Profile

BASIC DEMOGRAPHICS

Name: Andrew Hewitt-Remora

Age: 34

Gender: Male

Species: Sentient android. In the future, due to the approaching technological singularity, the difference between ‘human’ and ‘android’ has been getting increasingly tricky, and is generally narrowed to six Definitions, each with their own rights and limitations. Andrew is a Definition Three.

Languages: English. He has an odd accent, something between Midwestern and British.

APPEARANCE

Height: 5’10”. Rather short for the future.

Weight: Below average; light. While Andrew has the body of a fit older male, much of that body is made of a hyper-advanced metalwork that is lighter than flesh by several degrees. This throws him off a lot and makes it so that anyone around his height could probably, with effort, lift him up. (He hates this.)

Build: While the past few months of inactivity have worn away at a fair portion of it, Andrew is fairly toned. He is not bulging or rippling by any stretch, but he is clearly physically trained and capable.

Skin: A dark olive color, with the occasional scar. Much fewer scars than there should be, however.

Hair: Black. He keeps it cut short enough to be out of his eyes, and kept fairly messy otherwise. It’s starting to grow out a bit, though, and he has to brush it back. He has a bit of 5 o’clock shadow, mostly because he can’t be bothered to shave.

Eyes: One eye is an average, pleasant green. The other, being mechanical, is a more electric green, with the ‘whites’ more of a greyish color.

Other traits: While Andrew's body is mostly human, he has several robotic parts, which match the vague shape of limbs but in a lovely, shiny chrome. Specifically, his left arm, lower left leg, two fingers on his right hand, and his left eye are noticeably robotic. Many other parts of him are cybernetic—such as portions of his jaw and skull, bits of internal organs, and fractions of his right hand bones—but they're far less obvious.

Clothes: Andrew is a cheap sort and sleeps in the clothes that are too old or ill-fitting to actually wear outside. Specifically, he wears a pair of jeans with torn cuffs and a plain black t-shirt several sizes too big. (As is fashionable in the future, the shirt has one sleeve going about halfway down the arm, and the other shorter, as though slashed diagonally. The bottom hem is similarly pointlessly diagonal.)

PHYSICALITY

Demeanor: Andrew moves with purpose and determination--he has things to do and places to be. He holds his head high and his posture firm and professional, vaguely guarded, as someone in charge and capable of holding their own. More observant folks might notice occasional mannerisms that hint at signs of trauma, however; keeping his back to walls and avoiding standing out in the open, moving at a quick pace, keeping a vigilant eye out on his surroundings, and in general being very tense.

Speech patterns: Andrew's tone matches his demeanor, mostly; he is professional and efficient and cold and very blunt. He has little patience for shenanigans or other people in general and is rather on the irritable and critical side. He's got more snark than he knows what to do with, and tends to be a complete jerk. While he does have a sense of humor, it's rather mean-spirited and bitter.

PERSONALITY

Overview: As far as Mr. Hewitt-Remora is aware, he is a normal if rather cold officer of the law. He is a very hard worker, a determined and professional and distant sort who’s used to very little coming along easily or conveniently. He tends to be very blunt and a bit cynical, argumentative and occasionally petty. He’s pessimistic and dislikes who he is, who he was, and everyone around him. In spite of this, he does have a soft side. Deep down beneath layers of snark and sarcasm and cold determination. Very deep.

Passions: Curiously, Andrew’s main goal, ever since he was a kid, was to prove himself and do the right thing. He genuinely enjoys assisting others and protecting those who can’t protect themselves. He likes proving people wrong; which includes, bizarrely, himself, and his own pessimistic fears.

Other than that, Andrew enjoys taking things apart and putting them back together. He likes learning new things and calm, rainy afternoons with a good book. He likes someone he can sit down and have a good hearty argument with and then go out and have a drink with, someone he can happily and mutually insult and banter towards and get the same in return. He likes hot cocoa, cheap self-indulgent action movies, advanced literary criticism, and vintage colonial era memorabilia. He likes philosophical debates and inappropriate jokes and garish Xmas sweaters.

