Everyone has to pick up where they left off, returning like a hazy dream where nothing is where you left it. First, the clock gets a kink somewhere, and the seconds slow or that minute hand catches as odd beat somewhere around 4 am and hit's a minute back rather than forward, but resumes as usual. Clocks are like that, progressive. Trying to get somewhere. Always moving around the same spot, endlessly repeating, and yet advancing through the deepest fog of our imaginations: time. I would stare at the clock for half a day, mulling over these things when she would wake me from my thoughts, and through a newspaper clip or some criminals confession, and then we would be off again, hitting endless leads that brought us nothing but further hardship and constraint to already sore spots of gaping wounds that nothing but the death of a mother or child could compare. We lost our soul. Hypothetically speaking...I mean, its not like a theological thing, here, or some literal soul stealing, but the woman that gave us pieces of humanity to decorate our thoughts rather than this jittering of mechanical flesh spread across this mechanical bone, where wires link our blood flow and eyes are anything that can detect a light wave. She held our souls in place for us, made us certain that we had one. Me and Walden, we aren't so sure any more. She has degraded, ripping up petty thieves, killing them some time, under the guise of martial law and investigation....I worry about her. She has not been...well. She has developed her own little ticks, idiocies that flesh and blood people have. Forgetfulness. A craving for wine and Jack Daniels. Sometimes together (ick).
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Marshal Law has been declared in the Undergrounds, the poorer sections of Khazan that house the surface commuters. Also some of the seedier criminals live here. Not the powerful Ubervillians, like those Fallen guys or anything nearly that bad. The ones that sell cheap drugs they make in their sinks out of chemicals harsh enough. Enough for what? Let your mind imagine, Lord knows theirs can't anymore. Also, the techie drugs. Stuff that I guess you could say I'm into. Retro Visual Feeders, Info Repressors. The things that daze out anything with Silicon rather than Carbon. Us robots, we don't let it show, though. So even though its just Walden and I for a city sector twice as large as Uptown, we still get the respect, the informants and the tip offs. I'm, I'm not sure, entirely, whether or not our dearly departed Adrian would ever have approved...or even takled to us again if she knew how far things have gone. We -- we used to be part of the Sentinels, the good of the good. Then Adrian is decapitated, Selah (our boss) demoted, Piet shipped out, and Walden goes Berserk after the killer... I don't know where I fall into all this mess. I can't even keep Walden from seeing Scorpio, her ex that seems to be preying on her sorrow. Screw it. Hack in. Hit the switch. Bug out a little bit before my wires are completely fried and pretend for another hour that Adrian is still alive.
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Almost a Joke
Fire: Standard
- Weakness: Power in Item - Hard to Lose
- Weakness: Limited Uses - Multi-Use
Its more of a bad joke than an actual weapon. Its mounted to my shoulder, a three foot long by two foot contraption that appears to be the latest, state of the art flame thrower. Ah, its really just a cigarette lighter. I got it back in the day when I was still developing a sense of humor. I already stand nearly ten feet tall, a combat class android made so that everyone around knew that if you messed with him, you were dead. I had all my metal plating refitted with a dark, possibly crimson gleaming metal, with this huge flame thrower mounted on back. Well, Walden was a smoker. (Image maybe? She has no lungs) And all the thing can do is shoot about a foot long flame, very slender. Supposed to be a joke, but it did not quite pan through that way. No one laughed.
Encased in Metal
Body Armor: Supreme
- Reinforced Defenses
- Weakness: Power in Item - Hard to Lose
- Weakness: Limited Uses - Multi-Use
Its got nicks and scratches. Can't tell from a distance, but I haven't gotten my skin shined lately. Just been too...I don't know. Nothing, I guess. I think about it every time I see a mirror, just don't have the energy. Or the money, really. Rent and fuel cells cost too much to really turn a profit. Lord knows the rest of the police force forgets about us, and no self respecting criminal with a bounty on his head comes down into the Undergrounds at all. I could just as easily talk to Selah about it, she has friends scattered throughout the SLJ, but I haven't been returning her calls. Said she was concerned about us...well, sometimes I am too. Sometimes.
