Name: Zinnina Babbage
Nickname: "Z"
Age: 28

Faceclaim: Kaya Scodelario

Ability:
Z has always been aware.  Even as a child she was able to think through things on a level of detail and analysis that baffled most adults.  It took her a while to figure out that she wasn't smart- she was simply able to recall everything, and because of that, she was more *aware.*  That awareness was amplified by the virus.

*Precognition:
Probably Z's most prominent ability is her precognition. Her ability to "see" things that might occur in the future is based upon the currents that she feels pressing on her skin.  Her latent ability is more like sonar... she can feel the vibrations of what might occur and her mind extrapolates the information into possible occurrences.  These latent abilities are limited to only a seconds or minutes out of the event occurring.

She is learning to channel her power with more focus.  By following those waves, she can see bigger events- or at least narrow down the possible events to the top three if there are "random" people involved who's decision making "muddy the waters." People with gifts are far more difficult to predict than the normal population. She has been working through her sketches to record her visions, given that once she falls asleep she could lose it.  She's been working on falling into a trance to sketch what she feels in the tidal currents.  Her pictures are gradient black and white usually almost as if you are watching someone paint via sound waves bouncing off of objects.  Once she's finished with the sketch there is still some question about what it means, but over time her skill and focus will improve- in theory.

The most powerful visions are not hers to control.  (I expect the GM's to use this at your discretion if ever.  From time to time events that effect those close to her or are big enough to cause tidal waves in the currents of time rocket into her head.  During these visions her brain does not process anything else (including breathing), and she is held hostage until the full vision has manifested.  These visions can be hours, days, or years in the future and unless there is a calendar in the vision she has no way of knowing which of those it is.

*Psychic Sonar:
If Z has felt a person's "ripples" before, she is able to find them within the time stream.  (Everyone's ripples are unique)  This may either be localized- a few seconds from now they are here, or can be further out if she is having a  "Vision" she is able to know if that specific person is involved in the event.  While she can feel the "currents' of other people if she doesn't know them, she doesn't recognize them and they are simply data to analyze. In order for her to know the location of the individual she can either A) have been at that location before or will be at that location in the future- in which she gets a powerful image that is crystal clear, or B) she can divine it with a map, which in her mind is clunky and irritating.

Weakness:
Z's short term memory erases every time she falls into a REM cycle.  Those memories that were lucky enough to be recorded in her long term memory are fine; however, if her mind has been strained by using her Precognitive abilities- either intentionally or unintentionally- she loses part of her long term memory as well as those neural pathways collapse.

Because of her Epidemic Memory, before she contracted the virus, she has a large vault of memories that can be used as "payment" for looking deep into the currents, and she has trained herself to for the most part control which memories are given up and she will use non consequential occurrences- trips to the bathroom, opening the fridge to get milk, getting water from the tap.  However, If a vision comes to her through "the powers that be"-  the memory she loses is not her choice to make and is always expensive: Birthday Parties, Siblings, Close Friends, her Grandparents, her Parents- Someday perhaps her identity all together.

Z is distracted.  The movements of the time stream are much like a hair that has fallen onto your arm and tickling you despite your efforts to find it and remove it.  It is that tag at the back of your t-shirt scratching at your neck.  Since the currents change and move with decisions that are being made in real time they shift and change often.  A person trying to decide whether to take an orange or a banana causes little ripples from the vicinity of the fruit bowl and as those waves reach out to her they grow, pushing an pulling.  Learning to channel her ability has helped, but she longs for the time when she can turn it off.

Other Special Abilities:

Endemic memory (with a caveat) Z is able to retain large blocks of information.  Events of the day, names, faces, locations, objects, serial numbers, large blocks of text etc.  Trick is- she only retains it until she goes to sleep.  Prior to the virus she did not have that problem.  She retained everything; however with the expansion of her perception it seems that her brain "short circuits" and everything within her short term memory disappears.

