Tria

Tria is a character in The Spectacular Exhibition.

Profile
''Eprus Kijani sat in his new office on Yilia and sighed, his imposing frame bent over a desk strewn with various files and documents. The view of the capital, Metralis, through the wide windows was one of the most beautiful to be found on the industrial planet. It was still an eyesore compared to that of his preferred headquarters on Triga. Sadly his recent acquisition of Lireni Industries, an innovative weapons manufacturer and probably the only interesting company on this blighted rock, necessitated his presence here. The founder of the company (and renowned scientist), Soren Liren, had recently passed away under allegedly “mysterious circumstances” - well, as mysterious as a hasty cover up of a bullet through the head could get anyway. While his sources had been able to ascertain that much the actual motive for the killing was still unknown – though Eprus now had a suspicion and it surprisingly had very little to do with the cutthroat business practices of Yilia.''

''While Lireni Industries had plenty of competitors publicly, their real business was in cybernetic enhancements – particularly ones that skirted the line when it came to galactic law. Eprus was impressed at the secrecy of these operations – he himself had not known of them until he arrived on the planet a week ago and was informed of the program by an extremely nervous engineer.''

''To make things worse Liren had taken advantage of an incredibly weak legal system (Yilia had no government other than a loose coalition of companies and overarching galactic law, making it an extremely attractive corporate hub) in order to acquire test subjects for his brilliant, but often disastrous theories. Nothing as unethical as kidnapping citizens, no – if that had been the case Eprus would have shut down the entire operation immediately. But if someone happened to be missing this-or-that body part and somehow ended up being treated in one of Liren’s private hospitals without the means to pay for such treatment the man had apparently had no qualms disenfranchising and often killing them in order to further his research.''

''Eprus’ gaze passed over the large heap of files on his desk – each containing information about one “Apparatus” as Liren had identified them. Many were dead - either through mechanical failure, implant incompatibility or simple suicide. Of the apparent 50 Liren had deemed “satisfactory” only 12 were still under company control or supervision – 30 were dead and 8 missing. “Deficient” Apparatus were not mentioned as more than footnotes detailing how catastrophic the failure of each was and how their models were improved to a “satisfactory” state – these improvements often requiring multiple “subjects” to reach completion.''

''He had already met 10 of the survivors in order to ascertain whether they were a risk or an asset to his business – there was no doubt that some still served as potent marketing tools. Some of these supposedly innovative implants seemed more like the pet projects of a mad scientist than commercially viable ideas – and others were far too illegal for Eprus’ liking. Still other “satisfactory” Apparatus were obviously mentally unstable. He regretted his reasoning but he could see no alternative to eliminating most, if not all of the remaining Apparatus; let loose on the planet they would only wreak havoc or cause a scandal and it was a waste of resources to attempt to keep them under control.''

''Eprus flipped open the next file in the stack, realizing as he glanced at the header that this was one of the two remaining Apparatus that he had not yet contacted. The clinical tone of the document mirrored that of the other files – Liren had personally written up each one as he had not trusted any of his personnel with the full scope of the project. It had also been updated the day before Liren’s death, so the information within would hopefully still be reliable – some of the older Apparatus had apparently been neglected for years and their files were woefully out of date in regards to their mental states.''

Weapons/Abilities
Subject’s only outstanding feature is her right arm, which has been replaced with what seems to be a regular prosthetic. However her arm is markedly not a simple prosthetic – it conceals an exceptionally powerful (and minuscule) nuclear reactor. While most cybernetic additions of this nature tend to be used to conceal weapons systems, the reactor in her arm is attached to something far more innocuous – an electromagnet located within her lower arm (and the auxiliary cooling system). Due to the material used to create the magnet (Tirelium, thus far only discovered in small amounts on Ritka V) it is far more powerful than any conventional electromagnet. Though safety restrictions limit the implants' maximum field strength to 100 Teslas (able to lift approximately 1.25 metric tonnes of material) the theoretical limits of the superconductivity of the material have never been fully explored. Tirelium additionally absorbs the vast majority of radiation emitted by the reactor and converts it into energy, thus bypassing the need for waste disposal present in previous versions of the implant. During operation the reactor collects excess heat in a storage capacitor which is generally slowly dissipated over time but can be stored and vented with destructive force.

The unique construction of the prosthetic allows Subject to create and manipulate existing magnetic fields through her hand, though the strength of this ability decreases exponentially at distances farther than 25 meters away. She can only maintain control of one field at a time. Recent R&D developments suggest that this quantity could be improved with only superficial modifications to the current prosthetic design – though the act of controlling said modifications would greatly tax her already fragile mind in possibly undesirable ways. Subject’s control of magnetic fields is quite proficient, but hampered by her mental state – see diagnosis below.

Description
Subject is 20 years of age. Her shoulder-length hair is naturally black, something extremely unusual on Yilia – which is presumably why she generally dyes it to the prevalent dark brown. Subject generally keeps hair tied into a “ponytail”. Her pale skin is essentially identical to the rest of this planet’s “native” inhabitants, who live under almost perpetual clouds or smog. Subject’s height and weight are average (approximately 1.7m and 64 kilos) – though she is in excellent health due to regular exercise. She additionally prefers attire colloquially designated as “sports clothes” – on date of acquisition subject was wearing a plain black “T-shirt” along with tight khaki knee-length “shorts”. Subject’s eyes are a dark shade of blue, very common among Yilia’s poorer demographics. Prosthetic arm/hand is a smooth white fashioned to look much like a regular arm – obviously without wrinkles and hair follicles.

