Kit Freytan

AGE: 15
Height: 4'11"
Weight: 85 lbs.


Kit is a short, lanky girl with a frail body that shows signs of malnutrition. She bears slender curves, and short, dirty blonde hair frames a small and delicate face. She has large brown eyes that are often wide and staring as she watches for signs of danger. She is normally seen dirty and dust-covered, wearing old, worn clothing that is stained from her time spent in the streets.

While her cybernetic augmentations are completely beneath the skin and not visible, there are two side effects that can give her away to those who look closely enough. Her right eye, while still biological, has cybernetic nodes and sensors incorporated into it to connect it to the artificial half of her brain (see 'Powers and Abilities' for further details). This sometimes leads to a very faint, barely visible light that shines through the iris and pupil, giving away Kit's semi-artificial nature. This becomes more noticeable if a light is shined directly in her eye, since the reflection off the artificial inner lens will be quite visible.

The second sign is a series of pale, violet spots that dot some parts of her body. They formed along certain nerve clusters as a side effect of the way her body was adapting to the artificial nerve impulses being sent from her cybernetic brain. They mark the sides of her face, starting at the temple and following the paths of the trigeminal nerve:



The spots are most noticeable along the sides of the face and jawline. They are barely visible across the cheek and bridge of the nose, and sometimes the spots in those areas can only be seen under a ultraviolet light. More spots line her spine in dark patches, her legs along the path of the sciatic nerve:


and her arms and the backs of her hands along the path of the radial nerve:


Because these marks serve as a very clear means of identifying Kit, she does her best to keep them covered at all times. She wears long sleeves and pants to cover her arms and legs, and fingerless gloves to cover the backs of her hands. She wears her hair in a way that covers most of the marks on the side of her face.




Kit is timid and withdrawn. She spent the first eight years of her life unable to communicate or experience emotions, and most of the years since then in hiding. She thus has no true social skills, and is often perceived as being developmentally challenged. Despite this, she is highly intelligent and creative. Her early years, when she was incapable of speech, left her very isolated. She learned to observe and study everything around her, since without the capacity for communication she had to teach herself everything she could in order to survive.

Kit's emotions, imagination, and creativity are all the product of the artificial programming of the cybernetic half of her mind. One of the results of this is that she is able to shut down this programming, and thus her emotions, at will. When she does so, the artificial part of her mind is essentially only running in the background. This hidden part of her mind is still able to process emotion and communication, but these things are cut off from her conscious mind and her body. She uses this as a self defense mechanism when she experiences strong fear or other overwhelming emotions, allowing her to function based on pure, cold logic until she decides to reconnect her emotions.


Kit Freytan was born with half a brain.

More accurately, she was born with only one functional half of a brain. The other half was completely dead. When friends of the family asked, they had never been able to get a straight answer from her parents as to why it had happened. They had always been evasive, and always showed signs of guilt. It was suspected that her mother had, likely as not, been on narcotics during the pregnancy. Either that or her dad had beaten her mum quite frequently while Kit was in the womb. Spirits knew he had done it often enough during her childhood. Few would be surprised to learn that either of those factors had been the cause.

The most anyone could get out of her parents was that there had been 'complications during delivery'. Which was their way of telling people they didn't want to talk about it.

Kit had spent the early years of her childhood in a half-retarded state. The damaged portions of her mind, among other things, had included her centers for communication, emotions, artistic talents, creativity, and imagination. The only portions that remained active were those that were centered on purely logical concerns: mathematics, science, problem solving, reading, and writing. She had therefore, until the age of eight, been seen as something of a savant. Unable to speak, nor even to communicate her thoughts or emotions in written form, she had been a shut in who was incapable of any real personal interaction. Yet at the same time, she was able to read and understand books,and could write extensively on any subject other than her own thoughts and feelings. She had been sent to a special institute that helped educate her in ways that a mainstream school simply couldn't, yet there had always been limitations. They had helped to sculpt her damaged mind into something that could cope with her broken place in the world, yet they had been unable to offer a way to cure her.

That is, until Trimola came around.

Trimola, also known as the Tri-corporation Machinery and Organics Laboratory Association, had offered her parents a solution. At no cost to them, Trimola would install an artifical brain into Kit's damaged head, to take over the functions that her natural brain simply could not handle. The procedure had been highly experimental; fully artificial brains had existed for some time, as had small-scale chips that could be installed to take over certain functions, but nothing had ever been attempted on someone with a brain as badly damaged as Kit's. It wasn't at all uncommon for people to have chips installed to increase their brain functions, teach them a foreign language, repair damage caused by a head injury, or correct someone's impaired motor functions. Installing a full half of a brain, however, one which could control all of Kit's communication functions, dictate the way she interacted with others, and spark an artifical imagination and creative drive within her... this had been cutting edge technology. The particular group of scientists in this branch of Trimola had been confident that their new designs would change the way cybernetic minds were sculpted for years to come.

