Joe Hill

Mikey Driscoll was brought up in Boston. His old man was one of the dockers. Tough old bastard was old Paddy Driscoll, he was.

Times were tough growing up, of course. The world isn't a nice place. It's tough for everyone. When Da went on strike with the boys in two-thousand-and-one, young Mikey got pretty pissed pretty fast. Things got old school with his classmates. Most were supportive, but he got a few shit-kickings too, with words like 'Dirty Commie' getting thrown around like it was the god-damn fifties.

He was an angry kid, and that never changed. He hated what the bosses did to his old man, who eventually ended up drinking himself to death in two-thousand-and-six like so many Celtic types before him. Old Paddy Driscoll was a hard working, tough sonofabitch, and he was reduced to alcoholic poverty by his unemployment and those Republican fuckers running the country.

He'd find some way to make something of a difference and makes things better, or at least do some damage to those he seen as destroying the lives of his friends and family.

So, at first, he studied hard. He was bright, not genius material, but clever enough, and boy, did he work hard. Trojan-styled efforts to get into college were his hallmark, especially when he had to work on the side to pay his fees.

Now, of course, he couldn't get into MIT to study under Professor Chomsky (and even if he could, he couldn't afford it), but hey, academically, he was a linguist anyway, and politics were Mikey's thing.

So, thanks to blind luck, he managed to secure a place at North Georgia State University, for reduced fees, thanks to a lack of enrolment in two-thousand-and-three. Okay, so Political Theory. Da was proud. First member of the Driscoll family to get an education. Next President! Drunken fool.

So, three years later, in oh six, Mikey graduated in the top five percent of his class, in spite of the recent death of his father. He saw it coming, what with the old man being in a near-permanent state of drunkenness.

Finding work was goddamn impossible. He had a great education, but the economy was tanking (predicted in Mikey's dissertation, funnily enough), so there were no jobs going. He ended up back home in Boston, working a fucking tedious job answering phones for a mid-sized credit and loan company, which was somehow raking in millions in spite of the impending financial crisis.

In spite of his complete hatred of his work and his employers, he was given more and more responsibilities, thanks to general hard work. His manager was surprised when he enquired about union membership for staff, after something of a screw-up over maternity pay for one of his colleagues. The boss never had children, it seemed.

That kicked off a bit, but he kept his head down, and nursed his anger and hatred of his employers and the management. He didn't put his head above the parapet again, not until later.

In the meantime, he saw about getting a membership of the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World. They had a good rep as a union, but he knew that, generally, they were quite weak. Still, he felt morally obligated to do something. He wasn't going to go and get a Democratic Party membership, after all, they were as bad as the government, in his opinion.

So, yeah, he was a union man now, even if he kept it quiet. He was the one his co-workers went to if they had a problem, and he had a way of convincing the management to give some ground, if only a little. He never made the mistake of considering them anything other than his enemy though. He hated them, and nursed this hatred, for years to come.

Over time, he calmly, methodically, gathered information on the corrupt dealings of the company. How they were scamming people and all sorts. He knew to keep going, quietly, and not blow the whistle until he could bring it all down around their ears.

It should have been easy. He had hundreds of pages of documents of what were some pretty serious financial felonies. Nothing. Did they bribe the few FBI agents that were working on the case? To be fair, the majority of the FBI were now chasing imaginary terrorists, so maybe only a few incompetent or corrupt individuals investigated this sort of crap now.

Nope. The case was just closed, apparently. Mikey's research showed it to be ordered from some government joint task force or something. Motherfuckers. He knew fine the government were in the bankers pockets, but this was ridiculous.

He sought a way to prove it.

Well, this didn't go too well. Needless to say, this is where his candle was lit. Turns out the boss was involved in some sort of conspiracy. He had some really fucking weird sexual habits too. Drinking blood from hookers and other crazy shit. Not only that, but a lot of his ill-gotten gains ended up funnelled into some black-budget government agency. Proper X-Files stuff.

So, yeah, at first, Mikey knew nothing about 'vampires'. His first experience of 'hunting' was chasing other Hunters.

He took what information he could, and saw about concealing his identity, and spreading this package of info amongst those who might use it, and shut this shit down.

He let old 'Trotsky' know. Why that old bastard never used his real name, and why he took that name, Mikey wasn't sure, but it was definitely to do with lefty politics. Still, he had given him people to contact before, regarding industrial action, so maybe he'd have some insight into government conspiracies.

It was at this point, he was dragged into the Union. That government conspiracy, Operation: ADAMSKI or something, was there to keep secrets from the public. Secrets of monsters, witches and vampires. Fuck. What a lunatic, thought Mikey.

"Don't use your real name, kiddo. You're Joe Hill, now, since the last one we had got killed."

Mikey... Joe... didn't ask for more details here.

Old Trotsky didn't bother teaching him much, just told him to tag along with some of the boys on a Hunt. A bunch of bruisers from the docks, it seemed. They didn't think much of the scrawny little guy in the suit, 'til they realised he grew up nearby. He was one of the kids that used to hang about during the strikes years back. Paddy's boy.

"Naw, I'm Joe."

"Sure thing, kid."

So, yeah, they put the hurt on some freak woman that could ignore bullets to the chest and bats to the head, and had a thing for murdering Catholic children that had been abused by their priests. Torched the bitch's house. Surprisingly easy. Joe dealt with the priests after; he was a surprisingly competent amateur detective, and was willing to look into this shit the cops ignored.

So young Joe Hill gave up any opportunity at a real career, and travelled around, couch-surfing and helping out other Union cells when they needed someone to provide a little know-how in his fields. He got eventually got the official position of Union Representative, a travelling Hunter that could provide a little extra muscle in a pinch.

After the blizzard in Atlanta, the Union lost contact with its cell. Joe was busy with actions in both Wisconsin and New York, acting as a messenger between some pretty damn radical cells operating within the activist movement. He didn't disagree with these anarchist types, to be fair.

Still, this meant he was busy, as were a lot of the Union, when their boys and girls went missing in Atlanta. Eventually, they realised something was going down there, and needed a Union Rep to scout out the location. Joe got picked when he let them know he studied there.

"Okay, not a local, but close enough. Go find out what happened to the Atlanta Chapter, and if they ain't breathin', give our commiserations to their families."

And so he did.

"Excuse me ma'am, I'm Joe. First, I must apologise for the tardiness of this visit..."

"Mhmm?"

"I believe your husband was a member of our trade union..."

"He was self employed, wasn't no trade union man..."

"Oh, we at the Union know. The boys and girls wanted to provide you with a little something from the Widows and Orphans Fund."

"They're coming back, 'Joe'. My husband would rather you had brought silver bullets instead o' silver dollars. Come in, I'll fix you somethin' to eat."

Sheet:Joe Hill