Cypher

In the secretive world of hacker activities the name Cypher (aka Yusuko Summers) is known to all. She is reputed to be a prominent member of the Information Liberation Front, a grey-hat organisation with the driving philosophy that 'information wants to be free'. On the run from corporate mercenaries hired by CyberMech she's come to Colonial Bay City intending to join the fight against tyranny and oppression conducted by that city's superhero community.

Cypher
In her costumed identity Cypher wears a midnight blue animé styled CyberMech outfit with fully enclosed visored helm. The visor is illuminated from within by a constantly changing head-up display. When facing the possibility of danger a bluish-green force field surrounds her.

Yusuko
When relaxed and in the city Yusuko usually dresses casually in slacks and tee-shirt. Her choice of tee-shirt motifs tends towards thrash and techno bands. Yusuko's half Japanese and half American ancestry is obvious in her milk-chocolate toned skin and straight jet black hair. She stands a mere 5ft 4" in height and is slimly petite.

Powers
Cypher's powers relate to interfacing with and controlling technological devices of all kinds, from computers to vehicles to dumb mechanical objects. The basis of her powers comes from an innate meta talent, an almost mystical understanding of the capabilities and functioning of almost any technological device she looks at along with a subconscious telekinetic ability that is limited by her preconceptions to manipulating and operating those devices. Cypher can operate a switch, or even drive a vehicle, by simply looking at it.

Those innate talents had made Cypher an exceptional programmer even before the pervasive headware implanted by CyberMech corporation massively boosted her abilities. What had been a subliminal linkage to any device she concentrated on was enhanced by the implanted headware into a fully interfaced connection that allowed her to control the device totally. Cypher cannot make a cellphone function like a laser pointer. What she can do is limited by the designed function of the device. But within that constraint she can mentally control what a device 'sees' and 'does'. Computerized devices, and in the modern world almost everything has a controlling chip inside it, are especially vulnerable to her influence.

The increased processing power from the implanted headware boosted both her intelligence and her telekinetic ability. The telekinetic boost allows Cypher to create a protective field of force around herself to protect herself and also permits her to fly.

Skills
Yusuko was an adequate but not exceptional student in school except for her ability in computer programming. She should have been encouraged in that. Her mixed blood ancestry, however, was sufficient handicap in the tradition revering village of her mother's family that she was treated always as gaijin and considered unworthy of any attention. Her only escape from that disdain was in the company of the village carpenter, who had travelled outside the village in his younger days. From him Yusuko learned carpentry, rudimentary command of English, and a love of wood carving.

Her skill in programming lead her to online communities, and by stages to the Information Liberation Front, an underground activist organisation. Coached in programming, and especially hacking, by other members of the ILF Yusuko quickly matched and then exceeded her tutors. She was soon acknowledged to be, using the handle Cypher, one of the legendary hackers of the group.

Meanwhile time was passing. With no prospect of marriage in the village, her mixed blood ensured that, Yusuko was sent away to an arranged job with CyberMech as a secretary at a facility in North Korea. Not wanting to be a secretary the rest of her life her took up an opportunity to join the facility's Electronics social club. Mechanics she picked up from the car-crazy junior executives she was assigned to as their secretarial support.

When she broke free of CyberMech, after the implanting of headware in her, as described in her origin, she was on the run. There were several dangerous close encounters with CyberMech mercenaries before Yusuko gained sufficient skill at disguising herself and forging documentation. Just in case she was captured at some time in the future she taught herself about security systems as well as how to operate, and disable when desired, many types of operational systems.

Disadvantages
Many heroes maintain secret identities. Yusuko is slightly different. She is being hunted by CyberMech in her secret identity. While her activities as Cypher, both as an ILF member and as the costumed heroine of the same name, are unknown to that corporation. Yusuko has only recently arrived in the city. She's squatting in Harrisburg and laying low until such time she can create yet another false identity and start looking for employment.

She's already made one friend though, Jodie Mulligan, a streetwise girl, of about twelve who has been helpful in giving advice on how to get along in Harrisburg. There's true friendship between them and Yusuko will assist whenever Jodie needs help. Since Jodie is on the fringe of Harrisburg gang activities and is also a practising pickpocket that's certainly going to be happening.

The only external sign of Yusuko's implanted headware is the cyberjack located in her left temple. That's pretty easy to conceal. Pull a baseball cap down low or use a headband to cover it up. The extensive hardware inside her head will be obvious to a medical scan though. Even as simple a procedure as an x-ray. Esoteric hardware too. There's going to be more than a few questions asked if it's discovered she has all that in her head. Plus CyberMech seriously wants the hardware back. Along with Yusuko.

