#prototech

 To start off is the ProtoTech Company, essentially the Apple of biohacking and commercial augments, they produce simple often cosmetic implants and augments from giving people unique skin patterns and hair or eye colour, to implants that monitor health or enhance natural senses and reflexes. They have a public image of trendiness with ads all over the city that pop out with stark but bright colours and images of models with eyecatching body modifications and they are the premier advocates for the commercial, smaller scale and less intrusive potential for cybernetic markets and research.  However beneath this image they are of course an assembly line of new products each year to keep themselves in public relevancy and to achieve such continual innovation they are constantly undergoing well guarded research and testing of new products. What the public does not know however is that to bypass the red tape, waivers, and legal and financial complications, the ProtoTech devs opt to trick or outright kidnap at risk individuals from the homeless, war veterans, orphans, drug addicts, or anyone gullible or desperate enough to agree to what they believe to be a break or even treatment that the ProtoTech sometimes promises. As for characters tied to the ProtoTech there is Bianca Ochoa AKA the art thief Pigment who possesses her chameleon-esque abilities from a prototype implant geared towards dramatic and wide sweeping colour changing that was ultimately never put into mass production due to instability of control in regards to emotions as well as adverse effects of lethargy and slowed blood flow. The other is Amsel the Blackbird who isn’t completely cut loose of ProtoTech like Bianca as he gets regular modifications and upkeep from them though he largely acts independent of them much to the company’s chagrin as he is a more playful and open individual. Beyond these two, early early in BLAABR’s development some of the first villains I’d created were called “The No Evil Gang” who were three victims of ProtoTech experimentation based off sight, sound, and voice but they technically don’t exist anymore. I’ve never updated them or brought them back though I haven’t counted them out especially since they were the primary means of both portraying the malice of ProtoTech as well being the characters who are most driven by the ProtoTech Co as well so we may see them again in future.

 Secondly! There is the Neo-Industrial and Intelligence Systematics LLC. or NiiS for short. Unlike the commercial new-product-a-minute mentality of ProtoTech, NiiS instead veers in the opposite direction fashioning themselves as a sleek and high end think tank of only the most refined cybernetics, not even partaking in small minimally intrusive devices like that of other companies. While not as morally reprehensible in their research as ProtoTech as NiiS truthfully makes products for medical applications, they do so out of logical dealing as opposed to genuine desire to help people as their products are primarily created for technological innovation as opposed to marketable or mass produced therapies. To this end many of their cybernetics and internal synthetics don’t ever see the light of day beyond NiiS facilities and while ProtoTech is shady in their experimental developments, NiiS is downright paranoid with the degree of secrecy they go to in all aspects of their operation. Eccentric perhaps, but what makes them antagonistic is not their method of experimentation but rather means maintaining profitable amid their less than business savvy method of operation: Industrial sabotage.  Where ProtoTech borderline tortures innocent and unaware victims before disposing of them (both figuratively and literally), NiiS instead offers contractual, albeit off the books, work under them for those subjects whom they give more technical and adaptive replacements. Chief amongst them are Usoa Kaikuegui and Abrskil operating as saboteurs known as Resonance and Oxide. Usoa possessing an acoustical system throughout her body with it allowing her to even control her cybernetic arms and legs in the first place, she is capable of linking with additional NiiS hardware to unleash torrents of sonic waves or interfere with data and transmissions making her equally adept at espionage and destruction. Oxide meanwhile had his ravaged lungs and airways replaced with a complicated gaseous system of various chambers he can take full control over. Intentionally made for additional features beyond simply fixing his lungs, with appropriate ingredients he can turn his body into generator of debilitating noxious haze with his role more suited for the straight forward assassination of rival businessmen or researchers while his partner deals with their data. Lead by Ekaitz Fano the LLC remains publicly mysterious yet philanthropic while behind the scenes their augmented operatives ensure they remain high on the ladder of biotechnology. 

 Professor Bittor Solo was an accomplished physicist working under the Prototech Company in the cryogenics department. A man of morals Bittor worked tirelessly to use his field in the preservation of organs and treatment of disease and temperature regulation disorders. His equally devoted staff had helped him produce a number advancements in the surgical field earning them several accolades with Bittor always crediting his team with most of the work insistent on the contributions of all his staff. However his humanitarian efforts were less than profitable and his superiors had his division absorbed into their government projects instead as few pratices or hospitals would foot the cost of Professor Solo’s equipment over current methods, if even less immediately affective. Holding an extreme aversion to violence, Professor Solo did as he was told keeping team morale high despite how the work was tearing him up inside. Despite his best efforts, his staff could clearly see the conflict within their leader and as a result went on strike until they were placed back into the medical division. Bringing attention to the growing discontent, the division head simply terminated Bittor's team enraging him and threatening resignation. His threats fell empty due to the nature of his contractual work leaving him the possibility of legal, and financial, repurcussion. As a result, the professor was left dismayed as he was assigned the development of a cold assault combat suit.

 Wanting to get revenge by any way. He opted to create their weapon and play along, only he developed the liquid nitrogen systems in the suit not for combat but instead he created a medical device that utilized cryogenic technology to protect the wearer and maintain nominal health conditions; to allow someone some normalcy in their condition rather than be put into a coma. When his superiors found out they were infuriated and terminated him on the spot. Hatching a new scheme his bosses left a surprise in his office as he returned to the lab to gather his belongings giving one last look at the medical marvels he'd created. Then something terrible occured. Before he could even react his machinations began to short circuit imploding and causing the entire block to be flash frozen with Bittor at the heart of the "accident". Solo was left with fourth degree frost burns over his entire body kept alive purely, and ironically, by the very suit that landed him in the situation in the first place. His superiors in the Prototech Co. visited him ominously stating that given the suit is their property and he's kept alive by it, he was therefor just as much their property as the suit. Furious, Bittor remained barely alive and had to endure the experiments they conducted on him and the modifications they made to the suit he was trapped in. Only the neural impalnt used to control him wasn’t exactly built to withstand such temperatures... Biding his time, Bittor eventually revealed his gambit simply dropping the frozen implant into the technician’s hands before giving all the new weapon systems they’d grafted a proper field test across Prototech’s offices, fully intent on reaching the top and leaving the entire tower as a frigid waste.

Now abandoning his beliefs and integrity, he sacrificed his own character to be reborn as a nameless patient in a suit; a ghost barely breathing or alive. Taking the name 'Frost', he was quick to put his superiors in the same frigid condition they had placed on him now wandering Makina-Hiria seeking to dismantle Prototech's shadowy military endeavors and reclaim his technology and research desperate to become the once acclaimed doctor he had been.