backstory.
The first time she beat the odds, she was adopted. It goes like the start of a fairytale: A loving couple in the U.S.A. adopts a young girl from a Chinese orphanage. She's adorable and smart and perfect in every way; everything her new parents want. A few years later, she goes off to her first day of school with a new outfit, brand-new crayons and pencils, and a backpack that's a little too big for her. Unfortunately, it didn't last.
Fast-forward to fourth grade, the beginning of test-taking and grades. A few months into the school year, everyone was complaining about the upcoming test. Some kid dared her to steal the test, figure out what was on it, and report to everyone else. Friends helping friends out, right? Kristen was a good girl, Kristen could get away with it. And she did want to see her friends do well.
She didn't get caught that time, or the time after. Instead, someone else in the class got uncomfortable and ratted her out to the teacher in the spring. One test would've been one thing, but she'd turned it into a pattern, and she was expelled. At the second school, two years later, she got caught swapping tests with someone else and was expelled without a question. No one seemed to understand that her friend needed those good grades, or else her parents would hit her. Kristen didn't have a choice, she had to help. But with her track record, no amount of pleading could convince the school.
Exhausted and no longer sure what to do with her, her parents moved her to a third school. She swore to keep her head down and be good this time, but it's tough to do that when your reputation precedes you. A classmate's father saw her potential and recruited her to do some work on the side, "to make her parents proud." They fed her some story about proving she was smart and earning some money to make up for what she'd put her parents through. She should've seen a pattern. She should've realized something. But she was so damn desperate to fix things that she went along with it.
So began her introduction to crime, at age 13. She started small, going over to that classmate's house every weekend to talk shop and hang around the crew, picking up techniques as she went. The tension erupted a few weeks later, when they expressed doubts about her age, but her classmate's father-- the one who'd brought her in in the first place-- reassured them she would be worth it. Unconvinced, they took her on a test spin through the mall, where she shoplifted whatever they asked her to in order to prove herself. Afterward, she pointed out other vulnerabilities in the security system they could have exploited. The crew was sold on her. With a little encouragement, a little punishment, a little competition and a lot of camaraderie, she improved rapidly and was providing crucial intel for all the crew's heists by the time she was 16. A little weekend fun turned into planning and research every day after school at her classmate's house. Her parents thought she had a boyfriend she was particularly devoted to, which was a little worrying-- but she wasn't cheating, she was keeping her head down in school and making exceptional grades, and from their point of view, things were finally getting better for her. Three years at this new school already, and there was no sign of any trouble yet. No one could have suspected that Kristen-- quiet, good little Kristen-- was secretly right in the middle of this criminal organization.
Juggling the two lives came with its own adrenaline rush, and it felt like she'd finally beaten the odds again. Their heists got grander and more complicated. They called her Charlie, from Charlotte, after Charles Ponzi-- because she was juggling so many different ideas and holding up so many lies that were liable to collapse with one misstep. Thinking about the next score consumed her. Unable to stop her brain's frantic pace, she started using codeine to sleep, and then stimulants to stay awake. As long as her grades stayed up in school, she couldn't get caught, so it didn't matter--
Until a heist went horribly wrong. She wasn't counting on one of the crew members being seduced by an undercover FBI agent. The group splintered, most of them ending up in prison. The few of them who managed to stay out went underground-- literally. Aged 17, when everyone else in school was worrying about who they were going to junior prom with, Kristen disappeared.
Somehow, she stayed out of prison even though it was her plan that had broken the group in the first place-- and the few crew members remaining made sure she knew that. She had beaten the odds, but not in the way they wanted. They retreated to a safehouse, locked Kristen up in a cell conveniently located there (historically used for holding hostages, she assumed), and struggled to figure out where to go from there.
She doesn't remember how bad it got. She doesn't remember what injuries she ended up with, or what drugs they sedated her with. She doesn't remember one of Grimm's units coming in and blowing the place up, or the way they nearly didn't extract her, not sure she would be useful anymore. She doesn't remember striking her deal with Grimm. What she remembers is coming to a few days later, everything suddenly sharp and bright, when someone offhandedly commented that she was lucky to be here. Lucky. She nearly started laughing, but they were right. This was the start of a new life, a life she was lucky to have at all at this point.
The story came out in bits and pieces, little fragments she strung together from listening to other people talk. Officially, she was dead. She'd been missing for months before Grimm got to her, and after her extraction, Grimm had planted evidence to suggest she was dead. It was the gift of a new life-- and the gift of a purpose. Malnourished, injured, and strung out on drugs she didn't even know, she wasn't much use to Grimm when her body was only working for a few excruciating hours every day-- and her brain, even less. It might have gotten her by in her old crew, but Grimm demanded a new standard of achievement.
And oh, she planned to meet it.
She immersed herself in learning again, first relearning and then building on everything she'd learned in the old crew. Back then, someone else had handled most of the hacking and acquisition-- she just looked at the materials and pulled plans and patterns out of them, occasionally went out and tried to talk information out of someone. So she's had to fill in a few gaps, but it's been fun. She got herself clean from everything except ritalin and adderall-- and those don't hurt her, not really. Sometimes caffeine just doesn't cut it. It took a solid year before she was ready to even think about joining a team. But when she was ready, she officially became part of the Dragons Unit, taking on the codename "Cri-Kee." She stopped talking about the past, stopped thinking about the past. She's here now; that's all that matters and all that anyone else needs to know.
