"The Holo" Characters! [writing process]

Step 5: Character Development:

1. Father Dante- unknown

            Mostly honest in his dealings, Father Dante was recently pressured into embellishing on church donations by the local Mexican mob. The move placed Harry in line to make his move on several clients, and he pressured Father Dante into including him in the laundering. The hole in the donations is covered by anonymous corporate donors who are squeezed by their tops, or dirty CEO's into dropping undelineated funds marked as sales losses on the church.

            Grew up in a first generation emigrant Mexican home. Pressured into overseas med school, with a fear of the sight of blood, he chose the wine route instead and went for the priesthood.

            A taste for Shakespeare and fine wines, Father Dante spends his free time writing rewrites of Shakespearean favorites to be used in the church's children's theater. He gets amused by the dark and ironic and murderous plot dealings being performed by innocent youth. Though his tears during performances are often mistaken for caring warmth he is actually expressing bitterness at the loss of innocence, including his own.

            Father Dante starts in the beginning a pivotal player in the laundering of funds and his pittance is to serve to serve the church by suffering it alone. He is plagued by remorse, and has a letter to the I.R.S. already prepared to turn himself and certain key players in. He has served the church almost unceasingly without bad dealings for thirty years and he is very well known. As things progress and the pressures become worse, he begins to drink heavier and heavier from his private extensive wine collection. He even becomes careless about drinking bottles he had reserved for gifts and special occasions.

            When he dials the number of an I.R.S. fraud hotline from one of the Cathedral Offices, he is unprepared for it's outcome. Without his knowledge, his parrish had already been red flagged for the staggering increase in charitable donations they had received. Though he hangs up, and does not turn himself in, they call back and the church secretary greets them announcing where the call came from.

            When an I.R.S. official visits the cathedral to speak to Father Dante, he runs out the back door and bumps into a few of the laundering's key people who were coming for a meeting with him. In his phone, he tells them the I.R.S. is in the cathedral and they shove him into their vehicle and take him out of site. They threaten him that if he confesses he and certain other members of the church who know, will have to be killed.

            "See Father, we cannot take the risk. It would sink a number of us into racketeering charges and criminal investigation of our private businesses."

            Father Dante is killed by one of these men in the confessional booth at the end of the story.

2. Sister Cynthia - Jodie Foster

            Outside of the cathedral she protects Derrick by advising him of the arrival of Harry, who is against the church, but one of it's heaviest donors. It hides laundered money easily with the help Father Dante.

            She goes from a simple loyal servant of the church to a private investigator of the conspiracy at hand. A simple person of quiet demeanor in church dealings though not accepting of the role she has been handed, she is ultimately observed late at night in Father Dante's study. She broke in to take the laundering records, members of the mafia behind the records are coming to do the same.

-From rural Iowa.

-entered the church at age 19 after traveling abroad in Europe and being raped there.

-studied a lot of the travel of Jesus during periods of his life not thoroughly explained in the Bible.

-Is a firm believer that the church's goals should be her first priority.

-Reads a lot of detective novels.

-Likes Elmore Leonard, James Patterson, Stuart Woods, etc.

-Went into the mountains for two years to pray and meditate. There she had a profound spiritual experience which led her to almost leave the church.

-Visited the  Vatican in 1996 almost immediately on entering the church.

-Is 36 years old.

- Was taught by the sisterhood to have vast potential early on, but as time went on has inability to move politically within the ranks which have kept her from advancement.

-Hopes to earn the right to transfer to a different parrish in Denver she has always been fascinated with.

-Nags Father Dante about his drinking problem and finds no favor from him due to it.

-First becomes suspicious of the laundering when a Harley Davidson Motorcycle is donated to the church and disappears with no record the next day. She had hoped to get permission to keep the motorcycle as church property and use it as her own transportation for her visits to children's hospitals. She has been riding public transportation, where she was recently groped by a drunk old man whiule standing on the train.

-Studies history and philosophy in her spare time.

-Took an online college course in accounting when she was thinking of leaving the church, she easily able to see through Father Dante's recordkeeping.

-Was in charge of some of the more minor accounting for the church at one point, but was removed from the past by Father Dante when he began laundering.

