Kevin Day

A brown raccoon with severe Imposter syndrome. Has a different style suit from the rest of the Bravo Beta team (sniper's ghillie suit) and uses a quadcopter for scouting. Code name is Bravo Four. Either a fantastic or horrific dancer, depending on your perspective. Feels psychotic after hearing country music. Not to be confused with Kevin (GCHQ).

## Basic Training

Kevin is conscripted into the CORE after stealing because he was deemed too stupid to work in fast food, and he is ranked lowest in the team's assessments due to coming across as dull-witted, although he is an excellent shooter. He is assigned to Julian's team along with Kerrie, Lee, and Tessa, and quickly loses to Tessa in a sparring match two months into their training. Corporal Grey berates him for losing and accuses him of doing it on purpose as a fetish. Grey orders Kevin to learn how to spot Tessa's obvious distractions by telling him he is not leaving until he lands a hit on her, but he quickly has to call a medic instead. When Julian takes over as Tessa's sparring partner, he accuses her of being sore from Kevin taking her down in two minutes in their prior spar. Tessa retorts that Kevin taught her a lesson, and she learned from it.

In their first war game, Kevin acts as sniper and scopes out the enemy, but Julian has him keep watch while Tessa and Kerrie get some kills first before he picks off the rest (to make Tessa happy). Julian points out that Kevin cannot get every kill, regardless of how much he would want to, and Kevin reluctantly concedes.

Grey pranks Tessa, Julian, and Lee by detonating a (paint) grenade when they are not expecting it. Kerrie and Kevin laugh at them, but Lee points out that, as they are "dead" now, Kerrie and Kevin will have to mop up the rec room.

When Kerrie and Tessa engage in some girl talk, Tessa convinces Kerrie to reveal the tattoo she got above her privates. Kevin walks in on them and mistakenly believes he has walked into the girls' changing room.

## The Britannia

"Central" orders Julian's team to be put on active duty, so they are flown out to an undisclosed location. Kevin asks Grey if the pilot can tell them where they are going, and Grey sarcastically asks if he would like a drink or pack of peanuts while he's at it. Kevin agrees and thanks him, and Grey is upset at how stupid Kevin is. Kevin further demonstrates his obliviousness when the team meets Aaron in the Post Office and only sort of suspects Tessa may be adopted.

Tessa leads the team to the cargo lift and explains to them (and NOT the sergeant who follows them) how quickly the lift will take them down, to the team's shock. When the lift drops, the team freaks out... except for Kevin.

On the lower levels, Tessa hears an Inlay (Merlin) that only she can detect until he de-cloaks when Lee tackles him. As Tessa, Julian, and Lee fight Merlin hand-to-hand, Kevin and Kerrie grab the nearest items they can to help. Kevin sprays Merlin with a fire extinguisher, which Merlin laughs at until it shorts him out. Wary, Kevin pokes at Merlin with the fire extinguisher, amidst Tessa's shouts that "it's bloody heavy! Get it off me!" As Tessa grabs Merlin's claws, Kevin asks her how she knew Merlin was there, since he did not see or hear anything until Tessa grabbed Merlin.

Suddenly, Merlin comes to, releasing his claws and escaping past Kevin and Kerrie as he re-cloaks. Tessa seems confident that Merlin is comparably harmless without his claws, but Julian asks why Merlin would give up his claws to escape, which causes Tessa to panic. She then realises it would be easy for Merlin to have tinkered with the old fission reactor to make everyone's skin fall off.

The team runs toward the old fission reactor, along the way stumbling across the body of the tagalong sergeant. Kevin asks if the sergeant is dead, when Tessa points out he is missing a very large chunk of his head. Kevin retorts that his cousin Frank lost a chunk of his skull while logging yet survived (although he could only sit in the corner and dribble from then on).

They reach the reactor to find the guards gruesomely killed yet the door locked. As Tessa observes that the door has not been forced, Kevin examines the electronic lock keypad and instantly determines the correct code. Tessa then understands that Kevin was able to figure out the code from the fact that only the zero key had been worn down to a stump, meaning the guards had never changed the default code.

