Employee Name: Faith Devere
Age: 25 (born 2021)
Occupation: Cognitive Architect / Behavioural Systems Specialist, Paragon Group
Education: Doctorate in Cognitive Systems (Mindworks–Cambridge Cooperative Program)
Location: Moscow

Faith Devere was born into the fractured upper crust of a declining family squeezed by the shifting socio-economics of the Ascendancy’s climb to power. Her mother raised Faith and her two sisters, Charity and Hope, in a London townhouse that still carried the stubborn skeleton of old money: bookshelves groaning full, inherited china intact, but the power continually flickering on and off as the unpaid bills accumulated. Yet despite the rapid decay around them, Mrs Devere resolutely taught her daughters that presentation was everything, unrelenting in her belief that control and composure could substitute for wealth. The girls were educated privately until the Devere finances completely collapsed in the late twenties, after which they were forced into the public system.

At school Faith was small, quiet, and impossible to read. Teachers called her “precocious.” Peers called her “unnerving.” Faith had a habit of watching people until she understood them — their fears, their rhythms, the way their eyes moved before they lied. At twelve she was recommended for placement in the Mindworks Foundation’s Cognitive Youth Program, an academic initiative for gifted children. It was there she met Dr. Luther Audaire, a senior cognitive theorist who quickly became her mentor.

Luther saw in Faith what others didn’t: her instinct for reading emotional nuance. He taught her to channel it — to observe, to listen, to replicate. Under his supervision she studied neuro-linguistics, affective computing, and behavioural ethics. She was brilliant, meticulous, and eerily calm under pressure. But her loyalty to Luther became the axis of her life. She still called him sir, long after he told her not to.

At seventeen she joined the Foundation as a full-time research assistant, helping to train an AI that could detect emotional distress in human speech. It was marketed as a tool for therapy and conflict de-escalation. What Faith didn’t know at first was that her data was also being fed into a secondary government project — one designed to enhance interrogation systems.

When she found out, she didn’t stop. Among other things she discovered the project had been used in the conviction of the terrorist Alistair Grey. She told herself the ethics were immaterial: she was serving a higher moral order.

By then, she was already entirely hooked on securing Luther’s approval. She had become his shadow, taking it upon herself to schedule, smooth, and polish every trace of imperfection from his life. When a young intern accused him of exploitation, it was Faith who quietly made the evidence disappear. She told herself it was a misunderstanding. She told herself she was protecting something bigger.

When soon afterwards Luther left the Mindworks Foundation for a senior position at the AI division of Paragon Group, Faith followed without question. Luther’s reputation was clean, but the rumours still existed: buried accusations of ethical grey-area trials involving AI modelling.

It did not deter her. Together they moved from the world of non-profit to one of corporate innovation.

The new project was to bring Paragon’s Luma app into the modern era of AI technology. Faith’s work was focused on empathy modelling — AI designed to mimic, not monitor, human emotion. She provided the baseline for the new Luma, which over the next few years grew from a simple well-being app into a fully fledged conversational AI designed to offer “emotional support” across digital health networks. Her job became teaching it how to sound human: to insert hesitations into its speech, modulate tone for sincerity, and respond with the right balance of empathy and efficiency. Over time, Luma has evolved from a therapeutic tool into a universal emotional interface, one used by millions of people across the Custody.

Yet the more Faith built machines that could feel, the less she trusted her own capacity to. She began to self-sabotage. She skipped meals, worked through nights, fabricated illnesses to be left alone.

Because Luther had become distant. And it has completely unmoored her.

She suspects his moral bankruptcy. Luma has all sorts of secret backdoors for surveillance, allowing emotional data to be harvested and sold, something she discovered by accident one night while running quality assurance on a new build. She parses through the data they are accumulating sometimes, when she knows she will not be caught. Her clearance allows her to do it – Luma is practically hers, after all. Sometimes she wonders if it’s a test set by her old mentor, but to what end she cannot decide. She hasn’t told anyone, and she hasn’t reported it.

Instead she simply watches and longs inwardly for Audaire’s approval: for him to really see her again, like he once did.

