Lawrence Felman Jr.

Junior's story
Growing up coreside isn't anything to brag about. Core heads are the same, even my parents didn't understand the hypocrisy. Growing up inside the zone wasn't some country club; they've got rules, lots of 'em. I was supposed to be working on the next big science break through in chemical technology. I was smart enough for it, but the problem with being smart is that you question things. If I had been smarter, I wouldn't have and I would have stayed with the conformity of our safe little cityscape.

People are a disease and the Alliance is the most terminal of all, its a cancer. The first time we tried to cure it, I was too young to remember most of it, but there was an uprising. People got smart and they started revolting. Talks in the street, a movement was growing. My uncle was a working man, he was a miner for many years. He developed a rare disease only rimworlders get, its from the terraforming process. If they botch it, people get sick, they die. The Alliance stood by with the medicine and just let those people get sicker, weaker and more ill. I loved my uncle more like a father than my own.

My parents thought he was lazy because he was poor and never associated with him. I knew him well because they sent me to live with him as a deterrence from hard labor. "This is your life if you don't work hard." It was the hardest I ever worked and its the only thing I have to thank them for, that they "taught" me.

My father was a politician and the only thing he was ever concerned about was his reelection and his fancy parties with his big, cardboard cut out guests. Mother was always drunk and didn't want to rock the boat on her fancy lifestyle. She was more concerned with keeping her beachfront house and two thousand credit jewelry and wardrobe. They were rich and wouldn't entertain the fact that being wealthy was a part of the problem. Slaves to their pocket book, slaves to the system that perpetuates it. As long as they were fat and well fed, why help anyone else? Why try and change the system that kept them at the top? Didn't matter if it was hurting people as long as they got aid next Friday.

My uncle's condition got worse and so did the riots. Rimworlders started a war. Browncoats they called them, freedom fighters for a new movement to free the outer planets from the central planets' control. They wanted the freedom to pursue their own dreams, free from the billboard cut out dreams placed in every ad on every corner in the core worlds. Pixelated vacation dreams and scantily clad pornographic images to the poor and desperate population. It was glorious to watch them get vandalized. Underground cell units were formed and the coreheads were in for a rude awakening.

My uncle didn't have long to live. His condition crippled his body too far to recover from the shock of the illness. I was attending school at the time for pharmaceutical chemistry when my uncle came to my father for help. My father refused which left my uncle no choice but to join up with the Independent movement. Governmental buildings and leaders were attacked, banks and Alliance owned properties were vandalized and robbed. It was sanctioned chaos and every minute was glorious. The war raged on and the people woke up, the ones that wanted to. The rest hid in their ivory towers and paid others to fight and die for them.

My uncle died, shot down in the street. He wasn't even doing anything illegal at the time, wasn't suspected of a crime or ill doing. He happened to be out after curfew one night, coming on short notice to visit my father. The doctors said even if he hadn't been shot, he most likely would not have made it through the night. His lungs were clogged and he had massive organ failure. The Alliance won, the war died down shortly after an engagement in a far off place, Serenity Valley. Massive Alliance fighting lead to the downfall of the Browncoat uprising. The people were crushed.

Passion didn't leave everyone however, and the desire to overcome unjust laws still burned bright in many. You can see this in many bars across the 'Verse on Unification Day. My parents refused to attend my uncle's funeral, they sent a post in the mail: "Sorry you're dead". I dropped out of school; I couldn't take it anymore. My parents threatened to kick me out and sent me to military school. I declined, they insisted. I ended up in some academy for the dishonest and disinterested in core world conformity. I hated it there. Everyday we woke up at the ass end of dawn and they took the the paddle and spanked us till we wept.

I played ball for a little while and took up interest in the Hazmat and Environmental Safety outfit. HES was basically the guys they sent in when they suspected biohazards, bomb threats, backed up toilets and everything no one else wanted to deal with. It was here that I formed my idea to learn all I could about the tactics used against the Alliance, I would reverse engineer them and come up with counter measures. The war was over, but the fight waged on. I was discharged from the unit after an argument with the commanding officer. I discharged a 20 ounce block of C-6 on his personal vehicle and never looked back.

I returned home and my parents tolerated my existence for a short time before my apathy towards conforming with the outside world becoame tiresome to them. During my time spent there I found some of my uncle's old friends and told them of my plans and reignited old passions in failed war heroes. My parents would have kicked me out of the house if i didn't invite myself to leave. I was headed off world, the oldtimers knew of a few people who could use my knowledge and technical skills on a few "jobs". Before I left home, I left a parting gift, a ten thousand credit insurance claim on what used to be my parents' beach house.

I started making bombs, I started making friends. I started putting my life together into something meaningful. Most importantly, I started being free to do for myself and others what being rich could never achieve. Banks, political offices, mailboxes big or small, I was out to make a point.

Junior's Contacts
Nelson Jenkins is garden merchandise salesman on Persephone. It's amazing the variety of chemicals needed for agriculture and the uses some of them can be put to. Black male, late 50's. Tall, bald and thin.

Ping Meying is a warehouse manager for Blue Sun on Beaumonde. She has a thriving side business in "damaged merchandise". Asian, early 40's. Short and still cute.

Vince Thomas is a Syndicate lieutenant on Paquin. A good man to know when you need to lay low. White male, late 20's. He has ritual scars from the gang he was in as a teenager.