3. Cynthia Strong- Sandra Bullock

            Adam Traill's personal assistant, Cynthia goes from being tied to her boss's coattails, to spearheading the investigation into the terrorist attack. Once fetching coffee and donuts while doing extra paperwork for him, she is tailing known fugitives and taking risks. She has a deep underlying respect for her boss, but is not afraid to question his moves. This is something Adam has always liked about her, and has increased her salary disastrously over the last two years to try and retain her. She is making more money as a personal assistant than anyone she knows. Her boss is on the verge of being made C.O.O. as the current one is getting ready to retire early.

            She has become used to working a hundred and twenty hour work weeks in hopes that she can get one last pay raise when he makes his move. She has no life other than her job, which caused her fiancee to break up with her very recently.

            Her ex- fiancee is a criminal defense lawyer in Los Angeles. He makes a lot of money, and though they are both in their mid- thirties wanted her to retire, settle down and have children. Cynthia had a child in her early twenties, who drowned in a freak boating accident. She is unwilling to have any more children, as she is not over the pain. She loves children though, and put their names when they were living together on a list to be considered to adopt. They were very close at one time, and her resolve to work nearly round the clock lately her friends say is an unhealthy way if running from the pain.

-uses an electric toothbrush

-recently had tooth whitening laser treatment done

-Quit smoking when Adam complained about her smelling of it, and she made it a part of the raise deal

-drives a Ford Escort

-is being nearly stalked  by the front desk guy at the company

-loves peaches and vanilla ice cream

-always has an espresso loaded cappucino in her mug, which clips on her shoulder bag

-Member at L.A. fitness

-Now that she has been working so many years, has been given permission when he is out of the office to use the exercise equipment in his office

-Was a low level computer hacker as a hobby for a number of years. She used to sign in to rich people's bank accounts and watch the numbers and just drool over the money. It gave her a thrill. She never stole anything, and she never got caught.

-She carries a Prada shoulder bag, she bought , she when she got her raise.

4. Mark Sheryl- unknown

             Has a knack for saying just the wrong thing at the right time. He is one of the gang's muscle, used too often to physically threaten when product is delayed to arrive. Seeing as he is dealing mostly with programmers, he is untroubled by the element of danger threatening him. (so he thinks) He should be more aware though, as is proven when a man whose house he is visiting takes a pot shot at him\with a gun. He shoots him in both hands, and leaves.

                He prefers scotch when drinking, neat. He is a regular at The Viper Lounge and is considered V.I.P. there. Mark is twenty eight years old. He was recently recruited by the gang. Harry was using a bookie to place bets on NFL games, and he was sent to collect on a debt. When Harry toyed with him and said he wasn't going to pay, Harry tested him by cold cocking him. A river of blood flowing out of his nose, Mark began to laugh at him and Harry had no choice but to hire him. After paying him of course. He simply handed him the gambling debt with two thousand dollars over and gave him his first assignment.

            "This is for you. I want you to do something for me. Go hit someone like I just hit you. Try not to make him laugh, though. Not that I'm offended. Name's Ray. Here's his address. Just tell him you want the disk. He'll know. If you come out alive, I'll have more where that came from. Oh, and take a gun. He's got a pit bull who may need an early put down. Are we good?

            "We are good. Just one question. Why the fuck isn't my nose broken?"

            "Didn't try."

            "Thanks."

-carries an old service revolver he bought from a retired cop turned gambling addict

-drives a black Porsche

-Was shot once in the right thigh, and has a slight limp at times before it rains

-Dark olive skin and blue eyes, he is quite the ladies man and brings home a lot of different women. He has a problem with commitment, and uses his job as an excuse to stay single.

-Buys all of his clothing at Macy's

-Buys all of his suits at a Beverly Hills designer

-Only wears silk boxer shorts

            "I don't like it. I don't want to be in the line of fire and, you have a wedgie."

-Went to school when he was young hoping to become a detective

-Developed a coke habit in the nightclub scene when he ended his school career

-Double's up on one clients bets who is always making money

-Used to be driver for a limo company after being kicked out of school. That's where he ran into his bookkeeping boss.

-Was a golden glove boxing champion as a youth

-Thought about changing his name when his father got busted for child molestation

-Likes working for Harry.

            "Thanks for bringing me on board. Pays double what I was making."

            "In that case, I'm cutting your pay. You don't get any of my good scotch either. I need you fresh."

