Name: Marcantonio D'Agostino
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Ethnicity/Nationality: United States
Physical Description:Despite his extensive augmentation, Marco passes for human and humanoid, albeit at a greater height and significantly greater weight than his natural adult height-weight. Currently, he stands at about six feet tall, weighing in at something around three hundred and sixty pounds, mostly from the extensive cybernetic implants he's had put in; that includes both arms, both legs, reinforcement of his skeleton with nano-woven muscle and subdermal armoring. His arms and legs are both obvious mods and he is forced to wear long sleeved shirts and full pants when moving around in public. His eyes, however, are the most disturbing element of the man; up close, they show the platinum and electrum microcircuitry woven into the iris that reveal them as something not natural, womb-born human. He tends to wear contact lenses, which tend to actually help with the situation, as well as, ironically, nonprescription glasses that help draw the attention of others away from his eyes. His natural skintone, on the darker side, is maintained with synthetic skin grafts over areas that are exposed to the public, though his facial hair still comes in -- it's dense stuff, requiring a close shave. He has a couple minute scars on his face.
Skillset:Intense concentration to any task at hand – having survived maiming to the degree that he was rendered deaf-mute-blind and then came back from a traumatic experience, he has impressive willpower. He attended the FBI academy at Quantico and worked organized crime for some years in the New Orleans and Newark field offices, as well as certifying for SWAT. He spent a year in the Hostage Rescue Team when everything went to hell. As a result, he has significant close quarters combat skills, understands the use of surveillance equipment and, importantly, how to investigate crimes and the methods of law enforcement.
His role in the Vigil is as something of a generalist -- his augmentations favor combat, but not at the expense of mobility and other methods. Because Marco was physically destroyed, his reconstruction was, by necessity, extensive and the opportunities to enhance were accordingly widespread.
HistoryMarcantonio D'Agostino was born in Hampton, New Jersey, to an upper middle class Italian family; he attended Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland, and graduated summa. After about two years in the New Jersey State Police, working on the narcotics task force, he applied for and was accepted into the FBI academy at Quantico. Graduating from that, he was assigned to the New Orleans field office and then into the Newark field office, where he struck up a relationship with Madeleine Kelly, the eldest daughter of Michael Kelly, a prosperous architect living in Hampton, New Jersey, with his wife and younger children. During this time, on the basis of his record, he was accepted into the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team. Also around this time, Michael Kelly's youngest, Maureen, struck up a relationship with Richard Mullen.
Maureen's relationship with Richard Mullen took a turn for the strange and Maureen cut it off out of fear. This created a stalking situation where the local police were reluctant to get overly involved, which infurirated the elder Kelly to no end. Meanwhile, Madeleine and Marco became engaged. During Thanksgiving dinner at the Kelly's, the jilted ex-boyfriend showed up and made a scene.
More than a scene; he started going on a rant about how he and Madeleine were destined, and that turned into a furious soliloquy about how she was obligated to him because he saved her from the attentions of 'brutes.' When Marco tried to step in, reluctantly but confident he could handle the situation. He found himself on the floor, watching helplessly, as the thing started to tear through his fiance's family. He discarded the Kellys, including Marco's fiance, with contemptuous ease while continuing his rant. He drained Madeleine dry, and then gave Marco a ranting speech about daring to lift his hand to something far greater than he was -- it was a monologue where he called him a worm, as he ripped off his limbs and put out his eyes. But he called 911 and left him alive. Mullen didn't particularly care about Marco or anyone but Maureen Kelly; everyone else was in the way of his jilted fury. He was cast aside by Richard so he could focus on Maureen.
That perhaps would have been the end of the story -- the news reports were shocked and then the story disappeared, with Marco left on life support with nothing to particularly live for. The police made sure that the Mullens were never touched and the family moved on in their own time in any case, on to the next victim.
