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

[lotusmesenpai]

I don't need a doctor.

[Nevermind the gaping wound in his side. He'll wear a dress and dance on the bar at the Royale before he goes to any damned doctor.

Crossing the room, he opens a cabinet door, pulls out a kit and sets it on the corner of the bed. He starts to shrug out of his jacket, frowns at the open door.]

Noah, close my door and prepare to leave. Set course for Intake.

[Last damn thing he needs is for Jack to walk by and say something that'll get the bastard shot in the neck.

Finally shrugging out of the jacket, he tosses it to the side rather than his bed, frowns down at the way the Leithian's shirt-turned-bandage is sticking to the wound, already soaked through. There's a slight wince when he pulls fabric from the wound before he finally yanks the shirt off over his head.

Now that he can see it... it doesn't look good. Just below the end of his ribs, the still weeping gash is wide, jagged, and deep.]

Fucking fanatics. This is probably going to take more than a day to heal.

[valr]

Suit yourself.

[It might be reasonable to guess that Kara would be the type to shun medical help as well, considering the situation that unfolded the last time she was majorly injured, but one bad experience doesn't undo years of help. Not that she needs that help much any more, and she's not going to push Kanda on the subject, instead shrugging at his comment.

The only thing of interest in his room is the sword on the wall - she likes weapons - but she pays it little attention when there's a medkit in front of her and a gaping wound in Kanda's side.

That's a little worse than she thought it would be, since he's been walking around with it, but his last remark clears a couple things up for her.]

Mods?

[It'll be good to know, since she can adapt what she does based on how quickly he'll heal, but for now she gets to work on grabbing what she'll need from the kit.]

[lotusmesenpai]

[Grunting distractedly, Kanda shrugs a shoulder as he starts to poke at the edges to see how badly the serrated edge had shredded the skin there, the muscle beneath.

Bad enough that it'd be close to a critical wound for a human.

Enough to hurt like hell all the same.]

Nanite core, here.

[Closing his eyes while she unpacks supplies, he reaches up, places his fingertips to the center of his tattoo, and concentrates, forces the nanites into 'active heal' mode. He can feel a sharp change, as if he'd lit his blood on fire, before he opens his eyes to frown at her.]

...not marketable information, Kara.

[Military tech that hasn't technically been deemed released, Kanda has no desire to take on his former jailers at this point in time so if this gets out? He'll know where to look.]

[valr]

[Nanites mean that she likely doesn't have to worry about infection, though she has the antiseptic out just to be safe.]

I get it.

[There's - something in her tone, not sympathy but a seriousness that makes it clear she isn't going to be passing this fact on to anyone else. Even if it wouldn't risk a good professional relationship, Kara isn't the type to sell someone out for this sort of thing.]

Same boat, anyway.

[It's an offering of sorts, now he knows that she's got more going on than most, though she isn't going to disclose much more than that.]

Sit down. You want stitches?

[She can do them, but they might not be necessary; he'll know his body better than she does.]

[lotusmesenpai]

[Less is more sometimes, and in this case - at the very least - it is enough. Because they're not confidants. Hell, they're not really even friends.

They're more work acquaintances, though working with her is easier than working with a fair few of the other killjoys, by far.

Still, that she'd given him ammunition as a trade in kind... it takes a measure of tension out of his frame as he moves to sit on the corner of the bed, leans back slightly to prop himself on his palms to give her better access to the wound.

Frowning at the skin, he finally just shakes his head.]

Better not to. If it's taped shut the skin should knit together easily enough.

[Cutting stitches out of skin forced to heal at an accelerated rate isn't worth the annoyance that comes of it.]

[valr]

[Everything always comes back around to trust, for Kara. She doesn't think that Kanda would betray her for any reason, whether about the information she shares, or about this new little fact, because she doubts it would be worth it. But she also wouldn't put it past him to throw her to the dogs to save his own skin, and though she can respect that, it means there are fine lines to tread.

It's enough to tell him, vaguely, that she's got nanos just like he does. She doesn't trust him enough to give him any more details, even if she thinks she's far away from the Einherjar.]

That's for the best. I can't sew for shit.

[But she can wipe down a wound, tape it shut with surgical tape, and cover the whole lot up with gauze and a bandage, which she sets to work doing.]

[lotusmesenpai]

[That actually startles a short laugh out of him, his head shaking in amusement at her blunt honesty.

The sting of the antiseptic isn't the worst thing he's felt for the day and so he sits there, still as can be, and modulates his breathing to remain even, steady, as she works. Thinking back to the brief but intense battle on the farm, Kanda frowns a bit.]

...True Leithians are getting bolder, aren't they? I wouldn't have thought them smart enough to even attempt a theft of this level - yet.

[valr]

[Kara's hands are as steady during this as they are in a fight, though she's more comfortable in the latter. She's no medic, never has been and never will be, but she learnt how to bandage both herself and her fellow soldiers.

Kanda is not one of her soldiers, but that doesn't matter.]

