Jamie

### Occupation

Biochemist (PhD), Toxicologist (PhD), Biomedical Engineer (MD), Immunologist (MD), Nuclear Chemist

## Biographical information

### Marital status

Married (Robert, Pre Pilk Battle-Present)

## Physical description

### Eye color

Hazel

Dr Jamison H. M., better known as Jamie, is primarily a biochemist and is one of the three individuals who sparked the Pilk Crisis. Though his views on Pilk are less positive than those of his husband and coworker, Robert, he is an adamant adherent to his scientific philosophy: that all discoveries, good or bad, should come to light. Attempting to erase any record of the Pilk experiments performed by himself, Robert, Aidan and Moss are the Historians: Aaron and Xandy. Driven equal parts by love and by scientific duty, Jamie is a perseverant affiliate to the Scientists, and, in his personal time away from Pilk, strives to optimise himself emotionally, biologically, intellectually, et cetera, through the dangerous wonders of science.

## Appearance

### General

Jamie is a Eurasian man of a slightly above average height and an average build, with messy straight brown hair, a notable dorsal hump and hazel eyes. He has pale freckles on his face and moles scattered across his limbs and torso. Several scars from his self-experimentations remain unhealed, but he tends to either cover them up or not draw attention to them.

### Attire

Jamie wears a simple combination of a white shirt, dark trousers, and combat boots - later embellished with an indigo waistcoat and blue-and-purple cravat as inspired by his husband, Robert. His cravat is decorated with a pale gold brooch of his own making. Utility belts take up almost every square inch it is possible for them to; arm, waist, and legs. His utility belts are occupied mostly by various chemical ingredients and apparatus, save for the Propofol-laced dagger on his right calf. In his leather over-the-shoulder bag, Jamie carries what is essentially a portable laboratory, complete with posters of the periodic table and a human anatomy diagram. Jamie wears a pair of lab goggles with a cracked left lens.

### Post-War

After suffering a physically and mentally testing half-execution, Jamie is able to restore some of the colour he had lost to the war. His skin is no longer a sickly shade of white, but a collection of new scars is added to his tally. His fringe grows slightly longer but his mullet is cut, and his brown hair peppered with shocks of gray. His eye bags, though ever present, are less pronounced.

Due to there being no longer the demand for decorum, he no longer wears a waistcoat, favouring instead a simple loose off-white shirt. His iconic goggles receive an augment and polish but the left lens remains slightly cracked. In addition, he now wears them around his neck instead of on his head. A contraption dubbed the "stabiliser" or "anchor" is always strapped to his chest. It doubles as a primitive body camera and a heart monitor to ensure his uninterrupted stable condition, even when he is not being observed by another human. The anchor demands semi-regular maintenance and video film replacement.

## Personality

Broadly speaking, Jamie is a quiet and polite man, with a warm albeit shy air to him. He is heavily introverted, but despite this is able to make small conversation when the need arises. Because of his socially peculiar and *coughneurodivergentcough* nature, he isn't able nor willing to sustain relationships unless he finds the person at hand interesting, leading him to having very few friends. He tends to be more content being a proverbial 'observer', making him fascinated with things such as anthropology and psychology, but less keen on the act of casual socialising itself.

After meeting Aaron and Robert at university, Jamie's social adeptness increased greatly. He became much better able to maintain a conversation, and because of Robert's enthusiasm for the art of conversation, he was even able to enjoy it himself. Because of Jamie's close bond with Aaron and Robert, he for a time was able to regain confidence in himself and became almost enthusiastic.

This, unfortunately, was short-lived. As soon as the war started, Jamie began his descent back into the coldness he carried with him for most of his later childhood. He also became massively protective of Robert, along with the rest of the Scientists. Towards the end of the war, Jamie became serious and almost monosyllabic, only reserving his enthusiasm for when he needed to fake it - or for Robert.

## Early Life

In his childhood, Jamie lived in a rural slavic farmland plagued by political unrest. After an unfortunate incident with the authorities, Jamie was instructed to flee to the nearest city and ended up losing his home. It is unknown what became of his rural family, but it appears the house was burnt and an empty cavity left in its place. The fields on their property now lay barren.

