of entire nation rocked the world economy, unemployment was at an all time high, but liberty was at all time low. Many people spent their days forced into their homes, glued to television sets, watching as the other side of the world either burned or prepared itself to be caught in the flames. Or, they stuck their heads out the windows to see the protests right outside, as different political factions demanded the government answer their calls for action. Civil unrest over the oppression of the American public and media had spilled into the streets prompting harsh, and sometimes even deadly backlash from the American military. Riots and strikes were regular occurrences, as were the crushing retaliation and resulting tighter grip on the populace by government authority.

Entire political parties sprouted up dedicated to how citizens believed “The Rage In The East” should’ve been handled. Many of the aforementioned riots usually resulted in a violent spat between two differing groups. At one point, the government finally stopped allowing civilians into the various buildings of government, security strengthening around the nation’s capital and many state capitals, especially as fear of a serious terrorist attack began to mount.

Thirty-two weeks after the initial outbreak, the French, Germans and Spanish amongst others were fighting infections of their own, along with others. Ireland had almost been wiped out, another large blow to the international community, which had begun to focus on fortifying the surrounding nations in an attempt to reduce future outbreak. Over time, though, it was becoming increasingly apparent that perhaps nothing could stop the Rage Virus. The Spanish had been able to keep their infection at bay, but had failed in completely eradicating it, as it proved to spread faster than what was exactly manageable. France and Germany, however, were having a much harder time and higher death tolls, with many fleeing farther east, meeting intense opposition as uninfected countries all over Eurasia began to lock down their borders and refusing any travel from the outside.

With the Rage Spreading, and citizens of many fortified nations under extreme totalitarian conditions, some world governments began to suggest the nuclear option. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and risking the lives of a comparatively small number of people to save the rest of the world seemed like a worthy price to pay.

[Firecracker_]

It's 2007. It's been fourty-four weeks since the first outbreak. Europe is up in flames as "The Rage in the East" has continued to decimate the region, starting with the United Kingdom. The fires of Europe are becoming too hot for the world community to avoid, as the Far East deals with it's own vulnerabilities in the wake of millions of refugees fleeing their destroyed or dying countries. Most of the United Kingdom, France and now even Germany has been overrun with these crazed beasts, which destroy and murder anyone they can.

American life has nearly come to an absolute halt, as the loss of entire nations and economies has crippled the west, and has left most Americans stuck at home, trying to find work, or joining the protests in the streets, as more and more Americans demand action from their government.

Some Americans want a peaceful, humanitarian solution, while others advocate for the preemptive destruction of anything that could possibly doom the West to fall victim to the same rage that has brought the East to it's knees. Many of them want jobs, many of them want protection, but all of them want the same thing; action.

With the Red Fleet stuck ever too closely off the coast of New England, and an apparent tropical storm brewing in the Atlantic, it looks like Halloween is definitely going to be interesting this year.

Extended Backstory

Petrified, stuck with our hands in hot water, the world watched as Britain was eaten alive, from the inside out. Cries for isolationism and security spread like wildfire, which burned just as hot as the cries for intervention and assistance. Each and every citizen’s paranoia and anger was as clear as day, as it was shouted from rooftops and paraded at every street corner, everyone carrying picket signs and megaphones ablaze with demands and attacks, aimed at both their government and opponents. What wasn’t clear, however, was the best way to address the collapse of Humanity in the U.K.. With unrest and security issues at home, and a virus spreading faster than any other they’d seen before overseas, the United States government was cemented in a tough spot, frantically yanking at it’s ankles in an attempt to react.

Great Britain was destroyed entirely by the Rage Virus, with her population being decimated and any semblance of society falling apart, with scattered pockets of humans left to fend for themselves. That is, until, a U.S-led NATO force entered Great Britain in an attempt to rebuild her. As they began to find out, the majority of the infected had actually died out, having starved to death, leaving Britain a broken, empty husk. District One was established, but the Rage Virus found its way even into the military guarded settlement, once again spreading the Rage Virus, and repopulating the streets of London with the horrifying infected.

At home, the news of the U.S withdraw from Great Britain and her reinfection was a massive blow to American morale, which was already astoundingly low. With soldiers present in the streets of almost every major city, roadblocks and checkpoints littered around every major road vessel, American life had slowed to a crawl. As the loss of entire nation rocked the world economy, unemployment was at an all time high, but liberty was at all time low. Many people spent their days forced into their homes, glued to television sets, watching as the other side of the world either burned or prepared itself to be caught in the flames. Or, they stuck their heads out the windows to see the protests right outside, as different political factions demanded the government answer their calls for action. Civil unrest over the oppression of the American public and media had spilled into the streets prompting harsh, and sometimes even deadly backlash from the American military. Riots and strikes were regular occurrences, as were the crushing retaliation and resulting tighter grip on the populace by government authority.

Entire political parties sprouted up dedicated to how citizens believed “The Rage In The East” should’ve been handled. Many of the aforementioned riots usually resulted in a violent spat between two differing groups. At one point, the government finally stopped allowing civilians into the various buildings of government, security strengthening around the nation’s capital and many state capitals, especially as fear of a serious terrorist attack began to mount.

Thirty-two weeks after the initial outbreak, the French, Germans and Spanish amongst others were fighting infections of their own, along with others. Ireland had almost been wiped out, another large blow to the international community, which had begun to focus on fortifying the surrounding nations in an attempt to reduce future outbreak. Over time, though, it was becoming increasingly apparent that perhaps nothing could stop the Rage Virus. The Spanish had been able to keep their infection at bay, but had failed in completely eradicating it, as it proved to spread faster than what was exactly manageable. France and Germany, however, were having a much harder time and higher death tolls, with many fleeing farther east, meeting intense opposition as uninfected countries all over Eurasia began to lock down their borders and refusing any travel from the outside.

With the Rage Spreading, and citizens of many fortified nations under extreme totalitarian conditions, some world governments began to suggest the nuclear option. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and risking the lives of a comparatively small number of people to save the rest of the world seemed like a worthy price to pay.

The Red Fleet

During the attempted repatriation of Great Britain, the US-led NATO forces operating District One based many of their operational leadership and logistical centers in the fleet of ships that delivered then there, a coalition of warships dubbed “The Patriot’s Fleet” after the British Patriots it was delivering. The Fleet was based in the large mouth of the River Thames, and served many purposes, such as providing safe entry into the river for humanitarian aid, or the more militarized detachments were used to patrol various important points like the Irish Sea or the English Channel.

When the operation failed and the Rage was once again spread to Britain, many of the troops and assets and even some of the former British citizens fled back to the Fleet for return to safe lands. Partially into it’s trek back across the Atlantic, the Fleet fell silent on radio comms, and it was not raised until 5 days later, despite the fleet’s consistent movement across the Atlantic. Once comms were established again, it became apparent that the fleet had been battling with their own various infections. Many of the ships were completely engulfed, and either were left stranded in the ocean, or veering off in random directions at various speeds. According to the various new media of the world, most of the Red Fleet has been immobilized or forced to suspend travel, with a large section of the Fleet stationed about a thousand miles off of the coast of North Carolina.

There are doubts as to how many of these reports are true though. In the scramble to evacuate the waters around the United Kingdom, many ships went missing or were crashed after having been taken over by the Rage. Of those who successfully made it into the Atlantic, it is not known how many were completely lost to the Rage, and many of the ships stuck floating in the Atlantic are reported to be fighting off their own Infections, to varying degrees of success. With the current instability of the fleet, combined with the possible forming of a tropical storm around Bermuda, the containment of the Red Fleet is beginning to draw beads of sweat from various coastal communities of Cuba and the U.S.

American Political Climate

Because of the volatile nature of the The Rage, and how easily any mistake or mishandling of a situation can lead to complete and utter devastation, there have been a myriad of variously fervent responses from the American Public. Most people, obviously, have a vested interest in saving their own live and protecting those they care about, so almost every American has their own various opinions of how the government should handle the The Rage in the East.

There are three fairly popular political schools of thought amongst the American public encompassing a majority of the public.

The first are the Isolationists. Hearkening back to pre-WW2 sentiments, a good chunk of Americans believe that the only way to truly keep America safe from The Rage is to retract into their shell, fortifying and sealing the borders to the country, and worrying only about issues right here at home. This group claims that sending assets overseas is a waste of resources that could instead be invested at home, and simply opens too many doors for the infection to find its way back to the States. This party is probably the most popular of the major three, with some more extreme branches even suggesting abandoning overseas territories/states like Hawaii or Puerto Rico.

The primary opposition to the Isolationist party is the Rage Actionist Party. This party is a little more varied in their exact beliefs, but almost all of them revolve around American involvement in the situation overseas. Most people of this belief believe in stern military action to eradicate the virus, some suggesting that the U.S annex smaller eastern countries to help create a stiffer barrier against the Rage spreading further into Eurasia. Others believe that intervening with a combination of military action and humanitarian aid will be the quickest and most effective way to bring an end to the Rage, while minimizing the lasting effects this disaster will have on the world. Some more of the extreme branches of this belief argue that the infected can be saved, and that instead of killing them, the U.S should intervene to save the lives of both the infected and uninfected, containing and quarantining the former while working to develop a vaccine for the Rage.

The last major movement is less popular than the two before it, but it takes ideals mostly from the Rage Actionist Party, though, to the extreme. This party is referred to as the “Nuclear Action Party” and their name should be fairly self explanatory. This group of people believes that the best option against the Rage is to attack infected areas wil nuclear weapons, eliminating the threat once and for all, while wasting as few human resources as possible. This party is obviously the most controversial, and just as many people actively protest this party as much as they do against it.

[Firecracker_]

It's 2007. It's been fourty-four weeks since the first outbreak. Europe is up in flames as "The Rage in the East" has continued to decimate the region, starting with the United Kingdom. The fires of Europe are becoming too hot for the world community to avoid, as the Far East deals with it's own vulnerabilities in the wake of millions of refugees fleeing their destroyed or dying countries. Most of the United Kingdom, France and now even Germany has been overrun with these crazed beasts, which destroy and murder anyone they can.

American life has nearly come to an absolute halt, as the loss of entire nations and economies has crippled the west, and has left most Americans stuck at home, trying to find work, or joining the protests in the streets, as more and more Americans demand action from their government.

Some Americans want a peaceful, humanitarian solution, while others advocate for the preemptive destruction of anything that could possibly doom the West to fall victim to the same rage that has brought the East to it's knees. Many of them want jobs, many of them want protection, but all of them want the same thing; action.

With the Red Fleet stuck ever too closely off the coast of New England, and an apparent tropical storm brewing in the Atlantic, it looks like Halloween is definitely going to be interesting this year.

[Firecracker_]

It's 2007. It's been fourty-four weeks since the first outbreak. Europe is up in flames as "The Rage in the East" has continued to decimate the region, starting with the United Kingdom. The fires of Europe are becoming too hot for the world community to avoid, as the Far East deals with it's own vulnerabilities in the wake of millions of refugees fleeing their destroyed or dying countries. Most of the United Kingdom, France and now even Germany has been overrun with these crazed beasts, which destroy and murder anyone they can.

American life has nearly come to an absolute halt, as the loss of entire nations and economies has crippled the west, and has left most Americans stuck at home, trying to find work, or joining the protests in the streets, as more and more Americans demand action from their government.

Some Americans want a peaceful, humanitarian solution, while others advocate for the preemptive destruction of anything that could possibly doom the West to fall victim to the same rage that has brought the East to it's knees. Many of them want jobs, many of them want protection, but all of them want the same thing; action.

With the Red Fleet stuck ever too closely off the coast of New England, and an apparent tropical storm brewing in the Atlantic, it looks like Halloween is definitely going to be interesting this year.

Extended Backstory

Petrified, stuck with our hands in hot water, the world watched as Britain was eaten alive, from the inside out. Cries for isolationism and security spread like wildfire, which burned just as hot as the cries for intervention and assistance. Each and every citizen’s paranoia and anger was as clear as day, as it was shouted from rooftops and paraded at every street corner, everyone carrying picket signs and megaphones ablaze with demands and attacks, aimed at both their government and opponents. What wasn’t clear, however, was the best way to address the collapse of Humanity in the U.K.. With unrest and security issues at home, and a virus spreading faster than any other they’d seen before overseas, the United States government was cemented in a tough spot, frantically yanking at it’s ankles in an attempt to react.

Great Britain was destroyed entirely by the Rage Virus, with her population being decimated and any semblance of society falling apart, with scattered pockets of humans left to fend for themselves. That is, until, a U.S-led NATO force entered Great Britain in an attempt to rebuild her. As they began to find out, the majority of the infected had actually died out, having starved to death, leaving Britain a broken, empty husk. District One was established, but the Rage Virus found its way even into the military guarded settlement, once again spreading the Rage Virus, and repopulating the streets of London with the horrifying infected.

At home, the news of the U.S withdraw from Great Britain and her reinfection was a massive blow to American morale, which was already astoundingly low. With soldiers present in the streets of almost every major city, roadblocks and checkpoints littered around every major road vessel, American life had slowed to a crawl. As the loss of entire nation rocked the world economy, unemployment was at an all time high, but liberty was at all time low. Many people spent their days forced into their homes, glued to television sets, watching as the other side of the world either burned or prepared itself to be caught in the flames. Or, they stuck their heads out the windows to see the protests right outside, as different political factions demanded the government answer their calls for action. Civil unrest over the oppression of the American public and media had spilled into the streets prompting harsh, and sometimes even deadly backlash from the American military. Riots and strikes were regular occurrences, as were the crushing retaliation and resulting tighter grip on the populace by government authority.

Entire political parties sprouted up dedicated to how citizens believed “The Rage In The East” should’ve been handled. Many of the aforementioned riots usually resulted in a violent spat between two differing groups. At one point, the government finally stopped allowing civilians into the various buildings of government, security strengthening around the nation’s capital and many state capitals, especially as fear of a serious terrorist attack began to mount.

Thirty-two weeks after the initial outbreak, the French, Germans and Spanish amongst others were fighting infections of their own, along with others. Ireland had almost been wiped out, another large blow to the international community, which had begun to focus on fortifying the surrounding nations in an attempt to reduce future outbreak. Over time, though, it was becoming increasingly apparent that perhaps nothing could stop the Rage Virus. The Spanish had been able to keep their infection at bay, but had failed in completely eradicating it, as it proved to spread faster than what was exactly manageable. France and Germany, however, were having a much harder time and higher death tolls, with many fleeing farther east, meeting intense opposition as uninfected countries all over Eurasia began to lock down their borders and refusing any travel from the outside.

With the Rage Spreading, and citizens of many fortified nations under extreme totalitarian conditions, some world governments began to suggest the nuclear option. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and risking the lives of a comparatively small number of people to save the rest of the world seemed like a worthy price to pay.

The Red Fleet

During the attempted repatriation of Great Britain, the US-led NATO forces operating District One based many of their operational leadership and logistical centers in the fleet of ships that delivered then there, a coalition of warships dubbed “The Patriot’s Fleet” after the British Patriots it was delivering. The Fleet was based in the large mouth of the River Thames, and served many purposes, such as providing safe entry into the river for humanitarian aid, or the more militarized detachments were used to patrol various important points like the Irish Sea or the English Channel.

