Artem Artyomovich Khalilov

[artem khalilov]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=style, width: 450px; border-bottom: 2px dashed #E5E5E5; padding-bottom: 5px;] #209 Artem a. Khalilov ✘ AGE twenty-four ✘ GENDER male ✘ SEXUALITY heterosexual ✘ APPEARANCE As a child he looked like his brother, but as an adult this uncanny resemblance has waned. He is of below average height – 5’8” – and has narrow shoulders, but this disadvantageous build is backed up by a lean, muscular physique and the coordination to make the most of his hard-earned strength. Despite his excellent reflexes he has his share of scars crisscrossing his fair skin, many from street brawls or recklessness on his part: pale scars on his forearms, sloppy scars on his torso and abdomen, marks and nicks on his back and shoulders. His carelessness shows in the small burns on his hands and the fingers crooked from being broken multiple times; the constant bruises on his hands, chest, and bony waist make it clear that he isn’t one to be cautious. His facial features, however, still seem like an echo of his brother. Artem’s face is quite angular, with high, prominent cheekbones, full lips. His eyes are a dark, reddish brown, speckled with various other shades and edged with short, dark eyelashes. He’ll allow wispy facial hair to grow along his jaw and upper lip, but he can’t manage a full beard. Artem doesn’t put a lot of effort into his appearance, and it shows; during his time in the Gallows, where survival is a bit more important than hygiene, he’ll likely be unclean and unshaven for days on end, and his short, uneven nails will likely collect a bit of dirt. Despite his age it’s not unusual for him to have a smattering of acne across his cheeks and shoulders. His russet hair splays across his face in haphazard bangs and curls almost to his chin. While not particularly vain, Artem always preferred ‘Western’ clothing, particularly jeans and leather jackets. He has a small tattoo of a tryzub just under his collarbone in black ink, and his prisoner number – 209 – tattooed on the back of his neck. ✘ FACE CLAIM [color=000000]✔[/color] amnesia - shin – artem khalilov ✘ PERSONALITY Well, Artem’s certainly not the life of the party. Serious in most situations, it’s difficult for him to relax if there’s even a minor task that requires (or, in the future, will require) his attention. Once he has a goal, he is dedicated and hardworking in reaching it, dissatisfied until he’s completed it in its entirety – ‘good enough’ never is. Though he’s methodical in planning out how to meet his own goals, he doesn’t have the same respect for demands foisted up him by others, shirking from ‘duties’ and ‘responsibilities’ if he deems them a waste of his time. When he has a cause to rally behind, Artem is deeply passionate about it, dedicating himself to the mission with a single-minded dedication that borders (and, under the right conditions, verges right into) a frightening obsession. He’ll neglect or endanger himself if his own well-being conflicts with his aim. When wrapped up in one of his noble crusades, common human decency can quite easily be pushed to the side. If someone – if someone innocent – has to die, then so be it. For the greater good. This rare passion and devotion makes him a formidable enemy but a reliable ally – and, if you use the right words, easier to manipulate than he’d like to admit. His talents don’t lie in book-learning, and he’s of average intelligence, but in emergencies he’ll be one of the first to react. He won’t freeze up when faced with a gun pointed at his forehead or an angry dinosaur at his heels; it’ll be hours later when the dire reality really sets in. In the meantime he’ll keep himself alive and savor the adrenaline. In social situations Artem is not quite as smooth. Honesty is a rare quality on an island populated by deviants and criminals, and he has enough to pass around, so long as you don’t pry. In conversation this trait comes out as unintentional bluntness. He’ll tell you exactly what he thinks of you or how bleak a given situation is. Most of his life he’s spent around the same familiar faces, or easing from one set of contacts to a mixture of old and new; when dropped into a lot of strangers he’ll seem standoffish, more to cover up his own awkwardness and discomfort than anything else. Despite his clumsiness he’s not necessarily an entirely unpleasant person – there’s no conscious racism (unless you consider android a race instead of an abomination) or sexism that will rear its ugly head. Artem doesn’t think of himself as having a hair-trigger temper, but if he was as calm and even-tempered as he seems to think he is, he wouldn’t have his set of scars. That he doesn’t raise is voice often in seriousness doesn’t mean that ‘cold, silent fury’ isn’t compatible with ‘choleric’ and ‘aggressive.’ Find the fight words and it’s not difficult to bait him into a physical altercation. Artem has his faults (and he has them in abundance), but he’s not cruel. On an island rife with murderers and sadists, he’s far from the worst. ✘ LIKES Electronic or experimental music the smell of ink certain types of clothing: boots, scarves, real fur, 'Western' clothing physical competitions the countryside listening to or speaking languages other than his first dogs odd numbers beef stew oil or gas lamplight ✘ DISLIKES cigarette smoke warm weather classical music playing piano idleness cats fishing gambling liars ghost stories even numbers ✘ CRIMES treason terrorism homicide attempted homicide illegal possession of explosives property damage ✘ HABITS scratching and pulling at his skin when anxious grinding his teeth sleeping lightly ✘ PHOBIAS losing his privacy being strangled ✘ POSSESSIONS outfit: a dark red shirt with a black design, black leather jacket, jeans, a belt, work boots weapon: hunting knife ✘ HISTORY The word was at war and life was cheap, wiped out by impersonal bombs by the thousands, claimed by faceless famine by many more. Whole continents were doused in flame or reduced to inhospitable deserts. The peace and prosperity of earlier years