B052 - Wheeler, Carlon[/DECEASED]

[Rattlesnake]

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Name: Carlon Wheeler
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: 12
School: Aurora High
Hobbies and Interests: Cross country, track, Book Club, video games, board games, music

Appearance: The most obvious of Carlon's physical attributes is his small frame. Standing around 5'5" and weighing in at 115 pounds, Carlon is one of the smallest guys in his senior class. He can best be described as scrawny; while he does have some strength in his legs due to his cross country and track experience, his upper body is almost completely undeveloped. He has poor posture and frequently slouches, making him seem even smaller than he already is.

Carlon's face is clear and relatively unblemished by acne, and he is almost completely unable to grow facial hair. He keeps his dark brown hair short so that it requires very little maintenance. Perhaps his most prominent facial features are his bright green eyes and his straight, white smile, which comes easily to his face and lends him an air of approachability. Carlon's face is roughly diamond shaped and narrow, and he has small dimples in his cheeks that are especially noticeable when he smiles. Thanks to his youthful features and his small size, he is easily mistaken for being several years younger than he actually is.

Carlon has almost no sense of fashion and keeps his clothing choices simple. His T-shirts tend to be plain, solid colors without much in the way of graphics or logos, but he does make an exception for T-shirts that have the name of a favorite band or music artist. In the summer, he usually wears cargo shorts or athletic shirts, and in cold weather he is rarely seen without jeans and a dark hooded sweatshirt. He normally wears a watch on his left hand, a small cross necklace tucked behind his collar, and tennis shoes, although he sometimes wears sandals during the summer. Carlon's skin is quite pale and doesn't tan easily; while he does have a bit of a farmer's tan due to his cross country and track practices, it is not significantly darker than his usual skin tone. On the day of the abduction, Carlon was wearing a black Led Zeppelin T-shirt, gray cargo shorts, and white tennis shoes.

Biography: Born on September 8, 1995, Carlon is the second of Tony and Elara Wheeler's two children. He lived his entire life in Seattle and did so comfortably, as his father was a doctor while his mother taught third grade. Carlon's parents were determined to put family above work, so despite their busy work schedules they were very active in their children's lives. They made a point of going on week-long family trips at least once a year, in addition to several shorter camping trips during the summer. Tony and Elara also went out of their way to sit down to dinner with the family almost every night, and they made it clear to their children that they are always available to talk about anything that comes up in their lives. The family became very tight-knit, and to this day both Carlon and his brother Ray have very good relationships with their parents.

From an early age, Carlon demonstrated signs of a deep intelligence. By the time he was 18 months old, Carlon was forming simple sentences, and he began to demonstrate a large vocabulary and a good memory. Carlon also had an early grasp of numbers, as well as displaying an aptitude with puzzles. He started reading at the age of 3, and it quickly became his favorite thing to do. Carlon would while away the hours reading book after book, and he spent so much time doing so that it took a toll on his social life when he entered elementary school.

A little bit shy, Carlon cultivated a smaller group of close friends rather than dividing his time among a larger group. This was partially due to social insecurities; Carlon worried about overstepping social bounds and thought that other students wouldn't see him as good enough to be a part of their social group. He was very close to the few friends that he did have, as he would frequently have friends over or go over to their homes. Most of his time with friends was spent playing video games like Super Smash Bros. and Pokémon, both of which he became rather obsessed with. When Carlon was 6, his father Tony introduced him to chess, which Carlon took to immediately. However, it would be years before he was able to beat his father, and eventually Carlon grew frustrated by his inability to actually win a game against Simon or, on the occasions that she agreed to play, Elara. When he was 7, he asked his father to teach the game to three of his close friends, and by the time they were 8, Carlon's friends became his most frequent opponents. Thanks in part to his extra experience, Carlon found he was able to beat all three of these friends on a fairly consistent basis. Later, Carlon and his more strategically-minded friends added games like Settlers of Catan, Risk, and Dungeons and Dragons to their repertoire, but chess remained Carlon's personal favorite largely because it was the game he was best at. His parents often put on family game nights, where they played games like Monopoly and Life; though Carlon and his father both enjoyed chess, Ray hated it and Elara found other games more appealing.

Tony and Elara raised their sons in the Baptist church, and perhaps because of his exposure at such a young age, Carlon developed a strong faith and moral convictions. He was raised to be polite, respectful, and kind to everyone he met, and while he would describe himself as being a realist, he actually tends toward optimism. Largely because of the religious upbringing and their parents' influence, both Carlon and Ray developed a rigid respect for rules and laws. As children, this frequently led to the brothers telling on each other whenever the other did something wrong, although both were usually good at keeping out of trouble. Neither Carlon nor Ray drink or swear, and Carlon especially has become a bit naïve about this and would be surprised at how widespread these and other activities are among his peers. In order to further emphasize their religious morals and beliefs, Tony and Elara raised their children on Christian and worship music, and for much of his life Carlon rarely listened to anything else. The family went to church weekly, only ever missing the Sunday service when they were traveling somewhere without a nearby church, and they also went to their church's Wednesday night service whenever they could. When Ray and Carlon got older, they both became members of the church's youth group.

