Background

Beckie's life begans in Seattle as one of four children who grew up in poor family circumstances together with her parents. Her mother, who had spent her entire life in Seattle as a nurse and married a man from Canada who worked as an automotive mechatronics technician, he founded a workshop right next to her house after he left Canada for her. After the marriage and the birth of their four children, the family creates a good life and builded a better relationship between both familys. Beckie, like her older sister and two older brothers, received a solid education, although only her sister was able to complete a medical degree. Her brothers enlisted in the Navy, where they spent many years far away from the family. The relationship with her sister was stronger as with her brothers, they spended much time together, mostly with sports, shopping or longer biking trips across the woods. Beckie herself did not take the importance of her education too seriously and loves much more to work on various vehicles with her father, until she decided to pursue this career for the rest of her life after graduating. While she was able to earn a few dollars early on in her father's workshop, she also worked for friends in the neighborhood on their friends' vehicles, which they then enjoyed off-roading. The later years of her youth was wild, when she began to drive illegal races in the woods with selfmade off-road vehicles. Even though the races were harmless, betting still tooks a place there, and Beckie quickly accumulated a considerable amount of debt. To solve these bet-problems before her parents found out, she opted for riskier races where significantly higher stakes were involved. The audience increasingly came from dubious circles, and crime increasingly crept in among the young people. Beckie suffered a serious accident during one of the races that left a burn mark on her right cheek. She also lost both of her front teeth. Furthermore, the family was saddled with high medical bills, and Beckie was forced to confess her hobby and her strange connections. When an incredible number of daisies sprouted from the ground everywhere in 1998, it was a good opportunity for Beckie, (after six months was finally allowed to drive her self-constructed off-road buggy again, as long as it wasn't on the racetrack) to create great artworks with the tires in the endless flower meadows. However, by 1999 the news of the sick people was piling up and very soon it was decided that it was wiser to stay inside the Seattle QZ, wearing respiratory protection at all times to avoid getting sick herself. The quarantine zone in Seattle did not seem safe enough for most residents and some crossed the border to Canada to escape the pollen in the colder climate. Beckie's mother and sister also fell ill while working in one of the hospitals, and so, after much deliberation, her father decided to flee north with her. Beckie's vehicle, the "Dead-Dasie," proved very useful for navigating the chaos on the roads, often driving off-road and a long trip with 2 buggys across the countryside starts. At last, the two ended up in Vancouver with her father's family for a while. The following two years were difficult, as endless waves of refugees flooded the region. Beckie learned that the resources necessary for survival were no longer readily available. The family stuck together to obtain everything they needed, but violence increased, and several relatives died in the chaos. Her father's skills were increasingly in demand, as were Beckie's, as efforts were made to make the vehicles more off-road capable, safer, and more stable. Both of them learned a lot in a short space of time, and the countless hours in the workshops paid well enough to allow them to continue living, for both. As winter 2001 approached, the QZ was overwhelmed and the residents fled back to the US before everything completely collapsed. The return journey was different, full of despair, weapons, devastation, and countless infected people. Now, at the latest, Beckie had to take part in the defense of the caravan: 20 vehicles from Vancouver that were now trying to find a new home in the devastated US. The journey led to Seattle, where they searched for her mother and sister, but they had long since succumbed to the infection and the whole old home town was lost forever. Knowing about the new death zones in the country, they decided to travel to Idaho, where the Dogtown 'governement' had taken over the local zone. The journey there was interrupted by a bandit attack that resulted in no casualties, but fortunately, a long-awaited reunion with her lost brothers happend. The newly reunited family and their entourage joined forces with the previously hostile group to survive the journey to Idaho. The shattered caravan reached Dogtown and settled down there, everyone enjoys a short period of savety there. The skilled mechanics from Canada and Seattle begans quickly to build some large facilities for repairing vehicles and processing scrap metal to build better fortifications for the settlements and well-armored vehicles for their own people. Beckie became part of a group that regularly traveled to gather resources from lost cities and trades/smuggles with neutral settlements and QZ's far away. Her brothers became part of the patrols that kept the surrounding bandits and the Drowned at bay, while her father worked to open up new trade routes. By 2007, they were able to navigate a safe route further west, and Beckie regularly traveled with the caravans until the death zones expanded. Her caravan was severely decimated, and a return trip was no longer possible for the following years. Cut off from a safe route back, the caravan decided to establish an smuggling-outpost in Knox until a new safe route back to Dogtown opened up and if not, they would stay and trade anyway.