What's in Van Parker's Pockets

Well? What's in them?

Hey hi, this is a writing exercise I did yesterday to help get some creative juices flowing. Considering I'm going back to writing more Canine stories after Cinematic Quarantine 3 is done, I felt this was a way of both looking forward to that project, and also as a way of getting myself unstuck after a stressful few days. Not only was this a lot of fun, I wound up discovering a fair bit about him from what he carries with him and why. So wherever you see this italicized text, this is me peeking in to add insights I learned about my own writing. Because stuff like that is cool.

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Van’s Jacket itself is a black cattle-leather Moto-Cavalier pattern tailored by Simons and Rothman Tactical Clothiers of Port of St. Joseph. It’s a single zip-up front, with the zipper offset to the left side, allowing for an uninterrupted panel of reinforced kevlex material between the leather and lining to protect the wearer’s core and arms, with double layering over the heart when it’s fully zipped. The wrists are double cuffed and there are invisible tightening straps throughout, allowing it to visually wear and hang like a normal leather jacket, but be properly fixed to the body as ballistic and stab-resistant armour needs to be. The collar is a bit showier than Van typically allows himself; he rationalizes it because it is actual extra protection to a point that’s vulnerable, even to his own enhanced biology. While the split, half thigh-length tails are mostly for visual flair, there exists pretty extensive testimony from others who have had themselves saved from undue amounts of road rash due to master leatherworker Ernie Rothman’s ‘visual flair’ becoming suddenly very protective when you lay your bike down. This is why Van went with this particular pattern of motorcycle jacket- he might not be a rider, but he is a highly mobile individual, and pavement is deeply uncomfortable to grind against at high speed.

Van is a guy who needs to rationalize himself having nice, high quality things. He either needs them for his work, or he can do without. This is the sort of self esteem you get when you work under someone who doesn't know how to talk to you, or just straight up treats you like garbage. Poor guy suffers like a Catholic, despite being Jewish through his mother.

In this jacket, there are a lot of pockets, inner, outer, visible and hidden. Here’s what Van keeps in them.

Van’s phone is an MobiWave Foreman Toughpad, a device that’s considered mid-range for its overall processing power, but nigh-indestructible in its construction. Developed by the MobiWave Collective to be functional, low-resource and reliable for tradespeople in heavy duty lines of work, where dropping a phone off an FTLC tower or getting it run under the tracks of a terraformer is a significant possibility. A display of M-Wave designer Yui Hashimoto discharging a 9mm EVO handgun into the backplate of a Foreman, then successfully booting it to its home screen went viral among Section 99ers, effectively making this one of the most trusted personal comms devices among insurgent operators. The round broke the case polymer, but deflected away, in case you were wondering. Van’s is largely unmodified from its base schematic, having printed it in a slightly glossed black polymer to match his jacket’s colour, and adding a SIM cloner to its build- a handy tool for anyone looking to eavesdrop on a phone call between someone they’ve laid hands on, and someone they’ve yet to meet. Van keeps it in an interior chest pocket in his jacket, further protected by its armoured lining, where its functionality is synced to his bionics via secured Closenet protocol. Even though he can basically do anything he needs with it without having to touch it, save for slotting in a momentarily stolen SIM chip he means to clone, he still takes it out and fiddles with it when he’s bored, and prefers to actually look at the screen instead of have it cast to his retina displays- it makes him feel more like a real person, in addition to being a good way to blend into a crowd.

Van doesn't care about his stuff being the fastest or the best, it's just got to be able to survive his own usage of it. This is why he'd be a big advocate of the Nokia 5150 in our timeline.

Van keeps his phone in his inner pockets because it’s an important comms and intel device- yes, shut up, this is an actual consideration for folks who use regular-ass phones on ops, and yes, that does happen. The thing he keeps inside his jacket pocket for sentimental reasons is his spliff case. Again, shut up, it is sentimental. It was a gift, from Granny Janila, for his 30th birthday, and the sentimentality of it shows on the hinged lid- Rhidling sea-current bronze, finely engraved with a depiction of trees growing together as a jungle canopy, inlaid with molten-painted amber. A simple but lovingly crafted work of Rhidling functional art, with a simple reminder for its user every time he goes for a smoke: the canopy of family can grow together from differing trees. The hinge itself conceals a jet lighter, which can be ignited with a safetied button, and there’s enough space on the internal clips of the case for a dozen prerolls- enough to keep the phantom pain of his surgery scars away for a day or so, before needing a refill. PS: The other gift Janila Sendra gave to Van on his 30th? 10 kilos of Blue Cascadian. And it’s, like, some mutant yield of it or something, the buds are huge and dense. He still has some, for special occasions.

