Tonks

## Appearances

"***Death bus!***"
—Tonks' current favourite phrase[src]

**Tonks** is a survivor of the outbreak in *Strain Zero*. He is Ronnie's younger brother and a slave of the Animals. After the Crew's break-out and Ronnie's death he joined the Commonwealth as Emma's ward.

## Overview

### Personality & Traits

Tonks is hyperactive, constantly jovial, upbeat and erratic. He displays symptoms of low-functioning autism: his communication is heavily impaired, he has little emotional reciprocity and has extreme difficulty with communication; the latter is most noticable as his vocabularly is limited to just a few words - or the name of his current obsession (e.g. "Death bus!") - and he is otherwise non-verbal. His tones, however, are consistant across his words, allowing someone who knows him well, i.e. Ronnie, to decipher their meaning. He has no ability to recognise social cues and remains upbeat even in the face of extreme danger or sorrow; however, he is able to recognise walkers and the Animals as "bad".

Tonks is also a megasavant with an exceptional memory and a natural talent for engineering; he will usually build and obsesses over any idea he has in his head, even if it takes him months and is extraordinarily complex, such as the death bus. He is tolerated by the Animals for his ability to take any machine apart, repair it and put it back together and is thus relied on to keep their vehicles working, which he does for no reward other than the pleasure in his work.

### Skills & Abilities

Tonks' savant syndome surrounds his ability to take any machine apart, repair it and put it back together, whether it be a vehicle component, a water fitler or an electric generator. He can map out an engine with ease and is very neat so as to not make mistakes, which can trigger a tantrum.

## Pre-Apocalypse

Little is known about Tonks' life before the outbreak, other than he was born with low-functioning autism, displayed symptoms of savantism as a child, and had an older sister named Veronia that everyone called "Ronnie". He did not begin speaking until he was eight years old, and even then his speech only extended to the name of his favourite thing or obsession.

## Post-Apocalypse

### Season 6: Remake

After the outbreak and the fall of society, Tonks and his sister Ronnie were forced to travel around in a vehicle that only kept running thanks to his ability to repair machines. Some time before December 2011 the sibilings were captured and enslaved by the Animals, a group of raiders that dwelt in a community they called the Enclosure in Bismarck, North Dakota. Ronnie won both her and Tonks' freedom by fighting in The Hole and took to sleeping in an abandoned garage nearby; this quickly became Tonks' workshop where he would fix anything the Animals brought to him, including their vehicles.

Tonks eventually began modifying a school bus that he found in the garage; he fitted armour plating, spikes and an empty .50-cal turret to the bus and began calling it the "death bus". Ronnie hoped that the death bus was their key to escaping; with no fuel or ammo, however, it was useless, a fact known by the Animals who led them keep it while knowing they could never use it.

## Relationships

### Emma Goode

Tonks quickly develops an attachment to Emma due to their shared hair colour, a bond exemplified when he shows Emma the interior of the death bus, something he had even kept hidden from Ronnie. She is also the first person to whom he says anything over than "death bus" when he calls her "good", both a misunderstanding of her surname and a complement when she promises to get him and Ronnie out of the Animals' grasp.

When Ronnie died during the escape and the Crew returned home to Montana, Emma took on the responsibility for Tonks' care.

## Trivia

* Tonks is the second character in *Strain Zero* to have a neurodevelopmental disorder, the other being Daniel Miller.