An elven woman of indeterminate age slouches through the shade of Puyallup's dirty sky.  A study in contrasts; her dark hair is cut into shoulder-length waves, red highlights peeking through in the few feeble rays of sunlight that pierce the igneous gloom.  Her tasteful makeup and manicured brows suggest a career in PR, but a certain distance behind her dark eyes suggests she is entirely unsuited to the service industry.  Thin even for an elf, her triangular figure and pointed chin lend her a certain sullenness, made worse by her squinting against the acidic air.  Black cocktail dress and matching leather (leather!) gloves would say that she's hitting the club to find her latest dance partner, but she lacks even the most minor biosculpting - only a simple neck datajack wreathed by her hair.  The most obviously dangerous thing about her seem to be her heavy platform boots; few people would consider being so obviously harmless in Puyallup, but she moves steadily down the street, one foot perfectly in front of the other, and eyes seem to gloss over her except the occasional windowed catcall.  She smiles artlessly as she walks.

She stops momentarily at a hunched corner hawker, picks up some cigarettes; a credstick slides briefly between hands, but a different one comes back to her.  Humming tunelessly, she clicks the balance, then pulls out her commlink and makes a show of sending a brief message directly on the touchscreen.  They part ways, the hawker moving towards the alley she had just turned out of, standing straighter as he begins to walk.  She taps out a cigarette with one hand, chewing thoughtfully on the fingertip of her other glove before she replaces it with the cigarette.  A pocket arc lighter briefly flashes in the murk as she conspicuously turns to study the oncoming traffic in the intersection.

"Null sheen if you just want to follow me," she drawls blandly, without turning around.  Her voice is soft, but you can easily hear her low alto.  "But if you want my rates, you can ask.  Though if you're a tinner, you have to tell me, so ka?  It's in the Constitution," the Cityspeak tumbles artlessly from her lips, and you can see the corners of her lip turn up even at the peculiar angle.  She reaches behind her and casually runs her thumb across the small of her back as though gently massaging it, briefly revealing the telltale outline of a pistol grip previously hidden by the folds of her dress.  "So, what kind of biz you here in Tarislar for, sersakhan?"

Nessa was born with a lovely life laid out for her.  Her comital father was a double-PhD from UTT (biochemistry and chemical engineering), her mother a project manager and real estate developer.  Both of them gainfully employed above the salt at Telestrian Biotechnology, they spoiled their only daughter, a corporate-sponsored artificial insemination by a Telestrian wagemage.  A social butterfly with a natural talent in the Matrix, Nessa delighted her parents with her artless charm, breezed through prep school with advanced placement, and had a paid internship waiting for her at Lotus Eater Entertainment before she even got her high school diploma.  Her father's health plan covered her braces at 95%.  "She was always smiling," said her cousin in the screamsheet interview.

Boring.  Disgusting.  Gears rusting in machines, giant steel rats gnawing their way to the root of the world.  Three hundred years of waiting to die.  

Something happened - a combination of suburban insanity and the distant grind of tortured metal from beneath the Grid - driving her to the obvious conclusion that it's much more satisfying to take things apart than to put them together.  A hatchling snake laid by the Dissonance, her teenage years were spent in a combination of idly hacking her way to perfect grades and flatlining the occasional Grid surfer for fun.

As she attended school at UTT (legacy admission), Fading started to take her, but she was still adroit enough to breeze through her studies, giving her plenty of time to be recruited into burgeoning reactionary movements.  She feels no particular metaracial prejudice, but she likes nuyen, lying, and the color of burning ammonium nitrate, so when her political science TA asked her for 'additional documentation for extra credit' she was - well, not exactly happy - to provide.  A combination of ready access to UTT labs and as-of-then unknown otaku abilities made her a serial bomber responsible for (known at this time to the Tir Peace Force) three separate terror attacks during the 60s.

When the dust settled and Larry Zincan became High Prince, the internal purges began throughout the Tir - not so much that the Rinelles collapsed, but enough that all the powers that be could be said to be doing their part.  The Laesa, as go by now, whisked the then-Faded Nessa to Puyallup before the magical interrogators could put the pieces together.  

Eventually, as the great serpent of Dissonance reared up and swallowed the Matrix whole, she could only watch from afar as the planes fell from Seattle's smoky skies.  In the wreckage of the Crash she became a small-time fixer and hacker for the Laesa, borrowing cyberdecks to make rent for another month - still waiting to die, but without pretense, at least.  The dingy squats grew, became yet another suburb, and she smiled still.

Years passed - and then the new Grids arrived, and with them that familiar, comforting, grinding hum.  She knew it would come back.  She has a different smile, now.

Rude Girl Chaotic Evil Edition