<:: Sam Waters ::>

[Zardoz]

Name: Samuel Waters
CID: #89572
DOB: 20/08/1978
Height: 6'0" (182cm)
Weight: 192 lbs (87kg)

Current Assignment: Worksite 14, Manual Labor

Relatives

James Waters | Brother | Unknown
Maria Waters | Wife | Deceased
Jessica Waters | Daughter | Deceased
Elinor Simmons | Partner | Deceased

Citizen Record

148 - Resisting Arrest
245 - Assault with a deadly weapon
502 - Driving under the influence
507 - Public Non-Compliance
56 - Criminal Damage
63 - Criminal Trespass
187 - Homicide​

 

[Zardoz]

Encounters & Relations (31/03/2021)

█ - Friends | █ - Acquaintances | █ - Enemies

█ Lucas Leavitt - Only guy that gave him the time of day
█ Derrick Ramos - Rough around the edges but is aware of the situation
█ Demitra Kuryakin (Deceased) - Hard worker who served him his drinks
█ Kairos Agon (Deceased) - She has had a tough time and a change of heart towards him
█ Brooklyn McGowan - Patched up his wounds
█ James Waters - His brother, may or may not be dead
█ Vakhtang Aslanishvili - Owes him for the bar tab
█ Thomas Sanchez - Bit of a misfit
█ James Doyle - Barely knows the guy but he seems alright
█ Rogue RPF/CCA Units - Stays out of their way, wants nothing to do with them
█ OTF.BAT6-COMM.62665 (Deceased) - Does not know what became of him but will kill what is left of his forces
█ OTF.BAT6-QUISLING.12703 (Deceased) - Same as above
█ Vortigaunts - For sending him away on a wild goose chase
█ Himself - Self explanatory

​

 

[Zardoz]

Yeah, that's a good idea Sam. Go run off into the portal- reminisce about a life you no longer have. Maybe, just maybe, you'll save your deadbeat brother unless he's some pawn for this thing's machinations.

Hell, I don't even know if it was gateway or a light bulb. Maybe I consumed that much scotch the sun was playing tricks on my eyes again and I just ended up hallucinating the whole damn thing.

Egh.. guess I better get a move on. James is no doubt getting his teeth pulled out by now and I'm hopelessly lost, if it even is James that is. Monkey's paw bullshit. It'll no doubt be a clone or something, probably waiting for me with a 1911 that has my name written on it on the business end.

Ugh... well shit.




SUBJECT: SAM WATERS
STATUS: MIA, LAST SEEN 02/17/21
LOCATION: UNKNOWN

​

 

[Zardoz]

Seeing the city up ahead gave me a false sense of hope, the kind of hope you get when you thought you had it all figured out. Instead it turns out that hope you had has about as much shelf life as the last bottle of Jim Beam you pissed away. No, I was no where near James' location nor did I expect much of a welcome party by the local residents.

Something about this whole place felt off, the only work in town seemed to go to the electricians but I doubt those lights were running out of any sense of civic duty or overtime pay. Bullets, bombs, soldiers and cops, everyone was fair game until all the bodies dropped, and there I was alone once more. Not even dispatch could figure out who killed who.

I was more than willing to do my part and add to the statics but for whatever reason I shoved in a new magazine. Everyone said their piece with their pieces and had left this place behind in one way or another. Partisan forces and Combine soldiers fought it out and I missed the party. In a city of fools and misfits, it was only fitting the clown of the circus had arrived as the final act. Then again involving myself in another run from the cops was the last thing anyone needed. Only cop I had sympathy for was the poor bastard that had to write up the report.

I kept searching in my now reduced state of being a scavenger, hoping my trip did not overstay its welcome no matter the alternative. Instead of searching for diaries detailing steamy affairs or tax write offs, it was back to the old bottle. With my supplies now depleted all that was left was a packet of smokes and my own company. Sooner or later those cancer sticks will kill me if those tunnels wont.

Only one thing left behind, an old busted up radio. It functioned about as well as the TV reception in a brothel from Amsterdam. Without any options left I travelled back through those tunnels where your chances of ending up as a reanimated corpse only goes up tenfold. Then again I was not doing a bad job already.

Witnessing glimpses of my own mortality and listening to my ineptitude on the airwaves made one thing clear to me...


...this place was a bad joke, and I was the punchline to it all.






SUBJECT: SAM WATERS
STATUS: MIA, LAST HEARD 03/03/21
LOCATION: UNKNOWN​

 

[Zardoz]

Memories are regrets, even the good ones. You never really know how good you had it until you realize that you are knee-deep in alien shit and about to visit the second world, and you don't need an interdimensional wormhole for that. Pissing my life away in Vakh's bar was heaven compared to this. Jumping through that portal was what first roped me into this whole damn mess. It was true that I was not going to any high places before, though I now learned that just as you crawl out of one hole you are just as prone to slipping into another. No matter how deep the pit sank, you could always go lower.