That is, until it turned out to be a catastrophic failure.

After the installation, Kit had still been unable to communicate. She had still shown no signs of artistic talent, no hint of imagination, and no indications of what emotions might be running through her frail, thin body. The entire venture had been declared a failure, Trimola had told Kit's parents that they were lucky their daughter had survived the process, and the science team responsible for Kit's new brain had been dissolved. Life, as it were, should have returned to normal.

They day after she got home from Trimola labs, Kit had run away.

Something had, in fact, been sparked in her mind that day. After the damaged sections of her brain had been cut out and replaced with the hardware that housed the new circuit pathways of her cerebral cortex, a new understanding had started to emerge within her. When electrical signals passed from computer chip to gray matter, her thoughts flowing from the artificial to the natural, she had come to a revelation. Emotion, as dictated by the intricate programs of the new parts of her brain, had emerged for the first time in the newly rebuilt girl. She experienced her first true emotion the moment she had awoken in the recovery ward of Trimola labs.

She had felt fear.

Her artificial imagination had started spinning tales of what would happen from here, as she pictured a life in a lab, being poked and prodded so that the scientists could unlock the secrets of her mind. In this vision she had, they kept her in a quiet, comfortable room, filled with toys and books and clothes, all in an attempt to let her 'feel' normal. All the while, they studied her, scanned her, and tested her. Even her playtime was nothing more than a series of tests, her would-be friends chosen for specific traits and personalities, so that they could gauge her reactions to different individuals. Her meals were selected so that they could judge how well the artificial emotion programs reacted to tastes both pleasant and foul. Her feelings, new and unknown to her, were toyed with, studied, cut open and laid out on a slab. She recoiled from this fate, and her newly awakened creative mind formulated a plan.

Play dumb.

When the Trimola scientists came in, she had sat and stared. She heard and understood their words for the first time in her life, but she ignored them. They tried to prompt her with kind words, touching stories, and later videos ranging from horrific to hilarious, all in an attempt to provoke an emotional response. They brought her kittens, hoping to get a reaction, then when that failed, one of the scientists went so far as to snap the neck of one of the poor, defenseless creatures, just to see if he could get a reaction out of her. Her emotions had been forced to detach themselves, then, her artificial mind cutting off contact with her biological parts until the emotions had passed. Deep inside the circuits of the new parts of her brain, she had cried. She had screamed and lashed out and tried to take the other kittens away, protecting them. Yet those urges remained locked away in the imagination of her programming, while the rest of her sat, stoic, and watched as the kitten's body grew limp and lifeless.

She had waited only long enough to be sure she was no longer being watched, before fleeing to a lower level of the city. She had spent many long weeks as a patient in the labs while they tested her, hoping for some sign that the procedure hadn't been a failure. For weeks she hid her emotions, while her newly programmed creativity worked through plans of escape. For the first time in her life, she was able to see beyond the moment, and think about the future. 'Future' had been a concept her old, damaged mind had never been able to conceive of before. Now that she understood what the future was, and could imagine the many possible paths her future might hold, there had been no way she could consider letting her future remain in the hands of the monsters at Trimola. So she had planned, and waited, and as soon as she was able, she had escaped.





Kit's cybernetic brain offers her several advantages over an ordinary human:


Kit can cut off the emotional programming of her brain at any time. The advantage to this is that she will not feel fear, doubt, anger, or any other potentially harmful emotions. One of the disadvantages is that when she does this, she also loses her capacity for caring and compassion. Her hidden mind still feels full emotions while it is cut off from the rest, and thus when she reconnects her mind she will often become overwhelmed by the emotions that she had cut off.

Another disadvantage of this is that the same programming responsible for her emotions also runs her communication, imagination, and creativity. When she cuts one off, she cuts the others off as well, forcing her into a mute state where she is ruled only by logic and can only understand such things as cold facts and mathematics.



Kit's creative functions are the result of an advanced program that is almost a separate AI working in conjunction with her normal mind (it is not a 'complete' intelligence, and needs the biological parts of Kit's mind to fully function). This programming grants Kit creative capabilities beyond those of normal humans, though she has not fully explored many of the possibilities. Under the right circumstances, her artificial creativity could master a musical instrument or art form with amazing speed, allowing her to create compositions of art and music instantly, even with no prior practice or experience. She has never in her life laid hands to an instrument, a paint brush, or anything of the sort, but if she did so, she would become an instant prodigy.

