cassidy shaffer

appearance

Cassidy is incredibly tall, standing at just over two meters when taking full advantage of his height; though he can often be found attempting to make himself appear a little shorter, with hunched shoulders and lowered head. He has pale, rough skin that’s covered in dark, large freckles and old scarring, and he has invasive cyberware all over his body, including a significant amount of cybernetic bones. The most prominent cyberware would be the lines and bolts visible on his cheekbones, forehead, and set in his neck. His eyes are a pale white color, both Kiroshis, and his naturally graying brown hair is dyed coral pink.

biography

childhood

Cassidy was born and raised in Belview, to Eric and Miriam Shaffer. Both his parents were retired Militech executives who were still occasionally put in the field as advisors, in exchange for large sums of money. Cassidy grew up with two siblings; Joanna, two years older than him, and Eli, a year younger than him. He grew up in a Jewish household, though only only partially practicing, and because of everything that happened later in his life he at some point completely lost touch with every aspect of it.

Cassidy grew up in the shadows, being anything but popular at school and having zero friends. Joanna was always surrounded by a large group of people and Eli was their parents’ favorite, leaving Cassidy all by himself with only his thoughts to keep him company. He found comfort in his stuffed animals and often pretended they were his friends; he could often be found in his bedroom, talking to himself or his plushies, and this is how he kept himself busy throughout the days.

His parents would sometimes worry about him and his distant behavior and would try to talk to him, but Cassidy had a lot of trouble verbalizing his needs which often resulted into frustration from both sides; the tension it created in the household put pressure on his relationship with his parents from a very young age already, and Cassidy found comfort in his solitude, feeling like perhaps he would be better off alone so he wouldn’t accidentally inconvenience others.

Because of his loneliness, Cassidy had always disliked his birthday. He had never been invited to any birthday parties himself, and whenever he would invite other kids to his own parties, no one would show up. This escalated when Cassidy’s parents forgot about his birthday because of their busy schedules when he turned 8 years old, which upset him to the point he hid upstairs in his room for the whole day, crying and clutching his favorite plushie to his chest.

The neighborhood Cassidy and his family lived in, was home turf to the Wireless. They would often have encounters with other gangs in Belview, and that unfortunate day one of these encounters took place in their street and took a rather violent turn. A vehicle drove directly through the exterior wall of Cassidy’s house and it exploded, killing everyone in the direct vicinity and setting fire to the house; Cassidy was able to escape through his window by jumping down into the backyard.

The blaze destroyed everything in its wake, leaving Cassidy with only the plushie he carried with him. His family had died in the initial impact, and their bodies were later recovered from the remnants of the house. Cassidy himself sustained mostly minor injuries, unfortunately including chronic pain in his legs from his poor landing.

teen years

Cassidy was put into foster care, though did not last very long in the system. He refused to talk to anyone and was terrified of families, going as far as running away on several occasions out of fear of accidentally getting people killed if he were to stick around for too long.

Through a friend of the family— Militech Officer Michele Diaz— Cassidy was signed up for the Children of Tomorrow project instead and moved into the Dagon Private School on the outskirts of the Glen, Heywood. The project, which was an initiative of several of Night City’s megacorporations, focused on schooling kids between the ages of six to eighteen through a corporate lens, to prepare them for entering the corporate world later in their lives.

Cassidy continued to be extremely lonely there. He had a lot of trouble connecting to the other kids because of his vastly different interests, and others often found him rude or too direct while he thought he was just being straightforward and honest. He spoke very little to the adults as well, believing they would not be able to understand him anyway; whenever he did try, he would be proven right, which only added to his frustration and his solitude.

During his time at the private school he continued to talk to himself and his plushie. On top of that, he began setting up near-obsessive routines for himself, to keep bad memories at bay, to keep himself busy and to make living bearable for himself. Even at such a young age he would get overwhelmed very easily and he was very self-aware, having had to grow up so quickly; his routines and rules helped him stay calm throughout the days.

Cassidy often ended up getting in arguments and sometimes even fights, mainly because of his struggles with expressing himself and the fact others had very little patience with him. He had a lot of bottled up frustrations inside because of it all and it only became worse and worse the more it happened. Cassidy felt like the caregivers and teachers of the school didn’t take him seriously (which was true) and he felt more like a burden than a child.

Because he spent so much time by himself, Cassidy was very aware of his surroundings at all times. He spent a lot of time observing others and observing the area the school was in, and he always knew exactly what was going on in and outside of the building. One of his main obsessions was gangs and then specifically the Wireless. He soon realized they were in the area as well, especially now that they had been chased out of most of Belview; and gang activity was increasing quickly in the area, when he was around 12 years old.