When the operation failed and the Rage was once again spread to Britain, many of the troops and assets and even some of the former British citizens fled back to the Fleet for return to safe lands. Partially into it’s trek back across the Atlantic, the Fleet fell silent on radio comms, and it was not raised until 5 days later, despite the fleet’s consistent movement across the Atlantic. Once comms were established again, it became apparent that the fleet had been battling with their own various infections. Many of the ships were completely engulfed, and either were left stranded in the ocean, or veering off in random directions at various speeds. According to the various new media of the world, most of the Red Fleet has been immobilized or forced to suspend travel, with a large section of the Fleet stationed about a thousand miles off of the coast of North Carolina.

There are doubts as to how many of these reports are true though. In the scramble to evacuate the waters around the United Kingdom, many ships went missing or were crashed after having been taken over by the Rage. Of those who successfully made it into the Atlantic, it is not known how many were completely lost to the Rage, and many of the ships stuck floating in the Atlantic are reported to be fighting off their own Infections, to varying degrees of success. With the current instability of the fleet, combined with the possible forming of a tropical storm around Bermuda, the containment of the Red Fleet is beginning to draw beads of sweat from various coastal communities of Cuba and the U.S.

American Political Climate

Because of the volatile nature of the The Rage, and how easily any mistake or mishandling of a situation can lead to complete and utter devastation, there have been a myriad of variously fervent responses from the American Public. Most people, obviously, have a vested interest in saving their own live and protecting those they care about, so almost every American has their own various opinions of how the government should handle the The Rage in the East.

There are three fairly popular political schools of thought amongst the American public encompassing a majority of the public.

The first are the Isolationists. Hearkening back to pre-WW2 sentiments, a good chunk of Americans believe that the only way to truly keep America safe from The Rage is to retract into their shell, fortifying and sealing the borders to the country, and worrying only about issues right here at home. This group claims that sending assets overseas is a waste of resources that could instead be invested at home, and simply opens too many doors for the infection to find its way back to the States. This party is probably the most popular of the major three, with some more extreme branches even suggesting abandoning overseas territories/states like Hawaii or Puerto Rico.

The primary opposition to the Isolationist party is the Rage Actionist Party. This party is a little more varied in their exact beliefs, but almost all of them revolve around American involvement in the situation overseas. Most people of this belief believe in stern military action to eradicate the virus, some suggesting that the U.S annex smaller eastern countries to help create a stiffer barrier against the Rage spreading further into Eurasia. Others believe that intervening with a combination of military action and humanitarian aid will be the quickest and most effective way to bring an end to the Rage, while minimizing the lasting effects this disaster will have on the world. Some more of the extreme branches of this belief argue that the infected can be saved, and that instead of killing them, the U.S should intervene to save the lives of both the infected and uninfected, containing and quarantining the former while working to develop a vaccine for the Rage.

The last major movement is less popular than the two before it, but it takes ideals mostly from the Rage Actionist Party, though, to the extreme. This party is referred to as the “Nuclear Action Party” and their name should be fairly self explanatory. This group of people believes that the best option against the Rage is to attack infected areas wil nuclear weapons, eliminating the threat once and for all, while wasting as few human resources as possible. This party is obviously the most controversial, and just as many people actively protest this party as much as they do against it.

[Firecracker_]

It's 2007. It's been fourty-four weeks since the first outbreak. Europe is up in flames as "The Rage in the East" has continued to decimate the region, starting with the United Kingdom. The fires of Europe are becoming too hot for the world community to avoid, as the Far East deals with it's own vulnerabilities in the wake of millions of refugees fleeing their destroyed or dying countries. Most of the United Kingdom, France and now even Germany has been overrun with these crazed beasts, which destroy and murder anyone they can.

American life has nearly come to an absolute halt, as the loss of entire nations and economies has crippled the west, and has left most Americans stuck at home, trying to find work, or joining the protests in the streets, as more and more Americans demand action from their government.

Some Americans want a peaceful, humanitarian solution, while others advocate for the preemptive destruction of anything that could possibly doom the West to fall victim to the same rage that has brought the East to it's knees. Many of them want jobs, many of them want protection, but all of them want the same thing; action.

With the Red Fleet stuck ever too closely off the coast of New England, and an apparent tropical storm brewing in the Atlantic, it looks like Halloween is definitely going to be interesting this year.

Extended Backstory

Petrified, stuck with our hands in hot water, the world watched as Britain was eaten alive, from the inside out. Cries for isolationism and security spread like wildfire, which burned just as hot as the cries for intervention and assistance. Each and every citizen’s paranoia and anger was as clear as day, as it was shouted from rooftops and paraded at every street corner, everyone carrying picket signs and megaphones ablaze with demands and attacks, aimed at both their government and opponents. What wasn’t clear, however, was the best way to address the collapse of Humanity in the U.K.. With unrest and security issues at home, and a virus spreading faster than any other they’d seen before overseas, the United States government was cemented in a tough spot, frantically yanking at it’s ankles in an attempt to react.

Great Britain was destroyed entirely by the Rage Virus, with her population being decimated and any semblance of society falling apart, with scattered pockets of humans left to fend for themselves. That is, until, a U.S-led NATO force entered Great Britain in an attempt to rebuild her. As they began to find out, the majority of the infected had actually died out, having starved to death, leaving Britain a broken, empty husk. District One was established, but the Rage Virus found its way even into the military guarded settlement, once again spreading the Rage Virus, and repopulating the streets of London with the horrifying infected.

At home, the news of the U.S withdraw from Great Britain and her reinfection was a massive blow to American morale, which was already astoundingly low. With soldiers present in the streets of almost every major city, roadblocks and checkpoints littered around every major road vessel, American life had slowed to a crawl. As the loss of entire nation rocked the world economy, unemployment was at an all time high, but liberty was at all time low. Many people spent their days forced into their homes, glued to television sets, watching as the other side of the world either burned or prepared itself to be caught in the flames. Or, they stuck their heads out the windows to see the protests right outside, as different political factions demanded the government answer their calls for action. Civil unrest over the oppression of the American public and media had spilled into the streets prompting harsh, and sometimes even deadly backlash from the American military. Riots and strikes were regular occurrences, as were the crushing retaliation and resulting tighter grip on the populace by government authority.

Entire political parties sprouted up dedicated to how citizens believed “The Rage In The East” should’ve been handled. Many of the aforementioned riots usually resulted in a violent spat between two differing groups. At one point, the government finally stopped allowing civilians into the various buildings of government, security strengthening around the nation’s capital and many state capitals, especially as fear of a serious terrorist attack began to mount.

Thirty-two weeks after the initial outbreak, the French, Germans and Spanish amongst others were fighting infections of their own, along with others. Ireland had almost been wiped out, another large blow to the international community, which had begun to focus on fortifying the surrounding nations in an attempt to reduce future outbreak. Over time, though, it was becoming increasingly apparent that perhaps nothing could stop the Rage Virus. The Spanish had been able to keep their infection at bay, but had failed in completely eradicating it, as it proved to spread faster than what was exactly manageable. France and Germany, however, were having a much harder time and higher death tolls, with many fleeing farther east, meeting intense opposition as uninfected countries all over Eurasia began to lock down their borders and refusing any travel from the outside.

With the Rage Spreading, and citizens of many fortified nations under extreme totalitarian conditions, some world governments began to suggest the nuclear option. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and risking the lives of a comparatively small number of people to save the rest of the world seemed like a worthy price to pay.

The Red Fleet

During the attempted repatriation of Great Britain, the US-led NATO forces operating District One based many of their operational leadership and logistical centers in the fleet of ships that delivered then there, a coalition of warships dubbed “The Patriot’s Fleet” after the British Patriots it was delivering. The Fleet was based in the large mouth of the River Thames, and served many purposes, such as providing safe entry into the river for humanitarian aid, or the more militarized detachments were used to patrol various important points like the Irish Sea or the English Channel.

When the operation failed and the Rage was once again spread to Britain, many of the troops and assets and even some of the former British citizens fled back to the Fleet for return to safe lands. Partially into it’s trek back across the Atlantic, the Fleet fell silent on radio comms, and it was not raised until 5 days later, despite the fleet’s consistent movement across the Atlantic. Once comms were established again, it became apparent that the fleet had been battling with their own various infections. Many of the ships were completely engulfed, and either were left stranded in the ocean, or veering off in random directions at various speeds. According to the various new media of the world, most of the Red Fleet has been immobilized or forced to suspend travel, with a large section of the Fleet stationed about a thousand miles off of the coast of North Carolina.

There are doubts as to how many of these reports are true though. In the scramble to evacuate the waters around the United Kingdom, many ships went missing or were crashed after having been taken over by the Rage. Of those who successfully made it into the Atlantic, it is not known how many were completely lost to the Rage, and many of the ships stuck floating in the Atlantic are reported to be fighting off their own Infections, to varying degrees of success. With the current instability of the fleet, combined with the possible forming of a tropical storm around Bermuda, the containment of the Red Fleet is beginning to draw beads of sweat from various coastal communities of Cuba and the U.S.

American Political Climate

Because of the volatile nature of the The Rage, and how easily any mistake or mishandling of a situation can lead to complete and utter devastation, there have been a myriad of variously fervent responses from the American Public. Most people, obviously, have a vested interest in saving their own live and protecting those they care about, so almost every American has their own various opinions of how the government should handle the The Rage in the East.

There are three fairly popular political schools of thought amongst the American public encompassing a majority of the public.

The first are the Isolationists. Hearkening back to pre-WW2 sentiments, a good chunk of Americans believe that the only way to truly keep America safe from The Rage is to retract into their shell, fortifying and sealing the borders to the country, and worrying only about issues right here at home. This group claims that sending assets overseas is a waste of resources that could instead be invested at home, and simply opens too many doors for the infection to find its way back to the States. This party is probably the most popular of the major three, with some more extreme branches even suggesting abandoning overseas territories/states like Hawaii or Puerto Rico.

The primary opposition to the Isolationist party is the Rage Actionist Party. This party is a little more varied in their exact beliefs, but almost all of them revolve around American involvement in the situation overseas. Most people of this belief believe in stern military action to eradicate the virus, some suggesting that the U.S annex smaller eastern countries to help create a stiffer barrier against the Rage spreading further into Eurasia. Others believe that intervening with a combination of military action and humanitarian aid will be the quickest and most effective way to bring an end to the Rage, while minimizing the lasting effects this disaster will have on the world. Some more of the extreme branches of this belief argue that the infected can be saved, and that instead of killing them, the U.S should intervene to save the lives of both the infected and uninfected, containing and quarantining the former while working to develop a vaccine for the Rage.

The last major movement is less popular than the two before it, but it takes ideals mostly from the Rage Actionist Party, though, to the extreme. This party is referred to as the “Nuclear Action Party” and their name should be fairly self explanatory. This group of people believes that the best option against the Rage is to attack infected areas wil nuclear weapons, eliminating the threat once and for all, while wasting as few human resources as possible. This party is obviously the most controversial, and just as many people actively protest this party as much as they do against it.

American Social Climate

America is a fairly desperate state of affairs at the moment. With the world economy reeling from the blow taken from the complete loss of Britain’s economy, the working class of America has taken the largest blow. Streets seem reminiscent of The Great Depression from the early 30’s, with many unemployed Americans wandering the street, searching for jobs and protesting the mass firings of various companies. Many Americans are stuck at home, glued to their TVs and radios, trying to remain informed of world and internal affairs.

The media at home has no end of news to report, as numerous riots and protest take place all over the country, for any assortment of reasons. Some protest for the government to take action against the Rage, other’s riot over the lack of jobs, and everyone is screaming over one another. If it isn’t the protesters fighting each other, the ever present US Military almost always moves to quash any large scale demonstration.

Martial Law and the government’s grip over daily American life is slowly gripping tighter and tighter everyday, causing even more stress to the already high tensions between Americans. Neighborhoods and cities have been divided by military roadblocks and perimeters of various sizes. The plan intended is that, if an infection is detected anywhere, the surrounding areas can seal up, denying any infected exit from the region. Picture tall, barbed wire fences surrounding entire neighborhoods, with any large exit and entry vessel being roadblocked and regulated by military checkpoints.

For the most part, normal American life is still going relatively smooth in some places, but riots, protests, and general conflict is much more prevalent, and travel over long distances takes much more time and can be very difficult at times. Tensions are high, and fear permeates every facet of daily life.

[Firecracker_]

It's 2007. It's been fourty-four weeks since the first outbreak. Europe is up in flames as "The Rage in the East" has continued to decimate the region, starting with the United Kingdom. The fires of Europe are becoming too hot for the world community to avoid, as the Far East deals with it's own vulnerabilities in the wake of millions of refugees fleeing their destroyed or dying countries. Most of the United Kingdom, France and now even Germany has been overrun with these crazed beasts, which destroy and murder anyone they can.

American life has nearly come to an absolute halt, as the loss of entire nations and economies has crippled the west, and has left most Americans stuck at home, trying to find work, or joining the protests in the streets, as more and more Americans demand action from their government.

Some Americans want a peaceful, humanitarian solution, while others advocate for the preemptive destruction of anything that could possibly doom the West to fall victim to the same rage that has brought the East to it's knees. Many of them want jobs, many of them want protection, but all of them want the same thing; action.

With the Red Fleet stuck ever too closely off the coast of New England, and an apparent tropical storm brewing in the Atlantic, it looks like Halloween is definitely going to be interesting this year. New York is in for many surprises.

Extended Backstory

Petrified, stuck with our hands in hot water, the world watched as Britain was eaten alive, from the inside out. Cries for isolationism and security spread like wildfire, which burned just as hot as the cries for intervention and assistance. Each and every citizen’s paranoia and anger was as clear as day, as it was shouted from rooftops and paraded at every street corner, everyone carrying picket signs and megaphones ablaze with demands and attacks, aimed at both their government and opponents. What wasn’t clear, however, was the best way to address the collapse of Humanity in the U.K.. With unrest and security issues at home, and a virus spreading faster than any other they’d seen before overseas, the United States government was cemented in a tough spot, frantically yanking at it’s ankles in an attempt to react.

Great Britain was destroyed entirely by the Rage Virus, with her population being decimated and any semblance of society falling apart, with scattered pockets of humans left to fend for themselves. That is, until, a U.S-led NATO force entered Great Britain in an attempt to rebuild her. As they began to find out, the majority of the infected had actually died out, having starved to death, leaving Britain a broken, empty husk. District One was established, but the Rage Virus found its way even into the military guarded settlement, once again spreading the Rage Virus, and repopulating the streets of London with the horrifying infected.

At home, the news of the U.S withdraw from Great Britain and her reinfection was a massive blow to American morale, which was already astoundingly low. With soldiers present in the streets of almost every major city, roadblocks and checkpoints littered around every major road vessel, American life had slowed to a crawl. As the loss of entire nation rocked the world economy, unemployment was at an all time high, but liberty was at all time low. Many people spent their days forced into their homes, glued to television sets, watching as the other side of the world either burned or prepared itself to be caught in the flames. Or, they stuck their heads out the windows to see the protests right outside, as different political factions demanded the government answer their calls for action. Civil unrest over the oppression of the American public and media had spilled into the streets prompting harsh, and sometimes even deadly backlash from the American military. Riots and strikes were regular occurrences, as were the crushing retaliation and resulting tighter grip on the populace by government authority.