Fears: Several, not that he’s going to be shouting them from the rooftops. He’s afraid of forgetting things, of slowly losing himself. He’s afraid of being unable to protect people he promised to, of letting them suffer because he was incapable or insufficient. He’s afraid of cars and bombs, of ticking down countdown timers and long stretches of highway. Finally, he’s--secretly, very secretly--afraid of dying. He’s taken comfort in a society that treats immortality as just another contract to sign and bill to pay, and doesn’t want to leave that.

Strengths: Andrew is physically strong, of course. The parts of him that are machinery are exceptionally so--while he won’t be able to lift cars over his head without crushing the parts that aren’t machinery, he can throw a mean punch, crush things in his grip, and pry thin metals open with his ‘bare’ fingers. He’s also well-trained, as a police officer; he knows several methods of self-defence and how to use various weapons, and is great at keeping calm and organized in a crisis.

Outside of that, Andrew is mentally organized and collected, aside from the brain damage. He’s decently intelligent and quick-witted, able to figure things out and adapt to them quickly. He’s almost brutally tenacious, unwilling and unable to give up when he’s found something worth fighting for. Finally, while he’s not terribly friendly, neither is he too badly aloof; he recognizes the value of allies, and in times of trouble will do what he can to protect civilians and give them someone to look up to.

Weaknesses: Andrew is a total jerk; while he’s not going to say anything just for the purpose of being cruel, neither will he ‘sugarcoat’ a thing. He will tell you in detail exactly the reasons why you suck and need to stop, and why he’s better than you. He tends to be snobbish and icy, unforgiving and occasionally even a bit vengeful or petty. In short, he’s very bad at making friends or genuinely connecting with people.

Andrew’s ‘conversion’ to androidism was a very recent act of desperation, and he’s not quite used to his robot parts. While he’s still physically capable, the fact that he can’t feel much of the left side of his body throws him off a lot, and he’s fairly easy to knock off-balance. Not to mention, while he was reconstructed with some of the best technology available, some of the internal damage is simply irreparable--he gets winded quickly, he can’t eat many foods or too much at one time, and his immune system is weak enough that he often has to wear a SARS mask and tends to get SICK more often than just sick.

Mentally, he’s even worse. Androidism is an experimental science, worse when your android doesn’t know he’s an android. He often has moments where he ‘spaces out’, or forgets memories or words, loses track of what he was going to say, or has irrational emotional reactions. These are nearly all a result of imperfect programming--’brain damage’--and infuriate and scare him more than he admits. He’s suffering some degree of PTSD and trauma, which he’s doing his best to overcome.

Quirks:

- Andrew enjoys vintage memorabilia, more specifically ones that relate to the origin of America and early colonialism. He has a collection of early American objects, and knows a lot about the subject. He tends to bounce from interesting hobby/subject to interesting hobby/subject in his spare time, and this is his current one.

- While Andrew tends to fight with people and snark at them and in general be kind of a jerk, he does highly value what few connections and friends and family he does have. Mostly, he just shows it in odd, very subtle ways; for example, he has an aunt who knits sweaters, and he wears them dedicatedly every winter. (This is also because he is too cheap to buy his own.)

- Andrew is bad at self-care. While his apartment is immaculately tidy and he pays all his bills on time and works hard, he is often distracted with work or hobbies and forgets things like eating or sleeping. On more than one occasion he’s blown his paycheck on memorabilia or shiny things and then ate only ramen and breakroom cookies for the rest of the week. Fortunately for him, his roommate usually covers the difference.

HISTORY

Dream: For the most part, they’re average, if somewhat bizarre and dull. He has dreams about going to the store and having to climb a shelf to get the change needed to pay. He dreams about exploring exotic little towns in the hunt for criminals with the help of his leprechaun assistant. He has dreams about seducing and forming a relationship with a certain famous retired pop star. Finally, he tends to have nightmares about things like forgetting who he is and who is family is, about having his limbs brutally removed, about being trapped in a car speeding towards a certain doom, and about a certain enigmatic murderer named Malachite.

