Parker Green

[Frozen Smoke]

Name: Parker Green
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: George Hunter High
Hobbies and Interests: Playing EVE Online, engineering and mathematics, studying, game theory, card games, gliding, survivalism, reading

Appearance: Parker is a relatively short and skinny caucasian male, standing at 5'5" and weighing 120 pounds, with an underdeveloped upper body but relatively well toned legs. His skin is relatively pale, due to spending the majority of his time indoors. His hair is a shade of dirty blonde, and kept relatively long, with his fringe reaching over his eyes when let down. Typically he uses gel or wax to style his hair to some degree, either slicked back, or to the side. His eyebrows are relatively thick, and can grow together into a monobrow, though he shaves the centre in order to avoid this. He is capable of growing a little facial hair but is is patchy at best, and as such he chooses to stay clean shaven, which when combined with his lack of height often causes people to underestimate his age by a few years.

When standing upright, he often leans noticeably on his left leg in order to keep pressure off his right calf, and he walks with a very slight limp. His fingernails are typically rough and bitten close or down to the nail bed as a result of a nervous habit of chewing on them.

Parker's face is narrow, gaunt and tall, with a large forehead and wide, but flat nose and high cheekbones combining to give his eyes a sunken look, which is normally added to by dark bags under his eyes from long nights at his computer. He has a noticeable red birthmark on the right side of his face, stretching from his right lip, across his cheek and up to his eye, giving him the appearance of being recently slapped in the face at all times. He wears wide rimmed Raybans in order to try and break up the outline of this mark, with the right lense being much thicker than the left due to the extreme case of myopia he has in his right eye, which causes him to struggle with depth perception. Parker has relatively striking eyes, with the majority of his iris being a dark shade of blue in addition to a mild case of central heterochromia, with a thin ring of slate grey surrounding the pupils of both of his eyes.

In school, Parker's dress sense is relatively normal, with him preferring to wear t-shirts, hoodies and jeans almost universally. However, he eschews brands, instead typically wearing unique and colourful graphic designs purchased from the internet. Outside of school however he typically tries to compensate for his less mature appearance with a more mature dress sense, typically wearing monotone dress shirts and jeans, pairing this with a suit jacket when the weather allows.

On the day of his abduction, Parker was wearing a waterproof, grey bombardier style jacket with an abundance of pockets and an orange inlay. It bears the EVE Online logo in black sititching on the left breast on a square velcro patch, which is the same material as the rest of the jacket. Underneath this he wears a black hoodie with a dark grey rocket silhouette on the middle of his chest, its exhaust recoloured and stylised to look like multi colored stained glass, below this he wears a simple black shirt with the text "You wouldn't download a car" written on it in text mimicking early 2000's anti-piracy ads. This is paired with dark grey, washed out skinny jeans and a pair of simple white trainers. In lieu of gelling his hair like normal, he wore a dark blue baseball cap with no graphic design on it.

Biography: Parker was born the only child of William and Caroline Green, an upper working class family in England. His father was a warehouse manager and his mother held two jobs, being both a lifeguard and swimming instructor. Despite the financial stability this offered, both of his parents were frugal people, preferring to live relatively spartan lives and save, with the aim of retiring early. His upbringing was also relatively strict, with the expectation that he would follow the rules and commands of his parents being enforced with minor but effective punishments from a young age.

Parker also suffered language problems at an early age, struggling to communicate properly with those around him and understand instructions, which lead to him quickly growing a strong attachment to routine and predictability in order to prevent punishment from his parents. Whilst his language problems were eventually resolved as a result of remedial socialisation as part of the Springboard program, this dependency on preparation and planning remained ingrained within Parker, and caused him to feel deeply uncomfortable when attempting to interact with other children in his early life as he was unable to predict what they would do, leading to him feeling frightened and out of place. As such he often isolated himself, preferring to play on his own.