However, there was a crucial hitch. Paul D'Agostino, Marco's father, was a renowned surgeon on the pioneering edge of technology. Marco might have been a useful way in, but Paul was the target of the Vigil's recruitment, using his maimed son as a means to recruit the father and the father's colleagues. Through the course of five years, Marco was reconstructed along with other willing test subjects in what amounted to a massive crash course program in cybernetic enhancements. The Eternal, comfortable that the Vigil would only watch and never act, countered more active and aggressive threats as they came up, but never tweaked to the possibility that the Vigil had a centuries old plan being realized through the connections and brilliance of Paul D'Agostino and his multi-disciplinary team of researchers. They never asked why so many prominent medical and technological researchers were provided fellowships and then quietly disappeared off the grid, except to speculate among themselves that someone was culling them out for a reason.
By the end of the program, they had made the necessary breakthroughs for extensive cybernetic enhancements, along with other spin-off technologies in computing, that put the Vigil well ahead of the government. The Eternal, indifferent to tech at best, never seemed to worry so long as their smartphones worked.
More importantly to Dr. D'Agostino, he was able to give his son sight, speech and the ability to walk again. He was able to rebuild his son into an instrument of vengeance.
The test of the equipment came in the form of revenge for Sheriff John Krieger of Hampton, NJ. His assassination revealed a number of irregularities in his finances that the local authorities did not manage to cover up, and it implicated a wider corruption in the local government that led to a RICO case against the town's elected officials. No one ever figured out who precisely killed the Sheriff, but an FBI agent asked, "Qui cares, it has a bow on it" when asked who benefited from such a thing. For the Vigil, it was a proof of concept for the hacking and disruptive capabilities of the new tech, as they'd lured the Sheriff out with a series of false alarms and spread out the law enforcement so it was incapable of acting. Under FBI scrutiny, the killing was unsolved with damned few clues. Krieger himself was a thrall, strong and dangerous above the capabilities of a normal human -- he didn't stand a chance, either.
Richard Mullen made it all possible. And that's why he would be the first kill. It was part of the deal.
Psychological Profile:Marco has undergone constant PTSD treatment – he was a wreck when they finally installed some form of communication implants in him and restored his hearing and sight first. While there has been immense progress and a focus on regaining what was lost and then exceeding those parameters, there is always the trauma of what he endured at the hands of a vampire. He has seen what those things can do, and while the therapy and implants have given him back a degree of self-confidence, he still does not truly believe that he has been brought up to a level where he can engage these things and win. He fights against himself on this.
The FBI's investigations could proceed slowly, and he learned over time to be patient about gathering the information, forming a good case. For Marco, picking up the trail through means like data is important. Knowing how to avoid the police is also important. True to his training, he prefers covert surveillance and taking care to investigate carefully rather than rush into situations.
Modifications:- Communications suite, HUD and neural-computer, all standard issue – Vigil agents are able to text by thinking it among each other on a heavily encrypted wireless network. In fact, the computer works off brain impulses and is easily one of the most sophisticated and useful implants they have; what's more, its capabilities have yet to be fully exploited. The downside of this implant is that it includes a cortex bomb with an anti-tampering device. A captured agent can set it off, destroying the hardware inside, or a signal from control can do the same. This is to prevent the enemy from learning the capabilities of implanted agents.
- Internal air supply and aerial toxin filter -- this also has the added advantage of making the agent immune to vampire pheromones, as some types of vampires are known to use this to seduce their prey.
- Blood/liquid toxin filter -- the obvious is at work here -- vampires use their blood as a means of controlling mortals, and this system (and everyone, even non field agents, in the Vigil organization have this implant) screens out one of most subtle weapons a vampire has, rendering them functionally immune to being controlled through ingested blood the way mortal thralls of a vampire might be.
- Eye augmentation; a HUD showing all sorts of system data, such as the status of implants, as well as allowing for low-light and ultra-sound modes of vision, the latter being thought to be more effective than thermographics when dealing with vampires, who tend to run cold if they haven't fed lately.
- Hearing Amplification, including low and high frequency sound ranges, along with balance augmentation.
- Wired Reflexes - One of the more controversial but effective systems is the wired reflexes, which tend to make the user 'twitchy' but also give them a blinding reaction speed that allows them to react to a vampire with a degree of parity.