Entire political parties sprouted up dedicated to how citizens believed “The Rage In The East” should’ve been handled. Many of the aforementioned riots usually resulted in a violent spat between two differing groups. At one point, the government finally stopped allowing civilians into the various buildings of government, security strengthening around the nation’s capital and many state capitals, especially as fear of a serious terrorist attack began to mount.

Thirty-two weeks after the initial outbreak, the French, Germans and Spanish amongst others were fighting infections of their own, along with others. Ireland had almost been wiped out, another large blow to the international community, which had begun to focus on fortifying the surrounding nations in an attempt to reduce future outbreak. Over time, though, it was becoming increasingly apparent that perhaps nothing could stop the Rage Virus. The Spanish had been able to keep their infection at bay, but had failed in completely eradicating it, as it proved to spread faster than what was exactly manageable. France and Germany, however, were having a much harder time and higher death tolls, with many fleeing farther east, meeting intense opposition as uninfected countries all over Eurasia began to lock down their borders and refusing any travel from the outside.

With the Rage Spreading, and citizens of many fortified nations under extreme totalitarian conditions, some world governments began to suggest the nuclear option. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and risking the lives of a comparatively small number of people to save the rest of the world seemed like a worthy price to pay.

The Red Fleet

During the attempted repatriation of Great Britain, the US-led NATO forces operating in District One based many of their operational leadership and logistical centers in the fleet of ships that delivered them there, a coalition of warships dubbed “The Patriot’s Fleet” after the British Patriots it was delivering. The Fleet was based in the large mouth of the River Thames, and served many purposes, such as providing safe entry into the river for humanitarian aid, or the more militarized detachments were used to patrol various important points like the Irish Sea or the English Channel.

When the operation failed and the Rage was once again spread to Britain, many of the troops and assets and even some of the former British citizens fled back to the Fleet for return to safe lands. Partially into it’s trek back across the Atlantic, the Fleet fell silent on radio comms, and it was not raised until 5 days later, despite the fleet’s consistent movement across the Atlantic. Once comms were established again, it became apparent that the fleet had been battling with their own various infections. Many of the ships were completely engulfed, and either were left stranded in the ocean, or veering off in random directions at various speeds. According to the various new media of the world, most of the Red Fleet has been immobilized or forced to suspend travel, with a large section of the Fleet stationed about a thousand miles off of the coast of North Carolina.

There are doubts as to how many of these reports are true though. In the scramble to evacuate the waters around the United Kingdom, many ships went missing or were crashed after having been taken over by the Rage. Of those who successfully made it into the Atlantic, it is not known how many were completely lost to the Rage, and many of the ships stuck floating in the Atlantic are reported to be fighting off their own Infections, to varying degrees of success. With the current instability of the fleet, combined with the possible forming of a tropical storm around Bermuda, the containment of the Red Fleet is beginning to draw beads of sweat from various coastal communities of Cuba and the U.S.

American Political Climate

Because of the volatile nature of the The Rage, and how easily any mistake or mishandling of a situation can lead to complete and utter devastation, there have been a myriad of variously fervent responses from the American Public. Most people, obviously, have a vested interest in saving their own live and protecting those they care about, so almost every American has their own various opinions of how the government should handle the The Rage in the East.

There are three fairly popular political schools of thought amongst the American public encompassing a majority of the public.

The first are the Isolationists. Hearkening back to pre-WW2 sentiments, a good chunk of Americans believe that the only way to truly keep America safe from The Rage is to retract into their shell, fortifying and sealing the borders to the country, and worrying only about issues right here at home. This group claims that sending assets overseas is a waste of resources that could instead be invested at home, and simply opens too many doors for the infection to find its way back to the States. This party is probably the most popular of the major three, with some more extreme branches even suggesting abandoning overseas territories/states like Hawaii or Puerto Rico.

The primary opposition to the Isolationist party is the Rage Actionist Party. This party is a little more varied in their exact beliefs, but almost all of them revolve around American involvement in the situation overseas. Most people of this belief believe in stern military action to eradicate the virus, some suggesting that the U.S annex smaller eastern countries to help create a stiffer barrier against the Rage spreading further into Eurasia. Others believe that intervening with a combination of military action and humanitarian aid will be the quickest and most effective way to bring an end to the Rage, while minimizing the lasting effects this disaster will have on the world. Some more of the extreme branches of this belief argue that the infected can be saved, and that instead of killing them, the U.S should intervene to save the lives of both the infected and uninfected, containing and quarantining the former while working to develop a vaccine for the Rage.

The last major movement is less popular than the two before it, but it takes ideals mostly from the Rage Actionist Party, though, to the extreme. This party is referred to as the “Nuclear Action Party” and their name should be fairly self explanatory. This group of people believes that the best option against the Rage is to attack infected areas wil nuclear weapons, eliminating the threat once and for all, while wasting as few human resources as possible. This party is obviously the most controversial, and just as many people actively protest this party as much as they do against it.

American Social Climate

America is a fairly desperate state of affairs at the moment. With the world economy reeling from the blow taken from the complete loss of Britain’s economy, the working class of America has taken the largest blow. Streets seem reminiscent of The Great Depression from the early 30’s, with many unemployed Americans wandering the street, searching for jobs and protesting the mass firings of various companies. Many Americans are stuck at home, glued to their TVs and radios, trying to remain informed of world and internal affairs.

The media at home has no end of news to report, as numerous riots and protest take place all over the country, for any assortment of reasons. Some protest for the government to take action against the Rage, other’s riot over the lack of jobs, and everyone is screaming over one another. If it isn’t the protesters fighting each other, the ever present US Military almost always moves to quash any large scale demonstration.

Martial Law and the government’s grip over daily American life is slowly gripping tighter and tighter everyday, causing even more stress to the already high tensions between Americans. Neighborhoods and cities have been divided by military roadblocks and perimeters of various sizes. The plan intended is that, if an infection is detected anywhere, the surrounding areas can seal up, denying any infected exit from the region. Picture tall, barbed wire fences surrounding entire neighborhoods, with any large exit and entry vessel being roadblocked and regulated by military checkpoints.

For the most part, normal American life is still going relatively smooth in some places, but riots, protests, and general conflict is much more prevalent, and travel over long distances takes much more time and can be very difficult at times. Tensions are high, and fear permeates every facet of daily life.

Character Skeleton

Appearance: (No Anime.)
Name: (Full name)
Nicknames/Alias: (If any)
Age:
Gender: (Self explanatory)
Sexual Orientation: (Self explanatory)
Ethnicity: (Self explanatory
Appearance Details: (Explain your character's body type, style, other features)
Tattoos, Piercings, Scars, Other: (Self explanatory)
Personality: (Describe the positive and negative aspects, and general attributes of your character’s personality.
Likes and Dislikes: (Self explanatory)
Hobbies and Interests: (Self explanatory)
Brief Biography:
Family Members: (Self explanatory)
Relationships:(Relationships between your character and other player characters. This section can be updated as the game goes on!)

[Firecracker_]

[+]

[Proctor Ryke]
[47] | [Male] | [5’11] | [A-]

General Information

NAME: Proctor Ryke

ALIASES // TITLES: Richter Gamble
Jack-Jack
Big R

SEX:Male

AGE:58

APPEARANCE:

OCCUPATION: ”Streetjack, Pavement Pusher, whatever you want to call it. I make money.”

CAMPAIGN TEAM POSITION: Fundraising Manager

Psychological Profile

Confident | Anxious | Cunning | Self-Involved | Pessimistic | Distrustful

PERSONAL GOAL: Proctor’s only aim is to keep himself alive. Whatever it takes to make sure he can get what he needs to stay afloat, Proctor will do it.The ever looming fear of his demise help’s keep the haze in his mind at bay, but with every day that passes, Proctor can feel the noose around his neck tightening, the blade press closer into his neck, and the energy powering his limbs slowly seeping out of him. Even though he hasn’t much to live for, Proctor desperately wants to live. He doesn’t want to be another nameless corpse left to rot in the streets amongst the vermin and trash.

CAMPAIGN GOAL: From the line of work and life that Proctor came from, money can be rung from any rag you can find in the streets. There are opportunities lying around everywhere for someone who’s a little loose on their morals or quick on their trigger, so why he decided to start working with Campbell, even Proctor isn’t quite sure of yet. Sure, maybe cleaning up the streets a little and being able to sew the downfall of all his former adversaries was part of it, but something about Campbell just felt profitable. More so than pushing drugs or ransoming prominent civilians.

At the end of the day, Proctor is really in it for the money, and after being thrown in the gutter and dethroned in his his prime, the most stable looking choice was to link up with the man that could potentially make him rich, and breakdown everyone who’s ever spited him. Even if Campbell were to fail and lose the raise, Proctor isn’t so stupid that he’d admit defeat without a fresh wad of cash in his hands. One way or another, Proctor will find some way to get rich, and maybe even powerful.

PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY: Ever since Proctor began to learn about all humans’ tendency, no matter how self sacrificing or generous, to value themselves over everyone else, he’s lived and survived by that school of thought. He’s not a heartless animal willing to fuck over or kill anyone at any turn, he believes in treating people with at least a modicum of respect and decency, but, no one is above him in importance. If it means his life or death, sink or float, Proctor works for himself and only himself. The Reclaim Zone has taken more than enough lives, right before Proctor’s eyes, and now, survival is the greatest high Proctor can feel.

It’s been a very long time since Proctor made any major moves, subsisting on odd jobs and petty pushing for decades. Seeing what semblance of a foundation he had ripped away from him taught him that worrying about others or trying to carry some sort of following is a pipe dream for him.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: Proctor has spent so much time wallowing with the denizens of the Reclaim zone that he never felt the need to dabble or pay attention to politics, at least not past knowing who swung around the most power, or which street gangs controlled the most territory. Due to his augments, he’s had a few run ins and discussions with some Neo-Transhumanists and HyperHuman monks, developing a bit of connection with them. After dealing with plenty of abuse and discrimination for his augmentations, it was a pleasant change of pace to speak with people that embraced his choices and encouraged him to continue strengthening himself. He was never one for the more spiritual side of movements, but the people are nice, so he’s decided he likes them for the time being.

The obvious is not lost on Proctor, that the mega-corporations rule many aspects of life, the government is mostly corrupt with a few good souls trying to do good, but most of it flew under his radar. What matters to him the most is what happens on the street level, his level. The difference between people is negligible, everyone is equal to Proctor in that he doesn’t care much for anyone. The effort it takes to rally for a purpose, or to carry prejudice against others, or to try and uplift entire demographics, is all an effort in futility for Proctor.

SECRETS: Well, really, his identity is a secret in and of itself. He’s got a lot of enemies, and powerful ones at that, but Proctor hasn’t tried to make any moves for decades now. The heat has been off for a while now, but if his name were to appear in any big lights or signs, Proctor is sure he’d have a bullet in his skull in no time at all.

FEARS: (What keeps you up at night? What makes you freeze up in the moment? What do you avoid at all costs?)
Number One at the top of that list is easily Death. The concept of it, the act of dying, all of it shakes Proctor to the bone. Life has caught up very quickly with Proctor, and all of a sudden, dealing with his very real mortality, despite all the measures he took to try and avoid it when he was young.

Nothing much else scares Proctor much, other than the thought of the forgotten bounties on his head that are still floating around. As much as he likes to put on a tough guy front, he does often peer over his shoulders, wondering if one of his old rivals is going to send a shooter after him. Most things that pull some fear and anxiety from Proctor, like heights, often just have to do with his overwhelming fear of death.

REPUTATION: Proctor is a sort of ghost story in the streets of the Reclaim Zone at this point. He’s not a household name or anything like that, but there are still stories that float around about the the guy that tried to rival The Knights back in the day. Most people think he’s dead, and aging and further augments have made Proctor’s looks a far cry from what they used to be, helping conceal his continued presence in the Reclaim.

The men which used to work with Proctor know the truth, though, and most still hold Proctor in high esteem, as their former leader, charismatic and kind, but never destined to be powerful. Those who need to work with or know Proctor respect him, but his name doesn’t really garner fear anymore, just simple interest. He was never in it for the fame, just the money, but he doesn’t have much of anything anymore.

Even though not many people talk about him anymore, there are still a select few that want him dead, namely Jackson Rott, and men of his ilk. Some men still remember Proctor as the man who wanted the Reclaim Zone for himself, and would like to kill him just to tie up another loose end from the old days.

LIKES: Taking walks through bustling city streets.
A bout of recreational drugs when he can spare the cash.
The rush of making money.

DISLIKES: Losing money.
The fog of SPECS.
Contemplating his mortality.
People who are rude to people who work in customer service.

QUIRKS: When sitting in chairs, Proctor will mindlessly rock back and forth in his seat. Not hard but just slightly enough for someone to notice.

No matter where he is or what he is doing, Proctor will sometimes stop, stand in one place, and just stretch everything out. His arms, legs, back, jaw, everything, just to try and loosen up and relax.

Background Information

”I tried to never let this place define me, I just made the best of what I was given. I did what I wanted to, fucked and fucked over whoever I felt like, and the same got done to me, but I never let it stop my work, my hustle. I never really needed a ‘meaning’ or a ‘purpose’ past just surviving, because that’s enough by itself.”

Operative Information

AUGMENTATIONS: (What sort of Cyberware are you equipped with?)

EQUIPMENT: (What are you carrying on the job?)

SKILLS: (Feel free to list a few and elaborate a bit.)

FLAWS: (Aim for three or so. Equal or greater to your number of skills.)

NOTES:

[Firecracker_]

[+]

[Proctor Ryke]
[47] | [Male] | [5’11] | [A-]

General Information

NAME: Proctor Ryke

ALIASES // TITLES: Richter Gamble
Jack-Jack
Big R

SEX:Male

AGE:60

APPEARANCE:

OCCUPATION: ”Streetjack, Pavement Pusher, whatever you want to call it. I make money.”

CAMPAIGN TEAM POSITION: Fundraising Manager

Psychological Profile

Confident | Anxious | Cunning | Self-Involved | Pessimistic | Distrustful

PERSONAL GOAL: Proctor’s only aim is to keep himself alive. Whatever it takes to make sure he can get what he needs to stay afloat, Proctor will do it.The ever looming fear of his demise help’s keep the haze in his mind at bay, but with every day that passes, Proctor can feel the noose around his neck tightening, the blade press closer into his neck, and the energy powering his limbs slowly seeping out of him. Even though he hasn’t much to live for, Proctor desperately wants to live. He doesn’t want to be another nameless corpse left to rot in the streets amongst the vermin and trash.

CAMPAIGN GOAL: From the line of work and life that Proctor came from, money can be rung from any rag you can find in the streets. There are opportunities lying around everywhere for someone who’s a little loose on their morals or quick on their trigger, so why he decided to start working with Campbell, even Proctor isn’t quite sure of yet. Sure, maybe cleaning up the streets a little and being able to sew the downfall of all his former adversaries was part of it, but something about Campbell just felt profitable. More so than pushing drugs or ransoming prominent civilians.

