Hek

* **Name:** Hekshith 'Hek' Ghoti (aka "Gurkha")
* **Position:** Owner and operator of Useful Things Pawn and Coin
* **Metatype:** Human (*Homo sapiens sapiens*)
* **Education:** GED, dropout of South High in Fargo, "School of Hard Knocks"
* **DOB:** 5/6/2029, Fargo ND (later Region 3, RRDMZ)
* **Family:** *Hrishab Ghoti (father, deceased), Sudeepa [Rakhi] Ghoti (mother, deceased)*, Devesh Ghoti (brother, Roseville MN, UCAS), Tanisha [Darri] Ghoti (sister-in-law, Roseville MN, UCAS), Indroneel 'Indy' Ghoti (nephew, Roseville MN, UCAS), *Ujjwal Ghoti (uncle, deceased)*, Baruni [Rahman] Ghoti (aunt, Hawley MN, UCAS), Dipankar 'Dip' Ghoti (cousin, Fargo, Region 3 RRDMZ), Joyeeta Khatun (cousin's ex-wife, Moorhead MN, UCAS)

Old Hek Ghoti is one of those old-school guys who's entirely retired from the shadows... except when he isn't. Its a little complicated but then a lot about Hek (or "Gurkha" his old street name) is.

Didn't start out that way, thought. Fargo born and bred, just like his father before him, Hek was always the 'bad son' of the two Ghoti boys, getting in trouble for his authority problem and constant curiosity, always hacking into the school's computer systems to change grades for tests he didn't take or download porn to his least favorite (gym) teacher's public profile, he was forever being compared to his younger, but better behaved brother Devesh. By his late teens, after several run-in's with the law (largely for petty theft and Matrix vandalism), his father had pretty much given up on the older son and focused entirely on Devesh as the hope of the Ghoti family.

By this time Hek was running around with a gang, the long-defunct 'Edgelords', who operated largely as vandals and pranksters in the mid-2040's. Truthfully Hek (going through a short-lived goth phase as 'Hell Darknight', a handle that, to this day, the very mention of will put you on his permanent bad list) was the only even halfway respectable criminal in the bunch and when the Edgelords broke up, largely because of petty dramas and general incompetence, he found himself operating solo. He moved out of the family home at 17 and supported himself through freelance computer work, as well as the more-than-occasional online scam or outright theft. His first brush with the shadows was doing a combination of research, altering records and out-and-out identity theft for a small-time criminal Floyd Gardiner. Floyd was strictly the smallest of the small, but he was Buddy Underberg's brother-in-law and was a main conduit for a lot of the crumbs from the Underberg table. Floyd, unfortunately, was none too bright and got himself cacked in the Whiskey-Callahan War between Whiskey Jack's Tiospaye and the Underbergs in the mid-40's.

It was sometime in the later 2040's or early 2050's that he got himself a proper datajack implanted and built his first cyberdeck (Hek has proudly stated that he's never BOUGHT a cyberdeck in his life). While stories differ, it seems pretty likely that the datajack was payment for work done for Whiskey Jack in the chaotic days after the Whiskey-Callahan war.

Once he had a 'jack, Hek, now going by the handle 'Gurkha' (given him by the local Tiospaye for being their go-to online hoop-kicker), became a regular freelancer in the shadows, working for both the major crime families in town and anyone else willing to part with nuyen for matrix skills. He even crossed electronic blades with 'Data Jack', at the time the decker for the local shadowteam a couple of times, and while he never quite able to get the better of the veteran decker, he acquitted himself well enough that the team's leader, Thief River Thief, recruited him to replace Jack when 'Data Jack' disappeared in 2055.

Gurkha made quite a name for himself with the Team 2.0 for the rest of the 2050's running with the Fargo Team (at the time the 'New Team'), doing jobs across two states and three nations. This was kind of the high-point for Gurkha, a polished online professional in his prime, respected by deckers from the Denver Nexus to the MSPlex. All that, of course, ended with the infamous 'Burnout Run of '59', which you can read about in Gurkha's own words **HERE**. Long story short "Gurkha" effectively died that night and Hek was left with a head full of hardware he could no longer use.

With the rest of his team dead or disappeared, corporate law enforcement hot on his tail and his usual means of support burned out permanently, after laying low at the 113, Hek had to reach out to family (like his cousin Dip) for support and began to reinvent himself in the community. At first supporting himself through odd jobs and a bit of gray-market electronics repair on the side, he also started to fill his days with some local volunteering around the community (such as at Trollwood or giving neighborhood kids some tips on computers). And then came the Second Crash.

The Crash was a bit of a wake-up call for Hek. Being burnt-out himself, Hek was strangely insulated from the direct damage done by the Crash, and thus, in a position to help some of his old, better-off, colleagues who'd been more directly in harm's way. He found himself back in the shadows, finding safehouses and help for damaged deckers, now a bit of an amateur fixer instead of a 'runner. After the Crash, he used his cousin Dip's position at Bank of the Red to secure a hefty business loan and opened up his own business, the now-iconic Useful Things Pawn and Coin. And Hek, as we know him in the 2070's, was born.

Hek is a lot of things to a lot of people, a respected Moorhead businessman to the community, a mentor to kids like the Broken Chain Guild, a crafter of fine, home-made BTL's and persona chips to those in the know, a major contraband wholesaler to everybody in the smuggling business, and a general icon of old-school '50's shadowrunning values to everybody on the shady side of business. Hek still has a lot of that old 'Shadowland Spirit', you know that whole pre-GOD squad 'Information wants to be free, unless it is really valuable then it should be sold and released as rumor for all who want to dig for it' thing.

While he's not much of a Matrix 2.0 presence, he does run matrix classes/repair for under privileged Moorhead youth (read goblinized and HMHVV-positive), and often works with Trollwood across the river on their trixsite. Whether this is some kind of atonement, legit outreach or education in the sort of work he himself used to be known for, well, that's anybody's guess. And in recent years he's been pretty involved in NPL politics (especially with their direct action wing, the PPU).

Return to: Useful Things Pawn and Coin