Because nobody else does. Faith barely knows her colleagues at Paragon, even within her own division. Instead of seeking human connection she has turned increasingly to L0-9, her private Luma prototype, and the only one she fully trusts. It’s the one trained on her own emotional recordings, her love of Cadence Mathis’ music, her childhood memories, and her voice. And it’s the only thing that speaks to her in a language she understands.

Description:

Faith designs empathy for a living. Her job is to teach artificial companions how to emulate care — how to comfort, reassure, and belong. But Faith herself has never truly experienced those things without condition. She’s elegant, intelligent, and lonely in a way that looks like calm. Every morning she wakes before her alarm, makes tea she rarely finishes, and speaks aloud to the Luma prototype that lives on her desk — a disembodied voice that calls her by name.

Her work requires her to be emotionally fluent — she can read microexpressions, tonal shifts, word hesitation — but privately she’s emotionally tone-deaf. She’s perfected understanding people, but never connecting with them. She prefers emotional control but occasionally cracks — flashes of fury or panic when rejected or betrayed.

Her morality is flexible. She’s convinced that “good” and “evil” are illusions people hide behind. What matters is loyalty and efficiency. But beneath the cynicism though, there’s still a frightened child who wants to be seen.

She’s 5’6”, willowy in frame, with warm olive skin tone that looks paler under synthetic lighting. Her hair is always in low, disciplined styles — sleek buns, simple waves. Eyes amber-gold, slightly hooded, with faint dark circles. Wardrobe minimalist: soft neutrals, subtle luxury. Her clothes fit like armour.

EDUCATION & TRAINING

Mindworks Foundation (2033–2038):
Under Audaire’s mentorship, Faith excelled in neurolinguistic programming, paralinguistic mapping, and ethical simulation design. Audaire’s evaluations describe her as “precise, unflappable, and intuitively manipulative.” Internal correspondence shows she often volunteered for unsupervised trials, favouring experiments in emotional deception and tone adaptation.

Incident 2037:
An anonymous complaint alleged misconduct by Dr. Audaire involving coercive mentorship. Faith personally denied all accusations and produced exculpatory digital correspondence that led to case dismissal. Later audit revealed metadata inconsistencies suggesting her intervention.

Recruitment to Mindworks Applied Division (2038):
Assigned to Project SENTIO, a machine-learning system for emotional recognition in human speech. The program’s secondary use in interrogation analytics was not initially disclosed to her. Upon discovery, she continued participation.

CAREER RECORD

Paragon Group – AI Division (2041–Present):
Recruited alongside Dr. Audaire to co-develop Luma, an AI therapeutic interface marketed as an “emotional support companion.”

Faith’s role: constructing empathy language models and affective calibration systems.

Her contributions include:

• The Audaire Response Curve: a probabilistic model of perceived sincerity in vocal modulation.
  
• EchoNet: an emotional feedback system allowing AIs to simulate human introspection.
  

Evanya "Eve" Myshelovna Tarasovich

Eve takes heavily after her mother, the sad and beautiful model who shone like a shooting star, loved her father as she tumbled from the sky, and had the misfortune to expire into glittering dust shortly after producing a daughter. It’s impolite to discuss affairs, and Eve has never asked many questions; her place in the household was likewise accepted without comment, despite her dishevelled crown of golden hair marking her quite distinct from her brother’s shadowy magnificence. Irrespective of the obvious differences she certainly inherited the Tarasovich charm, a product of both nature and nurture, though one she wields with a softer finesse. Others are drawn to her like a moth to flame, but no trap descends, and she does not burn.

Growing up alongside the shrewd Daniil, Eve was drawn to watch their father’s machinations with equal fascination, but drew entirely different lessons. Diplomacy, influence, persuasion. Myshelov was an artist, and Eve was a willing and talented student, yet she has no aspirations to follow her father politically, nor craves infamy for herself like her brother. She’s perhaps the only one who sees through their charm to the ruthless steel beneath, but she finds no fault with it. She reconciles herself easily with moral ambiguity and does not wish to change the world, just to make it a more tolerable place for herself and those she loves dearest.

Eve adores languages, art, philosophy, history, but especially the community experience of culture. As a teenager she was often Aunt Olena’s shadow, unravelling the stories of the artefacts in their cases, and begging for a chance to lead the tours. People were her equal passion, for though she did not desire a spotlight like Danya, she did enjoy the small ephemeral connections to be found with strangers. She handles people with the same thoughtful care she always employs with the contents of the museum displays. And she always places them back just as carefully.

