S004 - McKown, Evie

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Name: Evie Jessica McKown
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Swimming, health & fitness, animals & animal rights, history, video gaming, comic books.

Appearance: Evie is taller and broader than most girls her age, 5'11" tall and with a wide-shouldered build and small bust that give her quite a masculine figure. She weighs approximately 155 lbs, mostly stored in lean muscle and a little excess body fat built up during the pandemic. Evie's colouration is typical of Anglo-Americans: fair-skinned and freckled, light brown hair that she wears short and often in a ponytail, and pale blue eyes. Her face contrasts with her figure, round and somewhat child-like with wide eyes and a button nose, her mouth average, and her overall features soft. Being self-conscious about her boyish appearance, Evie often wears subtle makeup to further soften her facial appearance. Thanks to her healthy lifestyle and diet, she has enjoyed clear skin throughout her adolescence.

Not a particularly fashion-conscious person, Evie's wardrobe is mostly denim jeans and graphic tees, with a handful of colourful jackets for the colder months. On the day of the abduction, she wore a brown winter overcoat over a custom-made purple hooded jacket with "McKown" printed across the shoulders above a stylised otter in swimming goggles, along with blue jeans, black running shoes, and a yellow t-shirt with a stylised bee and the slogan "Bee Kind" over the left breast.

Biography: Evie Jessica McKown was born on the 8th of March 2003, to parents Jacob McKown and Jessica McKown (née Eldridge) at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The family lived in Somerville for Evie's early years, and four years later were joined by her younger brother, Davis Jacob McKown. Having benefited from Jacob's grandparents buying the home when prices were lower following the Second World War, the McKowns would later take advantage of the gentrification of the neighbourhood and sold up to move to Salem in 2013, coinciding with Evie's move from elementary to middle school. With Jacob working remotely as a data architect for Iron Mountain, Evie and her brother enjoyed a comfortable upbringing with their father at home more often than not whilst their mother continued to commute to Lynn where she teaches at Ingalls Elementary.

Growing up, Evie developed a strong attachment to animals: the family had a pet dog, and she herself kept a hamster. At an early age, an innocent question about where meat came from resulted in her ultimately choosing to give up eating it entirely. Bemused at first, her parents accommodated the change anyway. They expected it to be a passing phase, but Evie persisted, and eventually the reverse became true and the rest of the family adopted vegetarianism with her. As her brother Davis grew older, Evie got along well with him, and it was through this friendship that she picked up her enduring interests in gaming and comics, as well as her more tomboyish mannerisms. Unlike her father, she never acquired much competence with technology above the norm; Evie can work a phone or a computer, but quickly gets lost when problems arise.

Though she had often enjoyed swimming recreationally as a child, coming into adolescence in middle school she began to explore swimming competitively: she joined a swimming club, the North Shore Sharks, and quickly progressed to become one of their more competitive members as the group itself was largely a casual one – this has contributed to Evie growing a little overconfident in her skill thanks to her fast progression, and given her a slightly cocky attitude. Evie performed averagely-to-well in most subjects at middle school: precise subjects like mathematics and science were her weakest points, while her love of interesting stories helped her excel in English and history. Since then and throughout high school, Evie took a hobby-level interest in the local history of New England in particular. She also briefly made attempts at sketching her own comics starring the super-powered otter “Ultra-Lutra”, but soon became frustrated with her slow artistic progress and quickly gave up the pursuit.

It was at high school that Evie's interests solidified. She continued to read comics, especially enjoying Ms. Marvel and Doctor Aphra, amongst other Marvel superheroes and Star Wars stories. She also took up reading heavier literature and non-fiction for pleasure, which is where her passing fascinations with historical figures began to take hold. In her early teens, Evie dreamed of competing professionally as a swimmer, but on the advice of her father also made certain to have a backup plan: her love for animals provided the obvious idea, and so Evie also started applying herself significantly harder in biology and started to practice basic first aid with a view to studying veterinary medicine at college. Her grades in the sciences improved with the new injection of passion into her work and similarly to her successes in the pool, due to the relatively rapid improvements Evie's made, she's more confident in her abilities than her grades (hovering around high Bs and low As) should suggest. Meanwhile, most of her other subjects remain squarely average. Her skills in first aid however remain very basic: she can treat simple wounds and burns, and can keep an injured person safe and calm until paramedics arrive if needed, but lacks any specific qualifications or hands-on practice with tougher procedures like CPR or setting broken bones. Early in her high school career was also when Evie's early forays into internet exploration taught her of the ethical issues surrounding other animal products, and she began to convert from vegetarianism to full-on vegan.