One of the major things that prompted Yusuko to break away from CyberMech was learning the corporation were engaged in the design and construction of battle-mechs. Yusuko has a strong aversion to killing. It's an entirely personal attitude. Posting the details of CyberMech's plans on an open bulletin board was in accordance with another strongly held belief. Information want to be free. Yusuko is pretty set in that. If you have to hide information you're probably doing something morally wrong if not actually illegal. Actively holding to that attitude, as much as her mad hacking skills, is why she has become legendary in the hacking community.

Origin
Yusuko was employed by CyberMech Corporation, a Japanese concern with links to the North Korea government. She joined the company's Electronics social club hoping to draw attention to her potential as something more than a secretary. In that she was overly successful. CyberMech realised Yusuko was a minor meta. Neither they, nor she, realised that most of her abilities were still undeveloped. One of the corporation senior executives thought CyberMech could make use of her. He arranged to have her kidnapped and implanted with esoteric headware designed to boost her meta talents and to keep her under CyberMech's control. What hadn't been taken into account was the true nature of Yusuko's meta talents. The enhancement provided by the headware let her analyse its operation and erase the code intended to keep her controlled.

Concealing her ability to act with freedom Yusuko went along with CyberMech's plans for her for a couple of months. She was taught to wear and use a CyberMech battle-mech suit and then put through a series of intense training exercises in Corporate warfare and espionage techniques. During this time she was using her abilities to delve into the Corporation's data systems and find out the real activities of this division of CyberMech. The public aims of the Corporation was the construction of police and security robots. In fact they were engaged in building a battle-mech army for North Korea and battle-suits for anyone with cash to pay for one.

While waiting for a chance to escape, Yusuko practised the meta talents that CyberMech never suspected she possessed. Then, finally, she was sent outside the Korean enclave on a mission to 'persuade' a Japanese politician to change his vote on new Corporation Tax legislation. Breaking away from the other members of the team in an epic conflict, during which she overloaded and burnt out virtually every feature of her own battle-suit, Yusuko went into hiding. It's taken her a year to learn what she thinks she needs to continue hiding. She knows that although the executive that kidnapped her was jailed when she posted on the ILF bulletin board the details she had found in the Korean facility's data systems, other parts of the Corporation are just as eager to find her. Now, though, she feels ready to take up the fight against oppression and villainy. Moving to Colonial Bay City will let her work with other more experienced heroes. Plus, eventually, she'll have the money needed - and system by system her battle-suit will be repaired.

Personality
Growing up in a small village where you're considered beneath contempt, not because of who you are but what racial mix you are, can either break a person's spirit or temper it to steeliness. Yusuko decided on steeliness. She's willing to be friendly and outgoing, but not at the expense of her principles.

Maybe it was that early upbringing in a village where decisions are made behind closed doors by a few 'village elders' and everyone else is simply expected to agree without question. Whatever the root cause, Yusuko had developed a hatred for secrecy even before stumbling across a Information Liberation Front website. She'll never agree to keep a secret unless she can be convinced to agree that exposure would do far more harm than good. Neither will any potential for approbation or retribution dissuade her from doing that she believes is the right thing to do. She's not a fool though. She'll practice a little discretion when releasing such information into the wild.

Yusuko enjoys companionship without needing it. Her socially isolated childhood has left her decidedly self-sufficient in that regard. Slightly ironically that makes true friendship even more valuable to her. Because she doesn't need the affection or respect of others, when such affection is given and received it is far more important to her because of its relative rarity.

History
Yusuko Summers is the only child of Janisu Nanboa and an African-American air force officer named Martin Summers. The couple's relationship was illicit. They planned to get married but Martin was killed in a car accident before that happened. Janisu returned to her home village in disgrace.

Yusuko and her mother were shunned by most of the people in the village, making her early life socially isolated. Her mother passed away from cancer when Yusuko was just seven, leaving her in the not so tender care of her traditionalist grandfather. Her only friend in the village was a carpenter. He had been out of the village in his twenties and thirties long enough to lose the traditional narrowness of the village viewpoint.

Even in school Yusuko showed a remarkable talent for computer programming. But nobody was interested in what the gaijin child could do. Getting her own low-cost laptop, as a birthday gift from her friend the carpenter, meant escape for Yusuko. Suddenly she could span the world data nets. She immediately became an avid participant in online programming communities, and rapidly moved from the normal programming communities to hacker sites. That lead in turn to underground sites - the Information Liberation Front (ILF) site being one of them. For the first time she met people who's skill she respected. The ILF members in turn recognised Yusuko's budding talent and tutored her. She became first a member of the ILF and soon after one of the leading activists in it.

When she graduated from school the problem of what to do with the gaijin child arose. She wasn't a marriage candidate, the usual choice for girls in the village. Nobody in the village would want to marry such mixed blood. Eventually one of her uncles arranged for her to be employed as a secretary in the CyberMech Corporation, the uncle's son being a junior executive in that organisation. It was considered a bonus that the job was in CyberMech's Korean facility, thus discouraging her from returning to visit. Not that she had any at all intention of doing so once out of the village.

Logs
Cypher Log - Coming Back