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David Roarke was a former Navy SEAL turned mercenary who joined Col. Leland Shaw's Hawk Team, working for dataDyne.
Biography[]
Six months after operation Initial Vector (where the Hawks attempted to extract Thaddeus K. Rose from Hovoro) the Hawks attacked the Los Angeles office of Carrington Institute, aiming for the quantum core at sublevel line. They apprehended programmer Jackson Abbot, however Joanna Dark (who was actually stalking Abbot) eliminated all the first strike team to save his life.
Roarke was on another troop carrier dropship soon arrived for reinforcements and to complete the job. They saw the woman exiting the building and climbing a wire up to the ship, planting a shaped charge on it. As she dropped down the Hawks fired at her, but the carrier exploded and crashed. Roarke was the only survivor, who stood up furious and left. Even though the Institute erased all footage from the public networks, an individual managed to take a video of the strike, and Roarke.
Intrusion[]
Dark ended up in the Institute's hospital wing. Roarke, having access to the building and the security codes, entered alone. Armed with a Falcon 2, he entered her room, and was ready to shoot at her, but she was not sleeping. Initially think it was Dr. Hwang, she felt his "week's worth of" body odor and cheap deodorant, dodged in time and threw a tray to his hand, disarming him. Giving him a punch she realized he was too tough. She shot at the alarms, and held him at gunpoint, but he fled fast (still holding a knife) as she shot.
He slit a security man's throat, took his gun, and ran to sublevel 9 through the emergency stairs, bleeding on the way. Joanna followed his blood trails, and managed to dodge as Roarke shot at her in the stairwell. Expecting that the woman might have been unconscious from blood loss, he broke a security panel, owing to his military training, and broke into Sublevel 9. There he neutralized Abbot and, using Alpha-priority access, he turned off cameras, security alarms and door lock overrides; he also used the fire-suppression system to seal off all security response on level 7. He downloaded 70% of the data into his neurodrive before Dark showed up. He acted nonchallant and smiling, and, dropping he gun, he said that they were both doing their jobs, and she shouldn't hold a grudge about that. Instead of moving away form the terminal, as ordered, he pressed a button and turned everything dark, and succesfully dodged all Joanna's shots, hitting her, before running away.
Through corridor 7-B he headed for northwest stairwell 11-S and the parking garage at the NW tower. While Joanna followed and was looking for him, he attempted to knife her from behind, but she turned on time thanks to her smell. Aiming at him, she ordered him to drop the knife, but he threw it at her Falcon, and hurled himself to hit her. Until she could regroup and shoot at him, he hid behind a wall, then broke into a car. Joanna, looking at the blood smears, was looking at the wrong car, and attempted to take him before he wold manage to get the engine started, when she saw another car coming against her, then driving away as she shot against it.
Dark attempted to steal a bike to run after the car, but she was stopped by Miranda Sturgis and her security team. Later she gave his description to Jonathan Steinberg in order to identify him. Thanks to Det. Max Conroy she saw a footage of him surviving the dropship crash, and soon after Steinberg identified him for her. In reality, Conroy had been tasked by Roarke to deliver Dark to him.
Industrial City[]
That night, while Dark was after Roarke's traces, she crossed paths with Conroy once more, and they found a lead to Imperial Warehousing Facility. Having gained Dark's trust, Conroy caleld Roarke saying he was ready to deliver her, and was expecting his money. Roarke was waiting for them, and turned on the lights while standing at a catwalk above them, pretending he didn't expect her, and refused to surrender. From his eyes, speech and twitching hands, Dark guessed he had taken combat stims. Four street brawlers showed up and attacked her, but Joanna dodged their hits and used their own weapons against them. Having thrown down the last one, then Conroy cocked his gun and pointed at her head. Harshly he demanded his money, making Roarke to protest that he was not a cheap informant or fence.
Not willing to pay Conroy, Roarke pressed a button and activated four Junebugs, still stored in their crate. It turned out that they were assigned to LAPD and Conroy overrode their systems thanks to his badge with an IFF transponder. Conroy repeated his demands, threatening to bring a SWAT team against him, but Roarke shot at him before the old cop could react, knowing that his death would invalidate the transponder. Using Conroy's gun, Dark started shooting at him while attempting to pull Conroy outside the warehouse. The shooting caused Roarke to fall from the catwalk and crash onto some crates. While Joanna was busy with the mechas, Roarke escaped.
Seattle[]
Roarke broke into the dataDyne Spire, neutralized the security and took the elevator keys. Its Observation Deck was the meeting place he arranged with Miranda Sturgis (working for Core-Mantis OmniGlobal), to be extracted or to to pay him off for his attempt to kill Dark. However Dark intercepted Sturgis and followed Roarke's traces there.
Roarke saw and shot her first. Joanna shot at the ceiling causing some glasses to fall above Roarke in order to distract him. They exchanged a few shots and then locked against each other into a brawl. Joanna intended to keep Roarke alive in order to find out some answers, but seeing he would not let her go alive, she changed her policy. The fireshots broke the glasses, and the fight brought them to the wet balcony outside. With the bullets depleted, Roarke drew his knife, and Joanna used her empty gun as a club.
Roarke was rested and on stims, while Joanna had to deal with her fatigue, previous injuries and pain. Roarke took the upper hand, hit her repeatedly and was about to throw her over the ledge, when Jonathan Steinberg arrived with two dropships from Carrington Institute. Meanwhile Abbot told to Joanna the codeword to release activate Roarke's neurodrive data: Xerxes. Roarke fell into a seizure, speaking the data.
Joanna was extracted and Roarke was taken to the local CI facility.