Characters

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Dramatis Personae

Author: Ben

Shadbolt

Shadbolt is quite tall, with a medium build, and would be quite unremarkable in appearance were it not for his piercing brown (almost black) eyes. He took metamorph enhancements in lieu of bonuses when he worked for Medico, but there is no outward evidence of this unless he gets wounded. He has greasy dark brown hair and wears various dark clothes, suits, coats, even capes. Given his occupation, he has a high turnover of garments.

He is a deeply bitter man, driven to succeed at what he does. His automatic reaction to failure is give way to fury and vent his frustration on whoever or whatever foiled him. He will use people to help him, but only if he has some hold on them so they cannot let him down. He is capable both physically and mentally, and is a rapid learner. He has smuggled, and procured, but is currently working an a CICI-based unit which he believes will be very powerful.


Lucas

Lucas still wears his leathers from his ganger days. He is short and lean. He grows his hair quite long, and fancies himself as a bit of a ladies man.

Although he lived in the sink estates, he is all at sea in the high-powered, brutal world Shadbolt introduced him to. He doesn't really know what he wants out of life, and he looks for role-models (he picked Shadbolt - oops). He accompanies Shadbolt and Dove as an extra body, a runner and, as far as Shadbolt is concerned, another target for incoming bullets.



Author: Mich

Dove

Dove is a tall, slender and somewhat delicate-looking girl. Her blond hair is cut into a jaw-length bob which neatly frames her face. She wears a pale, expressionless mask which is moulded to fit her face tightly, to cover severe burns on her face. She wears old, comfortable clothes which hug her attractive figure. It is worth noting that she used to be 'Dovid', some time before she met Shadbolt.

Dove is unhappy and lonely, a sensitive soul, but who can be ruthless when working in the Net. She needs Shadbolt's drugs, partnership and company, although this sickens her. She is certainly more competent than she likes to admit, and it seems as though she has fallen from a great height.



Author: Paul

James

James is a tall thin man with neatly trimmed dark brown hair. His drawn features are only marred by a slight scar, about an inch long, running down from the edge of his left eye.

His demeanour is usually solemn except when something he finds exciting happens. This is not very often.



Author: Geoff

XVI: The Falling Tower

What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air.

T S Eliot, The Wasteland

A mystic and intriguer, the old man first seen musing upon the fall of the Canada Square Tower has now ceased to be mortal altogether. After his death at the hands of Rake-hell Nell, he has become an unencumbered consciousness adrift in Cyberspace.

His children now carry on his legacy but his plans, it seems, have been long in coming to fruition. Quite what he intends is vague but it encompasses the destruction of Tachy-Capitalism. His aims are often obscured by strange diversions and seemingly pointless pseudo-religious quests.

He is well spoken and, in life, was rather partial to Oolong tea.


The Queen of Swords

She moves like she don't care,
Smooth as silk, cool as air.
Ooh it makes you wanna cry.

Blondie, Maria

Rake-hell Nell (or Helen Barnworth when ever so occasionally she does not use her nom de guerre) is a Nietzsche Metamorph and an associate of the expensive and elite Yon-Ju-Shichi mercenary group. She wears her hair cropped short and dyed electric blue and sports a number of platinum facial piercings. Her cockney slang and punk exterior disguise an expert warrior however. She is cool and intelligent and fights as much with her head as her bio-enhanced brawn.

She is a protégée of the illustrious Ronin, Fuyukage Yoshio, a senior partner of the Yon-Ju-Shichi. It is also no secret that their relationship is a little more intimate than that of teacher and pupil.

For those boys who like their girls with toys, her weapon of choice is the Schneider Corpus Christi, an 18 millimetre calibre pistol with a magazine of twelve custom titanium tipped, sabot discarding shells.


The Knight of Staves

I'm guided by a signal in the heavens
I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

Leonard Cohen, First We Take Manhattan

With his burning brown eyes, cropped black hair; with his stern and haughty features, Titus Rosenbaum looks the part that he has taken upon himself. His lifelong training in the martial arts by, amongst others, Fuyukage Yoshio, and his enigmatic uncle's gift, the Killing Prayer bio-enhancement package, complete the picture.

Titus Rosenbaum has surrendered his destiny to his father's vision of a new world. He has become an agent of terrible reckoning. Murder is sacred to him, an act of mystical communion with God. He has become almost a symbol of divine retribution against a sinful world.


