F10 - SMITH, RAJNI 'SMIFFY' [DECEASED]

#1

DECEASED

Name: Rajni Victoria 'Smiffy' Smith
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12th
School: Saint Editha Academy
Hobbies and Interests: The RAF, aviation and planes, freestyle/street football, reading, fashion

Appearance: Rajni has Indian heritage and although her family has lived in the UK for a few generations, she still shares the dark skintone and dark brown eyes of her background. Her face is very sharp and angular, with a pointed chin and wide and high cheekbones, coupled with shallow, almost gaunt cheeks. Her nose is thin and somewhat bladelike, with a slight crook along the bridge and slightly wider at the nostrils. Her eyebrows are naturally bushy, and she pays careful attention to have them tweezed and not get too out of control. She wears a little makeup, mostly foundation and concealer, but avoids lip gloss or anything around her eyes as she tends to find it gets messy easily and in the case of her eyes, makes the sockets look bruised. Rajni's hair is black and naturally straight. Although it's quite long, and would reach below her shoulders left loose, she always wears it up in a very secure and tidy bun. Rajni hit an awkward growth spurt at puberty, gaining several inches without putting on very much weight, leaving her standing a scrawny 5'5", 104 lbs with the barest bit of tone in her legs.

Rajni's dress sense is very variable. She can just as often be found wearing ripped jeans and football shirts as she can flowery summer dresses. Although she'd claim to the contrary, this is reflective of a calculated eye for fashion. A frequent accessory of hers is an old-style dark-brown aviator hat, something she invariably has on her person even if she isn't actively wearing it.

When she was abducted, Rajni was wearing her school uniform with skirt, blouse and tie.

Biography: Rajni was born to Robert and Nirmala Smith, two British citizens of Indian descent whose respective families had lived in the UK since the early 1900s. Nirmala is a senior member of the Bellington police force, having more or less worked her way the entire length of the ladder. Robert works in a government role as an MP, and is a long-standing member of the UPP. As of the 2023 election, he is also part of the Government Cabinet as Transport Secretary. The phrase 'married to the job' would be an apt one, as Robert devotes sometimes extreme hours to his political career, dedicating little time to his personal or social life.

For most people, it would therefore be something of a surprise to know that he managed to take enough time away from the job to father a child. Nirmala and Robert were relatively young parents and leaned on their respective families a lot for support with their new daughter. Rajni was frequently babysat by her paternal grandmother, for whom she happened to have been named, and on the whole spent more time with her than her parents. Even when Nirmala was around, she was quite emotionally distant from Rajni, struggling to engage her daughter and often finding herself at a loss when it came to the challenges of parenting. Unfortunately, this trait was also shared by Rajni's grandmother, who would usually just give her a book and tell her to sit quietly and read it. While this did get Rajni reading at a young age (something which she has carried through to young adulthood with an eclectic array of novels of all genres), it further blunted her socialisation.

Rajni was first exposed to the UK's RAF as a young child. Her paternal grandfather, Deepak and her great-uncle, Danesh were both pilots and still actively flying throughout Rajni's early years. Danesh in particular was quite young, comparatively speaking, and Rajni swiftly grew to idolise her relatives, thinking of them both as heroes. This was initially more to do with the fact Rajni thought that the fighter planes they flew were incredibly cool, but as her understanding of the state of the world developed, began to shift towards admiring what the two men did to protect the country. Rajni spent a lot of time around Danesh, who was the more willing to chat and tell stories about his service to his great-niece, whilst Deepak was somewhat reticent to discuss warfare with a young girl. Seeing how some of her grandfather's colleagues referred to him by the nickname, Smiffy, Rajni quickly picked up on it and introduced herself with the name at school, inviting other children to call her Smiffy if they liked. This name has persisted throughout school, although Rajni dropped the habit of using it once people started to link her to her father more frequently.

As a result of her closeness with Deepak and Danesh, planes and flying became a central part of Rajni's life growing up. She consistently researched the planes she was told about or saw in the sky, looked up on the internet information about aeronautical technology and engineering, as well as spending much of her free time assembling models of various planes. She held a heroic and idealised view of the men and women of the RAF, seeing them as larger-than-life figures who had stepped out of an action movie. To some degree this was a result of the lack of a strong role model from her parents, and Rajni preferred to focus on how great her great-uncle and grandfather were as opposed to her often-absent father and distant mother. This definitely became a defence mechanism for Rajni in social situations, favouring telling often-overblown stories about her family's involvement in the RAF rather than giving any substantial details about her parents. She is reluctant to talk about her father and his work, as she feels that his involvement in politics causes people to make prejudgments and assumptions about anything from her personality to her own political views.