Cassidy brought it up to one of the caregivers of the school, because he was worried about what could happen. His concerns were not taken seriously and when he snapped and threw a fit over it, he was locked up in his room for the rest of the day to think about his actions. Unfortunately, the increase in gang activity had been for a reason; that very same day, a large-scale fight broke out, which ended promptly when a grenade was tossed into an open window of the school’s main building.

A chunk of the bottom floor was blasted apart, which caused a large section of the building to collapse inward. Cassidy managed to once more escape through his bedroom’s window and tried to get down from the second floor as fast as he could via the fire escape, but halfway down the stairs collapsed with the building under his feet and he fell down, getting partially buried under the rubble.

Cassidy’s broken body was found by one of the Wireless gang members, Ryu Kimura, and was taken to the hospital. His injuries were very serious and several of his bones needed cybernetic replacements— he spent six months in a coma and his doctors were not at any point sure if he was going to make it through.

During those six months, Cassidy was regularly visited by Ryu, who at some point left the Wireless and even went as far as paying for all of Cassidy’s medical bills. When Cassidy finally woke up and was released from the hospital a month later, Ryu decided to take him in and raise him as his own.

Cassidy moved in with Ryu in his small trailer in Rancho Coronado. He was unable to go to school and because of his young age couldn’t get a proper job yet either; on top of that, he walked with a cane and still regularly needed to return to the hospital for checkups and replacement surgeries, to keep the cyberware up to date with his still growing body. He still had no friends, and also had no money left from all that his family had left him; all of it had been used to pay for his medical bills so far, and the ones that were still stacking up were paid for with any leftover money Ryu had from the two jobs he worked.

Cassidy once more felt more like a burden than anything else and started doing odd jobs in the neighborhood when his father was at work. This went well for some time and he managed to gather up a decent amount of cash, until he ended up getting a serious beating from some other kids. Despite being taller than all of them, Cassidy did not know how to defend himself; this prompted Ryu to teach him some self defense, and also how to handle firearms.

Ryu was not a perfect father. He was absent and often forgot to take care of Cassidy and the roles were sometimes even reversed, with Cassidy cleaning the house and cooking meals for both of them; yet Cassidy didn’t mind at all, feeling like it was the least he could do to show his gratitude, and he finally felt at home.

During these years, he was still very lonely and mostly just bonded with his neighbors. They all thought him to be a polite but somewhat strange kid, and Cassidy would regularly stop by to have a chat. He mostly did this to practice his social skills; with not being able to go to school or get any sort of help from anyone, he had to do everything himself, and most of the scripts he ended up relying on later in his life were built up during these years.

Cassidy and Ryu rarely had disagreements. Cassidy had developed a significant fear of confrontation, and his past had led him to believe any time he would have a fight with someone they would end up dead because of it; so he tried to avoid it at all costs, and whenever they would end up in an argument he would have a panic attack to the point Ryu could not stay angry at him.

However, when Cassidy was 16 years old, they had a disagreement which turned a lot more heated than ever before. Cassidy ended up going to his room and while he did notice a car outside, he was too frustrated to register this information and tell Ryu about it.

Two people broke into their home— Wireless gang members, who Ryu used to work with. They shot him before Cassidy could intervene and then tried to go after him, which prompted Cassidy to run away and leave Ryu behind. When he returned the next day, Ryu’s trailer had been burned down, and there was no sign of him; leading Cassidy to believe he had died of his injuries, or the fire.

militech

With nothing else left for him, Cassidy let himself get recruited by Militech. The corporation had already been watching him for a while at the Children of Tomorrow project, and he was able to rush through a shorter version of their usually two year lasting training period to then start working directly for Michele.

Cassidy was different from the other recruits. Most of them were there for security, transport or manufacturing; whereas Cassidy had a lot more strategic insight and administrative skills, and he was also the only one with a knack for computers and digital technology.

He started working for Michele when he was 17 years old, as her secretary and personal assistant; he was allowed to come with her to important meetings, events and other important Militech business and she would flaunt him around at any given opportunity, as if he was merely just a new addition to her jewelry collection. Cassidy thought nothing wrong with it, not knowing any better, and he enjoyed the privileges and luxury his position gave him; besides, Michele was (mostly) nice to him and treated him like an adult, something that had never happened before (which made sense considering he was still a child, but he did not feel like one).

Michele was using Cassidy for her own personal gain, using his skillset to get herself into a more powerful position within the corporation. At the same time, Cassidy got very attached to her, seeing her as the only person in the world who understood him and accepted him for who he was; she didn’t make fun of him or his interests, didn’t belittle him, and was patient with him whenever he had trouble putting his thoughts into words. She is the main reason he now struggles way less with it, and back then he was very grateful for her being in his life.

However, the moment Michele got her promotion she tossed Cassidy aside and assigned him bodyguard duty. Cassidy was in shambles, believing he had done something terribly wrong in order to deserve this; he was now forced to work with people Michele had always deemed as inferior to Cassidy, which didn’t do his self-esteem much good, even though it was also wrong of him to have that perspective on his colleagues in the first place.