His early schooling indicated a gift for maths, which lead to his parents deciding to sign him up to the Kumon project and build it into his routine, something which Parker grew to quickly love as it was one of the few ways in which he was able to attain things his parents didn't provide for him, such as toys.This formed a strong association between learning and fun in Parker, as well as forcing him to focus on his studies intently.

One of the few luxuries afforded to Parker by his parents during his pre-teens was access to a large amount of books, as he shared his mother's love of reading, quickly devouring story after story as he grew up, with trips to the library often being a highlight. His tastes were wide, but long series' such as Animorphs, The Culture, & Alpha Team captured his imagination. This also helped to drive a strong bond between him and his mother, to whom he was already close, as she had always been the parent most willing to compromise and work around their sons difficulties and encourage him to fight to overcome them.

Parker's early childhood was not uneventful however, with him being made acutely aware of the simple fact of mortality. His first pets, a pair of rats, lived for only around a year - roughly the average for a non-pedigree rat - the pair dying within days of each other. The replacement pet for the family, a purebred jack russell terrier named Ringo, was struck by a car and ended up being put down as a result of his injuries after a few days of hope.

In 2007, this became much graver, as his mother was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer which left her with a significant risk of death. Rather than try and hide this from him, his parents felt it important to be honest and explain why his Mum was suddenly bald and out of the house and tired a great deal of the time. Whilst the combination of chemotherapy, gamma knife surgery and a complete mammectomy left her with an officially cancer free prognosis after 18 months of treatment, it helped compound a growing fear of death that he would only grow with time.

By the time Parker reached middle school he was excelling as a student, with Kumon keeping him around 12 months ahead of the curriculum in maths, whilst being a consistent high achiever in Science and English as well. His social life on the other hand was hindered drastically by his personality, with him being intensely arrogant and aloof towards other children who he viewed as less intelligent than himself - seeing it as a mark of someone who wasn't willing to try hard enough, and therefore, not worthy of his time. His relatively small size and meek appearance contributed to this, and he continued to mostly isolate himself from his classmates, for fear of being bullied or taunted by his peers, as he saw happen to others similar to himself.

It was at around this time that Parker discovered video gaming for the first time, in the form of a game called EVE Online. The game combined everything he loved about the sci-fi universes he had read about with a harsh, brutal ruleset which encouraged the creation of vast player organisations, and a cutthroat atmosphere of competition. This appealed to Parker, and he set out to learn everything he could and apply himself fully to mastering the game, desiring to emulate the many heroes in the stories he'd once read and push himself to succeed.

Whilst initially met with suspicion due to his young age, he quickly forged himself a niche within one of these vast player groups as someone who would organise small fleets to help defend local space from other players. With his immense amount of free time proving an invaluable asset to the group, as he allowed others to gather resources in safety whilst he protected them. Whilst he was not naturally talented in the role, his eagerness to learn and openness to criticism quickly earned him the respect of the leaders of the organisation, and he set about improving himself and developing a strong knowledge base to apply - setting him apart from the more freestyle and fluid command styles of his counterparts. He also found himself under the mentorship of the head military commander of the group, who found his ability to quickly recall ship and weapon statistics from memory a valuable tool in his command team.

It was within the context of EVE that Parker finally found a place within which he felt comfortable socialising, being able to exercise a great deal of control over who and why he talked to people. This only drew him further into EVE, with him often spending 8 hours a day playing the game, talking to his friends within the community and refining his knowledge of the rules within which his skill set was applied. If this upset his parents, they never acted to restrain his time spent playing.

Whilst one might have expected this to drive further social isolation in Parker in real life, it had the exact opposite effect, as Parker slowly felt like he had a roadmap for how to deal with people as his time playing had forced him to deal with such situations if he wished to continue. He remained distinctly arrogant, but tempered it with generosity, offering help to those who struggled with class work. He did not become a social butterfly, but made himself a tight network of close friends who he knew and trusted deeply.

