Detective Terrence Andrews

Part of my series of character backgrounds from roleplaying games. This is a character from a Cyberpunk 2020 game, with the focus on the characters being homicide detectives.

I had a rough life, but it made a man outta me. My parents were drug runners, bringing narcotics into Night City by boat and spending most of their time in international waters. Strange place for a child to grow up, you'd think I know my ropes or something but you'd be wrong. All being raised on a boat of violent pirates taught me was everyone's out for themselves, if you don't take what you want then you wont get it. Things were alright, insofar as anything is for a kid who ends up playing lookout and watching for cops in between learning other useful life skills like knife fighting and how to hold a gun.
I got a rudimentary education, mostly taught by ma and the few pirates on the yacht that knew their a*****e from their elbow. I had to teach myself a lot of stuff though, spent a lot of time trying to help pick good routes and watch out for deals with people that seemed shady (or, shady enough to f**k us over anyway). Things were pretty rough and I got in trouble on more than one occasion, but I managed to avoid juvie. I wasn't really cut out for the pirate life though, it was far too risky and dependant on dumb luck, but da was trying to groom me to join the crew properly.
I had a couple of older twin sisters, they didn't really give a s**t about me and the feeling was mutual. They were dad's favourites really. My older brother, he was always a nervous guy. He knew his weaponry damned well, but when it came to using it he'd freeze up and panic. Dad hated my brother for being useless in a fight, but tolerated him since he had some skill. My younger sister and I have a complicated relationship. We made out a few times, some other stuff happened too.

It was fortunate really that his dumb luck ran out, another crew found us when we were shipping in a shitload of coke from Mexico and tried to stick us up. The dumb sonofabitch shot their boat with an RPG, blew two of their guys in half, they were pissed and came down on us HARD. The yacht looked like a cheese grater accident by the time we managed to get out of range, fortunately the RPG hit stopped them pursuing. We got ashore and got picked up by some buddies. I found out later that ma was in the piles of bodies we left behind. We held a funeral at sea, by which I mean da got pissed and fucked some s**t, then gave me the vodka and sloppy seconds.
Da went back to running the crew, got a new boat, started over, but I couldn't do the job anymore. That experience shook me up too much, I couldn't pretend what we were doing had a chance in hell of lasting anymore. He didn't understand what was up, got pissed at me for crying over my mother and being such a soppy piece of s**t, so the next time we were in Night City I jumped ship and hit the streets. My brother and younger sister left with me, my brother tagged along while I was finding my way around Night City but my sister I don't know what happened to her. She seemed pissed off at everything when she left, me included, and we've not really talked since. She's still around Night City somewhere as far as I know.
I ended up on the streets for a while, fell in with some bad people while I was there. Did some favours for the Wild Things gang while I was living rough and they gave me enough to get by on. I might have ended up as part of their crew if I'd stuck around, but I saw the same dumbass recklessness in them as I had in my da. I knew they were going to get fucked, sooner or later. What I also saw though, while watching corners and other light work for the Wild Things, was cops. Now, those were guys with a plan. They weren't reckless, drugged-up a******s just looking for a fix and doing whatever they felt like regardless. They had a purpose, they thought ahead, they knew what they were doing, and they ran the hell away if the situation called for it.
So the next year, with money I had saved up working with the Wild Things, I moved away from the docks. I cut my shaggy-a*s hair, and signed up the the police force. They were just about desperate enough for recruits to take me on. What I lacked in education I made up for in genuine street smarts, combat experience, and just plain smarts. My brother came along with me, but he didn't make the cut. He found work as an apprentice for a weaponsmith.

Things were a bit rough on the job for more. I was into the job, but my personal life kept getting in the way. It was my first time really interacting with "normal" society for more than the time it took to sleaze them and, hell, I was young and wanted to get my end away. I tried out the dating game at first, but I was more into the job than I was into the girls and they knew it. They always wanted me to pay more attention to them, deal with their problems and all that s**t. I decided that if that's dating, I don't want anything to do with it. One of the girls, who I actually kinda liked, she seemed worth the effort of trying to keep something going with. But she didn't like it when I put it to her that we should just hang out and bang occasionally without me having to deal with her feelings.
After a year as a cadet, in which I did pretty well, I was hitting the streets. It turned into a quiet couple of years for me after that, most of my time was focused on walking my beat and trying not to get shot. I got into my share of firefights, had my share of guns pointed at me, got winged once too but the force got me back on my feet. I made one of my few close friends in that time, she's a few years older than me and works as a PI. She liases with the force occasionally and taught me some good stuff about detective work. We hook up every now and then when she's single, but mostly we're just friends.
I wanted to be a detective since I met her, but I sure as hell did my best to flunk at that. I applied for a transfer every year once I'd been on the force long enough to apply, but it seemed like every year I got turned down. I still don't really know what happened, every time something seemed to go wrong. There was one time when everything seemed to go right, but I let myself down on that one - my understanding of the law could still stand to be better.

I seem to meet a run of bad flings while I was walking that old beat. The first time it happened, well a boosterganger took a shine to me. Flirting with her seemed to be the best way to get the information I needed, but she took it all a bit too seriously. She kinda stalked me a bit after that, and when I wouldn't respond to her advances she decided to hold a grudge and now her entire gang is on the lookout for me. I tend to just avoid the Juliard gang now. I don't know whether she'll rape me or castrate me if she catches me though.
The next one, she was (so I thought) a casual hookup. But after a few times she started to hit me with the whole "romance" thing, I never agreed to anything like that so obviously I backed off. She didn't take it well, and now she's got a serious grudge against me for "leading her on" and other nonsense. The problem there is, she's got local connections in Militech. She wouldn't have any objection to pulling a few strings to cause me trouble if the opportunity comes up.
Then lastly, there was this chick from the mayor's office. Some secretary or something I guess? I didn't really care who she was there, we got on well and she obviously wanted more from me. I don't know what happened when I moved on her though, she was resistant for a while thensuddenly got all defensive and pissy. My best guess for what happened is she wanted to carry on in private, didn't want anyone to know she was slumming with a detective, but she never told me that. It didn't stop her from holding a grudge though, setting up these "sexual harassment" accusations was a real kick in the nuts but I'm sure she was just doing it to try to avoid looking bad. She didn't have anything solid to go on or any good witnesses, so it went away after a while, but she'll jump on me any chance she gets. And it turns out, she wasn't just a secretary, she's some major civil servant and she has some weight at the mayor's office.
Fortunately through all this I had some good friends too. There's this really hot asian woman who works at Arasaka, she's a company rep trying to get people to buy their best and most deadly hardware. I helped her secure a deal with the force. We seem to have shared interests and now we hang out every now and then, despite it totally being slumming for a high-class girl like her. She's massively into me and we flirt constantly, but it's never gone anywhere and she always plays it off as messing around. I think she's too busy with her job for that to go anywhere further. There was also the sergeant, a good guy with over a decade of experience on me and he helped me get past that damned detectives exam. He also helped keep things from getting out of hand with the b***h from the mayor's office.

Working homicide for the last two years was rough. But I'd been on the beat for five years, I'd already started getting used to the bodies and the danger. I'd spent more time on the streets in my childhood than most of the high school graduate chumps in the department had in all their time on the force. I still slip up on proper procedure occasionally, but I can follow a lead and have good instincts on the streets. The force cares more about getting a solid result then everything being squeaky clean.