78. J.O.E.

Joseph Oliver Easley was born in London a quarter-century before the Fall. He showed an early aptitude for math and it was no surprise when he majored in mathematics, then began graduate work in computer science. He was corrupted into insanity by a TITAN virus during the Fall, a fate which gave him a dangerous curiosity for TITAN tech.

Reinstated from his university's off-world backup, he found himself an infugee. He signed an indenture contract working as mesh security for the Mars Authority, but by the time it ended he had discovered that he enjoyed infomorph life. He sold his newly earned body and migrated to Glitch. There he began working as a hacktivist, seeking to uncover hypercorp secrets.

J.O.E. was created in AF 8, in a Firewall dead drop server. Joseph had instantiated a beta fork (J.O.E.) directly on the server to reduce latency. Suddenly, however, the server was disconnected, trapping J.O.E. inside. Firewall interviewed the hacker fork they had captured and, having a use for his skills and seeking to prevent his interest in TITANs from becoming dangerous, recruited him.

J.O.E. is resentful of Firewall's restrictions on him. While he is not bothered by his status as software, and happy to have the opportunity to uncover secrets and investigate TITANs, he would rather do so on his own terms. Firewall tends to loan J.O.E. to teams requiring a hacker, keeping him in a special portable server-prison that disallows forking or exporting.

Mechanics

Morph: Digimorph

Motivations: +Freedom, +Virtual Reality, +Hacktivism

COG 20 COO 10 INT 10 REF 10 SAV 10 SOM 10 WIL 10
MOX - INIT 4 SPD 3 LUC 20 TT 6 IR 60 DUR - WT - DR -

Active Skills: Fray 20, Hardware: Electronics 58, Hardware: Robotics 58, Infosec 60, Interfacing 60, Medicine: Nanomedicine 55, Networking: Scientists 50, Pilot: Groundcraft 40, Programming 60, Psychosurgery 40, Research 50

Knowledge Skills: Academics: Computer Science 50, Academics: Cryptography 58, Academics: Mathematics 58, Interest: Science Fiction 58, Interest: Simulspace 63, Interest TITAN Tech 63, Language: English (Native) 80, Profession: Darknet Operations 58, Profession: Mesh Security Operations 68

Reputation: @-rep 50, i-rep 40, r-rep 50

Implants: Mnemonic Augmentation

Note that J.O.E. is a beta fork.

Using J.O.E.: I've made J.O.E. with the intention of acting as a convenient "hacker-in-a-box" for groups lacking an infosec specialist. His interests in TITAN tech also let him act as adviser, minor antagonist, or instigator of TITAN/singularity seeker oriented missions.

Plot Hook: Joseph Oliver Easley is still out there somewhere, a skilled hacker who would love to know all that J.O.E. has learned from Firewall. J.O.E., resentful as he is, would not like an attempt re-merging after their long time separated. If he has learned to trust the players, he may ask him for help carrying out a preemptive strike on Joseph.