After arriving to the city, Jamie was able to take shelter with his brother, who had made a name for himself in finance. There, he continued to relentlessly pursue his lifelong love of the natural sciences and, with his brother's help, put himself through school and several degrees to follow. Though he started school much later due to his rural upbringing, he excelled nevertheless, not only catching up to his age level but exceeding it by a year. Because of his dedication to academia, though, he did not have many friends to speak of, and was mostly content with it being so.

As a student in University, Jamie quickly made a name for himself for being unwavering in his academic morals. He would almost never compromise in what he believed to be the right thing to do regarding forgery, bribery, bias, unethical experimentation, and the like - even if it meant losing face. This unfortunately lead to one particularly bad instance of him getting assaulted because he refused to cooperate in a fellow candidate's plagiarism. With encouragement and assistance from his sister-in-law, he quietly got the student suspended.

Out of fear and newly acquired privilege, Jamie did not participate in politics of any sort until he himself was a leading figure in the Pilk Battle.

## Research

In his general work, Jamie specialises in biochemistry. In particular, he studies physiology, organics, proteomics, genetics, medicine and toxicology - this is the work he is most known for. In his own time, Jamie studies and experiments in the domain of nuclear and electrochemistry, and he takes great care to keep his findings in those fields from reaching the public.

Prior endeavours include research into prion diseases, the attempted and partially successful synthesis of a ricin antidote, and the pioneering of biotechnological genetic therapy. He had covertly been experimenting with quantum stabilisers and studying wave-particle duality, although no significant time was put into this research until after the war.

Jamie, Aaron and Robert were all present for the Pilk Experiments, where despite his disapproval of Pilk, Jamie encouraged Robert to (safely) continue the experiments and publish his findings. The initial experiment included Pilk (pepsi and milk) and Chocolate Pilk (cacao powder, pepsi and milk), followed shortly after by Cilk (coca cola and milk). The proposed extensions included Cinnamon Pilk and Alcoholic Pilk (although Jamie was strict in not allowing Robert to run the Alcoholic Pilk trials and instead wanted to run them himself.) Aaron frowned upon the entire affair and asserted that these findings must not be published at all.

## The Pilk War

### **Opening**

As mentioned prior, Jamie was initially uncertain about Pilk, specifically about the risk of consuming it and later publishing Robert's findings on it. Any doubt was immediately cleared, however, once his husband's theories and motivations came under attack by Aaron. Jamie formally lost all confidence in Aaron when he stated that any record of Pilk should be erased from history.

### **Resolution**

#### Manuscript Error and "Schrödinger's State"

The war came to a close when Finch alerted Victor of the events that transpired, and as punishment, the scientists' de-facto leader, Robert, was to be executed. Despite Finch having recorded only Robert being sentenced to death, Victor had declared both Robert and Jamie executed. The influence of otherworldly powers in this manuscript error led to Jamie being simultaneously alive and dead on a physical level.

The details of the state Jamie ended up in are unclear and remain painstakingly difficult to record. The most succinct descriptor is a "Schrödinger's State", though this is not exactly accurate. Rough records detail the physical state as blinking rapidly in between life and death, sending the body into total shutdown and then forcing it back alive, with full fluctuation periods lasting anywhere in between 0.5 and 30 seconds. It was not uncommon for the body to have adverse reactions to the sudden changes - these included vomiting, severe muscle cramping, cardiac arrest, migraines, fever, and hallucinations.

On a neurological level, the periods of 'death' would often vary. Frequently, Jamie's life would flash before his eyes, or he would simply pass out as if unconscious and resurrect as if waking up with the worst hangover in history. Less often, he would experience a coma-like dream instance, in which he was able to move. One of the most inexplicable details of the affliction is that after travelling in one of the instances, his physical body would have blinked however far he had travelled in the dream. Additionally, himself and observers report seeing "glitch-like particles" around his person, though it has been chalked up to a large-scale visual hallucination.

The only way for Jamie's condition to stabilise is if there is consistent proof of his life. Most often, this implies consistent observation by an individual or, on occasion, animal.

#### The Anchor

Jamie had the rotten luck of being struck into this state in an isolated area, meaning that he had a low chance of being observed for long enough to sustain life - and even if he did, it would have been difficult to piece the effect of observation together. Disoriented, it took him half a day to stumble back into a populated area in search of help or an explanation. It took him another half-day to deduce why he was able to stay alive for much longer in a more public place.

