Jeffrey Nowak, born August 8, 2022, is a 272 year-old ghoul in the year 2294. During the events of Fallout: The Great Winter, Jeffrey adopts a persona known as, "Triage" and acts as a minor antagonist to fledgling communities in the Motown Wasteland. By the events of Fallout: Motown, Jeffrey is the acting senior adviser to the Aware. Many consider him responsible for the Aware's formation as well as their axioms and assumptions. He assumes the role of radio host of Aware Radio and miscellaneous quest giver.
Background[]
Career[]
Before the Great War, Jeffrey Nowak grew up in Attica Hills, Michigan to a middle-class family. He attended the University of Michigan at the age of 17 and graduated in 2045 with a doctorate in Microbiology. He was employed by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a researcher for five years while he pursued a doctorate in public health.
Jeffrey's career in the CDC ended in 2050 when he was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer. With the mortality rate of Pancreatic cancer at 94%, Jeffrey desperately applied his knowledge toward a cure. Jeffrey's tragic case caught the attention of then CEO of the Med-Tek Corporation (Med-Tek), Carl Reuther, who gave Jeffrey funding and a fully stocked facility at Med-Tek for his research in exchange for marketing rights of the end product.
It was at his new job at Med-Tek that Jeffrey met Yuko Satomi, who he would forge a long-lasting relationship with.
The New Plague[]
Jeffrey's research into a cure for cancerous tissues relied on his knowledge of genome manipulation and, as such, began to resemble research into a retrovirus. He postulated that a cure was possible if he could design a virus that would only attack cancerous cells, or at the very least, target them for separate treatment. The engineered virus also made use of recursive genes to re-infect cells several times over to prevent the need for several inoculations and thereby reduce the overall risk of unintended immunity from the treatment.
Jeffrey's research was approaching conclusion when on March 5, 2052, a group of Chinese Hei gui agents stole samples of his virus before it was ready for testing. The result was the New Plague incident, as the virus inadvertently became the New Plague itself. The virus that was stolen expressed its tumor suppressor genes in all the cells affected by any type of ploidy that wasn't diploid, which intentionally included gametes. The result, sterility as well as the instantaneous lysing of all tumors, benign or otherwise, in those infected. The lysing of these tumors simultaneously caused massive internal and external bleeding that would clog the respiratory systems of the infected, leading many to their deaths. The eradication of haploid cells rendered the infected sterile. Due to the recursive code, those that survived remained sterile for the rest of their lives. The mortality rate of all cancer cases were at an all time high, with patients suffering instantaneous and often fatal hemorrhaging of their tumors, many suffocated on their own blood before treatment could be administered. Jeffrey was one of the lucky ones privy to immediate treatment.
Jeffrey caught, battled, and ultimately survived his "New Plague", subsequently curing his pancreatic cancer and saving his life, but the miracle of his survival was drowned by the count of thousands afflicted and killed within the first week of the New Plague's appearance alone. Jeffrey cheated death, only to have it scar his memory with each new annual death toll published. Among the immediate victims of the New Plague was Carl Reuther, then CEO of Med-Tek.
Med-Tek & Espionage[]
WORK IN PROGRESS