5. Steve Krauss- unknown

            A retired arena football linebacker, Steve is one of the biggest guys you could ever meet. He didn't make it into the NFL after college when he got a tendon injury in his right leg during homecoming his senior year. He was devestated, and lifted weights as a body builder for three years before trying to return to tryouts. He was recruited to the Philadelphia Eagles, but a bad case of "roid rage" led him to pummel an assistant coach and got fired. He tried for awhile to get on another squad, but eventually gave up. He worked as a fireman for a few years while playing arena football. The fire company gave him time off during seasons as they saw him as such an asset in lifting hoses and equipment. He keeps a running count on how many lives he saved before added to his tab as Harry's muscle. He feels if he is asked to show up, he is avoiding a violent confrontation by his mere presence. Took the job with Harry as he needed cash to pay for his wife's cancer treatment. When she died last year, Steve became cold and detached.

- Marilyn Krauss, his wife's name and 1970- 2012 is tattooed over his heart

- Over the course of the story, Steve becomes less and less patient and begins causing confrontations.

-Steve drives a black Hummer he bought with the insurance money he got when his wife died.

-Is 6'6" and 285 lbs of solid steel.

6. Tom Slips- unknown

            Tom's full name is Thomas Francis Slips and he goes by Francis. He thinks it makes him sound smart. The other guys on the crew call him "Slips", but Harry calls him Francis. On jobs, he uses the name Tom, reserving Francis for his closest personal associations. He is married and has two kids, who are beginning to get curious about what their father does for a living. They live in a three bedroom apartment in Venice Beach on the North side. His wife wants him to quit and go back to police work, but he doesn't want to due to the cut in pay he will take. He ws recruited by Harry when he beat him up on a bust when some neighbors saw Harry beating down one of his clients in a gated community. Harry said it made him respect him when he realized Francis would rather beat him senseless than give him a charge. Said he liked that. Francis simply said he liked kicking ass, and they were instant friends when he got the charges dropped.  But not before Harry had to get his lawyer involved. Harry recruited him by asking him, on his beat, as payback, to do surveillance on the house of the man he was beating. Said he'd love to tell him about the man's cocaine dealings and laundering because, well, he wanted to see him get the shit kicked out of him again. "Is that against the law? Not with you, Francis, not with you."

            After it turned out that Francis did that very thing, and had made sure his entry to the home was unlawful as to have the charges dropped, Harry knew it was his opportunity to steal a bad boy beat detective back from the jaws of lawful society.    In college, Francis played football and is always trying to fool around with Steve, but Steve never takes it well. "Get off me!"

-Wife is Dorothy Slips. He calls her Dot or Dottie when she is angry.

-Children are Melissa- 8, and Andrew- 5

            Andrew likes surfing and can't wait to get a full sized board. Melissa, on the other hand is afraid of sharks, not to mention the water itself and won't go in past her ankles at the beach.

            Dot and Francis met when he came in to a restaurant she was waiting tables at. He left his phone number on the napkin, and she called him later that night. When Francis went to work for Harry, she threatened him with a divorce and he had to suffer through nine weeks of intensive couples counseling. The counselor accepted Francis of offer of a grand, in cash, to tell Dottie they didn't need him anymore at the end of nine weeks, just in time for football season. This is one thing all of the men  on Harry's crew agree on, football is God's goft to the common man.

-Francis drives a classic VW Beetle, black, with racing fins, and a bra on the front

-His favorite pasttime is pissing off people they are collecting from by lighting up a joint in front of them.

-He makes the least of the crew, as Harry in the past took care of a major gambling debt he was about to lose his life over on NFL and College Football. He was about to be knocked off, and Harry now just garnishes his pay to settle the debt.

7. Adam Traill- Will Smith

            Adam is the Vice President of OZENOZ.COM, a social media platform which is taking the world of multi media networking by storm. He is a light heartede, quick whitted, bright person, although he has faced pressure as an African American in an indusrty dominated by caucasians. He has always used this as a stepping stone rather than a stumbling block, notching each promotion, each success in his bat as proof of equality in the workplace, despite societal evidence.