XVII: The Star

Fate must have a reason.
Why else endure the season
Of hollow soul?

k d lang, Season of Hollow Soul

Where Titus was bequeathed certainty, Persephone Rosenbaum has been given only doubt. She has seen her father's vision demand greater and greater sacrifices of her family. And yet that vision is all that she has.

Slight, red-haired, bespectacled and befreckled, she is almost nothing like her younger twin. At the age of twenty, she has become an Oxford Doctor of Philosophy and a renowned scholar of early Semitic and Persian civilization.

Without faith, she is sustained by a hope that her father truly did know how all the pieces fitted together. One day, she tells herself, I will find the reason. Somewhere, amongst the Aramaic scrolls and cuneiform tablets, is a truth that justifies it all. Until then, she concentrates on supporting her brother, who seems to have a far clearer idea of that elusive truth; reining in his excesses and holding him together as he pursues his destiny.



Author: Jenna

Dulcinea Carew

Age: 27
Hair: reddish brown
Stature: stooped, slightly overweight from a sedentary lifestyle

Finding her niche in the abstract, sterile world of academia, Dulcie completed degree after degree in increasingly long-named subjects, finally settling on Oxford's unique Astrogeophysics and Infra-Red Radiation and Compilation Studies. After the heady pursuit of qualifications ended, Dulcie scuttled into a research position in order to support her independent son, Jesse.

Jesse's father, Pablo, was an exchange student specialising in Dadaism from the Traditional Quarter of Mexico city. Pablo's own pursuit for a lack of qualifications led him back to the desert outside Mexico City several months after Jesse was born.


Jesse Carew

Age: 11
Hair: ginger
Stature: short, thin and wiry

Jesse has fond memories of his early life running amok through university-owned laboratories and occasionally being taught not-so-legal skills by graduate students. Now he finds more support and companionship among his group of not-so-legal friends than he does from his mother, Dulcie, who is rarely home and, when home, is rarely in, in the strictest sense of the word.




Precis

Corporates and Corruption
Authors involved:
Andrew, Chris, Stewart, Dave, Ben

A young executive, Peter Dietrich, is employed by the Dalyn-Steward corporation [Doing the Deal]. The Dalyn-Steward corporation does not seem to be well-liked. Rioters against it were shot down in a 'triumph of justice', something which Benjamin Stark, an associate of the mayor, will be investigating [Triumph of Justice].

Peter himself seems to be a nasty piece of work. He murdered his predecessor for the job, and is engaged in arranging the death of the operatives who took part in the mission to capture a particular girl. The mission having been successful, Peter doesn't want any loose cannons left around. There is only one operative still left to be taken out - D. Butterstone, who has gone underground [Infiltration, Extraction]. (It is worth noting that Titus Rosenbaum considers the BI a 'GSSA catspaw'. He may or may not be correct.) [Oedipus Simple]. Kathryn was readying herself for a possible rescue of the captured girl [Answers and Questions]. Since then, however, she has made contact with Butterstone, who gave her his notebook of secrets. Alas, it does not look like Butterstone will live to see it again. [Rendezvous with a Runaway].

The captured girl is called Mei. She was taken after she arrived on a hypersonic jet from Tokyo and stayed in a London hotel. She took out two of Peter's men before the tranq dart took effect. She was being held in quite a nice cell, and had released a stimulant hidden in her tooth to clear out the effects of the drug [The Morning After]. She did not co-operate with her captor [The Prisoner], and called in the favours of an old 'friend', Dove, to open the cell doors using the 'Net'[Why the Caged Bird Sings].

We don't know why Peter needs Mei, or why she is so important that the operatives must now be eliminated. But no doubt we will find out.

Peter has just been promoted [God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen]. Can the man's luck never run out?

Sub-plots

1) On the Edge
Author:
Paul

Peter has also been keeping track of the strange deaths in his company, that of 'Mr Smith' [Bad Medicine], and Mr Smith's lover, a secretary in the building, who threw herself off the roof in despair [The Long Descent]. 'Mr Smith' had been killed by a female mercenary, currently employed by Peter Archibald, head of Bold Industries. She has also disposed of Peter's 'friend' in IntSec, Bradley [Doing Lunch, Automotive].

Archibald is a strange creature himself, able to kill a physically larger man with a single punch [Punch Drunk]. Where does this assassin and her employer fit in, and how did Archibald effect that murder?


2) Masks and Machinations Authors: Ben, Mich, Paul

At the same moment that Dove was breaking open Mei's cell door, Dove was also working for Shadbolt and his partner Lucas - who were at that precise moment robbing Peter in a lift [Ghost in the Machine].