She is also able to near-instantly formulate creative, original, 'outside the box' ideas. The artificial part of her mind can process ideas and scenarios at a far faster rate than a normal person. In a very short time, she can simultaneously run multiple hypothetical scenarios in her mind, working through different solutions to a given problem to come up with the best plan. She can even run her own internal virtual reality programs, which she often does when she needs an escape from the real world.



Kit's artificial mind is capable of accessing the network with far greater speed and efficiency than a normal neural jack. The increased processing speed and power is further augmented by Kit's Heightened Creativity, allowing her to deduce unorthodox solutions to any problems she encounters. She is thus able to bypass firewalls and other defenses with the grace of a dancer, and work her way through unfamiliar systems with pure, artificial intuition.

Her artificial creativity also allows her to create her own computer programs like a sculptor working with clay. She views programming as an art form, and it is the one type of art that she has a great deal of experience with. Even before her artificial mind, Kit was a prodigy of mathematics and logic; now she is an artist who sculpts code with an artistic flair to create her own virtual worlds.

In addition to a wireless uplink, Kit's mind can be linked to any system via an optical uplink through her right eye. This allows her to access closed-circuit or off-network systems that might not allow normal neural interface. If a closed system utilizes any sort of cameras, scanners, fiber optics, or lasers, she can access the system via her optical uplink. Sometimes this is as simple as holding her eye up against a relay or camera, other times she may need to pry open a panel and pull out a bundle of fiber optic cabling to find an access point. She can also use a handheld optical scanner that she can wire into a system to create her own access point (either by plugging it into a USB port or similar access point, or manually rewiring a device to connect to it).



Kit's artificial mind is constantly active, spinning fantasy tales and flexing her imagination. It is capable of running multiple scenarios simultaneously, and processing them at far greater than a normal human's speed. Most of the time, this just means she has an exponentially overactive imagination. In some instances, however, it can prove vital.

When Kit is in danger, or otherwise experiencing an extreme situation of some kind, her imagination will go into overload, postulating multiple 'What If?' scenarios, and predicting the possible outcomes. When enough simultaneous scenarios show a certain possible result, she will often react without conscious thought to whatever she sees in her imagination. Sometimes this will result in her jumping at nothing, showing that her overactive imagination has gotten the better of her. Other times, however, she will be able to react to an event before it happens. In essence, her artificial intuition predicts the probability of certain events based on the imagined scenarios. This could lead to her ducking just before a shot is fired at her head, or jumping out of the way of an explosion before she consciously realizes it is coming. She might also be able to intuitively evade a pursuer or dodge an attacker's blows because she has already imagined all the ways the encounter could go, and guessed at her best way to achieve the outcome she wants.


Kit is homeless and poor. She has been in hiding since she escaped from the labs that created her artificial mind, and lives in fear of being found by them again. She hacks computers to siphon off what money she can in order to provide herself, but her fear of getting caught has prevented her from attempting to steal more than what she needs on a day to day basis. Hacking for enough money to buy lunch is easy enough to do without getting caught; hacking on a larger scale, while technically within Kit's range of skill and capabilities, carries far more risk. The fact that her hacking ability comes from the same place as her emotions and overactive imagination means that she can't hack without imagining a thousand ways that she could get caught, and facing the fear that comes with it.

She has few possessions, but always carries a portable optical relay device that she can use to help her access off-network computer systems.


Kit is technically the property of Trimola labs, a sub-division of Branch Industries. She avoids any and all contact with that or any other corporation, out of fear for the consequences if she is found and brought back to the lab.


Online Aliases and Avatars: Varies



Today was Kit's fifteenth birthday. For seven years she had lived on her own, on the streets of the lower levels. Here she was anonymous, just a street rat and a thief. Her anonymity kept her safe, for the first emotion she had felt, the fear, had never truly left her. She always avoided any buildings with Trimola's logo displayed on them, and never showed off her cybernetic traits to anyone. In a way, she was one of the lucky ones. While her mind had been altered, her outer body had not. She looked just like a girl, a short, lanky girl with a frail body and barely any curves. Dirty blonde hair framed her small, dust-covered face, and large brown eyes scanned the streets for signs of danger. Her clothing was old and worn, stained brown from sleeping in the streets. She had no shoes; shoes were a luxury, and Kit couldn't afford luxuries. What money she could find went to food.