Homeworld: Andrew lives in the city of Morreaux (pronounced ‘morrow’), in a future America. (Technically, Morreaux is located in a section of the expanded America which used to be lower Montreal.) The year is 62.

The future is surprisingly like the present in most all the important ways; aside from a country here and there, all the main countries are present, there are still tiny farm towns and broken slums, and overpopulation and hunger are still hot-button issues even though the population has mostly stabilized around 9 billion.

The main difference, at least in high-end cities like Morreaux, is the fact that there’s a form of immortality available to certain people. Essentially, if you are considered an important person--say you’re the lead on important disease research, or you’re a very powerful celebrity, or a political figure--you’re pushed by the city to sign a contract for a form of life insurance. In exchange for your service and continued service to the good of the people, in the event of your timely or untimely death, you will be organically reformed (reincarnated), as if you never died. Of course, you can cancel your contract at any time, for a very heavy cancellation fee.

Cities like Morreaux tend to be governed by and lead by a form of hivemind--essentially, people who’ve been reincarnated so many times that they’ve reached a sort of Nirvana, and their thoughts get increasingly similar until they’re more or less identical and one entity. It’s this entity that decides who should be next offered the rare treat of immortality, and determines law and order. It’s a very effective system, all said and done.

At least, until Malachite showed up.

Family/Friends:

- Father, HEWITT: One of the earlier sentient androids, and part of the initial movements to demand android civil rights and develop the Six Definitions. He’s a Definition Four. He was one of the first androids to get married and ‘bear’ children, and the first to get a divorce. He’s a pleasant and friendly, if a little bland, guy. He and Andrew keep in touch.

- Mother, Cherry Jacobs-Remora: Andrew’s genetic mother, a researcher in robotics and passionate civil rights advocate. While she was artificially inseminated to create Andrew, a court battle declared HEWITT the legal father, and few have questioned this decision. She and HEWITT divorced on fairly good terms, after it was determined that between the fight to date, the fight to get married, the fight to have a legal child, their marriage was unable to last through relative peace. She’s a bold, artistic woman, and while she and Andrew try to keep in touch, they often lose each other.

- Step-Mother, Lilia Percy-Hewitt: A polite, bookish, very gentle and shy woman. A bit on the nerdy side even for the cyberpunk future, she married HEWITT based off mutual interests in computers, popular media, and conventions, among other things. They live a very quiet and peaceful life together in a small farm town in Minnesota, and she writes and calls often.

- Step-brother, Matthew Percy-Hewitt: A man a bit older than Andrew, and his fated rival. Matthew was blessed from the start; good looks, charming, and an absolutely brilliant mind. He breezed effortlessly through classes Andrew struggled with, and was quickly recognized as a Very Important Person by the city for his influential developments in technology and its relation to reincarnation and what makes up the ‘Self’. His controversial but revolutionary ideas and inventions have caused stirrings throughout the country, and whisked him off quickly to a life of fame and fortune and luxury and importance. He and Andrew hadn’t really talked for years, not since Andrew’s graduation and admittance into the police force, but after Andrew began taking the Malachite case, and after his accident, they’re starting to bond more. Matthew is friendly and outgoing and optimistic, but increasingly stressed and tired, to the point of almost mania. It’s concerning.

- Friends: few and far between. He keeps a few acquaintances, but for the most part his only real friends are his roommate and the woman he was assigned to protect in the Malachite case. His roommate is Aleecia, an aspiring twenty-something college art student who he playfully fights with nearly daily and who does her best to keep him alive by stocking the place with food and visiting him every so often in the hospital. The woman he’s protecting is Gari, a previously world-famous pop star who long ago signed the immortality contract. She’s a poetic and bitter individual who fell horribly from grace and spends her days wired into the internet, watching government-censored cat videos, and doing very little. The case is the first thing in a long time she’s gotten excited about.

