Trevor F. Tremayne - NSA Medium

by

J. Edward Tremlett

 




"He's sewn his eyes shut
because he is afraid to see"

Major Tremayne never had what one would call a "normal" childhood. His family had escaped from Morroco during World War Two, and his father had been inducted into the OSS due to his previous position in that country's secret police. When Trevor was born, in 1953, the war was over, the OSS was now the CIA, and his father forbade his family to ever speak French in his presence. They were in America so they should act like Americans, he said.

In that time, his father had become a CIA analyst, and made a personal enemy of J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI for some reason that was never quite known. Trevor would read through his father's books on cryptography when father wasn't there or wasn't looking, and enjoyed the subject quite a bit. But other than the scant clues those books revealed, Trevor never knew what his father did at work because he couldn't talk about it, and since he wasn't much of a talkative fellow around the home Trevor hardly knew his father at all.

Maybe that's why he took the tragedy so well. He and his father were in the car, alone, and driving back from the school play Trevor had been in. It was a rather expurgated version of The Tempest and he had been playing Trinculo. He'd thought he'd done quite well, but all the way home his father slathered thick and heavy criticisms of every thing he'd done. This was strange to Trevor, as that was the most he'd ever gotten out of his father at all. It still hurt, though, and when he asked his father to stop he received a very strong clip across the ear for it.

That clip changed a lot. When Trevor looked back at his father, he no longer saw a strong, healthy man, but a toddering skeleton in a work shirt and tie. The car was a broken heap around him. And his own hands seemed paler... less substantial. He was about to say something, but then he just knew he had to duck and hold his hands over his head.

How he survived the head-on collision between his father's car and the oncoming truck was never fully understood. He was slingshot out of the window, through the air, and into a pile of wet leaves. His father's car was a flattened smear of steel and burning oil, and as Trevor looked around him he could see that whatever strange vision had come upon him had not abated. The houses were in ruins, the people were decaying or diseased, even the truck that had run his father's car over like a soda can seemed corrupted to the core with an unshakable rot. And, still worse, he had the unshakable feeling that he was surrounded by strange presences. He could not see them, he could not hear them, and all he could do was lie there as they came closer, walked away, or went about their strange business that he could sense but not see.

His new vision earned him a long, quiet rest in a sanitarium, and kept him back two years of school. After one and a half years of institutional hell and a strange lack of visits from his mother and sisters he learned how to lie to the nice men in white coats and make believe he was all better. Anything to get out of this place. Anything to go back to the life he'd known, or whatever was left of it.

 

Induction:

Once he did get out, he discovered that his mother and two of his sisters had moved back to Morocco in the meantime. The only member of his family who remained back, and was able to care for him, was his oldest sister Matilda. She had steadfastly refused to return home because she'd come to hate Morocco and everything about it, just like father.

Under her care, he was granted the things he truly needed: space, solitude and a lack of probing questions. He had no idea what had happened to him, but he also knew that if he told anyone about it he would go back to the sanitarium. Living in this hell was much, much better than living through that one with this hell thrown in on top of it.

Locked into a small, quiet world of his own, he graduated from high school in 1973, and attended college at Catholic University. There he became interested in the burgeoning field of computer science, and started to learn how to manipulate the large, clunky boxes that comprised the pinnacle of such things at that time.

For some reason, though everything else in the world seemed decayed and decrepit, the light from a computer screen seemed refreshingly real. Computers became his solace and his comfort, and from sheer lack of anything better to do he learned how to make them do what he wanted. He also learned to make interesting programs that would scramble files and then unscramble them if you had the right program.

In time his talents were noticed, perhaps because he made the mistake of looking into a few files he shouldn't have. A day later some men from the Puzzle Palace came to talk to him, and made him a rather interesting deal concerning a computer and a few secrets locked away on it. Though the machine was more advanced than anything he'd seen, he did, given time, crack through the coding and decipher that it had to say.

After that, Trevor's education was bought and paid for, and he came into the NSA on a career track as a satellite communications expert, trying to decode satellite transmissions from the USSR. When the true nature of what computers had to offer, or effect, became known to the NSA he was inducted into the Computer Communications Division, later to become the Cybernetic Intelligence Division.

 

On the Record:

Of his time since then, the Agency has only brief pictures: momentary glimpses of a man in action.

In 1981 he masterminded the escape of KGB Researcher Valentin Chernenko from behind the Iron Curtain: using his skills in deciphering and ciphering to re-route the fellow's travel orders from Moscow to Morocco (of all places) and thereby into the United States of America. In 1986, he and Mr. Chernenko joined forces to crack down on a rather virulent ring of Libyan computer criminals operating in the Maryland area, stealing secrets from the State Department. His hands-on work on that saw him promoted to Captain, and a managerial desk at the Cybernetic Intelligence Division.

In 1989, he went "underground," doing things that were completely off the public record. There is some evidence that his Agents were personally responsible for the apprehension of some 60 serial hackers worldwide. Sometime in there he was promoted to Major.

In 1997 he was severely injured on a case and required six month's hospitalization. His face wounds required 200 stitches. Since then, he has gone back underground at the NSA, surfacing only to pursue a case that fits within his narrower band of interests.

Off the record...

Having investigated strange 'ghost hackings' for most of his career, Trevor is no stranger to to the darker, secret world. His senses, and what they were trying to tell him, were confirmed by Valentin - a ghost hunter of the highest caliber for the KGB until his undead contacts told him too many secrets and he began to attract enemies on both sides of the Shroud. He learned what he could from Valentin until that gentleman left the NSA to do his own, less-sanctioned form of research following the bust of the Artificer circle in 1986. And then Trevor continued to find out what he could.

