Criminal Breakers

What “criminal breaker” means

In every country, Breakers are supposed to be registered, trained, and deployed under emergency law. They suture rifts, cull monsters, guard corridors, and keep trade moving. The @GGA classifies criminal breakers as anyone with Breaker skills or gifts who works outside those rules—unlicensed Awakened, licensed teams moonlighting off-book, unit deserters, black-market suturers, relic poachers, convoy hijackers, and fixers who fence monster parts and forbidden tech. Some are outright predators. Some are gray-market problem solvers who step in when the legal system is too slow, too far, or too rigid to help.

This document explains how they live, how they make money, how they hide, who hunts them, and why communities sometimes protect them anyway. It uses plain terms used across blocs and keeps to the core facts of the setting: Breaks are managed by doctrine, arrays, and disciplined units; major states run registration regimes; global cooperation exists but is strained; and the economy relies on salvage, rails, ships, and guarded roads.

Why criminal breakers emerge

Access and scarcity. Break zones hold salvage, rare chitin, crystals, relic alloys, and dormant tech guarded by monsters and hazard light. Licenses and permits are slow or captured by big interests. Criminal crews jump first and argue later.
Gaps in coverage. Array belts, ward towers, and patrols cannot be everywhere. Small towns, ice roads, and river hamlets fall between jurisdictions. Gray crews fill holes—at a price.
Debt and pay disputes. Some licensed teams are underpaid or denied salvage rights by their agencies or contractors. They peel off to freelancing, then slip into black work.
Ideology and grievance. A few reject state control over Awakened bodies, hate specific agencies, or claim to protect locals from “foreign” doctrine.
Corruption. Officials sometimes hire deniable crews to do what would be politically costly if traced.

Typical criminal breaker work

Relic poaching. Racing patrols to fresh Breaks, cutting out relic frames before suturing, or lifting dormant cores during lull cycles.
Monster-part harvesting. Butchering leviathans or tunnel swarms to sell plates, glands, and glow sacs to processors.
Off-book suturing. Quietly stabilizing a micro-rift near a client’s facility to keep permits clean, then billing in cash or barter.
Convoy predation. Hitting salvage trains, ice convoys, or rig tenders between array nets; jamming beacons and using “calm light” to mask.
Credential fraud. Forging unit tags or borrowing an inactive team’s signature keys to move through checkpoints.
Array sabotage. Rare and hated—tilting a Khatim post or mis-tuning counter-harmonics to force a rival off a claim.
Human crime. Smuggling, protection rackets around market belts, and forced labor—these crews are hunted hardest and find little sympathy.

Tools, tricks, and signatures

Masking kits. Foil-lined tarps, wet soot, and low-watt scramblers that blur thermal and harmonic reads. Cheap, imperfect, common.
Patchwork rigs. Salvage exo-frames braced with rail steel; pressure laminate plates; jury-rigged suturing wands that overheat fast.
Borrowed light. Captured beacon heads or “lamp heads” repurposed as area calmers to push through drift. Risky but effective in short bursts.
Dead drops. Ammo, filters, and ration caches hidden in culverts or tunnel alcoves, marked by simple charm graffiti.
Clean money habits. Payment in Platinum Credits, Credits, or Cred-Bits through burner ledgers; swapping to barter in high-watch zones.
Quiet maps. Hand-copied route books with notes on array rhythm, lull windows, patrol timing, and “no-go when singing” warnings.

How they organize

Crews (5–20). One lead, one suturer, one scout, two to six killers/handlers, a fixer, and a driver/pilot. Crews form and dissolve around money and trust.
Cells (20–80). Several crews, a shared medic and tech, plus a bookkeeper who moves currency and favors.
Networks. Broker chains that sell intel, safehouse space, false tags, and buyers for parts. Most networks avoid direct combat and treat crews like “clients.”
Fronts. Salvage co-ops, security firms, or “ranger lodges” that launder gear and contracts. Some are community-owned and genuinely help locals; some are shells.

Codes and lines they won’t cross (usually)

Not all criminal breakers are the same. Many follow simple lines to keep doors open in hard times:

Don’t tip a suture that protects civilians.
Don’t steal med shipments, filters, or evac water.
Don’t open a Break to make money.
If you start a fight with monsters, finish it.
Pay locals fairly for guides and fuel.
Leave shrines and memorials alone.
No forced labor. No slave trade.
If a lull turns, call it in—even to enemies.
Return tags of the dead when you can.
Never sell untested relics to idiots.

Crews that keep these rules can sometimes bargain with patrols or be quietly used as auxiliaries during a surge. Crews that break them are hunted without pause and find no safe haven.

