Saturnine
"Hey, I appreciate what you did. Good job."
Age:25
Appearance:Saturnine is a waifish figure, lithe and thin. Rather than the bulk muscle of the laborer or fighter, he is possessed of the athleticism of the long distance runner and urban environment movement specialist. Lacking any cybernetics whatsoever, Saturnine's all-natural visage is only blemished by the rough scars and callouses of a scavenger. His appearance is highlighted and brought into a dazzling light by sheer optimism and positivity.
He has long white hair, gentle eyes, soft features, and is generally an effeminate figure of a man to behold. A certifiable 'pretty boy' in his youth, with a fashion sense and manicured physique to show for it. He carries himself with a physical confidence in his appearance, but does not do so in the manner of the vain or narcissist. All that is to say is that he is someone who has a distinct, cultivated, appearance- but is not someone to whom those qualities matter more than practicality; he gets just as dirty, sweaty, and exhausted as the next SK8TE member.
Faction:SK8TE Courier
Sk8te Cell/Gang:Afterburn, headed by Hotshot.
Weapons/Tools:Due to lacking in any cybernetic enhancements, Saturnine utilizes a complex suite of tools to compensate. Primarily developed by the ailing Sister, his tools are all functionally scrapyard rebuilds that enable his lifestyle.Wizbang Goggles - These 'sophisticated' goggles are uncannily put together from scrapped viewscreens and augmented reality tech, their significant bulk enabling a wide array of visual tools- including map overlays and heads-up-display/augmented reality viewing. Such a tool would be critical to any courier in the city, especially those with SK8TE maps.
Sparky - A drone, capable of interfacing with most standard-issue technology ports. Controlled by Sister from vast distances, enabling her to support Saturnine while on the run. Lacking utterly in any combat functionalities, the miniscule hover-drone is nearly silent when Sister isn't speaking through it and it possesses the same augmented visual suite that the Wizbang Goggles do. In practical terms, this little thing is the true secret to Saturnine's success as a SK8TE member; Sister's ability to open and close new paths for him while on the move.
Junkyard Slammer - A roughly constructed hoverboard, modified, somewhat uncharacteristically, to possess greater weight and mass than one would think a Courier would prefer; the truth of the matter is, Sister crammed more thrust into this thing than any sane engineer would recommend, and its larger size and reinforced construction provide Saturnine with considerably more cover and protection from hostile firepower than most. In a pinch, it can be used as a battering ram.
Shock Gloves - Saturnine's gloves are salvaged MCPD tech. Seeing as he lacks the desire to harm others, and that the MCPD seems to never even use this particular patent of security tech, 'contact-taser-gloves' are right up his alley for when things get a little too dicey for comfort. Sister has enabled the limiters on these to be overloaded at the press of a button, meaning that Saturnine can swiftly fry electronic devices by merely placing his hands upon them. The gloves have limited charge, however. They can recharge inductively over time, or be plugged in to rapidly restore their power from any standard terminal.
...As well as a host of other, less significant but still customized pieces of equipment that suit the needs of a Courier such as a communicator, headphones, he even carries a particularly powerful flashlight that some would consider blinding.
Likes:-Beauty
-Excellent Food
-Adrenaline, Speed, Heights, thrills, etc.
-Women (He can be a bit of a flirt and skirtchaser)
Dislikes:-Filth, dirt, poor hygiene, etc.
-Displays of cruelty
-The MCPD
-tight walls, low ceilings; mild claustrophobia
Quirks:-Excessively Optimistic and Polite
-Overly Formal
-He requires a balance of stimuli, functionally needing to use both hands for most tasks to avoid personal discomfort. At a bare minimum he alternates which hand performs tasks as they come up. Incorrectly balanced headphones would drive him insane, for further example.
Places of Interest:-
Vivian's - a Nightclub on the lower levels of the Spire, where Saturnine moonlights when his obligations to Sister are satisfied and he feels the need to go on the hunt for short term mutually beneficial midnight rendezvous. It has the best food of the establishments within his potential budgets, and he occasionally does favors for the mysterious and enigmatic 'Vivian' who owns the club.
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The Rip Clinic - An illicit cybernetic chop-shop nestled in the Red Light District, Saturnine maintains a presence and relationship with the clinic as the primary source of Sister's medications. This relationship is the closest thing to a shackle that Saturnine experiences, as without the Rip Clinic he would be forced to reveal Sister's Nanohive to others and open up further risk to their livelihood. The only positive thing that can be said about this place is that their discretion is true; Saturnine trusts them not to betray the strange technological marvel that is Sister implicitly.
