Amber Duffy

Amber

Full name	Amber Duffy
Date of Birth	?, 2503
Parents	Names Not Disclosed
Siblings	None
Spouse	Unwed
Assignment	Freelancer
Gender	Female
Eyes and Hair	Brown/Brown
Height and Weight	5'7"/120 pounds
Status	Active
Education Information
Unknown
Military Service
Pvt. 1st class, computer tech, IAV Mao Zedong

The Past

They say living on the dark side of Yinyang will drive you crazy. Maybe that's what happened to me. It's where I was born, after all.My parents were miners who lived in what was nothing more than a shanty town when my mom got pregnant with me. It wasn't exactly a celebrated occasion as they weren't wanting kids but my mother had me at the insistence of my father who had some kind of religious background or something. Needless to say, when I was born nine months later their lives as it was before had ended and my own was a constant thorn in their side, a reminder of a life that changed their own and killed their dreams, according to them.

I was always considered a problem child. At first it was stuff that could be expected from a young kid - colic as a baby, the 'terrible twos' and testing limits but as I got older things got worse. My father called me a deviant when he could be bothered to talk about me at all and mother agreed, of course. I wasn't that bad and the doctor they tried to make me see didn't seem to think so, either until I got to be nine or so. That's when I started to get this odd feeling like people were out to get me, a nagging feeling that everyone I knew wanted me dead. Mom and Dad sure did and told me as such as often as they could so why wouldn't everyone else, right? About the only one who sided with me was Dr. Christoph, the shrink my parents made me go see. He was a kindly man and was someone who was more of a father to me than the man who sired me ever was. He'd make sure I was fed and clothed and tried to make sure I was keeping out of trouble and he really believed I was being good but that was the thing. I really wasn’t. I just got good at hiding it from him and everyone else. I was starting to pick pocket people and rob homes – never stole anything really expensive and I only took things that I could sell for money so I could have food but that didn’t matter when I got caught and sent before the magistrate not long before my twelfth birthday. This coincided with the gorram paranoia getting worse and the nightmares starting. The magistrate and my parents shipped me off to this place on Bellerophon. Dr. Christoph tried to do me a kindness and told me it was a special school I was being sent to, one for ‘special children’ like me. But his lie, as harmless as it was, was quickly discovered upon my arriving there.

And I hated him for it.

The ‘School’

The 'school' was in fact a mental hospital. One for people with severe mental 'disorders'. In other words, for the mentally f'ed up. I was diagnosed with paranoid delusions and nightmares and kept pretty much medicated for the entire time I was there. Over the six years I was kept there I had to endure a lot of group therapy, one-on-one sessions with the psych people and even a bit of electro-shock therapy. They eventually realized that the best they were going to accomplish with me is keep me drugged into a semi-stupor which they were able to do the majority of the time with the times they couldn't being filled with sleepless, nightmare-filled nights and afternoons spent huddled in a corner.

The residents' more lucid periods were rewarded by trips to a nearby stable where we were allowed to help with the grooming of the animals and mucking out the stalls but I was allowed to do more than that when the stable owner saw how much of a kinship I had with the horses. He helped me learn how to treat their injuries as well as 'listen' to them. It wasn't long before I was given full leave to do as I wished to help out which I looked forward to more than just about anything else in the world.

We were also trained to do skills that'd help us on the outside. Well, more like those who were going to someday be able to rejoin society were trained. For others...those who would never be able to leave the institution...it was just a diversion, a way to keep them from growing bored and dangerous. I had taken interest in computers and became pretty adept at using them and even got to where I could do some minor programming. Nothing special but enough to get by with simple stuff.

The inevitable eventually happened and I turned eighteen, something I'm sure the staff had anticipated and felt much trepidation over. They were uncertain as to if I'd be able to live a productive life outside of the institution but after I had approached them and told them that I wanted out and that they couldn't legally hold me without my consent unless they felt I was a danger to others they realized that they were kind of between a rock and a hard place. They did a bunch of evals on me and found me to be fit enough to leave the facility and make it out on my own. The nicer people in the staff pooled some money together and gave it to me as well as some hand-me-down clothing and they even threw me a little going away party which was really shiny. Then I was allowed to go on my way and start living my own life.

Life In The Black

I spent the last year traveling, going from place to place, trying to make a little bit of a living for myself. Never did really stay on for long, though. Either people got tired of me or I got to feeling like I was being plotted against. Either way, I wound up dropped off at the 'next planet' a lot. It's how I got to where I am now. Persephone. Going to see what is to be found here before

Recent History

• Amber was recently reunited with Davin Rellik, someone from the crew who dumped her on Persephone. After a bit of tension and a few brutally honest statements from her it looks like they might be able to forge some kind of friendship.

Employment

Amber has recently enlisted in the Alliance at the rank of Private First Class (PFC) as a computer tech aboard the IAV Mao Zedong.