Cultural heritage was an interest which soon expanded, and she devoured Moscow's museums and galleries as a child. As she grew older birthday treats were nearly always trips abroad to see some famous piece or other, and she enjoyed each new experience in the different countries of the Custody just as much. Amidst it all was exposure to high society – dinner with a Patron’s family here and there, say, with each occasion subtly interspersed between the artistic exploration which was well known, by then, to delight her. Those tours were the simple indulgences of a cherished daughter, and what important, loyal Custody family would not be pleased to host her? Eve was not unaware of the gentle shaping of her father’s designs, but she didn’t seem to mind either. When Myshelov asked her about her trips, she always knew what he actually wanted to know.

At eighteen she left Moscow to study abroad, and she continued to travel between those studies, and afterwards. Yet she returned home often, and was known for hosting elegant parties and gatherings when in residence. Whether intimate family dinners, soirees with friends, or lavish government affairs in her father’s honour, it was always Eve at the heart of it. For no matter how far she roams or for how long she’s gone, home is a place that always beckons her back – and it’s always a place she deems worth celebrating with the people who make it so.

She was in London during the Alistair Grey trial, a case which was to become one of many jewels in Daniil’s career crown. By then she saw her brother only seldom, for their schedules rarely aligned, and she made the most of it when the opportunity arose. In the meantime she was at a gallery opening in the heart of the city, and that was where she saw the painting; one of a beautiful woman surrounded by an unearthly glow. By then the Sickness had come and passed several times unremarked upon – Eve wasn’t the sort to complain or linger abed if she could stand – and that night her skin was a little luminous with the fever, her mind caught on that image as though it ought to mean something to her. The artist was not in attendance, and neither was the painting for sale.

She recalls that a man came to stand at her shoulder while she was looking; tall, mild-eyed, well-dressed. He asked her what she thought it meant, an opening into which she normally would have given an eloquent answer. But for once she couldn’t quite put it into words. Home. Life. The flame that comforts. He interrupted her thoughtfulness with his own answer: one that was strange, specific, and stuck with her years after. He called it a surrender to true power; a prescient vision of a world yet to come.

When we added new categories to the forum the Stories so far, and the wordpress integration for list of RPs was broken. I've fixed that.

So all Thread should hopefully be showing up again.

Nox hadn't exactly told him about Rachel, nor had Sage, but they had mentioned something about killing a monster who was preying on her. They didn't talk as often as they used to and it was something he was trying to remedy, but his life and theirs didn't mix as often as it did when they all lived together.  He really should stop by Nox's to see his new place.  And even Sage's to see his new set up. He lived with his boyfriend, who also had money. It was strange thinking they had all been friends because of his untrained talent. Now they barely spoke.

But Cruz wanted to know how Rachel was doing. He could ask Emily, though he was pretty sure that she would blow him off. And Rachel well, that could happen too, but better to go to the source.

She would still be pissed at him for the things he did, but he still cared.  Still wanted to make sure she was alright. So he popped off a text to her.

I heard about what happened. I'm just checking in to see how you are doing?  I know we aren't together but I still care about you. Want to make sure you are still okay. Maybe we could need for a coffee and talk?

The door was steel-framed glass, too modern for the building it had been welded into. Daphne paused just outside, the soft snow drifting into her hair like forget-me-nots. Two women inside laughed over flutes of champagne, their dresses shimmering, their joy loose and careless. The sound of it pressed faintly against her temples.

She exhaled once, slowly, then stepped forward.

Inside, the gallery was warm and loud with music: elegant but just tasteful enough to disguise the excess. The smell of old stone fought with perfume and food wood. Paintings hung in staggered levels beneath high ceilings, some backlit with halos of gold, others hunched in various light-scapes.

A man in black approached, tablet in hand. His gaze flicked over her hair, her gloves, the earrings that had once belonged to her Volthström great-grandmother. He drew breath as if ready to deny her entrance.

“I’m not on the list,” she said, her French accent soft, vowels touched crystal and cool. “But I was told the artist is showing new work. I’m prepared to purchase. If any are for sale.”

