Vitomir Krol

Bertek Krol - Brother - Deceased

## Background

Born in Wellsprings, Heywood, the decidedly 'middle-class' district of Night City, to Henryk Krol and Ameila Graham. To that end, Vito's early childhood and late teenagers were somewhat safe and rather happy compared to his later years.

### Parents

Henryk was a player for the Night City Corsairs, dubbed one of the most underrated players of his time, due in no small part to his refusal of corpo-sponsored merchandising deals. A notoriously private man, Henryk preferred to keep out of the media spotlight, which helped to keep his personal life free of influences he rather have avoided taking home, but also prevented him from achieving the same level of wealth and fame as some of his teammates.

Amelia was a Biotechnica-affiliated biochemist who spent most of her days slaving away in a lab somewhere, trying to achieve the next big breakthrough in agricultural technology.

### Childhood

From an early age, Vitomir demonstrated a great interest in intellectual theories, philosophical principles, and thought experiments, enjoying games of "What If" with anybody willing to indulge him, and often spending a considerable amount of time creating and exploring complex scenarios inside his head. Critical thinking skills and rationalized hypothesizing seemed to come naturally to him, allowing him to explore and consider the world around him from viewpoints and in layers that most other children would have struggled or outright failed to comprehend. When he wasn't thinking or philosophizing, he was usually reading and could spend hours getting lost in the written word. Eventually, he took up journaling to help organize his thoughts by the time he was in his very early teens, and it's a hobby of his that continues to this day.

Also, it happens to be a very useful habit for people in his current line of work.

At first, his father had other ideas. Like many fathers, both the good ones and bad ones, Henryk had hoped to have a successor to his legacy in his eldest son, through which his litany of athletic accomplishments would endure. For a time, he pressured Vitomir to start playing sports, particularly football. Alas, though Vitomir certainly had the physical potential to live up to the example set by his father, he lacked interest in the sport, and much preferred to spend his time in the theatre of the mind.

Not to be deterred, Henryk set his sights on his second son, born two years after Vito, and this time he was rewarded. Bertek was not only equal to his older brother in terms of capability, but also taller, somatically stronger (though not quite as mentally sharp), and passionate about the game. Likewise, he was far more eager to make their father proud.

Though they certainly never meant to play favourites, perhaps that was why each of their parents tended to spend more time with one of their sons and less with the other. For Bartek, it goes without saying that he was nearly always with their father, training to become the next great virtuoso of American Football in Night City. Meanwhile, Vitomir's preferences for the abstract and conjectural meant that his mother, ever the scientist, tended to gravitate towards him.

### Teenage Years

In High School, which these days is almost a privilege given how rarely some families can afford the tuition fees, Vito's and Bert's paths further separated. Bertek became Mr. Popular, easily the most well-liked guy in school, Captain of the Football Team, always surrounded by similarly 'cool' kids, and for all intents and purposes, seemingly on top of the world. Vitomir, as always, was a bit more complicated. He was undoubtedly one of the most assiduous students in his entire school, and at the same time, one of its greatest troublemakers. Indeed, it was at this point that his propensity towards defiance began to rear it's perhaps not ugly but also not entirely pleasant head. Soon, he had a well-established track record for misconduct, the first and foremost type of which was his antagonistic behavior towards nearly all figures of authority who weren't his parents, naturally making an enemy out of several of his teachers. For the record, he was only muttering corrections to their lessons and questioning their qualifications to teach half the time. It wasn't his fault they barely knew what they were even talking about and insisted on giving absurd assignments which in no way helped to enrich their learning.

Furthermore, Vitomir soon began getting into fights with his peers, and though even the most cursory of an investigation would have made it clear that he'd been standing up to the local bullies on behalf of other students, the faculty were keen to make him into the bad guy, and so he often took the rap for it while the real offenders got off scot-free. Suffice it to say, since becoming a cop, Vitomir's found that's one of the reoccurring themes of life in Night City, and it plays out far more often than one may think.

### Tragedy

At eighteen, Vitomir's relatively quiet life changed forevermore. One morning, Vitomir awoke to the news that there had been an incident at Biotechnica's Office late that previous night. Someone had broken in, stolen some of their research, and murdered multiple employees, his mother chief amongst them. To this day, Vitomir still doesn't know precisely who killed his mother and her coworkers, what she was working on that would have warranted her death, and how much of it was taken from their lab. In a manner typical for them, the Corpos kept it under wraps, refusing to explain things to anyone outside their circle, least of all the general public, and that included the families of the deceased.

He and his father tried to get some answers, but the police were not exactly forthcoming, and Biotechnica was even less helpful. No matter how many times he asked for a progress update, all the authorities would tell him was that they were 'working on it', and that they would get back to him with answers soon.

They never did.

Eventually, the case went cold, and whatever happened to the killer or killers who broke into the lab that day, as well as what they took from it, remains unsolved.

