Kara Langley

Face Cast: Amy Acker

Kara J. Langley - "Bug" or "Doc" - is an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention working for the Office of Infectious Diseases. Her work as an agent with Delta Green brought her to her current work and life in New York City.

Kara grew up in the Denver area and pursued her undergraduate degree in biology at the University of Colorado Boulder. She always knew she wanted to be a doctor, but it wasn't until she was in med school at the University of Nevada, Reno, that she found her true calling - figuring out what infected people and how. She cut her teeth on tracking down the source of a multi-tiered listeria outbreak and volunteered to go to Sierra Leone to attempt to track the source of the 2014 Ebola outbreak. She believes the best way to cure the world is to figure out what's making it sick.

## Biography

Kara Langley was born in Commerce City, CO, on June 11, 1981, to James and Kathryn (Weiss) Langley. James was park manager for Elitch Gardens, the areas biggest amusement park. Kathryn was an interior designer with a small architecture firm in Denver. As a child Kara spent a lot of time with her father at work, often practicing her piano at the Tracadero Ballroom at the park. In its heyday, the ballroom had hosted some of the biggest names in big bands and James would regale his daughter with tales of the live radio shows from the Troc and all the band leaders he saw there. He swore Kathryn only married him because they shared a love of ballroom dancing at the Troc.

The Troc was scheduled for demolition several times, but James was able to forestall the conversion of the ballroom until 1988 when it was replaced with an arcade and the ticket games popular at all amusement parks. Until her seventh birthday, Kara's favorite piano to practice on was in that ballroom. She also grew up with amusement rides, celebrating the moment she was 48" tall with a ride on Mister Twister, the wooden rollercoaster that made the park famous. She adored the thrill rides and started every afternoon the park was open at the front of the line for Mister Twister. The summer she was twelve, Kara flubbed her piano lessons and got to the park late. When she arrived, the park was closed and an ambulance crew was pulling away. Running to her father's office in the park, she overheard her father's secretary telling another employee that James had ridden the coaster alone when Kara failed to show up. An undetected fault in the system caused the cars to jump the track atop the highest hill. He was killed on impact. The park never reopened at that location and Kara never rode another thrill ride. For three weeks she practiced piano until her fingers bled and she could play each lesson perfectly.

Deprived of her father, Kara became a latchkey kid, coming straight home from school and locking herself in the house alone until her mother got home from work. Due primarily to proximity and shared piano lessons, she developed a lifelong friendship with Megan Glass. Until her senior year of high school, Kara considered Meghan her best friend, despite the girl's constant need to try to best Kara at everything. The girls promised to be lifelong friends, but once away from Meghan's daily influence, Kara saw how toxic the friendship was and pulled away. With only each other to lean on after her father's death, Kara and her mother became very close, more like partners against the world than mother and daughter. Kathryn got Kara counseling about her father's death, but was unable to overcome Kara's sudden desire for perfection in everything she did.

When the investigation into her father's death was finally completed, Kara learned that the man who should have been in charge of maintenance for Mister Twister had been off sick with hantavirus which he contracted after camping in a cabin in New Mexico. Kara understood that if Juan had not been sick, his assistant, an over-privileged friend of the owners would not have been in charge of park safety that day. Unable to address the issue of nepotism and park safety, especially since a corporate giant now owned the park, Kara focused her energy on an intense need to heal the sick. Beginning in her senior year in high school and continuing during her undergraduate college career, Kara volunteered and then worked part-time at hospitals and nursing homes, particular with vaccination programs and efforts to combat viral illnesses.

Once she entered med school, Kara found her calling in epidemiology and became even more focused on preventing and eliminating viral illnesses. She is a strong supporter of all vaccine programs and had lobbied for enhanced food safety regulations in an attempt to prevent food borne illness. She specialized in tracking down multi-vector contaminants that caused widespread Salmonella and Listeria outbreaks.

During her final semester of medical school, Kara was working in the cadaver lab when a gas leak caused an explosion. Kara was badly injured, including a face laceration that left a prominent scar across her face. The university offered Kara a substantial settlement and was willing to pay for plastic surgery for the injury, but Kara turned both down saying that the university should instead invest the money in heightened security.

After graduating she received an immediate offer of a fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, working in the Office of Infectious Diseases. Kara lists several annual flu vaccines as her greatest achievements including the vaccine for H1N1.