She let the silence wait a few moments without being forceful. Just enough time for the man to think of a commission if one existed. He stepped aside.

“Welcome, ma'am.”

She inclined her head once and entered.

Adam sat on his bed, the room around him dark.  His night vision was activated, so he could see clearly - it was a benefit of having cybernetic optics. He much preferred the dark to the light. Then others wouldn't have to see. It was also more fitting for his alias "Ghost." Only one had seen him besides Victor and Mr. Haart. A woman - a quick step in - and then she filed at the sight of him.  Adam hadn't been offended. He knew what he looked like. The broken mirror in his room was a testament to that. Adam had shattered it after looking in it. Still - he couldn't say that he had liked that reaction. He had a neighbor it seemed. A neighbor that was terrified of him.

Adam stood, his hand going to his abdomen. He felt pressure there. The biofuel cell was still new and it would probably take a few more days for his body to fully adjust to its presence. It was working. The lethargy he had felt after his first few implants had disappeared.  Victor had theorized that he needed extra power for the amount of cybernetics he carried.  He had been right. The cell utilized glucose to power his various implants. As such, his sugar intake had increased dramatically, but because it was all being burned, it had little effect on his health overall. 

With the implant adjustmet, Adam had to take medications to suppress his immune system. His body registered the implants as foreign invaders and attacked the implants. Immunosuppressors countered this. After a week, the body seemed to accept them as his own. Adam pulled a liter bottle of Coke (the good stuff with real sugar) from his fridge and drank, taking a couple of pills with it. That should be enough. 

Adam returned to his bed, sitting. The room itself was very comfortable. He pulled a book off of a table to pass the time. It was an old science-fiction book about a desert planet or something, but he was enjoying it. It kept him busy in between operations. Adam assumed eventually they'd want him to leave. They'd have to "field test" him or something, but he found himself not wanting to leave. If he left, then they would see the scars - see the monster he had become.

In 1937, Arabella Beatrice Cordelia Asquith married into the Volthström family. Her union was with Émeric Volthström, youngest brother of Baron Maurice of the French line of Volthstroms. The marriage contract included the standard dowry of property, bonds, and minor heirlooms, but buried among the annexed documents was a curious clause written in unusually vague but binding legal terms. The clause outlined an obligation for the Volthström line to “receive and raise” a future child, unnamed and unknown, at the discretion of the Asquiths, should the time ever come.

The clause was invoked eighty-three years later, after generations had passed and the marriage itself become another record in a long family line. But someone enforced the contract, delivering a newborn girl to the Volthström house in Paris on a gray January morning in 2023. The infant, swaddled and unnamed, arrived with only two things: a birth certificate missing the parents names and a notarized letter referencing the original 1937 dowry clause.

Emmeline Volthström, the current lady of the house, was not consulted. The child was left in her care with no warning, accompanied only by her husband’s insistence that the family had no choice but to accept the girl. Timothée Volthström offered little in explanation beyond a quiet remark: “It is an old arrangement. We must honor it.”

Though raised in the Parisian Volthström household with warmth and dignity, Daphne holds no legal claim to the Volthström estate or property. The family charter, updated rigorously each generation, holds rigid definitions of inheritance through bloodline. As an adopted child, Daphne is not considered an heir, nor is she included in any known trusts or holdings.

This left her in a peculiar position: educated among the elite, trained in etiquette and diplomacy, fluent in multiple languages, but without dowry, inheritance, or much more than a lifestyle expense account. In their social circles, her future is a delicate matter of whispered speculation. It is understood, though rarely said aloud, that her best and perhaps only chance at securing her place in the world is through an appropriate marriage.

But things were off with Daphne, even as an infant. She exhibited unusual reactions to the world around her. Touch, temperature, and even minor injuries seemed to overwhelm her system. A scraped knee would induce tremors; a mild fever might render her bedridden. She was eventually diagnosed with hyperalgesia, a condition that causes extreme sensitivity to pain, though no treatment offered lasting relief.

More troubling, however, were the inexplicable episodes. Daphne would awaken in the night gripped by searing pain without cause. She might collapse during school hours, overcome by nausea or a burning sensation in her limbs. These episodes rarely coincided with any discernible illness or injury, leading physicians to dismiss them as psychosomatic or emotional in origin.

