Kieran is a small and thin child.  He is pale and anxious, prone to fidgeting and nervous chatter.  He often looks worried, even when he is not, and is highly imaginative, mostly about things that could kill him, which he seems to relish detailing.  He enjoys puzzles and games, and despite his sickly appearance he is generally healthy and fairly quick and dexterous when he can be pulled outside for physical activities.

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BACKGROUND:
Kieran's father, Gregory, was a professor of biology at the University of Minnesota when the Harbinger arrived.  He has, in the ensuing years of chaos, eventually become involved in a government-sponsored conservation research project, The Arc, specifically examining and seeking solutions for the damage done to ecosystems by the loss of one or more generations of key links in the food chain, as fast-breeding insects and small animals in many cases had their life-cycles badly disrupted by the spontaneous abortions.  Innumerable prey or interlocutor species are badly endangered or believed extinct, and the addition of Harbinger mutations generating unexpected niches or reversals has in places resulted in utter ecological chaos.  The Arc has in various sites transplanted new species wholesale or engaged in dramatic population control measures where loss of predators resulted in explosions or blooms, while frantically trying to predict and manage the further knock-on effects of their own meddling and the bizarre interactions of Harbinger speciation.  Their efforts have had mixed results, but society has at least more or less continued without the food supply collapsing, so well done on that much.

Gregory's work has taken him on often extensive field trips, typically for months at a time, alternately to sometimes remote wilderness or to universities or corporate laboratories.  His wife has passed away and the family has no other close relatives, so he takes his children with him as he goes.  His older daughter is pursuing a correspondence degree in nursing, a field much in demand these days.  His younger son, the pale-eyed Kieran, is still working through his middle grade education.  Technically home-schooled, Kieran has ended up largely self-taught, with Gregory and Aine helping him through his schoolwork when they can.  He probably averages two or three grade levels above his expected age.

NOTEABLE SKILLS:
Above-average verbal and mathematic ability for his age.
Knowledge of biology, ecology, and genetics, absorbed by osmosis from his father's work.
Quick runner
Good hand-eye coordination

HOBBIES:
Kieran enjoys electronics and technology, the which fields have still not quite recovered from the complete collapse of international communications and the years of subsequent chaos.  Short-wave radio "hams" were instrumental, particularly in the early days, in reestablishing basic communications, and Kieran's particular fondness for the field earned him the nickname "Radio."  (Less kindly, Aine sometimes calls him "Ice-Eyes" or "Snowman," digs at his pale complexion.)

LIKES:
Quiet, clean rooms full of books
Cluttered junk shops with old electronics
Spiders, misunderstood and unjustifiably feared
Scary stories where the protagonist dies at the end
Technical manuals

DISLIKES:
Loud noises
Wetness and damp
People not taking proper safety precautions around sharp edges, electrical wiring, and chemical hazards
Factual errors