Jinx

Giacinta 'Jinx' Johnson is a field operative for an ultra top-secret sub-agency of the NSA called the Office for Special Initiatives, an elite team that uses unconventional clandestine operations to collect intelligence in order to anticipate and respond to crises of information warfare.

Giacinta Maria Johnson was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, the only child of Jerome Johnson and the former Judith Hawke. As a child, her friends gave her the nickname "Jinx" because she was born on Friday the 13th. At 17 years old Jinx graduated high school and went on to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She graduated from MIT with a B.S. degree in Computer Science and a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps via the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps.

After The Basic School, Jinx attended a 19-week course at the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center (NMITC) in Virginia Beach, Virginia. There, she was trained as an Air Intelligence Officer. After graduating from NMITC, she was assigned to Marine Aircraft Group 12 as an Intelligence Officer to Marine All-Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 242 (VMFA-242). Later, she was promoted to the position of Assistant Intelligence Officer for Marine Aircraft Group 12. Eventually, Jinx attended the MAGTF Intelligence Officer Course at NMITC. Afterwards, she was given a staff assignment at the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C., where during her first year she worked under the supervision of Army Colonel Damian Falco.

Upon retiring from the Marine Corps after eight years, Jinx returned to MIT to earn a Master of Science in Computer Science. Upon gaining her master's degree, she applied for employment as a computer scientist at the National Security Agency. Coincidentally Colonel Falco had joined the NSA in a high-level position a few years before and he had Jinx in mind for a far more spectacular position. The best spies have certain traits: proficiency with numbers, three dimensional thinking, creative problem solving. Jinx's aptitude tests and military psychological evaluations showed that she fits the profile perfectly.

Colonel Falco recruited Jinx into a newly-established top-secret initiative to protect critical U.S. information systems. Dubbed the "Office for Special Initiatives" or the "OSI", this sub-agency within the NSA was formed in response to the growing use of sophisticated digital encryption to conceal potential threats to the national security of the United States. For decades the NSA has engaged in the passive collection of moving data by intercepting communications en route. But as communications become more digital and sophisticated encryption more expansive, passive collection is simply no longer sufficient. So hoping to bridge the chasm between simply gathering actionable intelligence and acting on that intelligence, the NSA formed the OSI as its own in-house clandestine operations unit.

Funded by money that has been diverted out of congressionally funded programs, the OSI marks a return to "classical" methods of espionage, enhanced with leading-edge surveillance and combat technology for the aggressive collection of stored data in hostile territories. Instead of filtering the world through satellites and antennas, OSI field agents physically infiltrate dangerous and sensitive enemy locations to gather the required intelligence by whatever means necessary. Their prime directive, in a nutshell, is to do their jobs while remaining invisible to the public eye. They're authorized to work outside the boundaries of international treaties, but the U.S. government will neither acknowledge nor support their operations. In other words, they go back to the nitty-gritty world of human spies out there in the field, risking their lives for the sake of taking a photograph or recording a conversation or copying a computer hard drive.

Although she was initially only told that she would be tasked with handling covert missions either too sensitive or too risky for traditional entities such as the Central Intelligence Agency or special forces, Jinx exuberantly accepted the position. Afterwards she was informed of the OSI's mandate. She then went through an intensive operational training course to train her in so-called "operational intelligence" or "tradecraft" skills, including advanced weapons training, surveillance, explosives, clandestine photography, infiltration, and exfiltration techniques. She was also trained for night parachuting, tactical high speed emergency driving, rappelling from helicopters, and dry and wet demolition. Because of her military experience, she excelled through training.

As a field operative of the OSI, Jinx is used in situations where more than one operative - even though highly secret - would arouse too much attention. Her job is to infiltrate secure installations, seize critical intelligence, destroy dangerous data or equipment, and neutralize the enemy as needed, without leaving a trace. The doctrine of the Office of Special Initiatives is that although killing may compromise secrecy, the choice between leaving either a witness or a corpse is no choice at all. This unconventional status allows Jinx to disregard any law, agreement, or framework of ethical behavior in order to accomplish a mission. However, if she were to ever be captured or killed, the U.S. government would disavow her - either by claiming that she has gone rogue or by denying that Jinx was affiliated with U.S. intelligence at all.