outblazing | info • full

Well, Judas changed the course of history
with a kiss, so why can't I?

BACKGROUND

The year is 2013. The world looks like we know it, almost, except the Great War never ended and has been raging ever since 1914. A century worth of the bloodiest, deadliest, most disease-ridden war the world has ever seen. There have been truces, lulls in the battles, there have been negotiations and occupations, liberations, but there has not been peace. Germany sits on most of mainland Europe, on again and off again, as revolutions and rebellions blaze through the continent, Russia first and foremost where the Russian Revolution was beaten down and the Tsar still rules. A few safe spaces remain, great parts of Scandinavia having remained neutral and protected on all sides by water, England remains. With the help of America, England is the last bastion of the Great War and they are holding. Technology hasn't evolved as rapidly as in the modern world, something like phones have appeared with basic call and text functions, something like the Internet is beginning to emerge, fashions and aesthetics look like something out of the 30s and 40s. The atom bomb has yet to be developed, though it is said to be underway, the weapon to end a hundred years of fighting. Maybe all of humanity.

Patrick Blaise used to live as ordinary a life as you can under these circumstances. Only child of Irish parents who immigrated to London before he was born, he grew up with the story of the war as well as the reality of it. Rations. Poverty. Grime and dirt and daily death tolls. His father was an invalid, so he was never recruited, but during one of the bombings of London, the war came for Patrick anyway. Their house took a hit and the basement they'd hid in collapsed on his parents, sparing only barely Patrick himself. He was nine. An orphan, one of many these days, he came to live at the local orphanage until he turned 16 and could support himself with work. People probably expected Patrick to become a labourer, but he had other plans for himself. Bright and curious, he wanted to know about the world, he wanted to know the whys and hows of the war and he wanted to know what not only kept people alive, but allowed them to feel like they were. After a year of factory work, Patrick ran into an old gentleman - he was a former university professor, specialized in literature and had a library at his home unlike anything Patrick had ever seen before. The man was lonely and liked young men. Patrick needed his money and didn't mind old men, so they came to an agreement and Patrick moved in with him while he studied to become a teacher. From he was 17 till he took his exams at 22, Patrick's life was comfortable and the old gentleman looked after him well. Even after their ways parted, he was taken care of. When the man died, Patrick inherited his library, he would never be in want of books again.

From he was 22 till he was 25, he taught at a boy's school in Inner London. He liked working with the kids, liked teaching literature, language and history to mostly unwilling pupils and saw it as his part in the war effort. The motherland, unfortunately, didn't agree and at 25, Patrick was approached to be drafted. He wasn't interested, he'd lost his family to the war, he wasn't going to lose his own life as well. We're not allowed to be so selfish in these times, the officer told him, you will serve or you will serve time. Patrick assured them he would never go to the front, after which another officer looked at him for a long time. You speak fluent German, he asked. Patrick confirmed. The two officers looked at each other, then they left and didn't come back. All Patrick got was a telegram from the British Secret Service with a location and a time and an assurance that if he didn't show, he would be as dead as if he'd gone to the front.

At the given place, Patrick met Adam Ellis for the first time, an American agent who needed a man to send to Scandinavia where a high-ranking military officer was living with his family. They needed a tutor who could, aside from the usual subjects, also teach his children English. Patrick seemed perfect for the job.

Patrick thought so, too. Under his new name, Fox, he stayed half a year in Sweden with the family, taught the navy captain's three sons English and reported back to Adam duly about all plans he picked up on. His involvement stopped the sinking of three British ships. Patrick, now Fox, he liked the name, the change, felt he'd found his calling, spying. Adam didn't disagree, rather he sent for him again a year later, this time setting him up in Austria with a diplomat and his children. Fox stayed a year and a half, learning most of his state secrets from pillow talk with the diplomat who, like the old gentleman before him, liked younger men and Fox made himself very likable. When Adam heard of his methods, he was appalled and warned him not to compromise their mission like that ever again, however as Fox didn't stop, he still accepted every bit of intimate info, sending it back to HQ. Eventually, Fox was withdrawn from his position when his cover was almost blown and for a couple of years, he would lie low.

