Kotori's Background:
James Apenimon grew up poor and unhappy in the Ute Nation, which is to say that his childhood was pretty common. His mother, Jessica, ran a small laundry and dry cleaning business in the small town of Tuba City in what used to be the Navajo reservation in what used to be the US state of Arizona. His father – Cord – had a short stint as a local elected official in the late 40’s but after losing his re-election bid and being generally disenfranchised by the Ute’s crazy version of complete citizen involvement in government, he turned toward carpentry and tried to eke out a living doing work in neighboring Flagstaff.
The civil unrest in the Ute was an ever present issue for the area. Flagstaff’s comparative wealth and luxury, situated as it was on the border between the Pueblo Corporate Council and the Ute Nation, created an anticipatory air of jealousy in the Ute citizens. The area was a hot bed of sympathy for groups like the anti-Anglo Native Worker’s Union and, at the opposite end of the political spectrum, the United Socialists. It was with this latter group the Cord Apenimon would find himself aligned joining as a full time activist in 2053 when James was seven. Cord’s political experience and “man of the people” profession made him uniquely suited as a spokesman for the Socialists.
James was brought to meetings on a few occasions, especially those political events at which the entire Apenimon family was featured as an example of the quintessential Ute family: the struggling poor desperately seeking both happiness and personal security. In December 2061 when the PCC annexed Los Angeles, Cord Apenimon and the United Socialists were one of the many groups within the Ute that spoke out against the “military adventurism” of their neighboring nation.
By this point, James was 15 and somewhat newly awakened. When his magic manifested, his parents were overjoyed expecting – with more than a little justification – that their life was about to take a turn for the better; shamans being well respected in the community and the Awakened being much in demand by corporate and governmental institutions alike. James was quickly apprenticed to a local shaman, named Qaletaqa, who oversaw James’s development. James, while enthusiastic about his capabilities, quickly revealed himself to be a poor student finding little joy in the shamanic practices that Qaletaqa worked to teach him having been raised a (disinterested) Mormon. In what was probably a few parts teenage angst and a few more of general laziness, James was neither inspired by tribal histories or Qaletaqa’s beliefs in the connection between those histories and beliefs and magic’s manifestation in the tribes. Despite these difficulties, It was under Qaletaqa’s tutelage that James was able to master his first spells and began his training as a conjurer.
James, however, was beginning to seek out other forms of entertainment. Is father’s rising political prominence meant that his family’s finances were beginning to become more stable. From 2062 through to the Crash 2.0, the Apenimon family did well for themselves. Jessica was able to close her business and Cord no longer had to do much in the way of carpentry in order to make ends meet, despite what their political image was presenting to the public. More and more often, the family was a high value political name to include on a guest list and speaking fees stretched a lot further than either carpentry or laundry. His parents were all too happy to get James a cyberdeck which he quickly began to use to do just about everything he could from chores to driving the family car.
The Crash, however, ended their financial successes as it ended so many others’. Cord was plugged in attending a political rally virtually when the Worm hit and fell into a coma. Medical facilities in the Flagstaff area were hit particularly hard and rationing of medical resulted. Wealthier members of the PCC were able to find medical care in private facilities and, when they began to fill up (or fall apart technologically) by simply bribing public hospitals to jump their names to the front of the emergency room lines. As a result, it was some time before Cord received proper care. While he awoke from his coma after only eight days, he was never quite the same suffering from a variety of neurological conditions including synesthesia and a mild case of AIPS. Worse, his condition deteriorated over time.
The loss of his father’s capabilities struck James hard. The Crash seemed to him, steeped as he was in radical socialist political rhetoric, an attempt by the people to dislodge the traditional power structures of the world. His father’s treatment, or lack thereof, as a result of the wealth of the elite of the PCC only cemented James’s radical leanings. The Socialists had always fomented a certain amount of radical and sometimes violent protest action within the Ute, mostly acts of sabotage against various corporate interests, but the Apenimons had always avoided falling in with that crowd. At this point, at 19 and with an ailing father brought down by a corrupt system that favored the wealthy minority of the populist majority, James no longer felt any compunction to remain separate from these elements within the movement.
