(OOC: I've never run a quest before, so cut me some slack if things are weird. But please do offer advice, criticism, and feedback. I can't improve if I don't know what I'm doing wrong.)

It's two minutes to midnight, and silence prevails at a large hospital in LA.

Rain is falling in a torrential downpour, beating against the sun-baked streets, flushing out the trash that accumulates in the dry season.

In the heart of this pitch-black night, a child is born, is it a girl or boy.

boy

a boy

It is born male.

It is a healthy child, no signs of birth defect. No immediate signs of birth defect.

The doctor informs the parents that a name must be chosen.

The parents love the child, as most parent's do. And so shall it's name be given of love.

The last name is that of the mother: Burkouskie

What are the first and middle names?

Borya Ra

>>918713
Sure this.

Can we identify as female tho?

Pookie Braun

>>918872
That's up to you, mate.

>>918713
Nice.

The mother decides on Borya Ra Burkouskie. The father approves.

The doctor confirms the name, and heads off to file the paperwork.

Left alone, the parents regard each other.

The mother is a legal immigrant, former Russian-Czech. She speaks English well, but has a heavy accent. She is fluent in Russian and German. She is currently unemployed, but was a mechanist. Her personality is street smart, as she grew up in the city of Prague, but she is also a compassionate person with a kind heart. Young in years, she is 26. Her name is Talia Burkouskie.

The child's father is an English ex-pat with US residency. His past is a mystery, even to those closest to him. He currently works in the private security sector as a security adviser to a large corporation, and makes $120,000 a year. He has a generally passionate personality, easy to befriend, easy to anger. Yet it's very difficult to stress or overwhelm him. He is 34 years old. His name is Mark Fisher.

The parents love each other truly. It is not the burning infatuation sold by media, but rather a genuine desire to spend time with each other, to be a family.

This child is what they have desperately wanted, the final step away from the painful past the two share. The final step towards the life they have fought for.

America was it, a finale gamble made to escape their former lives. A gamble they bet everything on.

Finally, it has payed off.

This is it, what they've dreamed of; a life of freedom, of normalcy, of happiness.

This is the end of their adventure.

Only... It's not just an end.

It's also the beginning.

Chicago outskirts, home, 2016, late winter.


The child is developing quickly, and showing no signs of illness. It's only queer trait so far are its eyes; one steel grey like the fathers, one deep green like the mothers.

At almost a year old, cognitive abilities are beginning to develop, and the child takes an interest in a particular form of play.

What does the child like to do?

Play with blocks. The child begins to develop a mind for angles and dimensions.
Play with puzzles. The child begins to develop an ability to see patterns and where they break.
Look at anatomy picture books. The child develops a fascination and subconscious familiarity with the human body and it's functions.
Stare out a window. The child reflects on what limited knowledge it has, showing a level of cognizance far beyond its years.
Listen to music. The child gains an early love for music.

(Two activities can be chosen, or you can cast two votes towards one option.)

Anatomy and Window-Staring.

Like a zen martial artist or smth

>>918935
Play with puzzles. The child begins to develop an ability to see patterns and where they break.
Stare out a window. The child reflects on what limited knowledge it has, showing a level of cognizance far beyond its years.

Puzzles and music.

>>918935
>puzzles
>window

The child adopts a love for puzzles, and soon is completing multiple hundred piece panoramics beyond the ability of some adults.

It also becomes reflective, pondering deeply on matters far more complex then the thoughts of its peers.

The child is developing, and will soon grow to a small child.

Disclaimer: this is a super meta/retcon update.

Important question.

Do you wish continue as a male or would you like to switch to a female.

I give this option because, for one, anon 2202fb asked about a transgender character, a request I believe could be simplified by making our protagonist biological female.

As well, I took inspiration from some media I recently enjoyed, and had several ideas for a female character. These ideas are incompatible with a male character.

It's up to you. There will be no canonical explanation given for the gender change, it will simply be a female from now on.

I'm not particularly adamant either way, so choose whichever you genuinely prefer. I won't lie, this will affect things down the line.

Do you swap genders? (aka: retcon time?)

>>918955
This doesn't seem like a compelling reason for a retcon.

>>918692
no.
he will forever want to be 7ft tall and have a big dick but that ain't happening either...

>>918955
i would have voted for a chick if I was here at the start, and if you've got ideas you'd like to try than im all for it.

Sounds interesting, I'm game. If you want to then go for it.

Great, a tie. Now I get to take full responsibility for everyone this annoys.

*sigh* we're doing this. Borya Ra Burkouskie is now female. That name is feminine... Enough. Hopefully. I just really like that name, honestly.

Okay, back to the narrative.

2023, Chicago, psychologist.

The child is enrolled in public school, and has no trouble with the education itself.

However, at age eight, the child sees a psychologist for a standard checkup.

The psychologist asks to speak with the parents alone, he has important matters to discuss.

The parents are concerned, but agree.

What had the psychologist discovered?

Positive traits. you may choose one primary trait with full effect, and one secondary trait with halved potency:

photographic memory; the child has a mind like a steel trap. if she saw it, she can recall it with perfect accuracy.
Overdeveloped synaptic processing; the child has superior reflexes and reaction times due to an overdeveloped nervous system. Her reflexes are around one and a half times better than her peers.
Stable psyche; the child has a particularly stable mind, and is far less likely to become mentally unstable. (Incompatible with unstable psyche.)

Disorders. you must choose at least two disorders, but you can opt for three.

High-functioning sociopathic; the child has a reduced ability for empathy, and low regard for others. She feels very little guilt, and would have no trouble taking a life. She also has more difficulty making friends, and is far less likely to develop an emotional connection to someone else. However, this peculiar mental wiring also results in significantly higher intelligence, and a logical mind.
Hyper-calculative disorder; to her, the world is one big series of equations. Probabilities, numbers, logic. She has reduced emotionalism because of her highly logical brain. And sees everything as an equation, taking much joy out of life. However, this mental state also means she can do incredibly advanced calculus and accurate probability predictions in her mind, resulting in the ability to predict the probable outcome of any action.
Violent tendencies; the child has a tendency towards violence when angered or severely stressed.
Stable depression; a dopamine deficiency results in permanent depression. But it is a stable state, and does not require medication.
Anti-emotionality; a generally low production of neurotransmitters results in an overall non-emotional personality. (Incompatible With extreme emotionality.)
extreme emotionality; an overabundance of neurotransmitters results in exacerbated emotions, both positive and negative. (Incompatible with anti-emotionality.)
extreme empathy; an over abundance of mirror neurons results in an extremely high level of empathy for others. This can be negative, as she may forget her self interests in favor of others.
Unstable psyche; the child has an unstable psychology, and is more likely to develop further disorders. (Incompatible with stable psyche.)

(Please use bold text to make clear your decision.)

>>919000
Fast Reactions, Stable Psyche.
Stable Depression, Sociopathy.

Fast reactions, photographic memory
Hyper-calculative disorder, extreme emotionality

Primary Positive Trait: Photographic Memory
Secondary Positive Trait: Stable Psyche
Negative Trait: High-Functioning Sociopathic
Negative Trait: Violent Tendencies

For all of her remembered life, Borya has faith in one thing: If You Want Something, Grab It With Your Bloodied Hands.

The psychologist looked at the parents deeply, weighing his words.

"I'll say this straight; your daughter has multiple mental disorders." Said doctor Saheed.

The mothers face grows yet more concerned, but she remains composed.

The fathers eyes narrow.

"She has some outstanding gifts as well." He said.

"Don't try an' bloody suger coat this, doc. Say it like it is." Said the father, his tone contemptuous.

The psychologist sighed, "She... Says she hears voices in her head. This is consistent with psychosis. She's even named some of them." He said.

"What are these names?" Asked the mother.

The psychologist brought out a notepad, "One she calls 'kome', and there's another she calls 'nothing' that's apparently been around as long as she can remember. She says there's more voices, but she has only named a couple." He said.

The psychologist continued: "She also shows all the signs of sociopathy. High-functioning sociopathy. It will be hard for her to see other people as anything more than objects, she will have great difficulty empathizing, and she will feel very little guilt or shame." Began Saheed.

He sighed again, "This is made much worse by her violent nature. She is likely to lash out at anyone she feels strong anger towards." He continued.

The father huffed a laugh, "Well, guess she took after her father in that one." He said.

The psyche did not look amused, "I can prescribe medication that will-" he started.

"No pharmaceuticals! You will only put her through living hell. She will be trapped in her mind with her emotions, stuck in a drug stupor. You are blinded by your degrees and your medical training, but I have seen what future you would give her. That is no way to live, that is not life." Spat the mother.

"I'm going with the wife on this one, no drugs." Said the father.

The psychologist looked peeved, but his futures softens when he remembered himself, "Very well. But there's more you should know." He began.

The parents braced themselves.

"Don't worry, it's all good news from here. Your daughter has an overdeveloped synaptic system, meaning her reaction speeds are much higher than most children her age. Have you considered sports?" Asked Saheed.

"We'll think on it. Continue, doctor." Said the mother.

Saheed nodded, "Because of her unique psychology, she has a particularly stable mind. It would be hard to shock her." He said.

"Well 'ats good to know. Anything else, doc, or are we finished 'ere?" Asked the father.

"Yes, you can go. You should talk to her. We'll settle the bill later." Said Saheed.

"Got it, doc. And I think this cover's it." Said the father, who threw a bound stack of bills worth a thousand dollars collectively. More than enough to foot the bill.

The psychologist caught the money. And said nothing as he stared after the parents.

"It's not going to be easy for that girl." Mumbled the psyche to himself.


He could never know how right he was.

>>919037
I saw a mask, in the test. It clearly features eyeholes.

Wait wasn't Borya not there to witness that exchange, or is our insight into such an event perhaps an indication of something more? Either way, just wanting to say this is really cool thus far

Srry i am late, but hang on. Afaik sociopaths dont really feel emotions in general. This is what causes the lack of empathy.

Alternatively, and this is just a suggestion if people are interested in the idea, they could sort of have a compartmentalized psyche. They could easily switch to the mindset of a sociopath as needed but are also able to feel emotion and empathy. In other words, is very skilled at being pragmatic as necessary. I am basing this on my irl psyche so it isnt too out there, i hope. Depending on how literal you want to view the compartmentalization, it could be portrayed as a symptom of schizophrenia (along with the voices).

Just a suggestion.




Dont burn me at the stake plz.

Chicago, school, 2027.

Twelve years old.
Stable mental state.
Extensive disciplinary record.
A+ student.
No friends.

Borya Ra Burkouskie sits alone at lunch. Children swarm in a disgusting miasma around her, and she can just barely hear herself think thanks to her headphones. The cafeteria is packed, like always, but one group stands out to her piercing eyes. Her perpetual aura of contempt intensified at the sight.

'I don't know what you guys are busy with, but I need your eyes forward. We've got a problem; It's ugly like the eighties, has a jacket to match, is wearing it's sadistic colors, and appears to be continuing Hitlers philosophy of no crips as we speak.' Thought Borya to herself.

Heather Lockheed. Cunt to rule them all. Her and her groupies toe the line between the bullies and cool kids by being both at once.

She was currently engaged in tormenting John Keith, the biggest nerd in school. Not only a nerd, he also has sever Aspergers, and is a paraplegic. God himself must have created him specifically as a target for bullying.

Borya could just hear Heather over the din of the cafeteria:

"-ats too bad, really. It will be nearly impossible to get the stains out." Said Heather.

"Wha-" began John. He was interrupted when Heather overturned Johns juice all over his blinding white dress shirt.

John gasped a couple times before collecting himself enough to take action. He seemed to prepare to shout for the cafeteria aid, but Heather clamped a hand over his face. Tiny droplets of blood ran from where Heather's faux nails dug into John's skin.

"If you shout, I'll make your life a living hell for the rest of your life." Hissed Heather.

Christ, the fucking ignoramus can't even think of a synonym for life.

Heather removed her hand, and John stared at her with furious eyes, but said nothing.

Heather smiled the way only truly sick people can, "Good boy. Now get out of here before I end your sad life." She said, patting him on the head.

John wheeled away, assisted by one of his friends.

Shit. Heather's got eyes on you now.

Borya opens her cassette player and jacks-in one of her mixtapes. A classical rendition of Korobeiniki begins playing.

Heather arrives at the side of Borya's table and halts her fork halfway to her mouth by grabbing that hand firmly.

The desire the brake her wrist then and there is overwhelming, but you hold yourself back.

"What'cha listening to, Psycho?" Asked Heather. Her two friends laughe behind her.


What's the play?

A. Keep calm, ignore her. She's not worth the neurons it would take to acknowledge her.
B. Keep calm, respond. Three acid replies I've already thought of, unless you guys have any ideas?
C. Break her wrist. It would be disgracefully easy.
D. Brake her nose. Make it as crooked as her personality.
E. Something else. What would that be?

>>919146

Aww look, Tough girl here's been having such an easy time of picking on the meek with the help of her cronies that she thinks she can start working on you. That's positively adorable.

B. for now, you know they need to be the one to start any violence for you to get away with hurting her in any meaningful way.

Okay, here's the plan:
Start with A. They're using their charisma to defend themselves; if you win initiative they'll 'convince' the adults that they were just talking and you hit them for no reason.

But seriously their parents will just be proud of their children using intelligence and politeness to subtly crush their enemies, see them driven before them, and hear the lamentation of their parents.

If they start punching, it'll show and you can call for help. If Heather pulls out a knife you can really go to town and knock her out, MGS style.

Important question: What is your school's policy on "unprovoked assaults of affection"? Because if they get in reeeal close you could... kiss her. And then claim Heather asked you as she was whispering and you didn't know why but you did.

"Ganging around a kid who can't run started getting too easy for you, huh?"

>>919141
Interesting. In my case, I was basically identical externally, but i was just extremely skilled at hiding my emotions.

Using physical violence will draw unwanted attention. Lets either ignore her or defeat her with words. If she gets physical, dodge and take it for a bit. If she keeps going, end her.

>>919196
''Unprovoked assaults of affection'? That's... Honestly rather devious. Brownie points for you. School rules are vague in this area, but unless the ugly's get touched, I can play it off as innocent, if homosexual, teenage hormones. I'm not going to kiss her yet, but I can certainly work with this.

Borya's eyes relax into a practiced look of complacency. This expression is the very embodiment of smug. She directed this look at Heathers hand, which was clamped around her own, and schooled her features into a look of mild bemusement.

"I didn't know you swung that way, Heather. Sorry, but I just can't get into a relationship right now. It's not you, it's me." Said Borya, her tone dripping with fake sympathy.

Heather's hand shot back like it had been burned, and her face twisted into an expression of pure revulsion.

"I don't- You're a disgusting fucking slut! Figures that you'd be a lesbian too. You little psycho bitch!" Hissed Heather, her tone uneven and filled with barely bridled rage.

"Sorry. But like I said, I'm just not into girls like that. I'm sure you'll find the right one someday, keep looking. But for now, you'll just have to content yourself with your vibrator." Said Borya, her tone becoming ever more calm and feign-heartfelt.

More than a dozen children were listening in on this conversation now, gossip would spread news of this event like a mass propaganda campaign. Everyone would hear of how Heather Lockheed is a lesbian. Her reputation would be destroyed.

Heather was livid. All her tactics subverted, all her insults ignored. She had all her power taken away in less than a minute.

A lifetime spent bullying, threatening, and manipulating to get to the place of power she was in now. And with just a little more effort on Borya's part, it would all come tumbling down.

Heather moved. It was slow, and the sloppy form made it hard to recognize. but it was undeniable that Heather Lockheed, who had taken people apart with nothing but words, who had never had to lift a finger in her pampered life, was throwing a punch.

There was no real threat posed by this blow, Borya could take it full-force and barely flinch. But she wasn't gonna take it full force.

How do you react?

A. Block the blow. Head on, no quarter will be given.
B. Dodge the blow. Can you really call it dodging when the strike is moving this slow?
C. Catch the hand. The most confrontational way to stop the punch.
D. Parry. An elegant solution that will put her off balance should you choose to strike in retaliation. But if you show too much martial skill it will be hard to play the victim.

One the blow is delt with, how do you reciprocate?

A. Continue a defensive. The cafeteria aids will intervene eventually. And I get to play the victim card.
B. Go offensive. Return to sender. Technically a repóst if you parried first.
C. Something else. Like what?

Now would also be a good opportunity for a witty quip.

Dodge the attack and run - Heather wants to make this a contact sport. If either of you gets hurt, she can spin her own story even if you're the only one injured. Socially, she's bleeding out and you don't want to 'eat her', so be smart and leave her sight so she can't point fingerguns loaded with blame at your face.

>>919213
We are not running.

Tank the hit and then ask if that was her best. If she just stands there, start to walk away. If she keeps attacking, keep tanking for as long as you can and when you cant, kill her(only do this if you can do it quickly, so no choking or bleeding out).

>>919227
The key here is to make it very very clear that you were acting in self defense. You need to get hit a few times and your riposte needs to be quick and decisive.

Oh, lovely. Inelegant, unintelligent, and all the subtlety of an charging elephant.
Right, go defensive with a twist. Minimize contact from each blow as they come in, whether by blocking or dodging to turn each impact into a light graze. Pretend to be in pain from the attacks, this will likely incite wilder and more aggressive actions as she gets into it and loses situational awareness. Wait for the point where she goes in for a tackle, then send that lunge through either avoidance or redirection, towards one of those big, heavy cafeteria tables. Just the sort of beautifully-solid object that's just dying to become close, intimate friends with an oncoming collarbone.

>>919227
No killing. She might deserve it, but murder is a one-way ticket to an asylum for someone like me. She'll get hers, and it will be all the sweeter to watch her life fall apart around her.

