Denise

Denise Konosso was born in 1897 although while it’s common knowledge she was raised within Chicago, she never publicly mentioned the exact neighborhood. However, police records from the time stated that at the age of seven, she was arrested for physically assaulting a ten-year old for stealing a sandwich that she was intending to eat for lunch. Her parents sent her to reform school but she quickly dropped out after her teacher whipped her across her arm with a wooden ruler for insubordination (Denise made a snarling gesture toward her with fangs bared). Instead of fleeing back home, she lived on the streets, doing meager jobs for pennies to feed herself until finally she joined a street gang of boys. The leader of the gang initially refused to let her join because she was a girl until finally one night Denise snuck into his room while he was sleeping and repeatedly stomped on his groin until he submitted and ‘changed his mind’. The gang mostly did petty theft on pedestrians on the street, stealing candy bars from small shops, and running away from angry rival gang members and police, and while Denise as a child enjoyed this kind of life, her dreams grew and felt this gang was becoming ‘too small’ for her, especially after hearing radio reports of daring events of crime by big-time mafia hitmen and bosses.
Years later by random chance, Denise came across a well-dressed man near the posh restaurant Henrici’s and despite having two bodyguards within reach, Denise managed to sneak in close enough to pickpocket his wallet, but the man caught her at the last second. Rather than reprimand the young teenager, the man admired her boldness at trying to rob him despite having security in plain sight next to him and decided to take her under his wing, as it turned out it was none other than a member of an inner circle of a powerful mafia family. Denise left the gang she spent years with to become one of Meyer’s apprentices, and learned how to ‘negotiate’ and use weaponry, which ranged from the tiny derringer to what became her favorite weapon, the Colt M1921AC Thompson submachine gun. She became involved in protection racketeering, extortion, and even armed robbery but there is no record of her committing murder, despite rumors. 
Then one day, her life changed upon meeting a stranger tied to a chair in an abandoned Chicago factory. Despite three hours of torture, the human stranger refused to even utter a single word until finally he let out a faint chuckle, the first sounds Denise heard from him. When she leaned in close to ask why he was chuckling, she heard him whisper: “When you sleep, you will not wake.” Seeing it as a death threat, Denise pistol-whipped him on the face which provoked another chuckle from the strange man, and finally Denise turned to leave him there alone with the intention of torturing him the next day. 
Although she slept and then woke up, contrary to the stranger’s statement, she ended up in what appears to be still Chicago but very different. The technology was far different, fashions were different, social culture and attitudes were different, and many strange new wonders unfamiliar to her were present. To her shock, she seemed to be teleported to the far future, and everyone she knew, from Meyer to her crime family to her biological family and friends, have disappeared and only mentioned in obituaries and gravestones. She seemed trapped, and after years of fruitless searching, she finally came to grips that she might never going back to the reality she called home, and so she adjusted as best she can to this new strange world… but she still retains a shred of hope that one day she will return home.