Erin's unfortunate academic duality had neatly prevented her from tying herself down to a major in either design or computers - her two diametrically opposite fields of interest. It had also forced her into taking twice the classes she might have otherwise, leaving her with little time to devote to areas of outside importance such as writing, roller-blading, fencing, working on her encipient comic "Triad," and keeping collection agencies at bay, not to mention decimating her mean Wal-Mart earnings in one helluva hurry.

Determined that she'd never be a slave of Sam Walton again but desperately needing cash, she braved the adult world and moved to Madison, Wisconsin, to enter the IT workforce as a certified A + tech, only to find the shining Silicon Prairie outpost a ghost town in the wake of an economic slump. Leeching off the kindness of others and huddling under a pile of half-completed FAFSA forms, Erin fought the monotonous boredom of unemployment playing NES games and reading the GIA's letters section - until the very day she was recruited to take the Double Agent mantle upon herself.