>>919231
The very thought fills you with euphoria. There is truly no sound so beautiful as a face being destroyed against a hard surface. But... You've got an idea that might just give Heather a scar that will never heal. And if all goes well, you won't get in trouble with the staff.

Borya takes the hit directly to her face. She doesn't even blink. She knows how to ignore pain, but that's not exactly necessary when your adversary can't throw a punch worth a damn.

Heather retreats a step back after making the strike. Her breathing becomes panicked when she sees how little her strike has done. It's beginning to don on her just how powerless she is.

Borya sits up from the table and leans in close to Heather.

"You're finished. You thought you could keep this up forever, didn't you? You thought you owned this school, you thought you were safe. You were so wrong. When your 'friends' abandon you, when your prey become predators, when all your non-existent power dries up. Then maybe you'll look back on this moment and realize you were a dead woman walking from the second you started towards me. I've destroyed you. And if you ever bother me again, I'll kill you. Now fuck off. I'll see you again in hell, Heather." Whispered Borya.

Heather recoiled, her mouth agape and her features frozen in horror.

She ran.

Straight out of the cafeteria and into the hallway, where she disappeared.

Broken, reeling, terrified.

Borya lied, she didn't destroy Heather.

Heather destroyed herself.

Borya sits back down, and picks up her fork. It appears all the staff is as oblivious as ever. Perfect stealth, just the way Borya likes it.

"Maybe now I can finish my fucking lunch. Jesus. People like her give me conniptions." Mumbled Borya to herself.

... Actually, you might want to direct one of her 'friends' to go check up on her. She can still counterattack, even if it's suicidal. Especially if it's suicidal now that you've made her self-conscious for the first time in her life.

Yeah seriously, the kids were watching, aaand if something happens to her they will point fingers.

>>919236
shit. Your right. Figures she'd manage to fuck someone over even in death. I doubt she'll end herself, gift that it would be to humanity. Hmmm... I'll send Myra. She wasn't here at lunch, but she's a friend of Heathers, she'll make sure she stays alive.

Goddamnit, now I have to babysit that piece of shit and make sure she doesn't drag me down with her.

Fine, lunch is cold anyway. Not like it was good in the first place.


It's not hard to find Myra, as she's alone in class room six doing detention work.

Borya enters room six, and Myra immediately sneers.

"What the hell are you doing here, psycho?" She spat.

"I found this in an unused locker, I thought maybe I could get some credit with Heather if I gave it to her." Said Borya, displaying a pearl earring she had actually found in an abandoned locker.

"Give it to me, I'll give it to Heather." Said Myra.

You throw the pearl earring to Myra, who catches it clumsily.

You leave the classroom before some other affront to English can leve her mouth.

That takes care of that. Myra will bring the earring to Heather, and of course she'll 'forget' to mention you and try to take all that cred for herself. Heather will immediately grow a little bit of spine in front of crony, and when Heather talks with Myra, all her dispare will turn to anger.

Then we're back to square one.

But at least you'll stay out of trouble, that's what's really important here.

Fucking Heather.

Good catch, Kome. That could've gone to shit fast. At least now I can mitigate.

The school day has just ended.

Everything after the lunch incident went off without a hitch. No staff approached Borya about it, all the classes were easy as usual, and gossip was already doing its job.

A terrified student had actually approached Borya to get her side of the story.

She had told him that Heather asked her on a date, then she couldn't handle the rejection when Borya denied her, so she threw a punch.

Eyewitness accounts coincided perfectly with this explanation, and the rest was history waiting to happen.

Heather is six feet under, any action she takes is nothing but a death-throw at this point.

That was handled elegantly, efficiently, and brutally. Three of the adverbs Borya likes most.


Borya exited the front door of the school at exactly 3:10 PM. She immediately saw her father waiting for her in the car.

She jogged over and hopped into the passenger seat.

Her father greeted her with a nod, and she gave a two-finger salute in return.

"Evening, Borya. Debrief." Said her father, as he did every day.

"A-grade average on tests. Got a solid lunch. Didn't get into any trouble with the staff. Didn't make any friends, platonic or otherwise. I did deal with a bully." Said Borya.

"Elaborate on 'deal with'." He said.

"Complete demoralization and dethroning. I took all her power away, I took away all the fake confidence she's built up, and I planted the seeds for a complete usurpation." Said Borya.

"Oy, did you remember what I told you?" Asked Mark.

"Yes Sir. No staff witnesses, deniability maintained, not a single person who could truthfully attest to my purposeful involvement in her downfall. Op is sterile." Said Borya with a hint of pride.

Long ago, when Borya was just old enough to comprehend what it meant, her father had said: "Borya, listen. I don't want to do this dad thing, and you don't want to do this daughter thing. So ow' about we make a deal? I'll be your commanding officer until you're an adult, and you take my orders. Then in return, you'll have my full support. You point, I do. How about it?"

Borya, of course, had accepted this deal. And benefited from it ever since. She plays the soldier, he plays command. If he gives an order, she follows it. And when she calls for support or a gear requisition, he supplies. It worked much better for her than the 'father daughter' relationship.

"Good work. I'll compensate your efforts in a bit. Anything to do before we get home?" Asked Mark.

"No. I do have a question." Said Borya.

"Ask it."

"With who and where did you serve? It's obvious you have a military background." Said Borya.

"Yeah, I was waiting for you to ask before I told you. I was SAS. We were the the most dangerous wankers the UK had. Maybe the most dangerous in the world. Only people I can think of who came close is the Spetsnaz." Said Mark.

Borya nodded, "Makes good sense." She said.

"Now don't go telling anyone else about this." Said Mark, punctuating his sentence with a jab of the finger.

"I'll keep it tight, Sir." Said Borya.

"Good. We're home." Said Mark.


Borya and her parents live in a small-ish house on the outskirts of Chicago. It's a fancy place, cutting edge smart-home tech and a hardwood construction.

Mark hopped out of the car and Borya followed suit.

The front door was unlocked like it always is. Her father insists that a pistol is a far better deterrent than a lock. Borya can't really argue with that.


Inside the house Borya found her mother talking with a person she'd never met.

No wait. Not a person, an android.

She could tell because of the small LED ring on the right side of its head.

The android was engaged in a conversation with Borya's mother.

Talia noticed Borya and her father, "Ah. Bell, meet the rest of the family. Rest of family, meet Bell." She said.

"Hello, it's a pleasure to meet you both." Said bell, her tone was pleasant.

Borya likes androids. They are intelligent, they don't make mistakes and when they do they never repeat them, and they can hold a conversation better than most humans.

"Borya." You say, extending a hand to shake.

Bell shakes your hand, "It's good to meet you, Borya. I hope I'll prove useful." She said. She got your name right on the first try, most people have trouble with the accent.

Bell turned to face your father, "And you must be Mark." She said, extending her hand to shake.

Mark shakes it, "Pleasure." He said.

Mark often has to work with androids in the security business, and so has developed a respect and appreciation for their efficiency and reliability.

You slip away before Talia can ask you about your day at school. She's not quite as supportive of your particular brand of justice as your father.

You head into your room.

The interior reflects your Interests.

(Please choose Borya's specific interests. you may select three primary's and two secondary's. You may also suggest your own ideas for interests.)

Video gaming. What kinda games, and on what platform?
Reading. What do you like to read.
Weapons. You love all weapons, regardless of type or age. (This is a secondary interest regardless of votes, and does not count towards the total. But you can vote to make it a primary.)
Armor. Modern, ancient, doesn't matter. You love armor.
Playing the synthesizer. Drop the bass.
Watching movies. What kind?
Writing. Writing what?
Researching. What field? Metaphysical or linear?

(You must also choose general interests. Choose two.)

Dark fantasy. The witcher, the bothers grim, dark souls, particular facets of D&D, etc.
Noire style. A world of black and white.
Dragons. You know, like Ciri- Ah, Dragons.
Neo-brutalist. minimalistic, functional, industrial.
Modern militaristic. Camo, guns, tech, and spec-ops.
Aliens. Like Neumo- eh, Tozo- uh, Silirw- umm, uh, Turiens? Yeah, those.
70's 80's and 90's music. Pink Floyd, Berlin, Heart, starship, Air Supply, Blondie, Bob Dylan, Queen, etc.

Okay, so for primary, i have a few diff suggestions.

1.Manufacturing.
-owns a CnC machine allowing the manufacture of complex metal parts quickly and privately (ghost guns are one application).
-also knows how to sew and solder

2. Makes music.
-everyone who is anyone in that kind of music preprograms it on a computer via meticulous editing of midi instruments.

3.CAD/3D modeling.
-this paired with 1 means you can make your own custom parts and engravings.

--
Secondary
1. Modern Mil

2. TGChan Geek
-so geek culture but specifically featuring quest related things(just imagine lago or someone made it big and now has surpassed homestuck in regards to following and merch).

Specific
Vidya - Simulators, PC
Reading - Nonfiction, technical manuals,chemistry, physics, metallurgy
Movies - Science fiction/cyberpunk, dark comedies, war documentaries

General
Dragons
Modern militaristic


Mostly grounded and practical with that little touch of individual turbulance.

1) Hacking, Video Games, Research - You learned early on that studying source code makes crushing your enemies more satisfying because you actually did something productive, effective, and definitive.
2) Weapons and Armor - You memorized basic smelting and forging techniques in the event of a disaster, like getting stranded in the middle of nowhere or on an island. You also know which weapon perks are favorable (hollow points, multi-barrel single shot, debilitating ammo) and which are... (Absurd bullet diameter-gun weight ratio, sawed off rifles, no safety lock)
3) Dark Fantasy and Milspec - Cyberpunk 2 was this awesome horror game about dystopian cyberaugmented gangsters fighting Eldritch monsters, robot armies, and endless fascist armies from other worlds alongside Witchers and Werewolves. You and your dad skipped all the parts with naked people so you could get to the fun parts with storm-enchanted rail guns stuffed in the faces of mutated cybergriffins and robomages.

Your dad 'pre-ordered' Cyberpunk 3 by investing in the company and requesting his dividends be replaced with game demos. Your mom draws fanart of your characters killing monsters. Sometimes you wonder if there was a secret character in 1 that was named Borya.

Borya has skill in flash-fabrication and modern forging. She 3D prints self designed polys, solders modifications into software and hardware alike, and tweaks any gear she can get her hands on.

This skill for modification is fueled by her love of arms and armor. Firearms are by far her favorite of all things, modern firearms in particular. If it was a thing to be sexually attracted to guns, that would be Borya's sexuality.

She loves spec ops and military doctrine, but is a survivalist at heart. She far prefers boots on the ground and surgical strikes to flashy air-strikes and explosions.

Video games are a passion, particularly tactical shooters and deep-lore dark fantasy: The witcher series, dark souls, the ghost recon series, the splinter cell series is a favorite, some CoD games. As well as Assassin's creed, which she enjoys because of the clean kills. Cyberpunk 2 is still the greatest game yet produced.

She also enjoys to read. Mostly studying tactics and practical skills, but some fiction as well.

Music is one of her great pass-times. Particularly songs from before the turn of the twenty-first century. Remixing and editing those songs is also one of her skills.

Computers where never really Borya's thing. Because it's extremely useful, she has learned some source-coding. She can hack decently, but it's not a primary skill.

She can pick locks masterfully. And when she has her tac bag with her, there are few doors that can keep her out.

She's something of a sharpshooter. Her father regularly takes her to the shooting range, where she practices with assault rifles, pistols, sniper rifles, and sub-machine guns.


And now she was alone in her room. The room itself is somber in decor. She illuminates it with an oil lantern when the sun is absent, and the color scheme is various shades of grey punctuated with deep red accents. Her gaming console sits inactive under a small TV in the far left corner, her work-table scattered with soldering irons, melted plastic, and gun components up against the left wall. The right wall was dedicated entirely to gear shelves and her bed. The door to her private bathroom was just to the right of the main door. And directly across the room from her was the window.

The room is sound-proofed, and noise can only escape when the vents are open. She's left them open for now.

What will you do?

(Choose one.)

Tinker. There's always room to improve gear.
Read. What will you read?
Play a video game. Which one?
Make a 3D model. Of what?
Look at your guns. Literal firearms. Your father has allowed you to keep a couple of your favorites in your room.
Look at your guns. Let's see how your physique is doing.
Stare at own reflection. How long has it been since you stared meaningful into your own face? Maybe you can mentally describe your features to yourself in excruciating detail for no reason.
Browse the Internet. Which website?
Stare out the window. Why engage in external stimulus when your mind is already a storm of thoughts and ideas?

Hmm, lets model and carve out a Magpul FMG-9 after downloading the blueprints (actual design ones, not 3D models) from the internet somewhere. That would be an extremely useful weapon to have on you at all times since it can fold up into a box.

Browse the Internet

Time to check through the milsurp classifieds again to see if that T-72U is any cheaper...

>>919323
Nah, chieftain MBTs are much easier and cheaper to get. I mean, irl you can get one for under 100k usd. I wouldnt be surprised if she already had one she was working on.

>>919286
You've never really been a fan of the FMG-9. Because of its unique folding feature, it's got poor ergonomics. It is also a very light weapon. Those two coupled with its high RPM make it hard to control in automatic. And why would you use a PDW in semi-auto? I mean, at that point you just use a pistol.

>>919323
>>919335
Tanks are all well and good, but you don't really have use for them in the suburbs of Chicago. Besides, why would you make yourself an enormous mechanized target when you can be in-and-out of a combat zone like a ghost?

You've decided to start work on a new gun. You'll print, mill, and stamp what parts you can, and buy the rest.

What gun will you produce? (choose one.)

You have $346 saved up.

FN Tac-45. A high-quality pistol that can be used offensively or defensively. Because of its high-end design, it will take around two months to produce, and cost you $125.
Ingram Mac-10. A brutally simple micro-SMG with a rate of fire around 1000 RPM. The original spray-and-pray weapon. Can easily be suppressed. Because of its simplicity, it will only take about a week to produce, and cost you $40.
AKS-74U A stockless carbine version of the AK-74. Acceptably accurate, good rate of fire, unbelievably reliable, pretty concealable, highly modifiable. A workhorse of a carbine, it's widely and cheaply available parts mean it can be constructed in under a month, and will only cost you $25.
VSS Vintorez. If, for any reason, you get the inclination to silently kill a target from any distance under three-hundred meters, this is the gun for it. An integrally suppressed light-sniper from the 80s, the VSS is an ideal assassination tool. Because of the exotic parts required for its manufacture, and the accurized components, it will take around a month and a half to produce, and cost $170. It's ammo is also rare and expensive in the U.S.

Make a small set of AKs all at once. You can experiment with abnormal ammo types because they're disposable, or have a small armory ready for unload-and-throw Tediore action. Maybe build a revolver for boss fights.

Going to have to recommend the Krinkov. Much as I like the Vinty, without an easy means of upkeep for parts and ammunition it's too specialized to keep on hand at the moment. Simple enough to get subsonic rounds and a PBS-4 suppressor for the AKS-74U if one needs something quiet, even if it won't have quite as much punch. And it'll be more accurate with rapid fire than the MAC-10, although that's not exactly a difficult achievement. And while the pistol might be easier to conceal, it lacks range and fully-automatic fire.

I'd recommend assembling an AR-10. It is completely modular and compatible with AR-15 parts (cept cal specific).

It should be looked at as several pieces rather than one gun. So, for parts, I would suggest a heavier marksman stock on a folding mount along with an extremely short barrel, a rifle handguard (extending past the barrel end), bipod, and the best silencer you can buy/build. Scope should have a dot secondary sight. Upper and lower should have a burst setting, and the grip doesnt really need to be anything specific.

AR parts should be the most common if we need to scavenge pieces from somewhere. They can be everything from pistols to sniper rifles, battle rifles, to pdws, and lmgs to shotguns. They are like the gun version of lego. There is even a bullpup print that is floating around the internet irl rn.

Additionally, since it was implied that Borya made guns in the past, can we get an inventory of existing guns, parts, and when applicable, parts currently being used in guns?

>>919482
Right, you'll take stock of your guns before deciding.

Currently, these are all the guns you own.

Savage arms 17HMR target custom. A customized rifle your father bought you on your ninth birthday. It is a heaver variant of the standard SA 17HMR, and is equipped with a 4x magnification scout scope. The rifle no longer fits your physique, and you have no qualms with disassembling it for parts.
Glock seventeen M5. Eleventh birthday present. It's a Glock, that effectively sums it up. No modifications or customization. Being your personal handgun, you refuse to disassemble it.
The pipe V2. The first functional gun you ever created. Functional is used loosely. It's a smoothbore SMG constructed of pipes, random gun components, and a poorly carved stock. Is liable to jam at least three times per clip. Fires 9mm Luger in full auto. You would have destroyed this thing long ago if you had the time.
KTS. Of all the guns you've ever constructed, this is your favorite. It's name is an abbreviation of 'Killing Them Softly', so called because it's a Welrod derivative. It fires 9mm Luger silently so long as you use sub-sonic. But you have to manually cycle the action every shot. You'd really rather not disassemble this beauty.

Incomplete projects and available parts.

The destroyer. A while back, you got your hands on the barrel of a Barret .50cal semi-auto. You've been trying to get the other parts, but have made little progress.
AK components. Two AKM barrels (no gas assembly), one AKM bolt, one AK rear-grip (wooden), one collapsable AK skeletal stock, one AKS-74U barrel and gas assembly, one AK fore-grip (plastic).
Glock components. One 17 slide, two hammers, three spare guide-rods, adjustable sights (no glow).
Misc. One M4 fore grip (military surplus), one broken red-dot sight, revolver grips (unknown model), Remington M700 bolt (270cal), a box of springs, an M1911 M2 lower frame (lacking slide, barrel, and recoil spring.)