Nineteen now, it looks like she's beaten the odds again. But she's still waiting to see if she gets a happy ending.
Fast-forward to fourth grade, the beginning of test-taking and grades. A few months into the school year, everyone was complaining about the upcoming test. Some kid dared her to steal the test, figure out what was on it, and report to everyone else. Friends helping friends out, right? Kristen was a good girl, Kristen could get away with it. And she did want to see her friends do well.
She didn't get caught that time, or the time after. Instead, someone else in the class got uncomfortable and ratted her out to the teacher in the spring. One test would've been one thing, but she'd turned it into a pattern, and she was expelled. At the second school, two years later, she got caught swapping tests with someone else and was expelled without a question. No one seemed to understand that her friend needed those good grades, or else her parents would hit her. Kristen didn't have a choice, she had to help. But with her track record, no amount of pleading could convince the school.
Exhausted and no longer sure what to do with her, her parents moved her to a third school. She swore to keep her head down and be good this time, but it's tough to do that when your reputation precedes you. A classmate's father saw her potential and recruited her to do some work on the side, "to make her parents proud." They fed her some story about proving she was smart and earning some money to make up for what she'd put her parents through. She should've seen a pattern. She should've realized something. But she was so damn desperate to fix things that she went along with it.
So began her introduction to crime, at age 13. She started small, going over to that classmate's house every weekend to talk shop and hang around the crew, picking up techniques as she went. The tension erupted a few weeks later, when they expressed doubts about her age, but her classmate's father-- the one who'd brought her in in the first place-- reassured them she would be worth it. Unconvinced, they took her on a test spin through the mall, where she shoplifted whatever they asked her to in order to prove herself. Afterward, she pointed out other vulnerabilities in the security system they could have exploited. The crew was sold on her. With a little encouragement, a little punishment, a little competition and a lot of camaraderie, she improved rapidly and was providing crucial intel for all the crew's heists by the time she was 16. A little weekend fun turned into planning and research every day after school at her classmate's house. Her parents thought she had a boyfriend she was particularly devoted to, which was a little worrying-- but she wasn't cheating, she was keeping her head down in school and making exceptional grades, and from their point of view, things were finally getting better for her. Three years at this new school already, and there was no sign of any trouble yet. No one could have suspected that Kristen-- quiet, good little Kristen-- was secretly right in the middle of this criminal organization.
Juggling the two lives came with its own adrenaline rush, and it felt like she'd finally beaten the odds again. Their heists got grander and more complicated. They called her Charlie, from Charlotte, after Charles Ponzi-- because she was juggling so many different ideas and holding up so many lies that were liable to collapse with one misstep. Thinking about the next score consumed her. Unable to stop her brain's frantic pace, she started using codeine to sleep, and then stimulants to stay awake. As long as her grades stayed up in school, she couldn't get caught, so it didn't matter--
Until a heist went horribly wrong. She wasn't counting on one of the crew members being seduced by an undercover FBI agent. The group splintered, most of them ending up in prison. The few of them who managed to stay out went underground-- literally. Aged 17, when everyone else in school was worrying about who they were going to junior prom with, Kristen disappeared.
Somehow, she stayed out of prison even though it was her plan that had broken the group in the first place-- and the few crew members remaining made sure she knew that. She had beaten the odds, but not in the way they wanted. They retreated to a safehouse, locked Kristen up in a cell conveniently located there (historically used for holding hostages, she assumed), and struggled to figure out where to go from there.
She doesn't remember how bad it got. She doesn't remember what injuries she ended up with, or what drugs they sedated her with. She doesn't remember one of Grimm's units coming in and blowing the place up, or the way they nearly didn't extract her, not sure she would be useful anymore. She doesn't remember striking her deal with Grimm. What she remembers is coming to a few days later, everything suddenly sharp and bright, when someone offhandedly commented that she was lucky to be here. Lucky. She nearly started laughing, but they were right. This was the start of a new life, a life she was lucky to have at all at this point.
The story came out in bits and pieces, little fragments she strung together from listening to other people talk. Officially, she was dead. She'd been missing for months before Grimm got to her, and after her extraction, Grimm had planted evidence to suggest she was dead. It was the gift of a new life-- and the gift of a purpose. Malnourished, injured, and strung out on drugs she didn't even know, she wasn't much use to Grimm when her body was only working for a few excruciating hours every day-- and her brain, even less. It might have gotten her by in her old crew, but Grimm demanded a new standard of achievement.
And oh, she planned to meet it.
She immersed herself in learning again, first relearning and then building on everything she'd learned in the old crew. Back then, someone else had handled most of the hacking and acquisition-- she just looked at the materials and pulled plans and patterns out of them, occasionally went out and tried to talk information out of someone. So she's had to fill in a few gaps, but it's been fun. She got herself clean from everything except ritalin and adderall-- and those don't hurt her, not really. Sometimes caffeine just doesn't cut it. It took a solid year before she was ready to even think about joining a team. But when she was ready, she officially became part of the Dragons Unit, taking on the codename "Cri-Kee." She stopped talking about the past, stopped thinking about the past. She's here now; that's all that matters and all that anyone else needs to know.
Nineteen now, it looks like she's beaten the odds again. But she's still waiting to see if she gets a happy ending.