The Zone Rats are technically a Cauldron gang, but unlike the other gangs in the cauldron, their activities are not limited to their building.  Instead, the zone rats control possibly more territory than any other gang in the Zone… the underground labyrinth of sewers, storm drains, and service tunnels that litter the ground beneath the Combat Zone.

 

The streets of the Zone aren’t safe, and between dodging gunfire, trying to keep out of the hands of predators, and trying to avoid the near endless pressures to join one of the many violent gangs in the Zone is a very difficult thing to accomplish.  The tunnels beneath the Zone aren’t much safer, the air is stale and foul, god knows what is in that water, and there are things in the shadows, dangerous things.  But it beats getting shot and bleeding to death in an alley, or worse.  So the Zone Rats tend to attract a lot of kids, especially homeless kids or kids who just really aren’t down with the violence of the surface gangs.  Not to say that the Rats can’t perpetrate violence of their own, but that’s not what they are about.

What the Zone Rats are about, primarily, is acting as the technical arm in the zone for the Digital Renegades.  In fact, it could very easily be said that the Rats are actually part of the Renegades, as its certainly where they get most of their equipment, food, and money.  The Rats use their underground labyrinth to move from place to place across the Zone, repairing Renegade transmitters and signal boosters, running cable, and doing the physical work in maintaining the utilities the Renegades keep going in the Zone despite the cities best efforts to shut them down.

 

The Zone Rats also act as a smuggling ring, moving people and goods through the tunnels across the zone, and even out of it.  Most of the sewers, drains, and tunnels into the zone are gated shut, with sensors and automated guns to keep the criminals in the zone from getting out.  With the Renegades help, certain key tunnels have been hacked and are operable, by Rats equipped with special RFID tags.  The tags are identical to the cookie cutter badges worn by police, and the automated guns will not fire upon anyone wearing them, nor will the sensors (heat and movement) be triggered.  Because of this, the Zone Rats are the only gang in the city who can more in and out of the zone at their leisure.

The Zone Rats were originally a group of kids based out of on of the Cauldron buildings.  Before things became to bad, the residents of the building would give them pretty much the run of the entire building while they were at work, or just to get them out of the house.  Their was a maintenance man in the building, Old Joe, who took a shine to them, and began teaching them all the in ands outs of the building, and teaching them how to perform the maintenance on the buildings old pipes, boilers, and electrical systems.  When Carnival came, most of the people who lived in the building had moved out, but a few of the kids had families who had either died or who were wanted criminals.  Old Joe barricaded the kids in the building into the basement when Carnival Started, and he and the other few adult residents tried to barricade the first couple of floors.  Unfortunately, a group of headhunters made it into the building; the residents put up a fight but were either killed or taken.  Old Joe died defending the entrance to the basement, his last words of instruction were to tell the kids to use the sewer access hatch in the basement to escape.

 

When the smoke cleared and Carnival Ended, the kids, with the help of Replay and other Renegades, repaired and resealed the first 3 floors of the building, as the other buildings in the cauldron quickly devolved into shooting galleries of gangs fighting for control.  Since then the Zone Rats and the Renegades have shared a strong reliance on each other in the Zone.  The rats now have complete control over their building, and they and a select few Renegades are the only ones who know the secret, and mostly underground, entrances to the building.  While helping them set the place up, Renegade set up secret cameras in the building to make sure the kids weren’t doing anything to crazy, and the Renegades personally interview anyone over the age of 15 who joins up with the Rats, occasionally planting their own people inside just to make sure everything is safe and the kids are killing each other.

 

The average age of a Rat is between 10 and 20, and while they have a handful of older members they mostly act as teachers, or are there for the more dangerous jobs.  As stated, some of these adults are plants by the Renegades, and are there to act more as den surrogate parents and teachers than anything else.   Many of the kids choose to go to the Elders controlled school, but most do not.  There are about 60 Zone Rats total, but the numbers fluctuate often as kids come and go.  Membership is open to any kid, and the only requirements are that you have to be able to share and you have to be able to get along.  There are even a few families who claim membership.

 

The Zone Rats have access to a very small number of firearms, mostly cheap handguns they have found or traded for, but the majority of their weapons are melee weapons, as some of the gases below the streets make for explosive environments if a gunshot were to go off.  They also prefer melee weapons and bows, crossbows, slings and thrown weapons because they are silent, and remaining undetected is how the Rats are able to move around.  The rats are also extremely adept at leaving behind booby traps, some relatively harmless, others wickedly lethal.  The Dee-Zees have begun moving about in these tunnels as well, possibly due to them capturing and turning a Rat.  The Rats have become extremely cautious lately, especially when moving through Dead Zoner territory.

 

The Zone Rats typically look to the Renegades for overall leadership and direction, but during expeditions and when running around leadership of smaller groups generally tends to fall to either the eldest member present or the most experienced.  While many members of the group have personal tags, which they use to mark tunnels they have explored or discovered, the only universal gang tag is a crudely painted image of a rat, or sometimes a real dead rat is hung, if a point really has to be made.  They have no uniform clothes, although all members tend to smell something fierce. 

 

Above ground, as stated, Zone Rat territory consists of little more than their own building, just north of the Rengades building in the Cauldron.  Below ground their territory extends far beyond the walls of the Zone.  Some Rats claim they have used the tunnels to travel as far north as the Marina, and as far south as the suburbs.  Other Rats tell of strange and horrible things going on in the sewers.  Even the ones who do venture outside the zone will not go anywhere near the tunnels around the university district.  They say there are monsters there, and sometimes, singing or chanting can be heard.  Other times, they hear screams.

ZONE RAT TERRITORY