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Fairfax Residence
Lawrence Fairfax
The prime suspect in the string of kidnappings and murders of young women from the local state university. After a piece of DNA from a recent victim was linked to him, the SWAT Team were dispatched to his house immediately.- Almighty Janitor: He works as a carpenter at the state university, which explains both his technical knowledge for building a makeshift tunnel under his home and the routines of the students at the institution.
- Ambiguously Absent Parent: Gladys sleeps in a double bed, but absolutely zero mention is made of who Lawrence's father is or what happened to him.
- Formerly Fit: Or at least tried to be fit. There is a bench press left out in one of the hallways. Judging by his physique when you find him, it hasn't been used in a while.
- Psychopathic Manchild: His childhood bedroom prominently features a blanket fort, which seems to be foreshadowing for the dungeon he has built to carry out his work. His appearance, that of an overweight, bald man, seems to be going for this look as well.
- Serial Killer: His MO. He's been creating paper mache casts of his victims, killing them afterwards.
- Shrine to Self: The walls of his bedroom are completely covered with newspapers documenting his crime spree. His actual bed not only has more newspapers on the ceiling above it, but also a television with a shelf of VHS tapes of his victims. Why all of this is placed for the enjoyment of him while he's laying in bed is best left for the imagination.
- Smarter Than You Look: Despite his rather dimwitted looks, he apparently was smart enough to be let go after his initial questioning even if it wasn't enough to be struck off the list of suspects; it was ultimately a stray piece of DNA that did him in rather than his direct actions, and he had actually done a good job of avoiding leaving any trace of his DNA on the bodies up until the last one. In addition, even if it's relatively crude in its construction, you need at least some engineering chops to build a small dungeon under your home.
Gladys Fairfax
Lawrence's mother; a woman in poor health who lives with her son, supposedly unaware of his crimes.- The Hermit: Due to her poor health she is largely confined to her home.
- Parental Obliviousness: The idea that she has remained completely unaware of her son's actions becomes very hard to believe once you uncover the scale of his operation.
- The Pig-Pen: Her home shows clear signs of hoarding and poor hygiene all around.
- Frozen Dinner of Loneliness: TV dinners seem to be her preferred food option judging from the used boxes around her kitchen.
Melinda Kline
The most recent disappearance from the state university, with her rescue being the primary objective of the Fairfax Residence mission.- Heroic BSoD: She is very understandably in rough shape when you discover her.
- Just in Time: You discover her in a room next to a paper mache cast of herself, with only the left arm missing. Once that arm was completed, she likely would've been executed. There is also a decent chance that you will find Lawrence in her room, making it clear that just a few hours later she could've been his next kill.
Taronne Tenement
Andrew Taronne
The twisted, reclusive leader of the so-called "Children of Taronne", an apocalyptic cult that view Taronne as a God-like messiah figure.
- Asshole Victim: Fits the trope snugly if killed by SWAT. By the time of the raid, he's insane enough to possibly not fully realise how terrible his actions are. However, his crimes are so heinous and his personality is so obnoxious that no one would shed a single tear if the team guns him down.
- Ax-Crazy: Spouts deranged nonsense and attempts to attack SWAT as they raid the building. His rhetoric is so violent and psychotic that many members of his cult have become homicidally insane, filling an entire apartment building with improvised explosives. In his greatest act of violent insanity, he even convinces members of the cult to kill their own children and bury them in the basement of the building.
- Beard of Evil: His close cropped beard combined with his large glasses contributes to his sinister appearance.
- Big Bad: Of the Taronne Tenement chapter. Unlike most of the other levels, which usually have a bunch of suspects equally responsible for the chaos, Taronne is the main driving force of all the villainy in the tenement block. Many of his cultists are so deranged by his brainwashing, they seem almost unaware of their actions.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: He seems to consider himself spiritually above and beyond comprehensible human morality and the rule of law. It's completely subverted as he is shown to be a petty, evil fake guru with insane delusions of grandeur.
- Believing Their Own Lies: He appears to have bought into his own mad propaganda completely. He will sometimes even ask the SWAT team if they "are here to join us", believing he is so charismatic that even the police want to be part of his crazed cult.
- Cult of Personality: His cultists refer to Taronne as if he is some kind of omniscient deity. His cult's book is also based all around his teachings (though it's unclear if he wrote the book under a pseudonym or it was the leader of the larger cult his group split from). The rooms of the apartment are also filled with pamphlets featuring photos of Taronne on the cover.
- Dark Messiah: He seems to view himself as some kind of herald of a coming apocalypse. His cult's book features the sun setting over a city shrouded in darkness, and his cultists live in squalor and seem to have been driven to complete derangement.
- False Prophet: His pseudo-religious brainwashing drives his followers insane, and contrary to his delusional teachings there is nothing divine about him in reality. Bullets, beanbags or CS gas all make short work of him once SWAT finally encounters him.
- Fat Bastard: Not as obvious as some examples, but Taronne is definitely a bit pudgy, and preaches an evil self-serving religion to his disciples.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Always wears spectacles and has a disturbing lack of empathy for his cult members and all the innocent people he is planning to blow up.
- Greater-Scope Villain: A copy of one of his cult's books can be found lying around the house in The Fairfax Residence. It could simply be the developers
reusing assets, but otherwise the implication is that the Children of Taronne's literature may have helped contribute to Lawrence Fairfax's slide into murderous insanity. - Hypocrite: Preaches the virtues of inner peace and declares obsession with "self" to be evil, yet at the same time encourages his cultists to become Ax-Crazy and is a supremely selfish manipulator.
