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« Reply #153 on: August 24, 2007, 12:23:31 AM » |
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NAME: Harold Werrington
AGE: 35
HEIGHT: 6'
HAIR: Black
EYES: Brown
He wears a sharp black suit with a matching (and reversible to yellow) fedora, in the casual manner befitting anyone in Paradigm who does not have to scrounge for a living. He conceals a special spring mechanism loaded with a camera and a loaded handgun, both ready to jump out of his shirt and into his hands at a moments notice. His shoes are somewhat odd looking, being that they are actually extensions of his prosthetic legs, and as such let Werrington survive drops from heights that would normally cause death. His gait is unnaturally smooth, given his enhancements, but he speaks with a harsh baritone. Glasses adorn his face at all times, betraying his myopia.
When he gets a little...restless he dons a black suit with a big, bulky brown trenchcoat (fireproof, always a plus), black gloves (fingerprintless), a gasmask (with optional hookup to an air tank), and a flamethrower, while wearing his hat reversed. His legs extend, giving him a much more imposing appearance and helping to avoid any suspicion to his alter ego.
Biography:
This guy, this guy Harold is what you would call a gumshoe, a Private Eye who looks every bit the part, just like you'd imagine. He was born 35 years ago outside the domes, heir to a few Memories of a long dead time. By a long succession of lucky coincidences (those rare, unplanned coincidences) he joined and rose up the ranks of the Military Police, He became a detective, weeding through rings of underground criminals to find the exact moment to bust them. All the while, he aspired to find some crucial memory of the past, something worth hunting down. In time, he grew tired of the rather meaningless cases they assigned him to, so he left the MP to start a private business.
Affairs and corrupt MP's were the main subjects of his investigation, but on occasion he got jobs dealing with things prior to the Event. In these cases, he mostly did the things negotiators didn't (or couldn't) do. He was good guy, slightly compulsive over cleanliness, and clients trusted him completely, which let him in on more information than they would have yielded if he was still a detective on the payroll of the Corporation.
Near the beginning of his private run, he followed the stories of reporter Michael Seebach, even up to the point he degenerated into increasingly mad ravings (picked up via connections with Seebach's colleagues) . Harold was fed up with the relative apathy towards what happened 40 years ago, and was sympathetic to his cause. His hate would not manifest, kept quiet by his awareness of the danger dissent could cause to come to him.
He was shadowing a man to a party on the request of the man's wife, who had suspicions of infidelity. The man ran off almost instantly with a woman, confirming the wife's fears, and Harold tailed them, camera in hand, taking some of the most incriminating pictures ever taken in Paradigm. Meanwhile, a massive battle raged, with the condition of total annihilation to count for victory. The adulterers made their way into a building pretty far from the one they were in, and a good run was had. This couple didn't miss a beat, and Harold followed them into it and up to its highest floor. Once he was satisfied with the pictures, he made for the lower floors. Per chance, something caught his eye out the window. It was the Black Megadeus struggling with the Red one, distant but still very much visible. Harold was on the sixth floor when a bright light filled the dome, and it was either instinct or Memory that figured jumping out the window to the next building was safer than remaining.
The blast struck the building as he left it, killing the couple under investigation. Harold smashed into the window of the next building in searing pain consuming him, but that feeling was dwarfed with relief of not being dead. As soon as he managed strength enough to get up, he failed. He looked down to his legs, seeing burnt stumps. Gone with the blastwave, vaporized from the heat.
Like any person of sound mind and body, he fainted. He was found later that day by Military Policemen, and was snuck into the Paradigm Corporation's research labs with the salvage of Big Duo, and someone found use for an unconscious, paraplegic human. Gave him new legs, and made him a hard choice. Pay us a pretty penny, or work for us.
Naturally, the engineers at Paradigm weren't very good at estimation, and Harold managed to pay them. And leave a tip. The legs were maintenance free, but he asked for some modifications and repair equipment, just in case.
So, with new legs on hand (foot?), Harold resumed his work. A job brought him back to the still wrecked dome, with a gasmask and trenchcoat to keep out the more dangerous gases out of his lungs and the more annoying debris off him. Runaway kid, might be hiding out in one of the buildings near the crater. He systematically checked off every one in the perimeter, one by one, until he got back to the one he lost his legs in. Glass on the floor, broken window, add two and two and you get four. He blacked out, and when he woke up he was asleep in his office. He listened to the radio, and realized a week had passed. More importantly, denizens of the domes were having their places of residence torched. They described the perp as a tall fellow with a gasmask on, carried a big thing that spit something flammable out, and he snuck around, broke into peoples houses, and charred the place. He didn't leave anything burning, he saw it through that everyone was toasted. He got a few requests from the victims, and a few from the MP's, but he couldn't do anything. Other than eye witness accounts and some slight scrapes along a charred floor, there was no lead to go on.
He blacked out again, this time for a day, and when he arose he found more job offers lined up to catch the bastard. It didn't take long for him to piece the blackouts to the arson, he wasn't one for denial. He scoured his things, looking for things that matched the perp's appearance. Bingo, coat, mask, gloves, and flamethrower. He put it on, deciding to save himself the trouble of bothering himself to dress himself for getting himself into trouble, thereby provoking himself to look for himself while eluding himself. It came almost instantly, and when he came to a note was in his hand, written with immaculate penmanship, completely different from his own.
"I hope I'm not too much of a bother. Don't worry about the fire, I'm not frying any more bacon. If you can find what I'm after, I'll leave you alone. One of these Bigs has got to show."
So Harold began, looking for another of those machines from long ago. On occasion, his other part takes over to look personally, but these instances are becoming increasingly rare. But nothing's ever really hard to find in Paradigm.
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