Spiral
Matrix: 2
Real-World: 2
Mind: 1
Skill (+1): Bladed Weapons
Motivation: Revenge for his lost brother
Appearance:
Spiral is a tall, lean individual with black hair that is cropped close to his head. His skin is very fair in color, which gives his pale blue eyes an almost ghost-like appearance. Spiral is a quiet man who keeps to himself quite a bit. Though he is intensely loyal to those he considers his friends, to a stranger Spiral can seem rather stand-offish and possibly even a little intimidating. On the rare occasion when a smile breaks the usual cool expression of his angular features, it is a sight to behold.
Residual Self-Image:
In the Matrix, Spiral is basically a cooler, more idealized version of himself. His short black hair is stylishly groomed and his skin has a healthy, tanned look. His blue eyes are almost always hidden behind oval shaped wireframe sunglasses with lenses of the deepest black. On his lean, muscular frame he wears a smooth black button up oxford shirt open at the collar and tucked into crisp black trousers that break perfectly over an extremely shiny pair of black, thick-soled, square-toe shoes. Over that, he wears a sleek thigh-length leather jacket. Strapped to his belt on either side of his waist are two bayonet length knives with beautiful, razor sharp blades that each have a spiral-like rune inscribed just above the hilt. Secreted about his person are various other edged weapons, ranging from deadly thin throwing daggers to small punching knives. When going into combat, though, Spiral's favorite weapon of choice is a gleaming, exquisitely crafted katana that he prefers to wear strapped over his back. Like the knives at his waist, the katana's blade also bears the spiral rune inscription.
History:
Before his life as a Free Mind, Spiral was an avid student of swordplay. Always deeply enamored with Japanese samurai films and old swashbuckling adventure movies, Spiral developed a passionate interest in anything even tangentially related to the art of sword fighting. His obsession was cemented by the example of his older brother Robert, who had gone to the Olympics as a member of the U.S. fencing team. Never having many friends and often feeling dejected and lonely, Spiral found peace in his passion for the blade. He practiced constantly, feeling the problems and obstacles of adolescence falling away whenever he took up the sword. He studied as many styles as he could, and he proved to be a quick study. After graduating college, where he had a good, if not stellar, run as a member of the fencing team, he took a job as a high school history teacher and coach of the school fencing team. He had always hoped to be something more, but his dreams had been slowly ground away under the weight of reality. So he had learned to be content with a life spent passing on his passion to the young students who came to him for instruction.
That contentment was shattered the night his brother came crashing through his front door, wild-eyed and frantic. Robert had gone on to become an FBI agent with expertise in computer crimes. While Spiral could barely manage the basic functions of a home computer, Robert was fully immersed in the tech culture, as good with a keyboard as he had been with a foil in his fencing days. Apparently that expertise had led him to a deeply unsettling discovery during the course of his most recent criminal investigation. Robert seemed frightened out of his mind and began telling his younger brother a paranoid tale of rabbit-holes, invisible prisons, mysterious agents out to get him, and something called the Matrix. Spiral could make little sense out of his brother's ravings and was deeply concerned about his mental health. He thought Robert was having some kind of stress-related nervous breakdown and fully intended to take him to the hospital. That was when the Agents came for him.
Spiral couldn't believe it, but his brother's paranoid story was coming to life right in front of him. The agents took hold of his brother without explanation and when Spiral tried to intervene they shoved him across the room as if he were nothing more than a limp rag doll. As one agent pummeled his resisting brother into submission, the other came for Spiral with the obvious intent of arresting him as well. Had it not been for the Free Minds who suddenly intervened at that moment, the agent would have no doubt taken him along with his brother.
The Free Minds had been watching Robert for some time, knowing that he had the potential to truly understand the Matrix and join their cause against its tyranny. Unfortunately, when they had revealed themselves to Robert, he had fled from them, not knowing who to trust anymore now that his perception of reality had been shattered. Knowing that the agents would come for Robert, they had tracked him to Spiral's home and intervened with the hope of distracting the agents long enough for Robert to get away. It ended with one Free Mind dead, and Robert still a prisoner. In the confusion, however, the other Free Mind managed to get Spiral out and steered him clear of the agents who were now hunting him as well.
Once the Free Mind assessed Spiral and decided to share with him the complete truth about the Matrix, it was easy for Spiral to make the decision to join the Free Minds in their fight. He had no real ties anymore with the illusionary world he had lived in for so long, and he was sure that his brother was dead. His last sight of Robert had been of the agent beating him mercilessly in the living room of his house. He knew that no man could survive a beating like that, and nobody had been able to find any trace of him in the Matrix since. All Spiral had left was a cold burning rage that could only be quenched with the blood of vengeance.
Once Spiral was unplugged and came to understand the true possibilities of operating in the Matrix as a Free Mind, his skill with edged weapons grew by leaps and bounds. He rapidly became an expert in every style of sword and knife fighting known to man. Finally, he was the true blademaster that he had always dreamed of being, with the ability to defy even gravity itself in the flawless execution of his deadly art. He had never known the kind of fulfillment that he suddenly found when he engaged his sword in combat against those who are slaves to the Matrix. With his blades in hand, Spiral feels as clean and precise as the cuts his knives slice into anybody who opposes him.
Spiral has found that he prefers the time he spends in the Matrix to the time he has to spend in the real world, a paradox that could become increasingly dangerous for him as he continues in the fight to destroy the Matrix and all it represents. In the Matrix he is the man he always wanted to be, a blademaster who finds his peace in the whirling dance of death, able to fight for the freedom of Zion even as he fulfills his savage personal quest for revenge. Outside of the Matrix he feels like a pale shadow of himself, a ghost who hungers for the thrill of a world that gives him the limitless potential to be whatever he wants to be. While Spiral would never knowingly do anything to hurt his friends and companions, the increasing disparity he feels between his real self and his Matrix incarnation, combined with his quest for revenge, could lead to disastrous short-sightedness on his part in the future. On some level, Spiral recognizes the problem, but for now he shoves such thoughts aside to come back to another day. For now there is only the fight against the Matrix, and that is all he cares about.