The Fixer (Vaillencourt)

There's a stranger in town, and he just wants to be left alone. But Dockside doesn't like strangers, and the dirty old town never leaves anyone alone. Not emotionally scarred top-secret ex-army cyborgs, and certainly not good cops with bad habits. Join New Boston's most famous fixer for his first week in the most dangerous part of town. All he wanted was a quiet place to hide, but now he has to team up with the last good cop in Dockside if they expect to stop a gang war and protect the hard-working folks just trying to make an honest living.

Roland Tankowicz wasn't even legally a person anymore. The aging cyborg had never really recovered from being betrayed and enslaved by his superiors in the Army, and the final insult of being permanently classified as "defunct military ordnance" had been a bitter pill to swallow. Now, he spent most of his time drinking beer and working as a fixer for the crime families in 25th-century Boston. It was easy money if you were the kind of guy who was bullet-proof and could pick up a house.

Dockside is burning, and it's up to everybody's least favorite Army-surplus cyborg to fix it. It starts when somebody takes a hit out on The Chairman, and quickly spirals into a mystery that takes Roland and his hyper-kinetic partner Lucia far from New Boston and into the depths of unregulated star systems. To save his home, Roland will need to figure out who would risk upsetting the delicate truce in Dockside before the peace crumbles and the streets run red with blood.

Roland Tankowicz is fed up. He's really trying to be a better person. Killing fewer people, talking out his issues more, and not immediately resorting to violence whenever a problem arises. But let's face it, when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It's not like he has any shortage of nails kicking around, either. The list of people willing to pay hard creds for his head is even longer than usual.

Roland Tankowicz hates Venus. The last time he went there, he died. So, no one could really blame him if he never went back. Nevertheless, when a squad of assassins ruins date night, everybody's least-favorite Army-surplus cyborg decides to take a trip to Earth's sister planet and have a sit-down with an infamous group of terrorists. Perhaps it's because he really likes date night. Maybe he just wants to keep the promise he made to a troubled young man. It is even conceivable that he might still have a heap of unresolved issues with the separatists who blew his body apart years ago.

A killer stalks the streets of Dockside, and he has a bone to pick with Roland Tankowicz. Old friends, former clients, and even rivals find themselves in the sights of a murderer who loves his work a little too much and seems custom-built to take on New Boston’s most famous Army-surplus cyborg. Roland and his team will have to play detective to piece together the identity of this strange assassin before all his associates end up face down in the street.

It takes a brave soul to mess with Dockside. Roland Tankowicz has made a career out of teaching this lesson, and the galaxy is starting to notice. Yet despite filling entire graveyards with corporate raiders, pirates, criminal organizations, and the occasional marauding cybernetic psychopath, somebody out there still thinks the lucrative district is worth harassing.

Roland Tankowicz is not a complex man. After securing victory over The Brokerage, all he wants is to get back to work maintaining the balance of power in Dockside. He’s perfectly happy with an honest day’s work of busting heads followed by a quick jaunt over to his favorite bar for a beer. Too bad the universe has other plans.

Racing back home after the encounter with the Prospectors, Roland and his team find themselves pulled off-course when an old foe resurfaces to thwart their plan for a clean getaway. Things get worse when the chase leads them to Gethsemane. Dominated by a powerful religious order that is long on profit and short on salvation, the green and wealthy planet proves to be treacherous ground for those who don’t fit in.

Clandestine corporate operations have weakened the treaties between Dockside’s gangs just in time for a disaster at the docks to shut down Earth’s mightiest marketplace. On the verge of economic catastrophe, Gateways Inc. lands an army of corporate troops to seize control. Criminals and corpos make for a tense pairing, and it’s only a matter of time before something breaks and the shooting starts.

The drug and booze-filled streets of New Boston’s spaceport district are no place for the uninitiated. Take a walk down these dirty thoroughfares and slip into their darkened alleys with eight new stories centering on what goes on when the most famous fixer in space is not there to hold things down.