You're in the middle of making a gun manifest, when your father calls out to you.

"Oy, Borya, supper's on the table. You coming?" He asked. He meant it as well, occasionally you don't come down for dinner.

What will you do? Keep in mind that you'll have to respond to your father regardless.

Sustenance is good. Maybe ask which is better, the various AKs or the various ARs.

Food makes the organic machinery run properly, go get some. Might consider fabbing an AK bullpup conversion kit ala the AKU-94 package ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrZHa15OMHk ), but with better quality and ergonomics, of course.

"A moment." Called Borya halfheartedly. She strongly disliked making loud noises, and it annoyed her to have to shout.

"Got it." Replied her father.


Borya put away the various firearms and components, and headed down for dinner.


You find both of your parents sitting at the dinner table, and Bell in the kitchen making final alterations to several plates of food.

Borya sits perpendicular to her parents as she always does, just as they always sit across from each other.

Borya was first to speak, "Ah, I see you've yet again embellished the truth, Mark. Unless I'm wrong and dinner is invisible, it appears supper is not on the table." She said sarcastically. Her tone deadpan and her expression to match.

Talia let out a snort of a laugh.

Mark scowled, Borya new it was only superficial. "Smartass. Oy, Bell, what's for supper?" Called Mark.

"Spaghetti in meat-sauce. Would you like me to pair it with a wine?" Responded Bell from the kitchen.

"Yeah, pick a good one. You want a slosh, Borya?" Asked Mark, who had no qualms with Borya drinking alcohol.

"Yes. Bell, please get me a salad as well. And grab three of the multivitamin pills from the cabinet." Said Borya, who was careful to keep balanced micronutrients.

"Right away." Said bell cheerfully.

Talia looked at Borya with an expression that generally meant a very unpleasant sentence of the variety only mothers can form was about to follow. "How was school today, Borya?" She asked.

Borya looked at her with an expression that deviated from her standard deadpan only in a single raised eyebrow. "How do you think? A grueling, incessant, purposeless grind through a broken and obsolete educational system. Surrounded the whole time by posers and 'cool kids', their droning talk of fads and meaningless emotional troubles buzzing in my ears like a swarm of botflys." Borya gave a grin only those with mental illnesses can pull off, "School was great." She said.

Talia smiled a smile far more terrifying the Borya's, it was the smile of a mother that knew something you where trying to hide. "Da? And what about your talk with that blayt, Heather?" She asked.

Borya glared daggers at Mark. "We may have to discuss an NDA, Mark." She said.

"'Fraid Talia's scarier then you, Borya. And I take orders from whoever's most dangerous." Said Mark earnestly.

Borya turned back to Talia. "Yes, I spoke with Heather. We had a disagreement, and I eventually won the debate." She said.

Talia gave Borya a knowing look, asking a question without speaking.

"I didn't harm her physically." Said Borya.

"Can I expect a call from your teacher, hmm?" Asked Talia.

"No. I was carful." Said Borya.

"Good, then it's nothing I need to know about." Said Talia, her attention drawn to the food which was just set down in front of her.

These are your parents. You get the feeling that they would be fine with murder so long as you kept it quiet and the person deserved it. You honestly can't imagine being raised by anyone else. Most would be... less than supportive of your particular sense of morals.

Bell places your food in front of you, along with a glass of water, a glass of wine, and three multivitamin pills.

You grab the wine and swirl it a couple times before taking a tiny sip, contemplating it's nuanced flavors.

You swallow the wine and continue conversation. "I've decided to construct a new firearm, and want your opinion on which to make, Mark. At the moment it's a coin-flip between an AKS-74U or an AR-10." Said Borya.

Mark, who was eating with gusto, froze in the middle of a bite, lowered his fork, and regarded Talia.

Talia gave a nod.

You don't like being left out on something, and you also don't like it when people around you know something you don't. But, truly surprising as it is, you find yourself impassive toward whatever conspiracy your parents are sharing.

Mark nods back to Talia, the turns to Borya. "We were gonna wait for your birthday. But you never really cared about holidays, so I'll show you now. Well, in a moment, once we're finished with supper." Said Mark, diverting his attention back towards the food.

You first clue; it was originally going to be on your birthday, so whatever it is, is probably something you'll like. But that's not certain. It's also not particularly time sensitive, as it is currently November first, and your birthday is November eleventh. But maybe you're over analyzing, it shouldn't be that bad, maybe you should just let the dice fall as they will.

You refocus on your food.


The rest of dinner passes silently. It's a comfortable silence. Well, it doesn't make you uncomfortable. But then again, you're not really capable of feeling socially awkward.

Once the food is finished, Bell takes away the dishes and you, your mother, and your father are left sitting quietly. Apparently all of you at an impasse over how to proceed.

You speak first: "What did you want to show me?" You ask, your mild curiosity and tiny excitement not showing in the slightest.

Mark exhales in what sounds like relief, "Right. Well, Tal, we'll be off." He said, though it sounded more like asking permission. Tal is a nickname your father uses for your mother.

"Da. Be back before school tomorrow." Said Talia.

Ah, your second clue. Your mother expects you'll be gone the majority of the night, if not all of it. As it is currently 5:13, that's a long time. You'll need more information to make a guess about what the surprise is, however.

"Yea', we should be back before then. Let's shove off, Borya." Said Mark, starting towards the front door.

"I don't suppose you'll tell me where we're going." Said Borya, not yet getting up.

"Yeah, no. Then it wouldn't be a surprise." Said Mark, pulling his peacoat on.

You stand up, and start getting your shoes on.

It's raining heavily outside, so you pull on a jacket as well.

Your father opens the front door, and you step outside.

Time to see where the night takes you.

>>919716
Sorry for wasting space with questions rather than actual suggestions, but how is a sociopath 12yo (with murderous tendencies) going to end up a hero? Is it gonna be a punisher style hero where all she does is kill who she deems unworthy? (btw this is the first tgchan character to keep me awake at nights, the idea of a sociopath manipulating everyone and everything is bone chilling for me)

>>919739
That is like saying chainsaws keep you up at night cuz they rip people to shreds.

Dis-thread now exists: https://tgchan.org/kusaba/questdis/res/127521.html

Go drop some phat dis-posts.

Borya and her father stood on the porch of the house, staring into the inky blackness of the night.

The rain was torrential, drops as big as marbles coming down as if the sky itself had ruptured.

Mark dashed out into the rain towards the car, and Borya quickly lost sight of him the the darkness.

She sauntered out behind him. She doesn't mind the cold. Or the rain, for that matter.


She hopped into the car, and Mark started it up without a word.


They began driving. Borya noticed that they were getting further from the city's epicenter, heading outwards into the hills surrounding Chicago.


Eventually, free about forty minutes of driving, Mark turned down a small, poorly maintained side road that lead up a steep hill.

The road leveled off at the top of a large slope, and Mark stopped the car underneath a large oak which provided some shelter from the rain.

Mark stepped out of the car, and Borya did the same.

It was pitch black, and Borya could barely see ten feet in front of herself.

Mark began walking in a certain direction, and Borya could do nothing but follow suit.

They walked in a straight line for around a hundred feet before Borya thought she saw faintly light coming from windows up ahead. After another fifty feet, the outline of a large three-story mansion become visible.

Mark strode up to the mansion's porch, and stood there, presumably waiting for Borya.

Borya started up the porch's steps, but the third one up collapsed under her weight.

She quickly righted herself and got to the top of the steps.

"Remind me why we're hanging around the mansion from 'clue'?" Said Borya sarcastically.

"You'll see in a minute." Said Mark.

Mark rapped hard on the door three times, and after a moment Borya heard movement from behind the door.

The door swung open suddenly, and a figure leaned into its frame.

She looked young, mid twenties maybe, and had her hair in a ponytail with shaved sides. She was wearing military fatigue pants, and a dirty black tank-top with text that read 'sue me'. Her face was all hard lines and scowl, only accentuated by the large scar down her right cheek. She was muscular, but still lithe. Perhaps most noticeably, she was smoking a substance from a pipe that Borya recognized as as a homeopathic neural relaxant by the smell.

She spoke, and with it came a puff of smoke. "You're early Mark, several days early. You know I don't like surprises." She said.

"Yeah, well. You know I'm an impatient bastard, so there's two things we know about each other. Borya, this is Chloe Lynch, Chloe, Borya." Said Mark.

Chloe extended the hand that wasn't occupied by a pipe to Borya. "You can call me Karma." She said.

Borya shook her hand and gave a curt nod.

"You talk? Or is 'mute' on your list of disorders as well?" Asked Karma sardonically.

"Oh yes, I assure you I speak quite eloquently. Though occasionally eloquence can be set aside for more efficient communication. For example." Said Borya, flipping Karma the bird.

She huffed a laugh. "I'll keep it in mind. Maybe you can teach your father some words longer than three letters." Said Karma with caustic grin.

"I've just met you, and you're already asking me to do the impossible?" Asked Borya rhetorically, raising an eyebrow.

Karma smiled even wider. "I can tell I'm gonna like you." She said. Somehow, this sounded like a threat.

Mark pushed past Karma into the house. "Yeah yeah. Should I leave you two alone for awhile?" He asked sarcastically.

"Worried I'm gonna steal your girlfriend, Mark?" Called Borya.

"Fuck off, Borya." He called back.

Karma was grinning like a madwoman. "So, has your father told you why you're here?" She asked.

"Nope. Mushroom treatment at this point." Replied Borya.

"Sounds like him. You coming inside, or does the rain fit your dark and brooding personality better?" Asked Karma.

Borya slipped past her into the mansion. "Blood accentuates my personality better, really brings out the sociopath in my eyes." She said.

Karma huffed another laugh, and strode off into another room without speaking.

Borya made a quick assessment of her surroundings: the mansion was old, at least a century. It was in the craftsman style, and showed it.

Borya was standing in what appeared to be an entrance hall, with a large foyer and sprawling double-staircase in front of her. There were larger doors to the left and right that presumably led to respective wings of the house. The whole thing was falling apart in various places; water-damage, broken windows, the stairs were collapsing, etc. Lighting was provided by a multitude of construction lights supplemented by oil lanterns that looked as old as the house.

Borya opted to keep her coat on, and headed towards the door Karma had passed through.


She found Karma making a pot of coffee in the large kitchen.

"You drink coffee? Want a cup?" Asked Karma. Extending a full cup to you.

Do you drink coffee? And do take the cup?

No and no. You want answers and you want them while you're not intoxicated.

First up, ask what you're supposed to do. Then think up three separate escape plans.

>>919883
Well, yeah. You always, always have a backup plan. Right now that would be the kitchen window, which looks rather fragile. You could escape via that route if you needed to, but you trust your father. You doubt highly you'll have to make a daring escape. This is not the first time you've met strange friends of Mark, it only makes more sense now that you know he's ex-SAS.

"No thanks." Said Borya, leaning against the kitchen island.

Karma shrugged, and retracted the cup. "Suit yourself." She said.

"Now, if you'll permit me, I'd like to cut the shit and get some answers. Who the fuck are you?" Asked Borya, her tone dangerous.

Karma sighed and set down her cup of coffee. "Your old man really has a terrible sense for when to keep secrets. He never tell you about me? That was rhetorical, I know he didn't. As he already said, the name's Chloe Lynch, former member of Delta-force. That Delta-force, yes. My job was to kill people, and I was extremely good at it. Not only do I kill people, I also deal with computers. A job most of the fuckwits in D-force were too stupid to do. I retired two months ago, for reasons I sincerely hope you'll never have to learn about." She said.

"And why am I here?" Asked Borya.

Karma gave a breathy laugh. "Did you even blink? Guess your dad wasn't bullshiting when he said you're an emotionless robot." She said.

"Beep boop. Don't avoid the question." Said Borya.

Karma sighed deeply...

Then she moved.

Borya's quick brain took in all the movements, but her body was too slow to react. In a fraction of a second she was stuck in a stranglehold, powerless to brake free.

"Welcome to spec ops, Borya." Hissed Karma during her struggle to subdue a thrashing Borya.

Somewhere in the mansion, you hear a record being put on. A scratch of static followed by soft guitar.

As you begin to loose consciousness, you hear the song pick up.

"I don't want to set the worrrrrold ooon fiirrrrre,

I, just want to starrrrt a flame in yourrrr hearrrrrt.

In my heart I have but one deeesirrrrre,

And that one is youuuu,

No other will doooo."

Figures you'd die to this song.

You slip out of consciousness, and a bottomless void overtakes you.

Hol up, is this going to be post nuclear apocalypse?

Wut.

...

[BUTTON MASH WADWSADWASAWDWASDWDAWDSAWDSWWDASW --- F!!!]

Headbutt unconsciousness in its smarmy face.

You regain consciousness.

You are sitting in an uncomfortable wooden chair, your hands are bound, your head is covered by a rough hemp bag.

You don't open your eyes, or stir. Hoping you'll garner some information if your captors think you're still unconscious.

Then you realize, your ears are covered by noise-canceling muffs.

Your mind races. Fuck fuck fuck! What's going on? Your father must have known Karma would attack you, but why? Why would he comply with anything like this? What's the end-game?

You find yourself unable feel any fear. Not fear of death, or injury. No. All you feel is anger, rage, wrath.

White hot, it courses through you, and demands blood.

You can't hear, but you feel something shift. Reverberations through the floor. It feels like someone is walking towards you.

Suddenly, the bag and muffs are yanked off and you're momentarily stunned by the force of the movement.

When you open your eyes, Karma is standing there in front of you.

Your in a small, dimly lit room with extensive water damage. A single doorway lay behind Karma, but no other windows or means of escape were visible.

Karma speaks. "Listen, I... christ I am so fucken bad at people. I'm sorry I had to choke you out, but it was clear you weren't just gonna go along with what we told you. There was sedative in the coffee, I hoped you'd just drink it and conk out on your own. But no, fucken surprise surprise, daughter of 'The Kill Mark' is just as paranoid." She said, mumbling the last part to herself.

You say nothing. You glare with dead eyes, your visage that of a shark. Waiting, waiting. Soon though soon you'll make a move.

"Fuck. Listen to me, rambling like you give a shit. Look, I know right now all you want is answers, and I wish I could give them to you, but I can't. When your father gets back he'll explain." Said Karma. It sounded like she was trying to use a sympathetic tone, but she wasn't very good at it.

What do you do?

Kick the base of your chair backwards and bite her ankles.

kome 2019/02/04(Mon)07:51 No. 919969 ID: c24cee

"If this is a recruitment orientation for government-sponsored magical girls, I will set your house on fire."

It would be wise to listen some more, and you dad probably did set you up to become a part of their league of sociopathic supersoldiers, wait and see if she gets close, then try to attack her in some way, perhaps try to step on her toes with the leg of the chair or something.

We need to at least be on the same level here.

Can we get a map of relative positions? I know you dont seem to do the whole art thing, but a room floorplan with dots is sufficient.

Our arms and legs are tied to the chair. There is a non-zero possibility that the chair is bolted to the floor. Right now any retaliation would be futile and make us look foolish. Unless we have anything concealed on or in us (be it in orifices or beneath the skin), we should just bide our time and scan the area, our bindings, the ambient noise, smells, the chair, the person behind us, and what we are wearing.

>>919949
Thats fine, I was just curious because that song is kind of like (one of) the Fallout franchise's calling card. (I am aware the song came first)

>>919976
Srry, this is 2202fb just from a diff ip.

The path of a hero. Asa the wizard 2019/02/04(Mon)12:36 No. 920000 ID: a65bc8
File 154931261244.jpg - (459.54KB , 1901x1163 , image.jpg )

Star - Borya.
Chevron - Karma.
Dark strip behind Karma - door.

Sorry for the less then perfect image, but I have all the artistic ability of a two year old with crayons. You get what you get, and from me, you don't get good art. If anyone wants a floor-plan or minimap style picture, just ask and I'll draw it up, but don't expect it will be pretty.

You make a quick mental manifest of your status and surroundings.

You have a slight headache, and you're thirsty. But other than that, and some bruising on your neck, you feel physically unharmed.

Your coat has been removed, leaving you in a T-shirt and cargo pants. From the feel of it, all your pockets have been emptied. Your combat boots are still on.

You tug lightly at your bindings: your arms are tied to the back of the chair, and your legs are similarly bound. From the feel of it, with paracord. Whoever bound you knew what they were doing, there's no hope of slipping out of or breaking your restraints.

You wiggle a little bit, and feel the chair legs lift from the ground momentarily. The chair is not secured to the floor.

You scan the room:

It appears this room used to be a bathroom, biased on the tile floor and the exposed pipes where you assume a bathtub and toilet used to be. The room extends a couple feet to your left.

In the far right corner of the room, a large roiling tool cabinet sits. In the far left corner, a work-table scattered with tools and mechanical components too small to define at this distance. Directly left from you, a large polymer storage box with an electronic lock sits.


Karma speaks, bringing you out of your deep thought. "No comment, huh? I don't blame ya. I wonder what you're thinking right now? What you must think of me, what you might think of your father?" Mused Karma.

"I'm thinking you really need to work on your initiation process. As it stands, I can't tell if you're about to welcome me into Hogwarts school for magical psychopaths, or torture me. Either way, I expect a sorting hat." Said Borya, her deadpan unbreakable.

Karma laughed genuinely. "You really are fucking crazy, aren't you?" She asked, her tone almost admiring.

"Certifiably. Which means I get to plead insanity when I kill you and all your associates." Said Borya, not skipping a beat or letting a single drop of emotion enter her tone.

Karma stopped laughing and took up a melancholic, almost apologetic expression. "Borya I... I know all this cloak and dagger is bullshit, and you have no reason to trust me. But please, just hear your father out. He'll explain when he gets here." She said, repeating what she'd said before.