At the end of the day, Proctor is really in it for the money, and after being thrown in the gutter and dethroned in his his prime, the most stable looking choice was to link up with the man that could potentially make him rich, and breakdown everyone who’s ever spited him. Even if Campbell were to fail and lose the raise, Proctor isn’t so stupid that he’d admit defeat without a fresh wad of cash in his hands. One way or another, Proctor will find some way to get rich, and maybe even powerful.

PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY: Ever since Proctor began to learn about all humans’ tendency, no matter how self sacrificing or generous, to value themselves over everyone else, he’s lived and survived by that school of thought. He’s not a heartless animal willing to fuck over or kill anyone at any turn, he believes in treating people with at least a modicum of respect and decency, but, no one is above him in importance. If it means his life or death, sink or float, Proctor works for himself and only himself. The Reclaim Zone has taken more than enough lives, right before Proctor’s eyes, and now, survival is the greatest high Proctor can feel.

It’s been a very long time since Proctor made any major moves, subsisting on odd jobs and petty pushing for decades. Seeing what semblance of a foundation he had ripped away from him taught him that worrying about others or trying to carry some sort of following is a pipe dream for him.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: Proctor has spent so much time wallowing with the denizens of the Reclaim zone that he never felt the need to dabble or pay attention to politics, at least not past knowing who swung around the most power, or which street gangs controlled the most territory. Due to his augments, he’s had a few run ins and discussions with some Neo-Transhumanists and HyperHuman monks, developing a bit of connection with them. After dealing with plenty of abuse and discrimination for his augmentations, it was a pleasant change of pace to speak with people that embraced his choices and encouraged him to continue strengthening himself. He was never one for the more spiritual side of movements, but the people are nice, so he’s decided he likes them for the time being.

The obvious is not lost on Proctor, that the mega-corporations rule many aspects of life, the government is mostly corrupt with a few good souls trying to do good, but most of it flew under his radar. What matters to him the most is what happens on the street level, his level. The difference between people is negligible, everyone is equal to Proctor in that he doesn’t care much for anyone. The effort it takes to rally for a purpose, or to carry prejudice against others, or to try and uplift entire demographics, is all an effort in futility for Proctor.

SECRETS: Well, really, his identity is a secret in and of itself. He’s got a lot of enemies, and powerful ones at that, but Proctor hasn’t tried to make any moves for decades now. The heat has been off for a while now, but if his name were to appear in any big lights or signs, Proctor is sure he’d have a bullet in his skull in no time at all.

FEARS: (What keeps you up at night? What makes you freeze up in the moment? What do you avoid at all costs?)
Number One at the top of that list is easily Death. The concept of it, the act of dying, all of it shakes Proctor to the bone. Life has caught up very quickly with Proctor, and all of a sudden, dealing with his very real mortality, despite all the measures he took to try and avoid it when he was young.

Nothing much else scares Proctor much, other than the thought of the forgotten bounties on his head that are still floating around. As much as he likes to put on a tough guy front, he does often peer over his shoulders, wondering if one of his old rivals is going to send a shooter after him. Most things that pull some fear and anxiety from Proctor, like heights, often just have to do with his overwhelming fear of death.

REPUTATION: Proctor is a sort of ghost story in the streets of the Reclaim Zone at this point. He’s not a household name or anything like that, but there are still stories that float around about the the guy that tried to rival The Knights back in the day. Most people think he’s dead, and aging and further augments have made Proctor’s looks a far cry from what they used to be, helping conceal his continued presence in the Reclaim.

The men which used to work with Proctor know the truth, though, and most still hold Proctor in high esteem, as their former leader, charismatic and kind, but never destined to be powerful. Those who need to work with or know Proctor respect him, but his name doesn’t really garner fear anymore, just simple interest. He was never in it for the fame, just the money, but he doesn’t have much of anything anymore.

Even though not many people talk about him anymore, there are still a select few that want him dead, namely Jackson Rott, and men of his ilk. Some men still remember Proctor as the man who wanted the Reclaim Zone for himself, and would like to kill him just to tie up another loose end from the old days.

LIKES: Taking walks through bustling city streets.
A bout of recreational drugs when he can spare the cash.
The rush of making money.

DISLIKES: Losing money.
The fog of SPECS.
Contemplating his mortality.
People who are rude to people who work in customer service.

QUIRKS: When sitting in chairs, Proctor will mindlessly rock back and forth in his seat. Not hard but just slightly enough for someone to notice.

No matter where he is or what he is doing, Proctor will sometimes stop, stand in one place, and just stretch everything out. His arms, legs, back, jaw, everything, just to try and loosen up and relax. Even though, you know, most of his limbs are… metal.

Background Information

”I tried to never let this place define me, I just made the best of what I was given. I did what I wanted to, fucked and fucked over whoever I felt like, and the same got done to me, but I never let it stop my work, my hustle. I never really needed a ‘meaning’ or a ‘purpose’ past just surviving, because that’s enough by itself.”

Proctor was born in some nondescript alley off some nondescript road in some nondescript part of the Reclaim Zone. Most of his memories of his parents are fading away from him, whether it be the early stages of SPECS, his age, all the blows he’s taken to the head, or perhaps a combination of both. He remembers his parents being rather plain people, neigh very abrasive or soft. They were just another pair of people driven by their primitive human need to keep breathing and walking, led not by passion or desire, but rather, blind autonomous survival.

Early on in his life, the importance of protecting oneself was imprinted heavily on him by his parents, whether it be by the lectures and speeches he can’t quite remember anymore, or the many times he saw what failure to survive looked like. He wasn’t coddled or made to believe maybe he could leave the Reclaim Zone someday in the future, he was shown exactly what life does to anyone who loses their way.

Solidifying all his learnings in the Art of Survival, the day his parents were killed did well to shape up the then young Proctor. Though he’d never dare admit it, the day is still a sort of sensitive topic for him, so after doing a good job of compartmentalizing the whole ordeal, the details are fuzzy, but the important details are still there. A standard home burglary gone wrong, except as soon as the fatal danger presented itself, his parents fled, leaving the then 9 year-old Proctor alone cowering in his room. Of course, they were never allowed to get very far before each were shot to death. Whether the shooter hadn’t the resolve to murder a child, or saw it as a waste of time or ammunition, Proctor was left alone in the house after it was been stripped of all it’s valuables.

The Reclaim Zone seemed unbothered as another orphaned child turned into a street urchin, as Proctor took to the streets in search of ways to keep himself alive. Whether it was digging in the trash cans behind restaurants, stealing and selling pieces of technology, Proctor found a way to survive. He learned the value of a credit, how to stretch a credit for all it was worth, and all the tragic normalities that come with living on the street. He became insignificant member of the festering biomass that surged in and out of the streets everyday, learning to be one with the ever moving tides of life and death, always managing to keep mostly dry, even if Death’s putrid scent always lingered around him.

Nothing that Proctor built ever came easy or quickly. Between knife fights with junkies in alleyways, or “repurposing” stashes of drugs he in no way stole from anyone, Proctor managed to keep his chin above water, making a bit of a name for himself amongst the local clan of urchins. Even though it was out of character, it seemed like the eyes on the wall finally concentrated on someone, that maybe, just maybe, someone was peeling themselves off the pavement, not a common sight in the Reclaim Zone. As much as Proctor knew about survival, the city that had remained standing around Proctor, after millenia of mistreatment and abuse, knew more than him, and it was time to prove himself.

For once, the kid knew ambition, and it began to manifest itself in interesting ways. Instead of trying to consume, the streets embraced him, and his fellow urchins knew power when they saw it. Even if it could’ve ended up in his back, Proctor knew that two knives were always stronger than just one, and soon enough, he had his own gang of people who were trying to make it through the shifting tides, just like him.

The Gamblers were the Zone’s newest collection of like-minded miscreants, and the Zone was quick to take notice. What used to be petty robbery and knife fights turned into small scale heists and drug dealing. Credits weren’t a new language to Proctor, but he was suddenly becoming much more fluent than he used to be. Surviving was finally feeling easier than it had before. The walls around the Zone had finally loosed up, and the waves were splashing lower down on Proctor’s legs, the stench of Death that followed him was beginning to disperse.

With this newfound money, Proctor began to take even more drastic measures to ensure that his chin stayed above sea level, and took to replacing his weak, imperfect organs & limbs with ones made of black metal. Flesh and blood gave way to steel and copper, lungs and heart extracted and replaced with machines that could do their jobs more reliably and for a much longer time. Slowly, Proctor was becoming more machine than man, but those fears that made him human were still woven deeply in him, whether they were woven with flesh or fiber optic.

The paranoia that crept deep within him made him wonder, were there other standouts from the Zone that would try to get rid of him? He and his gang had made their space in the Zone, but he was doubtless that there were others who wanted to push them out. There were plenty of other gangs that had their eyes on the space he occupied, but none of them posed as big as a threat as the Knights, the most aggressive, assertive gang in the Zone.

Despite their penchant for violence and subjugation, the Knights still wanted to maintain stability and freedom, and the Gambler’s and their disregard for most of the residents presented an issue for Jackson Rott and his Knights. For the most part, issues remained simple disagreements or scuffles in alleyways, but as each gang grew larger and more vicious, these small squabbles slowly became more serious dust-ups and fight.

Soon, it was full-on turf war, and, to spare the details, The Gamblers came out the losers. Most of the men and women Proctor had just begun to call his friends now stained the streets with their blood. Suddenly, the waters began to rise up around Proctor, and now, they were stained red and carried a stench on them that Proctor couldn’t even escape in his weak slumber. Many of Proctor’s memories have become muddled and fuzzy over time, but he remembers the day his Gamblers failed to survive very clearly.

Removed from his spot amongst the Zone’s special survivors and presumed dead, Proctor went into hiding, taking what little he had left and, like he had done so many years before, melded back into the writhing masses of the Zone, shrouded in the anonymity of street survival. He was driven by neither passion nor joy, but instead, his primitive, human drive to breathe and walk.

Operative Information

AUGMENTATIONS: Two Apex Legs, Two Apex Arms, a cybernetic heart and lungs made by Extropy, head augmentations made by Engi-Tech, which helped improve mental functions and vision.

EQUIPMENT:
F. HeavyTech .45CAL Caseless Machine Pistol: to be expanded
F. HeavyTech Low Profile Body Armor

SKILLS: Street Intuition
Silver Coated RoboTongue
Network of Lucrative Connections

FLAWS: (Aim for three or so. Equal or greater to your number of skills.)
SPECS
Extreme Fear of Death
Loss of Dexterity and Finesse in Age
Memory loss and mad memory

NOTES:

[Firecracker_]

[+]

[Proctor Ryke]
[47] | [Male] | [5’11] | [A-]

General Information

NAME: Proctor Ryke

ALIASES // TITLES: Richter Gamble
Jonesy
Cyborg

SEX:Male

AGE:60

APPEARANCE: Usually dressed utilitarian clothing, combined with his favorite collared jacket, Proctor keeps a low profile. His body is on the more toned side, or, really, his torso is. His arms and legs are all cybernetic, so they keep their toned shape no matter what, keeping overall slim and tall. His augments, however, are visibly aged, both by being covered by nicks, scratches and dents from years of fighting and abuse, and also from being generally older models. His limbs, while still being in the classic sleek, attractive APEX style, are still distinctly outdated, but still well operating, despite their wear, still command the same respect that augments usually do.

His hair is a bright white, indicative of his age, but his eyes glow an augmented bright blue, having changed from his natural-born brown eyes. He has a large augmentation encompassing much of the back and sides of his head, covered in glowing lights and different colored steel, also covered in it’s fair share of scratches and scuffs. The skin around his augment is scarred and warped, but the rest of his face is surprisingly free of defects, other than the obvious wrinkles setting in, and a few moles and other signs of old age. Most of his face, though, is covered by a large white beard, which is growing increasingly unkempt as time goes by. You’d probably describe him as a “Robo-Grandpa” if you saw him.

OCCUPATION: ”Streetjack, Pavement Pusher, whatever you want to call it. I make money.”

CAMPAIGN TEAM POSITION: Fundraising Manager

Psychological Profile

Confident | Anxious | Cunning | Self-Involved | Pessimistic | Distrustful

PERSONAL GOAL: Proctor’s only aim is to keep himself alive. Whatever it takes to make sure he can get what he needs to stay afloat, Proctor will do it.The ever looming fear of his demise helps keep the haze in his mind at bay, but with every day that passes, Proctor can feel the noose around his neck tightening, the blade press closer into his neck, and the energy powering his limbs slowly seeping out of him. Even though he hasn’t much to live for, Proctor desperately wants to live. He doesn’t want to be another nameless corpse left to rot in the streets amongst the vermin and trash. Proctor would rather die trying to get rich than to go out on his ass, broke, and without any say in the matter.

CAMPAIGN GOAL: When you live the life and come from the kind of work that Proctor has, you know that money can be rung from any rag you can find in the streets. The Reclaim Zone is laden with opportunities for anyone a little loose on their morals or quick on their trigger, so why he decided to start working with Campbell, even Proctor isn’t quite sure of yet. Mostly, he supposes, it’s the money that could potentially be earned on the winning side of a mayoral run. Money, and access to the drugs he needs to keep his SPECS at bay. At the same time, however, if Campbell’s promise holds true, and he does his best to clean the streets up, Proctor sees a good opportunity to wipe a lot of former competition off the map. A double win for the aging cyborg.

If anything, perhaps this campaign could give him some sort of purpose other than just to keep breathing. If he must finally face his own mortality, at least he could do something before he dies, right? Proctor’s never been one to worry about leaving a mark on the world, but you’re never too old to actually ambitions, are you?

PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY: Ever since Proctor began to learn about all humans’ tendency, no matter how self sacrificing or generous they are, to value themselves over everyone else, he’s lived and survived by that school of thought. He’s not a heartless animal willing to get one over on or kill anyone at any turn, he believes in treating people with at least a modicum of respect and decency, but, no one is above him in importance. If it means his life or death, sink or float, Proctor works for himself and only himself. The Reclaim Zone has taken more than enough lives, right before Proctor’s eyes, and now, survival is the greatest high Proctor can feel.

It’s been a very long time since Proctor made any major moves, subsisting on odd jobs and petty pushing for decades. Seeing what semblance of a foundation he had ripped away from him taught him that worrying about others or trying to carry some sort of following is a pipe dream for him. Collaborative efforts, while sweet for a while, do eventually crumble. He just hopes that maybe he can get away from this one with more than he did the last one.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: Proctor has spent so much time wallowing with the denizens of the Reclaim zone that he never felt the need to dabble or pay attention to politics, at least not past knowing who swung around the most power, or which street gangs controlled the most territory. Due to his augments, he’s had a few run ins and discussions with some Neo-Transhumanists and HyperHuman monks, developing a bit of connection with both groups. After putting up with his fair share of unwarranted hatred for being “an abomination of man and machine”, it was a pleasant change of pace to speak with people that embraced his choices and encouraged him to continue his work on perfecting his form and replacing his human weakness with mechanical dominance. While the spiritual side of the various movements never interested him much, their unconditional support of augmenting the human body is good enough reason for Proctor to give them his support.