- Muscle replacement; human muscle is augmented with vat-grown, nano-enhanced muscle that increases strength and agility on the part of the user.
- Bone lacing; reinforcement for the skeletal structure, particularly around the rib-cage, allowing the implanted agent to take more abuse, as well as strengthening the frame for other implants related to strength and speed.
- Replacement right arm with implanted shotgun, essentially similar to a sawed-off weapon; the barrel is very short and the magazine only allows for three rounds. The weapon has exquisite recoil compensation, being mounted very firmly on a cybernetic arm, and is linked to Marco's arm. It is retractable and concealable -- anything larger would essentially not be easily concealed in a cybernetic implant. Other, more extreme implants exist that allow for the mounting/dismounting of large weapons on the arm, though Marco did not elect to take a hardpoint.
- The other replacement arm, his left, has a variety of sockets and jacks, from USB to ethernet and beyond, to facilitate physical access of an enemy's electronic equipment, including a multitool set. Also, incidentally, the middle finger comes off to reveal a spool of self-rewinding mono-wire, highly useful in garroting/beheading actions. He suggested this modification to the team, and they loved it. “Giving the vampers the finger” has a whole new meaning with the Vigil as a result. The third fingers on each hand have fully articulated fiberoptic cameras that can be deployed covertly to show the agent what is behind them or to get a camera/microphone into small places. Fingernails have retractable blades.
- Replacement legs, fully functional and stronger than the originals. One interesting feature is the rather sharp blades that are housed in the lower legs of each, and extend from the heel. He's practiced his round-house with that advantage in mind.
- Hands and knees and feet can be magnetized, but draw on an internal power supply that is replenished by kinetic means, which is to say, with movement.
- The limbs are socketed and can be, theoretically, replaced with other limbs that do different things. Marco, however, likes the current mix of limbs.
- A medical monitoring system that flushes his system with drugs as needed to counteract pain or other medical situations as they arise -- that includes the injection of agents that are used in the event of the use of nerve gas.
- Subdermal impact and ballistic armor, though not the most extreme sort -- this stuff is again, concealable.
Equipment: - Silenced pistol, caseless hydro-shok-style ammo, entirely made of polymer. It is designed to interface with his implanted systems.
- Mimetic Camouflage (Predator) coat, though this is designed to look more like a trenchcoat -- no doubt some project engineer with a penchant for the dramatic, or an interest in fashion design. The coat is actually stylish, which serves a dual purpose as vampires tend to dress stylishly and surround themselves with the stylishly dressed. This allows Vigil agents one more edge. Of course, they call it the Predator Coat. Because the engineers are geeks. (This is a standard issue Vigil item)
- Modular, caseless assault rifle/carbine. Bullpup, caseless ammunition, synched with existing implants and capable of mounting a variety of accessories including a 25mm grenade launcher whose munitions range from conventional high explosive to nano-guided scattered mines. It also syncs with HUD implants for improved accuracy in a mechanism similar to a bluetooth link. The trigger is electric and the weapon includes a biometric security system; anyone but someone authorized to handle it and it will blow; that is a standard feature on most any weapon the Vigil has in service with its teams. (This is a standard issue Vigil item) He keeps his shortened into a fairly concealable carbine, suited to close combat.
- A number of electronic accessories, including a PDA tablet and other items to assist in making physical connection with computer equipment. While the agents have hardware in their heads, the PDA's are useful, for example, in hacking operations that require computer access where wireless connectivity is limited -- attach the PDA to the system and operate it remotely from there on out.(This is a standard issue Vigil item)
- Grenades, mostly white phosphorus. The organization has designed a 'grenade' that involves a strobing UV light that damages vampires -- it is known as 'the disco ball'.
- Heavier weaponry can be acquired through the Vigil
- Civilian clothing, though everything he wears involves full pant legs and long sleeves. He also wears nonprescription clear glasses indoors, or sunglasses at all times outdoors to help camouflage his eyes.
(Allison on the left, Serena on the Right)