He also began to pick up a few 'normal' hobbies at the urging of his father, trying various sports before finally settling on cross-country running. He didn't excel to any great degree that would mark him as an athlete, but the friendly competition with fellow runners and the fact that he was able to practice whenever he wished and the lack of a need to rely on others appealed to him.

The Green family packed up and moved to America in order to follow a relocation of his Father's job in late 2013. Whilst this obviously upset the social grid Parker had built up, he ended up adjusting and fitting into GHHS well enough, happy to be able to leave some of his past behind him in England and start afresh. The move came late enough in his life that his British accent and vocabulary were too ingrained to be fully drilled out of him by his peers and the school system, becoming a mongrelized mix of a Tennessean and English accent. Though the English half of it is drastically more noticeable to American listeners, his parents found wry amusement in how quickly their son adopted the slang and mannerisms of his peers, with joking arguments about whether it was "Rubbish" or "Trash", or between "Settee" and "Couch" often coming up over family dinner.

It was after this move that Parker found his first job as a simple picker and packer at a local factory. It was dull work, but he could put on a podcast or audiobook and autopilot his way through it whilst listening and learning. His motivation for this was twofold, with his father both encouraging him to do so (and helping him to find the spot), as it was something he did at Parker's age and felt it important to share that life experience, and vastly more importantly to Parker - it paid well enough that he could save up to buy new parts for his gaming computer.

Shortly after his 15th birthday, his home life was dealt a sharp blow as his mother went into remission, with the cancer having re-appeared in her lung and was given just a year to live. Parker had trouble recognising the situations seriousness at first, and for a while seemed to simply deny that it was happening, confident that his mother would get over it, as she had done every other problem in her life. This state of denial lasted until the first round of chemotherapy lead to his mother being taken into the hospital, her hair falling out and seeming for the first time in her life truly defeated by something. This shook Parker deeply, although outwardly he seemed unaffected and as happy as ever - finding himself unable to properly express the emotions he was wracked with.

In response to this, Parker devoted himself utterly to everything he had worked at in his life, trying to escape the reality of the situation by keeping his mind as fully occupied as possible. His father often spent long periods of his time with his mother at the hospital, leaving him home alone. Any attempt by his friends to discuss the situation was met with polite shutting down of the conversation for the first few times, before escalating to hostility and pushing said person away if their attempts continued. This meant a return to social isolation for Parker as he pushed the friends he had developed that truly cared for him out of his life abruptly.

It was around this time that Parker began to keep a list of his tasks for the various days in the week in a journal, which he marked off when complete. This helped him to set-up and remember routine activities that began to mount up as he found himself having to take on a significant amount of work in the household as his mother became less capable, cleaning and cooking for the three of them. This helped to also give him an avenue to cope with the anxiety and feeling of lack of control over his life. This greatly increased the effectiveness of his time management, as he dedicated himself to achieving specific goals every day. The habit of keeping a day-schedule is something Parker keeps up until the day of his abduction.

He once again found refuge in his gaming life, crafting a much more vivid persona for himself in EVE Online under the new username "DayZer0" and becoming vastly more active in the community, never revealing the ongoing problems in his private life. His skills became honed over time, and whilst he would never claim the title of 'best' combat commander, he was able to achieve the respect of a great many prominent players in the community, and was often in the conversation of "best up-and-coming" commander, which in turn brought him into the political side of EVE as a valuable asset.

This culminated in a bitter falling out with his original group over what he perceived as failures in leadership and a lack of willingness to do what was necessary to become the best group in the game. This lead to him resigning from the organisation and beginning a two year long journey as a mercenary commander, flitting from group to group and assisting in the planning and execution of wars both large and small across the digital map. His record was never great and marred by a deal of unsuccessful campaigns, a consequence of being a choice for groups that had little history and training in combat, but he relished in the freedom and challenges this playstyle offered him, as they helped to keep his mind occupied.