Unlikely Situations
Lucky: Supreme
- Weakness: Power in Item - Easy to Lose
- Weakness: Limited Uses - Multi-Use
There is a lot to be said about situation. We think we are masters of it, and maybe we are. Just as often we can become slaves to noble impulses or feelings of loyalty...or even despondency, and find ourselves...here. Maybe I feel like ability implies duty to serve, or that some strung out street punk on a bank motorcycle deserves a chance at finding the killer of her best friend. Anyhow, something has tied me here, although I hate this city. The Undergrounds are too depressing, to stagnant. Commuting day after day, riding the elevators and even the stair wells, if you know your way well enough. What's even worse is the slice of population that rides the elevators down each morning, into the depths of the lower industrial that feeds off the thermals and magma for...what ever it is they do. Sometimes they will go weeks on end without seeing the sunlight. I never knew why the parks were always so crowded up top, until I lived down here long enough. Trees are...wonderful. Maybe some day I should see another one.
Walden
Commander: Superior
- Weakness: Power in Item - Easy to Lose
- Weakness: Limited Uses - Multi-Use
- Weakness: Not usable in terrain - Steel Cage
A single six shooter, and you think she is going to be an easy target. She is cleaver, a good shot, and really revels in the kill. In her sleep she mutters. I just crumble in the corner of her room to sleep, but I hear her up on the bed, fighting some kind of private battle which I would just as well leave her to as much as I wouldn't. Men treated her badly, in the past. I think most of them are dead. She wasn't always a hero; I would like to think she still is. Or hope so anyway. Even in her sleep, her hand is not too far from the gun's trigger. Sure, its not in hand, but you can see her finger twitch as she dreams. She doesn't sleep long -- neither of us really can if we want to keep the Undergrounds in our pocket -- but I wish she could get some honest rest so she could see people rather than targets whenever she pulls the trigger.
Walden
Commander: Superior
- Ranged Attack Only
- Multi-Attacks
- Weakness: Power in Item - Easy to Lose
- Weakness: Limited Uses - Multi-Use
- Weakness: Not usable in terrain - Steel Cage
I don't want to say she is unreliable, but usually that kind of statement means she is. Life really got to her. I know things about her past that the others don't. Frightening things. Nothing involving death, but lots of pain. Lots of unmentioned, untended pain that sort of welled up, pent up, and then got swallowed down. I think its all been there for ages. Right now, Walden is coping with...a lot. She's old, but she still doesn't look it. The curse or blessing of us not-quite-so-human kind. We don't show our age, and maybe we don't age at all. Who can really tell? She still looks young enough to get carded, but all the bartenders know her by sight. Also, they don't charge her. She gets...wild. Not in a good way, but in a showy, depressed, nihilistic sort of way. A bad thing for a cop to do. She is pretty enough, but all her tattoos make her interesting to look at. Flesh and blood men say she is a true beauty, until she glares at you.
The Undergrounds
Teleportation: Standard
- Weakness: Power in Item - Easy to Lose
- Weakness: Limited Uses - One Use
No one planned the Undergrounds. They were just further developed when some bureaucrat argued that no one owns property under other property, so it was, in theory, open for development. A lot of elements and oddities went into the structure and geography. Some major buildings put in a lot of money to securing areas right underneath them, both for structure and for development, but just as often, commercial, industry, residential, or a smear of all of them snaked their way through those areas. No one designed or planned the lot of it. Streets will split and then weave off to no where in particular. Major road ways will turn off or just dead end where three blocks ago it was four lane traffic. Stairwells will go up and down for three levels, or ten, or only one. A couple go all the way to the surface and to the very depths themselves. Everything is cramped. I know my way around, maybe one of the few, so I can get basically anywhere. The quickest route might go through a tattoo parlor, up the stairs it connects with that feeds out next to an interstate, and then cross traffic, and into an elevator.
Marshall Law
Weapons Creation: Standard
- Ranged Attack Only
- Area Affect
- Multi-Attacks
- Weakness: Power in Item - Easy to Lose
- Weakness: Limited Uses - Multi-Use
Marshall law was declared when six of the twelve police officers in the Undergrounds quit to sell hot dogs at Ball Games up top, mostly for the pay raise, and only six of us were left. Two died, one quite, and one retired, leaving just Walden and I. Basically, we shoot who we want, and no one cares. No one cares because our boss forgets us most the time -- this area is not too important, really. Occasionally they remember around budget time, and we get things, like more ammunition or money for gas. Maybe they should spend it on a police car for us, but Walden has her motorcycle, and there are ways to get around this city if you just know where to go. Most of the guns and ammunition we use are off of the criminals we apprehend. After all this time, we have a fairly impressive arsenal, and not everything is legal. What we lack for in funding we make up for in heart. No, seriously. I don't want to see someone robbed or stabbed. That is why I am an officer. The only way I can control them, though, is through punishment and terror. There is a lot of city, and not a lot of me. But there is a lot of bullets, so there's a thought.
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