Whisper, like many of his generation, grew up on Night City's streets, staring up not at the stars but at the lights of the megacorp towers.  Both were equally out of reach.  But the stars have to interface with the dirt to make business happen, and Whisper was a regular in the clubs where the informal deals were made.  He orbited their periphery, doing odd favors and hoping for his big break.

That break came one bad night in the Third Eye.  An exec decided to settle a problem kinetically and Whisper was in the right place at the right time to stop two bullets and make it look intentional afterward.  The suit he saved didn't feel particularly indebted.  The suit's assigned bodyguard, on the other hand, was very grateful - her boss had ditched her to go slumming, but that wouldn't have saved her job if he'd bled out under the drum set of Night City's third-best Samurai cover band.  So she got Whisper patched up, took him under her wing, and taught him a few things.

One of the more critical lessons was marketing.  Whisper needed a niche if he was going to be more than another disposable hero.  That niche, he decided, would be subtlety.  Razorboys with fuck-off-big guns and enough ostentatious chrome to shit out a motorcycle get noticed, but a lot of people need their problems solved in way that won't be noticed.  There's more money and cred to be made with a rep for discretion than one for putting hair on the walls.  And some of the best marketing is a satisfied customer who tells his friends - or his boss - about the guy who took care of an issue quietly...