Real name: Kelly Hiraga
Occupation: Freelance Computer Programmer/Fugitive
Identity: Physically Obvious Mutant
Legal status: Legal citizen of the United States, wanted for
questioning by the Oregon Police Department
Other aliases: Hardwire, Kelly Fujioka
Place of birth: San Jose, California
Marital status: Single
Known relatives: Margaret Hiraga (mother, deceased), Nobu
Hiraga (grandfather, deceased), Alice Hiraga (grandmother, deceased)
Group affiliation: None
Base of operations: New York, New York/Cyberspace
First appearance: January, 2001
History:
Margaret Hiraga was born in 1953 in San Jose California to Nobu Hiraga, a veteran of the 100th battalion 442nd regimental combat team, and his American wife, Alice. Growing up in a racially-mixed family had it's challenges in the sixties, but this straight-A student weathered them well. Outgoing, friendly, stubborn and a willingness to go to the wall for what she believed in were all traits that should have set her for life but ended up being her downfall. A headstrong teenager when the summer of love rolled around, feeling smothered by her parents love, rules and the utter safety of her life, she struck out on her own, looking for the excitement she felt her life was lacking.
Where she wound up was on the streets of New York. Tired, poor, hungry, and as the seasons began to turn, cold. The Summer of Love rolled on into the Winter of Desperation for Margaret and, when offered the chance for a warm place to stay and a warm meal, she took the offer without looking back. That was her introduction to the Cult of the Dark Lantern, although she didn't know it at the time. They gave her what she needed, as they did to a number of the poor and downtrodden, earning their loyalty and assistance. Of course Margaret made friends among their number, most notably Thomas Lee. So when he asked her to join their number, she agreed. She moved in with him and they worked together helping those in need. Along the way he seduced her into trying recreational drugs and showed her just how close 'The Kin', the official name of the homeless shelter they worked for, really were. Once she was firmly entrenched into their group, they took things a little further. They introduced her to B&D, which later let to S&M. The drugs got more intense, and more often. Little by little they changed her attitudes on life, using a mixture of peer pressure, love, and playing on her fears of being alone and hungry again.
The drugs were to make her more pliable, the foray into S&M to open her up to the idea and practice of torture, and she learned what happened to many of the homeless that The Kin 'helped'. Eventually she was inducted into the Cult itself, sealing herself body, mind, and soul on the altar to Nyarlathotep with the blood of the weak and hopeless. Of course, Margaret was nothing more than a pawn, like all of the Cult. They aspired to nothing and accomplished nothing significant to further the goals of their Master. That wasn't their purpose. But being broodmare definitely was. When their 'Master' appeared during services to gift the women with children, Margaret too late had second thoughts about the being she had sworn eternal service to.
As weeks progressed, her doubts became fears. Suddenly she would hear the whisper of almost-thoughts across her consciousness. Afraid this was punishment for her traitorous thoughts she re-dedicated herself to her Master. It didn't help. Months later her body would stop or start moving of it's own accord. By seven months into gestation 5 of the other 8 mothers were dead from their twisted would-be children. Margaret fell back upon her last resort. She ran home.
There was no happy homecoming however. She went into labor and died on her parent's steps. And such is how Kelly came into the world, screaming, surrounded in both her own birth-fluids and her mother's life-blood. Eleven years after leaving, only her father was there to receive the child, her mother dead of heartache many years earlier.
For the most part, the child looked human. Except for the silver hair and nails. And the eyes. The eyes were what Nobu found most eerie about the child. As though it knew and understood, even at hours old, and that same silver-bright colour as the hair. He of course took the infant to the hospital, too late to save his daughter, he would do what he could for his grand-daughter. Her anomalies only sparked the doctors to more tests, and more tests, and more tests. Nobu had had enough. Wringing from the doctors that she seemed to be in no danger of dying, he denied any further tests and took the child home. Selling his house he moved to a small town up in Oregon, living on the outskirts where he did his best to raise her. Her coloration was not the limit of her differences. Her skin would shift from it's normal pink to ash-grey and occasionally silver to match her eyes, tendrils of some sort would suddenly grow out of her fingertips or arms. Over the years she discovered she could shape this 'quicksilver' substance into simple things like tools, surfaces or use it to give her a longer reach with prehensile 'fingers'. Mindful of this, he kept her at home. All the time. She watched the world from behind closed drapes, on the television, listened to it on the radio.
Nobu loved Kelly, even though she frightened him at times, and did his best to educate her. He bought her a computer when she was old enough, to learn, play, and with the internet, be able to interact with people at some small level. Kelly loved her computer, her gateway to anything beyond the confines of her home. She learned how to program, how to take it apart and rebuild it. It was during one of these upgrade sessions that she discovered her abilities. Not having a screwdriver to hand, and too lazy to go track one down while in the midst of a disassembled computer, she simply shaped the 'quicksilver' into one and went to work. Quicksilver touched board and instead of keeping it's shape it flowed onto the circuits, making them extensions of Kelly. Startled, facinated, Kelly put the computer together (with a regular screwdriver this time), and booted it up. Once on-line and running she reached out to it again, joining it. What she found would change her life. She no longer needed to type, or needed a monitor, just as a telepath doesn't need to hear or speak. The signals went directly to her brain and interpreted them. Already a good programmer, her ability to interface directly with computers enhanced her skills enormously. At seventeen, 'Hardwire' was a name to be reckoned with in the computer world.
Content for once in her life, she might not have left her small home. But the Cult of the Dark Lantern had not forgotten Margaret, and so, it had not forgotten her. Late one night (she of course was awake and interfaced with her computer) they came calling. Hearing noise downstairs she went to investigate to find Thomas had killed her grandfather. Seeing her he grinned, "Time to come home to Daddy, Kelly." As he ran at her, Kelly shaped her hands into claws, the quicksilver covering her body like a second skin and attacked him back. Being nothing more than a man she killed him, the entire scene stirring eerie feelings and thoughts from her. Finding the lantern pendant he wore and his New York ID she took what she could carry and ran. Her past, and now it seems her future, would be in New York.
Height: 5'7" Weight: 110 lbs (appearance, 300 actual).
Eyes: Silver Hair: Silver
Unusual physical characteristics: Sharp/elfin features, gaunt,
chromed.
Strength level: Average for a woman her age who engages in
regular physical exercise, able to boost many tasks to 150% of her ability
with concentration.
Known superhuman powers: Liquid Metal Secretion
Other abilities: Computer programming/repair, eidetic memory
Weapons and paraphernalia: Modified laptop, wireless phone
Other notes: None.