Pax Artificium - Sam Smitts (Dana Arthur, "Zuul")

Sam Smitts (Dana Arthur, "Zuul")

The teenage boy known as Sam Smitts was very sick, infected with a prion that acted much like early onset Alzheimers, but for which scientists had no direct cure. Sam's parents decided to try a radical new precedure, developed from neural jack technology, wherein an artificial neural network would be injected into his skull, with individual nodes replacing his failing neurons over time.

The operation went smoothly, but when Sam woke up, his blank stare indicated that something was wrong. Although he was told that the concerned people standing over him were his parents, he had no memory of them, or of much else for that matter.

After two more days in the hospital, he snatched some cash from his father's wallet and walked out, still in his hospital gown. Sam—who kept his given name but now prefers his online handle, Zuul—moved on to a new life, established himself as a hacker for hire on the Net, and moved to Pax Artificium.

Since the surgery, Zuul found himself to be extremely talented with computers, although even he wasn't always sure how he did it. He made a good living, but still couldn't remember a thing about his childhood.

However, when Zuul encountered a strange individual known as the Great Healer, he began having strange flashbacks. In particular, the name "Fox" kept springing to mind.

When Zuul finally met Cid, his memory flooded back to him, and he remembered his life as a woman named Dana Arthur, Cid's mother. Fox was her husband, Cid's father, now the Great Healer. Somehow, Dana's consciousness had survived and fused itself with Zuul's artificial neural network.

This realization changed little for Zuul, except to strengthen his devotion to Magitech and Cid. When the Great Healer returned and killed Cid, Zuul was saddened, but since all of his emotions were dulled by the procedure, he was not heartbroken. Instead, he buried himself in his work, helping to rebuild Pax Artificium after its destruction at the hands of Noj and the U.S. government. He now works as a Magitech technician, keeping the sensor grid and other vital but secret technologies running smoothly, and designing new defenses to protect the city.

Zuul was last seen in the Magitech HQ control tower, monitoring the Saturday group at the skylift, attempting to find the source of the wireless interference. When Matt investigated his disappearance the next day, he observed a Magitech employee with a tag reading "Robert Patrick" sneak up behind Zuul and knock him unconscious before erasing the evidence and dragging the kid away...