Perhaps his most defining relationship is the one he has with his brother Ray. Only one year apart, Carlon and Ray have had a tumultuous relationship, and it certainly wasn't helped by the massive differences between them. Taller, athletic, and sociable, Ray found Carlon's shyness and more sedentary hobbies strange and often made fun of him for them, which only reinforced Carlon's perception of himself as a social outcast. Most of their quarrels were nothing more than the usual sibling struggles, but things took a turn for the worse when they were both in middle school. While Carlon was intellectually gifted, Ray struggled in his classes, and their parents had the ill-conceived idea of having the younger brother tutor the older. Ray quickly grew to resent his younger brother and their confrontations became more heated until their parents realized their mistake.

After separating the two, Elara pointed out to their children that they each had their own strengths and weaknesses. Neither kid outwardly took this talk very seriously, but the basic idea took root in both. Their relationship gradually began to change after Elara's talk, and they learned to respect and appreciate the differences between them. By the time Carlon was about to enter high school, the two had become quite close, and Ray began to encourage his younger brother to come out of his shell. With Ray and his parents' encouragement, Carlon began to branch out socially during his freshman year of high school.

A late bloomer socially, Carlon nonetheless found the transition into a wider social circle easier than he had expected. His naturally agreeable personality tended to put people at ease, and he had developed a good sense of humor. Due to his social anxieties, Carlon watched what he said and was mindful not to say anything he felt could cause others to think less of him. This was a blessing and a curse, as it balanced his quick wit with tact and ensured that he rarely offended anyone, but it limited his conversational skills as he would often wind up staying quiet rather than risk saying something wrong. Thus, Carlon was never going to be especially engaging, but his popular older brother Ray often invited him to hang out with his friends and helped him feel more comfortable in social situations. He also loosens up considerably when he's with people he knows well, as he feels more confident that he knows how to navigate those social situations.

In an effort to be known as something other than an intelligent nerd, Carlon practically reinvented himself his freshman year. He still played strategic board games like chess with friends who enjoyed them, but instead of joining the Chess Club he decided to join the cross country and long-distance track teams. He was an average runner and not all that competitive, but he came to enjoy the different challenge and the camaraderie of being on a team. Carlon did both sports for four years, switching to varsity during his junior year. Carlon still enjoyed playing video games, but by this point most of the games he played were single-player RPGs or strategy games; his friends had mostly moved on to first-person shooters like Call of Duty or Halo, but Carlon found them too realistically violent and preferred the less gritty violence of the Final Fantasy series and StarCraft. He also continued to enjoy playing Pokémon, but he kept that a secret from everyone since he thought the other high schoolers would find it childish. Around this time, Carlon also began to explore different types of music. He felt that his religious beliefs would set him apart in liberal Seattle, and he believed that branching out into genres other than Christian music would move him closer to the mainstream. However, he was disdainful of modern mainstream genres like pop and rap, as he found them tasteless. He instead found his niche in classic rock, with his favorite artists being Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, and Kansas. Carlon still maintained his religious beliefs, and he continued to attend church and youth group weekly as well as occasionally listen to Christian music, but he avoided talking about his faith except with other Christians.

The one more intellectual club he did join was Book Club; through the years he had never lost his love of reading, and while he continued to worry about being stigmatized, his love of reading superseded his worries. By this time, he enjoyed a variety of genres including theology, fantasy, science fiction, and mystery. His favorite authors included C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, Ray Bradbury, Orson Scott Card, and John Grisham; in his English classes he also really enjoyed reading Mark Twain, George Orwell, Thomas Malory, and especially William Shakespeare, though he would never consider actually acting in a play. English was his favorite subject, and while he enjoyed reading most of the works assigned, his favorite part was analyzing each work for its structures and literary devices. His analytical tendencies also served him well in science, particularly Physics, although he didn't enjoy Biology nearly as much as he considered much of it to be memorization of facts. Carlon's parents pushed him to do well in school, and, wanting to make them proud, he maintained straight A's throughout high school. This was not something he advertised to the other students, as it seemed like another thing that would set him apart; although the other students were undoubtedly aware of his intelligence, he preferred to talk about other things and even downplayed his academic abilities. Currently, Carlon plans to attend Stanford University and is struggling to choose between English and Physics as his major. He is nervous about moving so far away from home, but part of him is excited that his intelligence will no longer set him apart.

Secretly, Carlon takes a lot of pride in both his intellectual ability and his expanded social ability, but he still struggles with social insecurities. It really bothers him that his fear of taking social risks prevents him from being truly popular, as he feels that, aside from a few close friends, most people view him as likeable at best and inoffensive at worst. He also worries that people might not take him very seriously due to his short stature. Carlon continues to live in fear of overstepping social bounds; while his brother and his classmates have opened many doors for him, he still never feels entirely comfortable making the first move in social situations and so usually has to wait for others to initiate conversations or relationships. This has also prevented him from ever having a girlfriend; while he's had his share of crushes over the years, he's never been brave enough to actually ask anyone out. Still, despite his insecurities, Carlon enjoyed his time at Aurora High, and would describe it as the best few years of his life.

Advantages: While Carlon was far from a world-class runner, his time on the cross country and track teams did help him to become a faster runner than most, and he can keep going for a long time. He also has very few enemies and looks non-threatening.
Disadvantages: Carlon has very little upper body strength, so he won't be able to win most physical confrontations. His naïveté and innocence combined with his social insecurities could lead to him trusting the wrong people and not trusting the right ones.

Designated Number: Male Student No. 052

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Designated Weapon: Combination Lock
Conclusion: I hate to shut the door on anyone's chances, but I think this one's a lock. Luck is key in this game, and Mr. Wheeler just doesn't have it dialed in. Looks like his classmates will have his number. Did I do that right? - Andrew Denning


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