| UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND |
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| G«GREY««MILLICENT««V««GBR««««« |
| 5GBR8206137F115S0«ANALYST«« |
Lady Millicent Grey, youngest daughter of Robert Michael George Herbert Grey, 7th Earl Grey, had the distinction of being born 3296th in line for the throne of England, with the 4 closer numbers being her older siblings.
With a long history of serving the Crown there are few in her family who are not in some way connected to the English government; her father and grandfather both served as emissaries and ambassadors along with their positions in the House of Lords. Along with the money and prestige that these positions brought, it also bestowed upon the family the distance of affection that prolonged absences and having others raise your children will bring. All the children attended boarding schools, and when home for holidays most of their needs were seen to by servants of one form or another.
Each Grey child adapted to this in their own way, and for Millicent it was books. Not satisfied with most children’s books it wasn’t long before the preadolescent Millie was thumbing through Nietzsche and Proust, and while there’s good argument that she didn’t have the life lessons yet to understand it all, she was far from ordinary in her absorption of many of the advanced concepts.
With the exception of her brother Edward, her family relationship was strained more than most. They had trouble understanding her quirks, were embarrassed by her precocious and often tactless nature, and knew that in most ways she was far more intelligent than they were. Episodes such as the time she got up and questioned the validity of the bible during a Christmas service at 8, and her firm declarations the same night 7 years later during a dinner party including foreign dignitaries that she had decided she was a vegetarian and a lesbian failed to win her points with her status-conscious parents.
In school she excelled without equal, save for in sports and religious topics. She was very strong in sciences, but stronger still in mathematics and logic. The small paper local to her school finally started having her check their crossword puzzles before publication after several years of letters and emails offering corrections.
Still, her existence there, as it was at home, was a lonely one. It wasn’t that she was unattractive; it was that she was so difficult to be around, and to understand, not to mention there were few of “those types” around, and they weren’t the kind to want to deal with her eccentricities. She did have one kiss when she was 17, but unknown to her the other girl had lost a bet.
Millicent (who by 18 refused to be called “Millie”) could have, and should have graduated early, but a misplaced desire by her parents to keep her in school so that she could learn to interact with the others kept her from jumping ahead to college. When she did it was straight to Oxford, her father’s alma mater, where she finished up a BA in 2 years. Her masters from Imperial College took 3 years, while her trifecta and doctorate in numerical analysis took another 3, mostly because she kept getting distracted by side research instead of sticking to her dissertation.
While at college she had the same problems as in lower grades, though she was at least surrounded by others with her same interests. Their individual quirks didn’t always mesh though, and in group projects there could often be some strife. It did finally manage to teach her, if not diplomacy skills, at least how to work within a group full of varying opinions.
She also finally managed a couple relationships. The first was a lovely girl named Anna who was soft and pretty, but not very smart. It ended in disaster. First she tried to bring her home for Christmas, but her family refused to support her silly whim, and told her when she met a nice boy she could bring him, and to stop the nonsense immediately. Which she didn’t. Which is why the press caught a hold of it and ran with a story in the social section. Which is why her father was quoted as saying some rather behind the times things that did not go over well with the more liberal citizens of the UK. Which failed to bring her any closer to her family.
The second was kept much quieter and happened while she was working on her masters. The two seemed somewhat well matched, but Josephine was not the healthiest girl, and as it turned out had cancer. Her parting was slow and painful, and Millicent tried to do what she could, but she wasn’t sure how to offer support for a foregone situation, and mostly had to sit and watch as her lover and friend withered away. To this day she quietly gives a generous donation to cancer research every year.
The big question became what to do after college. It was obvious to everyone, herself included, that she wasn’t cut out for teaching. By this point she was also starting to become bored with academic math and theories. It was her brother who inadvertently gave her some direction.
Edward had been working for their father, managing matters for his seat in the House of Lords while he was away and stationed in India where there was a terrorist attack. Her father was not in any way injured, but other British were, and her brother bemoaned the losses, commenting that they had known something was going to happen, but nobody had managed to put together all the information in time. It was too bad, he had said with a sad smile as she brought him a cup of tea, that they didn’t have anyone as brilliant as his sister to watch out for them. A few weeks later, they did.
