The Broken Company is a guild based out of Jupiter Anchorage. They are well known for hiring newly-augmented individuals and those seeking augments. Most find their contracts to be restrictive, as they take a large share of the profits from jobs performed by the freelancers under their employ. The contracts are difficult to get out of - but in turn, the Broken Company outfits its new hires with excellent gear, new rigs, and necessary body and genetic modifications, which often come at low cost due to the fact that many high-ranking members are incredibly skilled with bio-augments and nano-augments, able to make the necessary modifications with ease.
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Etymology
For the promise of becoming a better mage, they are attractive to young and inexperienced augments who often use the group as a stepping stone, leaving as soon as their contracts end. Consequently, loyalty is far from one of the central tenets of the Broken Company, hence the name, which started as a nickname but was adopted by senior leadership when the colloquialism had become pervasive.
Operations
The guild deals exclusively in legal contract work requiring them to employ augments. They are familiar with bounty hunting, private investigation, and even long-term employment for security, medical care, and anything else within the specialty of the augment hired.
Funding
The guild is renowned for collecting a large portion of the money paid by contractees, much to the dismay of the guild members.
Criticisms
Treatment of Employees
The Broken Company is well known for its strict contracts with its "freelancers." In spite of this, many employees enter into these contracts to have expensive augment-rigs paid for that they would otherwise not be able to afford.
While freelancers are theoretically allowed to accept and reject job contracts offered, or pick open job contracts at will to perform on behalf of the guild, freelancers often find themselves so thoroughly indebted to the Company early on that they are functionally left with no choice of jobs, acting as "freelancers" in name only. For those newly hired, the Company is often militaristic in nature, even going as far as requiring freelancers to live on Broken Company property to pay off debts, in lieu of providing enough of a share for the freelancers to have living arrangements of their own.