Just don’t call him a stereotype
Compared to many who run the shadows, Kyle’s upbringing could seem almost blessed: growing up in a Wuxing corporate arcology surrounded by friends and family in the beautiful hills of California, his every need was cared for and future was all but assured the in megacorp family. That is, until some routine genetic testing showed that he would goblinize into homo sapiens ingentis, a troll. The Chinese corporation, with its placing high value on the “purity” of one’s body and soul, would not be accepting of a “lesser” metahuman among its ranks. Kyle’s parents were devastated.
Without revealing exactly why, they pulled him out of arcology education and placed him in public school where he could interact with metahumanity writ large, and perhaps to distance him from the family in the eyes of the company. True to prediction, Kyle goblinized just before senior graduation in a painful and grueling process that would shape not only his body but the rest of his life as well.
His parents found a trade school “exchange program” that saw Kyle move to Seattle to learn the inner workings of vehicle maintenance. An unglamorous job that further separated him from his corporate roots, a chance meeting with the owner of a nearly-totaled 2052 Eurocar Westwind showed him that a different life was possible. The man oozed class, style, and nuyen, and carried a heavy Ares Predator at his side with the easy confidence of someone who knew exactly how to use it. Kyle was entranced—not of the man, but of the life the man lived. “That’s what I want,” he thought to himself.
A few weeks later, Kyle was hired on his first shadowrun as muscle for a local breaking and entering job. As the global Matrix suffered its second crash in a century, destroying records and erasing histories, Kyle took advantage of the chaos to fully and completely cut his family out of his life—they had abandoned him first, after all.
Kyle is every bit the stereotypical troll the media portrays: physically powerful, mentally a bit behind the curve, and prone to sudden and extreme violence. Not having grown up among or around any troll role-models, he shaped his entire personality around the comic books and trid shows he saw. In his mind, the stereotype is exactly what trolls are.
So often do people ask how tall he is, the phrase “Nine-Four” almost falls from his lips on instinct, even if that’s not the question actually posed. For some it’s a cute affectation. For others, a sign that maybe Kyle isn’t exactly all there and that his many cybernetic enhancements have finally started taking a genuine toll.