But that was not the only tragedy to befall the Krol family that crisp and windy morning.

That previous night, wishing to celebrate the end of another school year, Bartek and his large posse of chooms went out for a night out of town. Eventually, they found themselves in a local shopping center, one of their favored local hangouts. At the very same time and in the same place, a woman with way too much chrome hit her breaking point, went full-on cyberpsycho, and embarked on an unprovoked killing spree, targeting everyone in the local vicinity. Regrettably, Bartek and company were some of the first people she ran into right after snapping.

Eventually, MaxTac was called, and the situation was resolved, but by then, it was already too late.

Bartek's father had initially not been too worried when his younger son didn't come home. It wasn't unusual for Bartek to stay out late when he was with his pals, so Henryk assumed he'd be back by sunrise. It was the same with his wife, who often worked nights and arguably lived almost as much at the lab as she did with him.

The NCPD didn't notify him or Vito until morning of what had become of Bartek, partially because they were working overtime trying to identify all the bodies, and partially because not all of the bodies were left in an easily identifiable state, or even one piece. Likewise, Biotechnica waited a couple of hours before notifying the authorities of what had occurred on site, ensuring that news of Mrs. Krol's death did not reach her husband or elder son until around the same time they were being told about Bartek.

Losing half his family in such a sudden and brutal fashion destroyed Henryk Krol. He retired from sports and soon took to the bottle, which even now remains his most frequent companion. Sure, in the beginning, he tried to find out what happened to his wife, like his older son. Unlike Vito however, he eventually dropped it soon after the police did, and instead turned his attention towards wallowing in drunken self-pity.

Meanwhile, Vitomir underwent a drastic change almost right away. He spent days thinking and thinking with increasing frustration about the mystery of his mother's death and the inability of anyone to solve it, soon developing an obsession with discovering the truth. If the detectives assigned to the case couldn't crack it, then he figured he might as well take a shot at it himself and see if he had better luck. Some years later, after training, this tendency soon began to extend towards even the cases which weren't related to him, which may well explain the workaholic tendencies he's developed since he first picked up the badge and gun.

Then, there was the matter of Bartek's death, which was so graphic there are no words in any language even capable of describing it. The first time they saw the body, his father nearly vomited and Vito himself could barely recognize this slab of meat as somebody he used to know. Few if any families deserved to go through what his did that day, Vitomir thought, and so he swore to himself then that if there was a way by which he could help others avoid the fate dealt to him and his, he would take it. Failing that, he would exact justice upon those responsible, hoping that perhaps in doing so, the victims might find the closure that Vitomir himself never did.

Having assigned himself these missions, not even a month has passed before he'd found his way into the Police Academy.

### Time at the Police Academy

There, Vitomir continued his usual academic trends; vexing his instructors even as he utterly aced very assignment given to him. Shooting, hand-to-hand combat, riot tactics, driving, swimming, basic first-aid, interrogation techniques, and investigative methods, he learned it all and so much more besides. Moreover, this time of change was not merely external but internal for Vitomir. Unlike the public-school teachers, these trainers were not afraid to reward blatant insubordination with corporeal punishment, and so he had to grow clever with his rebelliousness, by which he learned to rub them the wrong way but rarely gave them a reason to justifiably punish him. And even when they were reasonably able to, he soon adapted to that as well. Some of them went so far as to give him nearly impossible tasks, hoping that when he failed, they would have an excuse to label him a washout and eject him from the Academy. Thanks to Vitomir's inborn sense of creativity and resourcefulness however, they came up at every turn.

Ultimately, Vitomir graduated nearly at the top of his class, his academic standing tarnished only by his record of chronic disobedience. The day his name was called out amongst those who'd made the cut even as he watched his former teachers grow purple-faced with anger was one of the happiest he'd had since his mother and brother died.

### Time on the Streets

Soon after, Vitomir became a Beat Cop, the lowest on the police totem pole, and so the truth of Night City's harsh reality, which he'd once only gotten a mere taste of, became his life. They didn't tell him this in the academy, but Vitomir figured out quicker than his fellow new recruits that once they strapped on their iron, their body armor, and stepped out the door, they were virtually on their own unless the situation really got out of hand. Perhaps that was one of the reasons he survived whereas many of them ended painting the pavement with their brains sooner or later.

Here in the Patrol Division, Vitomir spent the better part of half a decade sharpening his skills, learning what parts of his training were actually useful and which parts were bogus, likewise augmented his skills with the kind of tactical know-how that could only be gained from experience. During this time, Vitomir saw more blood and gore than he ever had in all of his previous years combined. Gang threats, corporate shootouts, riots, lunatics of the non-cybernetically augmented kind, the typical problems of the average disgruntled citizenry, and so much more. Vitomir Krol was a first responder to nearly every kind of illegal situation one could possibly imagine, and by the time he was twenty-three, he'd put so many bodies in the ground that he'd nearly lost count of the exact number. Nearly every day began and ended with a firefight, and the days where he saw even one less than twelve bodies, he considered the 'quiet' ones.

