Eight Ball's Villains

## Helena Mårtensson

Founder and CEO of Oceanica Group, ***Helena Mårtensson*** was the first female villain encountered by protagonist Veronica Albion and the main recurring villain of Eight Ball's **Chapter IV " Apollyon"** and **Chapter V "Naamah"** respectively. Accordingly, Helena was characterized by her strong-willed, estoic and extremely serious character, including a humble and down-to-earth external appearance to the public, and especially, to her foreign relations.

Nevertheless, Mårtensson public and private appeareance was several times undermined by her uncontrolled and unmedicated Bipolar Disorder, which prompted her to undesirable negative and often extreme over-reactions. Although suffering from her uncontrolled bipolarity, Helena was quite accurate and extremelly well-known for her well-planed long-range strategies and counter-offensives actions against those who considered her enemy, including kidnapping, extorsions and even murder in extreme cases.

Helena Mårtensson was considered a prominent public figure during the end of the 80s and the early 90s, mainly due to her position of CEO of **Oceanica Group,** one of the world's largest conglomerates and member of the **Five Diamonds Group**, on which suscribed companies were classified by Global 500 as corporations with the world's largest revenues and market capitalization respectively, therefore ranked within the Top 10 world's largest companies by Fortune 500.

As a global political figure of wealth and social privilege, Helena emerged as a charismatic ecologist leader and worldwide activist regardless of her overwhelming financial power, including lobbying and changing the political arena several times for her own political and personal agenda through proper and improper channels. At some point during 1990, Oceanica Group became a prime client and rather strategic partner for Lewis & Clark, which prompted Golden Conclave to asign a special envoy and attaché, being Veronica Albion herself downselected.

Rivalry and envyness arised soon between Albion and Mårtensson due to several key factors, which it seems to be solely based on emotional backgrounds rather than business or other further technical reasons, although Albion managed to keep a low-proflle role as a legal advisor for Oceanica Group for an extended period of time.

It was finally revealed by Vincent Duran, that Mårtensson and her company were secretly under the control of the Saṃsāra Circle, forcing her to fuel an artificial conflict with Albion in order to allow a swift take-over of Leiws & Clark and its powerful and unique AI Database Complex. Both the Samsara Circle and Mårtensson considered Veronica Albion an obstacle and quite often a danger for their purposes by unknown reasons, nonetheless reasons regarding her executive position, leadership and higher intellect were among the determining factors.

She was considered, alongside Vincent Duran and Irma Lorenz, the ***Core Evil*** by Veronica Albion, a Cluster of recognized "professional "obstacles" to her personal endeavours.

## Vincent Duran

***Vincent Duran*** was an enigmatic and widely unknown industrial spy which served as a secondary and quite often main antagonist character from **Chapter IV " Apollyon" (1991)** to **Chapter X "Neptune" (1995).**

Duran was a professional and competent hacker expert, strongly recognised by the industrial and corporative world as one of the finest to be found, therefore usually hired for clandestine cyber operations. His coldness, ruthless and flanboyant but rather odd nature towards his job was certainly recognised and often valued.

It is not known for sure if **"Vincent Duran"** was his real name, although it was hinted during the Novel that several names were created for his persona. Nonetheless, he was nicknamed "Mot" by the Samsara Circle and was quite often called like this during their respective clandestine meetings and encoded text dialogues.

During an unknown timeframe, Vincent Duran was secretly working as a corporate agent and spy for one of the world's largest defense contractors, **SORINCO**, which was a Chinese state-owned defense corporation that manufactured a diverse range of military assets.

It was later revealed during **Chapter IX "Uroborous" (1994**), that Duran also secretly worked for the Saṃsāra Circle as an Agent called "Mot" and quite often followed direct orders from the organization against specific targets, including corporate lawyer Veronica Albion and Helena Mårtensson, respectively.

It was hinted that Duran was not being paid for his services by the Samsara, but rather "complemented" with other more "valuable assets" during the lenght of his services.

He was considered, alongside Helena Mårtensson and Irma Lorenz, the *Core Evil* by Veronica Albion, a Cluster of recognized "professional obstacles" to her personal endeavours.

## Irma Lorenz

***Irma Lorenz*** was a Swiss corporate lawyer based in Geneva, Switzerland, which acted as the main commercial representative of Swiss law-firm **Lorenz LLP** for international or local affairs and later CEO.

