Roberta Sphinx

Roberta Sphinx, circa 2130

**Roberta Sphinx**, also known by her Second Flag Zellen ONU codename **Beta**, is a former Second Flag operative who served directly under Viva Makihara, acting as a bodyguard, adviser, and on many occasions as a deep penetration double agent within numerous entities.

Sphinx's most notable skill is urban infiltration through the use of shape-shifting abilities, which allows her to transform into a feline form of varying outward appearances. With her feline form, Sphinx is able to perform infiltration and surveillance, often posing as a wildcat or other domesticated species.

Some of her more common forms include tabby cats, ocelots, and lynxes. Due to her physiology, she also exhibits cat-like features in her upright form, the most obvious of which is the presence of fully functioning feline ears and tail.

## Biography

### **Early Life**

Roberta Sphinx was abandoned by her parents at a young age, and spent most of her childhood in St. Felia's Orphanage in Boston Massachusetts, where she grew up as a wannabe criminal and small time thief. It was during her teenage years that she would earn the nickname "Tabby," as she began to gain a tendency for cat burglary of other criminals in Southie, particularly local drug dealers and minor elements of the Irish Mob.

### **Boston Police Department**

After a failed theft in 2090 ended in her arrest, Sphinx was offered a deal as a confidential informant due to her knowledge of criminal activities in the area.

Sphinx operated under cover for the Boston Police Department for a year before deciding to go straight, and in May of 2091 she joined the Boston Police Academy. After graduating from the academy in December of that year, she entered the police force as a junior officer in the high profile crimes division. Over the course of the next three years she would eventually be promoted to sergeant in Special Weapons And Tactics.

### **Stonefish Systems**

#### Paramilitary Testing Initiative

   In 2094, Roberta Sphinx was hired by defense, security and aerospace company Stonefish Systems to serve as a paramilitary

consultant and prototype systems tester.
One particular weapon system was the Herculus active armor system,
a form of lightweight carbon armor intended to be mounted on combat
exo-skeleton suits.

Designing the Hercules took four months, however Roberta's input
on the system led to enormous successes in testing, which allowed
Stonefish Systems to land a multi-million dollar contract with the
United States Marine Corp for the purchase of Hercules armor systems.
It was after this success that Roberta Sphinx was approached for the
Stonefish advanced projects division.

#### Induction to Gorille-Goré Experiment

In July of 2094, Sphinx was offered an opportunity to test a
government contracted black
project codenamed Gorille-Goré, after spending several months in
Stonefish System's advanced projects division.

However, unbeknownst to Sphinx, Gorille-Goré was a parallel
program to DARPA's
MINDSOLDIER,
with a focus on physiological and genetic alteration, for the purpose
of enhancing the infiltration and strategic espionage abilities of an
individual by allowing them to alter their physiology and appearance
to effectively transform into a form resembling either another human
or another animal entirely. The program relied heavily on bionic
augmentation and surgical modification, including heavy implementation of Chemicord in massive quantities throughout the body. However the most important
facet of the system was the ceramic nano-fluid construction of the
skin and internal organs. The crystalline structure of the
nano-fluids allowed for a strong bond to be formed in seconds
following command from the central nervous system, allowing the
user's external appearance to be changed in mere moments through the
rapid reformation of the flexible nano-fluid ceramics in the skin.
Fluid transformation in the body would also assist in structural
durability, cushioning the internal organs during transformation,
adapting them for function in various non-human forms.

After discovering the immensely invasive methods used in the
installation of the technology, Sphinx immediately cancelled her
contract with the Gorille-Goré Project. Furious, the heads of the
project determined the departure of such a specialized test subject
to be unacceptable, and on her way home from Stonefish System's
testing facility, Sphinx was ambushed and subdued.

Over the course of two days, Sphinx would undergo numerous
cybernetic transplantation and augmentation surgeries, replacing 92
percent of her body with artificial material, namely a variable geometry skeleton of highly durable ultra-high-molecular-weight
polyethylene that could alter its overall shape with over 2000 points
of articulation. In addition to bodily hardware, Sphinx also received
a comprehensive suite of experimental biodata processing equipment
that would allow her to control her new body.

#### Escape from Stonefish Systems

Upon waking and finding that she had been an unwilling experiment
subject for Stonefish Systems, Roberta became enraged. She attempted
to flee from the facility after breaking free of her restraints,
barely escaping on foot.