His academics also markedly improved over this period as well, with him pouring new effort even into subjects he'd previously disdained such as social studies, reaching parity in the top of almost all of the classes. His parents noticed this and tried to talk to him about what was happening and offer him moral support, to which he reacted to by re-assuring them that he was fine, and merely attempting to do his mother proud and declining to mention how deeply he was affected by his mother's slowly degrading condition. He offered up much the same story to the school counsellor, when his parents instructed him to at least see him as they noticed how little time their son spent outside the house. He played along, but felt deeply distrustful of him, worrying that the only people he really felt were his true friends - those he knew online - would be taken away from him, and as such attempted to play the part of someone who was dealing with the situation in what he saw as a 'normal' way.

To the surprise of her doctors, his mother responded well to further treatment, with the spread of the cancer being slowed - though not halted. Still, she rapidly deteriorated in physical ability as the cancer spread to her brain, confining her to a wheelchair and continuing to undergo intensive chemotherapy in order to fight the disease to the bitter end. Parker slowly began to accept this as a part of life, joining his father more and more on visits to the hospital, doing what he could to help her cope with it even as he was deeply saddened by the experience. He listened attentively to his mother's advice, growing to love her ability to never giving up even in the face of what she was dealing with, and still desiring to do the best for everyone around her over becoming embittered by the experience. As of the time of Parker's abduction, she remains alive, though mostly bed-ridden and requiring oxygen supplementation to breathe.

Parker also took his mother's suggestion to make sure he lived his life to its fullest to heart, throwing himself into a wide array of pursuits and interests that helped to fill up his schedule. Many of them ended up being 'temporary' hobbies he picked up and then dropped (such as a temporary fascination with poetry that was abruptly dropped after winning a small statewide competition, roleplaying on various Internet forums, briefly taking an interest in anarchist politics, and taking up and then dropping Tae Kwon-Do after achieving a green belt), but a few of them stuck.

The first of these hobbies was unpowered gliding, which combined a lot of things Parker enjoyed; time alone to think, peace and quiet, freedom to do as he wanted, and of course, the opportunity to fly a plane - which he had originally dreamed of doing professionally, before realising his poor eyesight would make him ineligible for a commercial pilots license. Parker passed his gliding licence test at age 17, and spent around 100 hours in the air the following summer. Whilst unable to afford his own glider, his previous instructor let him use his own personal craft over the summer in exchange for help around the training sessions - pushing gliders back to the runway, making sure younger children didn't break anything, and other such tasks - which Parker viewed as a more than fair exchange.

Parker also began to take a keen interest in the fields of Game Design and Game Theory, initially in pursuit of a way to craft better strategies in EVE. As he explored however, he found it something that rather than capture his imagination, harnessed it - something he greatly enjoyed. This lead him to begin playing more traditional games, taking up both Poker and Magic: The Gathering. Unfortunately due to Tennessee's gambling laws prevented Parker from participating in the former for stakes, but he found the test of his skill fun enough without money on the line. The latter is something he enjoys with typical competitiveness and drive, turning up with the perceived best deck to attack a tournament meta and often piloting it to top 4 finishes in local Chattanooga tournaments. He hopes to eventually travel to and compete in a Grand Prix, although he has no expectation of matching up to the competition there, the idea of testing his mettle appeals to him greatly.

He also has taken an interest in survivalism and the idea of 'prepping', although the latter is something he thinks many take to ludicrous extremes as a result of uncontrolled paranoia. He does, however, have a bug out bag in his closet, just in case. He has no practical experience in these matters, mostly simply reading survival guides and watching various online videos, but finds comfort from his anxiety over his own mortality in knowing that he would know more than most should he wake up to the apocalypse.