**Irma** was the last and final antagonist encountered by protagonist Veronica Albion and the main recurring antagonist from Eight Ball's **Chapter VII "Phobos" (1994)** to **Chapter X "Neptune" (1995),** respectively.

Classified as an strategic asset by her firm, Lorenz was the only daughter of lawyer and commercial entrepreneur, **Fritz Lorentz**, founder and CEO of **Lorenz LLP**. Furthermore**,** appointed byhimself as a direct representation of his projection of power over the firm and being eventually the only succesor for his leadership position in the nearest foreseeable future.

**Irma Lorenz** raised to the position of CEO of **Lorenz LLP** after the decease of her father due to natural cases during 1994, becoming the first swiss female to attain the aforementioned position in her law firm. As she secured her position, Irma strategically planned and eventually commited all forces to secure corporate dominance and hegemony over Continental Europe, which faced strong opposition from British law-firm Lewis & Clark LLP and its American counter-part **Nexus LLP,** respectively.

She was considered instrumental and rather a key factor for the short length but rather decisive international legal conflict between **Lorenz LLP** and Lewis & Clark LLP for corporative hegemony over Europe. Regardless of this, the dispute was permanently postponed and evaded by her father Fritz Lorenz during his tenure, due to its extensive cost and the eventual feasibility of a financial instability that would be triggered over the European industry and corporate world.

She was considered, alongside Vincent Duran and Helena Mårtensson, the ***Core Evil*** by Veronica Albion, a Cluster of recognized professional "obstacles" to her personal endeavours.

## Franka Kleeberg

**Franka Kleeberg** was a Polish ilegal inmigrant who worked as a bagman, car thief and ocassional liason for the **Sikorski Crime Family** based in the poorest urban areas of Northwest Longinus, Scotland. She served as a **hidden secondary antagonist** during **Chapter VII "Phobos"** and **Chapter VIII "Deimos"** (1994) within Leon Albion's character arc.

Although born and raised in an small rural area of Plock in Poland, Kleeberg's family was extremely poor and vastly outsourced due to lack of job opportunities, therefore being forced to emigrate to the German Capital of Berlin during the beginning of the **German Unification** in 1990.

Franka Kleeberg was characterized by her astonishing street smartness mainly due to her extensive criminal connections, including a vast knowledge of the criminal underworld of Northwest Longinus, were she resided since her arrival to Scotland during early 1990.

Due to her lack of higher educational certifications and proper professional skills at the time of her arrival, Franka's involvement within the criminal underworld was certainly premature and revolved around small criminal activities such as occasional shoplifting. Regardless of this, at the young age of 19 she was discovered and eventually fathered and mentored by Polish Mafia Boss, Mikolaj Karol.

## Charlotte Foxley

Charlotte Foxley was a high-ranking corrupted public official of the Longinus Custom Services Department which functioned as a legal bypass of customs and legal immigration barriers in order to promote trafficking children within the Longinus Special Administrative Region. She acted as a secondary antagonist during Chapter VII and VIII respectively within Adamah's Dimension.

She was a founding member of the Four Horsemen Criminal Group and served as the main internal liaison of Mikolaj Karol for governmental institutions and high-ranking officials from the Longinus Special Administrative Region.

Charlotte was characterized by her consumerism, extravagance and snobbish attitude, including some classist and racist attitudes towards her inner and external social circle. Nevertheless, Foxley generated a humble, empathetic and honest public persona in order to gain recognition and admiration, even if it was totally faked. Due to her chaotic and limitless ambition for power and wealth, she became a corrupted public official which used a vast and extensive criminal network in order to gain profitable earnings through the suffering of others.

Regardless of Charlotte’s chaotic persona, she acted cowardly and behind lines in order to achieve her ambitious objectives, preferring others to perform atrocities and criminal
activities in order to avoid suspicions and affect negatively her public image. Although Charlotte was born and raised to a middle and working class family of Longinus, at the age of 18 she was able to join a Youth Wing of a Longinus-based Political Faction, which at the time, governed Longinus’ public administration for at least 15 years. After several years of a successful political career within the faction and her successful marriage to a high-ranking political figure, her political career was developed and eventually succeeded.