New Name: Max Spencer
Real Name: Charles Ruska, Chucky to his friends
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Straight

Physical Description: At 5'6 Max isn't really tall or short. His build tends towards being naturally wiry, even slender, but time spent in the gym has given him some muscle. Even if that muscle was clearly put on in the gym and not earned through manual labour.

Max's wardrobe is predominantly made up of faded jeans and t-shirts, with an unbuttoned shirt or a hoody jacket over the top. Despite this casual and comfortable aesthetic Max still seems to have a touch of vanity; his short dark hair is kept cut short and always has some product in, he is obviously aware of how his clothes fit, and his facial hair is kept neatly trimmed.

There aren't many distinguishing features on the skin Max usually shows, but he does have a small scar running through his right eyebrow and a tattoo of a deaths head moth on the his left wrist which sometimes peeks out of his sleeve.

Former position: Forensic scientist and expert witness (freelance)

Strengths: Polymath - thanks to his erratic and unfocused education and his upbringing Max knows a little about a lot of things. Outside of his chosen specialty his knowledge is shallow, but it is wide reaching. He's great on a quiz team and not all of his knowledge relates to the strictly legal.
Forensics - Max made a name for himself in his chosen job by being very good at most aspects of his work, and exceptional at reading a scene and painting the picture it tells him.
Social Chameleon - by choice Max is fairly solitary by nature. Despite this inclination he has developed the skills to ingratiate himself into any group, feeling out the untold social rules and following them almost by instinct.

Short backstory: Max has very few memories of his parent, who died in a fire when he was three. His childhood memories all revolve around his aunt Alice, who became his legal guardian and who raised him to the best of her abilities. Max grew up secure in the knowledge that he was loved unconditionally, but that was the only security he had. Alice suffered from severe bipolar disorer that she refused to take prescribed medication for, preferring to self medicate. As a result Max's childhood involved trips, often of hundreds of miles, to join whatever fringe group or cult or commune Alice's mania drew her towards contrasted with extended periods of weeks or months of being his aunt's primary carer when her depression became debilitating. The only respite from this cycle was during the handful of occasions when Alice was incarcerated - either in jail or committed to a hospital - and Max got a taste of something like routine, if not necessarily normality, in the care system.

When he turned eighteen Max discovered that Alice had, in a rare and fleeting moment of responsibility, put the insurance money from the fire and his parents' death into a trust fund for him. Despite his lack of a formal education Alice expected Max to spend the money on a College degree and what she called 'a real future'. Being eighteen Max had other ideas.

Growing up in the way he had meant that Max didn't burn through the money as quickly or easily as some teenagers might have done. He even spent some of it on night classes and, later, online courses, in an attempt to appease his aunt. Max never had a plan or a career in mind, and he tried everything from painting to playing the guitar to photography. Anything vaguely practical without a lot of reading, writing or adding up. He fell into forensics pretty much by accident - it sounded more interesting than reiki massage - and discovered that it suited him. He liked looking at details, because details meant you could ignore the chaos around you. He was used to being dropped into a story in the middle and having to piece it together. And he had a strong stomach and an understanding of how situations could escalate.

Having found something he genuinely liked, and was good at, Max ventured away from surface level learning and found higher level courses, until he'd exhausted his educational options and had to find a job. Knowing that taking a job with the police would strain his already stretched relationship with Alice beyond breaking point Max set himself up as a private contractor and waited for the work to roll in. At first, it didn't. Local law enforcement mostly had in-house forensics, and he didn't have any contacts in that world. After a couple of difficult years, during which time he worked mostly for people who had questions they very much didn't want the police to answer, Max built up enough of a reputation to get his name known by a few private investigators and lawyers who sometimes needed his services. He started to appear in court, his evidence stood up in court, he weathered cross examination admirably, and he started to have enough work on hand to turn down the jobs he didn't want to do.

Even the police were suddenly interested, although Max was very particular about the work he'd do for them. It was on a job - looking for a kidnapped child he was told - that Max was killed. The site of the abduction, which had been cleared, was sitting on top of a basement full of meth lab. Two officers were injured and Max was killed in the explosion.

During the lengthy recovery from his 'death' Max was approached by an agency that didn't exist, with a job offer that sounded far more interesting than even the most outlandish work he was usually offered. He didn't immediately agree, but a visit to see the lab and equipment he'd have access to helped him make up his mind.