Ohman. This new hires training is kicking my butt. So, at least for next week (August 12) the Spotlight will happen.....sometime over the weekend. And then depending on my schedule at work, Spotlight will be ... tweaked. It's probably not going to be Fridays any more. Because I'll be at work and probably won't have access to a computer (except on lunch breaks, where I plan to eat). So it'll be a little up in the air until I figure this posting thing out again. It might just turn into Saturday Spotlight (but I might be working weekends, so we'll see).
Okay, now we've got the ... yeah. Now we've gotten that out of the way, let's talk about Kyle. Oh, right. I should mention that the month of August is for baddies. Specifically, the Cabal.
Name: Kyle Jeffers
Codename: Psion
Power: telekinetic, powerful enough to level a city
Team Affiliation: Cabal
Kyle is the leader of the Cabal, bisexual, and very talented. He's jacked into all sorts of networks to find out what's really going on in the world and, as such, knows how the world could be if the balance was upset. What am I talking about? Glad you asked.
The world of the Black King, in 2035, is a utopia, of sorts. What do I mean by that? Well, a utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. But, really, that doesn't work so much, does it? There's always someone who slips through the cracks. While my world seems like a utopia, and that is the leading reason why so many people from other worlds and dimensions would like to take up residence on the main world (I am so seriously tempted to start calling this Earth-Prime or Earth-0 or something and then number the rest of the earths like the comic book industry has. Oof.) and why the Alpha Corps have such a busy job, it's not actually an exact utopia. For the purposes of this world, utopia is defined as a society/world that has perfect balance where no one rocks the boat too much. People prosper, there is food and resources for all, everyone more or less is content with their lot and life and do not harm one another, etc. There are still drugs (2 specifically -> glass & black) and there are still people who make their living by hooking and the alternative ways of making a living.
The difference is is that everyone knows their place. If they step out of it or rock the boat too much in the....seedier aspects of life, the Cabal will come down on them. Where there is light, there must be dark. The Alliance protects the world and the Cabal controls the rest. The Squad works on controlling any "outbreaks" that occur from the Cabal slipping (ie - the drugs pop up and start heavily addicting and killing people). Any bigger schemes, like the Cabal wanting to take over and entire floating city (air or ocean) for their own purposes, or anything along those lines has --- you know what? Here, have Kyle explaining it to Dean:
“The Cabal and the Alliance will always be locked in an endless waltz,” Kyle said. “We do what we want, trying to overthrow them and take over the world to remake it in our image, but we will never succeed. For one, we'd miss the fights with the Alliance too much. It's fun to pit ourselves against them.”
“And the second reason?” Dean asked, trying to calm his anger.
“Mostly it simply comes down to balance. You cannot have good without evil."
And then Dean's thoughts:
"Then again, that term summed up the Cabal itself. Showy. They were all for show. They wanted to undermine the Alliance, to have a little wiggle room in this seemingly perfect world, but they would not actively destroy the status quo they had achieved for themselves. They had wealth, comfort, and the assurance that they'd be left alone so long as they did nothing to upset the balance."
ANYWAY. Getting back to Kyle...
He's a telekinetic, and a very powerful one at that. He's young, especially for being the head of the Cabal, but people respect him because of his power and the fact that he's been able to make the Cabal prosper very nicely in his few years of being in charge because he can see the wiggle room in the balance so well. He has no problem killing people who threaten that balance, which is why the Cabal really doesn't have much change in the organization. It's pretty steady because of that wiggle room. And everyone knows that if they oust Kyle that the prosperity and relative freedom they have will go right down the toilet.
Kyle is also bisexual, which works against him (a little bit) when dealing with Dean. He's got spikey red hair and black eyes, is 6 feet, 5 inches, and enjoys the finer things in life. The Cabal has a lovely tower
where they live in England. The inside is done up in the Regency style.
Think Jane Austen, I suppose. There's a lot of Grecian and Roman influence in the rooms themselves, some of the gilt with gold and utterly over the top, but very comfortable. Kyle really likes the finer things in life, and he shares that with the Cabal. He's ambitious, but knows better than to let them get the better of himself. He refuses to use computers to conduct business, knowing better than to provide anyone with an easy way to find them. He usually works with paper (actually tree pulp, not the plastic-y digital paper that everyone else uses) and is as low-tech as he can get. In the age of technopaths (those who can communicate with technology as easily as talking with people) it's the smart "businessman" who makes sure no one can nail him on anything specific. That's not to say they don't have computers in the Tower, because they do, but the Cabal never conducts business on computers that they use frequently. Kyle believes this is mostly common sense, but we all know how common common sense is, right?
Kyle's fate after book one is ... difficult to determine. As you can see from the quotes, Dean and Kyle interact. This happens during a specific, crucial moment in book 1. Honestly, I'm not sure what happens after a certain point. Which is fun. However, I'm kind of fond of Kyle. He's Dean's ace-in-the-hole, somewhat. In addition to all that, well, ...okay, I actually can't tell you any of that. Rats.
I think I'll end it there before I inadvertently spoil something in the books. :)
