How I've come to be involved with this logic defying, "box of chocolates" assortment is a tale worth telling, or at least worth knowing. Then again, every tale is worth knowing because every story is bounding with new perspective, opinion, and information.

	Prior to informing you of past events, I should inform you of my present self. I'm a human and that is fine with me. I couldn't care less as to being a meta-human or not. It's not as if an elf's pointy ears would let me hear better. Besides, I have my cyber mods to handle that. I am precisely 1.8529 meters tall. Even though I change my hair color at every new moon, my natural color is a smoldering red. I maintain my body weight at 68.04 kilograms for maximized agility and performance.

	I was born in 2046, and knowledge of my infancy ends there, as far as I have been able to determine. I have no recollection of my parents, and don't care to know about worthless individuals such as they must have been. The earliest memories that I can recall are of scavenging in the  Mid-Western UCAS sprawl, in order, to survive. At the time, I was the age of approximately 5 years. I soon became one of the local gang-ers, but that didn't last long. My sharp tongue, and lack of size to match it, sooner or later angered all of the gang leaders in the area. I don't care if I was five or fifty, I was still smarter than those cheaply cybered baboons.

	I didn't have the time to waste on those sim-adds, so I left, in order, to find a better place to live, and possibly a better group with which to associate. What was I thinking? Boston had the same sim-ed up cyberjunkies as the Mid-West. Nevertheless, I had learned to get by on my own during the three year lapse on my journey to Boston. My physical maturity had begun to improve substantially, as well. Thus, dealing with the sprawling SINless that hindered my way of life was a much simpler matter.

	The year 2055 was a major determinant in my persona. That was the year that I met Professor A. Ponzi. By that time, I had grown accustomed to persons exchanging currency for information that I could provide, but Ponzi was 'special'. She had contracted my services in an unusual manner and for an even more unusual job. First, she initiated contact personally, instead of through a third party or technological medium. Had it been a random street thug, she would have probably been mugged and/or killed, but that was reckless as far as I was concerned. Second, the job was to tell her a story.....more specifically, my story. She wanted to hear about everything that I'd done during my time on the street, each of the cities that I'd visited, the people that I'd encountered.....any and everything.

	I couldn't understand why she would pay for such a thing, but her currency was good, the effort needed was at a minimum, so I took the job. When the news of the bugs infestation of Chicago hit, her questions focused on anytime that I may have spent in the area or strange occurrances that I may have witnessed. That continued for over a year, but during that time the narration gradually transitioned into a discussion. She taught me the value of knowledge, no matter how insignificant it may be, without my noticing, until I was just as much of a information junkie as her.

	I guess that I could be described as one of Pavlov's dogs. Information began as a means to an end, but like the bell it became assimilated with the mental reward. I even started gathering more information for Ponzi in exchange for assorted lessons, books, or records that she had in her collection. We even theorize on where I was born. Ponzi told me that my red hair and green eyes suggest that I had an Irish lineage, but that I must my grandparents probably immigrated before the Awakening. The only topic that she would never discuss with me was the Nightwraith strike of 2033.

	I spent much of that year and the next with Ponzi, but I did continue to do datasteals, courier runs, and B&E jobs. There was a Johnson in the sprawl that regularly had currency or cybermods on hand in exchange for some professional assistance. I also keep up some freelance work.

	In 2058, my regular Johnson was pleased with my performance began offering some higher level (and higher paying) jobs, but they required that I work with a mini-shadowrunning squad he had compiled. I agreed. I didn't give a damn about working with other people, just as long as they were competent, and didn't get me killed. That was a huge error in my thinking. The first run that I went on separated one of my ears from my head and witnessed my corneas being damaged by an obscenely powerful flash bang. After the run was finished, the other two squad members accidentally mistook a couple of hand grenades for fruits. On the next mission, I had a team that paid slightly more attention to what I had to say.

	The last team the I was part of was a trio. An illusionist, a rigger, and myself. We spent about a year running, and where relatively successful. That was the longest period of time that I had spent with any one team of people. Now Koori was cold and professional, but never failed to meet her responsibilities. The illusionist was also competent. Not competent enough, however, to realize that I'm extremely sensitive to information. Especially, when someone attempts to keep me from it. During a run into one of the megacorps I dropped some smoke grenades to provide escape cover. She was a very good illusionist, because I never saw her come out of the smoke screen and I made sure to drop any hostiles that might have been coming through the smoke after her. Oh well. That's life. I continued to work with Koori for another 2 years after the trio became a duo. I can't say that I like her, but I do respect her.

	One of the clients that I freelanced myself out to was A'leia. It was only a couple of courier runs and datasteals, but it seemed like her outfit was involved in quite a debacle. Of course, my curiousity got the better of me, and I wound up trying to breach their security and I was caught. For the first time in my life I was caught. Fortunately, they were in impressed by either my skills, my experience, or the sheer fact that I had the blocs to try and hack them to begin with. It also didn't hurt that they were lacking a sufficient team for the shadowrunning that they needed to do. When they brought me in, I brought Koori along because, worst comes to worst, I count on her to at least have a decent reason for betraying me.