History: For the most part, Andrew’s life is fairly straightforward. He was a hardworking and determined kid trying eternally to beat an older step-brother who was naturally good at just about everything. Eventually, for his own sanity and to be his own person, he broke away from the family and became a police officer, which he’s good at and enjoys being. Protecting civilians is something he both considers important and feels important doing.

Eventually, he was assigned the now-infamous Malachite case--a group of mysterious people, led by someone named Malachite, were murdering people who’d signed the immortality contract in some sort of revolt against reincarnation. Andrew teamed up with a detective and poured over the case, seeking a connection between victims and to try and predict who would be targeted next. Eventually, they managed to narrow it down to some degree--the victims tended to be older, occasionally fallen from grace, or in general VIPs who were going through or had gone through some form of scandal or emotional issue. This narrowed it down to the most likely next target being a woman named Gari, whom Andrew was sent to watch over and help protect.

Over time, Andrew and Gari bonded, and it became clear Gari was suffering from clinical depression and a complete apathy and boredom towards her life. It also became clear she was hiding something, but investigation proved fruitless.

Unfortunately for Andrew, before he could get far on the case, he was attacked by Malachite--specifically, the car he was driving in with Gari was bombed.

Gari, being an immortal, survived without a scratch, but Andrew was not so fortunate. He was hospitalized for months with severe injuries, in a coma for a fair portion of that, and eventually given quite a number of replacement robotic parts on the bill and insistence of his step-brother. It was advised that he resign from the force as a result of it and the resulting trauma and issues. He now works, begrudgingly, at the college of his roommate. (He is, of course, still pouring over and investigating the Malachite case in his spare time.)

Andrew has not been informed in any way as to the full extent of his injuries; as far as he’s aware, he narrowly survived, with heavy damage and some replacement parts needed. He does not know that he was killed in the incident, and that the process of being 'brought back' makes him a Definition Four android. His brother's been meaning to tell him, of course, but been... putting it off. It's something he's in no hurry to reveal.

Andrew is also unaware, consequently, of the exorbitant cost needed to create such an android, and how he is consequently a VIP by proxy; his revival was requested (demanded) by the VIP Matthew, and as such any untimely death on his part shall be patched up in order to keep said VIP happy and working.

Sleeping: Andrew was sleeping in his apartment, all nice and cozy with a book to read.

SKILLS

Primary Skills: Andrew is generally capable. He has years of experience being an officer of the law, and as such knows both how to handle physical combat and how to prevent things from escalating that far. He’s talked a few people out of jumping off bridges or keeping hostages, and knows how--regardless of how weird things get--to stay focused and keep your eye on the prize. He’s good at organizing, keeping others calm, and protecting them, and he knows both how to handle several weapons and basic hand-to-hand combat.

Other than that, he’s reasonable intelligent and well-read, even if most of his literary experience are books that haven’t been written yet in the present. He’s got a pretty good historical knowledge, and he’s pretty good at taking electronics apart and figuring out what makes them tick.

Also, he’s an android. His cybernetic parts can take and give out a pretty nasty beating.

Combat: Yes! Andrew has much experience in this regard. He’ll usually try to avoid actual combat if possible, but will not hesitate to defend himself or civilians. How he approaches it depends entirely on the situation, but his main focuses are to protect civilians, understand the situation, and subdue the perpetrator. Generally, he likes to assign roles and duties to people he feels are physically (or magically, etc) capable, and approach conflict quickly and efficiently. He’ll go for a non-lethal disable or submission preferably, as he’d much rather knock out and restrain someone than shoot them, but will carefully analyze the attacker to determine how best to proceed. If they’re, say, a monster, he won’t hesitate to kill it dead. Basically, he’s by-the-book.

Weapons/Gear: None, aside from his own limbs. All Andrew had in his pockets upon sleeping was a bit of spare change, a pen, and a piece of bubble gum.

