Measure Twice, Cut Once: SCRAPPER

Vix Otoya - SCRAPPER

A character in Measure Twice, Cut Once

Comp/Con code: 9c2fc373b218ada2399aa9e82a424d87

Appearance

About a meter and a half of cheerful energy, compact muscle, and engine grease stains. She speaks loudly and laughs louder. Dark skin, dark eyes, and kinky hair kept away from her eyes. She tends toward simple, practical clothing that won't cut or snag when she's working, and can usually be seen with a slightly manic smile and either a flask or a vaporizer of intoxicant that's probably stronger than she should be indulging in while working on heavy machinery.

Bio

Vix Otoya was born as a Subject of Director General John Creighton Harrison III (Long May He Reign) on a world that, if sufficiently pressed and sufficiently drunk, she might just be willing to name before she assaults whoever is asking prying questions. She might just admit that she got her start fixing farming equipment.

The Purview is a meritocracy. She applied herself, got her certifications, and was approved as a Provisional Citizen when they shipped her off to Lambeth Mining Station. It was hard work mining asteroids, out in the big empty, but every day was a boost to her social credit score; by the end of her time there, she could earn Citizenship for herself and her family. Maybe even become an Able Citizen.

Things escalated slowly, until they didn't. It started how it always does; superiors demanded higher productivity, workers were given harsher demands, standards began to slip. Miners died. Workers protested. Managers cracked down. Workers pushed back. Secret meetings in empty loading docks. Sabotage. Violence. Until the workers found themselves, almost by accident, at a state of war with the glorious Harrison Armory Purview and their hired "security contractors," fighting trained killers with improvised mining explosives, refitted industrial equipment, and materiel from captured printers. (The Purview called them Ungratefuls; some of the strikers did, too, but Vix never thought of it that way.)

The fight was never one they never thought they could win. All they hoped was that they could hold on long enough to spread their message past the Purview and get Union support. They succeeded. Union came.

Vix can't say if the Union Adjudicator was corrupt, or complicit, or hobbled, or only wanted to stop the violence. A few Harrison functionaries were imprisoned, a few more were demoted or quietly reassigned. Some of the "terrorists" were sent to prison with them. A few concessions, a few placating measures, and Union was gone. Nothing really changed. A new Station Administrator in office, and operations were expected to resume.

She was slow to join the strikers, but she'd been committed. She'd set mining explosives, rewired security systems, operated the printer, and gone to the fights with crudely kitbashed combat units, mining mechs with machine guns bolted to the top. She had, as it turned out, been very, very good at it. So as an UnCitizen (her social credit score irreparably ruined by "Active and Unlawful Opposition to the Interests of the Purview and Director General John Creighton Harrison III (Long May He Reign) in Deed, Word, and Thought") she secured herself passage with some of the mercenaries she'd fought against. Done with Harrison, and with Union, and with noble causes.

Have Mech, Will Travel.

Gear

• MODIFIED SCALZ-I PLASMA TORCH

The Mark-I Harrison Armory SCALZ pattern plasma torch is a common sight on both planetary and orbital mining operations. Durable and reliable, the modular magnetic fields can be adjusted for anything from welding work to excavation cutting that vaporizes mineral matter to avoid particulate debris. At full power, the SCALZ-I can project the torch a full meter for six hours' continuous operation before replacing the rechargeable battery.

Vix's SCALZ-I has been "modified," in that it has been disassembled and reassembled wrong, and with a fundamental disregard for operational specifications, manufacturer's warranty, and basic safety regulation. In its current configuration, a user with a great deal of familiarity with SCALZ-I operation, a great deficit of self-preservation instinct, or (ideally) both can modulate the magnetic fields in a way that creates an extreme-range high-energy burst of plasma for 0.79 seconds before permanently burning out the power source.

During that 0.79 seconds, it is marginally even less safe to be standing where the plasma torch is pointing than it is to be the one operating the device.