Her father’s name got her politely let in the door, her CV got her more quickly through another. She was tested for field work, but that idea was quickly – very quickly – tossed by the wayside. A few weeks of orientation and background checks later, and she found herself employed as a civil servant by MI-6.
Millicent could best be described as brilliant. Or more likely eccentric. Often whimsical, occasionally romantic (at least of thought), she is very much a head-in-the-clouds person who one could easily see spending her life in the ivory tower of academia. When she's mean or uncaring it's with the detatchment of a doctor, people often being trated the same as numbers, statistics more than unique individuals.
Converse to her ease with formulae she is often at ends when it comes to dealing with other people. Her relationships have been few, both because her family strongly disagreed with her "lifestyle choice", and because it's hard enough to find someone willing to put up with her romantically who is also female.
She is exceedingly fond of her older brother and often strained with her older sisters, most of whom could never quite figure out how to deal with her. Her parents are somewhat distant figures, often away on government business while she was away at school.
She drinks occasionally, though it tends to amplify her personality more than calm it, tried drugs while at boarding school and just didn't get them (though she did then understand Sherlock Holmes' proccupation with cocaine, she felt he should have just read more, perhaps in a park), gambles only as a test of probability.
She is an armchair athiest, caught between logic and a sense of how a perfect would would operate, her romantic side longing for choirs of cherubim smiling down on the innocent souls below.
Her IQ tests in the 180's, and she is a terrible, terrible liar and actress.
-Intermediate in non-computer based cryptography, expert in numerical cryptography: Some natural talent, but predominantly training in how numbers can be moved, altered, and used for obfuscation. Most of this training came during her college years, some afterwards when training with MI-6 and reviewing the history and techniques of cryptography used from WWII onward.
- Speaks fluent English, Spanish, French, German, Latin, Italian, and some Greek. Beginner in Russian, Arabic, and Kurdish. Knows limited social phrases in Hindi, Punjab, Swedish, and Portuguese: The first group are from years of study in school, with some jaunts around the Continent to put them to use on holidays. The second group are languages she is currently learning to better perform her duties. The third group comes from visits to her father while he was on a diplomatic station.
-Expert and correlating and finding patterns in information: Part natural ability, part education, though mostly the former.
-Expert in advanced mathematics: Holds a doctorate from Cambridge in numerical analysis.
-Subpar skills in combat, cooking, and riding scooters or bicycles: Her brain is highly trained and developed to take advantage of her natural God-given near superhuman abilities. None of these have abilities have anything to do with physical prowess or domestic tasks.
-Money and breeding: She was born to a well moneyed family with lands and lucrative positions and investment. This bought her the finest schools and teachers as a child as well as started her with a sizable nest egg from trust funds.
-Genius in patterns and numbers; doctorate in numerical analysis: Millicent is naturally gifted with numbers and seeing patterns. She further honed these abilities by pursuing degrees in higher education in related fields.
-Speaks English, Spanish, French, German, Latin, Italian, and some Greek: Learned predominantly through language classes taught in primary school and college.
-Learning Russian, Arabic, and Kurdish: Taking self-taught courses for use in intelligence analysis.
-Knows limited social phrases in Hindi, Punjab, Swedish, and Portuguese: Learned and used while visiting her father while he was on diplomatic assignment.
-Excellent memory, though not photographic.
-Horrible with people and relationships and socially awkward, but still somewhat of a romantic: Her head has never been wired for any form of intimacy. She's a little too clinical to be emotionally healthy, too blunt to be empathetic, and too inexperienced to save herself from mistakes and faux pas.
-Horrible actress and liar: Acting and deception are just not in her genes. She doesn't understand subtlety enough to play with it, and watching her try is an example of how not to hide what you're really thinking.
-Fairly bad with computers past searches, two-finger typing, and pointing and clicking; overall not much of a technophile: "They're just supposed to work. If they don't, that's what teenagers are for, right?" Her skills are limited to what she has worked with, so save for knowing how to edit scientific formulas she is very much just a point and click and able to email user.
-Horrible in hand-to-hand combat and self-defense: She is awkward when it comes to skills that require grace and finesse, and she is lacking in physical body strength. She has always done the minimum required amounts of physical exercise for whatever institution she was attending.
-Terrible driver: She just doesn't seem to have the knack, and riding with her as any form of passenger is a study in pure terror.
