Chapter 1

[thenine]

Who: OTA
Where: Quad
When: Week 1, Day 1 - Week 2, Day 1
Summary: Game launch prompts!
Restrictions/Warnings: Violence, blood, et cetera. For anything surpassing 'R' on a rating scale, please create your own log.
Notes: Please title your subject line in the following format -- Open / Closed | Date. OOC event information can be found here.

Quick Navigation
The Nine
The Company
Leith
True Leithians
Westies
Resistance
The RAC

The Nine

Hushed whispers and conversations behind sealed doors spread throughout Qresh, carrying with them rumor of the Lady Derrish's illness. Poisoned, some say, as they speak their quiet murmurs and the news travels like wildfire. It lights up the nobility with a new cause - there is no heir to the Derrish name. At least, none that is known. A surrogate mother carries the only Derrish child to be related by blood. She dwells on Leith, though her location is obscured to everyone who seeks her - both those who wish to help and those who would do harm. Some wish to procure the heir - whether following the warrant for his retrieval or hoping to gain favor with the Nine by gift or by blackmail. Some wish the heir dead, seeking to cause a power vacuum that could lead to a bloody war as families of the Nine scramble to gobble up Derrish land. All have backring that can be traced back to the nobility, each family pursuing their own agenda. 'False' heirs, those who claim to be related, or bastard children, either rise up in hopes of fortune or hide in fear of those who would stamp out the family name for good. On Leith there is said to be a hotel staffed by the most beautiful woman, run by a man who no one has ever seen. Only those with money or influence may stay the night at Blessed Branches, though anyone seeking fine wine and good company may occupy its lounge. Many come hoping to spend time with the hostesses, though the girls aren't known for taking bribes or slipping away for a 'good time'. It is here, in one of the premium guestrooms, that the surrogate heir and his mother are housed. The other women are unaware of her status - simply taking care of her as one of their own - and how much the owner knows is as difficult to pin down as he is. Any display of violence is sure to be noticed, as Company officials and RAC agents alike guard the building for significant pay. Getting in may be simple for some, but getting out is far more difficult. The mother's room is on the 10th story, with its few windows locked and curtains closed. As she approaches her delivery date, help comes and goes with frequency, but on no specific schedule. Criminals and RAC agents alike chatter in the streets of Westerley and Leith over just who, and where, this woman could be. Many assume she lodges with the surrogate clusters hidden on Westerley - heavily guarded by men and treacherous landscape alike. Others seek beyond the Quad, and some assume she's already dead. No matter the cause, no matter its difficulty, the rush to find the woman and unborn baby only grows. Some may consult information brokers, some may attempt to find their way into the genetic databases, some may rely on word of mouth, and some may lay in wait for others to do the sleuthing work before closing in on their target.

The Company

"We need to send a message," every Company employee receives the same directive, "Loud and clear." Rules are rules, and there is no room for disobedience - neither within nor outside of the Company. The citizens of Westerley have become more unruly than usual, taking out their frustrations with their lot in life on the Company and on society. Or so the directive says. It is for the good of the Company, and for those loyal citizens who keep their heads down and do their duty, to expunge the corrosive minds from society and extinguish the flames of a foolish rebellion. From prisoner guards to those selected to string criminals up for execution, to those who stand watch over the sizzling corpses (or soon to be corpses) belonging to symbols of the rebellion left out in the rain to die, to those in charge of door-to-door or man-to-man ID checks, every bit of available manpower in the Company is being used to secure the city. Some may begrudge their work, while others delight in the lax restriction on violence towards citizens. All should keep their heads down, lest they become yet another target for the efforts to 'increase security' in the city. A heatwave that brings with it Black Rain makes the job difficult and treacherous - stay out too long and you could get caught in a storm. Just the same as the local Westies, all of whom are more or less stranded in their homes - or the bars they passed out in the night before - everyone is scrimping by with whatever provisions remain. Only those Company officials lucky enough to live on Company property, a compound of barracks that provides middling levels of comfort, don't worry for their necessities. Travel through the tunnels may afford the few who know of their existence more mobility - the ability to help others, to stockpile what they need, or to make an impressive capture - but comes with its own dangers. From the culture that lives there to the increased presence of resistance groups making their safe-houses in the vast, winding network, some may decide that the potential dangers aren't worth the trip, and others may wish they had.

