How many wageslaves climb the corporate ladder, believing themselves to be a step ahead of the poor sap they just replaced, having passed him by in the lobby carrying a box full of his desk supplies, head sunk low as he feared how he would manage to maintain his lifestyle?
Kenneth and Alera Dempsey were no different than any other of the thousands if not millions of obedient 9-5 monkeys trying to carve themselves a little place in the world. They followed all the rules, chased after all the new shiny toys, and never caused waves at the workplace. Model employees to the last detail.
It was this unquestioning loyalty to company and status quo that made Kenneth Dempsey such a perfect candidate for the position of South Arizona Assistant to the Regional Manner within the Horizon megacorp. And it came at the perfect time, just as little Karl Dempsey was to be born.
As Alera grew increasingly pregnant, she was forced out by Horizon corporate due to her "inability to perform job essentials due to long-term sickness or injury". Kenneth found himself under increasing pressure to work longer hours over more shifts to make ends meet. He quickly found that the promotion came with responsibilities that were beyond his, or even the most skilled managers, abilities. Increasing deadlines and quotas soon drove the Ork father and husband into the understanding embrace of booze and Las Vegas style gambling. To his credit, Kenneth was able to hold his family together for several years before workplace pressure coupled with sin & vice, caused the once proud father to implode and shut down. His mother had worked hard, taking a job as an assembly line drone at a highly toxic toy factory, but the income was not enough to support her and her son, let alone her husbands gambling addiction.
Kenneth began to embezzle funds from Horizon, but not even a week had passed when the discrepancies were noticed by corporate financial security. Under the laws of extraterritoriality, Kenneth's job was terminated. The same day his financial crimes were discovered was the last day Kenneth Dempsey was ever heard from again.
Alera continued to struggle, raising her growing Ork child, but her health was rapidly deteriorating. Young Karl learned at an early age that often times other people had what he wanted, and more often than not, those people didn't properly insulate themselves from people who could take it from them. What began as schoolyard bullying for lunch money evolved into strong-arm robbery to making sure Karl could feed himself and his mother. As a young teen, Karl found himself recruited by a local gang known as the Dead Wing Pegasi, composed mostly of goblinoids. They found that not only was he exceptionally strong and skilled as fighting, but he was tenacious, and damn near impossible to put-down with anything less than overwhelming odds. He earned the nickname "Honeybadger", and became one of the gangs toughest protectors. For years, they pulled off numerous small-time crimes, robbing stores, freight trucks, and homes. Honeybadger developed a fondness for guns, taking great delight in how intimidating they were, without even having to fire them. And they were loud. So very loud.
Honeybadger would meet his match in the detective team of Sam Burke and Maximilian "Twitch" Williams. The detective duo picked up word that Honeybadger and his small crew would be diverting a freight truck full of cigarettes off the interstate to rob it. Imagine their surprise when they pulled up the door of the truck and found an entire police tactical force aiming at them.
The next 6 years were actually very educational for Honeybadger. His time spent at High Desert Maximum Security Detention Facility may have been new to the Ork, but his gangbanger life lessons served him well. His tenacity and toughness only increased as he spent every day building muscle mass. Words of his mother's death reached him from the outside world, and he grieved deeply, but there was nothing he could do about it, and even a moment of weakness inside the prison walls could be his downfall. He kept a stiff upper lip, thought a few pleasant thoughts of her and soldiered on as he always did. He climbed to the top of the prison hierarchy with the assistance of his prison family, the Ork Brotherhood, a group of racial isolationist within the prison system. Honeybadger never became lax, and on the day of his release, he left as a respected authority figure.
Life hit him hard, back on the street. He had a desire to live a clean life, working a legal job, maybe even settling down, but with a criminal SIN over his head, he learned that would be next to impossible. After a few nights without any money to put food in his stomach, a stroke of genius struck him. He knew most of his old gang had been arrested and shipped off to different prisons, or had been absorbed into other gangs, but perhaps they hadn't packed up everything with them.
Searching his gang's old hangout at an abandoned storage facility, he discovered a small duffel bag with a few guns and a credstick with a chunk of cred still on it. If he couldn't go legit, he would just have to fall back on his old habits and hope that with a bit of luck he would avoid the authorities. Honeybadger spent time drifting from one illegal activity to the other, and even acting as stand-in muscle for a few street-level Shadowruns. He thoroughly enjoyed this work, as any sort of irritation he could cause any corporation filled him with a sense of revenge. Not able to fit in comfortably, his stint on any teams were always brief. During one such run, Honeybadger freed a young, lanky teen from the back of a Lone Star patrol vehicle, with the intention of arming him and using him as a distraction to make his escape.
In a serendipitous turn of events, the young Medod Jebowitz turned out to be a decent shot, putting down three armored Lone Star enforcers with a simle hold-out pistol. Thankful and impressed by his skill, Honeybadger allowed the renegade youth to follow him for awhile. Their friendship has been steadfast since then, with Medod being dubbed "Curbstomp"and becomng quite fascinsted with Ork culture, to the point of taking great lengths to mimic their appearence and mannerisms.
Together, the pair formed a dynamic duo able to assist and protect each other while dealing with fellow criminals. Moving from job to job, they made a name for themselves locally, and earned quite a bit of rep and cred.
Their near total downfall came when a particularly slimey Mr.Johnson hired them to protect an assett from an extraction. For corporate reasons far beyond their comprehension, the Johnson hired another Shadowrun team to perform said extraction, all while having a hired Lone Star Elite Enforcer team on stand-by. The result was a bloody massacre between the three groups leaving the target and both Shadowrunner treams massacred. The failure of the mission, the death of a target who happened to be a well-known, well-loved street doc who catered to Shadowrunners in his off time, as well as the loss of so many Runners dealt a huge blow to Honeybadgers reputation. He suddenly found it impossible to get work in the Shadows. For the last year, he's been making rent from strong arm robberies and amateur Urban Brawl matches. A burning hatred fuels Honeybadger, hatred for the corporations that destroyed his family and street cred, and a burning hatred for The Law that took away so many years of his life. Given a second chance at Shadowrunning, Honeybadger harbors a secret hope that this will present ample oppurtunities to deliver blows to the corporate world.