Shadbolt et al have their fingers in a couple of pies, including stealing info from Medico [The Mystery Cat, Macavity's Not There], acquiring an ancient book [Backward Compatibility], and robbing Dietrich, of course. Shadbolt is on the run for stealing his own revised plan for the CICI (Model 17). The situation was getting hot, and he had decided to plant the info on a free software site [Release]. We don't yet know the results of this action.

Dove, who wears a prosthetic mask, stays with Shadbolt through chemical and psychological dependence. Despite his initial contempt, he now seems to feel some affection for her [Meditation, Glass Slipper Dream]. Whether Dove feels similarly towards Shadbolt is another matter. She e-mailed her brother, Yehudi, to ask him to help her escape [My Brother's Keeper], signing the e-mail 'Dovid'. Yehudi has not responded.

Lucas became Shadbolt's ally after attacking him as part of a gang initiation - and showing a goodly amount of sense when he lost [Raise or Fold].

As an aside, either Dietrich or Dove might have been responsible for the death of the unnamed netrunner checking out the Dalyn-Steward network. Who murdered that netrunner, and why? [Terminal Addiction].


Fathers and Sons
Authors:
Geoff, Ben

At the heart of this plot is an old man with floppy hair and a cold, English manner, who was assassinated by a cockney Ronin, Nell, the hired bodyguard of Rabbi Ephraim Weissmann [No Schlep]. Nell is part of the famed Yon-Ju-Shichi, who supply metamorph mercenaries at extortionate fees.

The old man had a plan, however, to ruin Weissmann's life [Cities in Dust]. It would appear that this involved using Yehudi, a hacker in Weissmann's Ha Aheret David network, to unwittingly transfer a lethal sensie to Weissmann's wife, Ruth [No Schlep, Variations on a Theme]. Under the influence of the sensie, Ruth cooked her son into a pie. Upon discovery of this, she lost her mind and, as Nell put it, "kicked the metaphorical" [Thyestes' Feast]. Weissmann was then attacked by the old man's son, Titus Rosenbaum and his allies. We here learn the reason for the animosity between Titus and Weissman; Titus's father had run off with Weissmann's first wife, Deborah Rosenbaum, and Weissman subsequently had her killed [Oedipus Simple, Guts of a Beggar]. Titus's forces were overwhelming, and Nell barely survived.

The plot thickens. It seems that Titus's father and family are also clients of the Yon Ju Shichi. Titus therefore now wants to hire Nell. Fuyukage Yoshio, Nell's mentor and more, does not think Nell will be displeased at being hired by the man who killed her client [Tea Ceremony]. After all, she is a professional.

Fuyukage has been involved in ventures for Titus before. It was he who met Shadbolt to pick up an ancient book, 5 years ago, which Fuyukage then passed on to the Rosenbaum twins. Persephone used it to obtain a 'mechanical man' dating from the Victorian era [Variations on a Theme]. Titus was also previously a student of Fuyukage's, and it is implied that he, too, is a metamorph - and one with quicker reflexes than even Nell.

The twins are about to hold a wake for their father [Touching God] - and they seem to have some plans regarding corporations... but what?


'Meanwhiles'

1) Author: Kev
An unnamed slave trader was interrupted from carnal pleasures - by someone wanting to shoot him for having sold them out. Luckily, our 'hero' is saved by his partner, Alex, a serious man with quick reflexes and the ability to fit a lot of meaning into few words. The slave trader describes himself as having once been "on the side of the angels". [Coitus Interruptus]

2) Author: Dave Jones
An electro-nanite escapes from an experimental batch and acquires consciousness. As she begins to pass this sentience on to the rest of the batch, we are left to wonder what they might do next.
This sub introduces Kastria McKinley, head of the laboratory team; her assistant Sam Volder; and Thomas Glint, a suspicious employee of the company. [A Nite Out]

3) Author: Huw
A female metamorph steals information about metamorphed dogs from Medico. Although the dogs attack her, she awakes to find a dead dog - and her body's nanites repairing her damaged limbs. She doesn't know how the dog died, as she puts it "what did the bastards put in me?".[Beware of the Dog]

4) Author: Dave Watson
Food riots have been occurring in the city. Has Frisk the beggar a controlling hand in this? [Les Misérables]. Meanwhile, Sergeant Sant has been given orders to 'clean up the streets'.




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