Mayor Jimmy Spears
Mayor James Spears Spears (a.k.a. Jimmy)
Written by: Null Kitt
I remember reading a report on 'enhanced interrogation' techniques from pre-awakening militaries, and getting confused at the stated idea that you could drive a prisoner into confessing every secret by playing the themetune to a kid's television-show on repeat for days on end. That confusion ended just this week when Mayor James 'Jimmy' Micheal Spears started up his new reelection campaign. But enough of my personal tortures. Mayor Spears has been running the city of Raleigh since october 2076, billing himself as an 'administrative' president intending to focus on assurance of quality and transparency in existing policies over rocking the proverbial boat with huge and exciting plans, and to date he's stuck to that with four years of humdrum but practical leadership balancing the contentment of the people with the interests of the private sector. He's also a former CAS armed-forces corporal who killed six people with a missing leg, but that's for later. Spears earns some of his distinction from his peers by virtue of his pragmatism extending into defending his interests by way of involving himself in morally and legally questionable company. Criminal activity in politics is certainly nothing new, but Spears has been going the extra mile bycorresponding with a trusted middlemen in his employ to procure and hire expendable assets - shadowrunners - to deal with situations where public confrontation might not be within the best interest of Raleigh's government. If anecdotes are to be believed, such employment oppportunities never outright advertise their connection with Mayor Spears, but his hiring proxy rarely hides the fact that a member of Raleigh's governing body has a vested interest in these jobs being done, nor do they hide their intent to silence any shadowrunner who proves themselves to be a liability. To those who suspect they are working on behalf of Mayor Spears, take heed: beyond the Kitschy ad-campaigns and mundane policies lies a dangerously competant mind honed by years of paramilitary service and cutthroat politics.Y'know it never occurred to me to ask, but what exactly are Jimmy's politics? His ads and speeches talk a lot but don't say anything, if you catch my drift.
Publically? He's a populist like most other politicians of his scale, changes his views to whatever the cultural Zeitgeist tells him to. Keeps the status quo, keeps the corps lazily content, and most importantly he keeps the people from realising what kind of hellscape they're living in and burning down half of North Carolina. Privately, analysts him as being into classical liberalism, but that's conjecture for another place.
The biggest common-ground between his personal and public attitudes are in regards to gun ownership: Dude's always been a gun-nut, and makes a big deal about Raleigh being a 'sanctuary city for the 2nd ammendment'. Does the CAS even have a 2nd ammendment?
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Under most circumstances I'd simply skip over this section owing to the lengths needed to prize relevant data from medical-providers with a vested interest in the privacy of their meal-ticket. However, an anonymous benefactor has contributed paydata to this article containing snippets of Sgt. Spears' final medical checkup before his discharge, which shall be attached to the data-node containing this article. If this report is legitimate, then it may offer an alternative explanation to Spears' discharge:
"Sgt. James Spears by all physical tests appears as healthy as a man can be, considering his position, and shows no sign of maladaption towards his new prosthesis. Even so however, I stand by my decision to have an Awakened medical expert (Dr. FranzJosef Vogt) to examine the thaumaturgic condition of Sgt. Spears' body. After all, the man has already been implanted with numerous invasive (albeit-high-grade) cyberware systems, I still find myself unable to be convinced that his body, mind and possbily even his soul can cope. [...] In spite of Dr. Vogts results, of which I have no personal or professional ground to question, I stand by my decision to seek a medical discharge for Sgt. Spears, on the grounds that his biosystem is unlikely to be able to handle further intrusive augmentations before it simply collapses under the cumulative stress." - Excerpt from record, authored by Dr. Jami Balaguer
Mental characteristics
Personal history
James Spears was born in northern Raleigh to elf parents Joseph and Karen Spears in an uppper-middle class enviroment of learning and talmudic tradition, largely spared from the anti-metahuman bigotry of that time by virtue of a gated community. In spite of his parents' nurturing upbringing, Spears' academics were underwhelming and rife with incidents of antagonizing and fighting classmates, damaging his general employment prospects but bringing him to the attention of the CAS's Bureau of Defense, who if nothing else adore the potential of an angry young student.