Now, at 31, Patrick becomes Fox again as Adam contacts him and asks to send him directly into the heart of Germany, Berlin, to be tutor to General Otto Höfer's four children. The General works directly under Kaiser Frederick V and is expected to be very vigilant and extremely difficult to work with. Even so, Secret Service has finished Patrick's new identity, a half-German, expatriate Brit, Fox Decker, who has chosen to relocate to Germany after having been kept in an English work camp for a year. The initial interview goes so well that Fox isn't even surprised the first time Otto comes on to him.

He'll do better than in Austria, but only because he's got better in the meantime.

PERSONALITY

First and foremost, Fox (formerly known as Patrick) is intelligent, very much so. His intellect has carried him through life ever since his parents were killed, has made him able to accept and welcome every opportunity that came his way. When he met Mr Lewis, the old gentleman who developed a fondness for him, he exploited his literate gifts to capture and hold the other man's interest long enough to be supported through the full course of his education, until he could truly care for himself. When the army wanted him, he was bright enough to talk himself into a position as spy instead. His natural curiosity and interest in things is a strength that helps him do his work, both as a teacher and as a spy. He is well-read, loves literature, history and languages and would probably have studied all three at university, had he come from another place in society.

However, more than his intellect, it was his social skills, his naturally agreeable personality, that made sure that Mr Lewis wanted to spend all of five years in his company. In the same way that it was his charm and talkative nature that made the two officers look at each other and think: ah, we know where the likes of him go. Fox is a people-person, no matter how much he hates the Germans as a concept and the war as a whole, he finds it very difficult hating individuals unless they personally offend and bother him. He can talk to almost anyone, woman, man, adult, child and sees potential in his relation to most people. It makes it easier for him doing all the networking he needs to do in the spy business, but also it makes it easier for the people he needs to network with to trust him.

One of the things that draw people to him is how confident he is. He rarely apologizes unless the situation gravely calls for it and carries himself with optimism and cheerfulness wherever he goes. He is quick to smile, quick to laugh, quick to joke and quick to flirt. He knows he's a looker and he knows he's attractive in a million other ways, too, something he uses to his own advantage. About his own person, he has few regrets or insecurities. Don't feel bad about what you can't change, he usually says, only feel bad for what you can when you didn't. He knows he's doing good work for his country and to honour his parents' memory, that's really all that matters to him, what that entails or demands... well, that's detail.

His confidence can sometimes turn into pure arrogance, though, and he can get both foolish and crude as a result. He doesn't like people questioning his methods, often thinks of himself as, if not immortal, then somehow raised above death, above the pains of death. He can be extremely childish in his insistence on doing things his way, this stubbornness making him extremely difficult for his handler, Adam Ellis, to work with. He often strikes out on his own, wants to play God (or the British government) and decide who lives and dies, although he's mostly just a messenger. Around the enemy, he can forget his humanity and just want to see them humiliated, hurt or dead. The extent of his ruthlessness goes so far that he has, unsanctioned, pressured Germans for money or favours or forced them to secrecy, unless they wanted their own homosexual desires to be laid bare for the world to see by the one man who definitely knew about it, the English tutor they slept with. He is not above using his body as a weapon and sex as a currency and will break as many hearts it takes to get the job done, win the war and return the world to a state of normalcy it hasn't seen for a century.

ABILITIES

Languages; Fox speaks English and German fluently, his Russian is passable, his French is a little less than that. He can translate Latin and Greek.

Weapons; has been trained in working various handguns before his deployment, furthermore always carries suicide pills on his body, in case he should get caught.

Lying; is an exceptionally good and convincing liar and overall actor with few people ever having doubted his pretenses.

EXTRA