Note: This chapter contains most of the backstory for Spock, stuff that'll be gradually revealed as the story goes on and Ximena conducts her investigation. So I guess it counts as spoilers. I haven't worried much about spoilers, since by the time I get back to writing Spock, I'll have moved on to another random book or taken these chapters down, the story will likely have changed, and you guys will have mostly forgotten the details anyway. But if you really don't wanna know these potential spoilers, then scroll down to the very end for the Q&A portion :)

In 1970-something, Raphael and Consuelo Morales immigrate from Argentina to the United States of America in order to give their son, Esteban, a better chance. And they do: he gets a good education, marries a lovely first-generation immigrant named Raquelita, and becomes a successful biologist at an esteemed institution.

Unfortunately, that esteemed institution is a front for a corrupt organization that modifies the human genome in an attempt to advance humanity.

Like many other employees, Esteban is so caught up in the importance and wonder of what Kingdom is doing that he doesn't view the subjects as people who are suffering. He believes that they're doing the right thing - they are, after all, trying to cure genetic diseases and give humans abilities they've never had before.

Esteban is brilliant, but emotionally detached. That makes him a perfect Kingdom employee.

In order for Raquelita to be at Kingdom with Esteban, she's employed as a surrogate mother and carries some of the subjects. Raphael (Esteban's father) may also be a Kingdom employee, possibly as a guard.

Then one day, Esteban has a breakthrough. Something revolutionary. He gets to work designing a genome, and when it's time to create the child, he uses his and Raquelita's genetic material.

He makes himself a son.

Raquelita carries and gives birth to Evan, who is somehow one of the most special mutants ever created (don't ask me how cuz I don't know yet). Raquelita may not even know Evan is her real son until after he's born. As soon as he's born, however, he's taken from her, and she doesn't see him for about two years. Esteban does - he created him, and he's in charge of him.

And he gets attached to him.

Doing these tests on a child he knows to be his son slowly opens Esteban's eyes to the horrors of what he's doing. The change is slow, but eventually Esteban realizes he can't be a part of this anymore. He and Raquelita make plans to smuggle Evan (and all the information about him) from the premises.

They succeed, but Esteban loses his life in the process. Either that or he dies shortly thereafter from some kind of chemical side effect from his work.

Raquelita, pregnant with a human child and now the only guardian of her son, flees to the home of Consuelo and Raphael, the latter of whom is probably dead at this point. She explains the situation, and Consuelo swears to help her protect Evan. She hides Raquelita and Evan, and Gabi once she's born. And Raquelita raises her children, never telling them the truth in hopes that they'll never need to know it.

Her hopes are eventually dashed.

Raquelita is a hard-working and loyal woman. She puts other people's needs over her own and feels worthless if she can't provide for others. This makes her eventual terminal illness all the more hard for her to endure. Consuelo promises to take care of the children, but once Raquelita dies, it's a race between Consuelo's senility and Evan's adulthood. Once Evan is 18, Consuelo thinks, he'll be safe...

Unfortunately, Evan's adulthood loses. Consuelo's custody of the children is taken away and given the government, the kids go into the foster system, and suddenly their records are there for Kingdom to find.

And find them they do.

Consuelo (known as Abuela to her grandchildren) is a shrewd and intelligent woman who doesn't let her lack of formal education stop her. Her firm leadership skills make her a formidable guardian indeed, and she takes good care of Evan and Gabi for as long as she can. Watching her mind go is really hard for her grandchildren. And life becomes almost unbearable for Consuelo when her grandchildren disappear and she knows what happened to them, it's the thing she's been trying to prevent for fourteen or fifteen years, and now it's happened, and now no one will listen to her or help her find her babies.

When Ximena shows up, suspicious about Evan's disappearance and trying to figure out what happened, Abuela latches onto her as her only hope. With her memory fading, she's missing crucial information that Ximena has to dig up herself from different sources (Gravity Rises has given and will give me great practice with this *wiggles eyebrows mysteriously*). Luckily, Ximena is determined, and promises Abuela she'll do whatever she can to get Evan and Gabi back. Ximena is also an anchor for Abuela when she starts to doubt herself, wondering if Kingdom or hybrid children or even Evan and Gabi are just figments of her aging imagination.

Esteban, Raquelita, and Consuelo (and Raphael) are all Hispanic. Esteban (at about age 30, when Evan is born) is average height and build, with dark-ish brown skin, tousled brown-black hair, and elliptical, thin-rimmed glasses over dark green-brown eyes. He wears his lab coat over sweater vests and dark pants and shoes. He manages to look young and old at the same time, although nobody actually gets to see him grow old, so that might attribute to the illusion...

*awkward cough*

(What do you mean he kinda looks like Stanford Pines? I don't know what you're talking about.)

Raquelita (at about age 28, when Evan is born) is at least a head shorter than Esteban, with somewhat darker skin. She has wide hips, barely-visible freckles on a round nose under soft, dark brown eyes, and wiry, mid-length, curly brown hair. She wears skirts or jeans with t-shirts she's collected from charities or events or companies (during her time at Kingdom they give her their own soft scrubs-like outfits for her to wear.)