They're desperate. Bet they kept telling themselves the handover would never happen, but it's getting closer every day.

[They can't ignore it, and desperation makes people bold.]

[lotusmesenpai]

Human greed - on both sides.

[Snorting, he sneers slightly, his gaze turning to consider the sword hanging on his wall, wincing slightly at the burn of antiseptic in an open wound.]

They've had, what? Over a century to accept it. And more than enough land. It's stupid.

[All of it, really. But then, no one ever claimed anything about the Quad made sense. Class stratification on a planetary scale never did, so far as he's seen.]

[valr]

[Kara's quiet for a while, though whether she's thinking or simply focused on the task is hard to tell (it's both). It isn't until she's smoothed down the last bit of tape that she speaks again.]

Ain't about how much land they got.

[Most of the time, Kara talks like she's either completely bored, or barely containing her annoyance, but she's a little quieter now, a little more somber.

She grew up among people who worked the land to make a living, raising cattle or growing crops, and there's a part of her that can almost understand that defensiveness at the prospect of losing hard earned land.

But then she remembers that most of the True Leithians are off-shoots of the Nine, who didn't struggle for their land so much as stumble onto it because they had the resources and money to colonize Leith.]

All this shit? It's gonna get a lot worse. [There's a second where it seems like she might say more, before she shakes her head and steps back.] There. All better.

[lotusmesenpai]

[That, he can believe.

The Nine are nothing if not duplicitous. He has every faith that they're going to have a hand in... whatever... is coming. Especially with Claimant day creeping ever closer.

As she steps back, he glances down, fingers absently reaching to probe lightly at the edges.

(She'd done a better job than he would have, that's for sure.)]

...Thanks.

[It's gruff, but sincere. That said, he turns and crosses to a closet, opens the door to reveal a very regimented closet. Everything spaced exactly the same distance from hanger to hanger, perfectly organized to a military degree.

Rather than grab something off the hangers, he opens a drawer and pulls a shirt out, yanks it on before closing the door and turning back to her.]

Something about all of this doesn't sit right. This was too... nuanced... for those idiot fanatics we fought today. The whole thing felt off.

[valr]

[Now that the wound is taken care of, Kara's less worried about things like hygiene, so she wipes her slightly bloodied hands on her shirt, before packing away all the unused parts of the first aid.]

You think the Nine had a hand in it?

[Kara isn't sure whether she agrees with that or not; she's been on both sides of what people call terrorism, and there's rarely tactics that desperate people won't come up with.

Not the mention the True Leithians have the resources to pull of the attack, and that's usually a sticking point.]

[lotusmesenpai]

[Yeaaah... he's not going to let her walk out of his room with his blood sample, even if she did help him. So when he sees her wiping her hands on her shirt?

He flicks the door back open, reaches into his closet. and takes one of his clean ones out. This he tosses it onto the bed beside the kit, and then rather pointedly turns his back on the woman.]

I'll wash yours and return it.

[Hands clasped loosely behind his back, he waits calmly, head canted slightly to one side.]

...Not the Nine necessarily, but, to me, they were too tactical in their attack for it to have been planned by a group of farmers. They knew the layout. They knew exactly where to go to get the claimant data. They tried to destroy all remaining evidence with a high impact-low radius explosive.

The whole thing seemed more black ops than pissed off farmers.

[valr]

[Well, this is awkward.

Kara stares at the offered shirt, trying to figure out what his issue is, before she realizes it's the blood. Instead of taking off her shirt, she pulls a knife out of her boot and slices off the bottom half of her shirt, dropping it to the floor.

Now she has a midriff and Kanda gets to keep his blood.]

Not everyone in the Company is loyal, they could've been bought out.

[lotusmesenpai]

[The sound of ripped fabric has him half turning only to see a modified shirt instead. He blinks, and then shakes his head, a hint of amusement there in his expression before he snags his shirt back up to put it away.]

...Guess I'll owe you for a shirt, then.

[Turning back to face her, he leans back against the door and crosses his arms, a thoughtful frown pulling into place.]

Perhaps, but from what I've seen, there aren't that many above ground level willing to be bought by anyone other than the Nine, or their bootlickers, so it still leads back to the same.

[valr]

[Kara lifts a shoulder in a lazy shrug, effectively dismissing Kanda's offer - clothes are just clothes, and hers aren't exactly expensive. And it still functions as a shirt, just less of one.]

Corruption's everywhere. This helps 'em, anyway. Don't want Westies getting too uppity.

[lotusmesenpai]

[He can only snort in agreement at that before canting his head to the side to watch her, his gaze thoughtful.]

...either way, I doubt this is the end of it. The Accords are still intact, so... you hear anything else about this shitshow, let me know.

[valr]

I'll keep my ear to the ground.

[She always does, but she figures it can't hurt to reassure him that she'll pay attention to this particular issue.

And now that she's finished patching him up, she figures loitering any longer is overstaying her welcome.]

Get some rest. I'm gonna go make sure that Company idiot hasn't broken the Leithians.