A04: PATRICK NGUYEN [DECEASED]

#1

Name: Patrick "V-Raptor" Nguyen
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Hobbies and Interests: Esports, Video Games, CR Modding, Programming

Appearance: In real-life, Patrick is about as unassuming as they come. Standing at a mere 5'4" and weighing 90 lbs, he's notably underweight and lacking much in the way of muscles, along with a slouched posture and poor complexion. He is of Vietnamese-American ethnicity, his face unremarkable and riddled with acne, with sunken brown eyes and an ovular head along with thin lips and a straight nose. His greasy black hair is styled into a bowl cut, one that he evidently does himself. He is near-sighted, and requires prescription glasses.

Conversely, his online persona V-Raptor (Vee for short) is nigh unrecognisable, given his extensive knowledge of CR and how to make the most of avatar customisation. He's notably taller and well-built, standing at 6ft and weighing 160 lbs, with an athletic build and excellent posture along with a much clearer complexion. His platinum blonde hair is sculpted into animesque spikes, and he's rarely found without his signature pair of wraparound sunglasses. Even his body language is different, exuding an aura of confidence that is completely alien to his real self.

On the day of the abduction, in addition to his sunglasses Vee was wearing his usual esports attire: Black jeans, red neon trainers, a black t-shirt and his most prized CR possession: A red leather jacket bearing an animated logo of Omega Squad on its back, a virtual item he's able to import into most CR programs that allow it.

Background: Patrick is the eldest child of Kim and Daniel Nguyen, a pair of young Silicon Valley programmers hailing from Little Saigon, San Jose. The two met whilst studying at Stanford University, marrying and bearing their first child in 2006 before later having two more children in 2008 and 2011 respectively, Patrick's younger siblings Sonia and Kelly.

In 2010, Kim and Daniel Nguyen joined a small development team that would soon rapidly grow into the corporate powerhouse known as Interface, playing a small but significant role towards the development of CR technology. As a result, Patrick was introduced to CR at a very young age, much earlier than many of his peers. This unsurprisingly ended up having an adverse effect on his development, given that he was already a shy child who struggled with real-life social interactions, whilst online interactions proved to come much more easily to him. As a result he quickly grew averse to real-life activities over those taking place in CR, where he's able to open up and express himself more easily than in person. This in turn wasn't helped by his parents' enthusiasm for the developing technology, the Nguyens in particular being passionate about working towards the creation of an open-source metaverse, and thus seeing little issue in their children embracing CR.

Though his sisters were more socially well-adjusted and ended up growing bored of the technology, Patrick took to CR like a fish to water. Throughout his childhood and teens he quickly found himself spending more and more time online compared to real-life, compounded further by traumatising experiences with bullies that have left him with severe social anxiety. The more that CR technology developed, the more obsessed and reliant Patrick grew, shutting himself off further and further from "Meatspace" as he built his online persona. CR gaming in particular was a hobby he quickly grew passionate about, having been amongst the first to try out some of the earliest tech demos back when game developers were figuring the technology out, his passion only growing as the technology developed and a competitive scene began to grow.

By his late teens, Patrick - or V-Raptor, as he prefers to refer to himself online, a nickname he chose on a whim one day whilst playing a dinosaur-themed survival MMO - has become a notable online fixture. His passion for CR gaming grew as the CR esports scene developed, with Vee quickly building a reputation amidst the competitive gaming crowd as a highly skilled CR gamer. Inspired by parents he is similarly passionate about programming and CR modding, spending countless hours mastering any game he can get his hands on, as well as stretching the limits of avatar customisation.

Since arriving at Sycamore High, Vee had gone on to found his own personal esports team by the name of Omega Squad, consisting of similarly-minded CR enthusiasts from amongst his classmates who've gone on to become a distinctive fixture of class 12-B. As Omega Squad's de facto leader, he dreams of going professional once he leaves school, believing that CR esports will quickly grow more popular than "Meatspace" sports within the next decade. This has resulted in him cruising along with average grades in most subjects, granted he regularly scores high in Math and ICT-adjacent classes.

Personality: In real-life, Patrick Nguyen is a recluse. He has crippling social anxiety and agoraphobia, coming across as borderline mute to everyone outside of his immediate family, and even then he tends to be soft spoken at best.

This is in stark contrast however to his online persona, with Vee presenting as incredibly brash and cocksure. As Vee, he is overconfident to a fault, with an infectious charisma about him that makes him difficult to ignore. Unlike his real self, he's a man driven to become the centre of attention, with a competitive attitude that drives him to want to overcome any challenge that stands in his way. He tends to look down on those who reject or dismiss CR's potential, believing like his parents that CR is the future and investing whole-heartedly into it above any and all "Meatspace" pursuits.

Reputation: Through sheer force-of-will and undeniable talent when it comes to CR gaming and customisation, V-Raptor finds himself in a similar social position previously reserved for top athletes. He is close friends with his fellow Omega Squad members, and is generally regarded as being amongst the popular crowd, granted there are many who deride him and his fellow Squad members. In particular he gets along poorly with those who are critical of CR, or fellow competitive gamers who for whatever reasons refuse to join Omega Squad's ranks. Despite his relatively popularity, his teachers tend to find his attitude tiresome, given that he and his fellow Omega Squad members often stretch the limits on what is allowed for their school avatars. They are also notably amongst the few people outside of his immediate family who regularly refer to him by his real name, much to his frustration.

Notably, most of his classmates have never met him in real life, including his fellow Omega Squad members. This has earned him something of an air of mystery amongst his peers, given that so little information is publicly available about what his real self is like, and he's quick to dodge the subject whenever it's brought up.

He ostensibly gets along with his parents, although they tend to be too wrapped up in their busy work lives to pay much heed to his obsessive CR habits. He doesn't tend to get along too well with his sisters, Kelly ignoring him entirely whilst Sonia frequently criticises his seclusive lifestyle.

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Designated Number: A04

Designated Weapon: W-15 — Machete & Hockey Mask
Designated Utility: U-28 — Walkie-Talkies

Evaluation: "Oh, goodness gracious. Another one of these. Back in the good ol' days of yore, they would've been—no, I'm not getting old, you! Well, anyways, it's a crying shame that education's gone to the dogs these days. An old-fashioned locker-shoving might've straightened this wimp out." — [HARDING], Head of Finance