Arvin Carpenter

> "*Where aaare you, nurse? ARE YOU DEAD YET?!*"
> ― **Arvin Carpenter** [[source]]
>
>

**Arvin Carpenter** is a sociopathic scientist who had his official medical license revoked due to unpleasant experiments he was conducting. He is bald and stout, has a cybernetic implant in the form of a green, glowing mechanical eye, sports a disturbingly wide grin, and has blood stains (almost assuredly not his own) all over his lab coat.  He also has a penchant for giggling inappropriately, and owns a grating, unhinged laugh that he unleashes from time to time. While he dabbles in biological areas of science to unsettling degree, his true expertise lies in the mechanical. He is undoubtedly highly intelligent, and his personal agenda is still unknown besides clearly being a wildcard that is uninhibited by the factions he often seems to be working for.

The very first technical appearance of Carpenter was back in Chapter 1, during The Hospital. He appeared on a large screen inside the surveillance room as a shadowy silhouette, as he was at the time monitoring live footage from the events at the hospital. His first proper appearance was when Jane Doe got a good look at him while perceiving through Macland, for the memetic defense installation in Chapter 2. His name was first dropped by Prophet in Chapter 2, who outright called him a 'sociopath'. In Chapter 3, Dr. Finch researched the names and confirmed that the 'portly gentleman with a mechanical eye' that Jane Doe saw was, indeed, **Arvin Carpenter**.

## Early life

Arvin Carpenter was formerly Doctor Arvin Carpenter many years ago. He had his medical license revoked, however, when he was discovered conducting a long, horrible list of illegal experiments with biological components in his laboratory. This included engineering biological weapons out of bioprinted human tissue. He was arrested and sent to prison for a few years, but a lawyer - who worked cases almost exclusively for Macland Row - found several legal loopholes through which to release Carpenter from prison.

Ever since then, Carpenter has been on the loose in some kind of hidden laboratory and appears to be working for Thale, with the many resources afforded him by those involved with the conspiracy (such as Gesenai Shirai and Macland Row).

## Personality

Carpenter is an unhinged maniac who is deeply unpleasant to talk to. He is happy to hear himself talk, even if ignored, and is gleeful when he is able to cause grief to whoever he is interacting with. He is a liar and hugely manipulative, and extremely proud of his abilities.

It is worth noting the only time the smile was wiped off his face for a bit was during the hospital revisit, when Michelle shot the 'face' off his bio-mech at the same time Fuse brute-force shut down the hospital surveillance, which caught him off-guard. His response thereafter was to scream and shoot bullets wildly into the room, suggesting that he isn't very mentally equipped to deal with plans going awry from his expectations.

## Questionable Allegiance

Carpenter is a loose cannon that clearly has his own agenda beyond the factions he generally represents.

To Macland Row, Carpenter assured him that the memetic defense would work in his favour without revealing to him that it would most likely kill him in the event Jane Doe tried to force information from him telepathically.

It is implied and speculated by Jane Doe's party that Thale intended to get rid of Macland Row by intentionally making it easy for Macland to get 'infected' by Jane Doe in Club Elegance and having Carpenter install a 'defense' that would kill Macland eventually.

Gesenai Shirai was outright lied to by Carpenter (and Thale) when it came to the explanation for Macland's comatose condition, and she was manipulated into directing all her rage and murder attempts towards Jane Doe (and her party).

It is not fully clear whether Carpenter has been queened or not, but Jane Doe and her party have determined he is probably not, given he does not act queened and is also unlikely to agree to being queened, given his personality. Regardless, he is working very closely with Thale and appears to be playing everyone around him.

## Carpenter and the Conspiracy

### Involvement in the Tobu Cyberbrain Hacking Incident

Carpenter is responsible for the medical knowledge that was required by Howler Ferrings for the notorious Tobu Cyberbrain Hack incident. He designed the bio-printer abominations that took over the hospital with the main purpose of killing Jane Doe. (Of course, the collateral damage of this incident wreaked havoc on the Middle Tiers as a bonus.) The surveillance recorded in the hospital was heavily monitored by Carpenter the whole time.

