Dr.Strangefate
He Sees You When You're Sleeping. He Knows When Yo
I light a cigarette. Third one this hour. My lungs are heavy, but I need something to convince this sewer rat to talk, and the gun's in the car.
"Tell me!" I growl.
"**** you!" Says the sewer rat.
I hold the lit butt right up close to the kid's eye. I can feel the sweat beading up on his neck, running down my fingers. Disgusting.
"You know what's is going to happen if you don't start talking in the next ten seconds, kid, so I suggest you tell me… What is Ultimate Central?!"
Detective Jim "Doc" Tyne was the only cop who listened when he began to hear rumors of a new group of people running organized crime in Net City. Ultimate Central. The whispers grew louder and louder on the streets, and pressure came quickly from the top to drop any and all investigation. He handed in his badge and set up the Strange Fates Detective Agency.
The organization is shrouded in secrets, the only clues a new Graffiti tag popping up all over the city: a single giant E, usually accompanied by a couple of bodies. Apparently they weren't hip with the new regime. A pair of dealer/informants who went by Rob and Parks were found a month ago beheaded. Other murders seem to be connected to the tag, but nobody has paid them any attention.
Doc believes that the new hot club in town, a classy joint called simply "The Lounge", has something to do with it. He's had run ins with the club's owner, a smooth talker known to most as "Ice" over the years, but the supposedly reformed Gangster seems to have collected his cool a little too quickly to have done it all on his own.
Doc is also wary of the disappearance of the recently paroled weapons expert, a Dean Doe, who has always refused to answer to anything less than his egocentric street name, "The Great One."
The Net City Police Department has never been squeaky clean when it came to corruption, but the new administration has done everything in its power to shut down Strange Fates. Commissioner Walter Bass always seemed to be nice enough in private meetings, but his Major Crimes Unit, led by Lt. Craig X, is more determined to get its fair share of the blood money than to keep the crime out of their city. Craig has been determined from the start to run Doc out of Net City, going as far back as his time on the force.
Not everyone at the NCPD has fallen sway to Bass' reign of corruption. Doc gets his facts clean from Forensics before they get dirtied up for the police reports. Dr. Nate Houde does what he needs to do to get by in the department, but he cleans his conscience by making sure the right facts get into the right hands. His autopsy man, Vic Doom, is wary of Houde's connection with the Strange Fates Detective Agency, but has kept his mouth shut for the time being.
The Net City Navigator runs a column every week from "The Random Man", covering crime in the city. Doc has been working hard trying to uncover his true identity, as recent stories have hinted at some knowledge of the organization behind the corruption in Net City.
Doc's office is staffed by a girl he saved from the streets during his last day as a police officer. She doesn't remember her real name, or where she came from, only the name she was given. Twilight. Sometimes she talks about the Filipino Pimp named Ourchair and the stern Mistress Skotti, but most of the time she tries not to think about the past, and tries to look to the future with a new light.
He is also plagued by constant visits from the neighborhood's troubled teen, a drop-out who calls himself "The Mole" who thinks it's amusing to give a detective false leads. On the other hand, one of Mole's ex-classmates, still in school, Sean "Moony" Masters, idolizes the Detective and has kept an eye on those classmates who seem to be slipping into the criminal side of life.
"Doc" Tyne spends perhaps a few too many nights at the local watering hole… Its where his desperation catches up with him. It doesn't help to see one of the regulars, an ex-cop named Tombo who used to be called "The Man Without Fear" by Doc and his fellow rookies. He was clean, and seemed to be on his way to the Commissioner's seat, when he was caught off guard one night by a teen with a gun trying to mug him while he wasn't on duty. He shot the kid, and resigned despite the killing being ruled just. The bar is tended by some Drunk Irish Bastard whose name Doc has never been able to recall.
All he wants is to see his city clean again, and to unravel the mystery that led to him turning in his badge. The World's a messed up place, and Doc is just as messed up as any of it… But there's something Dark in the heart of Net City. And Doc Tyne is going to get to the heart of it.
---------------------------------
NOTE:
Okay, so this all sprang from an off-board UC people discussion about what would happen if we wrote a UC Noir. I told them that I was challenging them to see who could come up with the best Noir universe using UC posters. Obviously I couldn't fit everybody in here, but I did a pretty good job, I think.