Markets and the black economy

Monster parts. Plates, glands, threads, and oils go to legal processors and “shade shops.” Prices swing with season and doctrine.
Relic scrap. Frames, seals, and crystal nodes move through brokers who have standing buyers in industry or research.
Maps and timing. Patrol cadence, array maintenance, and lull tables sell fast and expensively.
Passage. Seats on silent trucks, boat space in fog corridors, helicopter lifts during storms, and winter rail hides.
Protection. “We keep your village off the patrol map and push the swarm away for a fee.” This breeds resentment and reliance.

Money: The strong currency is Platinum Credit (PC).

1 PC = 10 Credits (Cr)
1 Cr = 10 Cred-Bits (cb)

Common sense examples used on the ground:

1 cheap bunk overnight along a guarded corridor: ~8–12 cb
1 hot meal + water filter refill: ~4–7 cb
1 clinic visit for stitches/antibiotics (no imaging): ~6–12 Cr
1 day of crew hire for perimeter watch (per person): ~2–5 Cr
1 short, quiet helicopter lift between outposts: ~3–7 PC
1 illegal suturing wand refurb kit: ~5–9 PC

Prices change with threat level, weather, and recent Break activity.

Regional patterns (snapshots, not absolutes)

@United States (@DCRA)

The @DCRA expects registration, unit discipline, and documented salvage. Criminal activity centers on off-book salvage and convoy hits in thinly covered corridors. Some sheriffs and local council heads quietly buy gray-crew help during storm seasons. Task forces combine ranger teams and licensed Breakers to crack down on forced-labor crews and array tampering. When big storms roll in, even tough @DCRA officers sometimes take “results first” and fold reliable gray crews into temporary auxiliaries—with strict terms and short leashes.

@China (@CDSA)

The @CDSA runs a tight Grid with Gate Belts and calm-speak culture. Criminals here avoid spectacle. They specialize in credential fraud, quiet poaching inside lull windows, and laundering through state-owned fronts. Harmonization Offices target the brokers rather than the crews, cutting the money lines. Crews that avoid human targets and never tilt arrays can sometimes survive in the cracks for years.

@Russia (@RSDC)

Under the @RSDC, Breakers are ranked and sworn. The Polar Net and rail ward-rings make open robbery risky, so criminal crews skew toward frontier poaching and ice-road smuggling. Some former conscripts run “silent brigades” that harvest leviathan plates under aurora haze and sell to rig yards. Array sabotage draws a total, unflinching response. Most crews avoid it.

@Brazil (@PLDC)

Federal response uses ranger-Breaker cadres and “green roads” through re-wilded zones. Criminal breakers here are often river specialists: fast canoes, shallow-draft cargo boats, and fog-line ambushes. Many live half-legal lives—harvesting monster fiber for co-ops one week, fencing glands to a cartel-linked broker the next. Forced-labor crews on river hubs are public enemy number one; mixed@PLDC strike groups come hard when those appear.

Africa (@AGSA)

The African Gate Security Alliance (@AGSA) moves by convoy brigades and mutual aid. Criminals chase convoy theft, relic strip-mining around dusty sutures, and militia “taxes” on aid routes. Because the @AGSA stretches thin, communities sometimes host gray crews for protection. If a crew keeps the ten lines above, @AGSA officers may ignore old sins in exchange for a public suture and a safe road. Crews that prey on towns get rolled up when the convoys return in force.

@South Pacific Ocean

Blue water is patrolled by carrier wings, island-hopper fleets, and global detachments. Criminals are relic trawlers, rig raiders, and abyssal poachers. They mask with storm fronts, tug broken buoys out of lattice lines, and sell to ship-to-ship brokers. When they tip a suture or cause a backlash near a port, navies coordinate and shut lanes until the crew is found.

How authorities hunt them

Signature tracking. Arrays watch harmonic footprints. Recycled gear and masking help, but long jobs leave trails.
Money pressure. Blacklist ledgers, seize fronts, and squeeze brokers; pressure communities with relief tied to cooperation.
Amnesty windows. Offer time-boxed pardons for crews who turn in forced-labor bosses or array saboteurs.
Auxiliary contracts. Fold reliable gray crews into emergency duty with strict terms. After the surge, review their cases one by one.
Public lines. Everywhere, the same red lines hold: no array sabotage, no slave trade, no med theft. Crossing them brings the hammer.

Community ties

Criminal and gray crews stick because they solve immediate problems: a swarm turned from a farm, a suture done at night, a winter convoy escorted when official help never came. Villages repay with diesel, food, and silence. Over time, this grows into a local pact. The pact breaks when crews tax too hard, hurt locals, or pick a fight that brings monsters back. Then communities call in the uniforms and stand aside.