However, the true turning point in his career came when he was attacked by a walking corpse - what the Wraiths would call a Risen.

The Risen was a dead hacker - a man who'd gone under the name Savage Opera Phantom (sig file S*O*P). He'd pulled off a number of amazing hacks before choking to death on a burger at his keyboard. It turned out he was a 43 year old sanitation worker for the city of D.C. - just a nobody that no one suspected.

But he was somebody to himself, and he wasn't going to let death get in the way of his revenge. Since crawling out of his grave, S*O*P'd created a great jigsaw of stolen computers hidden in the D. C. sewers, and was using it to siphon information from computers all over the District.

He made a few mistakes, however, and that was how Trevor - aided by the Washington D.C. Metro police - found him. Unfortunately, none of the five man group were prepared for what they found, and all but the 2nd Lt. leading it, and Trevor, were torn to pieces by the crazed and bloated corpse. It got away after destroying its computers' memory, and taking an entire clip of bullets from Trevor's gun.

Trevor might have shot quicker, before S*O*P's clawlike fingers came down on his face. But for an instant he looked at the corpse, and through his eyes he saw that it looked just like he, himself, did when he stared in the mirror. He froze, wondering if the thing and he were somehow related in condition.

And then it tore his face clean off the bone.

In the hospital, Trevor realized what he had seen, though he rationalized a scientific explanation for it: a disease of some kind, one that needed a cure. Worse still, this thing... it took bullets without slowing down... and hardly bled at all when shot. A vampire? If it was... and he was... then what separated him from the thing? Time? Other symptoms?

He and the Second Lt. made a promise to keep what they'd seen quiet and came up with a story involving wild dogs. (The Camarilla of D.C, thinking it was probably a vampire after all, probably aided this deception behind the scenes). But after that near-fatal encounter, Tremayne realized that he had a new mission to find the truth about this thing he'd found, before his condition worsened to the point where he degenerated into what he'd seen.


Name: Trevor F. Tremayne
Age: 50
Nature: Fanatic
Demeanor: Scientist
Motivation: to save himself from what he thinks is coming
Group: National Security Agency - Cybernetic Intelligence Unit (Gordian Knot)
Rank: Major
Codename: Dr. Shrinker

STR: 2 DEX: 3 STA: 2

CHA: 2 MAN: 3 APP: 1

PER: 3 INT: 4 WIT: 3 (Intelligence Specialty: Analytical)

Talents: Alertness 3, Dodge 2, Interrogation 3, Intimidation 4 (Nasty Stare), Streetwise 1, Subterfuge 3

Skills: Firearms 3, Security 3, Stealth 2

Knowledges: Bureaucracy 3, Computer 4 (Hacking), Covert Culture 3, Cryptography 4 (Mathematical Encryption), Investigation 4 (Computer Crime), Law 3, Occult 2, Science 2, Vampire Lore 1, Wraith Lore 3

Backgrounds: Allies 3, Contacts 2, Influence 2, Rank 3, Resources 3

Willpower: 6

Flaws: Deathsight (-4), Distinctive Appearance (-1)

Merits: Creepy Feelings (+1)

Equipment Carried: G-man kit (complete with Sig Sauer - normal and AP rounds), 2 cell phones (one regular, one unlisted), Midsize sedan (black as Hell- tinted windows, Global Positioning, car phone modem)

Equipment on hand: laptop with cipher box (modem built in), kirlian camera, infrared tracker, phased motion detector, thermal detector.

Allies: his subordinate, Rick "Hunter" Findsen and a Second Lt. of the Washington D.C. Metro Police.

Contacts: Bob Schoblin of the CIA's Black Book and Valentin Chernenko, late of the KGB's Psychic Research Department, now an independent "psychic investigator"

Image: Trevor's face is the first thing most people notice: it's puffy and somewhat mottled around the cheekbones, chin and forehead, and a reddish, uneven line runs all around its edge - testament to its being torn off and re-attached. He could have better plastic surgery, but given it all the looks the same to him, and he thinks he really doesn't have the time for such a luxury, he lets it slip.

Past that, he's a man of medium height and build with short, brown hair going quite grey. He usually dresses in classic "dont-fuck-with-me" black on black power suits, and often wears a pair of black sunglasses as well.

M.O. Since the "accident", Trevor has used his position and resources to try and locate other vampires across the world. He looks for traces online and follows up on likely suspects or situations when they crop up. So far he's been stymied, or found what he thought was useful to be useless. But he's sure he's going to strike paydirt soon - his new asst, Rick, is making some headway in that department.

He's spoken with Bob Schnoblin of the CIA about that man's ideas, but decided not to tell him of his own experience after hearing Schnoblin's rant. If he ever finds proof (preferably a specimen) he will bring it to Bob, but until then he won't share his work.

He has let one ally (Rick "Hunter" Findsen) into his confidence on the matter, and he follows him on his search either out of personal interest or morbid curiosity. He will not use the word "Vampire" in front of Rick out of fear that he's turning into one. Rick knows them only as "Haemophages."

Trevor was inducted into the Gordian Knot some time ago, though his patience with that group has deteriorated since his "accident." He thinks they knew what he was walking into and refused to tell him just to see what might happen, or what he might bring them. They know nothing of what he experienced because he stuck to his story about the wild dogs. They know about his previous ghostly adventures, though.

 


Back