Gideon Townsend is the Zone 1 Traveler whom Quinn Castel is impersonating. Gideon has been dead for several months now, but no one save one contact in CHQS knows that, and Quinn’s siblings from Zone 2.
I’ve decided to put together some baseline information on Gideon to help anyone who will be interacting with him from CHQS provide a better understanding of who they likely think he is. I’ll probably add to this but if you have questions, just let me know!
NAME: Gideon Townsend AGE: 38 OCCUPATION: Traveler with CHQS Zone 1 STATUS: Deceased
BIO
Gideon had a relatively innocuous upbringing. He wasn’t top of his class by mere talent alone. No, he was the sort to work day and night to earn his merit, to earn any position he’d set his eyes on. He was tireless.
When it came to working with CHQS, he pursued a role as a Traveler, the acclaim coming with being one appealing to him. Title was always important but he felt that having worked as hard as he did, he earned his.
He would take researches between Zones, as per his Traveler’s mandate, but independently, would travel to Z3 more than Z2, favoring the place that looked better.
Of course, when one achieves their goal at such a young age, there’s a restlessness that settles in. A need to continually prove himself as capable.
–
Perhaps that’s why an unnamed benefactor saw potential in him – in the ceaseless drive to succeed. It was how they enlisted him in his smuggling between Zones, paying him handsomely to do so. It was convenient to have a Traveler who’d help fulfill jobs, help keep things moving along when there was overlap in schedules. It wasn’t a constant thing but it was enough.
Gideon was the perfect person for the job as someone who was hyper-focused on success and rank, as well as reward, and would do just about anything to preserve his reputation at the same time.
By all accounts, he was the model employee: polite to all the right people, strictly by the book (when it counted anyway), never a hair out of place.
Smuggling was just another challenge, another means to an end. Another way to rise in rank and in reputation with someone who was on track to heading up the very Zone.
–
The only other person who knew about his involvement, was a fellow Traveler –– someone who’d come up with him in training, someone he considered a friend and confidant. Someone who ultimately betrayed him. for a greater cause.
This Traveler had long since been sympathetic to the plight of Z2, having known people Hiked from Z0, and having seen firsthand the state of Z2. They were no savior, by any means, but they believed that they could affect change, somehow.
Gideon didn’t know it, but they were already helping a Z1 Doctor smuggle unauthorized Z1 medical supplies to Z2. So when Gideon mentioned the fact that Z2 was the zone to make a profit in, to get rich fast (exploiting those who were desperate for something as basic as just clean water), this person knew that the Gideon who’d entered CHQS had warped into something so many in Z1 had become. Calloused.
–
For a while, they kept up the ruse of friendship until just over a year and a half ago when they thought they saw Gideon in a Z2 marketplace, laughing with a woman selling flowers. When they realized it was Gideon’s Doppelgänger, things fell into place.
It was clear Quinn knew something was off by the way he and his people trailed Gideon. When this other Traveler approached, offering to help with the Castel’s plans, knowing they wouldn’t succeed without inside help, Quinn and his siblings agreed, though not without prolonged debate and weighing of their options.
–
Six months ago, Gideon went further out in Amhaven, to make a deal with some Raiders. Little did he knew what was waiting for him on the outskirts of the city. The betrayal of one: the switching out of supplies that would’ve otherwise kept him healthy in Z2. The ambush of three: cutting him off from his means of transport, letting the symptoms associated with distance from CHQS in the wrong Zone creep up on him.
The last thing Gideon saw before his ultimate death was his own reflection, looking down at him with contempt.
–
QUICK FACTS
Gideon always played by the rules. No one but the person who approached him and his Traveler connection know he didn’t.
Gideon was respectful, dutiful, put together and seemingly a stickler for protocol. He followed everything to a tee, always (or seemed to). He was definitely someone who worked late, seeming to focus all his energies on his job.
He wore suits and generally very nice Z1 attire in his day-to-day at CHQS.
His parents had died several years ago, and he had no siblings.
He was quite good at card games and found the old-fashioned-ness of them amusing.
TL;DR: think put together, by the books Wall Streeter...seemingly perfect and upstanding on the outside but really just out for himself/profit/rank/respect.
