User:EccentricOwl/sandbox

"Play hard. Hit harder." Motto of the Mercenary Operative Raoul Spector, "You didn't hear? Retro aesthetics are in again! So, I thought I'd bring my Eskrima sticks so I can give off a real old-school vibe while I'm kicking your asses." Raoul Spector during the execution of a contract in the lower tunnels of Novyy Bangkok, Human Edge. Spector is a man dead many times over. He's one of the privileged fev. who can claim to have undergone Resurrection not once, but several times. He also enjoys the use of a host, an advanced biosynthetic body to replace his own. But these privileges are also his curse, a curse that binds him to a life of danger and death. Spector is a man who made a deal with the devil-or rather with a devil.

A lifetime ago, Raoul Spector was a mercenary soldier with no loftier aspiration than hard cash. He left behind a prestigious career in the Special Operations branch of the PanOceanian Military Complex, lured with the promise of easy money in the private sector. Spector was pretty sure he had life all figured out, until a routine escort mission went belly up. There was an ambush and a firefight, and when the smoke cleared Spector and his men had killed a handful of civilians, several women and children amongst them. The local population rose up in arms against the mercenaries, and only a gravely wounded Spector was able to escape the enraged mob and survive the night. Exhausted, he broke into a luxurious estate seeking refuge. He didn't know at the time, but he had entered the devil's domain. does, feels, or enjoys. H under constant monito devices in his body ma or regrets it instantly misery, each indignity but every man has a SHO ON KN ou He woke up hooked up to a life support system, being watched over by a corpulent man with intense eyes. With an ironic curtsy, the man introduced himself as Kambur Bey. Known as one of the richest, most opulent Silk traders, Kambur Bey had the dubious honor of being the only Sultan to ever be ousted for the crimes of bribery and corruption instead of the usual political infighting. That meant the egregiousness of his corruption must have been truly staggering, even for the standards of the Sultanate. Knauf, a veteran Sr in a slew of atroc one operation-in Broken and hope stop haunting hir ends of that ope precarious balal Once again dra own misdeeds that nearly too back, he plan: his rifle if the Kambur Bey, an insatiable man of unspeakable appetites, offered Spector a deal: his life for his bonded labor, and not as a mere mercenary. Bey had a plan to enjoy the thrill of combat, the unadulterated adrenaline of being in mortal danger-without the actual risk of demise. He would implant Spector with a sensory recorder capable of continuous trans- mission, and so Bey would be able to access every one of Spector's experiences in real time, via a full-immersion interface, from the safety of his own home.

Kambur Bey, an insatiable man of unspeakable appetites, offered Spector a deal: his life for his bonded labor, and not as a mere mercenary. Bey had a plan to enjoy the thrill of combat, the unadulterated adrenaline of being in mortal danger--without the actual risk of demise. He would implant Spector with a sensory recorder capable of continuous trans- mission, and so Bey would be able to access every one of Spector's experiences in real time, via a full-immersion interface, from the safety of his own home. that nearly back, he pl his rifle if All Spector was expected to do was to carry on with his mercenary contractor business, only picking ever more interesting, riskier jobs. To live life on the fast lane and hold nothing back, recoiling from no mortal peril. Even when mission parameters forced him off-line, he would have to return to the datasphere as soon as his mission was accomplished and upload his experiential data for Kambur Bey to delight in. The Bureau Aegis has classified Spector as one of the most unpre- dictable individuals in the Human Sphere. Large-scale battles, guerilla raids, Zero-G boardings, escorts, high-speed chases, seek-and-destroy contracts, Aristeia! Underground bouts, hinterland bar brawls-Spector has done it all. Anything to relieve Kambur Bey from the tedium of real life. It's a life in service of the former Sultan's adrenal glands. Each time Spector's hazardous lifestyle has claimed his life, Kambur Bey's recovery team has been deployed to salvage his Cube and bring him back in a brand new host. That kind of health insurance might sound tempting, but from the moment Spector sealed the deal, he hasn't spent a second in real solitude. There's always a voice in his head whispering orders, a passenger lurking behind his eyes, feeding off everything

does, feels, or enjoys. He is a man without freedom to choose his fate, under constant monitoring with no escape in sight-a multitude of devices in his body make sure that he adheres scrupulously to the deal or regrets it instantly and intensely. Thus far he has put up with each misery, each indignity-thus far. Raoul Spector is a man of his word, but every man has a limit.. C KNAUF, OUTLAW SNIPER —Knauf, a veteran sniper, lived much of his life undercover, participating in a slew of atrocities at the behest of the Hexahedron until the day one operation--infiltrating the Druze Society-claimed his very soul. Broken and hopeless, he gave up the fight thinking his past would stop haunting him. He was wrong. Without his involvement, the loose ends of that operation grew ever tangled and threatened to upset the precarious balance of power that keeps the Human Sphere together. Once again drawn into someone else's war, Knauf had to confront his own misdeeds and his very self in a frenzy of betrayal and destruction that nearly took his life. Now his former employers have a target on his back, he plans to live out his days in semi-retirement, only picking up his rifle if the pay is good and the cause is even better.