Artist- Z is quite a talented sketch artist.  She's been using this ability to try and channel her power with some success.  She is quite a good portrait artist and can do a fairly good job at landscapes when she's concentrating.  However, her art when she is channeling a vision is far more abstract.

Analyst- Prior to the virus and the downfall of civilization, Z was a analyst for a research firm.  Her job was to look at raw data and determine the potential problems that might occur in the future.  Z has a natural talent for seeing patterns in data.

Is your character a League member or a recruit? Recruit

How many years with The League: Less than one

Occupation on the Campbell Compound: Scavenger

Theme song: Whiter Shade of Pale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St6jyEFe5WM
Physical Description:


Z is very much the girl next door.  Fresh faced, hair in braids, blue gray eyes, and often seen in coveralls and an over sized leather jacket that belonged to her brother.  Despite being almost swallowed by the article of clothing, she looks oddly right in it.  The pockets are usually filled with whatever pens and pencils she can find and the large pocket in the interior contains a small 3.5"x 5.5" moleskin sketch book. (Wherever Z is in the game, she has boxes of these horded under her bed.)



She has a tendency to doodle on her hands and arms, but this has very little to do with boredom or simply being artistic.  While she hides it within the drawings, there are clues that she's giving herself in the case that she falls asleep or becomes unconscious so she knows what is going on.  While she used to do this on her jeans, she has found drawing on her skin allows her to wash off and reuse a canvas that can't be taken or lost.

Z loves a good pair of Converse Sneakers especially the colorful ones, but the black, gray, and white ones are also well loved.  Unfortunately, her knowledge about why she loves them is gone.  She simply knows that she adores them and feels more comfortable when she is wearing them.  (Because of the loss of this memory- and she knows it is one that must be important- she holds to the jacket memory as much as humanly possible.)

Z has a bubbly step and cadence about the way she carries herself. Her actions are as random as her personality, and she is regularly found walking down one hallway only to stop mid-step and walk in entirely the opposite direction.  She will do little spins from time to time as if trying to decide where she wants to focus and then making her decision will go there with such intensity it's a little surprising.

Distinguishing Features:

Z has a large scar on her right forearm that reaches almost to the elbow, another on her shoulder, and several ribbon like scars on her back.  She has no idea what occurred with any of these (since the attack made her fall unconscious, and she lost the memory.)



Personality Description:

The Z that you first meet would appear distracted almost dizzy and fairly random.  She's a fun light personality, but once you start listening to her you realize she is very introspective.  Z is fully aware that most people do not enjoy knowing their future even though they think they do.  Because of this, she avoids saying much.  She'll mention to someone if she thinks they'll walk off a cliff in the near future, but if they're just going to spill the ketchup, she lets it go.

Z's brain is always working assessing things, jumping from subject to subject, very much like a leaf on the wind.  She's funny and smart but dislikes confrontation and will diffuse a situation by asking an odd question or breaking a joke when things get tense.

To distract her brain, Z enjoys running.  She finds running causes her to "clear" and the breeze on her arms and legs relieves her of the press of the currents.  Her other source of relief is sketching.  By using her art, she is able to focus all the data that she's collecting.

Z suffers from the slightest bit of insomnia- partially due to data accrual, partly due to fear of sleeping.  She has a perpetual fear of her memory loss growing as her ability to read the currents grows.  Sleep is the one factor she can't control.  It terrifies her.  Logic allows her to sleep- most of the time.


History:
Z was born to her parents- Ida and Arthur Babbage on June 1st.  Her mother always told her that she was named for the flowers that bloomed in the garden the day she was born.  While Z loves the flowers, she hates the name.  Her older brother, by one year, Hershel was the one to save her from the antiquated name, calling her "Z."  The name stuck.  He himself, went by Hal- self dubbed when he was eight.

Z's unique memory was a source of constant amusement for Hal who tended to use his younger sister as a party trick for his friends.  Later as they got older, the somewhat more reckless Babbage sibling helped his sister navigate the trials of Middle and High School.  Rather than shunning her, he taught Z how to be compatible with society.  He ensured while she was growing up that her self-esteem remained high, her social calendar remained engaged, and most importantly he helped her hone her memory.