Part of why Van smokes as much weed as he does is that it calls time out on his emotional state- he can take a 20 minute head break, then have his bionics' toxin flush capabilities clear the intoxication from his system, so he can get back to work. During those little breaks, he's thankful for this little gift, because it gives him a good headspace to drift off into.

Just like basically everyone in known society in the Terran Timeline, Van carries an ArchKey, the common working name for an Access Archival Device, an updatable multi-access key fob. His is a little different, however. Most people carry around polymer hand fobs that they can either near-field or direct interface with doors or other security measures to open them- to add, edit or update access on such devices, you similarly connect them to a computer and access the pertinent data from there. Van’s is something considerably less compromisable, and also slightly more sinister. At once a handfob, it’s also a card case for storing physical access keys, one insulated from remote access systems. Not only does this mean his keys can’t be swipe-copied by RFID pickpockets, it also means any remote attempts by security admins to wipe access cards he’s stolen get leadwalled. Add into the mix an onboard device that can both decrypt and alias access data on any physical card he loads into it, and he’s got what is functionally a self-procedurally generating masterkey to any security network that doesn’t also use biometrics or sapient-to-sapient confirmation. This type of ArchKey is a Clan Sendra device, one that, for a number of reasons, is not available openly as a maker-template. In fact, its construction and technology is considered a trade secret of the Sendra Family Business, to the point that they don’t have any real model naming convention or even standardization. This is to keep them as something that appears to be a one-off work of functional art, rather than something sub-rosa, put together by an intelligence group. Van keeps this zipped up in an interior pocket- it doesn’t need to come out for him to use it, it syncs to his bionics, and he can just put his hand to any key reader to beep it. Van still hasn’t filled up the storage on it, so he’s not sure what he still has access to on it- in his own words, “if I kept the name and face of every asshole I’ve beat up for a key to somewhere I wasn’t allowed, I could open a temp agency for shit-tier criminals.”

Everyone has keys that they forgot what they do. Everyone. Period.

Van doesn’t need to carry a lot of tools with him, because despite being a Highly Tactical Individual, his ability to be as such tends to be limited to “being able to be functionally invisible given the right conditions” and “endless aptitude for garotting motherfuckers.” Yes, he is a member of a private intelligence group at the end of the day, but he’s also known as their heavy hitter, their Uncommon Thug. The Sendra Clan have limitless scalpels; he is their one, peerless sledgehammer. Still, he keeps with him a minitool chain, which he occasionally idly flips on his finger. The first tool on it is a sapper’s claw, a common, tried and trusted Garak minitool, which is nothing more than an odd, claw-shaped crook of hardened steel, used to cut, saw, open, drive screws and, to a limited and arthritis-inducing extent, wrench bolts. Much like all Garak tools, it’s more than capable of doubling as a melee weapon, though in a far more desperate extent than others, given its tiny size. Next, an Elsipha Labs Microfusor mini-plasma torch, which he often uses in lieu of a lockpick. Because he’s terrible at lockpicking, and prefers to lockpick with his boot. Nobody quite does microscale plasma tech like Arissiyans, which is why he trusts this little cutter/fuser to give him “three or four burnt-out deadbolts worth of saved headaches” before needing to be recharged with pressurized hydrogen. Simply press it to the offending lock, shield your eyes, and click the button down on the end- the plasma jet it produces will first weld, then burn through starship-grade alloys, let alone the steel used in most simple deadbolts. Mind, an extremely limited amount of starship-grade alloys, but still- it’s pretty impressive. Last on the chain is a Photoworx N-Lighten pocket flashlight, a simple but high power light he keeps for utility purposes. Van doesn’t need light to see, his ARGUS bionics allowing him to see with full acuity in near total darkness, after which the Canine coprocessor can begin overlaying AR vision assistance rendered from his other senses’ input. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t find having access to a bright light handy. He’s not the sort of gear nerd to care that the N-Lighten is capable of nearly 7000 lumens, despite fitting on a chain, because the practical use cases are more valuable in his mind than any number. For one, it’s bright enough to signal someone through a blizzard or sandstorm with. For two, it’s bright enough to engage the Deer-In-Headlights effect on anyone he disrespects enough to shine it in the face of. He really likes doing this to cops.

This, to me, was trying to think realistically about a guy, who is effectively some sort of crypto-spy-detective-hitman-general-issue-agent hybrid, but who also can functionally brute force anything that isn't bombproof or hardened against tech-subverting measures, actually needs in the way of tools and gadgets. What I came up with taught me about what Van sees as in within his capabilities of dealing with barehanded, and what annoys him too much to try. Also, that he really doesn't care for gear-wank, more just applicable use-case scenarios. Like blinding cops.