Unlike many her age, Evie had a relatively easy time of the coronavirus pandemic, privileged as she is to have a comfortable home life and many ways to distract herself at home. With her father already working from home, little changed in that relationship, and though Evie's friendship with her younger brother Davis had become less close than when they were both younger, the two still got along well enough to be good company for one another, sharing many evenings gaming together on the sofa. This stability in the family likewise helped ground her mother through the stress of learning to teach from home. Because of this uncommon ease, Evie has trouble understanding the difficulties her peers had during lockdown, and is largely baffled by the idea of others not enjoying spending more time with their families and interests. Her one major complaint was being unable to keep in practice with swimming, and though Evie made half-hearted efforts to keep fit despite this, she's become a little out of shape as a result. On the other hand, her less physical interests only deepened during this time, building habits she would continue after things reopened. She worked through her backlog of comics which she hadn't gotten around to reading yet, and then ordered even more when those ran out, ending up with an even stronger love for the medium and more than enough issues to last long after the end of quarantine. Similarly she pursued history more deeply, scouring streaming services for interesting documentaries to watch alone or with the family, and beginning to play historical grand strategy games on her own into the small hours of the morning.

Socially, Evie has many friendly acquaintances at school, but only a handful of truly close friends. Her easy-going and friendly manner make her easy to get along with on a superficial level, but her beliefs have proven a barrier to genuine friendship. Overall, she typically adapts her everyday behaviour to suit whomever she's interacting with and relents from preaching about animal cruelty in casual company, making herself somewhat of a social chameleon to fit in. Among closer friends however, on top of more easily letting loose info-dumps on whatever her latest historical or fictional fascination is, she can't disguise her strong moral objections to the animal products others use daily and has a bad habit of passive-aggressively jabbing about them. Evie tends to get along better with boys her age than girls, given her interests and her tomboyish manner. Her usual social circle consists of boys both her own age and ones she knows through her younger brother, with whom she can talk about comics and team up for online games like Call of Duty and Fortnite.

Though she enjoys being considered the cool girl and just one of the boys among her friends and acquaintances, romantically she remained awkward and standoffish until very recently and for reasons she wasn't sure of. Both changed with a rather disastrous date in Spring of 2021: invited to visit Teddie Boyd's house to see his pet ferret, Evie hadn't quite been aware she was being courted until the meet up transitioned into seeing a movie together, after which the young man kissed her. Finally it dawned on Evie that she'd never genuinely felt an attraction to boys, only the obligation to feel one. The two parted on amicable terms and remained good friends, helping to support one another with their respective troubles of sexuality and isolation. Evie has since begun confronting her attraction to girls, and even though she regrets not having worked it out sooner, she nonetheless has avoided publicly coming out so far, worried about how it might affect others' perceptions of her.

Advantages: Evie is fit and healthy, a very strong swimmer, and has a basic knowledge of first aid. Her friendly demeanour and reputation for agreeableness may help her appear less threatening.
Disadvantages: Evie is cocky and tends to overestimate her fitness and intelligence, thinking she has more strength, stamina, and expertise than she really does. She's also lived an extremely privileged and sheltered life on top of being particularly empathetic to suffering, which will make the island a major culture shock for her. In addition her strict diet and objection to harming animals or using animal-based products could prove a serious liability if forced to choose between those principles and starvation or sickness.

Designated Number: Student No. 004

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Designated Weapon: Pair of Walkie-Talkies (24 hours of battery included)

Conclusion: Either your principles go, or you do. With the ego attached to them, I can guess which one it'll... bee. (Ugh.) - Veronica Rai