Fester
Jacob Kimbedjian- Friesen (a.k.a. Fester)
The near perpetual Vancouver rain held off until the Idless truck fuelled up in Langley, off Highway 1. Baiko sat on Ego, Fester and Mog’s bed, until her tea felt as cold as… no. Her lungs rose and fell, more tears wouldn’t serve. Fester stripped Baiko’s blouse and eased her into one of Mog’s hand-knit sweaters.
“We’ll reach the Spuzzum Grid by nightfall. Always better sleeping, when you’ve got others around you that won’t shiv ya in the night.” Fester tried on a haggard smile, ducked out without waiting for Baiko to face her. The road was flanked by a relentless phalanx of cars and trucks, until they passed Chilliwack. Sunset struck in bands of orange and red across the Western sky, dashes of pink muted through one-way mirrored glass.
One third of the Idless throuple who rescued Baiko from Vancouver, Fester is a talented and hardworking hacker, navigator and gardener. She lives on the road with her lovers Ego and Mog, and was known to stop for extended periods every spring, summer and autumn to ensure the Idless Grid gardens were tended right.
In 2092, their attempted escape from the Conglom failed. Fester, Mog and their two children Nasrin & Viggo were captured and taken to Conglom HQ in Vancouver, one part hostages, one part interrogated for any info on Ego, Baiko or Lieben.
Species
Homo SapiensProgeny
Nasrin KimbedjianViggo Kimbedjian
Common Locations
Spuzzum GridThe Conglomerate of Gaia
Identifying Features
Auburn hair around sparkling blue eyes, Fester's chin and facial features softened after years on hormone replacement therapy. Another gift, the Conglom scientist Robert Dunlevy paid to have facial feminization surgery done in hopes the thankful Fester would break, and give intel on where Ego and Baiko Kaho went. While Fester was grateful, she kept mum.
Physical Quirks
In moments of stress, Fester chews on the strands of hair she keeps longer on her right side. Every day she does kalisthenics and gardens in whatever communal garden space she can find.
Personal History
Born into an Old Order Mennonite compound in South America, the child born Jacob Friesen never fit within the confines of their deliberate gender binary. Life was hard, and as Jacob grew, they bucked against the religious and restrictive life they were forced to live. That is, until two Idless, Mog and Ego asked for some gasoline in trade for a day's hard work.
What followed was a brush with freedom, when Jacob spent hours with the couple learning of their nomadic life. Of culture and the world outside, which survived an entire war unawares. That night, Jacob packed a single bag and ran into the dark.
Mog opened her wardrobe, tailoring one of her dresses to fit the questioning person right, as Ego put miles between the compound and their nomadic tiny home.
Romance blossomed in the way Ego took to calling her baby girl, to cleansing her of the strangeness of the new world. Then, with a few hesitant kisses, long talks under the starry sky on their rooftop tent, a blessed love with Mog. They were a throuple in a society which expunged definitions, moving between Grids, when their exclusivity raised too many brows.
Those brows continued to raise, when Fester and Mog conceived prior to her bottom surgery, and they planned to keep the child despite Idless' demands of a communal creche.
2085
After the Debut, Fester continued to travel with Ego, Mog, their children and Baiko Kaho with a new mission to find Lieben. Fester used her hacking skills and contacts around the world (mostly former missionary and the religiously deconstructed to find leads and fill in blanks. During this time period, Ego worked odd jobs and backroom deals to get Fester what she desperately needed: surgical transition to the feminine body her gender dysmorphic mind knew belonged.
Read how, in NEON Lieben
Social Contacts
Fester went through the Idless ritual of Lessening, and had the entirety of her life's information wiped from the globe. Not that there was much, raised off-grid as she was in the middle of Peru. The Idless became her family, each Grid with new people to meet and learn from. Yet, Ego and Mog were special. They whispered secrets in the dark and stayed together, without the ebb and flow other Idless caravans seemed famous for.
In 2090, Fester, Mog and their two children Nasrin & Viggo were captured by The Conglomerate of Gaia. Suddenly, Fester and Mog had nobody but each other, two mothers clinging to their babies to keep enough of themselves despite the prison of grandeur around them.
To keep her family together, despite odds, cultural labels or nosy outsiders.
To transition in peace, with the loving support of her spouses.
To escape and reunite Ego with his wives and children.
- Loyal
- Ethically Grounded
- A swift right hook
- Religious Deconstruction in Progress
- Jealousy
- Indignant with Over-Waterers
Keeping her children, wife Mog & their family dog Nimba in enough comfort, while she weathers the constant Conglom psychological assaults.
Resilience is her superpower.
That and knowing what to do with wilting petunias.
“Go. Go, Ego!” Mog screamed over scattered fire, dove back into the truck-home as Fester geared down and peeled out. Tires trailed rubber. Attempted to overcome the heavy mobile home’s standing friction.
"Mog! Fester!" Ego ached as he lost sight of Fester in the mirror of the truck they built together. Improved on the road with detritus left behind by the corporate ones, who bought without limit. No bullet hurt more than watching his lovers and their children drive away.
Amazon Top 300 Cyberpunk + Genetic Engineering Sci-Fi
"I never thought science fiction could be so beautiful."
AI meets gene-splicers, when the Idless & the Conglom fight to define Lieben and thus, the world. Seven decades later, Aderastos sets the human race against its’ next stage in evolution, if he can survive long enough to rescue his fellows, and Max.
Will Lieben help, or hinder?
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