            He came from being a simple programmer whose penchaunt for business proved valuable selling smart phone applications he wrote in his spare time for a lot of money. Having earned a good retirement fund, he felt he wanted to play a bigger role in online media and began to hunt for a corporate job. When he started at OZENOZ.COM, he was a sales executive moving embedded advertising in the designs of pages to comanies. Once again in his spare time, he wrote some code to add into the platform that wouold allow chatting users on the site to video conference with each other with the push of a button. He proposed it to the CEO, Eric Chrislip, and he loved it! In fact, he hiredx Adam to make the changes in the system programming with a huge bonus in his salary because he said "I want it done. And done right. And sooner than later. In fact, I want it done now. Do it!"

            When he completed the job, and it increased membership by oevr twenty million in one quarter, Eric promoted Adam to the newly opening position of Vice President of the corporation. In the interim, Adam had submitted a full three quarters business plan for his seat on the board to Eric that was done in his spare time, and was near a thousand pages. And then of course, Eric had found out how independently wealthy Adam was already. "What are you doing working, anyway? Shouldn't you be on the golf course somewhere?"

            "Nah, don't trip. I wind up in sand traps, lagoons, water hazards with like piranahs in them or something and I can't get out!" My game is right here. Go where ya game at! Oh! Don't tell me you're gonna make me golf too? This programming stuff is short in comparison. That stuff is like four plus hours with my blodd all over the table. You're just trying to win some of that money back from me aren't you?"

            OZENOZ.COM is done in the tradition of technological geek - java junkies etiquette under Adam's rule. T- shirts are acceptable work attire Monday through Sunday, suits are acceptable, naps are acceptable (off the clock) and playing ping pong in the back break room is mandatory. The programmers have their own floor that is intersperced with bean bag chairs and concert posters from their most recent cavorts. There is only one way to get hired, and that is through being REALLY good. One of the best, from the best, waiting to sit for awhile with the best to get an insider test of their chops. And you have to prove it, there is a two month trial period where OZENOZ and you have the option to walk away with a small severance attached. Encourages slackers to take their money early and run.

            Adam is engaged to a Columbian woman who he met while vacationing on the island of Atlantis. He went there, and after meeting her, decided to take anothetr vacation to her home town to date her. They dated nightly for months, and friendship turned to love. When she lost her job unexpectedly, he proposed, saying "I'll take care of you." and they moved back to Los Angeles together. He lives in Malibu, where he bought the couple a home after scouring the market for months in a cramoed loft. He is very much so in love with his fiancee, and is planning a beach wedding for early spring the following year. The reception is set at a four star restaurant on the water just outside of Santa Monica.

8. Cliff Dover- Joel Brooks

            Personal Assistant to Harry, Cliff rarely if ever speaks. He drives Harry's Town Car, washes it and waxes it. Harry doesn't like to drive. He lives in Harry's guest house so that he can be close on hand to take care of anything that he needs to. He mixes Harry's drinks, cooks for him, does the dishes, gets his dry cleaning, all of the minute things Harry doesn't have time for. When Harry goes out of the country, he stays behind because he is afraid of flying. During these days he tends to his antique collection cluttering the guest house.

            Harry likes that he is a man of so few words and says "Atleast I know if you say something, in that moment, you must sure as hell mean it!"

            Often times he is asked for his opinion, as he has been around for fifteen years, but declines comment almost always.

            Unafraid of the physical dangers of being the driver to some pretty shady locations to meet with heavily armed clients, he prides himself in his music collection for the Town Car, which he uses as a motivator for the crew. Recently Harry bought satellite radio for the Town Car becasue he said "Your taste in music is too on the spot. I don't like to feel like someone is reading my mind or something. Besides, they feel like youn are being condascending, the other fella's you know. I mean it's my car, after all."

            Cliff is thirty five years old. He came to work for Harry when Harry was still in Silicon Valley. He relocated with him when he moevd as he has no family. Cliff was an orphan. He grew mup in foster homes where he suffered a lot of abuse. He learned to keep his mouth shut, and his guard up. At twenty, fresh out of the Navy, he took the job as Harry's assistant. Harry liked that he had been in the Navy.

-Always wears all black.

-Favorite food is sushi, and he has even learned how to roll his own.

-Likes tonic water and bitters, doesn't drink alcohol.

-Doesn't use a cell phone after experiencing a prior hacker on his old smart phone which recorded some very private conversations. He suspects it was a guy he had hit with the car while trying to leave too quickly from a meeting with Harry.

