Code Red is a member of the renegade posthuman team, the Intruders.

Concept, Design and Art: Joao Marques
Background: Joao Marques and Thom Chiaramonte

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Name: Markos Van Zandt
Affiliation: The Intruders

Attributes:

Melee: 20
Reflex: 30
Muscle: 10
Vigor: 30
Acumen: 30
Observation: 10
Will: 40

Life: 90
Influence: 80

Abilities:

Shape-casting: Code Red wields shape-casting abilities, generating hard-light fields of crimson energy, which can be formed into solid objects extending from his core, used offensively or defensively. They can be used as shields, tools and weapons, with moderate range [10 RV] and resistance to damage as described below. Any shape that Code Red imagines can be created with an Action based on it’s relative size and complexity (up to 2x or half the size of his body, Yellow; up to 6x the size of his body, or tiny, visible objects, Orange; massively out of scale objects or forms, or sub-visible shapes, Red. Multiple objects, add -1Cs to Ability Intensity for purposes of Action, for every subsequent object.) Being sustained by Van Zandt’s willpower, a breach through the hard-light shields or objects can cause a serious psychological backlash, leading to disorientation and exhaustion. The resistance of these shapes to a breach is by Ability Intensity [40 IV] but is reduced by -1CS for each object being simultaneously cast. If a shape takes more damage than Code Red’s Ability Intensity, he must make a Will Save. A successful Save allows him to cast another shape at next round; a failure requires a Stun/Shock Save or Van Zandt loses consciousness for 1-10 rounds. The generation of these fields also takes a considerable toll on him, and after prolonged use of his abilities, Van Zandt must rest and recuperate his mental and physical strength, equal to 4 hours of rest per shape cast. His abilities are manifestations of his will, and are affected, in intensity, by his convictions and emotional state. As a result, in extreme circumstances, he may increase his Ability Intensity +1CS for every -1CS of Vigor. Therefore, while he may generate much larger or stronger fields in extreme emotional states, his physical endurance weakens, making him more susceptible to shock and physical damage.

Body Armor: Code Red wears a micro-weave armored skinsuit, providing resistance from physical and energy attacks [20 AP]. His own enhanced physiology provides negligible resistance to injury.

Origin:

Markos Van Zandt was nineteen years old when the rumors of a bio-engineering human experimentation program made their way to the University Maastricht campus, where he had been struggling with his decision to study psychology. His intention had always been to work for the public good, imagining his future role to be a police or social psychologist, assisting youth with mental health or drug issues who had been lost in the system. However, the University was young, and he had questioned his decision from the start. The rumors suggested that the posthuman program was being conducted as part of an EU organized initiative to develop enhanced nation-heroes in the American model, which had taken the world’s attention by storm. A capable athlete and driven personality, Van Zandt jumped at the chance to be a part of such a program, and after making inquiries locally, traveled to Amsterdam in order to seek out the temporary labor staffing company rumored to be conducting interviews for the project. One month later, he would be accepted into the Northern European Achievement Initiative, and begin the secretive process in a non-descript laboratory in the Svalbard archipelago of northern Norway.

Unfortunately, the reality of the program differed significantly from Van Zandt’s expectations. As he would discover, the enhanced posthuman abilities were very real, but the construct of the nation-hero was something else. As he underwent weeks of conditioning and psychological training, he grew more and more apprehensive about the fact that he, and other graduates of the NEAI, would be called upon to provide promotional and propaganda performances, simulating rescues and participating in the fabricated world of uniformed posthuman adventure which the Americans had cleverly constructed. His resistance to his expected role concerned his handlers, who insisted internally that his psychological profile had suggested his willingness to cooperate with the program, based upon his desire to be a role-model. However, it was decided that perhaps his resistance made him a better candidate for one of the Initiative’s Confrontation Teams, the posthumans trained and instructed to generate a more immediate, personal conflict for the nation-heroes to thwart, in the interest of public attention and interest.

Training to masquerade as a criminal was the last thing that Van Zandt wanted, but he began to realize that the entire fabricated system of the nation-hero concept had soured on him. He realized that he could do very little personal good as a puppet of the propaganda teams that organized the program and planned to sell it to member nations of the EU. So Van Zandt took advantage of a field training exercise, and, along with two others, fled the program. Unfortunately, the gas main explosion they planned to use as a distraction to cover their escape led to unforseen ramifications: one of his party, a Jamaican hand-to-hand combatant and gymnast, was mutilated in the explosion and received severe burns in the fire. Van Zandt sent his other fugitive ahead, and risked capture by carrying the Jamaican, who’s name he never knew, to an understaffed local clinic, before making his escape. Meeting up again with Amparo Garcia, the young Cuban woman who had been recruited to the Initiative after losing her way with narcotics in Amsterdam as a student, they fled the islands and made their way into Germany, where they went to ground.

It was only a matter of days before local police were passing out photographs of Van Zandt and Amparo, identifying them as the terrorists who had caused the Statoil Nowergian pipeline disaster, which had destroyed fifteen kilometers of infrastructure and the deaths of thirty-five civilians. A photo was circulated, a blurry image of Amparo, in a digitally-added uniform, generating the incindiary cloud that would be the source of the explosion. She was identified as Temper, an eco-terrorist, and Van Zandt, not pictured, as Red Claw. Both were wanted by Interpol, for murder.

SHocked at how fast the Initiative’s propaganda agents had spun their escape into a public sensation, shocked at their being framed as terrorists, and fearful of capture, Van Zandt and Amparo fled the country by train, posing as vacationing teenagers, and disappeared from the grid, frustrating the authorities. They had, unwittingly, become the Initiative’s first Confrontation Team, but the stakes had become very real.

Over the years following the incident in Svalbard, Van Zandt, as Code Red, and Amparo, as Baby Boom, would continue to attract other posthumans who slipped through the cracks of the nation-hero system, wither as escapees like them, or with unexplained abilities of uncertain origin. Unified by their isolation as fugitives, and driven by their shared desire to perform good works using their abilities and experiences, as all nation-hero uniformed posthumans were believed to do, they began to perform public rescues and thwart hostile actions across Europe, as the Intruders, further complicating the Initiative’s smear campaign and Interpol’s attempt to track them as wanted terrorists themselves. The more they appeared in public, saving lives and stopping criminal acts, the more the public began to question their status as criminals themselves. This would eventually lead to a clandestine meet between Van Zandt and a representative from the Initiative, in which it was agreed that the Intruders would be left alone, cleared of charges through official channels, using the Initiative’s considerable media contacts, in exchange for their silence regarding the fabricated nation-hero program.

This arrangement would allow the Intruders to stay out of the public eye for years, until their fateful altercation with the Liberty Group.

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The illustration can be found herein the TRDL Universe Gallery

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