S133 - Jones, Anthony

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Name: Anthony Jones
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Science, reading, video games, futurism, track and field

Appearance: Anthony is 5'10" and weighs 160 lbs, with a broad frame lacking much obvious fat or muscle. He has a square face, with high cheekbones, a somewhat hooked nose, and brown eyes. A persistent stubble clings to his chin despite his efforts against it. His hair is short and brown with a mild widow's peak. His posture is good, and he tends to carry himself with an air of confidence. His skin is generally pale, with a residual a tan from the summer months.

Though not unfashionable by any means, Anthony doesn't dress to make an impact. He favors well-fitting clothes with solid colors. On the day of the abduction, he was wearing a black and grey long-sleeved shirt with a blue hoodie and green windbreaker on top, jeans, and brown hiking boots.

Biography: Anthony was born and raised in Salem, the only child of high school sweethearts Dennis and Marie. Dennis became a civil engineer, while Marie decided to stay at home to look after young Anthony. They lived comfortably but not extravagantly, a nice middle-class existence in a decent neighborhood.

Anthony quickly showed himself to be a precocious child, a fact that pleased his parents to no end. Standing, walking, speaking, reading, he hit developmental milestone after developmental milestone well ahead of schedule. This continued into elementary school, where Anthony was identified as gifted. This official acknowledgement naturally overjoyed his parents, as well as Anthony himself. The endless comparisons and evaluations became a part of his self-image, and he started seeing his own worth as measured against his peers. The fact that he was far ahead of most of them was all the more reason to lean on such metrics. His intelligence gave him purpose, and shaped his behavior. While generally kind and good-natured, he developed a tendency to quickly get brittle and standoffish at anyone who would bruise his ego or suggest that his abilities were less than he thought, something that he never grew out of.

Reading was Anthony's first major interest, and an enduring one. Books were the usual gift from relatives, and luckily for Anthony, he did actually enjoy reading them. While he appreciated works of fiction, he was most fond of nonfiction books, an interest encouraged especially by his father. His passion for science was born here, a never-ending quest to understand what the world was and why it worked.

As he grew, Anthony began to notice more and more what he saw as deep-seated issues with the state of the world. He wondered why he saw some kids given nice clothes and lavish lunches while others wore hand-me-downs and spoke of going hungry. Why the news seemed to be mainly stories of death, disease, and malcontent. The adults in his life always tried to steer him away from outright pessimism, but that usually just made things worse. He came across facts they didn't know in his reading, discovered information that showed lessons to be oversimplified or outright wrong on some points. The deeper he dove into any topic, the more complicated and mundane it usually became. Overall, he couldn't shake the feeling that the general message of hope and enthusiasm about the world he'd always known would, in the end, also prove to be a flawed and dumbed-down conclusion.

Growing and progressing into middle school, Anthony's sense of giftedness continued to inform his hobbies. He turned away from novels in his reading, deeming them too childish, in favor of nonfiction books. Nothing satisfied him more than invoking the broad strokes of basic concepts from his latest read to demonstrate his mastery. He also spent a considerable amount of time with books of puzzles, riddles, and lateral thinking exercises. At one point, he picked up a Rubik's cube laying around the house and decided to learn how to solve it. It took some time, but he eventually managed and was proud of his new skill. The regularity and predictability of it supplanted much of his interest in the more obtuse types of puzzles, and he found the same sort of satisfaction in learning and memorizing the wide range of solving techniques without the frustration of being able to guess incorrectly. Taking it a step further, he built the dexterity to enable one-handed solves, a variation that seemed more unique and impressive, and also carried the benefit of having fewer people to compare his still-rudimentary skills against.