When Z decided that she wanted to go into analysis, Hal was enthusiastic and spent hours drumming up data.  He would find information leading up to major events, such as the Hindenburg and present it to her without any of the earmarks.  Z would predict through the data the possible issues that might occur, and then together they would review the actual historical data to see how well her predictions matched up.  By the time she started college at 16, Z had honed her skills and passed with high marks two years later.

Hal, however, was never the academic that his sister was.  Her brother, excellent with mechanical components, chose to  work with cars.  His dream was always to design his own. Something new and sporty no one had ever seen before.  When she started working at Marcroft and Finch, Z began putting fifty percent of her paycheck toward supporting her brother's dream.

The plague struck the month Hal opened his garage.  Their parents had come to the opening ceremony with a cough.  Z, who had flown in from New York, stayed an extra week to help them out.  One week turned into two, two weeks turned into three.  An extended hospital stay turned into funeral plans.  Before she could pick out the flowers, Z fell ill.  Once again Hal was there, taking care of her, but the world was becoming a different place.

When she awoke in the hospital, Hal's black jacket was there, covering her, but he was gone.  She hasn't seen her brother since- though she hopes.  One of the drives for her to manage her abilities is the hope that some day she might be able to locate her brother.

Z was released to the world from the hospital as an orphan.   While an adult, she felt the incredible loss.  She determined to find her brother.  Her first stop was to his garage and his home- nothing.  Heading to the police station, Z planned on filing a missing person’s report.  When she touched the handle to the police station- she had a very detailed vision about how that meeting would go:

Once entering through the doors she envisioned the waiting room, the front desk officer spilling her coffee giving several explicit statements, the phone ringing and someone trying to order pizza.  Her finally getting to see a missing persons officer.  She would explain about being ill with the plague after helping her parents, the coma, waking up with the jacket.  The police officer asked if she’d had any weird experiences since the hospital- she would tell him about this vision, and he would pause.

The officer, Officer Jones, would disappear for a very long time and return with a large group of people.  There would be a struggle and she would be detained, removed from the police station.  She’d be taken to a research facility where, she would not spend time searching for her brother but find herself so totally contained and experiment after experiment…

The vision ended.  Gasping for air, Z had to take several minutes before she was able to open the police station door and go inside.  To her horror, she watched the spilled coffee, the phone call about pizza, and when Officer Jones walked to the lobby to take her back to his desk, she made a fumbling excuse and left.  Outside the doors she tried to make sense of what happened.

When Z left the police station her powers started manifesting.  At first she didn't know what was going on, but as that feeling grew it bothered, then bugged, then battered at her.  She tried to get away from it.  She kept walking first to the suburbs, but she could still feel it, then she moved to the outskirts- walking until she went into the mountains and lived in a cabin she found.  Once she fell asleep for the first time she panicked and it took her awhile to figure out what is going on.  She ended up carving in instructions on the walls of the cabin for herself- so she wouldn't panic and run blindly into the woods again and again.  Each time she came to the town with all the people she'd have the same reaction to the currents and inevitably escape back to the cabin.

Sequestered, she analyzed out her powers, treating them like everything else she'd accomplished over the years.  She used the little community nearby the cabin as a place to experiment.  Bit by bit she started figuring things out- though knowledge doesn't necessarily mean control, but she's obsessive about analyzing how they work.

One thing that bothered her was the vision she’d had in the police station.  Worried about being taken, she’d remained awake and pondered over it so much that it is firmly rooted in her memory.  Bit by bit Z began realizing that if the elements of the vision were real, then there really was a research facility where people who were as innocent as her were being detained.  The visions of the place started soon after.  Horrifying images of events surrounding the facility where she was supposed to be sent. The more she thought about it, the more she realized she had to do something- anything,  it meant returning to large numbers of people- and she had to solve the issue of her memory.   She created the crutches for her memory issues.  The notebooks, the doodles on her arm in order to help her navigate.

