Profile
He/Him, 26
The son of a Greek CFO mother and a constantly travelling Neo-Hawaiian father, Aukai Keawe is a drifting cyborg drug addict war veteran just trying to get a job and sober up.
He was born in Neo-Hawaii- now a Japanese territory after the Mid-Pacific War of 2092- in 2105, where he attended school until he signed up for the military at the age of 16 and was sent overseas for two tours in different countries. In school, he showed promise in engineering and programming and built several computers and one from scratch. He was destined to go to college, but his severe depression and anxiety prevented him from reaching for his goals. He has an addictive personality that caused him to start smoking. He tried to commit suicide the year after he enlisted, regretting his decision. This resulted in him getting metal plates put in his wrists to prevent such further attempts.
Things got a little better in the army, and he made a bunch of new friends. It impacted him so much that he went back for a second tour. He felt like he had a purpose in the army, something he had never felt that he had. This is also where he met Charlie, in an online forum while he was overseas. They started long-distance dating and made plans to meet up in real life in the Chicago suburbs. After he returned from his second tour, his mother begged him not to reenlist and he didn't. (He's a momma's boy). He then met Charlie and moved in with her. He got more depressed and turned to harder drugs after trying to enter the workforce and was even arrested on drug charges. His mother feared his depression and addictive tendencies so she bought him an android assistant to watch over him. He tried to keep this hidden from Charlie but he couldn't control himself. They got into a fight and broke up. Aukai had nowhere to live so he bounced around couches for a week before he sent his assistant to get groceries and tried to hang himself. She got back before he could finish and took him to the hospital.
After he got out of the hospital, he stopped talking to Charlie and his mother because he didn't want Charlie to blame herself. He started work at a new temp agency shortly after, mostly working in factories and packing trucks. He took every job that was offered and often worked 70 hours a week just to fill his time. He became more successful and started earning money, got his own apartment, and met new people, but he started getting more depressed as well. He had started talking to Charlie again and things were going better. However, his vet benefits weren't going very far, and he started having chronic joint pain from injuries he received and the constant stress on his body from the various jobs he worked and the hours he was working. One night, after work, he got into a fight with the assistant about his frequent smoking and drinking and he ended up turning her off. he then tried to slit his throat but didn't bleed out. His landlady found him after his neighbors had reported sounds like domestic abuse and she called an ambulance.
After two throat-based suicide attempts, Aukai was given his head and neck robotics to repair the damage he had done and to also prevent further such attempts. He and Charlie got closer again, as she spent more time with him trying to help. They even started dating again and life was doing better once more. But that never lasts. The chronic pain hadn't gone away, and he was living on his own again, this time with the android unable to be turned off. He felt like a child under constant supervision and resented his mother. So, when a fellow line worker introduced him to an illegal painkiller he got hooked. And then he met Fluke.
Fluke is a highly successful drug dealer ringleader who pedals mostly cyborg drugs Charge+, Electron, and NegIon, stimulants and painkillers specifically made for cyborgs. He lied to Charlie about not doing drugs once he had started and she believed him hesitantly. She was suspicious about how he never seemed to have money despite all the hours he was working, or how he would come home busted up every once in a while. All of this culminated in Aukai being busted by Alti, a bounty hunter renowned for being the #3 in the region. He spent the night in prison but was bailed out when Charlie came to pick him up. They had a fight, and three days later broke up again. It has been two months since their breakup when Quota begins.
The events of Quota are a cyberpunk drama. Aukai gets picked up by the famous bounty hunter veteran, Alti, who becomes a mentor and pseudo father figure to him. This mentorship gets him back on his feet as Aukai finds his place in bounty hunting.