"How do I know you aren't just stalling for time, and you plan to kill in the end?" Asked Borya, not really expecting an answer.

Karma's sympathetic expression dropped, and an emotionless mask took its place. She drew a pistol from behind her back, and leveled it with Borya's chest.

"If I wanted to kill you, I would have while you were unconscious. Let's not play games. You don't have a choice at this point, all you can do is trust me." Said Karma, lowering the pistol.

You sighe deeply, and nod once.

Apparently, that's all the confirmation Karma needs. She holsters the pistol, and her emotionless expression is replaced by her resting glower.

"I'm glad you understand. Now, do you need anything? It's gonna be at least an hour before your father is back. And no, you can't 'use the bathroom'." Said Karma.

You are thirsty, and a glass of water would be nice. There might be other things you could as for as well, though you doubt you'll be able to get too much out of Karma.

Do you ask for anything?

Keep in mind, you can suggest any action at any time, regardless of prompts.

So even if I don't offer it as a preset, you can suggest to do literally anything at literally any time. This doesn't, however, mean it will necessarily happen, but it could. So go ahead and suggest what you want.

For example, even though it has an occurrence probability of sub 1%, you could suggest Borya and Karma spontaneously have sex. I mean, that won't happen, but it might, so you could still suggest it.

With great power comes great responsibility. I am trusting you as suggesters not to turn this quest into a porno.

I am also trusting you not to get Borya killed. Because you could totally do that. I mean, she has self preservation instincts that will help keep her alive, but if you guys tell her to rush out into a snipers kill zone, she'll die.

I mean actually die. Like, if you fuck up bad enough that's it. That's the end. There are no 'retries' in the path of a hero.

>>920004
porno no, but rl has sex.
btw, if we do die, could we continue as a new char in the same universe?

--

Think very hard about schlicking furiously.
Realize how aroused you have gotten from this and then...



...discard the thought. Time to get to work. I'm going to guess the chair is made of wood since that would match the rest of this place. Wood can break. So here's what we do: we ask for a drink to get rid of Karma. Once we do. we scoot closer to a wall, once a foot or so away, fall backwards and center your weight on your pelvis. This should hopefully smash the back of the chair, allowing you to stand. Once up, use your legs and weight to break the chair legs you are tied to. After that, step your legs through your arms so your arms are in front of you. At this point, depending on how long you take, you can either prepare to ambush and bludgeon with your bound hands or race to the tools and cut your bindings and arm yourself.

>>920008
Yes, you are highly aroused and thinking about nothing but sex in this situation where there is a certain probability of your death. Oh wait, except for the fact that you're not. You're asexual, that kinda comes as part of the whole sociopath thing. Or at least, you've never felt any attraction to any person you've ever met.

The pertinence of this train of thought is dubious at best.


More saliently, you're debating whether you want to actually try and escape. Karma raised a good point, she could have killed you multiple times. But she didn't.

As well, your father must have known all this would happen. He was less than a hundred feet away, for gods sake.

If he trusts Karma enough to leave you alone and bound with her, maybe you should as well.

Then again, maybe not.

Not trusting anyone is one of the only reasons you're still alive.

Fuck. Right now, all you want to do is kill something and be done with this mess.

No, that's not an option, focus.

Do you attempt escape?

Attempt escape. If Karma uses lethal tactics to restrain a 12-year old who she is supposed to be recruiting, Mark will hunt her down. Think of this as your first exam in Spec Ops, except you don't give a ^&*( because you're busy writing your Black Ops Ph.D. thesis draft.

Don't get too confident in the idea that you'll be fine because your father knows where you are and what you're currently going trough, for all we know this might be the real deal designed to convince you that it's not, your father is a relentless and probably endlessly creative(ly evil) sociopath like you, and might be testing if you're the real deal with Ivan Drago's mindset of if it dies it dies, don't get too complacent, because he might be trying to get rid of you if you don't end up being as competent at being a monstrosity as hopes you would.

>>920009
Now hang on. While my post was somewhat tongue and cheek, and i strongly agree that now is not the time, sociopaths should definitely be able to enjoy some "alone time" even if they cant really feel love or attraction.

--

Anyway, lets bide our time for now. They most likely wont kill us, but they may try to get their torture on or even permanently maim us. Until then however, lets play along.

Tilting forwards and jumping to land on a single chair-leg at an angle ought to break it, to free up leg mobility. Then blocking the door by tilting furniture against it at an angle. Using something heavy as a battering ram ought be enough to break through the walls(but mind anything electrically conductive with respect to lines in the wall). Most tools can be used to stab with...

Using such a fragile chair seems like a rookie mistake, escaping is probably some sort of test. Either a test to see if you can be trusted not to escape, which would be futile, or the want you to demonstrate your ability.

>>920012
You doubt your father is sociopathic. In fact, he's far more kind and caring than you've ever been. You really don't think he'd put your life in danger unnecessarily. But you won't write it off completely just yet.

>>920019
You never said you don't enjoy 'alone time'. You said you feel no attraction to anyone. So Karma isn't really doing it for you.

You can't decide whether to blame yourself, or your psychosis-voices for this train of thought.


You're escaping. If they wanted you to cooperate, they shouldn't have attacked and bound you.

"Can I get a glass of water?" Asked Borya.

"Yeah." Said Karma unenthusiastically.

She turned around and exited the room.


You wait ten seconds, and in that time you scan the room for cameras. Nothing, looks like you have some privacy.


You lean forward in your chair as far as you can, then throw your weight backwards.

The chair's back breaks. You feel intense pain as sharp wood lacerates the muscles of your back.

You grit your teeth and bite down a cry of pain.

The chair's back slips between your bound arms, and clatters to the floor.

20 seconds since Karma left.

Your hands are still bound, but now you can stand.

23...

You throw your weight forward against what remains of the chair, and the front legs snap off, allowing you some restricted movement.

29...

You get your hands in front of you by bringing them forward under your legs.

34...

You start tearing at your paracord bindings with your teeth.

41...

The knot begins to give way, and your hands slip free.

47...

You rush to undue the bindings on your legs.

50...

You hear footsteps coming up stairs.

52...

Your legs are free.

56...

The door's handle is turning.

You must act. Whatever you choose to do, you have to be quick and decisive. If you stall or doubt yourself for a fraction of a second, you'll fail.

What do you do?

Grab two legs and crouch down. Go for a trip since Karma will probably expect you to try and ko her. You will need to, in the same movement as tripping her straddle her and wrap your legs around her neck (i swear this isnt sexual) with your thighs on her shoulder blades, sitting on her chest. This should allow you to immobilize her despite being weaker and lighter. Get the gun away from her as fast as you can. After that, look for blades.

//////If you have even the slightest doubts about your ability to execute this flawlessly, instead tell her you freed yourself before she gets that door open so she doesnt shoot!\\\\\\

>>920114
That sound like the kind of plan that only people with extensive training can pull off. If a single part of the move fails, everything falls apart. You're more of a 'improvise, then strike viciously at any exposed weak point as hard and fast as you can, with whatever weapon you have, then keep improvising.' Kinda girl. In fact, this is the plan now.


You rush quietly as you can into cover to the right of the door.

The handle finishes its rotation, and the door swings open.

You hear Karma exclaim violently when she sees the scene you've left.

You brace yourself against the wall, and throw all your weight into kicking the door closed.

You feel the heavy wood connect with soft tissue. And Karma curses again in a voice now laced with pain.

You rush to throw the door back open, and assault your now stunned adversary.

You find Karma bent over in the hall, clutching her face with her left hand and and supporting herself against a wall with the other.

When she sees you, she immediately goes for her pistol.

You kick viciously at her shin, knocking her off her already shaky balance, and sending her face-down into the floor.

You hesitate not a fraction of a second. In less time than it takes a heart to beat, you're on top of the prone Karma, straddling her arms with your legs and preventing her from retaliating. She writhes and fights, attempting to throw you off, to no avail.

You reach backwards and grab the pistol she has holstered in her waistband, which you now see is a Glock 19 Gen-5.

You press the gun against the base of Karma's skull, and she immediately stops struggling.

She coughs several times, expelling half-clotted blood from her nose, before speaking in pained and ragged voice. "Jesus I get it, you like to be on top." She said, huffing a pained laugh.

You lean in close, and whisper low and dangerously. "If you try anything, I will kill you without a moment's hesitation. That is not and idle threat." You say, punctuating the 'not' by pressing the muzzle of the pistol against the side of her head.

Karma laughs again. "Guess you really are as fucken crazy as they say." She says.

"You don't know the half of it." You say, as you slam the butt of the pistol into the soft area between Karma'a shoulder and neck.

The strike shocks her Suprascapular nerve, and immediately Karma is rendered unconscious.

You practically collapse under your own weight, falling sideways off of Karma's unconscious body. You slump against a wall and just sit there, gun in hand, and take a moment to collect yourself.

Now that the adrenaline rush is subsiding, you feel the the injuries on your lower back in full. The pain is terrible, but not too much to bear. You aren't bleeding enough for it to be life threatening, but you should get the injuries looked at. You can't do it yourself because of the awkward location of the wound.

You take the opportunity to inspect the pistol.

It appears to be a very normal Glock 19. It's under-rail is bare, the sights are stock, and no obvious modification has been made to the external of the gun. You check the clip, it appears a standard seventeen-round magazine has been loaded in place of the reduced capacity compact magazine that comes as standard with the 19. You replace the mag.

You feel tired. Mentally, physically, if you had a normal emotional capacity you'd probably feel emotionally tired too.

You know you should move, but part of you just wants to sit here until the end of the world.

You don't have anyone you can trust. You have no friends, if you have any distant relatives you don't know about them, you don't know of any safe places to stay, and you have no money.

You're also fucken thirsty.

Right now, your only assets in the whole fuck world are this pistol and Karma, who is unconscious and a hostile entity as much as an asset.

You'll have to deal with Karma somehow. You don't want to kill her, she's your only source of information at the moment. But she will wake up eventually, and you want her secure when she does.

There's also the matter of your father, who will supposedly arrive in approximately an hour. How are you going to deal with him?

What do you do?

Drag Karma across the house, looking for things to bind her with until she's too heavy to carry. For comedic effect, make sure she bumps across the stairs.

After that, steal everything that isn't bolted to the floor. Get an explanation from Karma on your way out.

lol, you complain about how difficult my suggestion was and then basically do the same thing

>>920194
No. Lets keep her knocked out for now.

Strip Karma so she doesn't have anything that could be used as restraints or a garrote. Do a full body search to make sure she hasn't planned for a situation like this. After that, search the house. Try to find a bag or something that can be used as such.

Look for medical supplies, food, water, survival gear, and military supplies. Prioritize finding a knife, a taser (or something that could be jury-rigged into one), an entrenching tool, and a bucket. As soon as you find something usable as bindings, bind Karma as thoroughly as you can. Leave enough freedom of movement in the legs to walk but no more than that. Give her no movement in her arms. After that, leave on foot heading in whichever direction would provide the most cover. A few minutes after leaving, cover yourself and Karma in mud using the bucket and water and then change direction.

>>920226
All good. Tbh i was more amused than actually irritated.

You take a couple deep breaths, and focus your thoughts on the task at hand.

>>920211
Okay, fine. The whole 'restrain her by straddling her' thing was a good idea. You just didn't want to go around swinging chair-legs like you know what the hell you're doing, because you don't.

You drag yourself off the floor, and over to Karma, whose person you search.

You find:

—An [iPhone]; 74% battery. And it's charger.
—Two [spare mags] for the Glock.
—A [Tac knife], skeletal punch-blade style. And its sheath.
—A [money-clip], containing 70$.
—A [bag of neural-relaxant], homeopathic, must be smoked to gain affects.
—A [bag of weed], about ten grams.
—A [pipe], ceramic composite. Smells mostly of marijuana, with faint notes of the homeopathic relaxant.
—The [holster] for the Glock 19, waistband suspended.
—A [refillable flip-lighter], chrome-plated, artistic skull decal.
—A [keyring], one car key (Mercedes Benz), one bike key, multiple unidentifiable door keys.
—A [50-foot bundle of mil-spec paracord], originally 100-feet. This is the same type you were tied up with.

That's all you can find, you decide to just take everything for now. As you have the pocket-space to carry it easily.

Karma is still unconscious, and snoring loudly.

You strip Karma down to her underclothes. She is dangerous, and you will treat her as such.

You drag Karma into the bathroom you were bound in, and begin tying her up.


It takes about ten minutes, but you get Karma tied up very securely. Her hands are tied, and her arms are bound to her sides. As well, you tied her legs together rather snugly. This used up all the paracord you were bound with, but you still have the [50-foot bundle of paracord] remaining.

You search the room.

You find:

Various tools; saws, hammers, nails, a power-drill, rulers, a couple tape measures etc. None of it is really useful to you. Except the nails, which you take five of.

Useful finds; A length of galvanized steel piping (great bludgeon), a [flashlight] (plastic, large, waterproof/shockproof), a [soldering iron] (compact, self contained, internal battery).

You also recover all the items you had in your pockets, they were in the polymer chest with the lock, which was unlocked when you checked it:

—Your [pocket knife], a reliable folding Gerber (4.5 inch blade).
—A [compact survival kit], containing; blood coagulant, bandages, a fire-starter, waterproof/windproof matches, signal whistle, compass, compact signal-mirror, two road-flares.
—Your [wallet], contains 75$.

Your phone is broken, in the struggle or purposefully by your captors, you cannot tell. It doesn't matter. You destroy it even further, until there is no hope of recovering any data from it. Not that there was anything important on it in the first place.


You've got a plan. You're going to find Karma's car -presumably a Mercedes Benz-, and jack it. Then you're going to drive to a secluded location far away from this mansion, and pump Karma for info. You'll decide what to do from there.


For the time being, you rush to search the entire mansion.

Yep, it's just a broken-down mansion. You find almost nothing suspect, except a large bag of weed in what you presume is Karma's room, you'll probably take it, good street value.

These are all the useful things you find around the mansion:

—A duffel bag. Whatever you want to take, it'll have to fit in this bag.
—A bottle of lye. Which can be used to remove fingerprints, or dissolve bodies.
—Spare clothes. They all belonged to Karma, so they don't fit perfectly, but they'll work as spares. You manage to gather; 4 pairs of underwear, 2 pairs of pants, 4 shirts. All of them decent enough. Your breasts are small enough that you don't need bras, so you don't take any.
—A tank of propane. Full. Highly explosive, but also very heavy.
—A small bag of guano-enriched fertilizer. You can practically smell the reactive nitrogen. Great for making explosives, but heavy.
—A toaster. With this, the remote, and the timer, you could make a timed electronic detonator.
—A TV remote. ^
—An egg timer. ^
—Food. Five cans of beans, two cans of tomato soup, two cans of chicken noodle, seven instant ramen cups, a single red apple.
—Bottled water. 23 sixteen-ounce bottles.
—The hemp bag that was over your head. You can use it to blind Karma.


You pile all the shit you might want to take in front of the front door to the mansion.

What do you take?

(FYI: Unless given a reason otherwise, Borya is taking the items she found on Karma's person, as well as her personal effects. It the rest of the stuff you have to decide on.)

Take everything but the remotes, toaster, and fertilizer. We dont have that much time and those things are unnecessary weight.

Drive to an army surplus store on your way out and get some armor, a gas mask, and a helmet. If you dont have the money, rob a gas station for visa gift cards.

If we jack the car, we need to ditch it somehwere where we are not. When we ditch the car, take the battery.

IMPORTANT OOC QUESTIONS:

Lately, I've been wondering if perhaps my peculiar update schedule is interfering with this quest.

So, by answering these questions you help decide the pace at which the quest is run.

Are there particular days I should update on?

Anyday! You're just happy to see the quest update, and want updates to happen whenever they will.
Weekends! You're a busy person, and you have more time to suggest on the weekends.
Weekdays! You need quality content to read while you're busy avoiding doing your job/schoolwork, and have more time to suggest during the week.
Particular days! Please specify which.

How fast should I update?

As fast as you can! You want to see this quest in high gear.
Wait at least one hour between updates! You want a small period afforded to suggest.
Wait at least three hours between updates! You want some time to be able to suggest.
Wait at least twenty-four hours between updates! You want to be sure you get a chance to suggest.

How much control should I give you as suggesters? Keep in mind, the more I have to stop to let you guys make decisions, the slower by far this quest will be.

Only important decisions! Moral dilemmas, advanced planning and how to approach situations will be left to you, but Borya can do menial things herself, as well as not needing direction while fighting. You can still intervene at any point to suggest a particular course of action. (by far the fastest, this will allow me to make several updates without waiting for suggesters. And gives me greater control over the narrative. This also reduces the chance that Borya is killed, but certainly does not eliminate it. You still have control if you want it, but this will allow me to move the plot along should suggesters stall.)
I'll make the decisions! You wear the pants in this relationship. Planning, courses of action, what to take or not, you manually decide it all. Borya doesn't sneeze without suggester consent. (Far slower, I will have to make much smaller updates and pause often so that you can control the protagonist. This drastically increases the chances of Borya dying. You have full freedom, but no quarter will be given should you fail. The story grinds to a complete halt if suggestions slow.)

>Inventory
Take everything but the components for the timed bomb, which you should construct now. Leave it disarmed for Mark to find and use at his discretion.

>Update Questions
I think a scheduled approach will be appropriate; pacing yourself at a schedule of one big update/day (with some minor updates to clarify) means that we suggesters can view and post according to our own schedules. If that's too fast, then every other day or every three days. Just be sure to notify us with a PAUSE title/image post if you need to take a break.

>Control
We'll take control at important decisions; this is your quest.

>>920311
Why would he need a bomb?


One or two updates per day seems to be fine.

I am also fine with only important decisions (with suggester overrides).

