Alicia/Home

Appearance:
To most, Alicia is described as 'You mean that girl? The one with the uh.. the hair? And.. and the eyes?.. And like, this tall?'. There are some who can remember her, those with talents of their own that can see through her glamour, and to those she isn't described much better. Late teens, maybe early twenties. An average height of 5'4", a typical slender build, a plain appearance; her hair is jet black and falls to her shoulders, blue eyes edged with black liner, lips coloured a deep red.

Her clothing consists of various black t-shirts, changing from day to day, designs of rock, punk and goth bands, comic books and fantasy images. The t-shirt for the day remains untucked, falling over the waistline of her black denim jeans which are a slim fit to her figure, the ends pushed into a pair of bulky, black, combat boots, fastened with red laces.

Over the t-shirt she wears a red, soft fabric hoodie, usually with the hood raised to keep her features in shadow. Over the top of the hoodie, another coat, this time a black long-coat that extends down to the top of her boots. With her, she carries a sling-bag that's straining at the seams, no doubt containing a variety of items.


Background:

Alicia grew up in a broken home, her parents argued constantly, sometimes coming to blows. And yet, they would patch things up, everything would be fine for a few days, and then something else would happen. It could be anything, from misplacing the keys to spending too much time with friends.

By the time she was five, Alicia was already used to being on her own, preferring to stay in her room out of the blast radius, rather than deal with the conflict. It was also around that age that her mother took the final dive into hard drugs.

The last she heard, Alicia's mother was selling sex to pay for her habit. David, her father, took sole responsibility for her well being, and he did a really good job of it too. He stopped drinking, stopped disappearing at all hours, and gave time to his daughter when she needed it. Age seven, he even purchased Alicia's first computer.

Always a smart one, she took to it quickly, outpacing the limitations within a few years. Her childhood years behind, Alicia shifted into teen years, studied well, excelling in Math and Computer Studies, and then later went into University to complete her studies.

Her father was behind her the whole time, always guiding and helping, never putting her down and telling her she couldn't do something. Considering his past, it's amazing how he turned out.

But, then he was gone, and Alicia was living on the streets.

A simple hacker, trying to gather information and answer questions that she had about the world. That's all Alicia was, before her awakening. Trying fruitlessly to hack her way into one of the most secure sites she'd ever encountered, her frustration got the better of her and she screamed at the screen, slammed her hands down on the desk, "LET ME IN!!".

A sudden release of harnassed psychic energy flew down the lines, years of pent up energy released in a way she's never managed to reproduce. The screen flickered, went dark, came back on with two words, "ACCESS GRANTED".

She sat up, started typing, shaking her head in amazement but at the same time, completely understanding what she'd done. The datastore held information on the many hidden races, creatures, ghosts and undead that wandered the earth undisturbed. Video evidence backed up the information, Vampires 'at work' in goth clubs, a Werewolf pack racing through forested woodland.

Even as she read through the information and downloaded what she could, she was aware of the trace on her position, her software was lighting up with warnings, but damn this was too important and so she risked it far longer than she should have. And now she continues to pay for that mistake.


The software blinked more warnings until alerting Alicia to the fact that her position was compromised. "Shit!", she cursed, panicked hands grabbing USB drives and slipping them into her computer, transferring the downloaded information far too slowly for her liking.

Perhaps it was reading about true to life Wraiths, but there was a momentary cold in her room, causing her to glance around, goosebumps rising on her skin. She needed to get out of here.

Gathering whatever she could, pushing clothing into her backpack, CD's, DVD's, USB sticks, whatever software she could gather up quickly, and then she was rushing out of her room and straight down the stairs.

"Dad!". She stopped on the bottom step, looked back up toward his bedroom, but the screech of wheels outside pulled her away. "Fuck.", and she was off running, out the back way and across neighbours gardens, until she could move around to get a view on her home.

There, she saw two black cars, men and women also dressed in black gathered around, her father being lead out of the house and toward one of the parked vehicles. Taking cautious steps back, a cat behind her squealed and ran, causing some attention from one of the women near the car.

As the woman took a step closer to look, Alicia started whispering to herself, "Don'tseeme, don'tseeme, don'tseeme.", a nervous tone in her voice. And so it was, even as their eyes met, the woman saw nothing. Alicia watched as the womans eyes turned a weird shade of yellow, animalistic, then blinked and returned to join her colleagues.

Not moving the whole night, Alicia sat down and watched, even as the sunrise came and illuminated her position; she knew she couldn't be seen, as she willed it to be so. She watched her father being taken away, more vehicles arrive, her computer hardware pulled out of the house, anything she had left behind was taken, and eventually the team drove away, leaving Alicia still sitting at the end of the road, resting near some bushes.

When she was sure they were gone, she went back to the home to look at what was left, took a few old photographs to remember the way things used to be, then moved off and onto the streets while silently promising to one day find and rescue her father from whatever had taken him.

Now on the streets, Alicia naturally has ways of staying safe and keeping herself fed. With a little psychic help, she'll take a few notes from an ATM. Never a lot, as that could bring attention to herself, but it's easy to explain away a 20 dollar bill missing from the thousands loaded into an ATM machine.

Sometimes she'll book herself a night at a cheap hotel, especially if the weather turns bad. It's a perfect time to freshen up, too, take a shower and wash her clothing. She never lets herself deteriorate to a state of disgust.

Relying on her Arcane and the fact that most people don't even want to look at the homeless, she might take up home some nights in an alleyway, using cardboard boxes to keep herself covered.

And sometimes, if there are a lot of homeless around, they might receive a large delivery of pizza from some 'unknown' benefactor.



Arcane:

With the emergence of her psychic abilities, it's unclear if the strength of Alicia's Arcane is a side effect or an intentional force of will. With her ability to alter the processing of electronic devices through Cyberkinesis, and also the ability to broadcast a "Don't Notice Me." through her Psychic Invisiblity, there's certainly an argument for it being intentional. And she can even switch it off if she wishes, so perhaps it is.