### Macland Row's 'memetic defense' (a.k.a. Nil)

Carpenter planted a 'memetic defense' in Macland Row's head, knowing that it would severely mess with Jane Doe if she attempted to pry any information from Macland forcefully. When Jane Doe force-synced with Macland alongside Fuse, the both of them very nearly died because of the 'memetic defense', and it caused Macland to fall into a 'brain-dead' coma. It turned out much later that what Carpenter planted was not just an unpleasant mental trap, but an actual ancient existence called Nil. It is unclear whether Carpenter is properly aware of Nil, but regardless it is Carpenter's fault Jane Doe has to contend with Nil's existence in the first place.

### Attempt on Dr. Finch's life

When Dr. Finch's address became compromised from accidentally bringing in phones that had trackers in them into his apartment, Gesenai Shirai coordinated a raid using her guards from Club Elegance. However, her raid was 'hijacked' by Carpenter, who gave her goons several syringes filled with weaponised streptococcus, a biological weapon in the form of flesh-eating bacteria. One of the guards injected himself with the weapon and died shortly after doing so, exposing the weapon to the air and infecting Dr. Finch almost instantly due to the high contagiousness of it.

Had Dr. Finch been without Jane Doe's help, he would never have been able to survive the infection, which rapidly ate away at his throat and chest within minutes. Jane Doe saved Dr. Finch by weaponising her blood cells in him and turning them into aggressive antibiotics.

It should be noted that Carpenter mocked Dr. Finch for hiding in the laundry machine in the hospital, taunting him and only addressing him as 'Doctor' Finch with sarcastic emphasis but mostly calling him things like 'Finchems' and 'Finchy poo'. Dr. Finch, in turn, does not have warm feelings towards Carpenter.

### Bio-mech (in the hospital revisit)

Jane Doe and Michelle revisited the hospital in Chapter 4 in order to pull the original hospital surveillance footage from the surveillance room. In doing so, they accidentally alerted Carpenter to their presence there, and Carpenter promptly summoned up one of his bio-mech experiments through the tunnels below the hospital and sicced it on them.

The bio-mech was constructed using a human and cybernetic base, with bio-printed tissue for 'filler', and filled with cameras, speakers and guns. It was controlled using electric impulses from a remote location. Jane injected it with a syringe full of her blood, but was unfortunately unable to control any part of it due to its sheer size and lack of brain.

During this event, Fuse's presence as a hacker in Jane Doe's party was made known to Carpenter, as Fuse overrode Carpenter's own override controls in the hospital surveillance system. (While this showed that Carpenter is capable of programming to a degree, it would appear he is more into robotics, rather than software.)

The bio-mech was destroyed when Michelle thought to pit Nimrod and the bio-mech against each other, which resulted in them wiping the other out.

## Present location

Carpenter has a hidden laboratory somewhere that Macland visited to get the memetic defense installed, but its location is undetermined.

While Jury S has an address on his supposed current location, no one is sure if it is a legitimate one as it is likely Carpenter has laid out traps for Jury S. Jury is particularly unwilling to meet with Carpenter face to face if she can help it, due to his expertise in the mechanical. Jane Doe and her party have yet to verify this location.

## References

1. ↑ Comic 104 - Basement keycard, Dr. Finch's hand, severed hand
2. ↑ Comic 254 - Check Macland
3. ↑ Comic 263 - Talk to Prophet
4. ↑ Comic 300 - Catch up with Dr. Finch
5. ↑ Comic 395 - Patch Fuse up
6. ↑ Comic 342 - Stall, and leave
7. ↑ Comic 343 - Save Dr. Finch
8. ↑ Comic 416 - Glance out the window
9. ↑ Comic 424 - Look for Michelle