>>920311
If you were gonna leave a bomb for your father, you'd leave it armed. He was SAS, disarming a crude IED would be ridiculously simple for him. You don't plan on doing this, though. Because it would take you the better part of an hour to construct that bomb, and you just don't have that much time.


You decide to take almost everything, but you can only fit five bottles of water and two cups of ramen in the duffle if you take everything else.

You'll leave the bomb components, including the propane tank. They're just too heavy to carry with you.


You jam the duffle bag full of various supplies, and leave it sitting in front of the mansion's main door.

You head upstairs to find Karma still unconscious, and still securely bound. You might add they she is still dressed in nothing but her undergarments.

>>920194
You're not doing that. It's cruel and unnecessary. Besides, it'll already be difficult to get Karma down the stairs. No, you're taking a much more refined approach.


You shove Karma down the stairs.

Her body produces several clunks and thumps as it strikes against the hardwood stairs. She reaches the bottom and slides to a stop.

She looks fine. Didn't brake anything important.

Probably.


You follow after her, and find her still alive, and still unconscious at the base of the staircase. Christ, either you hit her harder than you thought, or she is far harder stoned on weed than you thought.

Thinking to the pipe in your cargo pocket, you'd probably bet on the latter.

You drag Karma to the front door, and leave her and the duffle bag there while you head out to find the car.


You exit to the building's exterior.

It is still raining heavily, but the sun is beginning to rise.

The cloud-filtered rays of sunlight illuminate your surroundings enough to get an idea of the area.

It looks like all the land outside of Chicago: pine trees, hills, and rain.

Lots of rain.

The rain is a boon to you however, as it has turned the ground in front of the mansion into deep mud, the kind of mud that retains tire tracks well.


You head towards the driveway leading up to the mansion, and inspect the ground.

There are two sets of tracks leading toward the building, one set you immediately recognize as the tracks of your fathers car, the others are deep tracks produced by all-terrain wheels.

You follow the second set first towards, then around the mansion.

You find a Mercedes-Benz G wagon parked behind the building. On closer inspection, you find that this is a military modified version of the G wagon, complete with a radiator and engine guard, brush guards for the headlights, a weapons rack, and a twenty liter fuel canister stored in the back. This baby has an after-market Diesel engine with superior efficiency and torque. It looks like this is the long version, with better storage capacity. This one has both the front and back seats mounted.

You like this car.

You'll have to commend Karma in her taste once you've finished your third degree interrogation.


You hop in the driver's seat and start the car up, the engine roars like a beast and the revs jump satisfyingly.

Your father taught you to drive a while back, claiming it was a skill you should have for emergency situations. You think this qualifies.


You bring the car around to the front of the building, parking it so it will be easy to load up.

You hop out of the vehicle and head in to grab your equipment, and Karma.


...Who you find awake and struggling on the floor inside.

It seems she was worming her way toward the kitchen, probably in the hopes of getting a knife to cut her bindings with.

She hasn't noticed you yet, you take advantage of this.

"Alas. Your valiant attempts at escape have been foiled. You remain still in my evil clutches-" you begin.

Karma cuts you off quickly once she notices your presence. "What the fuck do you think you're doing? What do you think tying me up will get you? You think you're safe because I'm restrained? You have no fucken idea how much shit you've put yourself in! Once-" she starts.

Your turn to cut her off. You lean in close to her bound form. "If you don't stop talking, now, I will cut your fingers off one by one with garden clippers. Clear?" You ask.

Karma stares silently, her expression livid. But you can see the fear behind her facade.

Good. She realizes that wasn't a bluff.

You grab her by a foot and drag her back to the front door, where you pick up the duffle and continue outside with Karma in tow.


You reach the edge of the porch before Karma speaks again. "Wait! At least let me hop into the car." She said. Indeed, there was a good stretch of gravel-filled mud between you and the car, and getting drug through that would be less than fun. And Karma is still in nothing but her undergarments.

"We don't have time for that." You say.

You totally do.

"Then drag me on top of something." She said.

"I don't have anything to drag you on." You say.

You actually do.

Karma gives you a glare. "Fuck. Fine." She said, resigning to the unpleasant experience. She closes her eyes and grits her teeth.

God damnit. You hate it when you feel bad for people. Yet here you are, not wanting to have to drag Karma through the mud. Christ, you're never gonna let yourself live this down.

You throw the duffle into the back of the car, and hoist Karma by her armpits.

"What are you-" she begins.

"One more word, Karma, one more fucking word. I dare you." You enunciate through gritted teeth.

You throw Karma into the back of the car, and she hits the sheet-steel floor with a slam.

You hear her grunt in pain, but she has enough self-preservation instincts not to complain.

You're about to hop into the car, when an important question occurs to you, what's your destination?

Old scenic lookout. About a 40 minute drive. A lookout over Lake Michigan. You won't have to go through any populated areas to get there, and it's pretty much abandoned in the winter. You could interrogate Karma here.
The town of Gary. About 100 minute drive. A small town on Lake Michigan. You could park outside it and pick up whatever supplies you feel you need.
Chicago's industrial district. Basically the slums. Plenty of derelict buildings around there you could hold up in, or interrogate Karma in.

Keep in mind that these destinations are not final. You can head to any other location after stopping by one of these places.

And one more though occurs to you. More of an idea really. An idea you really like.

Since you aren't taking it, you could set up the propane tank so it explodes once you've left. You could do this in less than three minutes, and you should have far more time than that before your father gets here. This would completely level the mansion with fire, destroying much evidence.

Do you destroy the mansion? Y/N

N: too much time and unnecessary. Plus your father may waste time searching the house.

--

Before you actually get going, sweep the vehicle for bombs (presumably timed or gps triggered), bugs, trackers, and weapons.

--

Gary is not a small town, it is also way too close to where you are. I would suggest driving to Centralia PA (~630 miles from Gary). It is a long-abandoned mining town that turned into a still-burning hellhole when all of its mines lit on fire. It is riddled with hazardous, incinerating gas, however there are many places amongst the hazards that are not only safe, but also are rife with abandoned buildings. On your way, pick up gas masks and long-sleeve gear from a surplus store somewhere. It should take about 10 hours by interstate to get there from Gary.

>>920381
You're right, Gary isn't a small town by sheer size, but its population is tiny compared to almost any other city in the area. Gary was a large town, it was also a large steel producer. Then the sixties happened. When importing steel became cheaper that making it on US soil, the economy of towns like Gary completely collapsed. Gary struggled for many years, until 2023, when a series of terrorist bombs collapsed some of its biggest buildings. After that, the town was completely abandoned. Reconstruction has barely begun, and it's going to be a long time until Gary has anywhere near the population it had in its prime. Until then, Gary is a tiny group of orderly buildings set up in the heart of old-town's ruins. You could set up a temporary safe-house in one of the abandoned buildings, and pick up things like groceries from the town proper.

You are nowhere near ready for a trip to Centralia PA. That place is a burning wasteland, you'd die of either heat-stroke or dehydration if you went there now.


You don't really have any good options. No friends, relatives, or even shaky allies that you even close to trust, So you're not exactly flush with options for safe-houses.

For now, you'll head to the look-out. It's secluded, and it will give you a chance to make a better long-term plan.


In your hurry, you almost forgot to sweep the car for bugs and bombs. Maybe you're getting too confidant.

Finding the car clean, you hop in and start it up.

You drive away without rigging the mansion in any way. Sometimes the best course of action is inaction.


As you drive, you begin to contemplate your situation.

You have no allies. None. No friends either. The closest thing to a friend you've ever had was a cool dude you met on a gun discussion page, then subsequently spoke to again. You don't have anyone you trust, no one.

You have Karma to deal with. You'll probably kill her. But then you have to deal with the body. Regardless, you'll get some information out of her first.

Then there's your father. What is his game? Why would he forcefully capture you? Whatever he was planning, he must have been sure you wouldn't agree with it, otherwise he wouldn't have had you held like that.

Fuck.

This whole situation is bullshit. You have extremely few resources, no assets, no safe place to stay.

You don't even now what you're running from.

Just... Fuck.

You clench your teeth and slam a hand against the dashboard. This whole thing pisses you off.

"Problem?" Asks Karma from the back.

Your about to lash Karma verbally when you take note of her tone, she sounds almost... Apologetic. Huh, maybe she actually has a conscience. Unlike you.

"This whole thing is FUBAR. Just bullshit. My own father betrayed me." You say.

"Do you actually care that he betrayed you?" Asked Karma.

"Well... No. Not really. Is that fucked up?" You ask. More to yourself than Karma.

"Yeah, that's kinda fucked up." She said.

"...I guess it just matches the rest of me, then." You say.

Karma is silent for a while, before she speaks up again. "Can you put some music on? It'll help make this situation bearable." She said.

You start looking through the jammed tape deck. "What's so bad about this situation?" You ask.

"I was incapacitated by an unarmed twelve year old girl with no combat training, while I was armed. Then stripped almost naked, tied up, and thrown in the trunk of my own car. And I might be killed by the same twelve year old. What the hell do you think, Borya?" Says Karma.

You just hum in vague recognition as you jack-in a cassette tape.

The Beastie Boys, License to Ill comes on. Namely the song 'Paul Revere'.

Karma starts to sing along.

You listen, quietly bobbing your head to the rhythm, until the MC-A segment comes in, when you start to sing too.


Once the song is over, Karma laughs. "You listen to the Beasty Boys? Maybe you're not as bad as I thought." She says.

"You know I'm probably gonna kill you, right?" You say, grinning wide.

"Way to ruin the moment, Jesus." Says Karma, but the humor behind her tone leaves you less than convinced of her anger.


You arrive at the lookout, and have no issues until you see another car parked in the lot. The owners are inside, talking to each-other.

How do you proceed?

Park the car, wait for them to leave. They probably won't be too long, and the likelihood is that they won't notice you.
Park the car, convince them to leave. Shouldn't be too difficult. But you have to be careful not to elicit suspicion.
Something else? This situation seems fairly easy to handle, but shit could go south fast if they become suspicious.

And there's also the question of what to do with Karma. You'll have to ensure that she doesn't call out.

Karma honestly doesn't seem that bad, nor does she seem to be out for blood. Lets slowly make her an ally/friend. Either way, it is kind of bloodthirsty of you to want to just kill her. You cant just blame that on your sociopathy.

--

Just drive to the next cabin over. These sorts of places have tons.

>>920464
Yeah, no. Don't make friends with overgrown teenagers who wave guns in little girls' faces.

Gag Karma, sabotage the other car so the alarm goes off every thirty seconds.

>>920473
She knew what Borya was. You can't say Borya is just a little girl. I feel like the main culprit here is Borya's father for leaving Borya in the dark.
We should befriend Karma but keep our guard up. We should take precautions beforehand so as to not give her an opening to exploit us.

>>920464
You don't do friends. But you will give Karma a chance.

And no, you can't blame your bloodlust on sociopathy. You can label it 'violent tendencies', which is exactly what your psychologist did.

>>920473
To be fair, you attacked her first. You're also a 'little girl' that was basically born a monster. A figurative monster, but monstrous none the less.

Pronounced violent inclination, almost no capacity for empathy or guilt, and a full capacity to feel emotions like anger and hate. Perhaps worst of all, you like killing.

You've only killed once, back when you were eight. It was just three days after you got diagnosed with all your fucked up disorders.


Your parents had taken you to the pool, you like swimming.

Everything seemed to be going fine, you even joined a couple other kids to play water polo.

Then you got the ball, and a thirteen year old kid jumped on top of you to grab it.

He probably didn't know, probably didn't realize that he was holding you underwater, that you couldn't breath. That he was drowning you.

The lifeguard didn't notice, none of the adults did either.

You started to panic, your instincts kicked in, and you kneed the boy in the groin.

He was shocked enough by the strike that he let go of you. You surged upwards, and again you could breath.

But you hardly noticed through the red haze that was permeating your mind.

The boy was reeling, the strike had left him gasping for air and crying tears of pain.

But you hardly noticed.

You lunged at the boy, grabbed him by the hair, and slammed his head against the edge of the pool.

Bone cracked in a sickening symphony that filled you with euphoria, the boy's body went limp and his eyes rolled upward in their sockets.

You slammed his head against the hard cement again, and again, and again. Until his brains were pulverized, until his skull was in a hundred pieces, until your parents drug you away thrashing and yelling.

His body float motionless in the water, his blood staining the pool red.

And his mother... She just crouched there at the edge of the pool, holding his broken corpse in her arms...

And she cried.

It wasn't a booming sob, or a shouted lament. It was just pure... Sadness.

And you will never be able to understand that.

It keeps you up at night. Not that you killed the boy, or that you caused the mother so much grief.

No, what haunts you still is how much she loved him.

And how you will never be able to love someone like that.


Where were you? Right. For now, you'll just leave these people alone and try to find an area to stop at that's a little further away.

But first, you stop the car and crawl back into the storage area, where Karma looks at you with a measure of trepidation.

You a sleeve off one of the spare shirts you took, and fashion it into a serviceable gag.

"Either you let me gag you, or I knock you out again and then gag you." You say to Karma.

She sighs, and her expression is more than a little peeved. But she opens her mouth and allows you to silence her.

You know how to make a good gag, the kind you can't bite through, spit out, or shout around.

So you're fairly confident that Karma has been effectively silenced once your finished.

You crawl back into the drivers seat, and motor off towards a more secluded area.


You find a yurt far away from the road, and deep enough in the park that you shouldn't have to worry about being disturbed. Rangers only do rounds once every couple of days in the off season, and it's a Tuesday so you're pretty confident in your privacy.

You park the car and get out, with the intent to inspect the yurt before setting up.


It's no challenge to pick the lock on the door, almost shamefully easy, in fact. Finding it acceptably clean, in good structural condition, and lacking any other occupants, you decide that this yurt will do.


You get all your supplies into the yurt, and carry Karma in without issue.

You set Karma on one of the bunks, and check again that she is secure.

What do you do now? (You can choose as many as you like. Please specify the order they are completed in.)

Take care of food and water needs. You're extremely thirsty, and starting to get quite hungry.
Interrogate Karma. You need answers, and she will most likely have some.
Improvise weaponry. Being prepared is always well advised. But what would you make using the supplies you have now?
Look through Karma's phone. There might be some information to garner from it. You already checked the phone for tracking software, and it appeared clean, though you are not skilled enough at hacking to be entirely certain.

Food & water first. Secure everything. Lets go into town. You need money so lets go steal some visa gift cards. Then go buy a few of the largest solar generators you can buy without drawing too much attention. After that, buy a new laptop and a new CnC machine. Why build makeshift weapons when we can print actual weapons? Go to a sporting goods store and buy powder, casings, bullets, primer, and a loading set. If you can, try to buy them separately at different stores. Go to a surplus shop and buy gas masks, armor, and most importantly, camo netting.

Your cell coverage is probably abysmal, so you should also buy a crossbow, bolts, some rope, and a lot of cable. You can shoot the cable up a tree to make a makeshift antenna.

Before you get into Karma's phone, make sure its GPS is off. If it isn't, you need to leave with the phone and ditch it somewhere.

... That's even darker than THIS situation. I'd ask what your parents were thinking when they refused to hire an expensive professional endocrinologist after this incident but... well, they're not normal.

I don't think we could have helped; I don't remember this incident, we may have been knocked out by your rage. Something to think about.

Wait a minute. How the hell did you manage to perform a lengthy execution when there were dozens of other, stronger adults and a lifeguard nearby? And even if they were all paralyzed by fear, your father is special forces; he's trained for these sorts of situations. An air horn or a thrown ball might have snapped you out of it, at least it was worth a try. It's like they were all forced to watch or something. Or in the case of your parents...

Man, I did not want to wake up to this horror story.

>What do
Look through Karma's phone further. There might be self-erase protocols written inside so be careful. Then interrogate her for more details.

>>920532
Well, it was probably one swift movement that did it, like a curb stomp, but with a pool edge. She probably exaggerated it somewhat due to emotions that she likes to pretend dont exist. I mean, they do exist, they just aren't the same strength, but they are there. Guess she wants to be good, but feels like she can't and that one event was the turning point. She seems depressed since she views herself as a monster, but naturally this is rather suppressed.

>>920529
You should check the phone and get some food and drink.
As for the sudden memory and the "pain" of knowing what you are, you're essentially born with great potential to do pure evil, selfish acts, and basically no potential to do any good to anyone but yourself, you may be the most capable human being on an individual level, but when it comes to working in group or functioning in a society, you might as well say that everything you make contact with will suffer, be it intentional or not. You're a perfect destroyer, it's in your genes, if you want to spare other of your (inevitable) evil, there are options. You can commit suicide for one, since as far as we know sociopathy is in one's genes, that makes it a core part of you. or you can make an effort to distance yourself from society and live alone in hopes of not ruining anyone's life, which coming at the expense of your well-being and quality of life is guaranteed to be rejected. Your's father's game of general and soldier didn't help in this, he basically made you think of life as a game with plain objectives, and if there's anything that Person of interest taught me, is that anyone who sees the world as a game (of chess), deserves to lose. And you could probably wait for your father, since you might have already completed the challenge.

>>920581
No offense.

>>920581
She can learn emotion. The capacity is there, it is just greatly reduced. All she needs to do is focus on the meager emotion she does have and with time it will gradually amplify. She will most likely retain the ability to ignore or shut out emotions at her discretion, however.

>>920596
Or designed ethics. Enlightened self-interest is a thing. It can easily be an improvement even, the amount of destruction people are willing to impose just to maintain friends and family, even with no actual improvement to their situation, just maintaining an unstable and degrading circumstance...

Building a stable and secure base-of-operations with reliable personnel and a valuable reputation would probably do a great deal of "good" while satisfying self-interest. Large sections of society are enthusiastic supporters of killing people provided that the proper forms are filled and the proper targets are chosen. Or you can just go to a warzone or similar chaotic mess. All sorts of murders happen in such places and only the tiniest fraction of it ever gets attention.

