Iris Fairlight

OOC

The following article is not canon to this wiki. It is here to allow GMs to use Iris consistently and understand my (Daniel's) intentions, but Jynx does not know much of this, and what she knows she doesn't discuss

Before Jynx

Iris Fairlight was an Otaku. Misunderstood and feared by her parents upon coming into her powers, she ran away from home and led a nomadic lifestyle. She would join and leave Otaku tribes, never quite finding the right fit. She was a wiz hacker going by the handle Prismatic Shade; her Persona looked like a flat projection of a metahuman, fading off at the bottom, single-hued cycling gradually through the colours of the rainbow.

She started to Fade earlier than most, and turned to various meatspace pleasures to compensate, including many casual sexual encounters. One of these led to her pregnancy.

Determined to have the baby and give them the best life possible, she sought out one of the few relationships she hadn't burned - Connor McTavish. She'd helped him set up his tavern in Redmond; she'd made sure the right permits, licenses and miscellaneous paperwork got to the right place without getting bogged down in bureaucracy, and since then they'd been loyal to each other. He let her stay on for cheaper rent than most, and she would perform the odd matrix favour for him.

Eventually, a baby girl was born, but with her birth, the last of Iris' powers Faded completely. This was a difficult time for Iris - traditional postpartum depression coupled with the insecurity that maybe having the baby caused the Fade, maybe she'd even stolen her powers! However, she managed to reconcile her feelings, and loved the girl deeply, naming her [REDACTED]. This is the girl who would one day become Jynx.

OOC

For the remainder of this article I will use 'Jynx' to refer to the baby/child, despite her only taking this name later in life. If as a GM you need to know the name Iris gave Jynx, which only they know, contact me.

Crash 2.0 and Iris' Emergence

For three years, Iris and Jynx lived a reasonably simple and happy life. Iris no longer had an intrinsic connection to the matrix, but remained a proficient hacker and would earn occasional money performing low end shadowruns. But for the most part she learned to live off the matrix, and would take Jynx "Rainbow Chasing": they'd ride on her Yamaha Growler across the Barrens, looking for rainclouds that were passing by, leaving rainbows behind.

And so Iris wasn't online when Crash 2.0 hit. In fact, she had been mostly oblivious to the Otakus' part in it, besides what the public knew. But when the Technomancers started Emerging, Iris regained her connection to the Resonance, stronger than ever before. She reveled in the new wireless Matrix, and went back to hacking more regularly. She still spent most of her time with Jynx, but Prismatic Shade was back with a vengeance.

Jynx's Emergence

One night in late 2066, while Jynx and Iris were sleeping in the Barrens, a ganger managed to kidnap Jynx and lock her into the back of her truck and drive away. As Jynx started to freak out and cry, she Emerged. The ganger experienced this as a large, radiant crackling avatar of the child suddenly appearing on her PAN and wresting control of the truck from her. The truck slammed to a halt and all the doors locked

As Jynx's new Living Persona was obviously not running silent, Iris, who at this point was already frantically searching for her daughter, immediately saw the icon, recognized it and traced it. She brought her Growler to the truck, and she and Jynx opened the back door and sped off into the night, leaving the ganger locked inside her truck. Iris didn't hurt or kill the ganger that night, but later she did make sure that enough evidence against her made its way to Lonestar to put her away for good.

Iris then spent a few good months with Jynx sharing the joys of the Matrix and the Resonance with her, although she tried to instill in Jynx some of the appreciation for meatspace she'd developed while her connection was gone. She taught Jynx everything she could, and since she was aware of the dangers the new technomancers were facing, made sure Jynx would always hide it from people she couldn't trust.

Disappearance

All good things come to an end though, and for Jynx and Iris this came in 2067. The ganger who'd seen Jynx's persona realized it had to have been the kid that had hacked her systems, and that the kid didn't have any devices to hack with. The story made its way around until a researcher in Horizon recognized the value of the kid and managed to track down Iris based on descriptions. He contacted her and suggested buying the kid.

Iris made some arrangements, set her affairs in order, and then asked Connor to look after Jynx. She gave Jynx some last lessons, feelings, and good-byes, then made contact with the researcher. She convinced him that she was the technomancer and her kid was a useless disappointment to her, and she'd be happy to volunteer for the research herself.

Jynx hasn't heard from her or seen her since.