In the days following her escape, Sphinx experimented with her
body's abilities and found that the array of technology implanted in
her body allowed for extreme flexibility. Further exploration into
her new abilities revealed limited control over her outward physical
appearance, including eye, hair, and skin color, facial structure,
and growth of the synthetic hairs that covered her body for use in magnetic and atmospheric sensors. However, Sphinx, having not been
conscious during the operation that changed her, was unaware of the
extent of her cybernetic augmentation, and lacking the proper
training, had no clue how to transform entirely.

### **Second Flag**

#### Recruitment

Though Stonefish Systems attempted to cover up the events of
Roberta Sphinx's escape, the incident attracted the attention of Viva
Makihara, who learned of the Gorille-Goré Project through DARPA
contacts. Deciding that the technology would be a danger to Second Flag if introduced to the military, Makihara destroyed, stole, or
bought all traces related to the Gorille-Goré project, and tracked
down Roberta Sphinx with intent to kill her as to seal away all
traces of Stonefish Systems' investigations into cybernetic warfare.

However, Viva Makihara assumed that Roberta Sphinx was in a much
weaker physical state than in actuality, due to medical records found at Stonefish Systems. The first team sent to kill Sphinx was completely eviscerated, with their bodies torn to shreds and strewn
about the small hotel room in which Sphinx was hiding.

On the second attempt, Makihara personally deployed with
Grassroots, a specialized Second Flag recovery team. Though
Grassroots sustained heavy casualties, Viva Makihara was able to
convince Sphinx to join Second Flag by appealing to her sense of
justice and promising the destruction of corruption the likes of Stonefish Systems.

#### Grassroots

In 2094, Viva Makihara offered Sphinx an opportunity to lead an
elite Grassroots political effect unit, utilizing her abilities to impersonate certain individuals and assume their roles in long term
operations. Sphinx agreed, and after a few operations, Sphinx became enthralled with the pure scope of her activities, becoming incredibly loyal to Viva Makihara and her mission. Over time and with assistance from Viva Makihara and Second Flag's science team, Sphinx mastered
her body's transformation abilities. Sphinx quickly grew to love her capabilities, and by 2094, Sphinx had the ability to replicate the appearance and appearance of dogs, cats, simians, and other humans almost perfectly.

She also learned how to transform rapidly, training herself to
re-arrange in the shortest time possible, even modifying herself to
eject a thin layer of super heated carbon molecules in order to
increase the bond speed of her nano-fluid systems. Sphinx would also
study tirelessly to learn the programming of her system so that she
could have better control over it. Through these methods Sphinx grew
to be able to transform completely in under 600 milliseconds.

Her physical abilities quickly proved to be incredibly useful in
the field. For her outstanding performances and skill, Sphinx was
personally given the code name "Skinwalker" by Viva
Makihara, and was promoted to lieutenant commander of 2F-Grassroots.

#### Umbrella

After returning from a mission in the United States in September
of 2094 Sphinx and her team were ambushed by USN
commando forces loyal to Johanne Samaritan. Her team was killed, and
Sphinx was captured and brought to a clandestine facility in the
Bahamas
known as Umbrella, where she was subject to psychological torture with
the aim of revealing Viva Makihara's location.

Roberta Sphinx proved to be initially extremely resistant to the
torture. However her captors quickly discovered her advanced nervous
system modifications, and soon began using it as an inlet for
numerous forms of cybernetics viruses. Once access was gained to her
digital systems, Roberta was forced to endure weeks of uncalibrated
physiological alteration on the fly, extensively damaging her
internal organs, both artificial and organic, and causing extreme
internal bleeding.

By the time Grassroots operatives raided Umbrella, Sphinx was on
the brink of death, having been ravaged internally by her own
nano-fluid structure which had solidified into a thousand razor sharp ceramic shards inside of her abdomen.

Though Sphinx eventually healed from her torture, the calibration
protocols that controlled her transformation abilities had been
permanently corrupted, limiting her to a small array transformation
templates, namely small cats. The corruption to Sphinx's systems also
caused a partial transformation of her unaltered form, attributing to
the permanent addition of several physical characteristics of a lynx,
including a tufted tail and feline ears, both of which operate with
complete functionality.

