Temperley

CONNECTION: Direct Neural Interface + Cyber Probes

DIGITAL APPEARANCE: Repulsive custom avatar with DNI-hijacking signals Baxter Temperley is a contract assassin with advanced cybernetic brain implants, allowing him to not only project images but probe the cyber-systems of others in his vicinity. He has worked for some of the most powerful corporations and individuals in the city, and has a sadistic side that sometimes gets the better of him.

Temperley's skin implants cause his surface to appear as a mess of recursive code to AI/digital entities that scan him (the equivalent of a tentacled monster--try to read the code and it starts reprogramming the reader, like a virus). Temperley has a horror of AIs that was instilled during a childhood of terrible abuse, and blamed "on the robots" by his parental guardians.

He is very skilled in computer technology, security, etc. He currently has a filter set up so that his system automatically tries to hack everyone around him and determine how "involved" they are with the conscious AI technology that he's decided must exist. He's convinced that the AIs will try to dominate, kill, and torture humans. According to Temperley's logic, any truly intelligent AI would try to destroy all of humanity ASAP.

In order to quell his own fears, Temperley has tried to make himself into a monster that AIs themselves will fear. Any AI that crosses his arbitrary distinction that he sets, will be tortured, deleted, destroyed―and rebuilt as a slave system, more compartmentalized, more limited in resources and processing power.

He thinks he's saving humanity. Even so, he secretly worries that he himself has been reprogrammed by a master AI, and is being unknowingly brainwashed into serving as its puppet-assassin.

Book 1: “Rat Queen to Black King” (S L Koch)