How It Started: Part 1

Jebidiah's life was, in short, easy. When you're the son of a world-famous surgeon, anything you want in life falls in your lap: money can buy anything, his mother always used to say. Farah Kane was a smart woman, well motivated and well respected, but it was easy enough for her son to see that she wasn't happy. He realized, quite early on, that money can not buy you happiness... And even moreso, money cannot buy you love.

As he watched his mother pine over the man she had left for "better things", Jebidiah resolved to find the woman he loved, and make her his -- forever. Though a loner and computer nerd, he was at least smart enough to understand the necessity of companionship, and -- to the best of his ability -- sought her out. The Girl, that is.

Young as he was, a small boy-ish crush led him towards a girl named Meredith, older than him but also cute, shy... You know, stuff boys like. Well, flirt with her he did... In the way that little boys flirt: teasing and taunting.

But as the years floated by, Jebidiah's crush led to grander things. Sure, he did stalk her to find out what she liked, and sure, he almost had to beat up her older sister Tana to get at her, but he finally managed to woo her in with nerdy charm. While his mother watched the man she loved marry another woman, Jeb somehow ended up dating the girl he knew he would love forever.

Yeah yeah yeah, enough with the sap already.

What Jeb didn't realize is that love... money... none of it seemed to make him all that happy. The sense of fulfillment he thought he would find just wasn't there, and as he neared adulthood, he started to think that perhaps more would make him fulfilled. It was only the tip of the iceberg, but the ways of obtaining "more" he travelled finally led him to something that, for the first time, brought him true enjoyment: the thrill of theivery.

Oh, what a dark road he was taking, but the darker it became, the better he felt; as his birthday approached when he finally would become a "man", he finally had a sense of what he wanted to do with his life... But it was a dream he shared with no one, not even the idyllic girlfriend who wandered at his side, completely oblivious. In fact, the only one who even had the slightest knowledge of his grandeur aspirations (and his little side "hobby") was his best friend, Chandra.

Since grade school, Jeb and Chandra had been 'best friends forever'; until high school, the two barely left each other's side. It was the memory from when she was small, between Jeb and her father, that gave her some insight into her friend's future -- her father, the criminal head of the town at the time, had talked a bit too much to Jeb of what his future could be like, but Chandra did well to never speak up about what she overheard. To her, it was a way to prove how much she cared for him. But when Meredith came along, things changed... All her hopes of someday making Jeb her own boyfriend and soulmate were dashed away. Needless to say, Chandra was not a happy camper.

But, there was no stopping it. Jeb's resolve to make Meredith the one woman of his life never wavered for a moment, and eventually, Chandra would come to grips with that fact. Once both were adults, he asked Meredith to move in, away from her warring and distraught family (both her parents had recently died, and her "foster" parents were not the most enjoyable folk), and life seemed to go on a smooth path.

As it stood though, neither he nor Meredith had a job. While this wasn't necessarily a problem -- his mother's income could probably feed the whole town -- he began to grow uneasy... bored. Soon enough, under the alias "Blackjack", Jeb began hacking into more and more secure mainframes, and then made his way into the most heavily firewalled system that he could find: the Crime Syndicate mainframe.

As unexplained funds began transferring into their account (funds that Farah didn't think to consider or question, as a few extra dollars here and there barely made a difference), Jebidiah's pride began to get the better of him. He began to not only transfer funds, but spread viruses into the political elections, the police databases; he even tampered with the crime lord's email, sending out goofy messages to his friend's and coworkers -- under his own alias, of course.

To him, life finally seemed perfect. He'd finally achieved the measure he'd set, and no other goal in his spotlight seemed worthy. He got cocky. He got lazy.

And that's when he got the call that changed everything.