Leith

Every season brings a new batch of harvest workers—old, young, adventurous, desperate. But it doesn’t matter whether a worker has tended to the same hokk farm for ten years: when the limits of a work visa are reached, they must return to their planet of origin or face severe penalties. Sometimes, though, people slip through the cracks. Sometimes people change their genetic records altogether to make sure it happens. Whether it’s an individual who refuses to return to the cage of Westerley or a merchant willing to look the other way for off-the-books labor, visa law enforcement is critical to the Quad. Targets identified as “high risk”—those individuals who have a profile of criminal behavior or have given the Company reason to take a second look at their credentials in the past—are being routinely rounded up to ensure their genetic identities and visa information still coincide. Killjoys and Company enforcers are being deployed in equal measure to address this potential security concern in the days leading up to “harvest week”, the seasonal break where workers return home and a new batch of hopefuls arrives on Leith. For some, this can be a minor inconvenience, taking DNA samples and conversing with understandably irritable workers—for others, this could be a potentially fatal encounter and lead into Leith’s darker underbelly. For whatever reason a target has chosen to stay or change their identity, they have done so at great and calculated risk. They will fight without discrimination to stay hidden and maintain their secret--as, at times, will their employers. Maybe they've decided to pursue a more lucrative line of work, using Leith's fertile soils to grow illicit substances, or perhaps they've simply decided that their fate should be in their own hands, and not that of a visa agency. Either way, they won't go quietly.

True Leithians

Gunfire is lost under the sound of the rain. The pitter-patter of acidic water beats in tandem to Company rifles and shouts, the flash of grenades like fireflies in the distance. The Family Registry Bureau, well-guarded and set on the outskirts of Old Town, shakes and shudders with each successive boom, debris falling as the battle escalates. “For Leith!” A single voice rises above the commotion and for a moment, the night is still, the incessant rain seeming to take heed, as if the clouds themselves have paused to see what will unfold. The building collapses. Fire billows out in violent plumes, snaking through the twisted metal and broken glass. Survivors on both sides disperse like scattered marbles. By morning, the dead have been dissolved to bone by the rain, and Company enforcers are out to ensure that scavengers don’t take their pick of the remaining materials. Officials are tight-lipped about what, if anything, was taken during the attack, but word on the street spreads fast—there’s a man hunt and hundreds of genetic identities are up for grabs. Criminal activity in Eulogy sees an all-time spike as bartered goods come in, though not everyone in Eulogy or the criminal world takes kindly to stealing from their own. Nor do they care for the sudden attention drawn to their illicit little den, making it a hot bed of Killjoy and undercover Company activity. But Eulogy isn't the only place to see unwelcome guests. On and off Westerley, news of the attack spreads, and agents of each organization race to come out on top. Whether it’s a Killjoy tasked with locating the perpetrators, a True Leithian conspirator on the run, a Westie out for revenge and securing their future in the Seventh Generation accord, or a Company Enforcer on orders of execution off planet—everyone has someone’s number, and time is quickly running out for each of them.

Westies

The heat hangs over Westerley like a blanket laid down over a fever, suffocating and addling. Sign posts flicker erratically between Company propaganda and storm advisory warnings. Old Town’s streets, normally buzzing and bursting with life, are like a ghost town. The few stragglers that remain move like worms, slowly and carefully, their bodies bowed over the carts they push as if the sun has melted away their will to walk. In the square of the town, a group of well-clad Company men and women hurriedly work, bolting modern day stocks into the concrete. Prisoners, red jumpsuits and heads covered in black shrouds, are roughly shuffled between the soldiers as they’re chained and bound to the stakes. Only once they’re secured are they allowed to see the light of day—for the first and last time in years. The squadron commander, a stalwart woman, takes up the intercom on her truck, her voice booming through each sign post in Old Town when she speaks. “Westerlens, for high treason and threats to the public good, these prisoners are hereby brought to this place of execution where they shall be exposed to the elements until dead. By order of the Company, serving the Quad.” Seconds later, the sirens start. The soldiers finish their work with haste and pile into their vehicle. The sky, moments before overbearingly bright, disappears under inky shadow, bruised green and red as violent clouds spread out like reaching fingers. The storm rolls in without mercy or pause, enveloping the light of the day by visible inches. Acidic rainfall begins to pelt down, not lightly, not drifting, but in a hard, unrelenting stream. Anyone caught within it has but hours to survive, and moments to escape disfiguring injury. The storms will rage for three days with few breaks in between. But the environment is hardly the only, or even the worst, thing Westies have to worry about.