Leaving the cabin was possibly the hardest thing she had ever done.  She returned to the city and set up a command center for herself in her parent’s house.  Living there, using her sight to avoid any dangers, she began researching what the military was doing in regard with the plague victims.  She used data she obtained from the abandoned hospital file rooms, to put it all together and was aghast that she could see a pattern.  People were disappearing.  Not dying- disappearing.

Her next move was to stake out the few clinics and hospitals that were still being run by non-profit organizations, doctors who cared more about people than their own survival, and of course the military.  It didn’t take more than a week for her to find the facility.  It took her less than a month to see how they actually ran things- how the system worked, as crumbling as it was...

She deemed to stop them and began sabotaging events.  They weren't huge.  Putting a van in the way of where a transport was supposed to go.  Unlocking a door that someone escaping would need to get out of a sticky situation.  In a few cases she had to resort to reading about how to make low level explosives, blowing up trash cans, or sewer lids, in order to detur a pursuit of an innocent.  As the infrastructure of society collapsed completely, it became harder and harder and she had a couple close calls- especially as the military was now looking for her.

The vision of the group of gifted like herself, fighting back against the military came to her, waking her in the middle of the night.  The mission would be a failure with high casualties.  It was not normally something she would get involved in, but she’d already set up an alley where they would retreat through for another event in the future… Z decided to act.  She ended up helping the League and the military was thwarted in their plans to destroy the rebels.

It’s easy to hide from normal Humans, especially the military.  It’s not as easy to hide from the gifted.  The League honed in on her and discovered her.  She was invited to the Campbell Compound and has been there ever since.  She works as one of the Scavengers, though she’s promised to not “interfere” with the military any longer, she does tend to unlock certain doors, push a dumpster too far out into an alley, and other small things while she’s on her hunts for supplies.  The moments when they’ll be needed days, weeks, or months in the future, but it gives her a sense of purpose.

 Z lives on the outer reaches of Campbell Compound in an old bunker, where she doesn’t feel the currents quite as much. She’s a little bit of a loner, but who isn’t these days?  The walls of her quarters are lined with writing- explaining things, in case her memory gets blasted by a powerful vision.  One entire wall is dedicated to Hal and her parents with pictures she scavenged from their home nd labels- Notebook references where she has written everything she can remember about her childhood, her home, her life… or what was her life.   Outside her quarters and all the way back to the main compound she’s posted obscure signs, like:  “Don’t panic- look at the data.”  Crutches for those moments when she wakes up and it is all blank

Writing Sample:

Z pulled the over-sized black jacket around her a bit tighter as she closed the door to her parents house.  The musty smell of unused air being shut off from her nose.  Hal wasn't there either.  The garage, his apartment, she'd even gone to his ex-girlfriend's house, though she figured that would probably be a wash.  The whole experience of looking for her brother had her mildly creeped out.  It wasn't so much that Hal wasn't in any of those locations- but that they were empty.  Empty, empty- like no one had been there in months.  What the hell had happened?  Yes- the sickness had taken her parents, had made her sick... but had it killed everyone?

A frustratingly analytical part of her brain began calculating the population shift.  Even as she was doing it, the thoughts made her sick.  She shouldn't be looking at people's lives that way- like numbers... God, she needed help.  She needed Hal.  Where was he?

A police report- she reasoned.  That's what people did when they lost family members- they filed missing person's reports.  Faces went into databases and on milk cartons... or was that only kids?  Did they even do that anymore?

The streets were empty as she moved toward the old police station.  She hadn't been in it- maybe once with a class trip when she was seven?  Her heart ached a little.  God she was tired. Her mom would probably chastise her for saying God too much, even in her head.  Mom- A pang struck Z like a bullet to the heart.  She hadn't been given a chance to grieve.  Though it was months later, she'd never had a chance to cry.

How long had it been?  Z looked at the newspaper rack outside the precinct- It looked old- sun and rain damaged.  No help there.  She'd have to find a calendar. If anyone bothered to turn the page, she thought sullenly.  She'd just ask the officer at the desk.  That wouldn't be so difficult. Just pretend you're asking if it's the 18th or 19th... not looking for the month.  Yeah, that would do it.