Inside the reactor chambers, the team finds an injured Robert. Under Robert's guidance, Julian orders Kevin to find Junction C2 while he heads for B10. At their respective stations, Julian and Kevin discover the wheels have been hacked off, so they are unable to turn the valves. Luckily, Julian is able to work with Lee to fix the problem. Kevin slams the blast door behind Julian and helps him up as he is recovering from the impact of the turbines releasing the built-up pressure. He helps Julian back to safety, although Julian cannot hear Kevin due to his eardrums having burst.

## Green Cards

After the team debriefs and regroups, Tessa asks where Kerrie went. Kevin informs her that Kerrie decided to stay with Robert. Lee then warns the others that he can hear Alik approaching with someone important. Tessa recognises him as Captain Lock, who is astonished that Tessa has helped save the ship. Nevertheless, he rewards the team with green cards. Kevin hopes they involve chocolate, since Tessa compares them to Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket but with VIP points.

### New Duds

Tessa takes the team to Thread-Needle Street, specifically Philip Lauren's clothing shop. Kevin is confused that a medical robot is running a store and asks if anyone is hurt. Philip retorts that he will be if he doesn't leave, but Tessa manages to convince Philip to take their custom. He takes the measurements of the team and makes them custom garments in an hour.

### L2

Once they receive their new clothes, the team meets up at L2 to have dinner with Tessa's family (as the Dolan party). The rest of the team has a good laugh when Tiffany makes a scene by giving Tessa a big hug and announcing how proud she is of her.

Seated with Rose and Lee, Kevin struggles to read the menu, when Rose shows him how to switch it from French to English. He thanks her, but finds it a shame he doesn't know how to read English, either. While waiting for the food, Kevin daydreams about Pong, when Lee interrupts him to bring him into the conversation about how Kevin helped with the reactor crisis. He smiles when Rose praises him, commenting it's probably the first time someone called him clever without comparing him to livestock. He tries to downplay his intelligence, but Lee insists Kevin is smart. He just needs "scary men shouting" at him for it to sink in, and Lee threatens to knock their teeth out if anyone calls Kevin dumb in front of him.

### Club Life

After dinner, the team finds a limousine waiting for them, which Tessa directs to the Boiler Room. Tessa discovers champagne in the cooler, and they all share it against Julian's judgement. However, Lee assures him that they can't actually get drunk from it since their augmentations filter toxins, including alcohol, although that feature can be turned off once they leave the CORE.

Inside the Boiler Room, the team checks out the live musician, although Tessa points out it is actually an android. Julian is surprised, because the android is wearing dark glasses, when he thought androids were not allowed to cover their eyes. Tessa notes that the Britannia allows them to keep their squawkers on so security knows they are machines. Kevin asks why that would be the case, and Julian responds that a machine could be carrying anything, including a bomb that would not be discovered on a pat down.

As the team disperses, Kevin starts dancing in the style of Michael Jackson (which is also the style of his outfit), to Julian's and Tessa's dismay. He stops when another club-goer stares at him, and he falls over in surprise.

### Shacking Up

Later, the team go to the Metropolitain for lodging, but the concierge informs them that only three rooms are available, so two of them would have to share. Lee immediately calls dibs on a single, then nudges Kevin to do the same, forcing Julian and Tessa to share the third room.

Kevin spends the night with the raccoon girl he met at the club. In the morning, she finds him watching a channel of analogue static to relax. He says it's the same signal as the Big Bang, so rather than pray, he listens to God create the universe. The girl finds that pretty deep, which Kevin tells her is the first time he has heard anyone say that to him. She goes on to ask him about hearing "pretty good in bed," which he says he may have heard that a few times.

## We are the CORE

Julian's team is put in a training mission against practice robots, which Kevin (KeV1n) dispatches so quickly that at first the others cannot get in a kill. They are showboating for the cameras for a promotional stint for the CORE. Corporal Grey compliments Julian on doing a good job leading the team, then panics when Julian says the rest of the squad is being interviewed by the press. He relaxes when he sees that not only Tessa but the entire team got lucky the night before.