-He has a Lopsa Opsa he carries around with him everywhere.

-Makes more money than the muscle for the gang with what he has saved allowed to be used in profit sharing in product deals by Harry. He wrote up this proposal after helping Harry out of a tight spot he ran into when his offshore bank account was frozen during a crucial deal.

9. Matthew Sullivan- Donnie Wahlberg

            Matthew is a very young C.I.A. agent who chose field work over desk work because he wanted to see some action. He hasn't seen it yet. Every assignment he gets ends up being a drudgery filled with paperwork to complete and very little in the way of action. He went to pre- law at The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and went to Law School at Penn University in Philadelphia. At age twenty four he was recruited when he filled out a questionnaire online after talking to an agent who used to be his roommate. He wants field work, but not to get shipped to the Middle East somewhere. He wants his two feet firmly planted on U.S. soil.

            "Fucking, excuse my language but those rag heads don't need my spitfire around their oil, I'd light up the well, and their rags. Besides, I  hate the food. I wonder what they serve at like McDonald's over there? Is it like couscous instead of fries? I don't know why all the true movers and shakers gotta live in caves too. If you ask me, the original cavemen still exist. And they haven't moved! Unga Bunga!"

            Matthew is single, and he hasn't been dating since he took on field work. Well, he went on a few dates but when he told them he was right next to a double oh seven, it seemed to drive them away, and fast. This was worse than police work. In the C.I.A. he was expected to travel long and far from home for his work.

            He grew up in a very conservative Catholic home, and he still wears his cross around his neck. He says his rosary out of habit in the mornings while dressing for work. His character goes from being bogged down in paperwork at the beginning, to very driven to create some of his own action. Over the course of the story he teams up with people at OZENOZ.COM to fill the gaps in the manpower he has been left with.  By the end, he has gotten his taste and is sleeping with his gun under his pillow.

            He gets word of an armed robbery of a sensitive piece of equipment from Naval Intelligence by some very deadly trained assassins and connects the dots to some of his own research in the mnountains of paperwork they have gone over. He found the threads for a forum discussion, very private, for news on the latest advance in the completion of Holographic Data Storage Technology and connected by a false I.P. to several of the users whose I.P.'s were stored with the social media site. They were in private accounts used by several businessmen in China whose political dealings ran around military heads.

            Using a programmer at OZENOZ.COM, he finds a way to hack remotely into their I.P. address and access their files. When they bring up the desktop, they notice a series of recorded video conferences between them and someone who is talking about a piece of equipment they call "The Holo".

            There is one file that stands out the most, though. It is a text file explaining and exploring the possible use of "The Holo" to track high tech top secret defense sattelites to fly by with high powered high tech cameras, x - ray equipment etcetera, and infrared camera's of all kinds unobserved to duplicate their technology. It would also give great advantage to any and all missions carried out in any part by sattelite and orbiting defense systems activity being done in orbit. The only good news is that it can't control any of those mvements alone, remotely. The effects would still be a huge setback to the U.S., who owns the technology developed by a long military friend, I.B.M. "The Holo" is a smart phone capable of moving and storing data at a rate never before possible, made possible by Holographic Data Technology. It is going to revolutionize the way business is done online, and offline. It is going to change the world as we know it.

10. Tim Sykes - Matt Damon

            Tim is a programmer at OZENOZ.COM who inserts a virus into the platform for fifty thousand dollars. They wanted to make sure it rooted and stayed in the system for a very long time. Tim is thirty years old and tired of looking through endless lines of code. He looks for underground work as a hacker to liven things up a bit, and finds Harry. Harry looks at some of his virus work, and passes, but makes the simplest of offers. Launch one on his day job and catch a twentieth of a million dollars. There was hope yet on becoming a millionaire.

            Tim is a big guy, he works out regularly to stay fit. He is future heir to a large fortune whenever his father passes. His father is the owner of a large dock in Philadelphia, and has many import and export trade agreements under his belt. His parents suggested that he go into the military, and he did join the armed forces for one two year stint. At the end of that, he used the G.I. Bill to go to school at M.I.T. in Boston, though he hated the winters. There he become very interested in the psychological nuances of social media programming technology. The things it was capable of were amazing, and responsible for a lot of the much deserved break through's of many unknowns in to the top of their chosen field's just through it's ingenius quirks and gizmo's lining things up. Always measuring the worth and wealth of the littlest activities of all of the networks users through their various interfaces. Equating in code, what human behavior was, and what it should be, and it worked!