Cassidy was on bodyguard duty for about a year and was then promptly moved to a weaponry sales desk job when his superiors figured out Cassidy’s clients kept dying because he kept killing them himself. Cassidy was taught to always be polite back at school and Michele also kept telling him when people were rude to him or didn’t respect him, he was allowed to strike back; this prompted him to work with a three-strikes-and-you’re-out system, and once a client would hit three strikes he would make them pay for being mean to him (which they often were for no reason at all).

Cassidy did not last long at his desk job. He kept getting into arguments with colleagues because he tried to help them with their job by correcting their errors, which was always met with rude comments right back at him. This is why he was relatively quickly moved over to netrunner duty.

As a netrunner, Cassidy spent most of his days taking care of hackers and other possible incoming threats. However, he would also get bored easily and would then switch to hacking into Militech’s systems himself to reveal its flaws. He would write large reports on his findings and give these to his superiors, and eventually this became such a nuisance to them they moved Cassidy over to a cleanup crew when he was 19 years old.

But even in something as simple as a cleanup crew, Cassidy could not stick to any of his responsibilities. If his years at Militech thus far had taught him anything it was that nobody in the place knew how to run it efficiently, and Cassidy’s methods were far better; he would still get his responsibilities done at the end of the day, but would do it in his own way, and he would sometimes make decisions that went against his superiors to get a better outcome out of the situations he would find himself in.

Cassidy would often gather evidence and data on the crime scenes he was sent to to deal with, which he would then sell to other corporations; then, he would hold it against them, usually involving Netwatch into it all, and he would blackmail them and walk away from the situation victorious with often large sums of money or other things that helped Militech.

Eventually, his superiors had enough of him and decided to recommend him to MaxTac when he was 20 years old, in a trade between the two corporations. Cassidy was very excited, not necessarily because of the kind of work they did but more so because he believed MaxTac would be a lot more capable than Militech; he was happy to be relocated to the other corporation and never even as much as looked back to Militech, much to his superiors’ relief.

maxtac

Cassidy’s first year at MaxTac did not go well for him. He was considered an “intern” and was forced to do all the squads’ dirty work for at least eight hours a day except on Sundays; the attitude he’d had back at Militech was easily dealt with that way and he ended up a lot more quiet and less obnoxious. He was a lot younger than most, if not all people there, which is why he did not make any friends and ended up being very lonely again.

When he was 21, he was assigned regular field work with a squad. They didn’t like him at all and would occasionally bully him, but Cassidy was running entirely on autopilot and barely even registered any comments they would make. He was very much aware that the work he was forced to do was shady at best, but he obeyed any orders either way, no longer daring to go against them like he had done at Militech.

Not long before his 23rd birthday, Cassidy got severely injured during a cyberpsycho mission. Both his spine and some of the bones in his left arm needed repairs and/or replacement as a result and he was assigned a desk job for the time being, so he could make a full recovery.

Cassidy had to oversee the cyberpsycho reprogramming program, professionally known as Cyberpsycho Rehab, at MaxTac HQ and worked directly under Officer Reid Bennett, a senior MaxTac exec who from day one showed interest in him. They grew close quickly and started a romantic relationship only two months after meeting each other, and to Cassidy it felt like he had already known Reid for years.

In his position, Cassidy was tasked with making sure the reprogramming process would go over smoothly and he personally oversaw the patients’ recovery period. Working so closely with these people gave him a whole new perspective on what MaxTac had deemed a “pest problem” in Night City, and he started implementing all sorts of glitches and hiccups into the system to get the recovered patients to be released, rather than forced into a MaxTac kill squad position.

On top of that, he also had to help Reid with whatever he needed help with. This often meant Cassidy could be found in interrogation rooms, trying to get information out of recently captured criminals, or in MaxTac’s workplaces to help develop new gear. And lastly, he spent a lot of time in Reid’s office to help him with paperwork or write reports for him.

During this period at MaxTac, Cassidy finally snapped out of his autopilot state for a little bit, now that he was together with Reid. He truly loved him very much and was ready to spend the rest of his life with him, but Reid did not match his energy at all. He wore a mask at work, a desperate attempt to fit in with the other corpos, but his act had reached a point of no return and it caused him to be disinterested and cold towards Cassidy despite still loving him in a way; but barely any of that love showed in his behavior, and he appeared rather bored of his partner on most days, refusing to communicate with him and keeping him around as quick relief, to brag about, and to make himself feel better.