These hobbies and his EVE second life keep his schedule incredibly tight, meaning what few of his friends remain very rarely see him socially outside of school grounds, rarely even playing traditional games like Overwatch or League with them, finding the game's shallow and uninteresting. He briefly attempted to get good at the latter, achieving a mid platinum rank before being being banned for toxicity, leading to him refusing to touch the game ever again. The exception to this is the various parties he occasionally finds himself invited to via friends of friends, or through his hobbies. He makes a point of attending in order to find respite from both his loneliness, as well as to find release from the emotional stress of his life by drinking to excess. His Dad is complicit in this, happily buying alcohol for his son despite the more restrictive alcohol laws when compared to the U.K., feeling happy to conform to what the laws would have been in their home country - as long as Parker pays for it.

Parker's most recent significant action in his gaming life was reconnecting with his old mentor from his original group and becoming a key part of a backroom coup which cut out the vast majority of the leadership which Parker had encountered issues with previously. Parker relished the opportunity to sink the knife into the back of people who he felt had wronged him in the past and regain control over something he felt he had helped to build up over the years of his childhood, taking great pride in his message to the line members of the organisation upon his return, which blamed those being excised for the recent failures of the organisation, despite his knowledge that they had been out of the control of those being targeted.

He has also begun releasing articles on a fan site of EVE, exploring the intricacies of various mechanics, and attempting to apply mathematical rationale to the art of combat positioning, most notably game theory. These are not groundbreaking pieces, but have helped him to cement his reputation as a knowledgeable and hard working member of the online community, leading to him being a presence in the small podcasting and live-streaming community that surrounds EVE, a position he greatly enjoys and hopes to improve on in the future. His current project is using his newfound political base alongside this to be elected a member of EVE's player representative group to the developers, the Council of Stellar Management.

Parker has always had a strong idea of what he wanted to be in the future, but the specific job has often changed. Early in his life he dreamed of being a scientist or researcher, as Parker had been determined to harness his intellect as much as possible. Parker has in recent years refined this ambition somewhat, settling instead on becoming an Aerospace Engineer, and has put a lot of effort into making progress towards that, having been accepted into Virginia Tech's early placement program as a result of his academic success. He plans to take Aerospace and Ocean Engineering as his major, though is currently undecided as to what minor to take.

Physically, Parker has suffered lately, with a calf injury aggravating a nerve defect in his right leg which causes intermittent painful cramps and seizes, especially after strenuous exercise. Whilst he can function normally without medication most of the time, he often takes a mix of low dosage painkillers and muscle relaxants to ease this when needing to be active for extended periods of time, as not doing so will result in both a significant amount of pain and the eventual seizing up of his calf preventing him from moving. He has recently taken up smoking marijuana as mixture of recreational drug and pain relief whilst doing activities which don't require active movement, such as studying.  His father is aware of this, but turns a blind eye to it, seeing it as better than nothing and having experimented himself when he was Parker's age. As such, as long as he keeps it hidden from his mother, and doesn't get caught with it, his father accepts it. Monetarily, he supports this habit from his paycheck at the warehouse where he continues to work, his position mostly unchanged since initially signing on, being more than enough to support his minimal expenses.

This injury has, however, forced him to drop his pursuit of cross country. In order to remain active he has turned to attempting to work out his upper body instead, spending the same time he'd previously spent running working out at the school's gym. He has little in terms of musculature gain to show for it, a hyperactive thyroid preventing him from putting on much mass, but his intent is to simply stay active and healthy without risking further damage to his calf.

Advantages: Parker has experience with stressful situations and tends to work diligently under them. He is also naturally intelligent and has honed his ability to plan out courses of action and execute and adapt them on the fly.
Disadvantages: Parker struggles to deal with his emotions in a healthy manner, and often lashes out in spite even when it may not benefit him to do so, desiring control over any situation he finds himself in. His right eye being notably long sighted will cause him a great deal of problems when attempting to shoot accurately, as he will be unable to properly focus his vision on a target at any significant range without aid. The injury to his calf muscle will also limit his mobility and prevent him from running long distances, as well as forcing him to take regular breaks in movement.