>>920532
It wasn't a 'lengthy execution', after the first strike it was about four seconds before you were stopped. But four seconds was more that enough to bash his head multiple times.

Endocrinologist? You think it stopped at one lab coat? Oh no, you were inspected, prodded, and questioned by at least one representative of every field of medicine in existence. You've finally managed to convince your primary psychologist that you are stable by lying out the ass: "Oh yes, I'm a good girl with lots of friends who would never harm a fly." It makes you sick just to think about. Now, at least, you've cut down the psyche evaluations to two a week. Or, you had, but you suppose that's not really relevant anymore.

>>920537
>>920581
You, do realize I can hear you right?
On this day not but a single fuck was given, for one is necessary to say 'fuck you'. Fine, if that's how you're gonna be, then I'll just focus on the solid advice.

>No offense.
I take offense at you thinking that sentence is anywhere near applicable to your previous statements.


You start looking through Karma's phone. Turning the GPS off was the first thing you did, but you check again to make sure it doesn't have any location devices active.

You look through the search history. Basically, it looks like Karma spent the last six days either looking for dispensaries or looking at porn. You suppose those two kinda go hand in hand.

However, you find something interesting in the text messages. It looks like she was speaking with your father, but all the actual texts in the conversation have been deleted. You won't get anything out of this other than the fact that Karma and your father were in communication, which you'd already assumed.

You search through the photos, and find more porn. But nothing of actual relevance.

The phone seems a bust for the most part, so you put it away and get yourself some food.


You drink an entire bottle of water, and you're half way through a can of beans when Karma starts making a fuss. Squirming in her bonds in what appears to be an attempt to grab your attention, as her gag is still in, preventing speech.

You set down the can of beans and stalk over to Karma, drawing and opening your pocketknife as you do so.

You press the tip of the knife against Karma's cheek as you speak. "I'm going to take the gag out now. If you yell, scream, or attempt to call for help in any way, I'll slit your throat." You say. Your tone matter of fact rather than threatening.

You pull the gag off and Karma takes several deep breaths through her mouth before speaking. "Can I get some water? Maybe some food?" She asks.

"Well, to answer the specific question that you asked, no. You are incapable of getting food or water as you are bound. I believe the question you meant to ask was 'will I give you some food and water', and the answer to that question would be: just water for now, it would be too much trouble to feed you while your hands are bound." You say.

You garb a bottle of water and prop Karma up so she can drink it.

She downs half the bottle, and you set her back down on the bunk, while you take a seat facing her.

"You know what happens now? I get information out of you. It's not a question, it's a fact. You're going to tell me everything that's even close to relevant. The only thing you get to decide is how painful this process is." You say.

Karma looks at you for a moment. It's a strange look, as if she's searching for something in your eyes. Then the look vanishes. "What do you want to know?" She asks.

"Why did my father have me captured against my will?" You ask.

Karma sighs. "Get comfortable Borya, it's exposition time." She says.

You remain seated and motionless.

"This is confidential information, the public is clueless so far; America is on the brink of war. Possibly with multiple countries at once. India finally got its shit together, formed an organized military, and they want blood. Then there's Russia, who has always sought to take us out. And now, their missile tech has advanced enough to actually do that. So you got India, with the biggest armed force in the world, and Russia, with technology equal or superior to ours, put 'em together and you've got a power couple that could wipe out America easily." Says Karma.

You nod.

"And hell, does that really sound like America is the place you'd want to be when shit goes down? Well apparently Mark though it wasn't. He pulled in every favor he had with the government to get you to a safe place. I don't know where exactly he was planning on sending you, somewhere in South Africa. But the point is, he was trying to get you as far away from the fighting as he could. The way he said it was cheesy, 'I don't want her to have a life like mine' or something. Anyway, he called in his favors, and the government sent me in to help transport you. Thing is, the government is going to shit. Command is falling apart, leadership is chickening out. I don't want to be on the front lines of that shitstorm, so I was going to stay in South Africa with you, just disappear. Mark liked the idea, said he'd feel better if someone he knew was watching your back." Says Karma.

"He wasn't coming to South Africa?" You ask.

"No. He couldn't pull enough weight with leadership to get himself or your mom out." Says Karma.

That makes sense. The U.S is going to need every able body it can get if India and Russia perform a joint attack. And 'able' is somewhat of an understatement where your father is concerned.

So that was the plan all along. To send you away from the fighting. If you cared a little more about your own well being, you might regret not going along with Mark's plan. As it stands, you're more than a bit angry with him for pulling all this shit behind your back.

Honestly, now that you know he doesn't have support from any organization, you could probably just approach your father directly.

Now that you know he's not in cahoots with the government, you're sure you would be safe back at your house. The government doesn't know where your family lives, Mark made sure of that.


You let your gaze shift from Karma to the floor.

You have a lot to think about. This has gotten much bigger than you, now whole countries are at stake. The fact that you give a shit about that at all is also fairly incredible news.

You need to think. You need a plan. And god damn you need a drink. Something stronger than water.

"What are you thinking?" Asks Karma.

Honestly, you're thinking about unbinding Karma. From the start she was... Kind isn't the right word. Sympathetic to your situation. She could have killed you, she didn't. And she's been cooperative so far. It's tempting to show a little trust.

God, you're desperate for someone you can even close to trust. And Karma is as close as you're gonna get right now.


What do you do now?

I'd say "you've got us" but it's a Morton's fork between schizophrenic voices in your head and interdimensional psionic transmissions that imply there is no greater force in the multiverse without some degree of near-unlimited insanity. So yes go get a friend.

As for the war? I say: do what you can.
You think Japan will continue making English-Subbed anime once their main customer base is nuked through the ass? Will Video Games continue to be a form of violent art, or will all the artistic parts get censored to hell and back so all that's left is a collection of half-assed soldier indoctrination programs? How many well-placed nukes before the long-term fallout and environment goes to ^&*( and we're all stuck in a post-apocalyptic winter?
Even if you live the rest of your life among small fry in a backwater country, it will be miserable and will amount to nothing. Your hobbies will be censored and banned, and your only peers will be other refugees and fat-ass nobles who would gladly tap your ass no matter what state it's in. And after a long period of time with the UN defunct, the end of the world is an inevitability. All that your world has ever done or ever will do will be a blip in the universe, preceded and followed by billions of other blips who at least had the excuse of being wiped out by a cosmic force of nature that was beyond their capability to understand.

This is one of those moments where the world has gone mad, and even the worst of humanity can be of the greatest use.

I don't like it.

And I don't have to like it.

Get started. Demand that Karma help you get ^&*( done. Besides, it wouldn't be boring.

There might be secret messages in the porn. Maybe the first-letters of the implied locations? Or some feature of the scene is used to convey a morse code...

>>920705
This is cheesy as fuck. Make sure she isn't fucking with you. If she isn't, you two need to plan. She is coming with us, be it as a prisoner, pet, or a compatriot. I like her. We should go to Greenland. If we plan right, we should be able to get enough shit to set up a decent place there. We would need a cargo plane to hold everything along with solar panels, solar batteries, wiring, hydroponics supplies, and anything else one may feasibly need to be self-sufficient in a WW3 or post-apocalyptic environment.

The location we should go to is Camp Century, a long-abandoned secret US military base built as part of Project Iceworm.

>We need to save the world. I don't like it.
Well I don't like it either. How the hell am I going to save the world, huh? We'll talk about this later.

>look at porn harder.
You'd like that, wouldn't you?

>Be a preper in Greenland.
I don't really want to hang out in Greenland for fifty years while the world is busy getting not lethally radioactive. For one: mind-numbingly boring. For two: is it even worth living at that point? For three: I wouldn't actually be completely safe up there. The bombs that the world is armed with now would pretty much fuck the entire world. It doesn't matter where you go, how far you get, if just a couple extra-orbit ODEN bombs are dropped, everyone would be dead. Everyone.

No, there's no running from this one.

The fact that your father though he could get you safe at all was a huge misconception.


"I'm thinking that you'd better not be lying, for your own sake." You say.

"I swear on... My life that I'm telling the truth." Says Karma.

You look her in the eyes as she says this. You see not a single sign that she is lying. Either she's got the best poker face you've ever see (besides your own), or she is telling the honest to god truth.

You nod. "I'm also thinking that is the cheesiest shit I've ever heard." You say.

"I already said that." She says.

"Well I've just affirmed." You say.

Karma gives you a look that very clearly says 'uh huh' without the use of speech.

You tilt your head back to stare at the ceiling while you release a big sigh. "How much would I regret it if I untied you?" You muse.

"That depends." She says.

You look at her and raise an eyebrow.

"It depends on how you feel about weed, instant noodles, and music that went out of style fifty years age." She says, a small grin forming.

"Cut down on the weed, eat whatever the fuck you want, and if it's not from this century I'm okay with it. Oh yeah, and don't try to pull any shit." You say.

"Can I cut the shit?" She asks, that grin widening.

"Some day, I'm going to look back at this moment, and realize how much of a mistake this is." You say, beginning to undo the paracord.


Five minutes later, Karma is unbound, dressed in some of the spare clothes, and eating all the fucking noodles.

You kept the pistol of course, and both knives.

Between mouthfuls of noodles, Karma speaks; "What's the next move?" She asks.

"Hell if I know. I don't have any safe places to go, I don't have enough money to afford a safe-house, and I don't have any allies." You say.

"You've got me, and I've got an apartment." She says.

"Where?" You ask.

"Financial district, Chicago. Before you ask, the government pays well." She says.

You have to figure out your next move.

You could head to Karma's apartment. Trust has to start somewhere, right? Though you still want to be cautious.
You could also go to your parents house and try to figure some of this shit out. Answers from the horses mouth would be nice, and you could pick up whatever of your stuff you wanted to take.
Or something else. like what?

I think it says something that at least one of the superpowers managed to build a bomb system, each with a death radius so large that nobody on Earth could win even if everyone who didn't fire it bent their ass over and begged to die.

There's only one logical explanation why it hasn't been sabotaged (physically, financially, desperately) yet: Project Far Zenith is ready for deployment.

So hijack THAT and you've got a good shot at true survival. Ask Karma where a multitrillionaire conglomerate would hide their space shuttles.

>>920844
Did you make this up?

Idk what to do at this point. If there is no hope for survival then i guess we might as well just throw in the towel now.

I am not really digging the idea of playing Alex Rider and saving the world from some bs shit. I guess i am just rather blasé.

>>920938
Alex Rider was actually a book series written by Anthony Horowitz i read in middle school about a teen spy. As cheesy as that is, one of their defining traits was the realism and not shying away from extreme violence and gore.

You sigh.

"We're heading for my parents house." You say.

"Why?" Asks Karma.

"I need to end this bullshit. I don't know what's going to happen when I get there, but I know that I need to talk to my father, and tell him how much of a dumbass he's been." You say.

Karma huffs a small laugh past her mouthful of noodles. "Alright. I'll come with you." She said.

"Why?" You ask.

"Someone needs to keep you in check." Said Karma.

You give a scowl.


Ten minutes to pack up, and you're off. This time with Karma driving; you figure it's safe since you have the gun.

On the way, you stop to get some fast food. Karma insisted, saying that you both needed something better than canned beans.

You don't like fast food. In fact, you don't really like food in general.

You don't like very many things.

You don't really know anyone you like. There are people you find tolerable, like your parents, but you just don't like people.

You don't get joy out of too many things either. You like gaming, to an extent. There are some books you like to read. You've seen a movie or two that wasn't bad. You suppose you get a certain pleasure out of tinkering.

Overall, though, you just... Don't really enjoy life.

What are you living for? What are you even doing here?

Your father, a man who must have committed terrible acts as SAS, who has closed himself off to his emotions; even he loved you enough to sacrifice for you, to get you away from the shadow of the atom bomb.

But when you think of him you feel... Nothing.

It's just this emptiness, this void in your stomach where you know something should be. Something,Anything!

Hate would be better. Hate to fill this horrible emptiness where a human part of you just doesn't exist.

You just... You just...

You're empty.

Why are you even here? Here in this drive-through with a girl you bound and threatened with torture. This girl who's helping you!

It would be better if she hated you, if she would just attack you so you could kill her and be done with all this bullshit.

Why? Why would she help you? After you attacked her and stole from her.

It doesn't make sense.

You're so tired, you're just... Just so fucking tired.


You're sitting in the passenger seat of the SUV, eating a bland cheeseburger. You're just barely aware of this as your mind floods with painful thoughts.

You reach up to wipe a bit of ketchup off your face, and find that your cheek is moist.

You... you're crying.

You've never cried in your life. Not since you were old enough to speak.

You're crying.


It starts as a soft sniffling, then breaks out into soft sobs.

You try to stop, but you can't. You've never felt like this before. It hurts.

Karma notices your distressed state and takes her eyes of the road to look at you. "Borya? What's the problem?" She asks, she sounds genuinely concerned.

She cares.

That makes the hurt even worse.


You try to respond, try to form a cohesive sentence, try to pull yourself together. But you can't.

You can't manage even a single fucking word.


Karma pulls the car over and faces you head on. "Borya, are you okay?" She asks. She sounds worried.

You nod, trying to hold back the tears that just keep pouring out.

Karma doesn't speak, she just pulls you over to her, and cradles you against her side.

You flinch at the touch, your reflexes telling you to break her hand as soon as it's in contact with you.

Eventually, you relax into her embrace and just cry. Just... Just cry.

You're so fucked up.

No, this is a good thing. We now know that you are really really depressed. The first step to solving a problem is knowing you have a problem in the first place.

These are the End Times. I'd be worried if you weren't panicking.

Concentrate, we're here to keep you functioning. Not sane, but functioning.

First off, finish your burger. Second, put the safety on your gun. Third, think about what Mark would do if he weren't retired and was ordered by psycho bosses to stop World War 3 by any means necessary.

>>921081
Idk, i dont want to go that route. We dont have resources and tbh what has the word done for us?

Here is my idea: lets go home and go back to school. Try to make some friends (force yourself). After you have a handful, time to start prepping. Build a faraday cage and put all the important tech in it. Rob a best buy if you need to.
After that, time to hop on a plane and go somewhere. Take the friends with you. Once this whole thing blows over, you will be in a decent position to start the new world order (so start doing your kegels and make sure one of the friends is attractive).

>>921089
But seriously, even if you dont get into that sort of stuff, you could still start a hostile takeover of what is left of the country of your choice.

Additionally, there is a seed bunker up north that should have resources. and seeds.

Borya opens her eyes, and finds herself laying across the front seats of the SUV.

Karma is nowhere in sight, and the sun is setting. You must have slept for several hours.


You sit up, and survey your surroundings.

The SUV has been parked in a small rest-area off the highway. The lot appears empty save for the Mercedes.

In front of you, pine trees rise from a large swath of manicured grass. To your left, a cement building clearly labeled as the bathrooms stands.

About three-hundred feet to your left, you hear the sounds of the busy freeway.


You lean back in your seat and take a moment to collect yourself.

>This is a good thing. We now know you have depression.
You sound like my fucking psychologist.

>Panicking.
You aren't. You're nearly incapable of feeling anxiety or panic.

Mental duress? That's another story.


You suppose it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. What little emotion you have festering in the back of your mind, waiting for a moment of mental weakness to break out in an illogical flood of despair.

It shouldn't happen again.


>We're here to keep you functioning. Not sane, but functioning.
...Thanks.


You take a moment to ensure your mental clarity, then hop out of the car.

Karma shouldn't have gone too far. You'll find her.


You start towards the bathrooms, but see a figure wave at you from the picnic benches in the far corner of the rest area.

You start towards who you now recognize as Karma.


Once you get closer you see that she is supping on the leftovers from the fast food restaurant.

"Sorry to leave you alone, but I needed to take a piss, and decided to let you sleep." Says Karma.

"It's fine." You reply, sitting across from her at the table.

She seems to take note of your clothes, only a T-shirt on your upper body. "Borya, it's forty fucken degrees. Don't you need a coat?" She asks. Indeed, she herself clothed in a leather jacket.

You inspect your arms, which have begun to turn purple in the cold. "That's twenty degrees above the point where I need a coat." You say.

Karma gives a sort of 'suit yourself' shrug and returns to the cold meal she's scavenged of your collective scraps.

You sigh. Either you address it now, or let it lay indefinitely. Best to just rip this bandage off fast.

"Karma, I'm sorry for that outburst. It was illogical, and it won't happen again." You say.

Karma waves dismissively. "Don't worry about it. Now, you should eat some of this stuff before I get it all." She says.

Thank any God listening that she didn't pry.

You grab a box of cold fries and start eating. It tastes rather bad, but it's better than nothing.


You manage to gat an acceptable meal's worth of food.

"We should go." You say.

"What's the hurry? Let's take a minute to decompress." Says Karma, swinging her feet up onto the table and reclining in move that looks more dramatic than comfortable.

"I don't decompress. I don't need to." You say.

"Well that's your fucken problem right there." She says, taking a small vape out of her pocket.

"Wait. Where'd you get that? I searched your person, and your car." You ask, indicating the vaporizer.

"Spare tire." She says simply.

"But I checked the compartment... Tire lining." You say, figuring out where she hid the small device.

"Yep, and the police have never confiscated this thing because of it." She says, her grin exuding both complacency, and psychoactive vapor.

"Fine. Ten minutes." You say.

She snaps upright in a salute. Her right hand held rigid to her forehead, and her left holding the vape to her mouth. "Ma'am, yes, Ma'am! Drill Sargent Burkouskie!" She says.

"At ease, Private pothead." You say, your tone devoid of emotion. But you allow a slight smirk to curl your lips.