## Personality/Description

Kara is 5'8" with light brown hair she wears straight and usually parted in the middle. She is often devoid of makeup and wearing whatever happened to be handy and comfortable, which usually means scrubs and a lab coat. She has a prominent scar across the right side of her face, from mid-forehead to above her right cheekbone. Kara is generally a bit mousy, the kind of person who is most likely to just go along with things in a personal social setting. However, when she is in her lab or dealing with a puzzle, she is fastidious and doesn't like to let go without knowing everything about the answer to the problem.

As a friend, she can be flighty, forgetting things like birthdays, dinner appointments or other commitments, especially if she is working on a new project. She is very well spoken, if a bit aloof when dealing with some people and can tend toward obsessive. In the moments when she is forced to sit down for coffee, she will likely become so obsessed with the newest crossword puzzle that her coffee gets cold. She especially awkward in romantic relationships, never quite knowing if someone is just being friendly or has an actual interest in her.

## Skills/Expertise

* Medicine, first aid and pharmacology
* Some Latin, French and basic Krio
* Bureaucracy
* Classical Piano

## Relationships

### Beatrice-Rose Holloway

Kara has begun to see Frost and Applewhite as the best, most reliable friends she has ever had. She found Frost a little harder to get a read on, but trusts the other woman implicitly. She was surprised to find that Frost had top-notch computer skills as well as her ability to intimidate and threaten people. She finds Frost's ties to Appalachia fascinating, a sign that the woman can overcome anything. After recent events with Roger Carun, she also knows she owes Frost her life. She thinks that had they not been forced together by the agency it's unlikely they would have met, but is very happy that they did.

### Kasimer Ossowiski

Kara is finding it hard to think of Kas as Applewhite because she finds the name so completely counter to who he is. While she sees that he could possibly lead a cult if he chose to go evil, she sees that he has a very good personal definition of what is good and what isn't. She leans toward Kas as her moral compass when the question of right and wrong comes up. She feels like he alone will keep her and Frost from doing something stupid like Donnelley did as she and Frost seem more inclined to "find out what happens if." She also thinks she has to make sure he is reinstated at his professorship because someone needs to be doing good in the world.

### Dr. Martha Jackson (deceased)

Kara is very torn about what happened to Dr. Jackson, beginning to blame whatever bureaucrat instituted Static Protocol instead of herself for Dr. Jackson's demise. The doctor was responsible for introducing her to the Agency and was the best mentor she ever had. She also really didn't look dead and then there was that dream...

### Meghan Glass

Once her very best friend, Meghan has become that friend that Kara has but doesn't spend any time with and feels a little guilty about it, but also wonders if they have anything in common at this point. Meghan is a mom living her best life in suburban Denver and Kara is afraid that she herself is becoming one of the monsters.

### Kathryn (Weiss) Langley

Kara's mom was once her closest confidant, but that was before...everything. Now, Kara catches up with her mother as she can, but that seems to be less and less often. Her mother is creative and supportive, but also a little concerned that Kara has been pulling away. She told Kara she feels like moving to New York so they could be closer was a huge mistake.

### Marcus Miller

Kara's maybe live-in boyfriend? But she hasn't seen him since the start of Project Alice and he hasn't returned her texts. And then there was that dream... On the other hand, he's funny and went to Africa with her to help vaccinate people and he brought her chicken soup when she was sick. Kara's not sure if her distrust is because the sign is making her crazy and paranoid or if it's not paranoia because they really are out to get you.

### Mercedes Blue

Outside of her team, Mercedes is likely Kara's best friend and if she thinks about it, Kara's not sure that they are really even friends. Mercedes is a pharmacist on staff with the CDC who is willing to help Kara out with paperwork that says she absolutely needs things like the anesthesia she carries in her car. She usually expects to be paid, or wants a favor in return, but Kara likes it that way. No point in dragging Mercedes into all this. Office friends are perfectly fine.

## Known Alters

* Peter Devoras - Beta Universe & Project Masticate
* Geneva Brown - Epsilon Universe & Project Temple
* Marcus Miller - Zeta Universe & Project Wells

## Trivia

* Before her father died, Kara dreamed of designing thrill rides. She gave up drawing when she wasn't instantly good at it.
* Kara's hair was once pink, but since she was 12, she has preferred to blend in. It's the reason she doesn't wear makeup.
* Kara once dreamed on being a concert pianist, but decided she wasn't good enough.