William Payne

"How can you kill something that doesn't exist?"

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William Payne is a fictional character featured in the videogame Dry Drowning. He only appears in Chapter 1, at first unbeknownst to the player as his existence is only revealed if the player chooses to have Mordred shoot during the chapter ending.

## Biography:

Due to his reserved and introverted nature William has never built any interpersonal relationship, focusing exclusively on his job and avoiding unrequired commitments or efforts.

## Psychological profile:

After moving to Nova Polemos in 2062 William was hired at Hephaestus as a researcher thanks to his vast knowledge of the medical field. Since then he never engaged in any relationship of any kind with his colleagues, never shared any detail of his personal life and always kept a clean criminal record, meaning information related to him is almost non existent.

## Character overview (spoilers):

Outlining an accurate profile of William Payne is a very challanging task, mainly because of his own efforts to hide every piece of information related to him. His fear-driven personality is shaped almost entirely around a constant and obsessive need for self-preservation that keeps William in a chronical state of paranoia, utimately causing him to see potential danger behind every corner. He likely developed his superb intelligence as a direct consequence of his anxiety and pursued a certain degree of mediocrity in his life just for the sake of remaining under the radar, avoiding unwanted attentions of any sort. This mental state was possibly the final consequence of the abuses he received from his father as a child (as mentioned in Chapter 4B).

   No information whatsoever is available in regards to the life he was leading before moving to Nova Polemos, though it can almost be taken for granted he never engaged in criminal activities of any sort: a negative criminal record would in fact have prevented him from getting past Nova Polemos' strict immigration policies and would also be at odds with Payne's main goal of avoiding unnecessary risks and dangers at all costs.

William's clean criminal record (united with the fact his broad set of skills and knowledge would have likely allowed him to pursue any career of choice) also implies he didn't emigrate to Nova Polemos as a fugitive or a refugee but simply because he wanted to. One likely explanation would be that he saw in the city's strict and censorship based social model a powerful tool to pursue his goal of remaining safe and hidden. In this sense he must have also identified the perfect hideout in Hephaestus Tech due to the immense and asymmetrical privileges granted to those who manage to build a successful career within the company's ranks (something he knew he would be able to achieve easily thanks to his oustanding intellect and medical expertise). These privileges were incidentally what allowed William to swiftly turn the tables on Freya Goldsoul as soon as he realized she had targeted him, reaping the benefits of his unlimited access to everyone's private data.

His extreme intelligence was not limited to tech related subjects: on multiple occasions he proved to have a deep understanding of social dynamics and indivudal psychology as well. These skills are exactly what allowed him to understand deeply the intent of the original Pandora in order to carry on the baton himself, ultimately forging an almost perfect imitation of the serial killer. He was also able to predict with surprising precision the reactions of all the people he manipulated: Alicia, Abigail, Baker, Freya and even Mordred himself (though in Mordred's case the choice of whether to take his bait or not is ultimately left to the player). William's ability to understand and simulate human emotions so well also means his true feelings remain a mystery, his twisted and ever changing personality being probably what caused Mordred to see a continous rotation of masks on him rather than a fixed one at the end of Chapter 1. After her unfortunate encounter with him, Abigail Sherman described William as a psychologically ill maniac prone to laugh frantically, though this was probably a behaviour he artificially adopted in order to terrorize Abigail even more. Nevertheless, despite the fact William has shown an extreme degree of control over both his own emotions and other people's, it's relatively safe to assume he still experienced a terrible trauma due to his terminal illness, in that the prospective of a sudden and unavoidable death must have been soul crushing given he had spent his whole life evading risk and danger.

## Trivia:

* If the player chooses not to shoot William at the end of Chapter 1, his identity will never be revealed as he will not make a return after killing Abigail.
* The name William Payne is a reference to Winston Payne from the Ace Attorney series. Said character is the first, weakest and most insignificant opponent met by Phoenix Wright, thus representing the status of total insignificance craved by William.