Name: Derek Cross
Home: Newton, Massachusetts
Height: 5' 9"
Weight: 200 lbs.
Activities: independent coder, gaming, geocaching, urban explorer, white hat hacking, occasional LARPing, social engineering
Quote: "You tend see what they want you to see.  But you need to look deeper..."

Relationships: Lydia Cross - Single mother run ragged.  Living in the greater Boston area is expensive, and for a single mother who isn't on a career track in an industry, it's very difficult.  Every day Lydia takes the Green line to government center, and starts the first of her two jobs to make ends meet.  Between regular hours at Fusion Wok in Faniuel Hall, and event sales at Fenway, Lydia is hard working and underpaid.  Her time with Derek is limited, and she has been fortunate that Derek was always shy enough that he didn't get in much trouble despite the hours of time he has on his hands after school.  Lydia often tries to take days with Derek when she has them free to spend time and make up for her absence.  She has been disappointed the few times when she got him free tickets to a big game at Fenway only to have him disappear for a few innings, to discover he was exploring the subterranean accessways and tunnels under the stadium.

Edward McClosky - Mr. McClosky is one of two Engineering teachers at Newton South.  McClosky teaches the non-honors Engineering courses, and the SolidWorks course, and he's one of the few teachers who notices Derek.  When Derek gets a free period he tends to go and sit in during Mr. McClosky's classes, and sometimes he'll code in his spare time.  McClosky will often give Derek small challenges, little notes he'll drop off as he's teaching his class.  "Do this one recursively"  "What are the fewest lines of code you can do this with?"  "See if you can 3d print the design by the end of class"  Mr. McClosky is the closest Derek has to a mentor, although neither of them have ever talked about it.  If things went bad, it would be Mr. McClosky that Derek would go to.

StardotStar - Online Derek uses the hacker handle EOW-Interrupt, and he affiliates with the QRant(1ne) Group - a loose affiliation of hackers, mostly white hat, that finds exploits on newly updated sites and systems, creates videos about the exploits, sends them to the company, and then uploads them a week later to the public if the companies don't fix the security holes.  Among the many hackers in QRant, Derek is closest to StardotStar, whom he has never met in real life.  They share fragments of code, and even teamed up to show how cnet sites could be hijacked to distribute malware under the guise of drivers and updates.  EOW-Interrupt and StardotStar have been working on a tag-team approach to exploit holes in Microsoft security files, using CRC-modded system.exe files that allow backdoor entry into Windows WLAN architecture.  Most of the White Hats work to prove their skills, but also in hopes that they can land a consulting contract, a sort of jackpot payday.  If Derek and StardotStar could complete their hack, it would prove that any Windows device on the internet could be made vulnerable if one under-updated computer could be infected.  Perhaps this is their ticket to a consult contract...

Description: Derek has brown hair and eyes, and a general body structure that most people consider round.  He isn't obese, but he carries weight from late night coding sessions and sedentary recreation.  When he does get out, he is often found on the commuter rail or in Boston, hunting the "Hidden City" with its ancient tunnels, historic monuments, and a plethora of geocaching locations.  Then he wears his no-descript grey and blue clothing, his headlamp, and his hiking boots.  Otherwise, in high school or around town he wears his jeans, his gaming or coding shirts, and, when he can, his QRant(1ne) cap.

Personality: Derek is quiet, analytical, and somewhat reluctant to socialize.  He has little personal respect for "sheeple" and often assumes that people are generally blind or unobservant.  This comes off to others as disinterest, and when combined with his awkwardness around others, most people just figure he's a quiet kid and tend to ignore him.

If someone around him shows an interest in similar tasks, he changes quickly, eager for companionship and sharing, and hopeful of finding similar minds.  Derek only really trusts a very few people in his life, though, and if betrayed or let down he will often nurse a grudge.  He has only used his hacking skills to "black hat" once, and that was to get revenge for a personal slight.  His victim woke up one morning to discover that everyone in his social circle had been sent an entire transcript of everything he had texted, instagrammed, or e-mailed that contained their name or any portion of their name.  The fallout, as you can imagine, was apocalyptic for the individual.

History: Derek grew up in Massachusetts.  When he was young, his parents lived in Brookline, but after the divorce Derek's Mom moved them to Braintree and then to Newton.  Derek became isolated, and spent a lot of time at home or with the neighbors as a child.  When he discovered an ancient, abandoned IBM PC, he slowly restored it and learned how operating systems ran by reverse-engineering Windows ME.  Between this an a developer's version of Windows NT, Derek learned the basics of coding and discovered a passion for old and forgotten things.  Through his teenage years he has experimented with urban hiking, urban exploration, geocaching, and LARPing on occasion, and even white hat hacking with QRant.

Derek has been fascinated with the difference between what people see, what they are meant to see, and what remains hidden.  He keeps notes and photos of every expedition to places that people seem to have forgotten, and he loves collecting mysteries.  He hopes some day to go to Washington D.C. and see Kryptos.  He keeps numerous cyphers on his cellphone and computer, and tries them out both in coding and his e-mails.

Strengths/Virtues: Derek is incisive, perceptive, and dogged in pursing something hidden.  He makes connections within chaos and finds patterns in the random, and then pursues them to their ultimate ends.  With time and training he can learn any complex or multi-stage, potentially tedious task and perform it with accuracy.  With even more time, he will innovate, finding more efficient or technically more advanced forms to improve efficiency and optimize aspects.

Faults/Weaknesses: Derek is shy and socially awkward, which leads to him avoiding socializing.  He tends to not trust social niceties, and tact is a word his mother uses often with him.  When he finds a fellow enthusiast, he can be, alternately, very enthusiastic and overly eager to please.  The has lead to him being manipulated in the past, and might likely in the future as well.  Derek isn't very fit, and he tends to be a little slower than his peers.  He will stop and rest frequently, but he rarely gives up despite that.  As well, his mania for mysteries and secrets means that he often collects conspiracy theories he hears and is willing to accept them as real until he can prove otherwise.

Powers:

Derek discovered a text that laid out the rules for manipulating the energies of
an alien plane, a confluence of many different, disparate energies all in a
swirling vortex.

Dancing Lights
Frequency: Unlimited
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, S, M
Range: 1 zone
Duration: Concentration

Effect: Derek may create up to four lights that may hover and move as he wills.

Witching Bolt
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, S, M
Range: 1 zone
Duration: Instantaneous
Cost: One 1st level slot

Effect: Derek gains the following attack, a beam of crackling blue energy, which
he may use once on his next attack.

[*] Witching Bolt: 2 (Spell Bonus) = +2 [1d12]