In order of their appearance.
Pilar Basquin is the body. You know, the one at the beginning that the detectives stand over and crack morbid jokes about. She’s something different to everyone. A victim of Downtown violence. A drunk. A loser. A symbol of the Heights and everything unfair about Tampa. A role model. A mother.
Pilar wouldn’t have recognized any of these versions of herself. If she were still alive, she’d say she was a zoographer, and then she’d tell you she was about to discover something big. But when you’re gone, you don’t get a say. You’re just what other people see.
Rica is a breaker (shipbreaker) and Maria’s partner in Channelside. Rica brings the experience, Maria the brute force. But Rica’s been in the ‘Side too long–her lungs are slowly disintegrating; the constant and extended exposure to pollutants and particles thrown off from welding torches means her dance card is marked.
Maria Saintilien lost everything below her belly button when she was half-eaten by a fungal network. Unfortunately, she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be and carrying something she wasn’t supposed to be when it happened, so the “accident” led to a ten-year sentence in the ‘Side. That was two years ago. Last week, she was dragged back underground when the man she sort-of kind-of ghosted gets framed for murder. To save him and to sate her guilty conscience, she has to find out who really killed Pilar, the woman who protected Maria when no one else would.
Extremis is Maria’s parole officer. It lives in a solid state drive implant behind her right ear and manages the sea of CRISPR strands and enzymes that edit her DNA. It also likes to use fun corporate “motivational” messaging to get Maria to do what it wants her to do. You know, to make sure the whole team is in lockstep while still thinking outside the box.
Kazi Rivers is a yoga teacher in a world where yoga is the dominant religion. And also where no one does yoga. Also where no one knows what yoga is. So Kazi spends most of his day conning wealthy women out of, well, their wealth. And their healthcare. Until he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time and his con-man face gets plastered all over One City Network.
He says he wants to help Maria, but he’s got other plans—namely, use her to find Jace and claim the bounty so he can get far, far away from his last mark.
Don’t worry about Reela. She’s not important, really. But inherited wealth, an eighth-grade education, an obsession with genetic modifications–the all-natural kind, mind you–make her a good mark for Kazi Rivers. It’s her healthcare he’s out to steal.
Joon Dweik is Maria’s med-tech and a tech genius. Her job is to sell Maria more upgrades, which she’d feel bad about, but Maria seems complicit in her own downward spiral. Also she needs the money.
Mama Dweik is Joon’s grandmother. She’s a a brilliant mechanic, an itenerant practical joker, and a survivor of the Cheese, which is what locals call downtown Tampa.
CHARACTERS TO COME:
Detective Hideaki Bright is a celebrity detective on a “reality” show where his job is to catch/frame criminals/innocent people for entertainment. He’s tired, though, and is about to give it all up when Pilar is killed. He’s after the truth, finally, for once, but everyone—from Bright’s greedy, ambitious partner to the Mayor of Tampa—just wants to bury the truth under six feet of xenophobic PR stunts and good ratings.
Julia Rakes is Bright’s partner. She’s ambitious, but a terrible detective. Not that it matters. She, like Bright, doesn’t actually have to detect anything. She is good at self-promotion, though. And making fun of Bright. Poor guy.
Enforcers are crispies that chase their own kind.
They’re well-equipped with the best investigative and security upgrades and sometimes come with their very own crispie dogs, who might also be equipped with some scary upgrades.
This enforcer happens to have a freakish resemblance to David Bowie.
Jace Slattery would just like to disappear. And he’d like the voices in his head to go away. And he’d like to know why his girlfriend has been ghosting him ever since he saved her life and got sent to prison for it. Most of all, though, he’d like to know why no one is doing anything about the nest of house-sized fungal networks that is about to eat the city.
The Merchant is Under’s best DJ, an activist that conceals her identity with a fancy bear-looking avatar thing. She also has a secret identity that we won’t reveal here.
Joseph Nightingale runs Nowhere Bar and watches over Circle Station. She’s an activist and a tireless advocate for Under rights.
Three Cashew is a cartoonist. She writes and draws Human Resources, a cli-fi (climate fiction) murder mystery. Read the first chapter here for free.