Strange tentacle creatures and all the other unfortunate bastards were trapped down here before me decided to throw a party for their new special guest, a fat drunk that should have known better. It was hard for me to tell who enjoyed each other's company the least. All I knew is that whenever you joined a dinner venue with fleshy alien monstrosities it was not going to end with confetti or a slice of cake. Maybe putting a bullet or two into them was some solace at making amends. At one time or another I dedicated my life to protecting and rescuing others from oblivion, solving people's problems. All I really ended up doing was going into one Hell after another trying to boil each equation to a binary output.

It had been around twenty or so years since that day. She had been dead longer than I knew her but I was still mad for them not taking me with her. If saving people meant putting them out of their misery then I ought to have followed that mantra to its logical conclusion, doing myself and others a favor. Those creatures were just about to follow through on that notion before another green flash of light penetrated into the biomass of the chamber I had become entangled in. Old habits die hard, and doing what I did best I jumped from one shithole to the next. No rest for the wicked.

There was not even a moment to blink as the particle orb transported me to the surface of some other city, even more decayed and ruined than the last. Eerie concrete tower blocks, decaying bumper cars, rusty ferris wheels and empty roads told an all too familiar story. Yet in a strange sense throughout the darkness of it all there was a ray of hope, even if I had not known it at the time. Grass, trees, and all other manner of plant life that was not trying to bite my ass grew from the cracks. Large hazard signs placed by the old authorities contradicted any sense of comfort and security yet life still flourished here, even more so without humanity or aliens trying to get in the way.

It was at that point I spoke too soon, the crackle and bang of bullets tore across the landscape. One had nearly sent me upstairs if the bastard was not such a bad shot, maybe it was just my luck or own sheer stupidity that kept me going. I darted across the road with barely any bullets of my own to my name, it was an unequal exchange but an exchange I was used to. My major crime had been checking off at an unauthorized port of entry with no visa and a ton of duty free that I smuggled across the border. At least these black mask cops were honest about the whole betraying humanity thing, everyone back at the worksite seemed to forget that whole business.

Each ember of spark flying off the metal doors and fencing of the tower I was scaling told me a straightforward narrative. Far more comfortable knowing who was out to destroy you even if the sharp implications were to ever meet my legs or brainbox. This fight continued up until the rooftops and there was no way to backdown now. I just had to act tougher than I looked and cross the gap in any way I could. Between it all the steep drop only reminded me that there was just as many ways to meet a swift end here as there were slow ones. I launched myself across at that moment, eyes shut and oblivious, it did not matter where I landed. The disbelief of my assailant bought me the final second to get some peace and quiet with another thud. Still not as bad as my last block in Queens.

Karol, Kairos, Mark, James, Brooklyn, Vakh, Sanchez, Ramos, Lucas and all the names that meant something to me at one point or another were gone. Here I was alone on a one way-trip to a messy end. It was at my lowest when I was flying at my highest.

​

 

[Zardoz]

​

When my body finally stopped hurling through the air as it had done so many times before I was waiting longingly to meet her again. It was odd, despite the terrible circumstances this is what I wanted. I made the choice to come this far and now it was my choice to end it. That was until the darkness passed over with the cracking of glass shards.

SMASH!

Turns out I could not even jump off a building without screwing it up, the cracked glass panel below was just wide enough to get through without impaling myself. What a sick joke I thought, was this redemption? No, this was just a re-run of the same old episode of Jackass. At least the crazy bastards on that show got paid with a little bit of fame to their name, and the other crazy ones fighting the Combine would go down with a legacy worth remembering. On the other hand I would just be the crazy drunk who thought he could save his brother. Hell, the vortigaunts could have told me there was an entire whiskey destillery and I would have still went. I don't think James is even alive but it is better to find out, he was relying on me like many had before.

I let a lot of people down... Elinor, Chief Bruno, the work camp inmates, the fighters at City 30 and everyone between that expected much more than self-pity and empty bottles of pills and alcohol. There were two others I let down somewhere at the start of that list... looking back on it was just as painful as the crash. As I once said to that Greek lady, picking up the past is like picking up shards of broken glass, you only cut yourself trying to fit it all back together into one clear picture that is never the same. On that topic of smashing your life to pieces like a mirror, I was about to be reminded of the consequences of being a gate crasher... or rather a window smasher.

"ARGH!"

That was reality kicking in, catching up with my thoughts after my actions. Blood and glass was everywhere yet my insides thankfully remained where I last left them, although looking up at the group of black masks staring at me soon left that up for question. It was not a pleasant sight but at least I did not have to see their ugly mugs weighing me up, all except one who had no faceplate. Well, at least his personality on the inside matched his charming looks on the outside as he cracked a wide toothy grin.

My gun was lost in the fall and I was unable to provide them something to really smile about. Looked like I would just have to play along as some clueless fool who jumped off a 16 story block. What was I going to tell them? "Oh don't mind me officers, I'm just some nut case coming crashing right through your meeting after your partner died up on that roof!" That would not be be the best conversation starter so I found myself getting dragged off.