If his old classmates are anything to go by, Jimmy's tendancy to pick fights was in part motivated by metahuman stereotypes of the time regarding Elves' alleged inability to take a punch. Jimmy wanted to prove it wrong and show how well the other kids could take punches while he was at it...Spears was recruited into the CAS' Marine Expeditionary Forces, where he spent two tours of duty in some of the CAS's most bloody conflict-zones and was noted for his his ability to stay calm in battle and his overall military, earning him the Marine Corps Commendation Medal and a recommendation for Marine reconnaissance training, where he would commit to another eight years of active duty. Tragically, only two of those eight years would come to fruition in the aftermath of an ill-fated joint-operation with Ares forces to apprehend the blood-mage cult calling themselves the Sisterhood of Rust. An improvised explosive was detonated as Sgt. Spears entered the rear of the cult-compount's main building, levelling a quarter of the building and killing the entry-team, save for Spears himself whose mangled leg was pinned beneath rubble. In spite of the greivous injury, Spears forgoed waiting for a casevac and crawled further into the building, eliminating four cultists with his rifle and killing a further two with his sidearm before succumbing to blood-loss.
What they don't like to point out in the propaganda is that Spears' leg was initially salvageable at first, but the strain of being dragged around and glanced by blood-magic dashed any chances of saving it.In spite of a quick recovery and taking easilty to a cybernetic replacement for his lost leg, the brass saw fit to give Spears an honorable discharge, which Sgt. Spears accepted without so much as a complaint. No official reason was given for this, but the most popular conspiracy-theory is that Spears' injuries from engaging the Sisterhood of Rust extended into the astral, not just physical and mental.
There's no concrete proof, but hearsay by the magically inclined claim there's something a tad 'off' with Jimmy's aura. Nothing world-ending like posession or the such, but it does lend credence to Jimmy getting tainted from exposure to something as fucked-up as blood magic...
I mean, I don't know shit about magic, but wouldn't being a soldier with a bodycount cause some kind of aura-fuckery on its own?After a scant six months sabbatical, Spears made his parents' day when he announced a desire to enter politics, putting his modest pension into a shiny new suit and starting the long climb to the top with a devoted voterbase of fellow veterans and admirers of his military service. Spears never pushed his luck trying to pioneer legitimate reform in Raleigh's political system, but his independance from major parties and the lack of any leverage to be had over him earned him enemies on all sides, who were open in their intent to keep Spears in line and working for their interests alone. Spears, not one to let himself be defeated by "chinless beurocrats", made a public but ineffectual retaliation of turning the other cheek but privately began plotting to make sure they wouldn't trouble him again. Over the years, Spears clawed his way up from fringe-interest representation to attaining a chair in the city council, and finally, following the october 8th elections, he was sworn into office as Mayor of Raleigh, North Carolina. Throughout this career, Spears set himself confident but outwardly humdrum goals of ensuring the continuation of Raleigh's relative peace and wellbeing by any means necesarry, achieving this on the surface with simple but effective administrative policies and in the shadows with the strategic rearrangement and deletion of life. This culminated in 2076, when Spears entered the mayoral election as an independant candidate, against current presiding mayor Deborah Montoya and the popular candidate of the opposition-party, Fidel Little-Sandoval. It's in our knowledge that shadowrunners were indeed hired through Spears' proxies, however the link between the consequences of these runs and Raleigh's political scene, let-alone the mayoral election, is cryptic at best. But whatever they were, they apparently had enough of an impact on the election that Spears managed to win the election by a mere two-thousand votes, despite matrix discussions regarding the man focussing almost entirely on his unsettlingly bright and chirpy election-campaign.
See, that one's simple in hindsight. Jimmy wanted to make himself look like a bumbling socialite instead of the sharp ex-marine he was, to keep suspicion away from him should any of his more fucked-up activities come to light..Since then, Mayor Spears has been putting his lofty position to use consolidating power towards himself and his council and focussing on repairing Raleigh's still-suspicious attitude towards its city's politicians. To what ends, we'll hopefully find out soon.
Education
Highschool graduation, CAS Marine Expeditionary Forces academy, Marine-Reconnaissance training and a night-school diploma in politics.
Employment
Formerly a Sergeant of the CASMEF, currently holding the office of Raleigh's mayor.
Alignment
True Neutral
Current Location
Honorary & Occupational Titles
Mayor of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Year of Birth
2036
44 Years old
Birthplace
Raleigh, NC
Children
Pronouns
He/Him
Eyes
Green, Prosthetic
Hair
Grey, Mulleted
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Tanned
Height
6'4''
Weight
185 lbs.
Ruled Locations
Comments