Alyssa Margret West was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, in 1988. An only child, Alyssa was raised in wealth, her father some sort of banker - the details of which were never made clear to her - and her mother was a doctor. Forever busy, they often left Alyssa to her own devices in their large, seaside estate. It wasn't long before the young girl grew bored with the expensive toys and paid friendships that were meant to keep her entertained, and she began to withdraw from her interactions with other people.
She was homeschooled through her childhood, and as such was never really around other kids much. This, mixed with her parent's (lack of) parenting led her to be rash and confrontational when challenged by others, and she often found herself getting into fights with other kids, with simply fed into a circle of further harsh treatment and neglect by her parents. That all came to an end in 2006.
In 2006, when Alys was 18, her parents left for business in New York City. They never returned, consumed in the explosion of The Bomb. At first, Alys was unaffected. She cared little for her parents and was glad to see them gone. In theory a fortune should have been left to her, for her to do with as she pleased on the beachside. It didn't pan out that way - in fact, as she discovered once they were formally declared dead and she couldn't use her parent's credit cards anymore, the West family was deep into debt.
With everything left to her, came the debt that was attached to it all. With no way to pay back everything that was owed, Alys was left penniless. Forced to live on the streets for lack of anyone to couch surf to, Alys quickly found herself turning to crime to pay the bills. She had no idea what she was doing at first - nabbing purses and mugging like she'd seen on TV, and only some of the time did it work out for her - she at least managed to avoid arrest. She took to squatting and pawning, moving from place to place as was necessary.
It was five and a half long years of fighting to stay alive, Alys getting better and better at thefts, break ins, the occasional stint selling drugs. Always moving, always dealing, always staying under the radar. While she had no particular distaste for Evolved, she would often resell Refrain she got ahold of at a notable markup, and found amusement in the furor the Evo addicts would buy it up in.
The war that kicked up in 2012 could have started her down a more respectable path - given her purpose. Instead, she took advantage of the situation in every way she could. Quickly, she made her way to New York, where she made a job of spelunking into abandoned areas of the city, skirting around the fighting, and collecting what she could. Initially, she hoarded her findings for herself, hiding in the bombed out ruins of an apartment building. Quickly she began to see the value in selling what she found to people who needed it. She quickly moved from petty theft to dealing, in just about everything - mundane items, drugs, weapons, other contraband - anything she could get her hands on that could be sold to the highest bidder.
As the war wound down, she realised that while she had always enjoyed the thrill of crime, that it filled a gap in her life thad been there since childhood, that something was different now. With the country in many ways reset and a chance at a new beginning, she had an opportunity.
She didn't take it.
Instead, she chose to revel in the life she found herself in, becoming a cutthroat fence and "procurer of goods", dealing in everything from seemingly mundane items like food to contraband drugs and weapons. Settling into Staten Island, she is slowly on working up building up as many contacts and drumming up as much business as I can. She is ruthless and impatient, and doesn't deal well with others - but she works with them because she recognises the necessity of that.
Just don't get on her bad side.