#### Retirement from Grassroots

After her severe injury as the result of her imprisonment at
Umbrella, Sphinx was deemed unfit for field operations with
Grassroots. Crippled and barely to walk without a cane, Sphinx fell
into a deep depression and habit of self mutilation that culminated in her attempted suicide in 2098. However, her attempt failed due to direct intervention by Viva
Makihara herself.

In the following weeks, Sphinx began physical therapy under
guidance from Viva Makihara and a number of Second Flag scientists.
It would be several months before Sphinx returned to peak physical
form, demonstrating her renewed combat ability and the return of her
transformation abilities. Though her transformations were limited to
small feline species, her human appearance required the use of obscuring clothing to hide her tail and cat ears.

#### Rise as Zellen Beta

Despite her ability in the field, Makihara felt it unnecessary for Sphinx to return to infiltration duty. Instead, Roberta Sphinx was
given a new title - Beta - and assigned to the ranks of the Zellen, a
network of highly skilled individuals that serve under Viva Makihara as lieutenants, administrating deep penetration operations and offshoot organizations around the globe. In 2099 she began her first assignment as a Zellen, serving as a personal bodyguard first to Viva
Makihara, and later to Kuolema and Nalan Talyn.

#### Later Operations

In 2111, Sphinx briefly returned to active duty within Grassroots,
primarily acting as an active infiltrator in an operation to
investigate Yontos Pharmacueticals and possible ties to Johanne
Samaritan's GSO-Cloning program.

In 2128, Sphinx was deployed by Viva Makihara to Kherabahd IK
Headquarters in Southern Iraq for clandestine protection of assets
in the possession of Valentina Richter, who was under threat from a
Second Flag splinter group, and to ensure the safe transfer of Nalan
Talyn's consciousness into a bioroid construct stored at Kherabahd
IK. However, due to interference from forces formerly loyal to
Johanne Samaritan, Sphinx failed in her objective.

In a final mission to destroy Domus Tempus, Roberta Sphinx suffered a head injury from a gunshot, and intense internal damage to her structure from a Mindscramble virus. In a semi-comatose state, Sphinx's automatic systems reduced her to a reduced mental state and locking her semifluidc state.

### Helping Hand

In 2135, Sphinx regained awakened consciousness. However, she would remain in a locked state for two more years until being taken with Jennifer Kelleton to Mount Rainier, where she would assume human form for the first time in 9 years. However, brain damage and system corruption had taken a massive toll on her systems, causing frequent chemicord fracturing.

After beginning physical therapy, Sphinx was propositioned to join the organization Helping Hand, which she accepted.

## Trivia

* Sphinx only weighs 80-90 pounds on average, and because of this she is very susceptible to alcohol poisoning and alcoholic intoxication. Yet, despite this, Sphinx is known to have a highly persistent drinking problem.
* Though often appearing outwardly sexually promiscuous, Sphinx is known to be very sexually reserved from those she is not romantically involved with.
* Though her transformative abilities theoretically inflict a large amount of pain due to the incredible stresses placed on her system during the process, Sphinx often describes the act of transformation to be incredibly pleasurable. It is theorized by Dr. Toony Aensle that both the digital and organic pain receptors in her body had been "rewired" to instead provide a pleasurable sensation in the moments directly before and after transformation.
* Sphinx is extremely sensitive about her childhood, often lashing out violently when reminded of anything relating to that part of her life, especially the nickname "Tabby," a name given to her during her days as a teenage cat burglar.
* Despite her extremely immoral methods and personal ideals, Sphinx is very religious, having been raised in a Catholic orphanage.
* Sphinx's favorite color is green, and she can often be seen with emerald green eyes through the use of pigment modifications
* Roberta was highly lactose intolerant as a child. However she quickly grew to love all sorts of dairy products when in Second Flag, especially ice cream, as one of the gene-therapies performed on her during the Gorille-Goré Project increased her production of lactase, allowing her to digest dairy.
* Sphinx's feline ears are extremely sensitive to pain and other sensations. The tip of her left ear, however, was cut off during her torture at the hands of Rutto Talyn, drastically lowering its sensitivity due to Chemicord damage. Despite her outward hostility towards anyone intending to touch her second ears, she greatly enjoys the sensation of having them touched. This is suspected by Dr. Toony Aensle to be a symptom of her widespread pain receptor "rewiring".