Tal Remick
Conzec student, 19 years old. Highly intelligent,
sensitive, and curious. After the death of his mother when he was a young
child,Tal lived for a time with his father, Odel Remick, an ex-high level
Systems Designer who was exiled to Recon 5 on the Outer Boardz during the
Great Purges. Realizing that Recon 5 could not provide sufficient education
for his son, Odel sent Tal to Recon 1 to complete his schooling, arranging
for the boy to live with an old friend, Inztitut Professor Julius Carenz
and his daughter.
Graduating in the top 10% of his class from
Recon 1 QSU (Quad Services Unit) skool, Tal's score on the Inztitut Entrance
Exam placed him first for Innner Boardz applicants in the class of 1002.
Admitted in 999, Tal began his studies, intending, like his father before
him, to specialize in design in the Science Skool.
During his first months at the Inztitut, Tal,
like many first year students, was heavily influenced, first by the noted
Accelerationist Edo Mezner, then by the "cynic," Don Renard Vole.
Inspiring and incisve, both Dons brilliantly manipulated students toward
their views in the classroom. But Tal gradually rejected both extremes as
he developed a friendship with the gentler, somewhat mysterious, and less
strident Don Germane Munro, known by Inztitut students as "Old Dusty."
Sensing a deeper flame burning in Tal than in most other students, "Old
Dusty" soon became Tal's informal mentor.
Guided by "Old Dusty," Tal gained
an appreciation for history, old hardcopy books, and other old "forgotten"
things of The Quadrant. When he and "Old Dusty" discovered The
Portal in a long unused lnztitut library basement, the old professor's hints
and suspicions about its importance led Tal to experiment with the machine.
Incredibly, he found evidence from the era of The Great Purges which cleared
his father's name.
Supervised by the deadly Weemer, Kronstadt's
spies became aware of the Portal and informed their master, who ordered
them to seize it at once. In a mad dash to retrieve the prize to service
their master's ends, Kronstadt's henchmen inadvertently forced Tal to flee
from the Inztitut, taking The Portal with him. Realizing he was now a hunted
man, Tal resolved to keep The Portal out of the hands of the "enemy,"
and to use it to plumb the secrets of The Quadrant's past, hoping to discover
a way to avert coming war and destruction.