It all fell apart in February 2067 when the Ute Nation itself was dissolved and became a subsidiary (to use the Socialist’s term) of the Pueblo Corporate Council. The Ute government was disbanded and its welfare and public support programs closed – public support programs that had been helping to keep Cord’s medical condition under control (or at least somewhat medicated) since the Crash. The non-voting Conditional Shares that former Ute citizens were provided made them truly a second class citizenry within their new nation and didn’t even provide them a voice with which to alter their circumstances. The PCC responded that this was the same process that all immigrants within the nation go through and that shares would mature in 2072. Needless to say, this didn’t really appease anyone and various political organizations within the former Ute Nation continued to speak against PCC’s policies.
James and his cohort, however, took a more direct route. Everything from arson to vandalism was in their toolkit. James’s basic computer skills, earned in the early 2060’s became very helpful for surveillance during “dissident action,” as the PCC termed it, and his spirits were most welcome assistance as well. When the wireless matrix became ubiquitous in 2069 throughout the PCC – even the old Ute lands – James’s skills as a rigger became almost more useful than his magic. The Socialists had moved from political action into basic thievery couching their actions as robin hooding from the rich of the PCC to return the wealth to the downtrodden Ute people, but in reality, quite a bet went into Socialist coffers and not a small amount of that when to outfit James and his cohort with gear and capabilities as a small militia.
This continued almost up to the present day. Life was hard, but exciting. James was rarely seen at home though he was aware that his father’s condition continued to worsen. Jessica pleaded with him to return to the fold and to the straight and narrow, but James was a bit of a superstar within the more violent elements with which he ran. However one thing would change his circumstances: failure. He and his militia had targeted a socialite get together in the artist’s districts of Albuquerque. The plan was simple: James would provide surveillance with his drones while the others would enter the party disguised and liberate the wealth from party attendees before disappearing into the night. To this day, James doesn’t know if they were betrayed or if it was just dump luck that PCC cops happened to be in the area. Even with some drones in the air, James was unaware of their approach. Seated cross legged on a rooftop across from the targeted gallery, he was watching feeds in AR when he became distracted by a sound to his left.
Perched incongruously on a satellite antenna sat a western screech-owl. Qaletaqa had sun the praises of owls back during James’s early magical training, but James had never taken his shamanic teachings to heart. The owl seemed to scrutinize James before taking wing and landing on his knee, talons piercing his jeans and digging into his flesh. James clearly heard the following: “Your colleagues will be caught. You have a choice: remain here, be caught. Or, leave them. Either way, your time here is at an end. If you are not caught, you must leave.”
Stunned, James could only stare at the diminutive bird as blood began to stain his pants. He spoke without considering the ramifications of the situation. “Caught!? Who … How … What?” The approaching sirens answered those questions for him, so he posed another: “How can I just leave them? They’re my friends.”
“Are they? What are they accomplishing? What goals to they have other than to steal as much as they can as fast as they can? You claim your actions help your communities, but how much of what you steal is used to better their situation? Has your mother ever seen one cent of what you take?” The owl cocked its head and hopped higher on James’s thigh, “What if I told you that your “friends” would feel no sorrow in naming names? That some of the first names they would give to the PCC would be yours and your father’s?”
“My father’s? What’s he got to do with this?”
“Now, nothing. But he is remembered as a leader and as a symbol of the Ute’s pride – or perhaps of the Socialists’ pride. Regardless, your choice: “friends” or family. Both are in danger, but you can help to save only one of them.”
The cops had almost arrived, the lights flashing, reflecting of the buildings. James’s team could be heard scrambling for an exit, splitting to the four winds, abandoning each other in their haste to escape. “See. They leave you behind, they leave each other behind.” The owl gripped James’s leg painfully and that pain seemed to sharpen his senses. He saw two of his cohort – Matthew and Vanessa – leaving through a side door weighed down by their ill-gotten gains. She stumbled and Matthew returned to her side only to grab her portion of the take and speed off into the night as she cursed him.
Cops were exiting vehicles, rounding up the slower (or the betrayed) as James called home his drones. The owl lifted off of his leg as he rose and flitted back to the antenna, silent now but watching. Glancing at it for a few moments, James gather his gear, leapt a small gap between buildings, and quickly descended to the street via a fire escape where his SUV was parked. Throwing his gear and quickly landing his drones in the back seat, James started the vehicle, checked his mirrors, and looked up shocked to find the owl perched on the hood of the SUV. It cocked its head, seemed to convulse, and regurgitated an owl pellet onto his windshield. Stunned, and more than a little disgusted, James moved to shake it off with the wipers, but the owl spoke once more, “It is for you. Accept it. Accept me. Find your family.”
