COMM ID: Jessica Williams SOURCE: Freeport 2, Bering
COMMUNICATIONS ESTABLISHED . . .
BEGINNING PLAYBACK
Heya. My name is Jessica Williams. I've been looking for you lot for a while now, but it's only just recently that I got the idea to ask around on a Freeport or two. "Never know," I said to myself. "Them Freeports harbour more than just Zoners and traders, after all." So I got to asking around a bit, and sure enough, I found myself a guy nice enough to contact you for me.
I figure you'll want to hear a bit about me before understanding why I'm more than a little bit interested in your group of sorts. Well, too bad. I ain't going to map out my whole life's story to a bunch of people I've never met.
A brief pause is taken.
Bah, alright. I guess that's a bit too much to hope for, to be able to just ask to join and not say a peep about myself. Fine, but this had better stay between me and... Um, whoever's listening.
A couple of awkward coughs are heard.
Right, I'll just get on with it. Like I already said, my name's Jessica Williams, Jess to my friends. I don't plan to make any friends though, so don't even think of calling me that. I was born on planet Denver - no, I'm not telling you when, so don't ask! - in a pretty rich family. Well, my dad was rich. He was a big-time trader. Mama was just a housewife in pretty much every sense of the word. Like you might have guessed, I was living a pampered life. Shame it all had to end so abruptly, but at least it opened my eyes to what the world is really like beyond those concealing walls and closed doors.
When I was seven, my dad went out on a trading expedition. That wasn't a new development; it was his job, after all. Still, I remember him making a lot of noise about it, bragging about going beyond Liberty's borders on a very profitable contract that could well mean he'd never have to work again. I remember seeing him in the shuttle port with a big grin slapped across his face, joking around with some of the others from his convoy. Not long after, they finally launched to travel distances unimaginable in my child's mind.
They never returned.
At first, Mama and I thought they must have been delayed somehow, when the convoy hadn't returned on schedule. A week, two weeks, a month, time passed by and still no word from my dad and his buddies came back to us. I don't think Mama though something could have happened to them. And me? All I knew was that my daddy was out there, somewhere, going places even my imagination had never yet visited.
One day, we got a call from dad's final contractor. At least, he said he was his contractor. Mama and me never really asked about dad's work, so the specifics of what he did were kind of a mystery to us, much as we knew his general trade. Anyway, the man said that dad and the rest of his convoy had been gunned down by the Rheinland Federal Police for the transporting of smuggled goods. Those that survived were brought to prison. Among those that didn't was my daddy.
My mama still didn't believe it. She couldn't believe it. She didn't want to believe it. In her mind, anything was possible but dad's death. But I believed it. And deep down, I think she knew it too, much as she tried to hide it from herself.
I don't think my daddy was guilty of smuggling. He was an honest man, I know he was. Sure, we didn't know everything about his work or what he was transporting, but it's impossible that he could have committed a crime. It must have been someone else in his convoy who refused to drop the cargo even as my daddy pleaded with him to do it.
A pause is taken while a few deep breaths are heard taken in the background.
Mama had to face the facts when she started getting calls from dad's investors. She had no income, and our funds were dropping as fast as water disappears down a drain. She tried looking for a job, but there were no places that would hire someone like her with no work experience. Having no other choice, she sold our house and liquidated all but our most important assets to invest in another life elsewhere, one that, although harsher than our previous life that had vanished as surely as a dream does when one wakes up, would be possible to stay alive in.
I'm not gonna go into details here. You lot of all people must be familiar with the details of lower-class life already. I'll just say that we moved to Planet Pittsburgh, where Mama worked two jobs to keep us afloat, myself working as soon as anyone wanted to hire me. And still we had tough times, weeks - sometimes months - during which no scrap of food could go to waste, no clothes would be tossed out no matter how damaged they were, and during which everyone around us was doing just as badly as us.
I finally snapped. Mama was working herself to death. We were on the brink of starvation every day. The small amounts of time allotted to sleep were taken up by insomnia and feelings of guilt, thinking that if I weren't around Mama wouldn't have to suffer so much to make a living. So I did it. I killed him. He was so boastful, so arrogant, so proud about that ship of his that in truth was one of the worst on the market yet which was worth unthinkable amounts to the rest of us.
Oh, how it felt good to do it while he was showing me the controls, bragging about how he could do such and such maneuver in such and such situations while such and such were after him. How it felt good to take what he was so damn proud about. It was his own fault. He should have just kept his gob shut instead of rubbing it in our faces, bragging about things that he knew none of us would ever do.
Once it was done, I thought it would be hard to keep my cool at the shuttle port, but I guess it wasn't after all. I don't know if they ever found his body, but then, even if they did, it's just another dead man in the slums to them. Why investigate what happens on a daily basis, after all?
I started doing odd jobs here and there once I more or less got the hang of the controls. What astounded me was the huge payment at the end of every deal. One mission got me more credits than I'd make in a year back on Pitts'. I forwarded a few to Mama, hoping she was alright with me gone. For the first ever I was making my own living, and a good one at that. I was ecstatic.
Not so long after I left Pittsburgh, I started hearing about the Xenos. "A bunch of xenophobic maniacs," one would say. "Maybe they have the right of it," says another. My interest piqued, I asked around a bit about 'em. It didn't take long to learn what I wanted to know; everyone seemed to know about them except me. With every conversation about them I felt more of an affinity with the Xenos; my father was killed by foreigners, something for which I'll never forgive them; I'd seen and lived the hell that life in Liberty can be without riches first-hand, which only stung all the more because I'd also known the life of a rich, pampered girl; their ideology was - is - mine, their methods do not scare me, and their cause is something that reaches deep into me and rings a sympathetic note in my heart.
No point in making this much longer than it is already. From that point on I worked toward finding these Xenos, to find them and to join them. So now with the help of my friend here on Freeport 2, I think I may finally have found you. I'm asking you to let me join you, to let me fight for what we know is right, regardless of the methods employed. I have no problems with killing if you ask me to, just as much as I'd have no problem killing myself if I knew for a fact that it would help us all move a baby step closer to our goal.
I think I've said enough about myself for now. I need a drink.
- TRANSMISSION TERMINATED -
EDIT: OOC: Right, consider this withdrawn. Sorry for wasting your time.
THEY TOLD ME I COULD BE ANYTHING SO I BECAME A SIGNATURE PLS HLP
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