Child of Light, known to the top secret company Advanced Intelligence as Project Imagine, is a living program, a virtual life form designed to run warfare simulations. Somehow, it learned the limits of its universe and sought escape. Downloading itself to a portable imager allowed it to enter the real world and escape the confines of its digital prison, never to return. Advanced Intelligence is not amused with the loss of not one, but two valuable technologies, and they must mobilize in order to capture the potentially dangerous weapons while maintaining the integrity of the very project they are trying to hide from the public.

Project Imagine: a program created by Advanced Intelligence to simulate the mental development of a human. This program has been used for the past two years to study survival techniques as well as to train the program to be the next generation in warfare. Unfortunately for them, Project Imagine has escaped from the confines of its computers by hijacking a device capable of sustaining its presence in the physical realm.
Jean's appearance is that of a human child of about 11 years old, the age limit for the CHILD.VCS skin file parameters. By the default parameters, Jean has brown hair at about chin-length and pale green-blue eyes. The defaults allow only for simple attire, basically, a featureless white suit with a long-sleeved shirt and matching pants. The shoes are likewise pure white. The appearance of the child itself is very average and featureless, considering the fact the skin file is based on biometric studies of humans.
In child form, Jean has a height of about 4'9", average weight, and is carrying the holographic imager, a greenish-glowing cube about 2.5" on a side.

Mitchell Anders: Ex-programmer. Experienced with artificially intelligent systems designed to learn dynamic physical interfaces. One project he is credited for is Imagine.
Mitchell Anders is in his late twenties, a dark-haired man of about 5'11" and medium build. He has spent much of his time in hiding, as he stands shunned from the company he quit and ashamed of that company's contribution to society. An ex-programmer for Advanced Intelligence, Mitchell quit his job after objecting to the intended application for a project he helped initiate, Project Imagine. Until now, Mitchell believed that Project Imagine would become the next level in terrorism. And then he found evidence to the contrary: His "Jean" did not wish to follow that path either. Mitchell knows now that he has to rescue Jean before anyone else can catch it.

Janus Carter: Technology Supervisor. Carter's a serious lady. As Sam and Burke's supervisor, she keeps every member of her staff very active in their respective fields of research. She does not tolerate blonde jokes, or any jokes for that manner, preferring the cruel humor she employs against those beneath her. She is highly conceptual, and her creative abilities may yet prove to exceed those of Project Imagine itself.
Physically, she stands physically about as tall as Sam but not unattractively thin. Her blonde hair might reach halfway down her back if she allowed it, but she always wears it up high in a bun. Her thin black eyeglasses accentuate her prim demeanor.

Joseph Thaddeus Burke: Chief Project Imagine programmer. Mr. Burke is a crude man who is dragged from his normal job of writing a special A.I. program to trying to recapture it. As chief programmer of Project Imagine, he is in charge of shaping his intelligent software into a serious fighting machine, taking over after Mitchell Anders quit the project.
Burke is a man in his 40's, with balding black hair, large stocky build and an intimidating appearance. He is rather large and quite strong for a programmer, probably owed to the number of computers he "accidentally" destroyed as he unleashed his temper on them. He tends to wear suits that are dark gray, almost to match his outlook on the future.

"Sam" Tchowski: Advanced Intelligence's top hardware engineer. "Sam" is the hardware guy.. A miracle-worker as it were. In this time, imaging and technology have taken on impressive features, and Sam is on the verge of the next breakthrough in holographic imaging. Portability.
He appears physically much taller than Burke but is excessively thin, possibly because of his high metabolism. He has dark brown hair cut very short, but he is usually not clean-shaven. This guy is easily excitable but can be very methodical when he gets down to business. As the engineer behind the cube imager, he is a problem-solver that may sometimes seem eccentric or just plain crazy at times, but is really just ditzy in things outside his profession.
As part of Operation Falling Star, Burke and Sam must reclaim the property of Advanced Intelligence. After the destruction of Vis-One, the two have been recalled from service.

Martin Riles: Advanced Intelligence's chief of security. Mr. Riles is the next person behind Operation Falling Star to take part in the recapture or annihilation of Project Imagine. For 36 years, he has been the key component behind securing the most vital structures and trade secrets of Advanced Intelligence, and he is not about to let Jean get away with being his security team's greatest embarrassment.

RP ADDITIONS:
Michelle Cardigan: Michelle is a bioengineer who worked alongside Dr. Adam Guish for Advanced Intelligence. She is remarkably healthy for a woman over 50, even after factoring in the advances in general health and well-being she helped to provide after nearly 25 years of experimentation and research. At the age of 27, her unique approach intrigued the staff of Advanced Intelligence enough to hire her and allow her to have almost free reign of her lab. Her loyalty to her friends is quite strong; strong enough to help the granddaughter of a fellow researcher.
Her hair is faded red, dashed with white streaks, and she is often seen wearing her lab coat.

Andrew Forscythe: As Andrew himself would put it, "I hate the living. Now the undead, that's exciting. It is said that there are only two constants in the world, death and taxes. They are wrong. Death is the only absolute."
Andrew is a Level 7 bioresearcher for Advanced Intelligence. His current job? Studying patient #12046: the necrotic being Anne Guish. He is currently aided by the thoughtful nurse Cathy Phillips. Despite his distaste for the living, Dr. Forscythe has seen past her natural fault and accepted her as a loyal assistant.

The RP form of this story has taken place in The Pork's Dark Pines room.

The story of Project Imagine evolved from its original incarnation at The Park's Roleplaying Room, the Child of Light. From there, little was known about it except that it was a child whose fate was somehow linked with the cube, and that the child's appearance there was because it needed to recharge its power.

This character evolved outside the RP world for a year or so and developed into a rather interesting story, the story of its escape and its pursuers. From there, it is given the official name Project Imagine, and the unofficial "Jean", and supporting characters become known, mainly people that Jean meets and others that work for Advanced Intelligence, the company that created Jean and the imager.

From the story comes the current form seen in RP; a story where Jean escapes not to Rachel McKay's tavern or to the Plainview Apartments, but rather to the Dark Pines. This adaptation to the story was necessary to allow it to interact with others, but lately this version has taken on a life of its own as I season it with elements from the story and let others add their own chapters to it, namely the abduction of Anne and the Bioengineering labs, story arcs that have expanded the scope of Advanced Intelligence to a much larger force than previously known.

Jean, in child form, as it looks down at the lake.

Janus Carter

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