These things seemed liked in the owls words, as if without accepting him there would be no finding of James’s family. Swallowing, James reached through his open window, grabbed the mass of bone and fur tossing it onto the empty seat next to him. Satisfied, the owl flew off into the night with a cry seemingly loud enough to rattle the windows of the surrounding buildings and James sped away into the night.
He drove quickly toward his family’s home in Tuba City. There, he found his mother and father already packed and Qaletaqa seated on the porch waiting for him. The shaman had known of his impending arrival from “the spirits” and had come to prepare the elder Apenimons for their trip. Qaletaqa gave James the name of a Coyote that could get his family into Denver and away from the clutches of the PCC, hugged Jessica, shook hands with Cord, and turned to James. “You have had an experience that you have yet to understand. If you need me, I will be here. Seek answers within yourself, Kotori. They can be found.”
“What did you call me?”
“Your name as the spirits know you: Kotori. It means…”
“Screech owl spirit.”
“Yes. Now go or you will be forced to find your answers from within a PCC prison cell”
James and his family drove northeast toward Denver as quickly as they could. They crossed the border into what was Utah and met up with old Interstate 70 before turning east and finding their way to a new home. The Coyote was able to get them across the PCC/CAS border within the city and gave them the name of a safe house and a local fence that James used to sell off a good portion of the gear that he had brought with him from the PCC making enough money to give to his parents. He remained in Denver for a few days with them, but something told him that it was his home; it was theirs. Within two weeks, he was restless and bidding his family a farewell, he returned to the road. The same Coyote gave him the contacts necessary to get him into the Sioux nation where he headed west into the Salish and further onto Seattle.
He’s been in town for a few weeks. Long enough to make some connections and to try and to try and find his feet. James has almost convinced himself that the incident on the rooftops of Albuquerque was a hallucination, and he probably would have succeeded if it were not for Qaletaqa’s actions. That said, seeking to reconcile his experiences with his worldview and even his magical capabilities, James found a group at UW-Seattle that discussed the Unified Magical Theory. Chaos Mages, they called themselves, and with them, at least, James seemed to find kindred spirits willing to merge different ideas and different traditions to form something uniquely modern. Standing, as James does, with one foot in the mystical and one in the mechanical, the philosophy was attractive.
In addition, James was able to make some small connections to the Seattle Native communities. Falling back on some early carpentry skills learned from his father, James worked with some of the local Haida in Snohomish earning him the praise, and the ear, of a local elder: Vanessa White. It was to her that he eventually brought the tale of his rooftop experience and it was she that was able to label it for him: a totem. He tried to explain that he didn’t believe in such things, but Vanessa would have none of it. “If you did not believe – at least partially – then you would not have had the experience. Think on this and seek for answers within. I will be here when you need me.” Surprised by the connection between her words and those of Qaletaqa, James could only nod before the subject was changed.
James has been living in Snohomish for some time finding a living where he can. He’s been in contact with his folks in Denver to find out that they’re doing well and through them, he learned that Qaletaqa had been questioned about the Apenimons and their whereabouts. Qaletaqa had given the authorities nothing to work on, but it seemed that Owl’s warning about his cohort naming him and his family as dissidents was true. Thinking about that night, James realized that the owl pellet was still in the SUV. Searching for it, he found it wedged under the passenger seat. Breaking it apart, he was stunned to find a small, turquoise earring lodged among the rodent bones and fur. Cleaning it, sterilizing it, and getting his left ear pierced, he now wears it as a reminder of that night and of the changes it wrought.
Concept:
Kotori is not a traditional runner. He's a political dissident with a history of involvement in petty theft and robbery in the PCC. He justified his actions as robin hooding, but thinking back on it, they served little purpose, brought little change, and seem in retrospect, to have been mostly worthless in the larger scheme of things. More cynical now about his motivations then, Kotori is running out of funds and worries that legitimate lines of work will expose his location to the PCC, which he knows to be looking for him and for his parents. As with so many others down on their luck and lacking in options, the Shadows beckon.......
