Character Profile: Quin

Age: 19
Birthday: September 12, 2150
Hair: thin, light brown hair; far too long, stringy, and relatively unwashed
Eyes: hazel, frequently entirely distant and faraway looking
Physical: Quin is skin and bones; quite tall and waiflike. He's potentially pretty hot, but just kind of looks like an abused puppy.
Distinguishing Traits: blitz tracks up both of his arms, though particularly the left; dark circles under his eyes; frequently wears a black trenchcoat and carries a big gun or two. And he shakes a lot.
Orientation: gay
Family: none
Past lives: none

For all he knows, Quin just appeared one day in 2147 some time. He occasionally has flashes of his life before two and a half years ago; things usually involving doctors, needles, sitting in a glass box under observation, and general unpleasantries. Getting flashes of these leave him shaking in fear, usually; he can't explain what the doctors did to him, he just remembers being terrified.

And of course, there are the odd tidbits they left in his mind. He doesn't know what they are or how they got there, just that when he decides to listen, his memory goes photographic; every now and then, he performs amazing feats of gymnastics and can be incredibly (and effectively) violent when provoked. The people in the Below (or at least his neighborhood) are pretty damn scared of him. Their basic rule (the basic rule of life in the Below) is not to fuck with a junkie looking for a hit; every now and then someone would challenge Quin as he was out finding his drugs, and that always resulted in severe bodily harm on the part of the agressor. On the other hand, wait until he's happily high ("blitzed out") and you could rob him blind with no problem.

With the Shads plague running rampant through the Below, it would have been far more surprising for Quin not to have contracted the disease than finding out he did, which, of course, he did. He had passed out in front of the Charity Shads Clinic, run by a few do-gooders from the Above, which was designed to test and try and help Shads victims. There was no cure, but Quin resisted their help when he found out he was, esentially, dying; he didn't care enough to try and get in off the streets.

They said he had six months to live. A year later, while he was still waiting to die, one of the Corporations—he didn't even know which one—was looking for grunt workers, and took him in, (using the preferred "grab him in a dark alley and drag him off to their lair" recruitment method), ran a few tests, and discovered that despite his incredibly frail exterior and severe blitz addiction, Quin was almost superhumanly strong and agile, and, when he could concentrate on something other than his drugs (a rare occasion indeed) abnormally perceptive and intuitive. Rather than waste a surprising find, they ran him through a few simulations of attackers and such, and he kicked ass every single time.

Word of this wonderjunkie was sent to some of the higher ups, who did their research and came up with a vague idea what was going, but chose not to tell anyone else. Quin was sent out on a different variety of jobs than originally intended; he was very much a corporate slave like everyone else kidnapped from the Below, but instead of doing basic labor, he was an assassin. He was given blitz and money in return for the jobs he did, though he wasn't really given a choice. His employers were nameless; all he ever saw were generic drones who could have worked for anyone.

Quin is a very quiet, very desperate man. He has no loyalties to anyone except his dealers, and no particular drive or motivation to do or achieve anything. He realized when he was undergoing tests at the hands of his employers that, somehow, he'd overcome Shads (they'd tested him for it and he'd come up negative, y'see) but it never occurred to him that it this was in any way important. He's still basically waiting to die when the story begins. He understands the abject poverty he's surrounded with, and particularly is disgusted with himself, but doesn't feel he has any way to change it. He's been living in such conditions, which includes fear of his employers as well as the poverty, for so long it feels like normal; he has no idea there's any alternative.

And then Quin met Damon. Or rather, will meet in the story, but it has rather a significant impact on him. For one, Quin was pretty much asexual before meeting Damon, he had no real interest in girls or boys, as any urges he had were all blitz cravings. Damon brought out that side of him; I'd hazard a guess that Quin is, in fact, bisexual, but that's unimportant to the story. Damon also brought out the fact that Quin can be fiercely loyal to those he cares for, he's just never had a reason before. While he disregards his own life, Quin is quite protective of those he eventually cares for.

Needless to say, Quin has no self-esteem to speak of.