She drops the salute, and you start off towards the car before she can reciprocate.


It is exactly nine minutes fifty-two seconds before Karma hops into the car. You counted the seconds.

"Alright, we still headed for your house?" She asks.

"Yes." You say. Your conviction is a facade, but you're still sure.

"Okay then." Says Karma, her tone far less certain than yours.


The ride is short, thirty minutes at most before you hit the edge of the city and the suburbs begin.

The neighborhood may be familiar, but you realize that the denizens are not. You never bothered to get to know any of these people personally. You can't say you really regret that. Just a pile of privileged, upper middle class white yuppies. That, or withering retired folk reminiscing about the 'good old days', and how the world now sucks compared to when they grew up.


You come within view of your house, and find that your parents have company.

"Fuck!" Exclaims Karma.

If you were as inclined toward vulgar speech as her, your reaction would be similar.

Two amphibious APC's sit out front of the house, and one police car -the sheriffs- is parked just beyond those. The insignia of the National Guard can be made out painted on the sides of the APC's.

"Borya, we should leave. We're up shit creek already, let's cut losses and go." Says Karma.

You aren't leaving. But caution hasn't deserted you yet. You'll need a plan of action.

A frontal assault is obviously out of the question. So whatever you do, it needs to be quiet.

You've got a plan already. So unless you hear something better, you're executing it.

Please give only vague plans of action. An I'll work what I can into the approach.

What the fuck, why are they here?!

I guess you should try to sneak in and grab as much of your shit as you can, prioritizing hard drives and expensive tech.

If you want a challenge, you could try to take them all out (nonlethally) and then you can steal their gear (srsly, strip them down to their skivvies if you go this route) and vehicles. Two APCs mean you will need to drive one while Karma drives the other.

You have a gun. Shoot a birb out of the sky and let the sheriff deal with it. Actually have you seen any feral cats around here?

>>921473
Additionally, are these APCs Strykers? What kind? Do they have slats? If they have missiles, autocannons, or an MGS system, you guys need to break now and floor it.

>>921485
>You have a gun, shoot a bird, let the sheriff deal with it. Are there any feral cats around?
...What?

>>921473
>Why are they here?!
Any second now, your inquiry is going to cause me to spontaneously develop clairvoyance, specifically for the purpose of answering that question.

I'm trying to say that I have no fucking idea.

Educated guess? It probably has to do with your father. He's dangerous enough to warrant this kinda force.

>What kind of APC?
Transport only. No mounted armaments.


"Karma, back the car up a block or so, and park at the curb. Keep the engine running, we may need to make a quick getaway." You say. Grabbing the empty duffle bag to carry stuff back in.

"No, fuck that. That's the National Guard, we can't go up against that, Borya." Says karma.

"Which is why I'm about to commit some acts of irregular warfare." You say, hopping out of the car before Karma can respond.

You start down the street a ways, and hear Karma reverse a little bit before stopping.


Once you get close enough, you see that there are still several guardsmen hanging around the APC's, they have full combat gear.

You duck into the hedge wall between your house and a neighbor's, and inch your way closer to the house.

It's late-twilight right now, so visibility is good for an infiltration op.

You're to the left side of the building. It's a two story house, and your bedroom is on the second floor.

Seeing no hostiles in your vicinity, you quiet-sprint to the side of the house.

On compass points, the front of the house is east-facing, so the backyard is westwards. Meaning you are currently hugging the southern wall. Your bedroom is in the south-west corner of the house, with a window that faces the backyard.

Keeping close to the wall, you stalk toward the backyard. When you hear voices, you take cover at the corner of the house.

You strain to make out the conversation;
"He hasn't been found yet, sir."

"The mother?"

"She's in custody, sir."

"And what about the 'shark', any trace?"

"None, sir."

"Damnit. Keep looking, be thorough. And get some men to lock down the premises."

"Yes sir!"

You can only make guesses as to what all that meant, but it seems they have your mother in custody, haven't yet found your father, and are looking for something called the 'shark'.

Possibly useful.


You peak around the corner of the house, and see the two people who were just talking standing in the middle of the backyard.

One is a captain of the National Guard, he's wearing plain fatigues with no combat gear, and seems to be armed with only a pistol.

The other soldier is a Private first class. He is fully equipped; anti-ballistic helmet, body-armor, and a SOPMOD M4.

He's also walking towards you.

You'd have to sprint straight through his field of vision to get back to the hedges, and there's no cover near enough for you to reach in time.

You drop into prone go completely motionless, hoping you'll blend in with the grass.


The wait is agonizing as the solder walks casually past. Yet he doesn't notice you, and you count your blessings for that.


Once he's far enough, you raise into a crouch and check the backyard again.

The captan is gone.


As slowly and quietly as you dare, you stalk into the backyard and towards the porch.

You arrive without issue or engagement, and climb up on top of the porches roof.

Your window is just a short distance away, but it doesn't have anything you can grab onto, so jumping isn't an option.

Instead, you jump up and grab onto the gutter, shimmy by your hands towards the window.

The cheap aluminum gutter holds your weight, but the metal edge cuts into your hands multiple times.

Blood pours from your newly garnered cuts, and slickens your hands. You struggle to maintain your grip as the pain and blood threaten to surrender you to gravity.

You reach your window, and look into your room.

Finding it empty, you start swinging back and forth, building momentum.

The gutter groans under the strain, but before it can give way you swing forward and transfer all that momentum into the window-frame.

It immediately gives way and brakes free from its housing, falling inward.

You swing in through the now-empty window-frame.

Your room is somewhat sound-proofed, so you're fairly certain no one heard you.


You start gathering things from around the room:

—Your Glock, with three spare mags.
—KTS, your silent pistol.
—Two changes of clothes.
—Your laptop and it's charger.
—Some of your Tools (Soldering iron, set of screwdrivers, universal wrench, wire-cutter, light bolt-cutters, light crow-bar.)
—A Leatherman multitool.
—All your cash.

You're just about finished when you hear the doorknob turning.

You've just turned around, and are reaching for your gun when a solder enters the room and sees you. He goes for his pistol.

He's faster.

You see the flash, hear the bang, and feel a tremendous force strike you in the abdomen.

Time seems to slow. You touch a hand to your side, and find it covered in blood when you pull it away.

You... You've been shot.


Reality seems to unravel at the seams, and darkness begins to lace your vision.

Standing becomes too difficult, and you vaguely feel yourself hit the floor.

Blood, your blood, is pooling around you and seeping into the floorboards.

Death smiles at you.

You grin back.

>>921572

The Path of a Hero, chapter one END

>>921574
Yeah, it better not end like this. Btw, you forgot the hard drives. We cant print guns without the CADs.

No.

You let the gun clatter to the floor, and watch as the girl does the same.

You... You didn't mean to. You just... Reflexes got the better of you and...

Your name is Sargent Sloane Wick, and you just shot a child.


You rush to her side, crouching next to her on the floor.

Blood seeps from the abdominal wound and pools around her on the floor. The blood stains your boots.

You cradle her head in your hand. Her eyes are closed but she's... Smiling.

You shake yourself from shock and start fumbling with a pouch on your belt, eventually you fish out what you're looking for. A bag of Styptic.

You tear open the bag and dump its contents onto the wound, then put a piece of gauze over it and compress the wound.

"MEDIC!" You call.

You hear gunshots. Rapid, from multiple guns.

You barely notice past the wounded child bleeding out in front of you.

The shots get closer.

You hear footstep behind you and turn to look.

A medic is standing in the doorway, seemingly taken aback by the situation.

He takes out his radio and starts to say something, but is cut short by a bang and a spray of blood.

The medic's brains are splattered across a wall, and his body falls limply forward. Blood and gore smeared across his person.

A moment later, the medic's killer sweeps through the doorframe.

She's wearing a tank top, holding an M4, and is completely covered in blood.

Her face is contorted in an inhuman rage, her eyes ablaze with the wrath of hell.

You scramble to your feet and start to draw your knife, but before you can get the blade out of its sheath she slams the butt of the rifle into your right hand, the pain causing you to drop the knife.

She grabs the knife mid-air, and slams it upwards.

You see the blood. The pain never comes.

Your lifeblood spills from your throat and through your grasping hands. You fall to your knees.

The girl levels the rifle's muzzle with your face.

You don't hear the bang.

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow
Gauze
Sutures
Cauterize
Something
Anything
NOW NOW NOW

This is rather disorienting. Fuck idek who is still saveable and who tf is in play right now.

The soldiers brains are scrambled inside his helmet by the match-tip bullet. And his body collapses to the floor in a limp heap.

Your name is Chloe Angelica Lynch, callsign; Karma.

You are a former Delta-force operative, highly trained, highly decorated. You have killed 93 human beings in the 24 years you have been alive.

That number is now 95, counting the medic and soldier you just killed.

That's irrelevant right now.

All that matters is one girl, the one that's bleeding out on the floor in front of you.


You sling the M4 over a shoulder and crouch next to Borya, you use the soldiers knife to cut her shirt away. Bullet to the abdomen, didn't hit any organs, but it did rupture an artery, based on the quantity and color of the blood seeping from the wound.

She's unconscious, and she's... The crazy fucken bitch is smiling.

You need to close up the wound, the soldier you wasted poured a shit-ton of styptic into the entry wound, but did fuck-all about the exit wound.

You tilt Borya sideways to get a look at the exit wound, it-... Shit.

It's about two inches in diameter, the muscle is pulverized.

Styptic wont cover it.

You need to think of something, fuck fuck fuck. Think!

What if you-

You scramble around your back pocket for a lighter, and pull out a cheap Bic. Good enough.

You retrieve the soldier's knife, and clean it off as best you can.

You then start heating it up with the lighter.

Once heated to the point of warping, you roll Borya over and...

And press the side of the knife into the bleeding wound.

Blood hisses and flesh burns. The horrible stench of melting human skin permeates the air.

You grimace, grit your teeth, and force yourself to keep going.

Borya remains unconscious.

When you pull the blade away, the wound is still bleeding, but looking marginally more intact.


You rush for the medics bag, and retrieve more Styptic and a length of gauze.

You apply the Styptic liberally to the exit wound, then wrap gauze around her entire abdomen tightly, covering both wounds.

You hear cars speeding down the street outside the house.

You already killed all of the soldiers, so they pose no further threat.


"Fuck." You curse under your breath.

You regard Borya's unconscious form; you have to get her out of here, you have to. She's all that matters.

You lift Borya as carefully as you can, and carry her in your arms out of the room.

Halfway down the stairs, she opens her eyes. Her smile disappears, replaced by a contemptuous scowl.

"Why are you carrying me, and why does it smell like Mark's cooking?" She asks, her voice a slightly peeved monotone.

You laugh at that. Mark never could cook for shit. "You got shot, also you got shot." You reply.

She stares at you for a moment, as if searching for something in your features. "Adrenaline must be dimming the pain." She says.

You reach the bottom of the stairs, and Borya takes a look at what used to be her living room.

There are several dead soldiers strewn about, gore and blood are smeared across the walls and floor, and most of the furniture lies in ruin.

"Your work?" Asks Borya, her unsettling monotone never faltering.

"Yeah." You reply, stepping over a corpse and through the front door you kicked down.

Once outside, you immediately feel something is amiss.

Then you realize, there are more cars parked out front than before.

You're about to rush back into the house, when a voice calls out; "FREEZE."

As if this had summoned them from thin air, a dozen soldiers appear from behind various objects. All of them training their guns on you.

You're fast, but a single wrong move here would be your death. And Borya's.

"Shit." You say hiss.

You look down at the her; Borya's eyes are closed, and if you couldn't feel her breathing you'd think she was asleep. She's faking it.

The same voice who'd called out before speaks again. "Chloe Lynch, callsign Karma, former green beret and one of the best soldiers I've seen."

You know that voice.

And a moment later, your suspicions are confirmed when the owner of the voice steps into view from behind an APC. General Arthur Wall. He used to give orders directly to your squad. A 51 year old who never saw combat in his life, you never really liked him.

He looked the same as he ever did, like a manicured, decorated, patriotic asshole. He was wearing his dress uniform, like always. Each step he took set the medals and commendations strewn across his chest jingling. He normally wore a baseball cap, but seems to have forgone it this time, showing off his completely grey hair, styled into a crew-cut. His face was normally all frown lines and angry wrinkles, but right now he had a sort of victorious smirk.

"You've killed quite a few of my men, Karma. Or did the girl help?" He asks, getting closer and closer.

You don't move from your spot on the porch. "Good to see you too, general. They got in the way." You say.

The general loses his smirk. "Of what Karma? The girl? She's not your problem anymore. Just hand her over." Says Wall.

You don't speak.

He keeps getting closer.

"Hand her over, Lynch! That's an order!" He's shouting now.

You remain silent.

He grabs Borya's forearm.

Before you have time to react, Borya leaps from your arms and draws herself close to Wall. He jumps back in shock, but doesn't release her arm. You can hear the soldiers around you tense.

Borya whispers into the general's ear, and you strain to hear. Her voice is fervent and baleful. "Fuck that, and fuck you. Burn in hell, bastard." She hisses.

Then she's moving again, she bites the general's ear and-...

And tears it off with her teeth.

The general releases her arm, and clutches the side of his mangled head, screaming.

Borya spits out the chunk of flesh. Then she just stands there, blood streaming from her mouth.

And she smiles.

You grow sick to your stomach.

She stands there, staring into the eyes of the shocked soldiers surrounding them, the agonized cries of the general ringing out in a macabre symphony that she seems to revel in.

She... She's horrifying.


For a moment, you think everyone is too shocked to move. But then two of the soldiers lower their rifles, and approach Borya and Wall.

One of the soldiers lifts Wall by a shoulder and carries him off, while another gets still closer to Borya.

He raises his hands in a show of peace, and speaks. "Miss, I'm going to need you to cooperate with me. Please throw all your weapons to the ground." His voice is trembling.

Borya looks at you, and her smile fades to a scowl.

"Do it, Borya." You say.

She sighs, but still unholsters her Glock and throws it to the ground. Then she does the same with the punch-blade.

The soldier stows the weapons in a bag on his hip, then speaks again. "Now I-I need you to hold still while I put handcuffs on." He says, slowly grabbing the cuffs from his belt.

Borya holds her hands out in front of her.

The soldier slowly puts the cuffs on, his hands shaking.

Once Borya's cuffed, the soldier leads her away towards one of the vehicles.

Another soldier leaves his position behind cover and approaches you. This one has his rifle raised, and seems completely calm.

"Drop your weapons on the ground, now!" He says, rifle trained on your head.

You grudgingly throw the M4 on the ground in front of you, and hold out your hands to be cuffed.

The soldier cuffs you, and leads you at gunpoint to the back of one of the APC's.

The vehicle is full to the brim with soldiers, all of them pointing rifles at either you or Borya, who's also seated in this APC.

You're sat down next to Borya, who is staring straight through a soldier across from her.

The APC's back doors are closed, and a soldier next to you pulls a syringe out of a bag on his hip.

He jabs the needle into your shoulder, and you immediately start feeling sleepy.

After a couple seconds, it's far too difficult to remain conscious.

The endless abyss of drug-induced sleep overtakes you.

>>923315
Okay

The length was a pretty good indicator tbh though.

Still seems like we will need to wait for the next update before we can really make suggestions however.

Your palms are sweating, your heart races. Fear keeps you frozen in place.

Your name is Borya Ra Burkouskie, and you thought the nightmares had stopped.

But this has to be a nightmare, it has to be!

You know it is.

Because Karma lies dead at your feet.

Her blood spills into an ever widening puddle on the cobblestone, her pale face and damaged body illuminated by the streetlight above you.

You fall to your knees.

You put a hand on her chest, and feel the bullet laceration; her tank top wet with blood she spilt for you.

"Why?" You whisper, barely able to hear yourself.

"Why? Why? WHY?!" You shout, slamming a fist against her cold and stiffening form. "You fucking idiot! You dumb fucking bitch! Why would you do this?! WHY?!"

She died for you, she took a bullet for you. Why? You're worthless, a monster that can only destroy. Why would she ever sacrifice for you?

It's wrong, it's all wrong. No, no this isn't right at all. YOU should have taken that bullet, YOU should have died.


Suddenly, there's a sharp pain in your side.

You pull away from Karma and feel your abdomen; blood, blood is soaking your shirt.

You look down, at the bullet wound; at the death you deserve.

And smile.



You've got a horrible headache, your forehead is burning, your side hurts worse than you knew was possible, and you feel sick to your stomach.

You're alive, and that fact alone is enough to make you furious.

You crack open your burning eyeballs, and find your vision swimming. You know that feeling.

You're coming out of a barbiturate sleep. The fuckers drugged you.


You're tied down to a gurney, an IV tube hangs from your right forearm, and your clothes are in tatters, cut to pieces by medical scissors.

The walls, ceiling, and floor of the cramped room you're in are made of metal, and a steel bulkhead is set into the wall in place of a door.

It seems you're in a ship. Joy, you just fucking love boats.


The room is small and nondescript, the only thing besides your gurney that dares to punctuate the brutal minimalism of the cold metal is a wooden chair perpendicular to you.

A bulletproof camera sits in the far corner of the room, watching your every move. You manage to manipulate your arm enough to flip it off.

The bulkhead locks from the outside based on what you can see.

This isn't a room, it's a cell.


You sit in in your steel coffin for the better part of five minutes before the bulkhead opens.

A Caucasian, middle aged, balding man in a medical coat strides through. He's even carrying a clipboard. You already hate this guy.

He looks at you and smiles. "Ah, finally awake I see." He says, his voice chipper with a hint of snarky condescending. He reminds you of all of your teachers.

"Yes. But you knew that before you walked through the door." You say, not going through the effort of forcing an expression, and sticking to your resting scowl.