Resistance

The rebellion suffered a crushing blow. Of course, rebellions in Old Town are used to that--but with key leaders gone, Resistance members are scattered like grains of sand across glass, rolling further and further apart. Some individuals seek to take the power vacuum as their own chance at power, but they're met with staunch rebuttal, splitting this already fragile organization into smaller and smaller cells. Under the cover of the acidic storms, the remaining members of the Resistance take to the undercity, whispering into the ears of the discontent and angry. Follow the branch that's extended to you, they say, and you'll find a new place to grow roots. And so those roots do grow, down walls, on pieces of passed paper, across the hands of those who harbor dissent. It's a symbol, a living, growing map, of a new haven. Innocuous to those who don't know what it means, symbolic and religious, but to those who seek out its meaning? They'll delve to the very deepest parts of the undercity, a place manned only by those wearing the yellow and gold of the Scarbacks. There, a secure military bunker is hidden beneath the layers of Old Town, lost to all but the original blueprints of the city. Its concrete walls hold the barest bones of supplies, but there's potential, a skeleton upon which the rebellion can build its strength and muster the will to stand again. Finding the bunker, though arduous, isn't the hardest part. Getting in? That will take connections, charisma. Trust. The Resistance is in awful short supply of that last right about now.

The RAC

The RAC, as ever, maintains its neutrality and follows its singular mandate: the warrant is all. But that isn't to say that there can't be a little fun in the process--between serving out warrants issued on behalf of the other factions and singular individuals, the top teams within the Quad will receive a special directive. Black Warrant For all teams, whether temporarily formed for the sake of pursuit or permanently aligned, this presents a unique opportunity to compete against their fellow RAC agents. All manner of subterfuge is encouraged, although directly attacking your fellow Killjoys will receive at least one bad review on social networking apps. But while killing your competition isn't allowed, making their life impossibly difficult and taking the prize for yourself? That's the very definition of the game. This is a competitive warrant, open to all Killjoy teams with a level 4 agent or higher. Your task is simple in description but far from it in nature: find and secure an heir for Land Derrish before your opponents. The catch (there's always a catch, isn't there?) -- you'll be fighting off more than your compatriot Killjoys. Criminals and mercenaries will be gunning for the same targets, and there's a mountain of bureaucracy standing in your way to figuring out who is a legitimate heir, if one exists at all. Your time is short* and your competition is fierce. May the best team win. *Week 1, Day 2 - Week 1, Day 5

Comments

[brickinthewall]

Definitely better than this crap.

[He'll only have to deal with her ass showing up five minutes before closing just so she can ignore people for a while and get the roar in her head to shut up for a minute.

She crosses her arms, leans on the bar and just. Exhales. A heat wave rolls off her skin, just a few degrees higher than her usual body temperature.]

I don't get how you put up with people all day. I'd just. [She makes a finger gun, pulls the "trigger" complete with the "pew" sound effect.] Done.

[slotted]

[ oh my god please don't kill people at the cafe he works at......... do it outside. ]

Had to get used to it. [ he says it so plainly, but if she's perceptive enough, she'd understand that it's a sad admission. ] I have to, if I want to live.

[brickinthewall]

[Look she can't very well destroy one of the few places she can tolerate and hasn't been kicked out of yet.

But she gets it. One of her few positive traits happens to be empathy. Too much of it, actually.]

You don't have to do shit. Give 'em the finger and do your own thing. [Except look where it's gotten her, and even then, she didn't have much of a choice in the matter. She gives him an assessing once-over as she peeks over her forearm.] You're not from here, are you?

[slotted]

Was born in Westerely.