- It's All About Me: Comes across as a spectacularly self-centred, self-serving sociopath. He even mouths off about his own divinity while being defeated and arrested.
- Lack of Empathy: Doesn't appear to have any care or empathy for his cult members, instead turning them into crazed shells of their former selves.
- Manipulative Bastard: He appears to be a master manipulator, convincing an entire apartment block full of people to become his brainwashed slaves.
- Neat Freak: His rhetoric is peppered with obsessive references to cleanliness, both spiritual and literal. Ironically, the apartment his cult lives in is in an awful state.
- Small Name, Big Ego: In reality, Andrew is just some unhinged nobody that hardly anyone has heard of. By contrast, he and his cult believe he is a supremely important messiah figure. Judging by his cultists' actions, he is something else entirely.
- Smug Snake: Doesn't appear at all worried about the consequences of his actions when arrested, instead rambling about how special his teachings are.
- The Sociopath: Enough of a cold, manipulative scumbag that he makes some of the other psychopathic criminals in the game look pretty tame by comparison.
- Would Hurt a Child: He persuaded his brainwashed cult members to kill their own children. Judging by the cultists' dialogue, he has convinced them that he will reunite them with their children in some kind of afterlife.
The Children of Taronne
Andrew Taronne's brainwashed cult of disciples.
- Ax-Crazy: They plan to blow up an entire apartment block, with themselves inside. Many are also aggressive and attempt to attack SWAT when the building is raided. Some members even made the insane decision to kill their own children.
- Apocalypse Cult: A textbook example. Their entire belief system has been structured around a coming apocalypse. By the time of the SWAT raid, they've evolved (or rather degenerated) into a full blown death cult.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: From the player's perspective the cult's morality is very much conventionally evil. However, Taronne's brainwashing has lead them to believe they operate on an entirely different moral level and they also don't recognise the police as having any moral authority at all.
- Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: Played with. They have shades of this, but don't follow any clear political ideology. Cult members will sometimes tell the SWAT team that they don't believe in the rule of law or government. They definitely believe in the fall of the system and literally want to use explosives to destroy society in their own limited way. However, they ironically view Taronne as the leader of their own ordered hierarchy.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Very much brainwashed and very much crazy.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Some of the cultists are a dark example, being so disconnected from reality that they act like innocent hostages even though they were waving a gun around moments before.
- Creepy Monotone: Many of the cult members talk or even sing in this way.
- Dissonant Serenity: They are often unusually calm and speak in a monotone emotionless way, even when involved in shoot-outs or repeating dark apocalyptic prophecies.
- Mad Bomber: Their apartment block is crammed with cardboard boxes full of pipebombs, pressurised gas cylinders and precursors for explosive production.
- Madness Mantra: They scrawled several different deranged phrases and quotations on the walls of their apartment building before SWAT's arrival. Most notably, many cult members obsessively talk about damp, dark soil and earth. This takes on much more sinister connotations when the SWAT team find they have buried their own children in the soil of the basement.
- Obliviously Evil: They are violent, hateful towards outsiders and some members of the cult have committed truly heinous crimes. However, they are also ultimately the brainwashed victims of Andrew Taronne and arguably remain deserving of some sympathy because of this.
- Would Hurt a Child: Sadly, SWAT arrives too late to stop some members of the cult from killing their children, apparently on Taronne's orders.
DuPlessis Wholesale Diamond Center
Freedom Now
A well-armed group of robbers who raid the DuPlessis Wholesale Diamond Center in search of a shipment of finished diamonds, something the company does not usually hold.
The name "Freedom Now" comes from the game files, and is not mentioned in-game.
- Knight of Cerebus: Up to this point, your suspects have been part-time criminals or poorly equipped gangs. Freedom Now are the first group of antagonists you encounter who are properly armed with military-grade armor, weapons and gas masks, and they are committing by far the most comprehensively-planned heist in the game so far.
- The Mole: Up to two of the robbers are dressed up as employees of the Diamond Center, which certainly explains how they were able to get inside knowledge of the cut diamond shipment.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: If the "Freedom Now" name is considered canon, then this could be their motivation. The police suspect that they are stealing the diamonds to sell to foreign black markets, which may in turn be to help fund an an armed resistance or separatist effort.
The CEO
The CEO of DuPlessis Wholesale Diamond Center, who was giving a presentation to shareholders when the robbery happened.
- Asshole Victim: He's corrupt, a modern day colonialist, and more worried about his bottom line than his employees being injured and/or killed. It's honestly hard to feel sorry for the guy.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: He was caught in the robbery giving a confidential presentation on the company's profits being hurt by increased enforcement of labor laws in Africa. When you rescue him, he shows more concern that the company's reputation might take a hit than the risk that his employees may still be hurt in the armed confrontation.
- Evil Colonialist: A present-day version; his office is filled with colonial iconography, drawing a parallel between past and present exploitation in Africa. Across from his office is a conference room with a slideshow revealing they had been discussing a decrease in profits caused by more effective enforcement of local and international laws in Africa, which is making it hard for their African diamond mines to find a cheap labour force, providing evidence that he is participating in the present-day exploitation of Africa.
Old Granite Hotel
America Now
A well-armed group of militia who were holding the Old Granite Hotel hostage, and planned to blow the expansion portion of the hotel up.
- Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: According to the mission briefing, they're xenophobic isolationists with an ideology defined by opposition to immigration, free trade, and globalism in general. The hotel the mission takes place in is majority owned by a French company, and they demand a ransom from the owners as "a repayment of their debt to the American people."America Now member (while being cuffed): You work for the goddamn UN or sumthin?!