Any bleeding which by some miracle was only external stopped, they patched me up but I doubt it was out of the kindness of their own hearts. No, they wanted me alive and the same mean mug from before was now alone with me in the very room I crashed into. That awful grin with a comical golden tooth completed the visage of rent-a-mobster, a bad cliche, one that I was all too well aware of. Thing is, everything is a cliche until you find it suddenly happening to you.

"Hey fella, looks like our little gatecrasher woke up! Wakey, wakey! Oh boy, I'm going to have some fun with you. You know who this is?"

He levelled the bat right at my face, it was a smooth oak baseball bat with a fairly nice finish that I was about to redecorate with my own head.

"This 'ere is called the Boston Ball Basher! And now I'm gonna introduce him to you for killin' Frankie up there!"

I said the lamest thing I could, I was out of any decent one-liners and the way the maskless thug for a 'cop' was swinging his bat would probably reduce me to non-liners very soon. One last one would be worth it I gathered.

"You named that bat after your boyfriend?"

It was pathetic and not funny at all but I still let out a shit eating grin. When you are stuck twelve stories up in an office building in the middle of a warzone, you may as well crack a laugh before your teeth gets smashed in.

"Ey' we got a fuckin' wise guy here, huh? You know- you've been a little too rude for my ol' pal Boston over 'ere."

He set down the oak bat on the table. Relief was not going to arrive until I was out of this chair. The thug then brought out a metal bat with spikes this time.

"Say hello to Tony the Testicle Twistah!"

It was getting more ridiculous now just as it was getting lethal. It made me question how much time this guy spent naming each implement of torture, then the more I pondered it the less I wanted to find out what he did during downtime with those bats.

"Alright smart ass! 'ere comes fuckin' Tony the Te-"

BANG!

​

As if right on cue the neighborhood lit up again and a nearby strike from a rocket rocked the entire building. My torturer lost balance and so did the chair, lights flickering as dust kicked up everywhere. The glass shards on the floor were a painful reminder as part of my face got cut, and the officer had left as their radio screamed to life. Everything seemed to be falling apart and I was right in the middle of it.

​

Using the pieces of glass I slowly cut the rope binding my arms together and was free to once again try to put a show on for the cameras. Still it looked like this showing was about to bomb out and I would need to make like Elvis if I was ever going to survive. I picked up 'Tony' from the floor and decided to make it to the stairs. Black mask cops that once swarmed the building were leaving one by one, another tried to jump his way down reminding me of if I had launched myself across a little sooner. Well, there was no saving him now. The partisan fighters were here to finished what I started. Firing shot after shot into the building that was going over a costly demolition job.

Unfortunately the stairs would only take me so far, a segment of rubble cutting off the main stair well. I had to make my way around to the next, and that meant heading to the other end of the building in the open floor plan. Blinding spot lights and fires signalled that I was not alone. I wanted to thank the rebel fighters... then it occurred to me I was carrying a bat belonging to the person who tortured all their friends. Even if I had a gun in that moment I would be sealing myself a death warrant by trying to convince them to stop shooting. For all they knew, anyone inside this building was fair game.

There was a nearby cleaning cart and a whole lot of windows with guns lining the opposing roof top. Without even thinking I hitched a ride forcing myself atop it as the wheels barely carried my weight across to the other end of the complex, right where the other stair well needed to be. If there had been no pillars to cut off their sightline then there would be a real serious clean up job on aisle three.

"WASTE THEM!"

Fragments, glass, and chipped concrete littered the trail behind. The partisan fighters were not particularly skilled but like in the days of the old musket wars, if you had about twenty men firing off guns, those were still twenty or more projectiles bound to hit something. Thankfully it was just the wheel of the cart which threw me off into the next set of stairs. Not only was I a victim of mistaken identity, I was also a prime suspect for the cops on the stairs who also opened fire.

"11-99! We got prime viscon on suspect!"

I had to get down fast and another officer just managed to clear the rubble which was good for me and bad for him. There was no time to go over the morality of the situation, he had a one to one appointment with Tony, bastard probably enjoyed watching his friend take turns with the thing doing God know's what to some prisoner. Now armed with something a lot quicker than a sleepover with the sandman I made like Evil Knievel and blew this joint. Tony and I could finally make some headway.

The fallen officer's gun would have to do for now. I fired off a few shots to the rest of them above which scared them away briefly, enough time to squeeze through. Turns out my chances of surviving this went from zero all the way to one percent with a one hundred one percent margin for error. As for the thug's baseball bat I decided to leave 'Tony' behind in the rubble as the building collapsed. Some things are just better off left forgotten. Broken, bloody and looking like death warmed up, if they could all see me now it was more reason why my friends should have done the same with myself.

I was never a spiritual man before, maybe Mark was right, God or the gods were watching and they were waiting for me to screw it all up again for kicks. They had front row seats to the best comedic downfall they ever seen and I was more than willing to keep going if it meant spiting all the other cabaret acts in town.