Hamzah Haring
| Hamzah Haring
| |
| Book(s) | The Crypt |
| Introduced | Book 1: Ep. 18 |
| Gender | Male |
| Age | unknown |
| Occupation | Military Service |
| Species | Human |
| Fan Name | No |
| Height | |
| Weight | |
| Hair | |
| Eyes | |
| Military Service
| |
| Allegiance | Planetary Union |
| Branch | Navy |
| Years of Service |
n/a |
| Rank | Petty Officer 3rd Class |
| Assignment | PUV James Keeling |
| Stationed | n/a |
| Battles/Wars | |
| Awards | |
| Injuries | |
Hamzah Haring is a character in the novel titled The Crypt by author Scott Sigler. The character is initially introduced in Book One episode eighteen of the serialized podcast.
Character Background
Hamzah Haring is currently a Petty Officer 3rd Class serving on the PUV James Keeling. Originally, Haring was recruited out of high school by the Planetary Union Armed Forces to be an independent contractor. Prized for his eidetic memory and proficiency in programming, Haring was hired to create an impenetrable security system for the PU Armed Forces.
Haring considered it his first true challenge and met he it head on. He was so talented that his plan of action entailed firing his staff of ten and single-handedly building the system he referred to as IMMOB (short for The Immovable Object). In the nine months it took to build the system, he endured endless change orders, ever growing bureaucracy, and dealing with non-tech military brass to see through the creation of his system. When the project was in its final stages, the PU Armed Forces took IMMOB, fired Haring and implemented his system without him. The only explanation that was given to Haring was that because the system he created was impenetrable, they no longer needed him.
A month after losing his job, Haring entered into a fortuitous relationship with a beautiful woman named Ileana. She supported him financially which gave Haring time to brood over his misfortunes. Jaded, Haring plotted revenge by infiltrating IMMOB. He referred to this infiltration – to himself – as IRRFOR, or the Irresistible Force. His plan was to show the military that they needed him, yet after seven months of infiltrating IMMOB and purposefully leaving his signature, the PU Armed Forces hadn’t contacted him.
Over the months, Haring became intrigued with the bits of information he came across regarding the PUV James Keeling. He wrote a slicing software program to search the entire system in the union military to look for anything with the word Keeling even when the name wasn’t Keeling. This lead him to the personal files of Fleet Commander Admiral Vincent Epperson.He knew he should wipes his tracks and back out but was too intrigued so he gave himself an hour to read. Two hours later, when Ileana woke up, he made her breakfast but forgot to turn off is computer. She saw the files and knocked him out with an injection.
Unbeknownst to Haring, Ileana was Admiral Boock’s daughter. Haring awoke to Admiral Boock’s interrogation. She made him realize that the military wouldn’t have cast off an employee that had been given provisional clearance to certain classified information and that his firing was just a ruse created to dare Haring into infiltrating his own system.
As punishment for infiltrating Admiral Epperson’s personal files, Haring was given two options: death or service on the PUV James Keeling. Haring realized she would go through with the execution and thus accepted the role.
Attributes
Personality
Haring is an intelligent, confident, young man but he age and hubris lends him to immaturity in several areas of his life.
When dealing with his career, Haring’s immaturity lead to several mistakes that a more mature person would have averted. The first was that upon being hired by the Planetary Union Armed Forces, he immediately fired his staff and kept their salaries. He was confident that he could build IMMOB by himself, which he did achieve, but having a staff could have helped him make better decisions about when it came to his termination. While he did work incredibly hard, devoting every hour of nine months to create IMMOB, it also lent Haring to garner a sense of entitlement. In addition to collecting the ten salaries of the staff he fired, he also overbilled the PU and felt like they owed him even more.
Second, Haring’s immaturity lead him to seek revenge against the Planetary Union Armed Forces for firing him and assuming control of IMMOB. Haring wasn’t seditious, a saboteur or a terrorist but he did want to retaliate and get revenge against what he saw as an unjust firing. This lead him to become careless and leave more tracks of his infiltration than he initially intended. Admiral Boock summed up these tendencies well by referring to Haring as, “smart but careless.”
For all the confidence Haring has in his abilities, he has very low self esteem about himself as a person. His relationship with Ileana Boock was a good example of this. Haring felt as if he was on borrowed time with her, yet he allowed himself to believe that she really loved him, that she had seen something in him as he knew someone one day would. When Ileana is revealed as a mole, Haring despairs by thinking that if he was honest with himself he would have realized Ileana couldn’t have loved him.
Skills
Hamzah Haring is nothing short of gifted when it comes to computer programming. At a young age he was sought out by the military for his proficiency in programming. In addition, Haring has an eidetic memory, commonly referred to as a photographic memory. During his interrogation with Admiral Boock, she refers to Haring’s test scores that she describes as, “off the charts.”
Co-Authored Character
The character of Hamzah Haring was the result of a collaboration between authors Scott Sigler and PC Haring.
See Also
External Links
- See more works by PC Haring at his website.