Over the free years of his life, Van has worn multiple personal weapons- the Freelands are dangerous, and so is he. At earliest, he favored the Rebel P30 pistol, taking up a symbol of Freelander rebellion as, well, rebellion. While he generally liked it for having an extremely fine trigger and spectacular stopping power, in addition to being a certifiable shield-stripper- plasma guns are like that -its hard-limited range, difficulties with armour penetration and its limited capacity combined with his tendency to fire double taps, made him seek alternatives. His Rhidling peers at Alameka Grove gave him a series of Goldilocks suggestions- the Lidiri machine pistol was too much of a handheld fireball, the integrally suppressed Pershin killer’s pistol made him feel like an asshole, and the Keirik PDW was still really too big for him to be a wear weapon, despite him being a big terran. Eventually, he came on the Briar SHP Automag, an offshoot design of the JMB Legend semiauto pistol. The Legend fires the 11.5mm Automatic Browning Pistol (ABP) round, a heavy, big bore bullet, propelled by a charge sufficient enough to render it just subsonic in Terra-like atmospheres- it is the ballistic equivalent of a middleweight knockout artist, and you can suppress it. The Briar, on the other hand, fires the 11.5mm Super High Pressure round, innovated by Briar Gunworks themselves. It’s the same diameter bullet, but being pushed out of a longer cartridge, with a higher weight of hexacite pushing it, out of a case crimped down extra tight. As a result, it’s the same deadly projectile, but pushed out flatter, straighter and far, far harder. Plus, no amount of suppressor you twist on this thing will make it quiet, as the crack of an 11.5mm bullet doing terrible things to the sound barrier is literally deafening. This greater propellant charge of course produces substantial kick, but on the plus side, most handguns can’t come within striking distance of an intermediary rifle cartridge’s terminal ballistics, like the Briar can. To put it in more dramatic terms: the JMB Legend smashes a pumpkin on a fencepost; the Briar SHP Automag makes it go up like a small bomb was lit off inside it.

Compare this against the Rebel, and you’ll see pretty similar destructive sorts of stopping power, albeit the plasma-throwing Rebel is of course wont to kick up more fire, cook-off matter and oily smoke out of whatever it hits. But the Rebel only holds a hard 8 shots in a standard gas-mag, while the Briar holds 12 in its double stack magazine, plus 1 in the chamber. By Van’s double-tap math, that equals 4 dead bad guys for the Rebel, and 6 and a half dead bad guys for the Briar. The numbers don’t lie, people. Then there’s its longer barrel and slide, giving it extra accuracy, stability and a slightly higher muzzle velocity. The slide travels backward considerably farther than the Legend, to accommodate the extra length of the cartridge. This is not a design flaw, this is the weapon working as intended, but those expecting a JMB Legend slide and hammer might find themselves getting their hand bitten with a careless grip. This extra length and the overall power of the round gives the Briar a good deal of muzzle flip with each shot, so recent revisions have added integral porting to the barrel and slide, allowing the hellfire-shockwave muzzle flare of this weapon to at least work in its favor, and push down against the muzzle rise. Interestingly, the ports in the slide overhang the ports in the barrel, acting as a supplemental gas trap that gives the slide extra rearward impulse, thus giving it further reliability against failures to feed and stovepipe jams, at the cost of making the gun a dirtier weapon to fire and causing its slide to heat up significantly after putting several magazines through it.

This leads to Van’s personal modifications to the weapon, in order to compensate for its shortcomings. First, he’s fitted a polymer, spring-loaded folding and ambidextrous charging handle to the rear slide serrations, giving him something more substantial to reset the slide with during a reload that isn’t going to scorch his hand. He’s also mounted a muzzle brake to the weapon, in order to further tame the recoil and flash of the weapon, at the cost of adding additional length. Lastly, he’s given it a flared magwell, in order to ease quick reloads during rough situations. Oh, and he’s put a palorized white alloy slide to offset the flat black frame, giving it a nice two-tone look, because his therapist said that understanding you deserve things that make you happy is a part of developing a sense of self love. He calls the completed package the Briar SHP “Nowhere Man”, and he actually has completed a maker-template for it. Someday, he’ll feel comfortable enough with his work to post it online. Because it’s a pretty big gun, where it sits on his person has changed multiple times. He tried an under-arm holster, but it’s just too big to be comfortable. Now, he’s got a hidden holster in his waistband, and that seems to work well for him, as it gives him access to his weapon and two spare magazines without having to unzip his jacket and compromise its protection.

Hey guys, it's Ian, from Forgotten Weapons, and today we're at...