The obvious is not lost on Proctor, that the mega-corporations rule many aspects of life, the government is mostly corrupt with a few good souls trying to do good, but most of it flies under his radar. What matters to him the most is what happens on the street level, his level. The difference between people is negligible, everyone is equal to Proctor in that he doesn’t care much for anyone. The effort it takes to rally for a purpose, or to carry prejudice against others, or to try and uplift entire demographics, is all an effort in futility for Proctor.

SECRETS: Well, really, his identity is a secret in and of itself. He’s got a lot of enemies, and powerful ones at that, but Proctor hasn’t tried to make any major moves for decades. The heat has been off for a while now, but if his name were to reappear in the spotlight, Proctor is sure he’d have a bullet in his skull in no time at all. Even those who don’t want to kill him might not exactly enjoy or appreciate his presence, as his criminal past has made him somewhat of an infamous character in the local lore. Better to just give a fake name and hope his aging face hides who he used to be.

FEARS:
Number One at the top of that list is easily Death. The concept of it, the act of dying, all of it shakes Proctor to the bone. Life has caught up very quickly with Proctor, and all of a sudden, he’s dealing with his very real mortality, despite all the measures he took to try and avoid it when he was young.

Nothing much else scares Proctor much, other than the thought of the forgotten bounties on his head that are still floating around. As much as he likes to put on a tough guy front, he does often peer over his shoulders, wondering if one of his old rivals is going to send a shooter after him. Most things that pull some fear and anxiety from Proctor, like heights, often just have to do with his overwhelming fear of death.

REPUTATION: Proctor is a sort of ghost story in the streets of the Reclaim Zone at this point. He’s not a household name or anything like that, but there are still stories that float around about the the guy that tried to rival The Knights back in the day. Most people think he’s dead, and aging and further augments have made Proctor’s looks a far cry from what they used to be, helping conceal his continued presence in the Reclaim.

The men which used to work with Proctor know the truth, though, and most still hold Proctor in high esteem, as their former leader, charismatic and kind, but never destined to be powerful. Those who need to work with or know Proctor respect him, but his name doesn’t really garner fear anymore, just simple interest. He was never in it for the fame, just the money, but he doesn’t have much of anything anymore.

Even though not many people talk about him anymore, there are still a select few that want him dead, namely Jackson Rott, and men of his ilk. Some men still remember Proctor as the man who wanted the Reclaim Zone for himself, and would like to kill him just to tie up another loose end from the old days.

LIKES: Taking walks through bustling city streets.
A bout of recreational drugs when he can spare the cash.
The rush of making money.

DISLIKES: Losing money.
The fog of SPECS.
Contemplating his mortality.
People who are rude to people who work in customer service.

QUIRKS: When sitting in chairs, Proctor will mindlessly rock back and forth in his seat. Not hard but just slightly enough for someone to notice.

No matter where he is or what he is doing, Proctor will sometimes stop, stand in one place, and just stretch everything out. His arms, legs, back, jaw, everything, just to try and loosen up and relax. Even though, you know, most of his limbs are… metal.

⌑Background Information

”I tried to never let this place define me, I just made the best of what I was given. I did what I wanted to, fucked and fucked over whoever I felt like, and the same got done to me, but I never let it stop my work, my hustle. I never really needed a ‘meaning’ or a ‘purpose’ past just surviving, because that’s enough by itself.”

Somewhere unimportant in the Reclaim Zone, Proctor was brought into an uninterested and uncaring Angel City. Most of his memories of his early life and his parents are fading away from him, whether it be the early stages of SPECS, his age, all the blows he’s taken to the head, or perhaps a combination of both. He remembers his parents being rather plain people, neither very abrasive nor soft. They were just another pair of people driven by their primitive human need to keep breathing and walking, led not by passion or desire, but rather, blind autonomous survival.

Early on in his life, the importance of protecting himself was imprinted heavily on him by his parents, whether it be by the lectures and speeches he can’t quite remember anymore, or the many times he saw what failure to survive looked like. He wasn’t coddled or made to believe maybe he could leave the Reclaim Zone someday in the future, he was shown exactly what life does to anyone who loses their way. People die, people suffer, and the only one who could change that is the individual.

Goodness and Evilness weren’t real, they were just words people made to describe the positive and negative they had to work with. The world was disinterested in its inhabitants, with the Zone providing nothing but shade to those that dwelled within its walls. Life, day in and day out, writhed it’s way in and out of the streets, in and around their homes, all in their autonomous need to stay above ground. They didn’t stay alive because of their passion for life or joy in living, they stayed alive because that’s all they knew how to do. Even then, some of them failed, and Proctor was vigilant to learn from others’ failure.

Solidifying all his learnings in the Art of Survival, the day his parents were killed did well to shape up the then young Proctor. Though he’d never dare admit it, the day is still a sort of sensitive topic for him, so after doing a good job of compartmentalizing the whole ordeal, the details are fuzzy, but the important details are still there. A standard home burglary gone wrong, except as soon as the fatal danger presented itself, his parents fled, leaving the then 9 year-old Proctor alone cowering in his room. Of course, they were never allowed to get very far before each were shot to death. Whether the shooter hadn’t the resolve to murder a child, or saw it as a waste of time or ammunition, Proctor was left alone in the house after it had been stripped of all it’s valuables.

The Reclaim Zone seemed unbothered as another orphaned child turned into a street urchin, as Proctor took to the streets in search of ways to keep himself alive. Whether it was digging in the trash cans behind restaurants, stealing and selling pieces of technology, Proctor found a way to survive. He learned the value of a credit, how to stretch a credit for all it was worth, and all the tragic normalities that come with living on the street. He became insignificant member of the festering biomass that surged in and out of the streets everyday, learning to be one with the ever moving tides of life and death, always managing to keep mostly dry, even if Death’s putrid scent always lingered around him.

Nothing that Proctor built ever came easy or quickly. Between knife fights with junkies in alleyways, or “repurposing” stashes of drugs he in no way stole from anyone, Proctor managed to keep his chin above water, making a bit of a name for himself amongst the local clan of urchins. Even though it was out of character, it seemed like the eyes on the walls finally concentrated on someone, that maybe, just maybe, someone was peeling themselves off the pavement, not a common sight in the Reclaim Zone. As much as Proctor knew about survival, the city that had remained standing around Proctor, after millenia of mistreatment and abuse, knew more than him, and it was time to prove himself.

For once, the kid knew ambition, and it began to manifest itself in interesting ways. Instead of trying to consume him, the streets embraced him, and his fellow urchins knew power when they saw it. Even if it could’ve ended up in his back, Proctor knew that a second knife was always stronger than just one, and soon enough, he had his own gang of people who were trying to make it through the shifting tides, just like him.

The Gamblers were the Zone’s newest collection of like-minded miscreants, and the Zone was quick to take notice. What used to be petty robbery and knife fights turned into small scale heists and drug dealing. Credits weren’t a new language to Proctor, but he was suddenly becoming much more fluent than he used to be. Surviving was finally feeling easier than it had before. The walls around the Zone had finally loosed up, and the waves were splashing lower down on Proctor’s legs, the stench of Death that followed him was beginning to disperse.

With this newfound money and power, Proctor began to take even more drastic measures to ensure that his chin stayed above sea level, and took to replacing his weak, imperfect organs & limbs with ones made of black metal. Flesh and blood gave way to steel and copper, lungs and heart extracted and replaced with machines that could do their jobs more reliably and for a much longer time. Slowly, Proctor was becoming more machine than man, but those fears that made him human were still woven deeply in him, whether they were woven with flesh or fiber optic.

The paranoia that crept deep within him made him wonder, were there other standouts from the Zone that would try to get rid of him? He and his gang had made their space in the Zone, but he was doubtless that there were others who wanted to push them out. There were plenty of other gangs that had their eyes on the space he occupied, but none of them posed as big as a threat as the Knights, the most aggressive, assertive gang in the Zone.

Despite their penchant for violence and subjugation, the Knights still wanted to maintain stability and freedom, and the Gambler’s and their disregard for most of the residents presented an issue for Jackson Rott and his Knights. For the most part, issues remained simple disagreements or scuffles in alleyways, but as each gang grew larger and more vicious, these small squabbles slowly became more serious dust-ups and fights.

Soon, it was full-on turf war, and, to spare the details, The Gamblers came out the losers. Most of the men and women Proctor had just begun to call his friends now stained the streets with their blood. Suddenly, the waters began to rise up around Proctor, and now, they were stained red and carried a stench on them that Proctor couldn’t even escape in his weak slumber. Many of Proctor’s memories have become muddled and fuzzy over time, but he remembers the day his Gamblers failed to survive very clearly.

Removed from his spot amongst the Zone’s special survivors and presumed dead, Proctor went into hiding, taking what little he had left and, like he had done so many years before, melded back into the writhing masses of the Zone, shrouded in the anonymity of street survival. He was driven by neither passion nor joy, but instead, his primitive, human drive to breathe and walk.

After years in obscurity, living from job to job, surviving one way or anything, a new job presented itself to Proctor. The rising campaign of Dexter Campbell, and the multiple open positions to help him dethrone Mayor Gatch felt like a stroke of incredible luck. Campbell needed someone to raise funds, and if Proctor knew how to do anything, it was to make money. He gave them a fake name, Richter Gamble, and joined the campaign as Dexter’s Fundraising Manager. Coming up with money for a campaign was difficult, but Proctor was sure he’d be able to use the skills he’d spent his whole life building to find his way into more money and power than he’d ever had before.

Operative Information

▩AUGMENTATIONS▩

Two (2) APEX Model 35-S Cybernetic Arms, One Left and One Right

Both are Proctor’s arms are outdated, APEX-made pieces of machinery. Together, they give the operator the strength to lift about half a ton, but since Proctor is still stuck with a normal human spine, he doesn’t really have the ability to support that weight. That doesn’t nullify all the strength granted by his arms, as he can still punch a hole through most brick walls, and has some serious throwing capability to add too.

Both of his arms, as stated above, are, at this point, approximately thirty years old, and while they don’t carry and suite of tools or make him quite a superhuman, they are still strong and reliable pieces of technology, top-of-the-line back in their heyday. Even decades old APEX are something to behold, but he won’t be stopping traffic anytime soon with these aging arms.

Two (2) FuryTech Strider-Class E.R.L Legs

Capable of outrunning a bullet train, deliver kicks that could kill an elephant, or supporting, at most, a full ton of weight, Proctor’s Strider Legs were intended to be the only cybernetic legs you’d ever need for the rest of your life, available at a price for which wouldn’t take you that time to pay back, too. Of course, now being about twenty-five years old, they aren’t quite the glamourous, impressive legs there were advertised to be back in their heyday, but they work.

Age and use haven’t been good to them, and when not wearing pants, these legs look drastically different than most cybernetic limbs today, as they don’t really try to imitate human limbs in their looks. Black metal, adorned with scratches and dents, are all that greets the eyes when they see Proctor’s legs. Open joints, robotic imposters of toes, audible mechanical whirring sometimes, they are very obviously some worn legs. Maybe a little bit of exposed wiring here and there, but nothing too big.

While the legs were certainly capable of delivering on their claims when they were first released, time has not been good to their performance. Not to say they haven’t held up well enough, but Proctor, while he can propel himself much faster than the ordinary man, hasn’t been able to outrun a bullet train in a long time. He can still kick the head almost completely off a man, but he’d probably just sooner shoot them than do that.

One (1) FuryTech C.O.R.E Heart

While not exactly bulletproof, the FuryTech Cardiac Organ Replacing Enhancement is still a very hardy and reliable piece of machinery. While, technically, pumping blood harder than an organic heart can isn’t exactly beneficial, being able to do that job much longer and with less problems is FuryTech’s strength. The unit is much, much less likely to deal with irregular heartbeats, is 99% likely to never be stricken by arrest, and can negate many of the effects of arteries afflicted with cholesterol build up, which isn’t exactly ideal, but still means a much better life than otherwise. When the unit was made, blood purification systems weren’t quite off the ground yet, so the most this heart can do is help alleviate the effects of blood-borne illnesses or poisons, but nothing much past that.

You may be wondering if the unit is vulnerable to EMP blasts, which would be critical flaw, but thankfully, it’s not. Even twenty or so years ago when Proctor acquired his limbs, the ability to shield them from outside blasts was already pretty commonplace, so his heart, and other augments for that matter, are all fairly well protected against any sort of anti-electronic measures. At least, they were when they were produced. As for how the shielding has held up over time, that remains yet to be seen.

One (1) FuryTech R.O.R.E Set of Lungs

To accompany and take advantage of having an enhanced heart, Proctor also has an enhanced set of lungs, also from FuryTech. They’re meant to allow much longer stamina when it comes to vigorous activity, as the blood in one’s body can be oxygenated and pumped much faster than with a standard set of organs. Combine that with a set of Cybernetic Arms and Legs, and it makes for someone who can keep moving, quicky, for a long time.

Being made of metal and fiber optic and materials of tha sort, many of the common worries that come with regular lungs don’t apply to these Respiratory Organ Replacing Enhancements. Lung Cancer is almost a non-issue, being punctured or crushed presents much less of an issue, as the lungs can support life with just one side, or can expand and contract with much greater force when under great pressure. This might mean pushing a little bit against a few other organs, or breaking a few ribs, but that’s only in the most extreme situations.

---

▨EQUIPMENT▨

F. HeavyTech .45CAL Caseless Machine Pistol: to be expanded
F. HeavyTech Low Profile Body Armor

SKILLS: Street Intuition
Silver Coated RoboTongue
Network of Lucrative Connections

FLAWS: (Aim for three or so. Equal or greater to your number of skills.)
SPECS
Extreme Fear of Death
Loss of Dexterity and Finesse in Age
Memory loss and mad memory

NOTES:

[Firecracker_]

Proctor Ryke

][Proctor Ryke]
[47] | [Male] | [5’11] | [A-]

---

]

General Information

NAME
Proctor Ryke

ALIASES // TITLES
Richter Gamble-CURRENT ALIAS USED FOR CAMPAIGN
Jonesy
Cyborg

SEX
Male

AGE
60

APPEARANCE:

Usually dressed utilitarian clothing, combined with his favorite collared jacket, Proctor keeps a low profile. His body is on the more toned side, or, really, his torso is. His arms and legs are all cybernetic, so they keep their toned shape no matter what, keeping overall slim and tall. His augments, however, are visibly aged, both by being covered by nicks, scratches and dents from years of fighting and abuse, and also from being generally older models. His limbs, while still being in the classic sleek, attractive APEX style, are still distinctly outdated, but still well operating, despite their wear, still command the same respect that augments usually do.

His hair is a bright white, indicative of his age, but his eyes glow an augmented bright blue, having changed from his natural-born brown eyes. He has a large augmentation encompassing much of the back and sides of his head, covered in glowing lights and different colored steel, also covered in it’s fair share of scratches and scuffs. The skin around his augment is scarred and warped, but the rest of his face is surprisingly free of defects, other than the obvious wrinkles setting in, and a few moles and other signs of old age. Most of his face, though, is covered by a large white beard, which is growing increasingly unkempt as time goes by. You’d probably describe him as a “Robo-Grandpa” if you saw him.

OCCUPATION:
”Streetjack, Pavement Pusher, whatever you want to call it. I make money.”