The team then goes to the Half Brick to celebrate, then to Ankara Kebab House when Tessa suggests getting kebabs as a test to see if they were drunk.

Afterwards, Tessa suggests hitting up the casinos in a roundabout way, but Kevin doesn't get the joke.

### Catch me if you can

Later, Julian's team joins the rest of the CORE recruits aboard the Britannia in a jog led by a yet unnamed sergeant. At the end of the run, the sergeant dismisses the normal recruits and challenges the "augs" to "Catch me if you can!" Julian sends Tessa ahead, as she knows the layout, while the rest of the team follows suit. Tessa breaks away from the others but has to disengage while Julian and Kevin catch up. Lee and Kerrie manage to surround the sergeant, with Kerrie catching him with her tail.

### Night at the Museum

Kevin and Tessa are then assigned to guard the ~~old junk warehouse~~museum to protect it from looters. Inside, Kevin scrutinises a skull but cannot grasp what it is. Tessa informs him it's a skull, but he knows that much. She then asks him the joke about how is edam cheese made, but he doesn't get it and insists there's no physical way edam is made backwards.

Then he specifies that he wants to know what kind of skull, and Tessa tells him it's the skull of an extinct prehistorical sentient ape. Kevin is incredulous that monkeys used to be smart, but Tessa points out there is "a few hundred, bad tempered pounds of difference" between apes and monkeys. He then asks what killed them all, and Tessa speculates it could have been starvation or disease, genocide from another race, or they could have wiped themselves out.

### Where are the Wolves?

Kevin then wants to know if other smart species have died out, and Tessa says, "Loads!" He then wonders how to tell a species was smart just from the bones, and Tessa holds up her thumb and tells him that's a good indication. Kevin then asks if thumbs make you smart, but Tessa clarifies it's usually that a smart species will have thumbs. However, Kevin cannot fathom a smart species dying out. Offended, Tessa asks him if he's one of those "crazy Creationists," but Kevin denies it, instead telling her that he had been taught a conflicting dichotomy of "we are special" and "we are equal"... which means we are more special than others.

Tessa struggles at first to think of a way to explain it to Kevin without sounding racist. She thinks of wolves as an example of an effectively extinct race. The reason for this is being on top gave the wolves little motivation to improve themselves compared to "lesser" races until it was too late to change. This meant their inability to stay ahead of the game brought down their numbers, but the inter-species mating possible between wolves and canines caused pure-breed wolves to cease to exist over many generations, to where wolves and canines became one homogenized race.

Kevin misunderstands Tessa's explanation as the wolf/canine race became gay. However, he does understand her explanation, even if he doesn't feel it is fair. He thanks Tessa and says she's very smart, but she brushes it off as having watched lots of educational videos when the base blocked her soaps.

## SPACE!

Julian alerts the squad that they are being summoned to headquarters for a new assignment. While the team is kept in suspense, Julian gently breaks the news to them that they are to report to the shuttle pad with micro-g loadouts.

Central, under the Oracle's control, observes this and tries to determine why the Oracle is going through such lengths to get Julian's team into space. Central reviews each team member to figure out the likelihood of any of them being a sleeper agent, and dismisses Kevin for being too transparently stupid to pull off the job (or playing the longest long game, if Kevin has been "acting" since he was five years old). Central decides the sleeper agent must be Tessa, of any of them, and attempts to put a wrinkle in the Oracle's plan by hiding something from him.

### Pre-Game Party

Julian's team celebrates their assignment at the Half Brick with a round of drinks before Kerrie leaves to say goodbye to Robert. Lee takes the opportunity to praise everyone on how far they've come since they first teamed up.

## Heading TBD

Finally gets angry and talks back at the divisive "normal" recruit who belittles their team for being different.

## Known Sexual Relations

Random hook-up from the Boiler Room dance floor