The Cipher – Mark III

Obsolete Cybernetic Humanoid and Connection to the Brotherhood Database

The Cipher

It only looks human. The Cipher is actually the most important tool in a Hunter’s arsenal. Not just a communication hub, it serves as a conduit to the vast stores of knowledge, history, and lore contained within the Brotherhood Database. And it’s all wrapped up in a titanium chassis driven by synthetic musculature and covered with realistic, damage-resistant artificial skin.

Of course the body’s just for transportation. The real power is all in the Goggles. A Cipher’s Goggles are essentially its brain, only better! In the unlikely event that a Cipher’s chassis is destroyed, it can be reinstalled—with memories and (rudimentary) personality intact—by attaching the old Goggles to a new chassis. The Mark IIIs in particular were known for their virtually indestructible Goggles. Burn ‘em, bash ‘em, blow ‘em up—nothing seemed to stop them!

But nobody uses the Mark III Ciphers anymore. Not after what happened in Vancouver.

Alpha One was given a special variant of the Mark III Cipher: CipherOne. CipherOne was the queen bee of the Cipher collective, networked into every other Cipher on the planet and able to tap into their sensor grid. This gave CipherOne a kind of limited omniscience and resulted in unparalleled communication between Chapters in the field. But there was a flaw in the design.

During the Vancouver Disaster CipherOne’s goggles were destroyed. This caused a cascade failure across the entire Cipher collective. Every Mark III in the world was disabled. In an instant, thousands of agents found themselves cut off from the rest of the Brotherhood. No research. No communication. Nothing. The Brotherhood had gone dark. It took weeks to get everything back online. The CipherOne program was a failure. It was time for an upgrade.

And what an upgrade! The new Mark IV Ciphers are amazing! Double the processing power of their predecessors, and enhanced personality matrix, with a fully customizable, print-to-order chassis and sleek, Slimline Goggles that don’t look like the thing’s got a clock-radio taped to its face. Oh, and they removed the whole Global Surveillance/Catastrophic Meltdown thing too. Sure, there have been a few bugs, but mostly just personality quirks. Nothing life threatening. So far.

And so the rest of the Mark IIIs were crated up and shoved on a dusty shelf in an unremarkable row of the Warehouse. Short of a misdirected requisition form, there’s no chance they’ll ever see the light of day again.

The Demon Hunters are back in a new weekly comic from Dead Gentlemen Productions! We’re taking things back to before the beginning with a new format, new stories, and a few surprises along the way. This is Demon Hunters the way it was always meant to be seen—without the limitations of a college film budget. Join the hunt on April 1st at Demon-Hunters.com!