Placebo

{{FateSheet }}
 * Name=Placebo
 * DAspect=St. Leonardi
 * Image=BreakFix.jpg
 * Agility=4
 * Craft=0
 * Deception=0
 * Endurance=6
 * EnduranceAspect=Anything but a broken heart
 * Knowledge=0
 * KnowledgeAspect=No one said there would be maths
 * Empathy=4
 * EmpathyAspect=I can see it when you're faking
 * Perception=3
 * Reasoning=1
 * Persuasion=0
 * Strength=5
 * StrengthAspect=Biggest and Strongest
 * Willpower=4
 * WillpowerAspect=I didn't sign up for this
 * Resources=0
 * Affinity=0
 * PhysicalStress=11
 * MentalStress=5
 * SocialStress=1
 * AllCAspects={{CAspects|Biggest and Strongest|These hands can break just as easily as fix}}
 * AllOAspects={{OAspects|Something Stinks|Liars make his skin crawl. He's always had a sense for fishy situations. Break is loosening his sidearm long before the shit hits the fan}}
 * AllEAdvantage={{EAdvantage|Surgeon|You gain a +2 bonus on rolls to administer medical aid to yourself or another}}
 * AllHAdvantage={{HAdvantage|Dazing Blow|By spending a FP just after performing a melee attack that dealt stress, you may roll your Strength (contested with the target’s Endurance), as a free action. If you succeed, you may place a Dazed Aspect on your foe. And as with most temporary Aspects, the first person who invokes or compels this Aspect can do so for free. The Dazed Aspect lasts until the end of your target’s next turn. Each turn thereafter, the victim can make an Endurance roll (Diff: 2), as a free action, to remove the Aspect.}}
 * AllPAdvantage={{PAdvantage|Heal|Applying his thumb to the wounded, hypodermic capillaries extend and penetrate, injecting a genetic cure-all. The system is entirely biologic. Each application also samples the blood and tissue of the patient, allowing for a targeted treatment to be applied sometime within 24 hours|* Activation: Free Action
 * Activation Time: Simple Action
 * With a touch, you can heal yourself or the sick and close the most grievous of wounds, instantly reducing two physical Consequences.
 * Power Aspect: Genetic compound production
 * Activation: Free Action
 * Activation Time: Simple Action
 * With a touch, you can heal the sick and close the most grievous of wounds. Spend a Fate Point and touch another living creature to instantly reduce one physical Consequence of your choice caused either from injury or sickness, by one step.
 * Modifiers
 * +2 (Self‐Healing): You can use Heal on yourself.
 * +0 (Strenuous): It requires some effort on your part to use your healing Power. Instead of spending a Fate Point to activate this Power, as a simple action, roll Endurance against an activation difficulty of 4.
 * Metro Class Heal (AP: 3) – When you Heal someone, you instantly reduce two physical Consequences.
 * Equipment=** UPAC SIF4 Heavy Pistol.
 * WR=+6, Range=2, TL=5, Cost=4, Armor Penetrating, Small
 * Ammo x 1
 * Light, Knife, Zip-Ties, Watch, Sunglasses, Wallet
 * Tactical pants, Ts, jacket, coat and light helmet
 * Tactical Pack
 * UPAC SIR3 Coil Carbine Rifle.
 * WR=+7, Range=3, TL=5, Cost=4, Full Auto, Armor Penetrating, Large
 * Ammo x 1
 * Rations and Hydro-Pack
 * Survival Kit
 * Tactical Hatchet
 * Military phrase book with notes
 * 2-man box tent
 * Field Med-Kit
 * Insta-cast x 5
 * Blankets
 * Medications and Pain Killers
 * Thermals
 * Sterile Kits
 * Surgery Kits
 * First-Aid
 * About=Break-Fix is a G.E.C.. You can try to pronounce that Geek, or Jack, but most just call his kind elves. The first experiments that proceeded the super soldiers, the bad ones that killed so many helpless civilians, those were E.L.F. Engineered Life Forms. All synthetic. Fix is human, for the most part. Percentage wise. He was commissioned by UPAC and engineered by the corporations. He is stronger, faster and tougher than a vanilla human. He sleeps less and can survive longer without food or water. His scenes are sharper and his intuition is impeccable. All useful and cost effective for a modern military force. His ROI is exceedingly high.

Anything can happen on the battlefield and a G.E.C. is designed to handle anything. The body can heal faster than normal, but in this regard they are designed to work as a team. Modifications include glands that create stimulates, antibiotics, microorganisms, and stem cell compounds that heal grievous wounds in seconds, or instill the recipient with strength, agility or hyper-awareness.

The sales pitch is impressive. Unfortunately, the use case for this type of merchandise is never humanitarian. Granted, Fix was called upon to save many very important and influential lives. But the gratification from bringing someone back from the edge of death is muted by the glow of incendiary fires as civilian populations are nullified in retaliation. Only the most powerful individuals were worthy of such rescue. And in this system, powerful and deserving are mutually exclusive. Still, that moment of satisfaction was a solitary light in a dark life.

Don't get the wrong idea. Rescue missions were a rare occurrence. Orders tended to be of the "kill everything with impunity" variety. Fix was surrounded by soldiers just like himself who nevertheless seemed to find joy in their bloody work. He, in turn, began to find his way into scouting positions. Alone and un-monitored, he found ways to warn civilians of the threat. This quickly became an obsession. Every mission became a race to warn the defenseless. This was never helped by the well deserved mistrust most populations had for any military force. It took time and practice to find ways to elicit instant trust. Practice was plentiful. Time. Not so much.

Break-Fix


D7V sat alone in in the corner of the common room. The raucous laughter of the other patrons — members of his latest unit for the most part — was inescapable, but he was doing his best to ignore their words.

"... he kneels down right there in the dirt and thumbs the bastard! Right there in the street!"

"Thumb?" The question half slurred and vacant. "He did what?"

"His thumbs", answered another soldier. "He can stick his thumb on you and squirt his elfs blood right into you. It hops you up like you're superman. It'll wake a man half dead."

"But you don't wake up a man", said the first. "Not with elf-blood coursin' through your veins."

"Sure enough. Still, why shoot a man in the first place if you're gonna heal 'em right after? Break 'em then fix 'em. What's the point?"

…

Fix turned a small silver charm over and over between his fingers. The man who gave it to him had called it a mortar and pestle. "St. Leonardi, pray for us" was inscribed, almost too small to read, around the base. The patron saint of pharmacists. Not doctors. The squirrely little guy behind the counter that counts out your pills. Well, maybe that fit.

Fix had found the man and his family huddled in a small house just inside the target zone a few drops back. When Fix told him he had to take his family and leave, the man's face turned grim and stern. Fix knew that look. This man wasn't moving. Turns out the man's wife and youngest daughter were too ill to move. A little treatment and they were on their feet. Fix pointed them to the warehouse he'd scouted just outside the blast zone. There would already be three families waiting there by the time they arrived. The man grabbed Fix's wrist and moved as if to shake his hand. He left the charm in Fix's palm, nodded as if in thanks, and turned to hustle his family down a side street.

…

Fix stood with the dark water rising past the top of his boots. He had no idea why the strike had come this way. It wasn't part of the mission, as far as he knew. He didn't know if those eight families had made it to the run-down school. He didn't know if they had stoped to warn friends or neighbors. He did know that, if they made it to the school, they were dead. Deader than if he had done nothing? Maybe. It didn't matter how dead they were. Any dead was too dead for the innocent. It was time. Time to be more dead, or less a killer. }}