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The Veranda, on the Metro - A shiny bright sign hangs over a dilapidated and frankly underwhelming studio apartment. This is where Saturnine's personal residence lies, in a cramped apartment filled with his clothing and equipment, scarcely fit to live in, with a lonely balcony overlooking the dizzying metro rail line. His apartment lies directly above a pachinko parlor, and through the blur of metro rail movements the opposite building houses a quaint simple electronics store.
Sister
"Isn't it amazing that we're alive right now? I mean, really, with how everything is...We're here."
Age:15
Appearance:Sister bears a powerful resemblance to Saturnine; they share long, flowing, white hair and soft features, as well as a pale complexion. Their eyes differ, as does the general build of their bodies. Saturnine, whilst effeminate, is still a man; Sister, despite her youth, is the budding beginnings of a beauty. Of course, the greatest asset of her physical nature is the cunning gleam in her eye and the curious tilt of a smirk as she discovers yet another new secret to untangle.
Faction:SK8TE Affiliate
Sk8te Cell/Gang:Afterburn, headed by Hotshot.
Cybernetics:Malfunctioning Nanohive Circuit - Sister has a housing of nanomachines embedded deep inside her chest, nestled just below her heart. It's supposed to be regulating her dire health issues, but it was a black market refabrication and is in a slow state of degrade and malfunction. Quite literally, her body fuels this device with its natural resources and the Nanohive constructs microscopic machines that repair her degrading organs and muscles; the malfunction has twisted this device into a sort of macabre cancerous form of life. The very thing that keeps her alive brings her immense pain as the nanomachines run rampant and damage the healthy tissues only to rebuild them again and repeat this process throughout her whole body.
Weapons/Tools:Sister is a consummate technological prodigy and Saturnine has encouraged this behavior wholeheartedly; her hideout on the rooftops has an impressive suite of cybertechnological and engineering gear that has been either illicitly purchased, stolen, or rebuilt by herself over the years since her spark of genius manifested itself. In a pinch she can brute force some rough hackwork, such as through the Sparky drone she built to help Saturnine, but that is less her forte than the mechanical work of devices. She has a reputation for taking a pile of junkyard machinery and producing functional, if crude, devices for use.
She's a bit of an armchair jocky, someone who likes to watch through cybernetic feeds and visual data to experience the lifestyle of the SK8TE teams she supports.
Likes:-Excellent Food
-Wonders of Technology
-High Fashion
-Animals
Dislikes:-Displays of Cruelty
-The MCPD
-The Heirs
-Sickness, pain, blood
Quirks:-Overly Formal, the same as Saturnine
-Exceptionally mature, often seeming more grounded in reality than Saturnine's optimism
-Chews her lips
Places of Interest:-
The Rooftop Workshop - Catered to and tended by the Afterburn cell, Sister inhabits a dome of scrap metal that dominates the upper two floors of an abandoned building. The lower floors serve as storage and a veritable mechanical graveyard, whereas the rooftop serves as a greeting room, landing pad, party space, and whatever other communal purpose the Afterburn cell may require of this specialized location. The remaining topmost floor serves as her personal room. Sister, virtually, never leaves this location due to her health concerns.
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Neosky Nova Peak - When she does leave the Rooftop Workshop, however, it is to visit her personal favorite place in the city; the Nova Peak is the tallest building that falls under the SK8TE umbrella of neutral territories, and Sister swears that the sunset lasts longer if you climb to the top of its dizzying height. You still have to tilt your head up to gaze at The Spire, but the dilapidated and ancient tower at the edge of the city stands as a testament that even before the Corporate Wars that buildings could still reach towards the sky. The tower, whilst a loosely held together shell of its former self, used to be a media tower and now serves as an unofficial hub of hidden SK8TE tag information sharing across cells.
Saturnine has made a name for himself within the Afterburn cell. The long white hair whipping behind the blurred moving body of a man astride a hoverboard, the neon glow of its over-tuned booster engines weaving a hypnotic glare into the air behind him. The rakish smile, the confident glow, the air of ancient nobility dragged through the mud and blood of history until it was hardened into the smirking street rock strewn with neon glow that has become Saturnine. He's an easy figure for someone to rely on, and is quick with cheer and a kind word for all.