I wish I had the time to write this up properly… If anybody wants to steal my idea and run with it, they totally should…
In the meanwhile, how would YOU do a UC Noir story?
"Tell me!" I growl.
"**** you!" Says the sewer rat.
I hold the lit butt right up close to the kid's eye. I can feel the sweat beading up on his neck, running down my fingers. Disgusting.
"You know what's is going to happen if you don't start talking in the next ten seconds, kid, so I suggest you tell me… What is Ultimate Central?!"
Detective Jim "Doc" Tyne was the only cop who listened when he began to hear rumors of a new group of people running organized crime in Net City. Ultimate Central. The whispers grew louder and louder on the streets, and pressure came quickly from the top to drop any and all investigation. He handed in his badge and set up the Strange Fates Detective Agency.
The organization is shrouded in secrets, the only clues a new Graffiti tag popping up all over the city: a single giant E, usually accompanied by a couple of bodies. Apparently they weren't hip with the new regime. A pair of dealer/informants who went by Rob and Parks were found a month ago beheaded. Other murders seem to be connected to the tag, but nobody has paid them any attention.
Doc believes that the new hot club in town, a classy joint called simply "The Lounge", has something to do with it. He's had run ins with the club's owner, a smooth talker known to most as "Ice" over the years, but the supposedly reformed Gangster seems to have collected his cool a little too quickly to have done it all on his own.
Doc is also wary of the disappearance of the recently paroled weapons expert, a Dean Doe, who has always refused to answer to anything less than his egocentric street name, "The Great One."
The Net City Police Department has never been squeaky clean when it came to corruption, but the new administration has done everything in its power to shut down Strange Fates. Commissioner Walter Bass always seemed to be nice enough in private meetings, but his Major Crimes Unit, led by Lt. Craig X, is more determined to get its fair share of the blood money than to keep the crime out of their city. Craig has been determined from the start to run Doc out of Net City, going as far back as his time on the force.
Not everyone at the NCPD has fallen sway to Bass' reign of corruption. Doc gets his facts clean from Forensics before they get dirtied up for the police reports. Dr. Nate Houde does what he needs to do to get by in the department, but he cleans his conscience by making sure the right facts get into the right hands. His autopsy man, Vic Doom, is wary of Houde's connection with the Strange Fates Detective Agency, but has kept his mouth shut for the time being.
The Net City Navigator runs a column every week from "The Random Man", covering crime in the city. Doc has been working hard trying to uncover his true identity, as recent stories have hinted at some knowledge of the organization behind the corruption in Net City.
Doc's office is staffed by a girl he saved from the streets during his last day as a police officer. She doesn't remember her real name, or where she came from, only the name she was given. Twilight. Sometimes she talks about the Filipino Pimp named Ourchair and the stern Mistress Skotti, but most of the time she tries not to think about the past, and tries to look to the future with a new light.
He is also plagued by constant visits from the neighborhood's troubled teen, a drop-out who calls himself "The Mole" who thinks it's amusing to give a detective false leads. On the other hand, one of Mole's ex-classmates, still in school, Sean "Moony" Masters, idolizes the Detective and has kept an eye on those classmates who seem to be slipping into the criminal side of life.
"Doc" Tyne spends perhaps a few too many nights at the local watering hole… Its where his desperation catches up with him. It doesn't help to see one of the regulars, an ex-cop named Tombo who used to be called "The Man Without Fear" by Doc and his fellow rookies. He was clean, and seemed to be on his way to the Commissioner's seat, when he was caught off guard one night by a teen with a gun trying to mug him while he wasn't on duty. He shot the kid, and resigned despite the killing being ruled just. The bar is tended by some Drunk Irish Bastard whose name Doc has never been able to recall.
All he wants is to see his city clean again, and to unravel the mystery that led to him turning in his badge. The World's a messed up place, and Doc is just as messed up as any of it… But there's something Dark in the heart of Net City. And Doc Tyne is going to get to the heart of it.
---------------------------------
NOTE:
Okay, so this all sprang from an off-board UC people discussion about what would happen if we wrote a UC Noir. I told them that I was challenging them to see who could come up with the best Noir universe using UC posters. Obviously I couldn't fit everybody in here, but I did a pretty good job, I think.
I wish I had the time to write this up properly… If anybody wants to steal my idea and run with it, they totally should…
In the meanwhile, how would YOU do a UC Noir story?
Last edited:
