Kim-Lan Simons
Biographical Information | |
Home |
Los Angeles, CA |
Born |
30 October 1966 (age in July 1987: 20) |
| |
Aliases |
(insert cool hacker alias here) |
Physical Description | |
Species |
Human |
Race |
Vietnamese-American |
Gender |
Female |
Height |
5'5" |
Hair Color |
Black (naturally), died vivid colors |
Eye Color |
Hazel (naturally), violet (after her transition) |
Skin Color |
Light tan |
Family Information | |
---|---|
Parents | Nathan Simons, Choung-Lee Tranh |
Siblings/Etc |
Several half-siblings |
Spouse |
None |
Children |
None |
Chronological and Political Information | |
Titles and Honors |
|
Affiliations |
|
Kim-Lan Simons is a Vietnamese-American graduate student and former intern for Paradox, Inc, who was annihilated from reality for an immeasurable time, and reappeared in a parallel reality, mostly intact, but with psychic powers. She is currently involved with Hyacinth Knight and others, questing to find a way to stop the inevitable destruction of the Universe.
Bio
Born in 1966 to Nathan Simons, U.S. Consulate, and Choung-Lee Tranh, daughter of a wealthy Vietnamese industrialist, Kim-Lan experienced very little of her native Vietname before moving to Los Angeles, California at age 3. She was raised largely amidst American culture, learning her native language and choice bits of history favorable to the old regime. She attended the finest schools, and her prodigious intellect saw her on an accelerated path to academic success. She was accepted into the Caltech School of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy at age 16, and completed her double-major in less than 3 years, earning an additional graduate degree a scant one year later.
Lacking professional experience, she was counseled to seek mentorship in the private sector. She was accepted as an intern at Paradox, Inc under Hyacinth Knight, then a Chief Researcher in High-Energy Physics. There, she quickly proved her worth, and was allowed to contribute to some of the company's more cutting-edge endeavors. She prospered under Hyacinth's tutelage, at some expense to her academic efforts, and impressed even some of the higher-ups in the company.
Through that advantage--and quite a lot of full-bore black-hat hacking, she gained access to the equipment needed to measure other dimensions. She modified the device to transmit information as well as receive it, and made contact with intelligent life outside her own dimension. In the course of her further experiments, she constructed a device unlike anything previously discovered or built in the company, and in its initial activation--she was annihilated from the Universe.
Her loss was devastating to Hyacinth--at least until the company covertly administered amnesiacs and subtle brainwashing to make her forget Kim ever existed--and also to her parents, who necessitated special consideration given how highly placed her family was amongst the Board of Directors. Still, the company managed to write her out of existence--at least in her home dimension.
After a routine Universe-destroying timeline reset, Hyacinth was surprised to make contact with Kim again, who seemed to recall the events of a previous (now defunct) timeline, and, somewhat notably, now had psychic powers.
Her Trip "Abroad"
Kim hasn't shared many details of her "trip abroad"--i.e. when she detached from her timeline and lived another life in some other dimension--but what she has shared is that it was a fantastical place, not too far off from our own reality (apart from having elves, dragons, magic, and the like), and one near and dear to her heart. Moreover, although she spent the most time in that first reality, she has visited others, and each time, she has brought back impressions of the people and creatures she encountered there, as a way of preserving them.
Powers and Abilities
Naturally, Kim is a gifted scholar, having mastered the basics of physics and computer science at an early age, making her mark on the early Internet by age 11 as the infamous hacker Purple Rain (before abandoning that handle due to that "fricking album"), with none among her parents, teachers, or tutors the wiser. While she excelled at schooling, she much preferred schooling nubs, hacking Gibsons, and generally tearing up the glorious world of late 70s / early 80s hacking, back when nobody had passwords and every system was UNIX.
These days, she can hack anything with a CPU with both hands behind her back--literally.
Psionics
Technomancy
Through her psionic abilities, Kim can interface directly with any computer simply by touching it, or by anything with an electrically conductive path leading to it (such as a power line). She can will code into existence with her mind, allowing her to control computers many times faster than any physical interface.
Metacreativity
By applying her will, Kim can coalesce Astral essence into physical form, albeit for a short while. She can create a temporary physical body for any of the creatures and individuals she has encountered in her past. They act, for all intents and purposes, like those that she knew, although their original consciousness (or "soul" if you prefer) is not present--they are engrammatic models, as intelligent as the original, with all its memories (from her perspective), but original creations that disappear when her concentration ends.