[ he turns his back on her for a moment to fix some more of the cups and put them back in their shelves. ]

Family moved here when I was about three or four, because The Company hired my dad to do some research.

[ there's a lot more to his story, but he still hasn't decided if he wants to continue. it doesn't seem like she's familiar with the elsters at all. he doesn't know if he should be the one to break it to her. ]

[brickinthewall]

[Wait.

Somewhere, in the more sane part of her mind, the Elster name finally starts to connect the dots here and there.

Elster. Slowly, very slowly, she starts to lift her head, nearly snakelike.]

Your old man was a real inspiration, wasn't he?

[After all, it was his work that cranked the Titan project to absurd highs... or lows. Disgraces and delinquents turned... anything, really.]

Kinda fucking lost it at the end, though, didn't he?

[slotted]

[ ah... there's a reaction that he's so used to. he drops what he's doing, turns and leans his back against the counter. ]

You're not wrong.

[ he doesn't mention how crazy his father really had become. first fred, then, him. instead, he lifts the bottom of his shirt to show a large cut (i'd link it but i'm mobile and it's very gross.) on his left side. it's covered by bandages, but it's bleeding a lot. ]

I gotta live with this everyday thanks to him.

LOL i saw the pic on ur app ur good fam

[brickinthewall]

[She barely even reacts to the cut, the vicious deep gash and the goriness of it all. By now, she's seen too much to really let it affect her anymore, especially since she's dealt the same kind of damage.]

Yeah, well, you're not the only one with scars and side effects.

LOL bless

[slotted]

[ that gets his interest now. at first he was jusf talking to her for the sake of conversation, but things have changed. ]

You're modded?

[brickinthewall]

You got a lighter?

[She's dead serious about this weird-ass request, as if she weren't already some suspicious weirdo covered in tattoos waltzing into a nice bar at closing time who only presents herself with her last name.]

[slotted]

[ it's not a cigarette lighter, but a kitchen lighter that he hands to her. ]

Hold on-- [ basically, please don't do anything stupid just yet. leo is thankful that it's just them now. he walks towards the entrance and flips the sign, closing the cafe for the day. he closes the blinds as well, just so no prying eyes end up seeing what's about to happen. ]

Alright.

[brickinthewall]

[She waits, for his sake, because honestly she would've just done her thing anyway.

Kitchen lighter works. She flips it, like a drumstick, before turning it on.]

Titans, they called us. Real symbolic bullshit. Your old man modded with tech. Where I'm from? They wanted something more... godly. Less robo-crazy.

[She sets her left hand over the open flame, the right holding the lighter on. The flame licks at her skin, bends against the shape... and nothing happens. She can feel the heat, yet her skin remains intact.]

Prometheus, they called me. They didn't just want fire. They wanted me to hold it. Touch it. Be it. [She moves the lighter up and down her hand, to her wrist, her forearm, back up to her fingers. Nothing happens.

Except for the moment her index finger catches fire. The flame starts to coil up and dance across her knuckles at will.] Years of bullshit and I've got a hell of a party trick. [Clearly there's a lot she's not saying, nor does it need to be said. No one becomes a Killjoy overnight.]

[slotted]

[ leo watches with barely any reaction, holding most of what he feels inside. she's like this--she's been experimented on because of his father's work? shit. that's... undortunate. nobody should be like leo. nobody should.

he shakes his head very slowly, finding what he's seeing very difficult to accept. ]

Do you hate him?

[ his father, he means. ]

[brickinthewall]

I hate a lot of people.

[Her voice almost sounds... tired. Sad. There's so much rage held so tight within her that she so desperately wants to let go but just can't. She was turned into this, and she wasn't alone.

And when she had others, they were taken from her. So she's alone, again. And it burns knowing that somewhere out there someone ordered her own family gone. So she remembers the rage all over again, the one thing keeping her alive and the one thing that's going to kill her too.

In the end, she didn't even care what happened to her, as long as someone paid with interest for her pain.]

I told you I'm from here. I'm not lying. You might know my parents, might not. You might know the group that did this to me. You might've known my comrades. [Her right hand covers her left, snuffing out the flames.] I came here for a drink and some quiet and I ended up swapping sob stories. [She shakes her head.] Just toss Prometheus around, you'll see how fast people will react.