Unusual Abilities: Andrew is an android. While for the most part he seems pretty human, and considers himself to be--he’s not about to hyper-process anything or unlock any mental potential--he has an arm and a leg and other parts made of shiny chrome and metal. When fighting, he likes to favor these, because he knows that getting punched with a faceful of metal hurts a hell of a lot more than flesh.

Other:

- Malachite, while an exceptionally dangerous and wanted individual, is not terribly imposing in appearance. Reports and sights put him (her?) at about 5’7”, and wearing a bright red hooded sweatshirt, jeans, dark goggles, and a maroon handkerchief over the nose and mouth; he’s been described as ‘a punk kid’. The consequence of this, however, is that Malachite is an increasing idol among the young punk rebel kids, both those morally opposed to contract-based immortality and those who just enjoy seeing bad things happen to the rich and famous. Several potential leads on the case have led only to the arrest of Malachite imitators. The latest one was quoted as saying, “Oh, boo, immortality is so hard, it must suck so much for you guys”.

- Social issues and debates have evolved with the times. The current big hot-button issues, after the Six Definitions resolved much of the android Civil Rights movement, are as such: genetically modified ‘idealized’ babies, the increasing censorship of the Internet and several ‘pirate’ versions of the Internet (including 10-CHEN and Sealand), and laws on consent and free will versus ‘barely sentient’ androids.

- THE SIX DEFINITIONS OF ANDROID (otherwise known as the Sentience Spectrum):

1. Entirely human, with some very minor robotic brain adjustments or additions.The robot parts are not necessary to live or thrive, and at worst merely for patching medical issues, such as a person getting a replacement portion of their brain to help with a mental disorder or prevent the spread of a disease, or simply for convenience. (A person with a chip in their brain that plays MP3s would be a Definition One.) These have all the rights of humans and are referred to as human more often than not.

2. People who have had required brain alterations in order to live, or have a large portion (not more than half) of their brain rendered mechanical. If someone would be unable to function without their mechanical alterations, or would only be able to function at a severely low level, they’re this Definition. They can be referred to as human or android at their preference, and still have all the rights of a human, but require the occasional observation and medical care. If a brain has developed a dependence on mechanical parts that cannot be sustained organically, it’s at this level.

3. People who have had more than half of their brains replaced with artificial parts; people who’re more machine than organic. While this varies on a case-by-case basis and can often be switched with a Definition Two or Four depending on how much of the ‘self’ is currently capable and what parts were replaced, most everyone who’s undergone severe replacement surgery is a Definition Three. Definition Threes vary the most wildly in sentience, ranging from perfectly normal humans with occasional health issues (and many of the immortals) to mindless zombies. As such, they’re required to undergo testing to prove their level of sentience and their rights are adjusted accordingly. (Andrew underwent these tests, but considered them part of testing for brain damage.) Even those with will of their own are prone to ‘glitches’.

4. A brain that is entirely or nearly entirely mechanical or artificial. Mechanical brains fit into this, but so do organic, lab-grown brains. These still have will of their own, but tend to be prone to errors or oddities or roboticness. They’re often considered ‘Uncanny Valley’, and while they resemble humans, they can range from fully human-looking to a toy-like humanoid thing. Can vary between Three and Five on a case-by-case basis, and often has to prove itself. If something is mechanical or artificial but still passes the sentience test, it is a Definition Four.

5. Bears slight will of its own, but is still very obviously inhuman or childlike. These are more robot than human in personality and thought as well as construction. They cannot or can only barely pass tests of sentience, and have few, limited rights. While they still have wants and feelings of their own, these are often blunt and childlike, underdeveloped.

6. Bears no will of its own or implications of real humanity whatsoever; a ‘doll’. Robot nature is extremely obvious and it is considered an inanimate object. These can be constructed with parts that resemble portions of the human mind, such as breathing or talking, but it very obviously has no real sense of self or thought. Referred to as android or robot.