Born well-to-do in Colorado, Albert Gatter was a scion of old money — his family wasn't in the top one percent, but they were rich enough that money wasn't ever particularly a problem, either. The most notable event of his early life was that his father began showing signs of neurological degeneration early on, some sort of early onset degenerative disease; the slow and inexorable progress of the degeneration sparked an early interest in young Albert's mind with the workings of body and mind, and how they interfaced, one that would lead him towards the medical field. Fortunately, his intellect was apparent even from a young age; he had no issue securing scholarships to pay college tuition.
Gatter was in California, working through a meticulously planned course of studies for a Ph.D. in neurology when the Bomb hit; as such, he himself was spared. His father, however, had been in New York, participating in a study for an experimental treatment, and his mother with him. His mother died immediately; his father died shortly thereafter from injuries sustained. The double-whammy sent him into a free-fall; he withdrew from his studies and spent a few months first in a haze, then in a depressive funk. The revelation of the Evolved was a further blow to Gatter's sense of reality, an Outside Context Problem that sent him noping right off over the horizon.
So he liquidated his assets, sent his funds over to a bank in Europe, and took a holiday from real, roaming the continent. Seeing the sights, eating a nice dinner now and again or having a little expensive wine, visiting clubs, climbing mountains, taking train rides to new places, grounding himself. Pulling himself together, and, finally stepping back out into the world.
He'd picked an interesting time for it, a time in which even the nature of what it meant to be human was up for debate… and that debate was intense and often ugly. The sheer amount of anti-Evo sentiment was frankly alarming; Gatter was exceedingly lucky to avoid getting into significant trouble, as he'd never been one well-suited to suffering fools. If there was one positive to this, though, it was that it exposed Gatter to a school of thought he hadn't delved into before: transhumanism. This was what finally reignited Gatter's fire, and sent him back to school to pursue further studies. The Evolved, in a way, had already transcended the previous definition of humanity, but what about the rest? For them, science would be the path forward. The world was waiting; what was he doing?
Gatter's second round of studies was intense and varied, and he pursued with it an almost maniacal determination — the drive that had characterized him early on had returned with a vengeance, and he meant to make up for lost time. The Second American Civil War had a lot to do with that; it was a firestorm viewed from across the sea, scorching his homeland to ash, drowning it beneath a tidal wave of blood. Gatter did his best not to pay attention to it, which gave him further incentive to withdraw, isolating himself from most of his contemporaries. He ended up shifting from a hedonistic, free-flowing existence to one of almost monklike seclusion, focusing on cramming as much knowledge into his own brain as he could.
In 2016 he wrapped up his studies and moved on; there were a number of start-ups investing in cybernetics and prosthetic technology, and they were all hungry for researchers. By 2019, though, he became aware of a growing sense of something he could only characterize as homesickness; as his work on his current project began to draw to a close, he began making plans for a return to America, to see what had become of his home.