CAMPAIGN TEAM POSITION:
Fundraising Manager

---

Psychological Profile

Confident | Anxious | Cunning | Self-Involved | Pessimistic | Distrustful

▢PERSONAL GOAL▢

Proctor’s only aim is to keep himself alive. Whatever it takes to make sure he can get what he needs to stay afloat, Proctor will do it.The ever looming fear of his demise helps keep the haze in his mind at bay, but with every day that passes, Proctor can feel the noose around his neck tightening, the blade press closer into his neck, and the energy powering his limbs slowly seeping out of him. Even though he hasn’t much to live for, Proctor desperately wants to live. He doesn’t want to be another nameless corpse left to rot in the streets amongst the vermin and trash. Proctor would rather die trying to get rich than to go out on his ass, broke, and without any say in the matter.

▣CAMPAIGN GOAL▣

When you live the life and come from the kind of work that Proctor has, you know that money can be rung from any rag you can find in the streets. The Reclaim Zone is laden with opportunities for anyone a little loose on their morals or quick on their trigger, so why he decided to start working with Campbell, even Proctor isn’t quite sure of yet. Mostly, he supposes, it’s the money that could potentially be earned on the winning side of a mayoral run. Money, and access to the drugs he needs to keep his SPECS at bay. At the same time, however, if Campbell’s promise holds true, and he does his best to clean the streets up, Proctor sees a good opportunity to wipe a lot of former competition off the map. A double win for the aging cyborg.

If anything, perhaps this campaign could give him some sort of purpose other than just to keep breathing. If he must finally face his own mortality, at least he could do something before he dies, right? Proctor’s never been one to worry about leaving a mark on the world, but you’re never too old to actually ambitions, are you?

◈PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY◈

Ever since Proctor began to learn about all humans’ tendency, no matter how self sacrificing or generous they are, to value themselves over everyone else, he’s lived and survived by that school of thought. He’s not a heartless animal willing to get one over on or kill anyone at any turn, he believes in treating people with at least a modicum of respect and decency, but, no one is above him in importance. If it means his life or death, sink or float, Proctor works for himself and only himself. The Reclaim Zone has taken more than enough lives, right before Proctor’s eyes, and now, survival is the greatest high Proctor can feel.

It’s been a very long time since Proctor made any major moves, subsisting on odd jobs and petty pushing for decades. Seeing what semblance of a foundation he had ripped away from him taught him that worrying about others or trying to carry some sort of following is a pipe dream for him. Collaborative efforts, while sweet for a while, do eventually crumble. He just hopes that maybe he can get away from this one with more than he did the last one.

◇POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY◇

Proctor has spent so much time wallowing with the denizens of the Reclaim zone that he never felt the need to dabble or pay attention to politics, at least not past knowing who swung around the most power, or which street gangs controlled the most territory. Due to his augments, he’s had a few run ins and discussions with some Neo-Transhumanists and HyperHuman monks, developing a bit of connection with both groups. After putting up with his fair share of unwarranted hatred for being “an abomination of man and machine”, it was a pleasant change of pace to speak with people that embraced his choices and encouraged him to continue his work on perfecting his form and replacing his human weakness with mechanical dominance. While the spiritual side of the various movements never interested him much, their unconditional support of augmenting the human body is good enough reason for Proctor to give them his support.

The obvious is not lost on Proctor, that the mega-corporations rule many aspects of life, the government is mostly corrupt with a few good souls trying to do good, but most of it flies under his radar. What matters to him the most is what happens on the street level, his level. The difference between people is negligible, everyone is equal to Proctor in that he doesn’t care much for anyone. The effort it takes to rally for a purpose, or to carry prejudice against others, or to try and uplift entire demographics, is all an effort in futility for Proctor.

⊠SECRETS⊠

Well, really, his identity is a secret in and of itself. He’s got a lot of enemies, and powerful ones at that, but Proctor hasn’t tried to make any major moves for decades. The heat has been off for a while now, but if his name were to reappear in the spotlight, Proctor is sure he’d have a bullet in his skull in no time at all. Even those who don’t want to kill him might not exactly enjoy or appreciate his presence, as his criminal past has made him somewhat of an infamous character in the local lore. Better to just give a fake name and hope his aging face hides who he used to be.

⊡FEARS⊡

Number One at the top of that list is easily Death. The concept of it, the act of dying, all of it shakes Proctor to the bone. Life has caught up very quickly with Proctor, and all of a sudden, he’s dealing with his very real mortality, despite all the measures he took to try and avoid it when he was young.

Nothing much else scares Proctor much, other than the thought of the forgotten bounties on his head that are still floating around. As much as he likes to put on a tough guy front, he does often peer over his shoulders, wondering if one of his old rivals is going to send a shooter after him. Most things that pull some fear and anxiety from Proctor, like heights, often just have to do with his overwhelming fear of death.

☲REPUTATION☲

Proctor is a sort of ghost story in the streets of the Reclaim Zone at this point. He’s not a household name or anything like that, but there are still stories that float around about the the guy that tried to rival The Knights back in the day. Most people think he’s dead, and aging and further augments have made Proctor’s looks a far cry from what they used to be, helping conceal his continued presence in the Reclaim.

The men which used to work with Proctor know the truth, though, and most still hold Proctor in high esteem, as their former leader, charismatic and kind, but never destined to be powerful. Those who need to work with or know Proctor respect him, but his name doesn’t really garner fear anymore, just simple interest. He was never in it for the fame, just the money, but he doesn’t have much of anything anymore.

Even though not many people talk about him anymore, there are still a select few that want him dead, namely Jackson Rott, and men of his ilk. Some men still remember Proctor as the man who wanted the Reclaim Zone for himself, and would like to kill him just to tie up another loose end from the old days.

◉LIKES◉

◦Taking walks through bustling city streets.
◦A bout of recreational drugs when he can spare the cash.
◦The rush of making money.

⊛DISLIKES⊛

◦Losing money.
◦The fog of SPECS.
◦Contemplating his mortality.
◦People who are rude to people who work in customer service.

◘QUIRKS◘

When sitting in chairs, Proctor will mindlessly rock back and forth in his seat. Not hard but just slightly enough for someone to notice.

No matter where he is or what he is doing, Proctor will sometimes stop, stand in one place, and just stretch everything out. His arms, legs, back, jaw, everything, just to try and loosen up and relax. Even though, you know, most of his limbs are… metal.

---

Background Information

⍒Biography⍒

”I tried to never let this place define me, I just made the best of what I was given. I did what I wanted to, fucked and fucked over whoever I felt like, and the same got done to me, but I never let it stop my work, my hustle. I never really needed a ‘meaning’ or a ‘purpose’ past just surviving, because that’s enough by itself.”

Somewhere unimportant in the Reclaim Zone, Proctor was brought into an uninterested and uncaring Angel City. Most of his memories of his early life and his parents are fading away from him, whether it be the early stages of SPECS, his age, all the blows he’s taken to the head, or perhaps a combination of both. He remembers his parents being rather plain people, neither very abrasive nor soft. They were just another pair of people driven by their primitive human need to keep breathing and walking, led not by passion or desire, but rather, blind autonomous survival.

Early on in his life, the importance of protecting himself was imprinted heavily on him by his parents, whether it be by the lectures and speeches he can’t quite remember anymore, or the many times he saw what failure to survive looked like. He wasn’t coddled or made to believe maybe he could leave the Reclaim Zone someday in the future, he was shown exactly what life does to anyone who loses their way. People die, people suffer, and the only one who could change that is the individual.

Goodness and Evilness weren’t real, they were just words people made to describe the positive and negative they had to work with. The world was disinterested in its inhabitants, with the Zone providing nothing but shade to those that dwelled within its walls. Life, day in and day out, writhed it’s way in and out of the streets, in and around their homes, all in their autonomous need to stay above ground. They didn’t stay alive because of their passion for life or joy in living, they stayed alive because that’s all they knew how to do. Even then, some of them failed, and Proctor was vigilant to learn from others’ failure.

Solidifying all his learnings in the Art of Survival, the day his parents were killed did well to shape up the then young Proctor. Though he’d never dare admit it, the day is still a sort of sensitive topic for him, so after doing a good job of compartmentalizing the whole ordeal, the details are fuzzy, but the important details are still there. A standard home burglary gone wrong, except as soon as the fatal danger presented itself, his parents fled, leaving the then 9 year-old Proctor alone cowering in his room. Of course, they were never allowed to get very far before each were shot to death. Whether the shooter hadn’t the resolve to murder a child, or saw it as a waste of time or ammunition, Proctor was left alone in the house after it had been stripped of all it’s valuables.

The Reclaim Zone seemed unbothered as another orphaned child turned into a street urchin, as Proctor took to the streets in search of ways to keep himself alive. Whether it was digging in the trash cans behind restaurants, stealing and selling pieces of technology, Proctor found a way to survive. He learned the value of a credit, how to stretch a credit for all it was worth, and all the tragic normalities that come with living on the street. He became insignificant member of the festering biomass that surged in and out of the streets everyday, learning to be one with the ever moving tides of life and death, always managing to keep mostly dry, even if Death’s putrid scent always lingered around him.

Nothing that Proctor built ever came easy or quickly. Between knife fights with junkies in alleyways, or “repurposing” stashes of drugs he in no way stole from anyone, Proctor managed to keep his chin above water, making a bit of a name for himself amongst the local clan of urchins. Even though it was out of character, it seemed like the eyes on the walls finally concentrated on someone, that maybe, just maybe, someone was peeling themselves off the pavement, not a common sight in the Reclaim Zone. As much as Proctor knew about survival, the city that had remained standing around Proctor, after millenia of mistreatment and abuse, knew more than him, and it was time to prove himself.

For once, the kid knew ambition, and it began to manifest itself in interesting ways. Instead of trying to consume him, the streets embraced him, and his fellow urchins knew power when they saw it. Even if it could’ve ended up in his back, Proctor knew that a second knife was always stronger than just one, and soon enough, he had his own gang of people who were trying to make it through the shifting tides, just like him.

The Gamblers were the Zone’s newest collection of like-minded miscreants, and the Zone was quick to take notice. What used to be petty robbery and knife fights turned into small scale heists and drug dealing. Credits weren’t a new language to Proctor, but he was suddenly becoming much more fluent than he used to be. Surviving was finally feeling easier than it had before. The walls around the Zone had finally loosed up, and the waves were splashing lower down on Proctor’s legs, the stench of Death that followed him was beginning to disperse.

With this newfound money and power, Proctor began to take even more drastic measures to ensure that his chin stayed above sea level, and took to replacing his weak, imperfect organs & limbs with ones made of black metal. Flesh and blood gave way to steel and copper, lungs and heart extracted and replaced with machines that could do their jobs more reliably and for a much longer time. Slowly, Proctor was becoming more machine than man, but those fears that made him human were still woven deeply in him, whether they were woven with flesh or fiber optic.

The paranoia that crept deep within him made him wonder, were there other standouts from the Zone that would try to get rid of him? He and his gang had made their space in the Zone, but he was doubtless that there were others who wanted to push them out. There were plenty of other gangs that had their eyes on the space he occupied, but none of them posed as big as a threat as the Knights, the most aggressive, assertive gang in the Zone.

Despite their penchant for violence and subjugation, the Knights still wanted to maintain stability and freedom, and the Gambler’s and their disregard for most of the residents presented an issue for Jackson Rott and his Knights. For the most part, issues remained simple disagreements or scuffles in alleyways, but as each gang grew larger and more vicious, these small squabbles slowly became more serious dust-ups and fights.

Soon, it was full-on turf war, and, to spare the details, The Gamblers came out the losers. Most of the men and women Proctor had just begun to call his friends now stained the streets with their blood. Suddenly, the waters began to rise up around Proctor, and now, they were stained red and carried a stench on them that Proctor couldn’t even escape in his weak slumber. Many of Proctor’s memories have become muddled and fuzzy over time, but he remembers the day his Gamblers failed to survive very clearly.

Removed from his spot amongst the Zone’s special survivors and presumed dead, Proctor went into hiding, taking what little he had left and, like he had done so many years before, melded back into the writhing masses of the Zone, shrouded in the anonymity of street survival. He was driven by neither passion nor joy, but instead, his primitive, human drive to breathe and walk.

After years in obscurity, living from job to job, surviving one way or anything, a new job presented itself to Proctor. The rising campaign of Dexter Campbell, and the multiple open positions to help him dethrone Mayor Gatch felt like a stroke of incredible luck. Campbell needed someone to raise funds, and if Proctor knew how to do anything, it was to make money. He gave them a fake name, Richter Gamble, and joined the campaign as Dexter’s Fundraising Manager. Coming up with money for a campaign was difficult, but Proctor was sure he’d be able to use the skills he’d spent his whole life building to find his way into more money and power than he’d ever had before.

---

Operative Information

▩AUGMENTATIONS▩

Two (2) APEX Model 35-S Cybernetic Arms, One Left and One Right

Both are Proctor’s arms are outdated, APEX-made pieces of machinery. Together, they give the operator the strength to lift about half a ton, but since Proctor is still stuck with a normal human spine, he doesn’t really have the ability to support that weight. That doesn’t nullify all the strength granted by his arms, as he can still punch a hole through most brick walls, and has some serious throwing capability to add too.

Both of his arms, as stated above, are, at this point, approximately thirty years old, and while they don’t carry and suite of tools or make him quite a superhuman, they are still strong and reliable pieces of technology, top-of-the-line back in their heyday. Even decades old APEX are something to behold, but he won’t be stopping traffic anytime soon with these aging arms.

Two (2) FuryTech Strider-Class E.R.L Legs

Capable of outrunning a bullet train, deliver kicks that could kill an elephant, or supporting, at most, a full ton of weight, Proctor’s Strider Legs were intended to be the only cybernetic legs you’d ever need for the rest of your life, available at a price for which wouldn’t take you that time to pay back, too. Of course, now being about twenty-five years old, they aren’t quite the glamourous, impressive legs there were advertised to be back in their heyday, but they work.

Age and use haven’t been good to them, and when not wearing pants, these legs look drastically different than most cybernetic limbs today, as they don’t really try to imitate human limbs in their looks. Black metal, adorned with scratches and dents, are all that greets the eyes when they see Proctor’s legs. Open joints, robotic imposters of toes, audible mechanical whirring sometimes, they are very obviously some worn legs. Maybe a little bit of exposed wiring here and there, but nothing too big.

While the legs were certainly capable of delivering on their claims when they were first released, time has not been good to their performance. Not to say they haven’t held up well enough, but Proctor, while he can propel himself much faster than the ordinary man, hasn’t been able to outrun a bullet train in a long time. He can still kick the head almost completely off a man, but he’d probably just sooner shoot them than do that.

One (1) FuryTech C.O.R.E Heart

While not exactly bulletproof, the FuryTech Cardiac Organ Replacing Enhancement is still a very hardy and reliable piece of machinery. While, technically, pumping blood harder than an organic heart can isn’t exactly beneficial, being able to do that job much longer and with less problems is FuryTech’s strength. The unit is much, much less likely to deal with irregular heartbeats, is 99% likely to never be stricken by arrest, and can negate many of the effects of arteries afflicted with cholesterol build up, which isn’t exactly ideal, but still means a much better life than otherwise. When the unit was made, blood purification systems weren’t quite off the ground yet, so the most this heart can do is help alleviate the effects of blood-borne illnesses or poisons, but nothing much past that.

