Background

"When you’re rich, you don’t have friends; you just have endless acquaintances." - I Will Fear No Evil, Robert A. Heinlein Childhood Born with a silver spoon to a Laurentian family in Ottawa, Ontario, Felix McMorgan's life was shaped by tragedy. With his first breath, he murdered his mother, complications of childbirth, leaving a void in the family that was never filled. Felix's father, Michael McMorgan, resented him for taking away the love of his life, delegating the raising of his son to a host of servants and tutors. Though not alone, he may as well have been. His siblings, Marcel and Tamera were distant, blaming him for taking their mother away, seeing him more as a rival rather than a brother. Frequently belittled and teased, exacerbating his feelings of inadequacy and loneliness, Felix immersed himself in his studies. It was during these studies, one of the lab rats caught his eye, a particularly clever creature. A gift from a particularly eccentric geneticist tutor, Felix saw himself in it. The rodent can remember objects three times as long as its smartest peers and can better solve complicated puzzles like mazes, a consequence of experimentation of the NR2B gene. Felix found solace in his pet rat, Reepicheep, who became his closest friend and confidant, the two became... inseparable. Adolescence As Felix entered adolescence, the isolation of his childhood only deepened. His private education, though top-notch, did little to prepare him for the heartache he was feeling as Reepicheep aged, a rat's life is... brief, compared to a mans. There was one lesson that his father managed to instill in him, life is about legacy. To honor Reepicheep, he needed to create legacy. Felix, feeling increasingly adrift, developed his own eugenics program. A suitable legacy for the genius of his friend. Slowly, carefully, selecting for only the most promising of breeding stock. His obsession almost consumed him, alone and isolated for so long, a stranger in his home. In an attempt to break free from his gilded cage, Felix created an alter ego named Faun. Disguised, he ventured into the world outside the estate, seeking to experience life as ordinary people did. However, his naivety and lack of social skills often led to awkward or misguided encounters, yet he persisted. Just another maze to navigate. Outside the gates of the McMansion, there could be something more, something real. Youth By the time Felix reached his late teens, the gap between his privileged upbringing and the real world had become glaringly obvious. Faun was... not working, largely a failed experiment, he had all but given up hope relating to the plight of the plebs. He was not immune to the entitlement the upper levels of privilege's provided. At 20, His attempts to connect with others as Faun were often met with confusion or indifference, frustratingly emphasizing how out of touch he was with the lives of ordinary people. Yet in his lab, with his rats, he had an anchor to keep himself sane. Harvard, MIT, Stanford... Eight months between him and high level academia, maybe there he wouldn't be considered just the "Rat Boy". He just needed one breakthrough, one miracle, and he could finally earn his fathers praise, maybe even forgiveness for his mothers death.