Hi, you can call me Silkie…yes, like the seal…? Oh I see, the suit colour, I just like the colour, it’s nothing to do with my handle… Look, do you want me to tell this or not? Right then… I grew up in a nice enough part of Bellevue, but my ‘rents weren’t corp drones exactly. They were researchers for Seattle U, anthropologists studying the urban tribe phenomenon. That’s how I hooked up with Freedom, my family practically lived with them for years and I drifted between them and my school friends and the group of middle class, semi-rich, bored kids who laughably called themselves a gang. They got me into the boards though and I’ve not looked back since so I’ve got that to thank them for.

I guess I stood on the edge of the shadows rather than in them, I could see their effects but was still fairly isolated from the realities, at least until ’72 when the corp mercs assaulted Freedom in order to snatch the technos hiding in the tribe. My parents made the mistake of trying to intervene, Mum died for her trouble, Dad’s still in a coma from the headshot…I’m sorry…no, it’s ok. My brother Tom reacted by disappearing off grid (I’ve since found him running his own little urban tribe out of a former children’s home in Redmond), but I knew that someone had to take care of Dad before the insurance ran out. As a kid I didn’t really have a legal way of making any real money and I wasn’t interested in ‘just surviving’ or being someone’s joytoy. As Freedom upped sticks and headed south I joined the convoy…I had a feeling that they would provide me many more opportunities, despite their losses, and I was right!

I’ve always had a talent for reading people, and occasionally getting them to do what I want. The move introduced me to the Crime Mall and I recognised that here was a place I could help Freedom, and help myself in the process. It was wondering the halls of this ‘wonderland’ that Silk found me. Apparently she’d been watching me and offered to take me under her wing. I was sceptical at first, who wouldn’t be? But she’s almost as persuasive as I can be and in the end the chance to work for a rising star fixer was too good to pass up.