            Throughout the course of the story, Tim goes from being a desperate new - hire at OZENOZ to a steely eyed competitor for hacking business. He is in way over his head after inserting the virus, and is being endlessly pursued by his coworkers, who just can't seem to nail him down. When several close calls in the office copy room getting faxes from Harry prove to be too much for him, he tries to tell Adam he is quitting, but Adam won't let him.

            "Come on, you will be alright! Come on, let's break some code!"

            "Had enough code? Yeah, me too. Let's go get a beer. I'm buying!"

            "That is what I am trying to do! I guess this is all something I just can't walk away from."

            "That's something I'm not going to walk away from either!"

            "Come on, I'm not that big a drinker!"

-Drives a Honda Civic

-Plays golf as much as possible

11. Eric Chrislip- M. Knight Shamalayan

            C.E.O. of OZENOZ.COM. Went to Lehigh University for Undergraduate Business School. Grew up very close to his twin brother, but at age twenty - one they had a falling out and haven't spoken since. Eric is fourty years old. Eric is a Pisces, though his brother is an Aries, though in their careers it seems the opposite.

            When Eric is first brought into the story, he is a very\ reserved person in so far as the company policy is concerned, but as the story progresses, Eric  becomes a high adventurer. He also finds forgiveness in his heart for his brother, with whom he meets at the end while a desperate shootout is taking place. This meeting saves most likely BOTH of their lives.

            Eric promoted Adam Traill to acting V.P. of OZENOZ.COM on a whim when he wrote a program to increase the companies stock value in significant ways in a very short amount of time. This is reflective of the iron fist with which he rules his company. The votes were there on the board not only becasue they liked him, but because they were afraid of what they would miss out on if they didn't go his way. He is a very low risk and high reward power player who is mainly soft spoken, though very well spoken and known for allowing his peer board members to be treated exactly as that they should by reserving comments until just before his vote. He is not easily swayed, though there is a story about a programmer who had a four month old preemie who needed a raise in order to keep the chalet he had bought for his pregnant wife. He immediately doubled the man's salary, and made him a crew chief (Chip Long), knowing that he evrything to work for. Eric had nothing to lose from a two year veteran who was always milking the clock.

            "He milks the clock. He's on salary. Salaried men don't milk the clock. He was trying to get an opportunity. And he bought it. For his family. That's an OZENOZ story. Ordinary men outreaching their outspending with outstanding going out saving. Now out of my outhouse of an outed office. Thanks for asking about Mr. Chip Long. We're doing fine. The whole family."

12. Derrick Chrislip- M. Knight Shamalayan

            Derrick was always the slower of the twin brothers. At sports, at math, at drawing apples in Kindergarten that didn't come out like bruised and misshapen parcels of sugary goodness you wouldn't eat if it turned up in your lunchbox, unlike his sweetheart, "Selma May" his friends called her. Derrick struggled for everything that came his way, and developed a vengeful, almost, attitude when Eric tried on hand me downs. Nothing ever needed to pass hands from Eric to Derrick, they were twins, and of the two Derrick was always the one suppying Eric with things. Things he was proud of.

            Derrick became recruited by Harry Sante when he dropped out of Penn University after having graduated from Lehigh alongside his brother. Derrick, unlike his scheming brother, had not taken up business, but rather what the school was famous for, engineering. When he moved as a duo alongside his brother to the Penn Law program, the duo fell flat, fell out, and fell from the graces of their younger years. One late night when Derrick found out his brother was dating his ex- fiancee, Derrick packed from their apartement and left for good. They have not spoken in twenty years.

            Derrick would have went on to do construction work as any other top ranked Lehigh Engineer would have done, but he found instead, Harry. Harry was pioneering into his Silicon Valley business in the year of our lord, nineteen ninety - three, and lord what a year in business in the Valley it would rake!

            Derrick had minored in computer programming and knew enough of the ropes to start off as Harry's assistant. He would receive the work of the outsourced programmers, and do minor checks on their format and run the portion of the program to debug.

Got a comment? Write me at:

Thegratefulliving@mail.com