Meet the Characters of "The 11th Hour" Part 3: Hack

Name: Colin Tatenko
Age: 24
Job: Technology expert/computer hacker
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Place of birth: Unknown

Personality: Colin is shy and will tend to keep to himself, but can be quite fun to have around once he opens up. He is loyal to a fault and serious when he needs to be. Despite not being a Tatenko by blood, Colin inherited his father's pride, and is thus very confident in his skills.

Biography: In the years before Nicolae, when technology was still affordable by those in less than ideal financial situations, Tatenko Tech had close to a monopoly on the market. Unable to compete with owner and CEO Tatenko Kaito's business genius, other technology companies were forced to sell to the company, or go bankrupt.

Despite his cuthroat business mentality, however, Kaito and his wife, Tsuki, were quite pleasant and caring people. This was no more prominent than the day they found a small child whilst on a business trip to New America. The child - wrapped in a thin blanket and having nothing more than a bracelet with a single word on it - was no more than a few weeks old, and seemed to be suffering from hunger and illness. Unwilling to ignore such need, they took the child in and nursed him back to health. By the time he was healthy enough to be put up for adoption, Tsuki was unwilling to let him go.

Unable to have children of her own, Tsuki insisted they adopt him, and Kaito agreed. He became Colin Tatenko (Colin being the name left on his bracelet), and grew up learning the ins and outs of the family business. He failed to show any promise from a business standpoint, but proved to be quite useful in designing and building new gadgets and gizmos to pitch to his father. Kaito humored the boy, and supplied him with whatever trinkets he needed to continue his work. He was bent on supporting his son in whatever he chose to do.

When Colin was 11, however, his father had to put a limit on the amount of tinkering he did, after he successfully hacked into the company's database and released a computer virus that replaced all the computer files with pictures of squids. More impressed than angry, however, Kaito restricted his computer use to a smaller network or home computers, to see what the boy could do. The best internet security, firewalls, and other forms of protection were installed in these computers, but there wasn't a single one Colin couldn't hack.

When he was a teenager, Colin's father began to have trouble with his New America trades market. The new dictator was refusing any technology outside of televisions to be sold to the poverty stricken citizens. Ever and advocate for equality, Kaito refused to adhere to this policy, and instead elected to meet with Nicolae himself to sort things out. Nicolae agreed to this meeting, and the Tatenko's flew to New America to make it so.

Colin was 16 years old when a man he had never seen before gunned his parents down in front of him, 2 days before Kaito's meeting with Nicolae. Afraid of what would happen to him if anyone found him alone, he fled for his life. He used the skills his father helped him hone to hack ATMs, bank computers... anything to get him the money to get by. He had neither the money nor the resources to access the family account back home, and was thus on his own. In Japan he was the son of a multi-millionaire, but in New America, he was only Damned.

When he was 19, he heard about a young girl putting together a team for a competition. They needed someone good with computers, and he happened to fit the bill. The girl's name was Karalynn Anders, and she was indeed very young... but also bright. Colin felt right at home with the small group she had put together, and the chance to make a legal living out of hacking was appealing enough for him to join the group a second year, just as Astrid Miller joined the team.

With Astrid, the team began to win, and by their second consecutive title, Colin had what he needed to get ahold of his inheritance back home but, in doing so, uncovered a small conspiracy within the company. He wasn't surprised by most of it, but something did stick out in his mind. According to what he found, Nicolae himself was responsible for his parents' deaths. He was now able to get home, run his father's company, and leave the problems of New America behind... but he chose to stay.

Because if Nicolae did have something to do with his parents' deaths, he wanted to know why.



Skills: Colin is very skilled when it comes to any type of technology. He can look at any arrangement of wires and know exactly what to do to make it work. His hacking skills are second to none, and thus any amount of information is at his fingertips. If you need it, Colin can get it.

Flaws: All the intelligence in the world does you no good if you don't know how to use it... and Colin more often then not has no clue. His genius is specific to technology and technology only; he possesses average intelligence in most other issues. Thus, without Haylie or Kara, the information he gathers is next to useless.

Based on: Michael Stahl-David