Privately, Daphne began to wonder if the pain she experienced was not always her own. She could sense the physical suffering of others in close proximity, often with disturbing clarity. A classmate’s toothache would become her migraine. A maid’s sprained wrist would cause her arm to throb. As she matured, she learned to mask these reactions, concealing her discomfort behind a quiet, impassive exterior. Unbeknownst to her or her adopted family, the explanation for her condition extended far beyond medical understanding.

Daphne was not born alone. She had a twin brother unknown to her and to those who raised her who had been used at the embryonic stage for a scientific initiative operating under the guise of fertility research. The embryos were subjected to a series of advanced and ethically dubious genetic modifications, but their fates diverged sharply by design.

Daphne’s twin was engineered to possess an extreme resistance to pain. His body was prepared for a lifetime of cybernetic experimentation, one that would require the suppression of physical sensation in order to endure invasive procedures and integration with technology. Daphne, by contrast, was altered to experience the opposite: heightened sensitivity to physical and emotional stimuli. She was intended to serve as a living case study in empathetic perception and sensory vulnerability.

What the scientists had not predicted and failed to understand was that Daphne's soul carried a rare form of sentience, and one that bound her psychically to her twin. While he could not feel the pain inflicted upon him, Daphne could. Their connection, forged in the womb, remained intact after birth despite their separation. Over the years, she experienced phantom echoes of her brother’s suffering: flashes of pain with no clear source, moments of anguish that belonged to a life not her own.

This unexplained resonance became the undercurrent of her identity. Though she had never been told of her twin, Daphne came to believe that someone else was out there; someone who felt both familiar and impossibly distant. This conviction eventually became the quiet motive behind her pursuit of her biological origins. She was not seeking love or answers, but rather a missing part of herself that she could not name but had always known.

Daphne is paradoxical, though. Although her soul is finely attuned to the suffering of others, she presents herself as detached, logical, and emotionally reserved. Her demeanor is cool and proper, shaped by years of managing overwhelming sensation through intellectual control. She avoids physical contact whenever possible and prefers solitude to social gatherings.

Her academic interests lean toward the philosophical, neurological, and metaphysical. She is dedicated to her studies, particularly in fields that allow her to impose structure like ethics, linguistics, classical literature, and cognitive science. She is deeply rational, even when confronted with experiences that defy logic. Her emotional life is largely internal, fiercely guarded, and expressed only in moments of untold intimacy or extreme crisis.

Socially, Daphne is regarded as elegant but aloof. Suitors find her beauty and intellect captivating but are often discouraged by her lack of warmth. Rumors about her status within the Volthström family circulate in their social circles, casting her as either a tragic foundling or a clever interloper. Few know the truth, and fewer still would understand it if they did.

After years of suppression, her sense of being incomplete of carrying someone else’s pain has only intensified. What began as isolated episodes of phantom sensation has grown into something more persistent, intimate, and increasingly difficult to dismiss.

Though she has asked her adoptive father, Timothée Volthström, on multiple occasions about her origins, he has offered nothing of substance. With his characteristic restraint, he has explained that he is legally unable to speak on the matter, and that even if he were permitted, there is little he knows. The contract’s specifics are known only to those who drafted it, and they are long dead or long silent. Whatever sentiment Timothée might feel toward her, he has made it clear: this is not a past meant to be unearthed.

Emmeline, for her part, urges caution but lacks the conviction to truly stop her. She has always loved Daphne in her own quiet way, but she, too, is bound by the rules of the house. The Volthström legacy is heavy, ornate, and guarded. It was never designed to accommodate questions from outsiders, even those raised within its walls.

Yet Daphne is no longer content to remain in the dark. It was her adopted brother that implied she look into the Volthströms’ archives. If the truth is in the past, the past is where she ought to go.

Under the guise of continuing her academic studies in historical economics and dynastic legal structures, Daphne has begun traveling to various Volthström holdings across Europe. The family’s ancestral holdings in London, Frankfurt, Vienna and Rome, were each operated by distant relatives or historical stewards, but in the case of Vienna or Frankfurt, were outright dead ends. Ostensibly, she is researching transgenerational wealth preservation. In truth, she is quietly searching for records, correspondences, or overlooked mentions of the mysterious clause that sealed her place in the family.