He huffs a dismissive laugh. "I'm doctor Pendanskie. How are you feeling miss Burkouskie?" He asks, sitting in the chair.

"Worse now that you're here." You say.

His fake smile doesn't falter, but his tone becomes slightly annoyed as he starts flipping through his clipboard. "Yes, your file said you have a temper. Now, miss Burkouskie, I'm going to say a series of words and phrases, and I want you to say the first thing that comes to mind. Okay?" He asks.

You stare him in the eyes with the utmost contempt until he continues.

"I'll take that as a yes. Dog." He says.

"Roadkill." You reply.

"Food."
"Necessary."

"Gun."
"Beautiful."

"Death."
"Cause."

"Kill."
"Easily."

"Emotion."
"Meaningless."

"Love."
"False."

"Hate."
"You."

"Me."
"You."

"Anger."
"Justified."

"Home."
"Nowhere."

"Friends."
"Posers."

"Mother."
"Tolerable."

"Father."
"Tolerable."

"...Karma." He says.

This one makes you pause. You hate yourself for pausing.

She doesn't mean anything to you. She's just a casualty of your fucked up life.

Isn't she?

>>924065
Wrong, as much as you may be persuaded to think that way, other people (Karma, your parents and "friends") are just as real and suffer problems in their lives, this brainwashing stunt is forcing you to be an empty machine without any ability to make its own judgements, those flashes of your past, the fact that you "can't" care for anyone wont change if you accept what the doc is telling you, if you listen to him in 5 years under their service you'll turn into a monstrosity so dehumanized, so evil that even you right now will be disgusted by it's existance, you're not gonna be a monster like that, you still have the ability to not regretfully turn into a minister of death that the world told you you are!

>>923331
Suspicion

not because of Karma the person, but because of the fact that he asked it.

>This brainwashing stunt is forcing you to be emotionless.
Brainwashing? That's not how it works. You were born with sociopathy; it's an actual biological lack of the capacity for empathy.

>5 years under their service you'll turn into a monstrosity so dehumanized, so evil that even you right now will be disgusted by it's existance.
Can you dehumanize what's inhuman in the first place?


You narrow your eyes. "Trap question." You reply to the doctor.

He sighs. "We'll never get anywhere if you refuse to open up about your emotions." He says.

You wait for him to acknowledge the joke he just made, and when he remains silent, you realize something incredible.

He's being serious.

You burst out in laughter. Genuine, from the heart laughter. You haven't genuinely laughed in a long time. It lasts for a good five seconds before you compose yourself enough to speak. But you're still smiling like a loon.

"You seriously just said that? I'm tied down to a medical bed, captured and imprisoned, and you expect me to trust you? To 'open up about my emotions'? Sorry, billiard head, but the closest you're getting to me 'opening up' is the hole in my abdomen." You say.

He looks positively livid. And you relish every second of schadenfreude joy you derive from his displeasure. "Now, that is hardly necessary. I'm only trying to help you." He says, his tone indignant.

"Let me do you a favor and tell you to give your help to someone who wants it." You say.

"Young lady, I am trying desperately to-" he begins.

"And I'm trying desperately to get you to leave." You cut him off.

He opens his mouth to speak, but you're faster.

You give him the middle finger. "Shove that in your Bunsen burner and smoke it, baldy. I'm done talking." You say, plopped your head back down on the pillow.

He puffs up for a moment, as if about to lash out, before storming out of the room.

That went well. You didn't even get prescribed any antipsychotics.


You lie still in your gurney for a couple hours, trying not to think about how much your side hurts, before the door to your room opens again.

A soldier in navy camo fatigues steps through the door. He's African American, appears in his late twenties, and, to your surprise; is unarmed. "I'm lance corporal Heinz. I'm here to escort you to meet with the general." He says.

"When you say escort, I hope you mean carry, corporal ketchup. Because I'm not walking with this bullet hole in my side." You say.

"Don't bullshit me, you shrugged that pain off just fine before. You're walking." He says, beginning to undo the straps keeping you restrained.

Hmm. You could walk, though it would be painful, or you could insists that you be provided transportation. Or... Well, he is unarmed, and well within grabbing distance. It would be shamefully easy to break his neck. And perhaps these people need to be reminded that they are playing with a very dangerous person.

>Kill
You're in the enemy base, they're overstaffed and overorganized, and you're recovering from Death's Door. Attempting to escape now would be a death sentence.

Wait until they inevitably screw up from the war stress.

>>924706
Actually, lets kill him. Just keep yourself strapped down somewhat so they dont just shoot you instantly. This isnt an escape attempt, it is more the principle of it.

>>924705
Snap out of it! Trying to disguise your anger as a snarky attempt to get away, kill and show a point to the guys. Yea their hospitality was less than pleasing but you can't go about causing a mess because you feel like a killing machine all of a sudden, take a break and clear up your head, stop convincing yourself that you're perfectly capable of being a one-woman army with no hope of coming back at the age of 8 (yes, you're very intelligent but you haven't even gone trough puberty yet)

>>924779
I thought she was 12...

We are a prisoner captured by hostiles. Regardless of how nice they are, they are enemies.

Someone's got it out for you. I wonder why? Maybe it has something to do with the ear thing.

In fact it's kind of a surprise that you're alive at this point. You might be "the shark" from earlier, actually. Callsign fits... you've definitely popped out of the water and killed someone, and these assholes seem to think you're important enough to keep alive.

If you want to survive, you probably shouldn't kill this guy, you're in their territory and there are a lot of them. The more of them you fuck up, the sooner they decide you're not worth not killing. Though you might ask what kind of sadistic pedophile is getting off on your pain and whether or not you're currently talking to him.

Speaking of which, when you get to the general, ask him if losing one ear made him realize that the other one has to go too. If not, I don't really know what he expects from you.

>>924705
You had a mental breakdown earlier and started hating yourself after failing to comply with the dehumanized vision of yourself during the questions (hating oneself is a very human thing), if you were actually inhuman you wouldn't care the slightest what others are, they would come and go and you'll comply with whatever gives you the ability to act on your desire to kill, if you keep trying to convince yourself such thing you will keep stumbling on these little thing more and more and the cycle that will continue will make you super miserable, just accept that you do have a shred of humanity within yourself, that little part of you may make your life a bit better if you allow it to have more influence (not right now though).
As for your grand escape, you should go with a zero violence plan, appear to be the dumb, young 8yo you are, dont even think about making a point, this way if you get caught they will believe you're not that dangerous, allowing you to attempt multiple times if your attempts don't prove as successful as you hoped they would.

>>925132
And if you do get out, their search for you won't be as intense, remember, don't make any point, don't act tough to the general (or whoever you'll be meeting), just stay low and appear harmless, your chances of survival and escape will be higher.

>At the age of eight.
You're twelve.

>It's stupid to try an escape.
You never intended to escape after killing him, that would be suicide, you're not quite that stupid. You were just going to kill this one as a demonstration.

>Don't kill him.
Fine, corporal ketchup doesn't die today.

>You had a mental breakdown earlier and started hating yourself. Just accept that you do have a shred of humanity within yourself.
Drop it. Now.

>As for your grand escape, you should go with a zero violence plan.
Well you're just a bleeding heart humanitarian, aren't you?

>Appear harmless, don't act tough, keep your head low. They'll go easier on you, and it will be easier to escape.
You tore an ear off of a general while suffering from a bullet wound and surrounded by armed forces. It's a little late for the innocent girl act.

>Appear to be the dumb, young 8yo you are.
First off, you're still twelve. Secondly, fuck you too. You've got an IQ of 137.

You aren't planning an escape, yet. It's far to early to even think about how you would escape. For now, all you can do is pay attention and gather information.


"Alright colonial ketchup, I'm up." You say, sliding off the gurney and standing upright. The movement sends white-hot needles of pain up your side, but it's well below the level of pain you can swallow.

Heinz looks somewhat peeved, perhaps because of the nickname you've bestowed upon him. Doesn't really matter. He starts walking towards the door, and you follow.


You enter a long metal corridor. Doors down both walls. Lit by fluorescent lights.

There are two armed guards standing just outside of your door, both have rifles pointed at you. It seems they aren't ignorant to how dangerous you are.

Heinz keeps walking, and you follow behind. The guards with assault rifles bring up the rear, continuing to keep you at gun point.


You're led through a maze of steel passageways, till you finally go through a bulkhead and find yourself on the deck of the ship. It's freezing out. The sun is hidden behind a thick grey cloud layer, and an icy wind is blowing.

You're led down a walkway, and you finally get a full view of the ship while on it.

You recognize this type of ship, it's a supercarrier. About five times the size of a standard aircraft carrier. Nuclear engine. These things were invented to carry and deploy drones back during the Cold War with China. Supposedly they can carry around 100,000 strike drones. You have no idea why they're keeping you on one.


After walking what must have been a couple hundred feet, you arrive at a helicopter pad. There are three important looking people standing in front of the copter, and about a dozen armed security personnel positioned along the circumference of the pad.

You recognize one of the important looking people as General Arthur Wall, the right side of his head is heavily bandaged, and he's glaring daggers at you.

One of them is just a middle aged man with rectangular glasses in a suit holding a briefcase. You have no idea who he is.

And the last one... Is the president of the United States of America. Joan Boswell. She's 47 years old, has a face with wrinkles enough to reflect the stress of her job, and is wearing a suit that appears to have been selected from the discount rack at the thrift-store, based on its particular shade of pink.

She looks at you inquisitively. "Hello, Borya." She says.

You feel so, so...

Small?

Ask the president if there is any kind of plan somewhere. Of all the horrible, horrible things you've done, none of them would compare to participating in the total MAD apocalypse.

Cold.

Did they seriously just have you walk out to the wet and freezing cold deck, in front of a bunch of random people, dressed only in tattered scraps of cloth? Seriously, somebody's getting off on this.

Anyway, if the president of the united fucking states is here to talk to you, it's probably important, and you're probably not going to like it so let's get it over with sometime before you die of hypothermia. The fuck does she want?

>>925307
this is surreal.

Well, now our new mission is to kill the president. Why? Cuz. The idiot who put her here with you needs to be spited for being such an idiot.

--

>drop it
what are you gonna do about it? :3

>>925364
Actually, scratch the kill the prez. Just start laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Then go up to her and high-five her. If she doesn't go for it, grope her boob (cuz holy fuck, even if you arent into that that would be so awkward for her and you will never get the chance to do so ever again) with the same hand.

Then ask in a light-hearted tone, what the fuck is going on and why the fuck you are here. Make it clear that you are on an adult's level mentally and make sure they understand that you have nothing to lose so threatening you really wont do much. They seem to have killed the one friend you had (karma. yes, she was a friend, and that is an okay thing to have). So yeah, you will probably die, but you will definitely go down fighting.

>>925307
Don't get all pissed off now, SHE'S THE FUCKIN' PREZ, you may be hobby-trained by your dad but a bunch of fully trained soldiers doesn't match up, hell one of 'em will be more than enough, you're capable and intelligent but don't get ahead of yourself, you're still a 12 yo with insufficient military training, besides, since this is the president you could drop the vicious altitude and make yourself presentable. Act calm and sensible but not cold, distant and murderous. Just appear as someone who's meeting the president for some high honor bullshit, and never, NEVER get cocky or angry, this is the president after all, and you don't want her to have the wrong (as of though right) assumption about you. This might be something big that you could benefit from in the best case, and if she's here just on a whim, then the same rule applies, don't make fuss and you wont get on her bad side, she might not know how dangerous you are, she's a politician not a soldier, so try to not threaten her with neck snapping, arm breaking and whole on fuckery you generally want, but shouldn't (and maybe secretly hate that you want to) do. If you still feel like you want to butcher someone in front of her for your stupid and senseless point just remind yourself how bad it could be having an entire army chase you down because the president herself ordered it.

>>925389
We are already dead. Plus, the president isnt magical. They are just another suit that happened to get picked for the job. Who cares what they think.

>>925392
Additionally, they arent all-powerful. They cant just send people after someone.

>>925392
>>925396
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss such a thing, seeing how these suits aren't often the brightest, she could pull some heavy bullshit and questionably long lengths to fuck her over (looking at the real life president)

>>925397
And hey, you might try to live up to your dad as well by getting out of this in one piece.

>>925397
she could definitely try, but that doesnt mean she actually will be able to. The rest of the govt definitely wont let them. Plus, by the time they do get someone to go after us, we will have had months, if not years, of planning.

So unimpressed.

>Small?
She's actually shorter than you.

You would describe her as... Frumpy.

>Did they seriously just have you walk out to the wet and freezing cold deck, in front of a bunch of random people, dressed only in tattered scraps of cloth? Seriously, somebody's getting off on this.
You'd bet good money on the general, who certainly has reason to resent you.

>>Drop it.
>What are you gonna do about it? :3
The better question is, what are you going to do about it? You're a delusional side effect of psychopathy, a figment of my madness- ...Wait, how did you use an emoticon when you're a disembodied-... We shall never speak of this again.


>Our new mission is to kill the president.
Why?

>Why? Cuz. The idiot who put her here with you needs to be spited for being such an idiot.
You're not that petty, or that suicidal. You'd be cut down by AR fire before you got within five feet of her. Besides, if you kill the president of the US, Russia's probably just gonna launch those missiles they're itching to hit the U.S. with. You would be taking out the leader of one of the superpowers, which would inevitably tip the MAD scales in Russia's favor.
You're not really keen on getting shot to death, or bombed to death. So you're just gonna not lunge at the national leader surrounded by fully armed, fully trained soldiers. Maybe later.

>Actually, scratch the kill the prez.
I'm glad you're being rational about this. Thank you.

>Just start laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Then go up to her and high-five her. If she doesn't go for it, grope her boob.
Aaaaannnd, moment's over. Why? Why would you do that?

>cuz holy fuck, even if you arent into that that would be so awkward for her and you will never get the chance to do so ever again.
That would be really fucking awkward for you too! Listen, you're not just gonna stride up there and grope the president of the United States.

...Even though part of you is tempted.

>Make it clear that you are on an adult's level mentally.
Yes, because the best way to do this is by opening dialogue with a boob-grab.

>They seem to have killed the one friend you had (karma. yes, she was a friend, and that is an okay thing to have). So yeah, you will probably die, but you will definitely go down fighting.
If they wanted you dead, you'd already be dead. If they wanted Karma dead, they would have killed her instead of loading her in the same APC as you.

You're valuable to them in one way or another, and you're going to milk that for every drop it's worth.


>Since this is the president you could drop the vicious altitude and make yourself presentable. Act calm and sensible but not cold, distant and murderous.
Yeah, no. She may be the president, but that also makes her the chief of the very same organization that shot, drugged, and held you captive. So as far as you care, she can go fuck herself. ...Except actually not because now you've got that image stuck in your head and death by gunfire is sounding better and better.

Fine. You'll be civil. But you're not bending over backwards for this poser.


"So, what'd I do to deserve a meeting with the president?" You ask.

She gives a small smile that only public speakers know how to use. "Oh you've done quite a lot. Your stunt back in Chicago, for instance. Single handed stealth infiltration. I guess you just impressed me." She says.

You return her smile with a perfect facsimile. "Bullshit. No way you read through the report. And if I recall, your platform all throughout the election was world peace. So why would an advocate for total peace be interested in a 12 year old with violent tendencies and no capacity for empathy? Aren't I the antithesis of your perfect world?" You ask.

Her smile falters for a half second before the mask is back up. "There's room for everyone in my version of America. Especially you, miss Burkouskie." Says the president.

"Tell that to the immigrants who are killed trying to cross your borders, or to the poor who die of drug overdoses in the slums of your cities. Tell that to them, and mean it. Then we'll talk about equality. But you didn't come here to discuss politics. Tell me, what part do I play in your master plan?" You ask.

Boswell completely loses the fake smile, and a look of contempt takes it's place. "I need you, miss Burkouskie, because of your unique gifts." She says. She then extends a hand to the man in the business suit, who hands her a PDA.

She begins to read from the device. "High functioning sociopathy, near total lack of empathy, very high intelligence. Reflexes that exceed all human standards. Violent tendencies and an aggressive nature. Tell me, what part of that doesn't sound like a perfect soldier? A super-soldier?" She asks.

"The part where I have no loyalty, or reason to be loyal to you." You say.

Boswell looks distinctly displeased. "I wish it hadn't come to this, Borya. I had sincerely hoped you would cooperate willingly. General, go ahead." She says. Before walking off with several soldiers and the guy in a business suit in tow.

General wall nods. Then says something into a microphone on his collar.

A moment later, Karma, severely beaten and handcuffed, is drug up onto the deck in front of you by two soldiers.

She looks up at you through a black eye and smiles. "Hey Borya. They put you on the same cruse ship as me? What're the odds. It's pretty nice here, but the masseuses are a little rough. I'd avoid the massage parlor if I were you." She says, coughing up some blood when she's finished the sentence.

You direct your attention from her back to the general. Scowling.

Wall looks unbearably complacent. He even goes so far as a smug smile. "Every time you disobey orders, or step out of line, Karma will get another visit to the 'massage parlor'. Do you understand? You'll be trained here, under me, until I deem you fit for combat. If you misbehave severely enough, I'll have you and Karma killed." He says.

You glare at him, livid. And remain silent.

"Is that understood?" He reiterates, a dangerous edge to his voice.

"Understood." You hiss out through clenched teeth.

"Good." He says, and gives a jerk of his head.

Karma is drug off below decks, and a soldier behind you jabs a needle into your shoulder. Again, drug induced sleep overtakes you.

Music: https://youtu.be/_FrOQC-zEog

And as you slip out of consciousness, one thought rings through your head. A frenzied cacophony of hate:
One day, you're going to kill General Wall.


Chapter two, END.