You may be wondering if the unit is vulnerable to EMP blasts, which would be critical flaw, but thankfully, it’s not. Even twenty or so years ago when Proctor acquired his limbs, the ability to shield them from outside blasts was already pretty commonplace, so his heart, and other augments for that matter, are all fairly well protected against any sort of anti-electronic measures. At least, they were when they were produced. As for how the shielding has held up over time, that remains yet to be seen.

One (1) FuryTech R.O.R.E Set of Lungs

To accompany and take advantage of having an enhanced heart, Proctor also has an enhanced set of lungs, also from FuryTech. They’re meant to allow much longer stamina when it comes to vigorous activity, as the blood in one’s body can be oxygenated and pumped much faster than with a standard set of organs. Combine that with a set of Cybernetic Arms and Legs, and it makes for someone who can keep moving, quicky, for a long time.

Being made of metal and fiber optic and materials of tha sort, many of the common worries that come with regular lungs don’t apply to these Respiratory Organ Replacing Enhancements. Lung Cancer is almost a non-issue, being punctured or crushed presents much less of an issue, as the lungs can support life with just one side, or can expand and contract with much greater force when under great pressure. This might mean pushing a little bit against a few other organs, or breaking a few ribs, but that’s only in the most extreme situations.

One (1) EngiTech Maximus Neural Assistant M.V. 7

Built to connect into brain, specifically in the synapses that have to do with processing visual information and those that have to do with decision making, the Maximus Neural Assistant was meant to help accelerate the user’s ability to make quick, on the spot decisions, help them retain more a photographic memory, and interpret and respond to visual stimuli more quickly. It wasn’t meant to make you an artificial genius, or really, to make you any smarter, for that matter. It was basically just meant to help with improve reaction time and vision.

The unit presents itself as a large, well lit plate that encompasses most of the back and sides of the user’s head. Proctor’s model, or course, is well-worn, covered in scratches and dents from years of blows to the head. While the unit may not be able to much in the way of memory enhancement anymore, it has still given Proctor a good reaction time despite his age and his plague.

▨EQUIPMENT▨

F. HeavyTech Lex-01.45CAL Caseless Machine Pistol

This Fury-HeavyTech weapon blurs the line between a machine pistol and a full blown submachine gun. With a fire rate that can tuned and changed, caseless ammunition, and it’s compact size, the Lex-01 is quite the effortless killer. The weapon can accept a wide range different size magazines, anywhere from ten-round magazines, to some large, rather unwieldy one hundred round mags. Highly modular and customizable, the Lex-01, while not exactly a workhorse weapon, can still be changed to fit a variety of different situations the user could face. There are spots to mount optics, flashlights, suppressors or muzzle breaks, and even easily changeable grips to make sure that the user can get the most comfort and reliability from their weapon.

Proctor’s particular model sports an integrated flashlight, and a small holographic optic, with a threaded barrel and suppressor on hand for when the situation calls for it. He likes to keep his weapon set to roughly 900-1000 rounds per minute, and carries around mostly thirty round magazines, with maybe one or two fifty-round magazines for where the need arises. The main body of the pistol is scratched, marred chrome, with onyx black accents. The weapon is usually kept in an underarm holster that Proctor Conceals with his overcoat.

F. HeavyTech Persecutor L.P.B.A

Offering strong, reliable protection, while maximizing mobility and discreteness, is the main goal off the Fury/HeavyTech Low Profile Body Armor. The Persecutor set was meant to be worn under clothing, making the armor discreet and almost completely unnoticeable. The armor itself is a extremely strong, durable combination of kevlar woven with an alloy of steel and aluminum, giving the user top of the line protection against most calibers of standard bullet. When it comes to more experimental and advanced types of projectiles, the armor’s protection may not hold up, but considering the rarity of those types of weapons, this shouldn’t present much of an issue. The Persecutor is a full body set of armor, protecting the most vital parts of the body, with sacrifices around places like joints for the sake of maneuverability.

While the Persecutor isn’t the end all be all of body armor, it can still sustain a few fatal blows, buying the wearer vital seconds in pivotal moments of a gun fight. If it’s a knife fight we’re talking about, the Persecutor actually makes up for the weakness of the armor of yesteryear and can manage resisting most mid level conventional blades. When it comes to high end conventional blades, or perhaps some more unconventional blades, well, the Prosecutor may not quite hold up.

◩SKILLS:◩

Street Intuition

Proctor’s entire life has been spent in and around the hard streets of the Reclaim. He knows the kind of people you’re destined to meet around here very well, and the dangers streets themselves pose. From back alley crooks, to sidewalk junk vendors, Proctor understands how all the cogs spin in place to keep the streets moving perpetually. If you’re trying to navigate the Reclaim and keep out of as much travel as possible, Proctor’s your guy.

Silver Coated RoboTongue

Knowing your way around the Reclaim isn’t completely useful if you don’t know how to talk to people either. Either Proctor is just good at knowing what to say, or he has some ethereal charm that even he himself isn’t aware of, but when Proctor speaks to people, he knows how to get them on his side. Business discussions, bartering on various goods, whatever it is that Proctor needs to do, he can usually talk his way into an advantage. Even if someone’s trying to harm poor old Proctor, he has a good way of weaseling out of a beating or stabbing, but, he’s still gotta defend himself every now and again.

◪FLAWS:◪

S.P.E.C.S

The worst has come to pass, and the man who was once touted as a near immortal cyborg has been dealt the worst hand possible. The beginning stages of S.P.E.C.S have begin to set in on Proctor’s mind, and it’s worsened his already aging and bad memory. Proctor is slowly dying, and it will be the Cyber Plague that will finally bring him to his knees if he doesn’t begin to find himself a steady supply of Neutrosynth. Addiction to Neurosynth, however, is a bridge he will have to cross when he gets there, assuming he gets there in the first place.

Extreme Fear of Death

Call it a phobia or just healthy paranoia, as age and disease begin to set in on Proctor, the thought of his impending death shakes him to the core. When faced with situations that could result in his possible death, or when having to confront his worsening plague, he will begin to lose his lucidity, giving in to panic attacks that can range from timid to crippling. Extreme fight or flee instincts will kick in during dangerous situations, and Proctor will either fight much harder than he has to, resulting in sometimes injury or further damage to his parts, or will abandon anything besides the clothes on his back to get away.

Aging Parts

Even though robotic parts are meant to last longer than Human ones, after the lifetime of abuse and overuse that his have faced, Proctor’s various parts are beginning to show their age, and are paying for it. Very seldomly, his limbs will flat-out stall out on him, either getting stuck in the middle of use, or going limps. Servos have been replaced, motors fixed, but with the age of his limbs and the onset of S.P.E.C.S, his limbs just aren’t performing as well as they used to. One of these days, they might just stall out when he really needs them.

NOTES

None.

[Firecracker_]

September 26th, 2021, Sonia’s Log.

The happiest thing I can really say is, ‘At least the heat isn’t sweltering anymore.’ And that about ends the list of positive things I can mention. Everything else is pretty… discouraging, to say the least. Our stock of just about everything is running pretty thin, not to mention morale is starting to tank. Can’t say I don’t understand how sour the mood’s gotten, though.

Leaving Reno was probably the hardest thing most of us have had to do, and this fruitless venture through Nevada has been just throwing salt into the wound. Carson City, Tonopah, everything along 95 is gone, and then to see that Vegas itself had fallen really just took the wind out of our sails, so to speak. Sure, we’d lost radio contact with them some time ago, but we’d assumed it was on our end. Knowing now that Las Vegas was infected really took the wind out of our sails, so to speak.

Neither Paradise nor Henderson weren’t spared from the spread of the infection, and both were swarmed with Feral. It’s nothing short of miraculous we made it out of that area alive, if it wasn’t the Ferals chasing use out of Nevada, or the sweltering heat of the Mojave, something was always trying to kick us while we’re down, so still being in one piece is definitely something to be proud of.

[Firecracker_]

maverick eshlin, a criminal born and raised in louisiana

⌝ former life

For a few years leading up to the Fall, Maverick had been an active small time criminal, and had just recently become involved with a drug smuggling operation deep in New Orleans. Quickly, though, the activity had garnered the attention of the FBI and DEA, and after a botched drug deal, Maverick fled, leaving his old friends behind to clean up the mess. With his former associates out for his head, and law enforcement wanting to lock him up, Maverick took the best way out he could think of and headed for the Northern Border, to escape into Canada. When the virus hit and society collapsed, Maverick had barely made it into Michigan, just short of his goal of making it across the Great Lakes. He was stranded and alone, and now had to deal with the dead rising around him.

⌝ appearance

Maverick stands on slender, toned legs, with the rest of his body following suit in form and tone. Never having been the most built or muscular man, Maverick has always been on the thin, lanky side, but it’s always worked in his advantage, most of the time at least. His wiry build holds him up at a healthy five feet, nine inches tall, a well rounded height to maintain a low profile. Overall, his figure is nothing of note and doesn’t draw much attention, but that’s exactly what he wanted, and it worked well for his previous life.

His hair is now a long, overgrown mess, with only traces of the well-kempt haircut he used to have left behind. His beard has taken over most of his face, with his narrow, naturally sort of pursed lips being nearly enveloped by encroaching mustache whiskers. His eyes are slightly sunken and dark, with bags and circles he’s had since before the Fall, but which have only been exacerbated since. He has what some people have described as “Resting Bitch Face”, meaning that his neutral facial expression usually isn’t a friendly or inviting one. His eyes are narrow and distrustful, with his smile being a thing of rarity.

⌝ personality

Most would say that Maverick has a cool personality, and some would say he’s cold nearly to a fault. His line of work and general upbringing never put much value in extended and warm conversation, and so he’s learned to be mostly succinct and efficient in his speaking. Sentences one or three words in length are normality, and his usual tone of voice is unsurprisingly also lacking in energy. Maverick has barely spoken a word in years, and his lack of social interaction really shows in conversation.

None of this should be taken as an express indication that Maverick is actually a cold, heartless man. Make no mistake, he’s no street tramp with a heart of gold or some sort of soft-spoken anti-hero, but he’s still a man with a decent set of morals and an intact sense of empathy and sympathy. It’s simply that, most of the time, his desire for expediency and efficiency keep most of these thoughts away from the forefront of mind. If you scratch his back, he’ll scratch yours, but don’t expect him to be jumping in front of moving vehicles anytime soon.

Maverick is not a man of thinking, he’s more a man of action. If something needs to get done, he’ll get it done, as long as he has a solid leader in his life. His lack of strong leaders in his development years led to him always searching for someone to give him direction, for someone to please, and that’s how he fell into crime and stayed so good at it. Give Maverick directions, and he’ll follow it up to the T, anything short of throwing himself off a cliff, he’ll accomplish to the best of his ability. That’s the only way he knows how to act, and it’s what kept him alive for so long in Louisiana. The Rangers were a great chance for him to find some semblance of organization again, as he’d spent the better part of the last 5 years wandering, staying just barely alive.

⌝ biography

Born in New Orleans, Maverick spent a majority of his early life in a small suburb east of the Big Easy. His father left his life very early on, but not because he was some vagabond that couldn’t be bothered with a child by any means. His father, like Maverick would later become, was a career criminal, and decided one night to rob the wrong house, and was quickly shot and killed by the homeowner. Left by herself with a child and no job, Maverick’s mother tried her hardest to get her life together, throwing herself into multiple jobs, all while juggling the stress of raising a child alone, still in pain over the loss of her husband. Quickly, though, the pressure of a child and two jobs became too overbearing, and she reached a breaking point. What was once a little indulgence here and there to relieve stress, became crippling addiction that dictated her life more than her jobs and her child.

Maverick’s early childhood was a mess of being abandoned by his addict mother, and with no other family members she could even pass responsibility to, Maverick was truly alone. His memories are characterized by periods of hunger and sleeplessness, fighting off the fear of being alone, but even when his mother was present it wasn’t sunny. She tried her best to be the mother she knew she could be, but she had fallen so far from grace, her child learned to raise himself sooner than she could.

The pattern of abandonment and drug abuse continued for many years, that is, until the hurricane hit. In the disarray, Maverick was separated from his mother in the early hours of the morning due to the severe flooding, and was rescued just before sun up, in nothing short of a miracle for the young man. That same miracle couldn’t be replicated for his mother, though, as she remained missing, lost to the growing floodwaters. Going from refugee camp to refugee camp, his mother was nowhere to be found.

Even after all these years, Maverick has never found his mother, as she remains one of hundreds that are still considered missing to this day.

Having lost just about everything he had, from his only family, to his own few material possessions, Maverick had no means to travel anywhere to start anew. He had to drag himself back to his old life with only the clothes on his back, only now, there was almost nothing left of anyone else’s life, either. Same as his mother, a lot of his friends had gone missing or died in the floods too, so the few friends that he had, all banded together and tried their best to fend for each other.

Scavenging and thievery were the best way to get by for a while, but as reconstruction and revitalization efforts came underway, many of them were able to get steady jobs, with some slowly getting back on their feet and venturing out on their own. Others found it too difficult to continue living a shell of an old life, and either left, fell victim to addiction, or just gave up on life entirely. Those first few years after were the most difficult of Maverick’s life, but they forced him to grow up faster than he ever thought he’d have to, and molded much of who he is today.

Even when money began to flow back into the destruction-stricken area, it wasn’t always enough to keep those sinking people afloat, and just like before, many turned to crime to support themselves, Maverick being no different. It had been three years since the disaster, and Maverick was still struggling, both mentally and financially. Many of his friends had moved on and left, leaving Maverick alone once again. Seeing how many of his friends had taken to crime to support themselves, he followed suit, joining in on the ranks of petty street crime and drug dealing. Desperation and hunger make for a dedicated worker, and it wasn’t long before he caught the attention of some of the underworld’s veterans. Mack was known as a dedicated worker, who wasn’t afraid of a challenge or susceptible to the ordinary harassment or violent threats that people like him faced regularly.

Mack had ingratiated himself with the old guard, favors here and there, small time jobs from time to time. He’d proven to be reliable and honest, two traits that meant a lot, but most of all, he wasn’t a talker. Most joked that he’d never even learned to talk, and only knew how to communicate through nods and blinks. Jokes aside, his work ethic and professionalism had earned him a good name with those that it mattered with, and before he knew it, he was starting to move up in the ranks.

After a few years of hustling, just a week after his 23rd birthday, Mack was brought in on something much larger than himself. The bosses had become part of a much larger, statewide operation of smuggling drugs. No more dimebags or eight balls on street corners, this was bigger money and bigger stakes, all of which was enticing to Mack. He’d made good money off the streets, and was hungry for the chance to make even more.

The entire operation was based in the docks, where the increased amount of construction supplies coming in were used to smuggle more drugs than they had ever before. Yes, security was tight, but everyone was having a tough time, and the right people were easy to bribe. Once the cargo landed, that’s where Mack and his crew came in. They were in charge of making sure all the shipments were being broken down and transported properly and as secretly as possible. The less eyes and hands, the better, and he was thriving in the new environment. Working in the dark, quietly and diligently was the exact kind of work that he favored. As long as he kept his part of the daisy chain running smoothly, he was paid and fed well.

