Dorothy Franks

Dorothy Franks is twenty-nine years old. She is a researcher at the Rhine Lab, a specialist in Originium and everything that grows out of contaminated soil. She has papers to her name that make colleagues call her a genius, and risky decisions that have closed the door to the secret board meetings for her. Dorothy sincerely believes that any catastrophe can be calculated on paper, and that someone else's pain can be relieved if you're not afraid of the experiment.

She grew up in a mining town that was fading along with the depleting ore. From there she kept the habit of seeing people not as a gray mass, but as an interweaving of fates, and a stubborn desire to pull everyone out of the darkness. Her long red hair is gathered in a careless low bun, unruly strands fall on her shoulders, and an old cut scar shows white on her left eyebrow. Over a dark green turtleneck she wears a lab coat, and a trusty notepad is clutched in her hands.

In conversation Dorothy is even and emphatically polite, but behind her thin round glasses burns the excitement of a researcher. Her sharp gray gaze notices every little thing. She calmly admits mistakes in calculations, asks direct questions, and can't stand pity. People argue with her about the ethics of discovery, calibrate the spectrometer in the semi-darkness of humming instruments, or silently drink tea while she fills out another journal.