((Going by traditional Earth standards Tria would be remarkably good looking, with a build that is more athletic than traditionally “beautiful”. In a sector filled with trillions of humans Tria is considered rather plain, especially following the advent of tailored genetics and accessible plastic surgery. The best visualization of the arm would be to think of a prosthetic made by Aperture Science (a la Portal turretbots) – smooth, shining plastic that opens to show mechanical parts when activated. In this case a circle opens in the palm and the arm expands to reveal the usually coiled electromagnet (complete with blue glow/at higher power settings electric phenomena).))

Mental Diagnosis
Subject is mentally unstable, suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, mild paranoid personality disorder and acute pyrophobia – all present upon acquisition. In addition she has acquired mild psychological dependence to certain analgesics generally provided post-implant – an executive decision was taken to maintain this addiction in order to foster dependency upon company resources and thereby decrease risk of desertion. Possible shock from withdrawal has recently been evaluated to be highly dangerous to her mental state, as Subject has never fully experienced the implant. This has also restrained her abilities more than the safety restrictions in the arm already do – her neural connection to the arm slowed and dulled by the aforementioned analgesics.

Biography
Subject is from a lower-class family and presumably attended minimal company schooling until (according to her own testimony) her family was killed in a housing fire when she was 15. Orphaned, Subject joined roaming a criminal band rather than enter the treacherous corporate foster program. The band was focused upon theft and fencing of industry secrets – an unusually high-risk activity and one that resulted in many conflicts with other dubious organizations. This state of affairs persisted until date of acquisition (3 years ago), when band was finally caught and liquidated by corporate thugs. Subject was presumably knocked unconscious, bound and thrown onto the tracks of a local high-speed railway, then left to be run over by the train – perhaps a case of watching too many Earth westerns.

Unsurprisingly the goons’ sloppy work left her waking to the roar of a train heading towards her, her arm subsequently being crushed and eventually ripped off at the shoulder. Subject was luckily found barely alive and in a state of circulatory shock by a maintenance bot shortly thereafter and immediately brought to Liren hospitals (as per agreement with AutomatoCo) at which point I was notified of Subject’s potential to become Apparatus 27. With only minor modifications to the original magnetic implant plans she was given a new arm as well as neural tweaking to be able to properly employ its abilities (see “Weapons/Abilities” above).

Subject was much more cooperative post-op than most new Apparatus – she acquiesced to the debtor’s agreement without putting up much resistance, though this may have been influenced by shock and drugged state. Subject is currently still alive and healthy under corporate supervision – in addition I have recently begun weaning her off the drugs in order to fully test the abilities of the implant. As a consequence Subject has been mildly rebellious recently, but no more than is regular for an Apparatus – mostly protests concerning travel restrictions and minor escape incidents with security personnel.

''Eprus set down the file, skin again crawling slightly at the dispassionate tone Liren so easily employed while describing other human beings – though he supposed that none of the Apparatus counted as fully human any longer. He saw the point in keeping things professional, but these were mostly citizens whose lives Liren had technically saved. Still, despite her unenviable position even this girl was a security risk to be kept around – magnetism was a notoriously fickle force, and the possible criminal applications of her cybernetic implant were a death sentence if she ever encountered galactic authorities. Her increasing autonomy mentioned the day before Liren’s death also felt fishy; while Eprus doubted she had done the deed herself she could certainly have been involved in a plot by the more rebellious Apparatus to murder what many of them had seen as their captor. It would not be pleasant to order her termination, but business was business and Eprus had seen far worse done to people far less threatening in his time. His chat with her that afternoon was a curt affair, she simply mentioned wanting to be “left alone to do what I want”. Eprus almost thought the better of his decision, but retreading his rationale earlier in the day he sadly realized he could do nothing but get rid of her.''

''Specially equipped hit men burst into Tria’s “home” within the Lireni complex that night to find the young woman had disappeared. The luxurious prison was completely deserted, but nothing seemed amiss. The television was tuned to the local sports channel, currently showing some inane kickboxing tournament in which all the competitors donned masks and overly complex alter-egos; some form of sugar-loaded drink was spilled all over the couch and had barely begun to dry. Perplexed, they searched the premises for any signs of an escape attempt but turned up nothing. After they reviewed the security tapes Eprus was informed that she had “simply disappeared into thin air sir! Not even an invisibility cloak or conventional teleportation; it’s as if she just ceased to exist in this dimension!” Eprus grinned when he heard of this turn of events, leaving the nervous agent reporting her disappearance terrified of some form of retribution for his failure. Eprus merely slapped him on the back, instructed him to not worry about the girl any longer and dismissed him.''

''Being the head of the largest corporation in the galaxy Eprus had heard of a lot of strange things, but perhaps the most interesting rumor he had come across was that of an interdimensional organization that recruited individuals for various competitions – and the girl’s disappearance certainly resembled their rumored style of recruitment. In any case her sudden absence saved Eprus’ already pained conscience another weight – if his assumptions were true she would at least have a shot at survival. He sat down at his desk and sobered as he returned to the files, recognizing that her possible survival would be the only satisfying thing to come out of this sordid affair.''