INHUMAN Case File 02: The Delivery War

Series starts here. Continues here.

A great conflict rages on Mars, surging through the crowded streets and snaking tunnels of Colony Alpha. It is a war over something so precious that it affects all aspects of life in all eras of human history: food.

These are the Delivery Wars where gangs of battle-hardened skaters and scooter drivers make all-out moderately paced warfare upon each other in the names of their parent companies. These drivers came about as a necessity. Travel through Colony Alpha is difficult and dangerous. Most people hardly leave a mile radius of their homes in the Undercity and must make close-knit communities to survive but few of these communities can be self-sufficient due to the realities of living underground on a wasteland planet. Food is one of the genuinely hard to produce things in such conditions. Making sure hungry people get a good meal is a noble task, but things got dirty quick. Undercity communities have limited income. They spend it very conservatively. If an order never arrives or if the food isn't good, then entire areas can get turned off a restaurant.

The drivers themselves, by necessity, come from the Undercity because they know the lay of the land. They bring their legacy of desperation with them, scrounging for tips. Other companies threaten their livelihoods. It was only a matter of time before turf wars began.

By HR-FM

Happy Demon

Originally a Japanese chain restaurant that took advantage of easy to make ramen and other quick dishes to spread all over Earth. Their Martian franchise owner is Frank Schultz, a disgraced children's mixed martial arts instructor whose only real knowledge of anything approaching Japanese culture was anime and bad Kung Fu movies. (I know Kung Fu isn't Japanese but tell Frank that.) He likes to go by Sensei Schultz and will not hire anyone that snickers at him for the patent absurdity of it.

When the time came to arm his delivery boys and girls, he stuck with what he knew, determined to make his Delivery Ninjas into real ninjas. Power Katanas, explosive throwing stars, smoke bombs, you name something that wreaks of 90s nostalgia, then he has it. Legends say he has an actual laser katana that he keeps on his greasy, kimono-wearing body at all times. 

The thing is, his Ninjas took the best of his teachings (what little there was) threw in their own martial heritages and came up with a style of street fighting that worked. Delivery Ninjas will zip through tunnels on auto-blades, proudly covered in the scarlet, smiling devil logo of their company wielding their cultural appropriated weaponry along with rapid-fire magna pistols. Their cargo strapped to their backs or guarding a powered rickshaw. 

Early Bird

The greasiest of the greasy. This is that one chicken place from Invader Zim on wheels. Chicken suit, wearing freaks with nothing to lose, scooter along carrying their precious cargo of fried "meat." Of course, those chicken suits conceal layers of full body armor. These are the tanks of the Delivery Wars, carrying scatterguns and grav hammers.

The Martian franchise is owned by Dr. Isabella Cockerin, a genetic experimenter ejected from her University on Earth for trying to make chicken reproduce asexually. The loss of life from people being crushed to death by uncontrollably reproducing swarms of poultry was enormous.

Now she grows "meat" in vats and some say, the chicken costumes are there to disguise the fact that she also grows her delivery boys in vats. Drivers from other companies jokingly call her Mother Hen. What isn't widely known is that her drivers call her that too. 

Feathers have been found around the undercity that match the DNA profile of no known species of earth bird.

Pizza Dump

He who controls the 'Za controls the universe. The 'Za must flow.

Pizza Dump franchise owner, Cassius Kurd, is rumored to have been the assassin trainer for the King of Ohio during the Big Gulp Wars of 2159. He could condition a man to believe an entirely new life story and bury five layers of expert training beneath. 37 God-Governors of New York were assassinated before anyone even knew what was happening. A person could go on holiday for a single day and return, unknowingly programmed for murder.

Once the wars ended, the New American Federation formed, and the war crime trials began, Cassius Kurd showed up on a Martian Space Dock. Mr. Kurd has something of a god complex and his methods back this up. His drivers are conditioned with expert training and indoctrinated with Cassius' religious rhetoric. One day Cheesy Steve, the great rat-god of all pizza, will return and on that day the streets of Colony Alpha will run red with sauce. His Dump Commandos wage their flavor jihad from their bladed skateboards, one hand holding the precious 'Za, the other wielding poison-tipped dart guns. Cassius even managed to bring some personal cloaking devices with him and so his greatest agents can only be sensed by the sound of rolling wheels on pavement.

No one dares snub them their tips.

Besides these companies warring with each other, they often find themselves at odds with the Red Sons who drive away their business. They will often cut down Oni Corp agents so they will not tempt people to leave the Undercity for their corporate ghettos. Mars Force has a hard time dealing with these wars as few are caught int he crossfire and the delivery people know the Undercity so much better than the Force can ever hope to, so the resources needed to stop the war are never allocated. All delivery drivers hate the Transhumanist Gamesters. Most delivery people come from poverty, living in the Undercity. They despise the Gamesters, coming from their rich families to prey on those living below. Delivery drivers will unite to deal with Gamesters when they show up.