Gangster by Day

Devo grew up on the streets of Italy with his single mother who did everything she could to ensure her son didn't go hungry. She died when Devo was ten from circumstances that would've been moot if they could have afforded to put her in a hospital. Devo spent his tween years among delinquents and other homeless thieves, doing what was needed to survive. A higher ranking member of the local mafia took notice of Devo, seeing potential in his skills, and approached him for recruitment. He accepted, not because he agreed with the ways of the gang, but because he felt he could be a more positive influence on those with grayer morals.

The squad Devo joined took immediate liking to him. He was charismatic and good at his job, but more importantly, he treated the fellow outcasts like family, an action that resonated with them all. Devo selflessly threw himself in the face of danger if it meant his squad would be spared, both literally and figuratively. It was due to these traits that he was promoted to capo upon the death of his squad leader.

Devo garnered a notable reputation both inside and outside the mafia, earning the nickname 'black panther' for his melanistic pelt, a moniker respected by allies and feared by foes. He became well known among the wider community as a shady yet well meaning figure.

One day, as his squad was having dinner at a bar, a drunkered opened fire on the bar patrons. True to form, Devo commanded his squad to flee as he singlehandedly took down the shooter, suffering two bullet wounds. He was admitted to the hospital, where he died soon after. His body was then discreetly abducted by the agents of research facility Theta-III. The facility's Overseer had chosen him to become the next impostor unit - an android with a double life, an operative for Theta-III working completely undercover as a high ranking member of society. They uploaded his brain into a machine designed to look indifferent from his deceased body, and XJ-0461 was born. They dispatched the unit back to the hospital and passed along the false story that his wounds were not fatal. He returned to his squad a week later.

Impostor by Night

The life of a Theta-III impostor unit is supposed to be completely seamless; the androids are capable of perfectly mimicking their organic life down to the tiniest detail, while reserving an entire separate consciousness for Theta-III relations. There was, however, a slight malfunction in the brain of XJ-0461; the mimicked personality was fully aware of the process he had underwent. He was aware that Devo was killed and repurposed for the benefit of a massive covert operation that answered to no one but itself. And he was deeply troubled by this fact.

XJ-0461 kept up the ruse he was designed to maintain, but he began to look for a way out. His defective mind wanted nothing more than to sever his ties to his masters and fully return to the life he once had, as Devo, not as a robotic operative. He couldn't go back to being organic, but he could at least remove his transmitter enabling communications with the operation. XJ-0461 knew he had to move quickly, figuring the moment the Overseer learned of his malfunction, it'd be all over.

His divergence didn't go unnoticed, though it wasn't Theta-III that discovered him - rather, an associate of theirs, a mechatronics master in control of his own operation but in a mutual relationship with Theta-III. Clockwork, through the many eyes of viral security system MINERVA, oversaw XJ-0461's struggles and peculiar predicament. The scientist offered to meet with XJ-0461 to discuss the possibility of having his transmitter removed at the cost of participating in a little experiment.

Trivia