was lifetimes ago, but the wife and her husband decided to start their family in her native Kiev. Times were hard everywhere, and the ancient city was as safe as any other. Their first son was a healthy boy, perfect in their eyes, named Artem Artyomovich Khalilov. The mother worked as a seamstress and the father at a factory to support their little family, and their son lacked nothing he wanted: toys, clothes, sweets on Sundays. As he grew older he found a proclivity for music, playing his grandmother’s piano, recreating folk songs he’d heard in the streets on the keys. He was the little scholar, the little musician, the boy – and son, young man – who was the symbol of their changing fortune. Perhaps the war had robbed the father of his family’s wealth and the mother of her brothers, but it would not take their child. He was fifteen when his school was firebombed. He died instantly. This is not his story. Losing a child was a common enough occurrence when you were never sure what winter would bring and a desperate stranger’s gun could cut it short at any moment, but the apathy of the world didn’t lessen their suffering. They were not as young as they once had been. Artem was not only their light but their life, the only one who would carry their name to the next generations. Every night was pent praying and lighting candles so that his soul could find its way home. After five years of loneliness Elizaveta became pregnant again, and there was no doubt in either of their minds that this was their son brought back to them. When the child was born it was imperfect but acceptable, and it was given the same name, and it was told that it was its dead brother. And that, the second Artem would find, was a heavy burden to shoulder. He looked uncannily like his predecessor, a likeness that became more apparent as he matured, but in disposition and talents the two were nothing alike. The first had been mild-mannered, content to be locked inside with his studies. His replacement couldn’t be so easily contained, preferring to roam the narrow alleys with his ragtag pack of friends than to be shuttered inside, and he had no interest or talent in pounding away at the piano, trying half-heartedly to coax a song from its shrill strings. He tried, though. He tried his best. When the factory closed, his father couldn’t find another job. It was the dead of winter. Every job was filled and the soup kitchen lines snaked around blocks; by the time you reached it, the tureen was empty. Out of desperation he robbed a store. For the first time in weeks there was an abundance of food at dinner that night. The next morning his father was arrested and subsequently executed. Being ten years old and fatherless was not an unusual handicap in the city. Being fourteen years old and watching your mother die of pneumonia was the natural sequel. It made Artem the equal of many of his friends. He could have – should have – moved in with his mother’s sister after that, his closest living relative. Instead he joined a few of his friends who lived with and worked for a magnanimous printer. His pay was room and board and a meal. It was warm. He wanted nothing more. The printer’s son and apprentice was a man who had known the original Artem, and he had a good laugh upon learning that the second stubbornly believed he was the first. He took to calling Artem “Splinter;” not a chip off the old block so much as an annoying, pitiful splinter of it. Despite the rationale he didn’t mind the nickname. Some of his friends left the press as the grew older, taking other jobs wherever they could, living in an apartment complex that should have been condemned years ago, enjoying their independence. Artem, pairing puberty with black market syringes and back alley cuts, kept his job but joined them in their hovel. He was sixteen before he could look at himself and see a unique creature instead of a shadow of his brother. Even then, sometimes it felt as if he had the ghost of a boy he’d never met breathing down his neck. Most of the time Artem was able to put aside such superstitious thoughts – he had enough to keep him distracted. The war was over. Androids held the power. At night, when he and his friends would loiter in pubs, they’d hear people complain about the power shift. It was their earth, their country, the one founded on their flesh and blood. It was disgusting, despicable to be ruled by machines. Sometimes there would be talk of doing something about it. Splinter and a couple of his friends fell in with a group who fancied themselves freedom fighters, a cell of a group dispersed throughout eastern Europe. There were little acts of defiance here and there, petty robberies and dissemination of subversive material and the like, but when the sentence is death by exile for every crime, even something as minor as theft was an incredible burst of adrenaline. During the day he’d toil at the press, and at night he’d print inflammatory pamphlets calling Kiev’s sons and daughters to arms. In the winter they planned a grander scheme, and in the spring they executed it. Nine o’clock in the morning. Clear, cold day. They could hear the church bells ringing. In Warsaw the town hall was burning, and in Moscow a band was fighting their way into the prison to liberate condemned prisoners. In Kiev, Artem and his comrades blew up a bank. They were stepping it up a bit. That night they sat around the radio, listening to the world government crush the other revolts. No one else had risen to overthrow the robots. They hadn’t kicked the hornet’s nest so much as stuck their head in it. In the morning they were arrested, to no one’s surprise. You couldn’t expect much from boys, barely men, playing at rebellion. Artem was in custody for a scarce two weeks. Preliminary interrogations made it clear that he barely knew the scope of the Kiev underground, much less the connections crisscrossing the eastern half of the continent. Useless to their efforts, he was sent to the Gallows to atone for his treason. Death by exile. He’d never mattered much.

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