Sister has made a name for herself within the Afterburn cell. Her youthful countenance does little to hide the spark of genius that flows from her fingertips and the almost mesmerizing relationship she cultivates with machinery. She's constantly tinkering and workshopping devices and tools to help her comrades out from the relative peace and safety of her rooftop workshop, and while she does not share her brother's unyielding hope for the world and its future she has her own quiet and reassuring maturity about her that brings a hearthlike comfort to those she cares about. And, yet, she is ill. Deathly so, in fact, kept alive from pure genetic fault and pollutant mutation by a rare technological marvel; a Nanomachine Hive, which itself in its malfunction and disrepair enacts the torture of life upon the girl even as she struggles to be strong for others.
And yet, who they truly are is a mystery to most.
Their origins lie in the highest lofts of the Spire, though Sister scarcely remembers more than flashes of light and the distant memory of fresh air. Saturnine remembers, though, and it is his stories which spawn Sister's unique hatred for all the Heirs and their wealth. Their beginnings lie in an experimental project of genetic manipulation enacted by the Heirs, assisted by the GeoNet AI, in order to tailor desired qualities and aesthetics. In the case of Saturnine, it functioned well enough. He was, while not perfect, considered a successful experiment in their genetic experimentation. He was not the first of this project's volunteered embryos, but he was the favored of his batch.
He got to live a life of comparative luxury, a glorified pet to the megacity's ultra rich as they mused on the futures of their own aesthetics with his form. Everything changed with the production of his younger siblings. It was inevitable that there would be another experiment, further modifications, but what he witnessed in those laboratories haunts him to this day. Of the grotesque and macabre horrors that were cultivated of bioflesh and Heir genetic material, the only creature that was considered a success and permitted to leave the lab was the young girl called simply 'Sister'.
Saturnine immediately took a keen liking to the girl, feeling a powerful familial bond to her despite their DNA mutually being a confusing soup of genetically tailored chaos. He doted upon her and they were nearly inseparable in the Spire's highest reaches, save for times when Saturnine was expected to perform tasks behind closed doors in his teenaged years and days when Sister needed medical attention.
Eventually, after one such task, Saturnine pulled secrets from that Heir-woman's lips as she drowsed upon a pillow. He queried their intentions with the program-- and more importantly, precisely what was wrong with Sister? When it was revealed that she was proving to be more expensive to keep alive than many believed her contributions to the project would be worth, Saturnine snapped. He took her pistol from her bedside table and shot her. A night of absolute chaos ensued.
Saturnine broke into the laboratory with a combination of guile, coercion, and panicked gunslinging. His trail of deception and blood lead him deep into the lab, where he broke into Sister's surgical suite and killed her doctor. He grabbed every datachip and file in the room, roused Sister from her surgical tank, dressed her in the doctor's lab coat, and the duo fled from the place just as the MCPD finally alerted to the death of Saturnine's patron earlier that night.
It was miraculous that they managed to reach the lower levels of the Spire without getting caught, but Sister was cunning even as a child and Saturnine knew his way. All hope seemed dashed when the final elevator bay was cordoned off by the MCPD and they began presenting holo-images of the duo. Saturnine reached for his stolen pistol and was resolved to die trying to get Sister off the Spire- but a strong hand grabbed him and pulled them into the shadows of a bar before he could enact his foolish plan. The man stripped the pistol out of his hands and pushed them into a booth just as a squad of officers walked past the door.
"You've got to be smarter than this." The man had said then, and it struck Saturnine deeply.
This was the moment that Saturnine met Firebird, and in exchange for most of the data Saturnine had swiped the veteran SK8TE boss agreed to get them off the Spire. Saturnine and Sister faded from Megacity Spire memory over the years, but found a new home on the rooftops of the sprawl far below. Faced with the oppressive poverty and population density of the Megacity at last, Saturnine became strangely cheery and optimistic. Sister grew more reserved and careful. But both finally felt true freedom, and endeavored to never lose that again.
Saturnine trained and was taught to pull his weight within the Afterburn cell over the next ten years, and in return Firebird acquired the rare Nanohive Circuit which now keeps Sister alive. It's a debt that Saturnine feels he can never truly repay, but the dividends of Firebird's seeming altruism have paid off over the years as Sister's genius has shown itself and her mechanical talents have been invaluable to the Cell.
Firebird's death shook the Cell, and Saturnine in particular. When the tensions rose about the new succession, he cast his vote for Hotshot when it seemed lines were going to be drawn in the dirt of the city's rooftops. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed, and business resumed as usual under new leadership.
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