Okay, but this is what I was using my writing discipline to hold off on writing, until I got the more sensible stuff out of the way. Because I feel I know enough about guns at this point that I will legit toot my own horn, and declare myself an SF writer that does extremely good spaceguns. But beyond that, and this is a big thing that I believe in- armament can be a part of characterization. John Wick, in the first movie at least, uses an H&K P30L, the 3rd evolution of a line of handguns that started with the SOCOM pistol (you know, from Metal Gear Solid), designed originally for military special operations. It straddles the line between military and competition shooting specifications, and thus basically makes it the perfect handgun for an unpretentious but effective assassin. Agent Smith uses a Desert Eagle, a huge bastarding fuck of an automag, chambered in the ridiculous .50 Action Express round. It features a series of enormous design flaws that render it, at best, a platform to modify into a competition pistol for folks with big hands, and, at worst, an expensive range toy that, to be fair, is quite fun to shoot. Thing is, it isn't a combat pistol. It never will be. No matter how hard you fantasycraft the math of this thing's terminal ballistics, it will never rip arms off of people on near misses like, I swear, I have actually had some moron vomit at me in a conversation. Not to mention that sheer power alone doesn't make a combat pistol, there's so many other actual factors to consider. Unless you're a dumb asshole, who is only focused on the big bang, "intimidation factor" that comes with being extra large (it's a gun, you pillock, they are inherently scary, and if you're only carrying one to intimidate, you're doing it wrong) and the fact that it will put a marginally wider hole in something than a .45 would. Agent Smith is an asshole. Only assholes use Desert Eagles. If you remember anything that I teach you, remember this, that Only Assholes Use Desert Eagles.

What I learned about the weapon, which I only called an automag in A Good Man, to spare you all this technical writing, is that it's a reflection of Van himself. It's an offshoot of a more common model that someone modified for special purpose. It's flawed, but also highly effective. It's loud and breathes fire, but it strikes true. It's brutal in its methods, but also has a beauty to it. It hits what it aims at, and it doesn't leave room for suffering, because just like the man who wields it, it can kill merely with a leisurely thrown one-two punch.

Other Assorted Stuff in Van’s Pockets

• A pretty basic polymer cigarette lighter. He keeps it because folks see him smoking and ask him for a light, causing him to immediately feel self conscious about the beautiful relic he pulls out of his jacket. This way, he can be polite, without feeling like a bougie fuck. He keeps it in his outer pockets.
• A laminated picture of his folks. The images were hacked from Consortium subject resources archives, edited together to make them smiling in front of a lovely mountain landscape. It’s outdated and false- they’d look older now, and they’re in a place they’ve never been. But it’s them, and that’s what important. With this, he can remember their faces. It’s stored in his ArchKey.
• He’s probably got a pack of mango-orange Break-brand chewing gum in an exterior pocket, for two reasons. One, Van finds it incredibly hard to concentrate when he has a bad taste in his mouth, and he often has a bad taste in his mouth. Two, people trust you more if you have fresh breath, which is a piece of wisdom he freely imparts on people. Turns out, when you have enhanced senses? You wish the world had fresher breath in general.
• Regarding paper receipts in his pockets, Van would probably grunt something perfunctory about keeping “junk intel” handy in a “throwdown capacity,” then change the subject. Really, he just needs to clean the spare paper out of his pockets better.
  • Angionelli’s Legit Sicillian Pizza. 1 large thin crust, with spicy sausage, dry pepperoni, crimini and portobello mushrooms on a tomato-basil base, and a six pack of Dominguez Bros. orange soda. Or, as Van knows it, “lunch.”
  • Assorted receipts from Jumpshot, the convenience store co-op local to Port of St. Joseph. Mostly for stuff like gum, chicken fingers, pre-wrapped ice cream cones, more Dominguez Bros. orange soda, and the occasional “electric lime” Haywire energy drink. No joke, it’s the one thing the Canine copro’s manifestation asks for specifically, it likes the flavor and the jolt to the nerves.

Van eats like a teenager, because he sorta went from being one, then a big bionic [SCENE MISSING], and then directly into being some weird, fucked up grownup. 

• Transit receipts. St. Joe’s has good tramlines, with cit-share taxi service making up for the places that don’t actually have stops on the lines. Van has a reasonable grasp of wheeled vehicles, he just doesn’t bother with cars when he’s at home- if he needs to get somewhere fast, he’s got people, otherwise, he can go for a walk and take the train.
• Rapid-Clean Automated Laundromat. Because robots don’t ask questions about bloodstains in your commando sweaters, or tooth chips stuck in the knee of your bluejeans. They just wash and fold.

I have nothing to really add here, except that I hope you like that last one as much as I do.

Hope you enjoyed this little exercise, because it sure made my brain happy. More content soon, promise. Peace!

-G