Bio

I was born on the South Side, in a UPMC hospital. Mom and Dad were great, but I don’t remember them that well – they both died when I was ten. James was seventeen, and he took over as the head of the household. There was always friction between us, since he did resent it more than a little that he had to care for me, but Sara and I were very close. Got a little older, finished high school, and then BAM – found out I’d been drafted into the Army to go to SouthAm. Did very well in Basic; learned to shoot a rifle there rather well. On the little leave I got before heading down to SouthAm, ran into that bitch Jane Wilson again, and took no small satisfaction in showing her boyfriend she was cheating on him. After that, was off to SouthAm with the 10th Mountain as an Automatic Rifleman, handling the fireteam’s machine gun. My squad leader, SGT Bill O’Neil, had it out for me from Day One, and the feeling was mutual. Didn’t help when I ‘streched the truth and twisted the facts’ as he put it and called him out on cowardice under fire to his face. I never made any official noise about it, but we really hated each other, and thankfully I was able to get out of his squad after that. Managed to get a few dates with PFC Brianna Sullivan, but that never really went anywhere. I’d done well enough that the Lieutenant made me a Corporal instead of a Specialist when I made E-4, but that was as far as I wanted to go in the Army, and I got out. Moved myself back to Pittsburgh and started looking for work. There are only so many places you can get a job when your resume is limited to being a heavy weapons specialist, so I signed on with the Police. Turns out being ex-Army in Pitt lets you skip all that cadet bullshit and jump right into the fray, and I went right into their Tactical division, working on the SWAT team. Met a nice girl soon as I got back, too. Lisa Porter was a fellow Cop, working as a Detective in Vice. Lisa and I dated a while, but a close friend of hers was rather… ‘overprotective’ I’ll say, and Joe didn’t think a knuckle-dragger like me was good enough for her. It turned nasty, and Lisa let both of us go since she didn’t want to see her lover and one of her close friends fighting over her. I never really forgave her for leaving me, but she still has feelings for me, according to a buddy of mine in SIU, which is where she is now. I tried to move on, and became good friends with a friend of a friend, and was just getting ready to make a move on her when someone murdered her. I never figured out who did it, but I’m still trying – they are gonna pay if I can find them. I moved on, and dated a very nice girl – Jessica Benson – and helped get a freelance merc crew licensed in my free time. Started working for them on the side too – the profit as a freelancer is far better than that of a cop, and the extra Euro was much appreciated. Things were looking up, at least until Jessica died in an accident later that year. At this point, I really was worried that I had the Cartright Curse, since any woman I got close to died, but hey – them’s the breaks. Jessie’s cousin Leon helped me pull out of a funk I got into after her death, and we became good friends. Nice guy, does freelance tech work, good man in a storm. Got called up on one of the rare cases of cyberpsychosis in the city… boy, that was a fun day. Bastard punched me straight through a concrete wall, and I spent 8 months in the hospital recovering after that. Spent the rest of that year working back into the groove and back onto both SWAT and the Samurai. Ran into a little profit last year when I managed to make out like a bandit on a business deal, scored 700 euro that went into a rather excellent assault rifle and some high-grade API ammo. Since then, been living with the crew, just taking it one day at a time; just like in SouthAm