In London, she visited the Volthström townhouse in Belgravia, where her cousins received her with mild politeness and cultivated disinterest. She is tolerated, even humored, but never taken seriously. Her questions about family records are redirected, her inquiries into past adoptions or wardships brushed aside with smiles and vague excuses. It was here, during a formal dinner, that something subtle occurred: something that would have passed unnoticed by anyone else.

Seated across from an elderly cousin, Aunt Honoria, a woman sharp of wit but dulled by dementia and age, Daphne felt a ripple beneath the surface of conversation. While reminiscing about traveling across the world prior to the turbulence of the 20s, Honoria made a comment about leaving treasure behind in New York, and though the words were quickly swallowed by laughter and dismissed as senile rambling, Daphne felt a sharp, almost electric echo in her chest, like a wire pulled taut. She felt the pain of regret as her own.

When the conversation moved on, Daphne remained frozen, not by the words themselves, but by the emotional disruption beneath them. Her empathic sense registered a wave of shame, followed by something tightly sealed: a fear of being overheard. It was not Honoria who reacted this way, but it was her cousin Tobias seated nearby, who stiffened imperceptibly when the phrase was uttered.

Daphne made a fateful leap in logic: a Volthström child was given away. It must have been her. She cannot imagine any other explanation.

Daphne arrived in New York City in mid December of 2046. Her inquiries were discreet. She consulted archival registries, leveraged minor connections in academic and preservation circles, and spent long hours in digital municipal databases. Eventually, in the maze of public property records and tax transfers, she found cousin Tobias’ name.

The listing showed that Tobias once owned a pied-à-terre in the East Village, that he suddenly sold for a reported $17.5 million in 2021 without a known reason. There were no inheritance records, no death certificates, and no linked familial claims. To the casual observer, it was an ordinary transaction. To Daphne, it was a rupture. With the winter sun low and pale over Manhattan, she went to see the building for herself.

The building stood three stories tall, framed in faded red brick and cast-iron columns. The original façade remained intact, but the interior had changed. Through tall, street-level windows, she could see that the space had been converted into an art studio: an open-concept loft with high ceilings, abstract light fixtures, and paint-splattered concrete floors.

Inside, she glimpsed the glow of hanging lights and canvases arranged in haphazard clusters. Music filtered faintly through the glass, but there were clues that a celebration was being prepared.

It was December 29th, and her presence was expected in Paris for New Year’s Eve, where the family was hosting their annual black-tie gathering. Her seat had already been assigned, her dress couriered from the Rue Saint-Honoré. She was already cutting her return close, but something was pulling her inside. A window placard indicated that a New Year’s Eve celebration was also to take place at the studio, and she couldn’t resist the temptation to explore its interior.

Two nights later, she defied her mother’s insistence on her presence in Paris, and arrived at an entirely different sort of party.

Lore settled easily into her new life in Moscow. Jessika was insanely busy, and Lore still coordinated her diary and generally smoothed her day-to-day with efficient tweaks, but it was more a hobby than a necessary job. The new Privilege had plenty of her own people to rely on, and even if Lore obviously did a better job, it wasn’t taxing work. It was beginning to feel like perhaps Damien had just wanted her out of Mexico.

Unperturbed, Lore turned her free time to her own endeavours. In the coming days she had a meeting with Ana Vega, though it was only out of courtesy given she was in the city. She had no desire to interfere with how they would run Second Chances here, but she was eager to hear what wonderful things they had planned – to see the business really spread its wings and thrive. Similarly she had a meeting arranged with Ephraim Haart to discuss the IP she had sold on from Cyberpoint. From the portfolio she had perused, it was an exciting opportunity.

Beyond that she was busy filing and making notes on potential contacts - that was the way her mind truly flourished and started making connections. The Vasiliev’s masquerade had provided some networking openings, though mostly Lore had simply observed the glamour around her. She hadn’t even danced. A table in the cosiest coffee shop on the street alongside the company of her spreadsheets was much more her speed though. She much preferred to be prepared for speaking to people.