Z walked up the cement stairs, corners crumbled by the passing of a thousand unpolished shoes.  Tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, she reached for the handle.

At the age of three she'd fallen into a reservoir while fishing with her father.  The sudden wash of water, covering her from all angles took all sensation from her.  Sight, sound, even touch were all stolen by the murky brownish gray of the water.  She'd scrambled with her arms and legs, clawing at the water in order to find a hold on something that had no edges.  That moment, with her hand on the door to the police station- Z felt that same complete sensory deprivation, that same scrambling for a hold, that same inability to breathe.

In the real world, she was simply a woman holding onto the handle, staring into her reflection as if trying to decide whether she really wanted to step inside.  Below that surface, Z found herself in a murky parody of her normal existence.  Light, sound, smell became slightly distorted as if you were on that threshold of drunk, but still aware enough to know that the guy sitting on the other side of the bar wasn't Chris Hemsworth.

It was as if a shadow of herself opened the door and stepped inside.  Z looked around.  The foyer of the Police Station was filled.  A family with a crying mother was in the corner.  A  surly man covered with tattoos was glaring at another man who was pierced to the point of setting off metal detectors. Surprisingly there wasn't a single woman who looked like she was a hooker- wasn't that the stereotype? 

The lady police officer at the front counter looked harried.  Her dark skin was sheened with sweat and Z doubted that the tiny circulating connected to her computer was even making a dent in the discomfort.  The police station smelled as if the air conditioning had been off for at least a couple days.  Part of the plague? Z wondered.

"Damn it!" the woman muttered as her coffee spilled across the laptop.  The little plastic green fan sputtered and failed as the computer winked off.  The woman clutched at the desk, dropping her head and taking several deep breaths, before raising it again to look at Z.  "Can I help you?" Strained politeness issued from the woman's lips.

"I need to file a missing person's report," Z said, her eyes focused on the laptop that seemed to be taking a last gasp before becoming little more than a paperweight.

"You and everyone else," the police officer muttered, running a hand through her hair.  "Just a second.  I'll see if there's an officer available."

Before her hand could reach for the receiver, the phone was ringing.  The officer's hand traveled the inches and lifted the smooth black plastic to her ear.  "49th Precinct, Officer Daniels speaking."   There was a pause, and Z could see the muscles around the woman's eyes tense a little.  "Did anything in that greeting make you think this was Dominoes?" She snapped and slammed down the phone.  Z could practically feel the stress radiating off the woman's body.  Again she looked around the foyer as the officer picked up the phone and dialed an extension.

"Arthur.  Yeah, we have another one.   I don't know.  Use notebook paper."

A harried man in a white shirt and brown polyester pants that would have made the '70s proud appeared at the door almost immediately after the officer at the desk slammed down the phone.  She was going to break that receiver if she wasn't careful.  Even as the officer motioned for her to follow him, Z turned to see a tear stricken older woman entering through the doors.  Clutched in her fingers were three photographs.  Z's eyes flicked to the officer and she understood a little more.

"Name's Jones," the detective said without offering any other titles.  By the huge circles of wet material under his arms and along his back in a long I shape, Z guessed that formality had ended about the time the air conditioning broke down.   He was a tall man with hair that was more matted than styled.  He was as flushed as the woman at the front desk, but it seemed more fitting especially after Z entered his office and saw the stacks on stacks of paper, covering every surface.  God was this what happened when society broke down?  Photographs were paper clipped to every form.  Apparently when the paperclips ran out, they started using tape.  The pile on the officer's desk sat next to an empty tape dispenser.  Damn.

"So you want to file a missing person's report?" Jones asked.  The question wasn't for clarification.  It carried with it the not so subtle tone that she was wasting time.

"Yes, my brother," she slid the picture on to the desk.  The officer spared only a passing glance.  "Hal... er... Hershel Babbage."