Rajni's school life has always been a challenge for her. Although a gifted student, Rajni becomes distracted very easily and is disorganised to an almost unbelievable degree, frequently misplacing workbooks and pens and completely forgetting to do her homework. This leaves her a source of consistent frustration to her teachers, as when she's on task and not daydreaming Rajni is multitalented and capable of excellent grades, but instead she tends to do just about enough to avoid detentions or other sanctions. In a consistent pattern, Rajni will then suddenly start trying around examination season and somehow contrive to perform extremely well in her formal assessments. Parent-teacher conferences have done little to alleviate this problem, as Robert is results rather than method focused and Nirmala tends to simply deliver a single lecture and then forget all about it. This is most prominent with her favourite class, English, within which she spends almost zero attention and instead reads books, only to produce excellent critical essays in her exams and coursework.

Rajni became interested in football at a young age, as Danesh was a big fan of the sport and in particular Premiership team Tottenham Hotspur. This became another bonding factor between the two of them (and friendly competition with Deepak, who supported arch rivals Arsenal), and Rajni has attended at least one or two of the team's games with Danesh since she was seven years old. As she grew older, this interest only reinforced her loyalty and admiration towards the RAF, as it was often their efforts which allowed the football season to resume after US air raids put it onto hiatus. Rajni tried to join the Bellington football team on a couple of occasions, but consistently forgot to show up for training and on those occasions she attended, would swiftly become distracted and bored from drills. As a result, she found herself no longer being selected, which Rajni was mildly but not especially disappointed by, since she'd found that the teamwork aspect hadn't landed very well with her. Instead, Rajni took to bringing a ball along when she was walking out and about, practicing ball control and tricks and dribbling along or performing keepie-ups. Occasionally she enlists a friend to record these tricks and puts them up online, and harbours vague hopes that she may be able to show off in competitions someday. However, by her own admission, it's mostly just something she does for fun rather than being an ambition.

Rajni makes friends relatively easily due to her energy, enthusiasm and wicked sense of humour. On the other hand, she has few particularly close friends, tending to hold people at arm's length and turn the focus of any personal conversations onto another subject. This is also a result of her flighty behaviour, as she tends to forget arrangements and meet-ups just as quickly as she sets them up, frequently double-booking herself and rarely bothering to try and amend this or even notify the people involved. This is not because she doesn't care, per se, it just doesn't register as a particularly high priority. This careless attitude is contradicted somewhat by her approach towards fashion and dressing with style; Rajni has an eye for detail, but tries to play off that she doesn't, an abortive attempt to connect with her dad over his style in public appearances. Rajni still follows fashions and trends, having grown interested in spite of herself, but rarely discloses or discusses this with others.

Rajni's relationship with her parents is more distant than ever now that the UPP has been elected. Robert spends the overwhelming majority of his time on the job, and Nirmala has responded by focusing even further on her own career, leaving little time for either of them to spend much influence or attention on her. Rajni has successfully applied to study English at a nearby university, and has an offer contingent upon her grades in her upcoming A-level exams. However, she is uncertain what she wants to do with herself in terms of both career and higher education, something which she often worries about but doesn't feel able to broach with her parents and is loath to discuss with her grandfather and great-uncle, as she does not want to 'let them down' by showing doubts. Furthermore, although she is deeply invested in the RAF, Rajni's previous experience with soccer has made her reluctant to explore the idea of it as a career and in many ways is prevented from doing so by her own fear of failing. It's easier for her to look at it as a fond daydream rather than something she may potentially not be good enough to accomplish.

Advantages: Rajni is active and energetic with a seemingly inexhaustible motor, which will allow her to keep up with the exertion inherent in the Program without too much difficulty. She has some mechanical knowledge thanks to her studies of aeroplanes, although the practical utility may be limited given the specific focus aeronautical engineering and lack of any hands-on experience.
Disadvantages: Rajni is notoriously flaky and has a well-deserved reputation for being unreliable. Most people who know her are well aware that just because Rajni says she'll do something doesn't mean she will, something which is likely to undermine any attempts she may make to gain trust. Also, while she is social and knows many people, her inability to form close relationships means that she cannot count on any automatic allies.

Designated Number: Female Student #10

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Designated Weapon: Netgun
Conclusion: Uh... whoops?

DECEASED