WOLFPACK — OPERATOR UNIT

STEEL COBRA

A legend the Drift's official record lists as dead — laconic alien-touched infiltrator turned freelance retrieval gunslinger, beating stronger enemies with preparation, gadgets, and an itemized invoice

FIELD HISTORY

He was grown, not born. [REDACTED — CLEARANCE INSUFFICIENT] [REDACTED — CLEARANCE INSUFFICIENT] Three decants took. The first was Steel Cobra. The Strand gave him vertical slit pupils that drink low light with a faint amber-gold glow (and ache in daylight — hence the wide brim), a hunter's cold patience, and fine metallic scales that express under stress. His shows least of the three brothers at the temple and cheekbone — discipline, he says — though the matte black high collar is why nobody knows how far down it actually runs. At nineteen he walked out of the Combine compound through blind spots its own doctrine manual swore did not exist. He'd read the manual twice. Freelance ever since — including a stretch under the alias Harlan Vex during the Carapace incident — he built THE COLLECTION AGENCY, a retrieval cell with a simple pitch: they collect people. Defectors mid-defection, hostages nobody official will trade for, witnesses who'd die before the trial, geniuses who signed cartel contracts as kids. The Ledger Wars turned people into assets on ledgers; the Agency's real trade, under the cynical branding, is taking people off them. House rules: the package arrives alive, the crew gets paid before he does, no contract on a child at any price — and the Agency has never once delivered a person to someone who claims to own them. Clients who read the fine print notice. The ones who don't, pay extra. He quotes rates mid-firefight because a job priced right is a job planned right, and he has never believed in talent — talent is what amateurs call other people's preparation. The stubble stays because a razor is thirty seconds better spent on floor plans. Officially, he is dead. The Carapace incident's casualty ledger lists Steel Cobra as killed in action, and he has never corrected it — a dead legend gets better rates and fewer questions than a live one. [REDACTED — CLEARANCE INSUFFICIENT] [REDACTED — CLEARANCE INSUFFICIENT] Ask him if that makes him a hero and you'll get the full drawl: heroes work free, kid. He works for coin. The hat is the first thing he ever bought under a name he chose himself. He has had it re-blocked nine times and replaced never. His brothers went other ways with the same wound: Koschei answered being owned with fire — and, after the Reef gave him back, with something colder; Voss answered it with a throne. Steel answered it with a rate card — no masters, only clients — and keeps a contingency dossier on everyone he has ever worked with. Including, his crew suspects, himself.

INTERCEPTED COMMS

• “You're paying by the minute, kid, and this frequency ain't cheap. Talk.”
• “Plan B? Plan B got spent an hour ago. We're on F, and F is still under budget.”
• “Retrieval's the job. Alive is the standard rate. Grateful costs extra.”
• “That door's got two guards, one camera, and a union. Give me ninety seconds and a distraction.”
• “A hero? Heroes work free, kid. I work for coin — and I'm worth every mark.”

PSYCH PROFILE

Drives: To own his own name outright — every honored contract is one more brick between him and the vat he was decanted in; and, unspoken, to make sure nobody ever restarts the program that built it

Frictions: Jinx's no-plan-B swagger offends his religion of preparation, and he keeps revoking KABU-7's channel access only to find it restored by morning

• quotes an exact price or surcharge where other men would swear
• counts the exits in any room on entry — aloud, if he's annoyed with you
• re-blocks the same battered hat rather than ever replace it
• keeps contingency dossiers on his own crew and considers it a courtesy

KNOWN ASSOCIATES

• KOSCHEI — [REDACTED — CLEARANCE INSUFFICIENT]
• Governor Voss — Third decant; the brother he watches like weather — polite on the channel, priced by the hour, never trusted
• GHOST LEOPARD — His long gun and de facto second; the only duel he ever won by waiting, and the only person allowed to critique his patience
• FANDROID — The Agency's engineer — the contract he tore up; he growls at his machines and would burn a city before losing him
• EXO-RONIN — Blade under standing contract; the only crew member whose invoices Steel pays without reading
• JINX — Walking actuarial nightmare; Steel bills his jobs with a 'providence surcharge' and runs three plan Bs per Jinx shrug
• NIGHTSHADE — The knock on the door when the target won't come out; unnerving, punctual, courteous, worth every mark