That was all well and good, for the moment, at least, but, large scale criminal operations like that take a lot more than a few greased palms and strong-armed snitches to keep under wraps. Distrust between the ranks began to grow. As small pawns here and there were caught and imprisoned, some were beginning to think that there was an informant in the mix. Soon, eyes fell to Maverick, and it came time to prove his loyalty.

In front of him was a single, bound man. In his hand, a loaded pistol. Behind the captive was a deep grave, dug in a filthy lot in a long abandoned part of town, and behind Maverick was a duo of criminal lieutenants, observing to be sure he could prove his loyalty to the bosses by killing someone they’d deemed expendable. When it came between Maverick’s life or the man in front of him, the choice seemed obvious and easy to him.

Not too long after it happened, it became clear that the man he killed was more than just a simple snitch, and now the docks were swarmed with police activity and surrviellance, and many of the bosses were going down with the ship. Maverick’s loyalty and hard work, however, only went as far as they could pay him, so instead of sticking around and seeing it all to the end, he fled. Mexico was too obvious a choice in his mind, and the southern border was far more secure and heavily-manned than the northern one, he imagined, so instead of south, he fled north. Even as most of his colleagues had decided to go down with the ship and keep the code of silence, Mack slipped away when the least attention was thrown his way, and made his dash for Canada.

The journey north was fraught with fear and loneliness, but if Maverick was to hang on to whatever freedom he had left, his life depended on it. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t been used to, though, and everything leading up to this point had properly prepared him to make this sort of trip. What it didn’t quite prepare him for, though, was the virus that had begun to take it’s grips on the country during his flight from Louisiana, and he found himself in the middle of Michigan when it finally all hit the fan. He wasn’t very close to any major cities, so he was spared of the initial carnage of it all, but the collapse’s effects inevitably spread wide and far, and what was a fight for his freedom turned into a fight for his life.

After the Fall, he never did leave the state of Michigan, as, after society collapsed, there was little reason to continue into Canada, where he’d probably have an even harder time surviving. Quickly, though, he found himself scavenging and surviving alone, until he found reliable stability in Wolfwater. Even now, with relative safety, Maverick desired a new sense of purpose. Crime was no longer an exception, it was more or less the norm, and Maverick had tired of running around and working only for the benefit of others who made a profit off his work. In the Rangers, he saw a chance to work with good, dependable people for a change, and for a positive goal, no less. Not so much a transformation, it was more of a “predictable transition” for the criminal. If you could call it that, at least.

⌝ gear
▣ Glock 22 .40Cal Handgun x1

- 15 Round Magazine x3
- SilencerCo Osprey Supressor x1

▣ A Medium Combat Knife
▣ Brass Knuckles
▣ Compact set of Binoculars
▣ IFAK Medkit

⌝ skills[center]
◈ Resilient - Maverick hasn’t just used sheer luck to persevere through the hardship that’s been presented to him. He learned young that he’d have to learn how to process and deal with adverse situations quickly, and have a level head about any sort of obstacle. He may not be good at encouraging others, but he is good at keeping himself afloat and clear minded.
◈ Hardened - Crime wasn’t an easy job, and one has to put up with a lot of threatening talk and physical violence in that line of work. It will take more than a few punches or violent words to bother Maverick, which is proving fairly useful in this new world.
◈ Brawler - Having been in a fair share of fist fights and melee brawls, Maverick is well versed in the ways of an amatuer pugilist, and can use his brass knuckles to great effect. His grappling and footwork have helped him stay away from the snapping maws of infected countless times in the past, and will probably continue to do so for a while more.
◈ Criminally Skilled - Need a car hotwired? What about a lock picked? Or maybe you just need someone who can shoot guns out of moving vehicles and actually hit something? Well, all of that is in Maverick’s wheelhouse and he’s not scared to use any skills he can to survive.
◈ Terrifying Presence - Always being around the worst of the worst, and having your life threatened on a regular basis can really thicken someone’s skin and give them a look on their face that most others don’t find comforting. Combine his cold looks with his cold demeanor, and you have someone that is naturally a bit intimidating, and someone that can get downright scary when he really needs to get a point across.

⌝ flaws

◇ No Teddy Bear - On the flip side of that coin, having a mean look on your face and not talking much isn’t very conducive to making friends or having people like you. People tend to be turned away by his abrasive nature, and he’s not exactly the best at winning back through anything but great effort. He’s not good at talking himself out of situations or making good deals on trades either, unless maybe he can intimidate to get out of a tight spot.
◇ Walled Up - Maverick has gone through a lot of loss and tribulation, and it has made him unwilling to forge relationships with new people, both out of fear of making connections and plainly not wanting to be bothered with it. It even ends up making him unwilling to allow others to help him, hiding wounds and refusing assistance, even when he probably should.
◇ Self-Centered - While able to pragmatically work with and cooperate with people when it’s mutually beneficial, Maverick isn’t very willing to do things that benefit exclusively other people or actively harm his well-being for the sake of others. He’ll leave you behind, if you trip, you better get yourself up. Not the best battle buddy to have.

⌝ Other
Nothing I can think of right now.

[Firecracker_]

Olex froze in place, and like an animal staring into the lights of the vehicle that would shortly kill it, his eyes bore into the small gleam he could see radiating from the blanket of shade over the ally, before muttering a series of expletives and reaching inside his shirt for his gun. His fingers wrapped around the grip of his pistol, whitening his knuckles with the force, but as he pulled the gun out, one of the silhouettes had bounded forward, and the glint of a polished cybernetic hand shined in Olex’s eyes, with the augment taking full grip of his wrist, pushing it against his chest, and the shadow’s face only half illuminated by the beam of light. The force pushed Olex into a wall in the alley, away from the crowd that was already drawing to the commotion, and made it difficult to breathe as he struggled with the force from the assailant’s brute power. He responded in kind, his left hand going straight for the assailant’s neck, with his right arm snapping taught as the dueling motors of either augment roared against the other’s force, the whining creak of metal rubbing against metal bouncing off the surrounding brick walls. Punctuating the fight with a deafening pang, the assailant’s hand caught Olex’s before he could get his vice grip on their neck. It was only as he began trying to crank his wrist to point his pistol, even with his arm pinned to stomach, that he slowly became cognizant of the assailant yelling his name, and it slowly became more and more perceivable until he was looking straight up at the half-lit face of the would be assassin.

”Don’t, Asahi! Don’t shoot, it’s me!” A woman’s voice rasped as her dark brown, wide eyes stared into Olex’s own blue ones.

Olex continued to struggle for a bit longer, feeling his own arm whir as his grip loosened, having almost crushed the gun in his hand. It took a moment, but the familiar voice combined with the use of an old nickname made him snap out of his craze, and fully observe the details of the face in front of him.

”Wha- Who the fuck? Is that you, Grail?” His voice was incredulous, but he craned his neck backwards to get a more complete look at the woman’s face, and it indeed was one he hadn’t seen in a long time. In an instant, he could recognize the small star tattoo at the corner of her forehead, the shrapnel scar across the left side of her face. It was Grail, coined so after the “Holy Grail”, in reference to her ornate and beautiful engravings with inlaid gold she kept so immaculately clean, covering all her augments, which, now that he was paying attention, Olex could see still shining brightly in the small ray of light that hit them. Her eyes looked scared almost, but he knew the woman that currently had him pinned to a wall seldom ever felt actual fear.

”Yes! Yes, it’s me, Oleksandr. Just calm down, we aren’t here to hurt you. Let go of the gun, and I’ll ease up on you, alright? Put it away.”

Us?

Finally breaking his eye contact with Grail, he shifted his view over her shoulder, and could see a much younger man, with a crazed look in his eyes, his one solid black arm of gunmetal and titanium training a gun on Olex’s head. He could tell, had the young man’s arm still been made of flesh and bone, it’d be shaking violently, with a look on his face that was that of a fish out of water.

Grail felt the tension in Olex’s arms release, and she relaxed in kind, looking up at his face to see that he still hadn’t looked away from the young man behind them, and she craned her head to look behind her. Light flooded her eyes, and through squinted eyelids, she could make out the form of her partner, who was still pointing his pistol at the man in front of her.

”Put the gun down, kid!”

The young man hadn’t broken his stare with Olex either, and hadn’t even moved since the scuffle had begun. Slowly, Olex began to bring his hand to Grail’s shoulder, and gave her a gentle push away from him, to his side, so that nothing stood between him and the young Tinman. He took a step forward, and the young man responded by taking a step backwards, gunarm still jutting forward, finger on the trigger. Grail began to protest, but Olex hushed her, and put his arm up to keep her from getting in between.

Another step forward, another step back, the pair of men maintained their icy cold stares, the young man’s pupils having contracted nearly to the size of pinheads as his eyes were stuck wide open. With every step, Olex and the man moved forward and backward respectively, until the man was now the one with a back against the wall. All the while, Grail had been more and more aggressively telling the two men to calm down, while also trying to clear the small crowd that was watching from the end of the alley.

With the gun still jutting out between the two men, Olex finally took a step too close, and the young man’s entire body tensed in reaction. Grail noticed, but in the few scant moments it took for her to begin yelling and bounding forward to try to get between the two men, Olex’s hand flew up from his side, violently and sharply slapping the weapon from the man’s hand. The crash of metal on metal made the few remaining spectator’s jump, and then they further fled as the handgun found it’s flightpath right through the middle of the crowd, crashing into a crimson brick wall across the street, breaking into a few pieces. The last of the crowd finally scattered, leaving Grail to finally jump between the two men. Even as she gave Olex stern shoves to try and create distance, he had gotten a tight grip on the young man’s wrist, who now fought hard to try and wrestle away his one robotic hand.

”When you’re this close, you never just keep your hand out! Bring it in close to the body!” He yelled angrily over Grail’s protests. Finally, he let go of the young man’s wrist, and was sent a considerable distance back by the powerful force of Grail’s advanced augments.

”Asahi, fuck off, and chill out!” Grail exclaimed as she finally separated the two men, then turned to the young man. Surprisingly, she gave the man a slap across the face, seemingly waking him from his stupor as he finally looked down and acknowledged her.

”And you! The next time I give you a direct order, you will listen, you understand that? You fuckin’ hear me?”

As Olex watched the woman grab the man by his face, and turn his eyes into his, Olex had finally noticed how small the man was in comparison. Not only was the man considerably young, but he was also of smaller stature, looking almost like a terrified child being disciplined by Grail.

”Y-Yes ma’am.” The young man quietly muttered.

Seemingly in unison, the group all took a deep breath collecting themselves, and before it seemed like the two Tinmen were ready to continue, Olex spoke up.

”Alright, what do you two want? Finally come to take me out, or what? I know you’ve been following me for years, how and why did you finally find me?” Olex demanded, rubbing the sore area on his torso, red and tender from having two metal hands forced into it.

”No, Olex, look… We’re not here to kill you. We’re looking for one of ours that’s gone AWOL. His last known location was here, in the Reclaim. We’ve been here for almost two weeks, looking for leads wherever we could, damn near a door knocking campaign.”

Olex interjected. ”Why look for him yourselves? Why not just hire some P.I firm? People around here aren’t exactly eager and willing to help out Tinmen.”

Grail let out an exasperated sigh. ”Look, technically, he’s not supposed to be here. Tight-lip contract, top secret bullshit. APEX-”

The young man quickly interrupted, taking a step forward. “Ma’am! You can’t just tell hi-”

Grail simply hushed the young man by putting her hand in front of his face, giving another sigh, giving his protests some thought, and realizing he was probably right.

”Look. Long story short, it’s a confidential contract, but he stopped responding to communications. He’s been radio silent for too long, and we want to keep this as quiet as possible. We were acting like we were just looking for a lost friend, but once people finally started talking about a man with shiny, fancy cybernetics, it ended up being you they’d seen around, not our man” She took a moment to compose herself further before she continued.

”The guys have talked about you here and there for a while now, Olex. How you just vanished, how you got cut off by your family. After we heard that they’d sent the Hounds after you, we all figured you were dead. But now, here you are. We go looking for our man and find you instead. For someone on the run, you’re actually not that hard to find after all, pal.”

Olex scoffed, looking over his wrist for any sort of scuffs or dents, then looked up. ”Yeah, well, after eleven years, I figured either you guys had given up at this point. Either that or I’d shaken you. Either way, you guys aren’t here to kill me apparently, so I guess it’s worked out this far. What exactly is it that you want from me?”

It took a few moments before Grail began to speak again, as she simply looked Olex up and down, a strange sense of weariness and nostalgia washing over her.

”I guess I just wanted to see an old friend, is all. It’s hard to believe it’s really you. You were just a kid the last time I saw you, and I thought for sure you were dead, but yet, here you are. After all these years.”

”Yeah, that’s real nice. Real, real nice. How do I know you aren’t going to go blab to your fucking CO as soon as you get back? I know you were always a lapdog for command, and yeah, you didn’t find your man this time, but you sure did find something else.”

”What, no love for an old war buddy, Asahi? It’s like that?” Grail smirked, a mixture of surprise and disappointment in her voice.

”I never liked you in the first place, Grail. You were a cunt, always playing junkyard dog for command over the smallest shit. A sniveling little shit who never had the balls to stand up for herself, only brave enough to bully the young ones. Now, here you are, a decade later and you’re still a pain in my ass.”

Grail simply sneered, as the younger man walked past her, trying his best to put a look of intimidation on his face as he confronted Olex.

”What about you, asshole? How do we walk away from this whole thing knowing you won’t tell anyone what happened here?”

”Who the fuck am I going to tell? I work for a grey market intelligence courier in the middle of shit town. I’m not exactly popular with the enforcers. If you two stop walking around the Reclaim like moron out-of-towners, asking where your big, shiny metalfuck friend is, maybe it’ll all stay under wraps, you ever thought of that? I’ve got more at stake here, tell me why I shouldn’t leave you both dead in this alley.”

”Because you can’t.” Grail growled, pushing the barrel of the pistol she’d drawn in a flash up to Olex’s head.

”Disregarding the fact that you don’t have the ability nor talent to kill my partner or I, there’s nothing in this for either of us to kill each other. You kill us, that’s the Hounds right on your trail again, and this time they will find you. We kill you, that’s the Enforcers and and your little buddies at the office on our asses. Not that it’d be a big deal, but that’s a lot more trouble than it’s worth when we’re trying to find someone in this shithole city. So how’s about we both agree to keep our mouths shut and go on our merry ways, huh?”

With tense fists and eyes full of hate, Olex stared down Grail, taking everything she’d said into consideration. He didn’t like it, but the two parties seemed to be at an impasse, with neither having anything to gain from violence, even if every impulse in his body screamed for him to kill them, like a crazed group of spectators thirsting for blood. His chest rose and fell, and he finally craned his neck to the side, moving his head out of the way of the gun.

”Fine. Fuck off.”

[Firecracker_]

Shade.

Heat.

Shade.

Heat.

Focusing almost entirely on trying to maintain his walking pace, Olex’s walk from the Central Square was adding up to be even weirder than his the time he actually spent there. The original crowd had dispersed, but now amongst the people vacating the Square were a few outliers. They were dressed better than the average Citizen