A bank terminal sat right across the street. She watched it carefully, as she had been watching it all morning. Fingers scratched at the pale, violet spots on the side of her face and neck. She wore fingerless gloves to hide the darker, more detailed spots that covered the backs of her hands and the arch of her thumbs. To someone with the determination to check, those spots would mark her identity. While other people might have developed similar conditions from their own cybernetic upgrades, the patterns were always unique to each person. That made Kit's hands a surefire way to give up who she really was. Some people kept their artificial parts uncovered, wearing their artificial nature with pride for all to see. To Kit, her secret cybernetics were a sign of both danger and shame. It reminded her not only of a drug addict mother and an abusive father, but also of the labs she had escaped from. Trimola would have Kit's spots on file, just like her face and fingerprints, and if they ever decided to come looking for her, anyone who had studied her spots closely enough could give her away to the people she feared the most. She never took that risk, and never went anywhere without gloves.

The bank terminal was empty. She had been trying to work up the bravery for hours. There was always a risk with hacking. Anyone could walk up, wanting to use the terminal, and realize what she was doing. It was a big risk... but her stomach was grumbling, and it spurred her to bravery. She hurried across the street, her brown eyes scanning each way for signs of danger. There were no Constables in sight, and no signs of anyone with a Trimola ID badge. She should have time.

She rushed into the terminal, which was wide enough only for one person to stand in. The computer screen flared to life when it detected her presence, an artificial voice chiming, "Welcome to your one stop for all your financial needs! Please scan your biochip now..." Kit didn't use her biochip, and never intended to. The flashing red light on the front of the terminal prompted her where one would be scanned, the small sensor sending out a signal that would link to any chip when someone's waved before it. Kit leaned over, pressing her eye close to the sensor. Her right eye, the one that was connected to her artificial brain. The flashing light shone in her brown eyes, digging deep inside of her, shining into the depths, flashing like a beacon to a ship lost at sea. She searched for the cyber-shores in the distance, beyond the darkness, letting that light guide her mind in to safety. Deep through her brown eye it poured, streaking through viscous flesh and gray matter, until it found the electric pathways of her cybermind. She followed the light, and let it guide her to shore, skimming past the rocks that jutted out from the churning waves of artificial reality before her. She brushed past them, feeling them threaten to break her, crash her down into the depths, if but for a moment she were to slip and hurl her mind onto their sharp edges. Yet she coasted by with ease, the shore ever approaching closer, the light growing brighter in her eye. Her feet touched down upon sandy shores, wet beneath her bare, spotted toes. There she dug, dropping down to her knees to search for the treasures buried beneath the sand. She heard the sounds of distant ships approaching, and knew they were coming for her light on the shore. She dug faster, her hands frantically tossing wet sand aside. Each passing of the artificial tide poured more sand back into the hole, threatening to bury the treasure once more. She dug faster, refusing to relent, ignoring the spotlights shining on her from the approaching ships. They had found her, but they couldn't get to her in time. Her hands touched metal, solid and cool, and she dug around to find the edges so that she could pull the chest free. She laughed, setting the chest upon her knees, and lifting the lid to release pure light that shone upon her face...

"Thank you! Have a Perfect Day!" The voice of the computer broke Kit from her trance, and she blinked, severing her connection to the cyber realm. A small, disposable card was ejected from the machine, loaded with her stolen credits. She gave off a quick hoot, and grinned wide as she gathered the card up, shoving it deep into her pockets. She had to work hard to suppress the joyful laughter that wanted to slip past her lips, excitement and joy filling her. Kit turned to leave, bumping face to chest into a tall man who was blocking the exit from the terminal.

"Excuse you," he grumbled. He wore a professional looking suit, and pinned to his lapel was a Trimola ID badge, with the words 'Engineering Division' printed across the bottom.

Kit's brown eyes went wide, and she had a moment of panic. Quickly she severed her artifical mind from her biological, and all emotion drained from her. She looked up at the man, unable, just now, to understand who or what he was. He was a thing, and that thing stood in her way. Blank eyes stared past him, and she stepped around the thing to cross the street. Kit's biological mind had no inkling of where she was going, nor did she care. She lived in the moment. She knew only immediate concerns, and needs. Food was a need, and it was one she pursued. Food could be acquired from retail establishments. Credits could be traded for it. She had credits. She therefore could acquire food.

She headed down the streets, the inner depths of her mind letting out a sigh of relief that never touched her pale, stoic lips.