Page 137 - Hunter - The Vigil

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CHAPTER THREE: HUNTER ORGA N I Z A T I O N S
temple off Santorini, apparently lost well over 3,000 years ago The handbooks have no corporate insignia, no names of
and only rediscovered in 1987? authors, no ISBN numbers. It has the FPD’s own logo on the
Maybe the Board of Directors knows. Not that anyone front (a stylization of Cheiron the hunter’s bow and arrow).

else can find out. No one knows for sure who the Directors At no point is the company mentioned by name. It’s always
even are. No list of their names has existed since Edward Bar- just “the Company.” Eve y so often, one gets out into the pub-
rett retired in 1921, and even then, he’s the only Director the lic sphere without any real effect. They’re completely deni-
company has ever named. Even bearing in mind its successes able. Even so, Cheiron agents do try their best to keep them
in the pharmaceutical field, how on Earth does a company out of the wrong hands (read: anyone else’s), and kill to get

like Cheiron maintain such stellar stock prices without ever them back.Not that the handbook is all that useful. Cheiron
having a name or a face at its head? is a massive conglomerate, with vast resources, but for all that,

And then you have the activities of those TCG employees it’s no more efficient than any other mega-corporation. Fol-
who aren’t involved in developing, manufacturing or selling won- lowing the handbook is a good way to be killed, or worse, and
der drugs and dialysis machines, the ones who get paid to investi- quickly. Some of Cheiron’s more jaded members have suggest-
gate supernatural phenomena and kidnap monsters, the ones who ed — anonymously — that it’s not that TCG is clueless. They
contain the monsters, and the ones who experiment on the creatures say it’s that TCG, for reasons never adequately explained, sees

(using science that really shouldn’t work by any normal rules). fit to deliberately supply its field resources with inadequate
That, at least, is the one secret of TCG that the resources and inaccurate information.
of its “Field Projects Division” are party to: they capture the The good news is that while the agents are prob-
monsters, and the monsters are turned into guinea pigs, ingre- ably better off not reading the handbook (but they had
dients and spare parts. And then they pick up a more-than- better not throw it away — it’s still company proper-
adequate paycheck at the end of the day. ty), they do get almost free rein as to where they go
And there are other, more dubious benefits, too. In an age and what they do, as long as they fulfill their quota of

when most of the big companies are divesting their employees Potential Assets found and retrieved by the company.

and contracting them back as temps, TCG’s field resources TCG has a number of Dedicated Pickup Teams for this
get a job for life, whether they want it or not. very purpose, all on call for when field resources have
Part of that is the contract. But a big part of that is the neutralized and secured Potential Assets. They make a
surgery. In order to make their agents more capable of facing point of not picking up still-dangerous hostiles, howev-
down the creatures they have to catch for a living, TCG’s staff er, and field resources who think that Dedicated Pickup
doctors change them, replacing limbs and organs while adding Teams are for getting them out of messes are in for a
others, making them, in a small part, the monsters they get shock. Given that most DPTs comprise three guys and
paid to bring down. The man in the company car might have a van or helicopter, that makes a sort of sense.

a suite of special organs melded with his flesh, but he knows Whether or not the capture of a Potential Asset works
that they are still company property. Cheiron owns him, liter- toward a field resource’s quota really depends on whether
ally, and there isn’t any way he’s ever leaving, even when he or not TCG’s R&D division considers it worth studying.
goes and inevitably gets himself killed — the contract says They have plenty of vampires and werewolves in contain-
they get to render down his body in the R&D department, ment, in various degrees of health, and if they want an-
too. other one, they’ll ask for it. On the other hand, agents
who send in something R&D has never seen before are in
The Enemy for a pretty big bonus.
If anyone challenges a field resource working for Cheir- When it comes to the competition (read: other hunters),

on, she’s likely to mention “Directive 53.” She’s talking about field resources soon learn to make compromises and deals. Hav-

Safety Phrase 53 in an old EEC Council Directive (67/548/ ing said that, more often than not, TCG field operatives have

EEC). Put simply, it instructs companies to avoid exposure no choice but to use whatever help they can get, while at the
of the public to dangerous substances and to obtain special same time denying their colleagues the kill. If they don’t make
instructions before using them. their quotas, it’s not just their jobs on the line. Of course, no
The European Economic Community has been defunct for one told them that when they signed the contract.
years, replaced by the European Union, but still, TCG claims Di-
rective 53 as its mandate. It’s one of the first sections in the Field Hunters

Projects Division Handbook, a slim, plain brown paperback that Whoever you are, you didn’t necessarily start out working
serves as the bible for Cheiron’s fi eld resources. for Cheiron. You could have been hired by Barthes Prosthet-
The handbook purports to be a comprehensive guide to ics, or Allegra Pharmaceuticals, or Jones-Klein-Beauchamp
procedure and a brief encyclopedia of Potential Assets (which and its subsidiaries, or Weide, or any of a dozen or more other
is TCG jargon for “any supernatural creature we can catch companies. You thought you were taken on by a company

and make use of in the lab”). The parts about procedure are making X-ray machines, asthma inhalers or fizzy drinks. You
pretty limited in use. The parts about the monsters are all were in for a shock.
but useless: vampires, it says, drink blood and are vulnerable You were a stellar salesman and a fabulous PR executive.
to sunlight. Werewolves suffer an extreme allergy to silver, it When they offered you a commission-based post in Field Proj-
says, and goes on to say that TCG doesn’t issue silver bullets.
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