[slotted]

[ he'll remember that -- prometheus. not something he's encountered in his information gathering just yet, but he'll make sure to dig up as much information as he can about them.

he offers her another glass of whiskey. ]

No one's sobbing yet. Doubt one of us is going to start crying.

[ he pours himself a glass, as well, and downs it immediately. ]

[brickinthewall]

I'm made of fire, I'll probably cry lava.

[Stupid joke, might as well deflect an entire shit life with a shit joke, right?

She knocks it back just as fast.]

Hope you don't show that cut on a first date. Not all chicks dig scars.

[slotted]

[ he knows it's a joke but he sputters, cheeks flushing red. ]

I-- I don't date.

[ HE FEELS SO AWKWARD NOW. ]

i'm so sorry again

[brickinthewall]

[She gives him a once over, brows furrowed.]

Why, you got a small dick or some shit?

[Hanna you don't just ask if people have small dicks that's not even a funny joke or remark.]

You know you're not actually bad looking right? Like you could date if you wanted to? [She shrugs.] Not my place to judge, I guess. You do you or whatever.

OH MY GOD?!

[slotted]

[ leo is so pure he can't even say the word "dick". ]

I don't-- I'm fine.

[ he sighs, though, pouring himself another glass. who knew this conversation would turn out like this? ]

Why would anyone want to go out with an Elster? [ even though he is the last. ]

i told u...

[brickinthewall]

[She's on the darkest shade of corrupt, she'll say it for him.

Once he's done with the bottle? Yeah, she's taking it for herself and pouring one out too.]

There's only space for one person with crippling self-esteem issues in this bar and that's me. [Joking about herself, nice.] Just lie, if you want. You're not your father. You just happen to come from him. [She knocks back about half of the glass.] Biology ain't shit.

face in hands

[slotted]

[ thank you, big sis... be the impure person that he doesn't want to be.

that actually makes him laugh, though. it's as if she wants him to go on a date. ]

Well, it's not just that. There's just other things better off doing. Finding someone isn't a priority.

[brickinthewall]

That's fine and all. But it's a general life rule. Don't be who your parents are.

[It's what they wanted out of her, and she refused. Sure, it got her into this particular predicament of being a walking furnace and inflammable human being, but she never relented to their whims.]

Just be you. Fuck the name if you hate it.

[slotted]

You say it as if it were that easy, [ he mumbles it to himself, but if she isn't inebriated enough, she should be able to hear him. ]

I'm modded, but things are different with me. I can't-- the fire thing that you do, it's not what I'm capable of doing. I'm more like... a computer. I can't forget.

[ and with everything tidy up in the counter now, there's not much for him to do but actually just chat. ]

My memories are digitised. Even if I want to forget that I'm an Elster--or forget that my father killed Fred and then himself, I can't. Leaving it all behind's impossible.

[ why is he so emo please stop him ]

[brickinthewall]

I didn't say forget. I said fuck it.

[She gives him a hard look now.]

Quit being a piece of shit, you're not as fucked up as you think you are. You're not your name. I'm not telling you to pretend you didn't come from it, I'm telling you to move past it.

[Nice words, given that she can't forget anything, ever. She left her old life behind, and it was only easier given that her family didn't want her either. But hey, she's at least not denying what she was before all of this either.]

[slotted]

[ he arches an eyebrow at her. ]

You do know my dad's messed up my entire life, right? [ so he can't exactly just "fuck it". ] Even if I wanted to have a different life and "enjoy myself" [ airquotes included, ] it's just impossible. People would always give me a hard time.

Do you know how much I get paid? It's not a lot. Why? Because of my dad.

[brickinthewall]

You know, my parents sold me to Ouranos. They didn't like that I wasn't exactly what they wanted, so they decided to sell me and forget about my existence. So sure, parents suck ass and ruin lives, but at least I can fuck up my life on my own terms now.

[Even if it was their decision that put her on this path.]

Tell you what. Keep an ear on the ground for me and I'll make it worth your while. It's not pity. [It sort of is, it's shit he gets a hard time for his dad's mistakes.] I need intel, you need the money. Your shit-life hook ups might get me the answers I need.