At a certain point during his desk job, Cassidy was sent along with a squad to assist during a cyberpsycho mission. Their goal was an on-scene reprogramming due to high risk levels, but their mission failed after most of the squad got wiped out by the target within only minutes. Cassidy was captured by the cyberpsycho’s entourage and his eyes (already Kiroshis at the time, though matching his original hazel brown eye color) were taken out, as retribution for the target’s own eyes getting damaged in battle. MaxTac did not realize something had gone wrong until Reid put in an official order to send backup, and it took two days to rescue Cassidy from the target’s hideout.

From that moment on, Cassidy began feeling more miserable over time, because of his employers’ neglect toward his safety, and the distance that started to form between himself and Reid. When he was 24 years old, he accompanied Reid to the annual NCBC, a multi-corp networking and business event, as his bodyguard, which could be seen as the point of no return for their relationship; Reid ended up punched in the face by Sebastian Vidal, an important Arasaka asset who had officially met him earlier that year, and following the disastrous conclusion of the event he proceeded to take his frustration out on Cassidy. Their relationship spiraled quickly afterwards, and Cassidy fully blamed himself for it despite Reid being the one at fault.

At the NCBC, Cassidy managed to get in touch with Kang Tao, another corporation that had always shown great interest in him back at the Children of Tomorrow project. They were excited to see him gone from Militech and tried to hire him, but Reid put a stop to this before it could escalate. They did however give Cassidy some contact information, just in case he would ever change his mind.

When Cassidy was 25, he was caught releasing the reprogrammed patients from the rehab program and as punishment was put with one of MaxTac’s death squads. The field work wasn’t necessarily difficult for him but the squad was horrible to deal with and Cassidy became very miserable very fast. This became worse when Reid suddenly decided to break up with him when he was 26; and on top of all that, Cassidy’s paranoia about possibly having cyberpsychosis himself caused him to spiral even further.

Not too long after his 27th birthday, his squad members made fun of him again on a particularly bad day and Cassidy ended up killing them all himself. He was fired by his employers and given a five hour head start as a particularly generous thank you for his years of useful service; after that, they would start hunting him down. Cassidy left not just his job but also his apartment behind and ran off to Kang Tao, to try and find shelter here.

kang tao

At Kang Tao, Cassidy was immediately offered a job at their Security Division and he signed their loyalty pledge without thinking, mostly just wanting to be safe from MaxTac. For a month or two he hopped around doing jobs here and there, filling whatever role needed filling at the time; eventually he settled on escort security, which is what he did until he left the corporation.

He once again was not liked very much, as most of his colleagues considered him weird and off-putting. Nobody liked working with him and he ended up executing a lot of escort jobs by himself; he was surprisingly efficient and reliable, but overworked himself a lot to the point he was very irritable most of the time.

This led to him being pushed over the edge by a colleague. They humiliated him for something that had not even been his fault and he ended up releasing a bunch of Kang Tao-related scandals to the public in return, causing their stocks to drop into the negatives overnight for an entire week. Kang Tao wanted to execute him, but by then Cassidy was already long gone, hiding away in one of his safehouses in Night City and waiting for the storm to blow over.

present

Cassidy soon became an assassin, using the knowledge and skills he had gained over the years at the different corporations to sell himself as hired gun to clients across the entire city. He rarely asked questions, doing the job that was asked of him unless he would gain intel which would tell him his client was not being forthright with him; in which case he would adjust his aim and pull the trigger in the other direction instead.

He once again found himself running on autopilot, drained entirely from emotion now that he had nothing to live for anymore. However, all of this changes in January 2077, when a mysterious client hires him for a hit job involving an unexpected familiar face from his past.

personality

Cassidy is a very intelligent man, despite his lack of proper education. He has taught himself many things over the years and is an experienced netrunner, assassin, and techie all in one, with natural curiosity about the world around him and an eagerness to obtain more knowledge on anything that interests him. He is disciplined and efficient, a hard-working and thorough man who doesn’t like to leave loose ends; though this can make him difficult to work with, a little arrogant, and extremely stubborn and impatient at times.

Because of his troubled past, Cassidy has a lot of difficulty with fitting in with other people. He has a hard time reading and understanding social cues and because of it doesn’t always act the way others may expect him to act, or says or does something that could be considered rude or inconsiderate when in reality he’s just being honest and direct. He puts in a lot of effort to understand others and their wants and needs, which causes his dialogue to sometimes sound a little clunky or scripted; in reality he simply needs some extra time to think about what he wants to say and how to make it sound sincere and natural. Whenever he opens up about anything or expresses his gratitude or love for someone, it’s easy to tell it’s coming straight from his heart and he made a great effort to try and verbalize his feelings in a socially acceptable way.

affiliations

factions

• Arasaka; wanted dead or alive
• Bodytalk; alliance
• Cobras; active member
• Kang Tao; former employee, wanted dead or alive
• MaxTac; former employee, wanted dead or alive
• Militech; former employee, antagonistic

relationships

sebastian vidal

Information pending.

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