Rucksack Mary

Rucksack Mary / Maria Caliper / Maureen Jones (Ceilican Vagabond / Corporate Spy / Computer Systems Whiz) - The epitome of her tribe’s multiple personality disorder approach to life, this Bastet spends portions of the year as three very different women. Four months out of twelve, Rucksack Mary wanders across the continental U.S. seeking new friends and sensations. For four months after that, Maria Caliper’s answering service accepts calls from executives who want the dirt on their competitors — or their coworkers.

During the next four-month period, Maureen Smith takes freelance job offers creating office systems or debugging sensitive software. All three personalities are well known in their fields; very few folks connect the three women. Even her fellow Bastet remain ignorant of her identities. In particular, no one who has heard about Rucksack Mary’s many names knows which tribe she hails from. Most assume she belongs to the Bagheera or Pumonca and leave it at that.

Physically, all three fit a similar “type” — late-20s to early 30s, pretty but not remarkably so, athletically built with graceful mannerisms. From there outward, they appear quite different.

Rucksack Mary wears worn, cut-off denim shorts and vests decorated with art and autographs of the people she’s met. Her wild blond hair contrasts with sunburnt skin, and her elfin grin offsets the age lines around her eyes. Mary’s only footwear consists of toe-rings and an elaborate anklet, and her enthusiasm for life is infectious. Maria Caliper is suave, with well-manicured nails, perfect makeup and an expensive wardrobe of modest but en trancing dresses and high-heeled shoes. Her personality is cool and formal, with only a hint of playfulness beneath an “all business” facade. Maria’s hair is short and brown, calculatedly messy rather than severe. Maureen Jones is the werecat’s “resting” persona — quiet, focused, introverted and antisocial. Her clothing is bland and efficient; she wears no jewelry and keeps her red hair hanging across her face. In conversation, she seems distracted and quickly breaks contact with anyone. Only the Bastet’s cat-forms — each of them black with white stripes, paws and mask — bring the three different women together, and only the most perceptive of beings could realize any connection at all between these very different women.

Each of the Ceilican’s personas are curious in their own way; Rucksack Mary loves to meet people, bond quickly, then skip away into the sunset; Maria digs up inside info and sells it to finance her luxurious lifestyle; Maureen prefers the mysteries of code and cipher to personal interactions and avoids conversation whenever possible. Each “face” the Ceilican possesses is sharp-witted and perceptive with an affinity for other people’s quirks. Each identity wages a very quiet secret war against corruption, passing information into the right hands at the right time. Although she’s no champion of catkind, this elusive Bastet is exactly what she was born to be: watchful, playful and lethal when need be.