Deep Dive Sneak Peek: Erika Collins

Today's sample character comes from Next-Gen Law Enforcement, a Standing 3 conspiracy. Although most of the characters in Deep Dive are Devoted, Erika is a Renegade.

The usual caveat applies: This is a first draft, so there will be changes.

Erika Collins

Quote: “Not all cops are bastards. ‘Bastard’ is too nice a word for most of them.”

Background: Erika was born into a conservative family. After the second time she was caught making out with another girl, her parents threatened her with conversion therapy. Erika knew it wasn’t an idle threat, so she ran away from home and fled to the city.

She was 16.

Without a driver’s license or other ID, Erika soon found herself moving from shelter to shelter. Most had mandatory sermons and turned away gays at the door. Eventually, she stopped going to shelters unless it was too cold to sleep outside safely.

The most common advice she got from those like her was to steer clear of the city cops. This wasn’t easy. The police followed the homeless like hyenas, eager to harass or arrest them for the crime of being visibly poor.

One cold night, fifteen years after she ran away from home, two cops found Erika taking shelter from the wind between two dumpsters behind a shopping center and arrested her. Lulled by the warmth of the patrol car as they drove, Erika dozed off.

She awoke behind the shopping center hours later, sprawled out with her coat unzipped and the little money she had saved up missing. Confused but grateful to have survived another night – despite the headache and the strange bald spot near the back of her head – Erika carried on with her daily routine.

A few months later, she was waiting in line at a grocery store to buy pads when she noticed two cops walk in and stand near the door, scanning the area as though looking for someone. Erika tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. She was just there to exchange money for essentials and would leave without creating a fuss. That’s when she noticed the guy with the flip phone smiling smugly in her direction from the end of one of the grocery aisles. He pushed a button, closed his phone, and ran like hell towards the back of the store.

Erika had just enough time to wonder at this before the headache hit her, and the world seemed to get wobbly. She steadied herself against the candy display and looked in the direction of the cops. They had opened their safety holsters and had hands on their guns, ready to draw despite there being no obvious threat at the store. Erika felt a curious rage at that moment – an inexplicable desire to hurt and kill everyone.

But as she reached for the pocketknife she always kept handy just in case, Erika remembered the man with the flip phone and the cops with their guns at the ready. Instead of attacking, she ran away at a speed impossible for human legs and didn’t stop until she was out the back door and a mile away. She is still unpacking the event, but she’s found it easier to avoid the cops. She’s convinced the police had been there to kill her, and she isn’t wrong.

Appearance: Erika is a white woman in her early 30s with shoulder-length brown hair that has been sheered unevenly. She wears layers of baggy, secondhand clothing and mismatched sneakers. Her hands, face, and fingernails are dirty. She is rarely without a folded cardboard sign asking for money to feed nonexistent children.

Roleplaying Hints: Once pragmatic and cautious but not outright paranoid, Erika now behaves like a hunted animal. Anything that even hints at law enforcement sends her running.

Origin: Exomorph

Clade: Invasive

Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 3; Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3; Presence 2, Manipulation 1, Composure 3

Mental Skills: Academics 1, Crafts 2, Medicine 1

Physical Skills: Athletics (Running Away) 1, Stealth 3, Survival (Urban) 3

Social Skills: Empathy 2, Expression (Panhandling) 2, Persuasion 3, Socialize 1, Streetwise 3

Merits: Hypervigilance, Low Profile, Reflexive Variation (Camouflage)

Willpower: 6

Stability: 6

Conviction: 4

Loyalty: 1

Aspiration: Score a hot meal

Initiative: 6

Defense: 3 (5)

Speed: 9 (72)

Health: 8

Size: 5

Acclimation: 1

Adaptations: Clean, Overclock, Reservoir

Persistent Scars: Phobia (Enhanced Speed; Mental; Common [Police]) 4, Undesirable (Monstrous Transformation; Social; Alienation) 2

Variations: Enhanced Speed (Scar-free Magnitude from Clean; Fleetness, Guerilla) 4, Monstrous Transformation (Scar-free Magnitude from Clean and Origin; Camouflage 3, Shadow Selves [Superposition] 3) 4

Techniques: Scatter-Stay (Camouflage and Shadow Selves; when using both Variations to turn invisible and unmoving while creating decoys that flee in all directions, perception checks to detect her are reduced to a chance die except for observers who know she has this Technique)

Acquainted: +2 Presence; +1 Athletics, +1 Expression, +1 Larceny, +1 Stealth, +1 Survival; Enhanced Speed 5, Shadow Selves 3; Phobia (Enhanced Speed; Mental; Common [Police]) 5, Undesirable (Camouflage, Shadow Selves; Social) 4

Personal: +1 Composure; +1 Larceny, +1 Stealth, +1 Survival; Camouflage 3

Obsessive: +1 Resolve; +1 Animal Ken, +1 Brawl, +1 Investigation; Environmental Adaptation (Cold) 1; Omega (Environmental Adaptation) 1