He's had only one or two quiet days in the entirety of his career, both before and after his time walking the beat.

His big break came when he was about twenty-five. He and his partner at the time were called to take care of a 'domestic disturbance' unfolding at an apartment complex in Vista Del Rey. Normally, the police don't usually respond unless someone involved is important, dead, missing, or at the very least on the verge of expiring. Even so, this was not the first or even fifth time that they'd been tipped off about this residence, and whoever kept reporting it must have gotten in pretty good with dispatch, or perhaps agitated them so greatly that just doing what they wanted seemed like the best way to shut them up. Either way, the call went out, and Vito as well as his partner happened to be in the vicinity at the time.

Expecting the issue to just be some young punk who'd turned his music up too loud, or maybe an abusive husband and his battered wife, Vito and his partner took the elevator up, thinking this would be a quick and easy pitstop. They could not have been more wrong.

When they knocked on the door and announced themselves, they didn't get an immediate response. His partner commented that maybe they weren't home, but Vito doubted that very much - his gut told him something was up. Three or four tries later, a guy came to the door, opening it only enough to stick his head out, and Vito's suspicions were confirmed, at least in his mind. This fellow fluctuated between being too anxious and being inappropriately aggressive, clearly attempting to hide something and failing terribly at doing so.

Vito had been just about to make up an excuse to get them through the door when he picked up the faint sound of a woman shrieking in fear. Hearing it as well, the goon cast all pretenses aside and immediately went for his gun, which had been previously concealed. Unfortunately for him, Vitomir was far quicker on the draw than he was.

Thus commenced one of the most vicious fights Vito had seen in his nearly six years on the force, which was saying something considering the fact that he'd been involved in many by that point. By the time the gunfire came to a halt, no less than sixteen hostile combatants were dead, and that was before one factored in the seven bodies found inside, who'd already stopped breathing long before it began raining bullets. Vitomir survived with only a few grazes to show for it, his partner did not. Turns out, they'd stumbled upon a Scavenger Den, and those 'domestic disturbances' the police had been called about were the result of their many victims. Vitomir was the only participant of the actual fight to survive, but not the only one who walked out the apartment that day. He found four other people, previously listed as missing persons, who'd been kidnapped by the Scavengers. Fortunately, aside from the considerable mental trauma, the police had intervened before the gangers could start cutting into them.

Despite losing a fellow officer in the process, Vitomir was credited with almost single-handedly taking down a major operation, neutralizing more than half of all active shooters personally, and solving no less than eleven missing persons cases in the process. That, of course, is before factoring in the multiple other cases which were soon closed when Forensics swept the scene and found evidence of many past victims.

Next thing Vitomir knew, he'd made Detective, and been promoted the Vice Desk, which dealt with the trafficking, distribution, and possession of narcotics and unlawful weaponry, as well as illegal gambling and sexual crimes of various sorts.

Here is where Vito truly began flourished, his skill as a highly competent investigator soon coming to light. Not long after he joined the Division, their number of closed cases grew at an exponential rate, with dealers and pimps of nearly flavour soon feeling the full weight of the law coming down hard upon them. While he'd had run-ins with them before, Vitomir also grew increasingly involved in combatting gangs who were well known for using and trafficking various types of illegal contraband, including the Animals, Tyger Claws, and Maelstrom. Perhaps more notably, it also gave him a great amount of experience dealing with the gangs who lived nearest to him, the first of which would be the Valentinos, whose crimes included illegal weapon modification, as well as prostitution and drug dealing. The second would be 6th Street, who have a fairly major hand in the weapon smuggling business.

Meanwhile, for Vitomir, the firefights hadn't stopped in the slightest, but the context for them had changed. Now, rather than getting called in when the violence was already underway, he was at the head of the vanguard for countless Sting Operations and Raids against the various gangs, and so he was both starting gunfights as well as finishing them.

Vitomir, indisputably, was incredibly good at his job. Unfortunately, perhaps he was too good.

Vitomir always knew that of the countless officers he'd met, more than a couple were likely corrupt, and over the course of seven years in Vice, grew to suspect that their office was even dirtier than most others. A few months back, in between waging war with the criminal elements of Night City, he began to covertly dig into the affairs of his colleagues.

### June 2089

Vitomir had been sure he was getting close to cracking the case, and if he'd managed to do so, almost as much as half the entire Vice Division would have been joining some of their former accomplices behind bars. However, it seemed someone in the department got wind of his personal excursions given his abrupt transfer to the Homicide Division, effective immediately. A deterrence if ever there was one.

On one hand, Vitomir was pleased with the change, as he'd had his eye on the Homicide Desk even before he first became a cop. On the other, he still has some scores left to settle in Vice, and while the new work will have to take priority over his own private suspicions, that hardly means he's forgotten about them.