"Like Walking Dead?"  The officer said casually while taking down his specifics- age, weight, height, clothing... when he got to the question of how long he'd been missing Z paused.

"I... I'm not sure," she said.  God she was having problems with dates again.  "You see, this morning I woke up in the hospital.  I took sick after my parents passed away from that flu everyone is getting.  I got it too, I guess.  The hospital was busy, and they needed the bed so..." She clutched the jacket a little tighter.

"You were able to walk out of the hospital after how long?" Jones' attention was now rivited on her and not the yellow tablet in front of him.

Z swallowed.  "What's today's date?" she asked.

"July 14th," the officer answered.

"Six months," Z said the words more to herself than to the officer, but when she looked up, he was looking at her as if he was trying to see something beneath her skin.  "I was told that I wasn't contagious," she said quickly to the look.

"Everything okay with you?  No lasting side effects?  Any strange feelings or sensations?  Anything odd happening to you?"

"Just a lot of Déjà vu.  Really vivid.  Like when you know what the person is going to say next or that someone is going to open a door right after you point to something?" Z said casually. "I had one coming into the police station.  Skin is a bit sensitive... but nothing major."

Jones was on his feet and heading out of the cluttered office before she could finish the sentence.  Z turned in her chair following him out the door.

"Just a moment please.  I need to deal with something."

The next few events happened in quick succession: Several armed agents came into the tiny office, pulled her to her feet, and dragged her from the room.  Oddly in the entire struggle, Z could only focus on the sight of Hal's picture fluttering to the floor and under the desk.  From the halls of the police station, she was taken to a suburban, from the suburban she was taken to a building.  The building became a room.  The room became a cell... Men in white coats.  Fuck.

Z blinked almost screaming.  Her fingers still wrapped around the precinct's door handle she stared at her reflection gasping in lung fulls of air.  WHAT WAS THAT? The sensation almost took her to her knees.  Her jaw quivering, Z stepped inside the building.  Flashes from whatever that was still ricocheting around in her head.

Two steps in- Z stopped.  The woman officer at the desk- dark skinned, beaded with sweat, the little green fan... Z approached the counter as if she was in a dream.  The coffee spilled, the fan stopped, the officer swore, and the computer died.

"Damn it!... Can I help you?"

Z took a step back stunned.  Her eyes moved from the officer to the fan to the computer in a continuous loop.  "I...uh... Need to file a missing person's report." Even as she said the words, she felt like she'd said them before.  She had- hadn't she?

"You and everyone else.  Just a second.  I'll see if there's an officer available."

She knew every word the officer at the desk was going to say... Officer Daniels Z remembered.  Her mind reeled. How could she remember what hadn't happened yet?

The phone was ringing. "49th Precinct, Officer Daniels speaking...."

Z went numb.  "Dominoes," she said softly under her breath.

"Did anything in that greeting make you think this was Dominoes?"

Running fingers through her hair Z turned and scanned the foyer.  She knew every person who was in the room including the sad woman just walking in through the doors with the three pictures.  She must have missed the desk officer calling Detective Jones, because when Z turned back the man in the sweat soaked shirt and brown polyester pants was standing there.

"So you want to file a missing person's report?" Jones asked, when she didn't move.

Oh God... Oh God, oh god, oh god, oh god... sorry Mom. Z took a step back almost bumping into the woman with the pictures. Get out of here! was screaming like a siren in the back of her head! Run! Now!... NOW DAMN IT!

"Um... I just had a thought," Z shook her head, giving the officer a smile.  "Maybe my brother went to the cabin.  I'd hate to waste your time. I'll go there and if he's not there... at the cabin... I'll come back."   God she sounded like an idiot.  The look on Detective Jones' face said that he didn't care and he took the woman with the pictures instead to the cluttered office.

Get out! The alarm system in her head shoved her.  Z turned and left.  Her steps far too fast to seem like she wasn't up to something, but no one cared- no one followed- no one questioned.  There was too few hands and too many problems and the doors shut behind her.