Consuelo/Abuela (at about 70, when the story begins) is stooped, wrinkled, and gray. Her skin is the darkest of the Morales family (Evan's is the lightest), with leathery folds and lines. Her sharp dark brown eyes are set deeply into her face, and thin silvery-white hair that floats around her head. She was taller than Raquelita at some point, but she's shortened with age. She wears knit shawls and skirts with lots of layers and faded colors.

Relationships with other characters (Esteban):

Evan: Nobody entirely knows what drove Esteban to apply his breakthrough genetic code to his own son. Pride, I guess. His breakthrough was his baby, so the child given the genes should be his baby too. At first, all Evan is to Esteban is a symbol of his success. But eventually he realizes he is a person, and he deserves a better life.

Gabi: Never gets to meet her - he dies before she's born. But he's happy to know he'll have a child who isn't a target for Kingdom for the rest of her life.

Ryann: They possibly knew and worked together, I'm not sure. They wouldn't have been more than coworkers.

Raquelita: The love of his life. She centers him, grounds him, reminds him to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. She also tries her best to support him, but she's on board with getting the heck out of Kingdom far before he is.

Consuelo: Esteban thinks he's smarter than his mother. I mean, in some ways, he's right, but in other ways, he's very, very wrong. Still, he loves and appreciates his mother for all she's done to give him opportunity and fortune.

Everyone else: Never meets them, though he was working at Kingdom when Tosigo, Rosario, and Iri were born, so maybe he saw them or worked with them as infants.

Relationships with other characters (Raquelita):

Evan: Few things matter more to Raquelita than keeping her son healthy, happy, and safe. She's risked her life for him, she's lost her husband for him, she's dedicated her life to him and to Gabi. Which makes her eventual death terrifying for her.

Gabi: She doesn't love Gabi any less than Evan, Evan is just... higher maintenance. Gabi's personality and intelligence often reminds Raquelita as Esteban, and she knows he'd be proud of her.

Ryann: Never liked her to begin with, but after she and Evan flee, she often has nightmares about Ryann and other scientists she worked with taking him from her.

Esteban: Sometimes she wishes he hadn't been lured in by Kingdom, but then that would mean he wasn't her brilliant man she loves so dearly. How she still functions on the days where she misses him the most, I'll never know.

Consuelo: The only person Raquelita knows she can trust, and her only hope for her kids once she's gone.

Everyone else: Never meets them, though she might have seen Tosigo, Rosario, and Iri as babies. She didn't carry any of them.

Relationships with other characters (Consuelo):

Evan: Evan frustrates Abuela sometimes, but she had practice with teenage boys when she was raising Esteban. She does her best to handle the rampant emotional intensity that is Evan once he loses his mother. Losing Evan and Gabi after she's lost the rest of her family is just heartbreaking - she was supposed to outlive everyone, except maybe Raphael, and suddenly she's all alone, the only Morales left. It's a very, very good thing she lives to see her grandkids again.

Gabi: Abuela finds Gabi far too prideful to really be successful, but she has faith that she'll mature out of that. Gabi reminds Abuela of herself when she was younger, and Esteban too. She's very proud when she finds out what Gabi did against the odds to help overthrow Kingdom.

Ximena: Abuela's closest ally during the course of the book. They gradually grow close, first bonding over their mutual loss of Evan and Gabi and then becoming friends past that. Abuela is deeply grateful for Ximena and her determination.

Iri: While plans for what happens after the overthrowing of Kingdom are still in flux, they may involve Abuela and Iri meeting and Abuela comforting Iri as she fearfully makes the transition from Kingdom to whatever new world is in store for her.

Tosigo: Oh boy. Oh boy. Does he get an earful from her once she hears what he's done to her grandbabies.

Rosario: Possibly never meets her, but if she does, she'll be sympathetic to Rosario's struggle to communicate, having been a Spanish-speaking immigrant herself.

Daniel: On the surface, she'll say things like, "Young people these days have no backbone," but that's covering a deep disgust and horror at his cowardice and ability to be controlled. Still, she does sort of thank him for being not as terrible as he could have been.

Ryann: Will carry her hatred towards her to the grave. Abuse of power and leadership positions is one of the things Consuelo hates most in this world, and Ryann's entire career is exactly that.

Raquelita: She loves her like her own daughter and is often her main comforter. The grief they share together over Esteban bonds them in a way few other things can.

Esteban: There's always a part of her that's still grieving over him, whether it be the bad things he did or the end it got him when he tried to set them right. Consuelo was hard on Esteban as he grew up - she wanted him to be the best he could. But look where being the best got him. Consuelo partly blames herself for that.

So there you are!! The major characters of the Spock project. And now, it's time for a Q&A!

If you have any questions about Spock (the characters, the plot, the world, the science), ask them here and I will answer! There's no limit to questions. Some fair warnings:

~If you ask for spoilers, I will answer with spoilers.

~The answer may be "I don't know," though I'll always try to think of a possibility.

~Every piece of information is subject to change by the time I start writing the next draft.

I'll post all the questions and answers in a final Spock chapter as soon as I feel like everyone who has a chance to ask has asked, so... let's just say this is open for a week or so (a week from now is Wednesday, October 25th).

Ask away!!