Zug

Appearance
Zug is 5'10”, thin, and ginger, including the pale skin and freckles. How a person with such transparently Irish ancestry wound up with a German surname is a bit of a mystery, but, like his first initial, it doesn't appear to be one of consequence.

Zug's entire wardrobe is black, though whether that's deference to the PPC's uniform regulations or simply his crushingly uncreative spirit asserting itself is unknown. He prefers long pants and shirts at all times, but he won't wear gloves unless he absolutely has to.

Personality
Zug is extremely placid. He wants privacy and quiet and prefers to keep his own counsel, and will only raise his voice over a handful of topics (chess and latter seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer being most prominent.) However, despite his introverted nature, he shows annoyance easily, and chafes in situations he doesn't understand.

Zug's relationship with the Word Worlds is a curious one. His controlled personality leads him to liking universes with consistent internal rules and logic, though he has a bad tendency to attempt to quantify the fundamentally unexplained or inexplicable. As a result, he almost washed out basic on a disastrous training mission to the Eragon continuity, since the world's internal logic flaws nearly drove him loopy.

Despite his hidebound personality and prejudices, Zug doesn't think of himself as irrational in any way. His own word for himself is “sensible,” (occasionally “realistic”) and nothing can shake his view that he's one of the only sane people in HQ.

Abilities
Agent Zug has no paranormal abilities, and is not, by any objective measure, a capable physical combatant. He is keenly aware of his deficiencies in this regard, and will attempt to avoid physical situations unless he believes he has an overwhelming advantage.

In the field of modern technology, Zug is quite proficient. A respectable marksman and well-versed with explosives (which he intensely dislikes using), he tries to resolve problems with the former whenever possible. To increase his abilities in various fantastic settings, he's also achieved a level of proficiency with a crossbow.

Zug's skills are primarily mental. He has a quick, clear, logical mind that functions very well under pressure, and supplemented by strong long-term memory and pattern-recognition skills.

Prior to the PPC
Zug describes his childhood as “normal,” but that's rather a matter of perspective. A straight-B student and a chess prodigy, he went through grammar and high school with no apparent effort or interest, though it was in his sophomore year of high school that he began to compose the magnum opus that eventually brought him to the PPC's attention.

Chafing under criticism from his English teachers that his work wasn't “creative,” Zug set out to prove them wrong by writing a novel in his spare time. It took the better part of four years, but he eventually completed it: a sprawling, half-million word mystery/thriller/instruction manual whose plot (inasmuch as it had one) was about generic court intrigues in an unnamed kingdom, plotted strictly along the lines that he believed a very specific chess match implied.

However, the story was flawed. The climax of the tale revolved around what translated, in chess terms, to a king-bishop checkmate. By ending the story with a blatantly impossible scenario, Zug had managed the impressive feat of defiling a nonexistent canon.

With the PPC
Unsure of how to proceed, the PPC contacted Zug directly in the hopes that he'd fix the problem at the source. Horrified at what he'd done, Zug deleted the fic and begged the PPC for a position, believing they did satisfying work in making universes more logical. The PPC, keenly aware of how quick and rude his awakening would probably be, said “yes” because staffing problems trump honesty.

Mission Logs
RC 1060

Partnered with Kirill

 * Darkness Our Bride, rated M. Kirill and Zug remove some anatomical impossibilities from the MTG universe. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)