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Background
Confidential data assembled from the "Irregular group of lost children from Baker Module" dossier. First-class hacking prodigy. Negligible combat skills; escort required. Tendency toward introversion; known history of was psychosis and PTSD.

Further information on the cast of Outrage can be found in the Outrage Missions Pack.

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Name's Uhahu. Yah, I know it's a palindrome. It's also one way to transcribe 'yoo-hoo' in Japanese. I know it's a weird name; still miles better than Test Subject EXL-034B, right? That's as much of a name as I got from Dr Santos, my maker and custodian from when I was imprisoned in the Baker Module, the Tunguskan branch of the Black Labs. That's where I was made-or bred or whatever-to be a spare body for some silver spoon asshole; like a sort of bootleg augmented clone. So that's why I'm so smart and why I age one-third as quickly as a regular person. In fancier words, both my physiological and neurological development have been, well, retarded. And it sucks ass 'cause I'm sick of being a child! At least my brood mates at Baker Module were the same as me. We made quite the team in that concentration kindergarten. They taught us all kinds of stuff pretty much non-stop, exercising our cogni- tive capacities so our noodle would be at peak performance once our 'originals' got to take over. Apparently our brains are extra malleable because of neoteny. We were so smart and learned so fast, when we decided to break out not even the pseudo-Al in charge of security could stop us.

But there was a lot about the world we didn't know and our breakout drew the attention of Jack Watson and he got to us pretty much straight away-he's not the Greatest Detective in the Sphere for nothing. Thank goodness Watson saw the utility in us-or he took pity on us, same difference - and he helped us found the Baker Module's Lost Children Irregulars. We were an independent team of data collection, analysis, and intelligence experts. The cash kept us afloat, and it gave us a purpose. We helped Jack Watson out with his cases but we also got a lot of cred with hackers and with the espionage community. That was fine for a while, but some of us were restless; we wanted to see the world beyond freaking Tunguska. The first one to leave was Mary Problems; I went next.

I had the skillz and the connectz to get by freelancing for intelligence agencies, corporate services, and of course at StarCo-they know talent when they see it. That's when I got an offer from a tactical officer called Emily Handelman. Her merry band of mercenaries was short a hacker, so up into the Dolly Dagger I went. That's right. The rest you probably heard from the news, but they fed you a load of bullshit and spin-that's a matter of course with black ops and the Hexahedron, believe me. Anyway, that was a whole thing, but I guess life goes on. I'm still taking gigs; sometimes independently, other times, like now, on StarCo's payroll. Nah, of course I don't mind telling you who I work for. 'Cause your memory is being expunged as we speak, silly. Yah, what you're feeling right now is called a cascading failure. Unpreventable and irretrievable, and it's my handiwork. Who's a brat now, you pocket calcul-"

-Deactivatio nof the HydrAI protecting the Xanaaq Complex, in orbit around Neptune. Recorded during the Maytime Corporate Micro-conflicts.

"Stateless mercenaries who spurn banners and ideals, but will gladly kill for coin -= the brood of the devil, the lot of them.'" -Jeanne D'Arc during a meeting of the Paradiso Coordinated Command in the map room of the O-12 station "Indomitable Will.

"Stateless mercenaries who spurn banners and ideals, but will gladly kill for coin -= the brood of the devil, the lot of them."

editing


 * Blitzlicht - Information for professional mercenaries.
 * Connectica - General information. Includes the program "Ultimate Gears" which focuses on TAGs.
 * Eye of Varuna - Varuna information.
 * Hocus-Pocus! Information on black ops. Staff - Annabel Nichols
 * LiveFree - Streetfighting on Maya and Arachne.
 * NextStep - Future technology in PanO.
 * PsychoRama - Current issues.
 * Sip_sip_Gossip - Celebrity news.
 * Techné - Bureau Athena sponsored technology and news channel.
 * Zirconium - Hot takes and opinions. Staff include Sandra Vogue