Scared of discovery by the historians or authorities, he was forced back into his workshop and away from the public. It took him another two days to design and construct a very crude body camera that was able to capture and immediately save video proof of his existence. As soon as he was confident the camera functioned, he set off to confront Finch, Vic, and the Historians.

#### Resurrection

Upon hearing news of his husband's execution, he briefly put his vendetta aside to confirm he was really dead. After he discovered this to be true, Jamie mourned him, not leaving Robert's side for several hours, the peculiarity of his corpse's pristine appearance not registering in his sleep-deprived state. When Finch arrived to pay his own respects, Jamie bombarded him with questions. Not letting Finch finish when he began implying his own guilt, Jamie attempted to murder him.

His attempt was put to a stop only by Robert, who due to his Pilk-granted immortality, was able to come back to life. Without another word, Jamie left with Robert on a direct course out of the city.

## Aftermath

Jamie and Robert were able to find a cottage a good ways away from any populated area after the war had ended. The city remained exactly a day's travel away on horseback and was able to be seen from their kitchen window. The two announced their sabbatical by mail to their university, and the faculty agreed, awaiting their return in two years' time after any political tension surrounding Robert's experiments would die down. The only war-related practice they continued was Jamie's synthesis of Pilk for Robert, the effects of which they furthermore got to properly study for the first time since the conflict. Aside from that, they both swore to each other to not research anything too controversial during their break.

During this time, Jamie often stayed at home, while Robert would be out running errands and embarking on his own little adventures. They began to build relations outside of their city, where, in most places, their names didn't precede them. Though most of them were harmless, some of their connections were a little shadier, leading them on covert missions that were not always risk-free.

A few months into their retreat, Jamie broke his promise of not studying anything controversial and began building a collider underneath their house. His purpose for doing this is not yet known.

## Relations

### Dr Robert A.C.

Jamie met Robert in their early years of university, as they had both chosen to pursue similar specialisations in biochemistry. As Jamie is older than Robert by two years, he served as an academic mentor to him, but as Robert had far superior social adeptness than Jamie, he in turn served as a social mentor. Jamie had no particular interest in broadening his social circle, but he immensely enjoyed Robert's company, so he went along with him wherever he was invited. The pair soon became inseparable.

Their friendship seamlessly evolved into a romantic relationship, and by the time they graduated and started working in research, they had gotten engaged and were married soon after their careers began. The most notable hitch in their relationship was Jamie's affair (dubbed the "Goggles Affair") with Aaron, with whom he was close friends at the time. Robert expressed his betrayal when he discovered it several months after its occurrence, and Jamie swore never to cheat again. To this day, he has kept his word.

## Trivia

* Jamie, despite his general lighthearted character, has a tendency to be very emotionally closed off and volatile in his relationships. This has resulted in, despite their happy overall marriage, him and Robert getting divorced approximately 11 times. They continue to be married.

* At a certain point in the battle, Pepsi sales were stopped entirely in general vicinity of the battle's setting. This forced Jamie to create a batch of Pepsi by hand in order to fuel Robert's god-like abilities. It appears to have worked.

* Due to his rural upbringing and background as a casual astronomer, Jamie is a very proficient wilderness navigator. He is able to forage, identify minerals, fashion optimal shelters and hunt - although the latter he notably does not enjoy. He is a very good shot with a bow and arrow, but funnily enough, he is terrible with firearms.

* While he is decent at parkour, Jamie is somehow goddamn fucking terrible at climbing trees.

* There is a secret mechanism in the brooch Jamie wears on his cravat in which a vial of powdered polonium resides. He hopes never to have to use it.

* Jamie is fluent in English and Russian, has a conversational fluency in French, and a near conversational fluency in German.

* Jamie's favourite elements are cobalt, chlorine, and hydrogen. His favourite compounds are caffeine, chromium chloride, adenosine triphosphate and geosmin.

* Jamie suffers from dyscalculia and finds physics particularly difficult to navigate. This has led to especially frequent accidents when conducting physical experiments.

## Quotes

*"Reasons why we should add cinnamon to Pilk--"*

*"Finch, I love you, but for the love of the God we murdered, do not give Robert ideas."*

-Finch and Jamie

*"So long as there is one surviving organism and my mind remains sound, it would not be the end for me."*

*"I don't think I'm capable of ever losing everything."*

-Jamie, Post-war