Like most children growing up in a world full of technology, Anthony has had video games as a regular part of his life from an early age. Of particular interest for him is the world of competitive Pokémon. He was naturally quite taken by the idea of building the best teams and utilizing the best strategies when playing through the single-player campaigns, and the rise of online battle simulators provided an easy entry point to test his skills against more challenging human opponents. He also fit well into the communities surrounding the game, finding many like-minded argumentative and opinionated individuals to spend his time debating. His interests have branched out to cover pretty much any game with a reputation for challenge or a competitive ranked mode that he can find some success in, but Pokémon has remained a special comfort for him because of its depth and his own familiarity with it.

While in middle school, he joined the cross-country team. Though he had no special desire to run long distance, he did feel a need to participate in some sort of physical extracurricular for his health and for the social opportunities, and had even less attachment to any sport in particular. Unfortunately for Anthony, he proved to be extremely unsuited for it. His thick frame and lack of natural stamina were poor fits for the task, and he found the amount of work involved to be rather alarming. When spring of that year rolled around, he made another stab at the idea of running with track and field and its much shorter races. In this, he had much more success. While not a top talent by any means, he was a fairly adept sprinter, and the variety of events meant some with thin fields to distinguish himself in. He also appreciated the generally lighter exercise regimen involved.

Heading into late middle school and high school, one thing became more and more clear: he had indeed been quite a precocious child, nothing less, but certainly nothing more. His grades began to slip as more and more actual work was required of him and his capacity for absorbing information trended toward the average of his classmates' rising abilities. He rationalized these issues away as busywork that was beneath him, but after one particularly grim grading period, he stuck a deal with his parents and with himself: a B- in every class at the very least. This promise taxed him more than he would ever admit at times, but he always pulled through after that. If there was anything in his life that Anthony could be said to have achieved true mastery in, it was skating by with the minimum quantifiable work.

As Anthony continued reading every nonfiction article, book, and publication he could get his hands on, he found a recurring theme in futurism, of transhumanism and space colonization, super-materials with promises of solving the world's ills. This appealed deeply to both his penchant for science and his feelings of despair at the state of the world. There was also the bonus of seemingly obviating a lot of the nitty-gritty work required to get there. He was interested in the broader issues, and politics all seemed like narrow-minded squabbling to him. In imagining a world—or worlds—with solutions instead of scarcity and enlightenment instead of internal strife, he found a measure of comfort and optimism that he'd been sorely lacking. His tastes in reading material broadened as well, and he came to love speculative fiction of all types with detailed explorations of the underpinnings of reality and bold men steering destiny by their own hands.

Anthony's other interests, however, did progress. He became quite adept with his Rubik's cube, though the fact that this was due more to his hours of practice than innate talent hasn't really occurred to him. He continued running track as well, putting up decent performances at meets. And he has spent long hours getting into lengthy tiering discussions on forums and grinding out matches in the competitive games he plays, seeking the thrill of victory and of an objective numerical ranking with which to bolster his ego.

In the present day, Anthony maintains a decent, if slightly strained, relationship with his parents. He hasn't always been happy to bear the weight of their expectations, especially as more and more real effort was required of him, but he hasn't found the occasion or the inclination to make a real issue of it. Nor has he made a habit of falling short in any meaningful way. Looking to the future, Anthony intends to attend college and study science of some sort, though he isn't decided exactly what. He sees many fields of study within his overall interest of the grand betterment of humanity, and figures that he will find his specific passion in deeper understanding.

Advantages: Anthony is reasonably capable physically, with good dexterity and a plenty of practice running, especially over short distances. He is also somewhat intelligent, with confidence in his decisions and plenty of practice in strategizing and making swift judgement calls.
Disadvantages: Despite his good mental faculties, Anthony is still significantly less intelligent than he thinks and prone to trusting his own judgement in situations where he shouldn't. His standoffish nature doesn't lend itself well to group scenarios. He deals poorly with failure, and tends to give up or otherwise avoid engaging with situations with no clear solution.

Designated Number: Student No. 133

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Designated Weapon: AED Machine

Conclusion: Hmm... an opportunity for you to find something to love about the tech of today? Or poetic justice that the intellectual snob who thinks people are trash got something that he can only use to help others or hope they help him? You decide. - Veronica Rai