SAM / JEN / JAKE

Sam is much like Jack in the fact that even though he was born to a different name and face, his core personality is kept true in Indiana to a single mother in a run-down motel. His name's Charlie Winters and you couldn't find a happier kid. His mother sacrifices a lot so that he could have a happy childhood, and it definitely spoke to her love to her son. When he was three years old, Charlie's mother went days without food so that her son could eat and keep growing strong. Their luck finally came through when a delivery truck got into an accident in front of their motel. The owner was out, and the driver was killed in the crash. The delivery truck contained enough food for Charlie's mother to survive the week, just enough time for her to secure an interview for a job as a driver for a local food chain.

They did just have an opening, after all.

Charlie's father was bad news. He was involved in all kinds of underground business. You might not believe the presence of organized crime in somewhere in such a state of nowhere as Indiana, but it was developed enough to engulf the Winters father. He and Charlie's mother were eternally abusive to one another. Some days it would be her fault, some days it would be his fault, and other days it would be the bottle's fault, but it would never be Charlie's fault, for he was the one thing, even as an infant and beyond, that the both of them thought was right in the world. Charlie's parents both walked their own pathways to the hurricane of self destruction, mutually meeting in the middle to conceive a boy—who in another history already fought against a rotten hand from the very beginning.

Things were different with Charlie. After his father split and his mother got the driving job she would have her sister babysit Charlie. Charlie loved his aunt, and she loved Charlie almost as much as his mother had. These were the times that Charlie loved most. These were the times that he got to stay in an actual house and play with real toys, eat food that hadn't been days old.

Now, if that sounds like it is a bit harsh from how Charlie thought of the things his mother did for him, you're partly right, but the thing here is that Charlie's mind is hardly developed, so things such as sacrifice hadn't meant anything to him yet. All he saw was what was or wasn't placed in front of him, and to him it was obvious who he liked spending time with more.

As Charlie grew up, he began to understand the things that his mother had done for him. He didn't go to high school, it had been just too much for him. He dropped out after the 7th grade and stayed at home—now upgraded to a cheap apartment by the later half of the 2010s. Charlie's first job is stacking shelves for the very same store that his mother has been a driver for now for years. He works hard and it is noticed by his peers, but he's ultimately laid off a year after he had started working. Officially his record states that too many tardies had been the reason why he was terminated from employment, but the real reason was that his manager hadn't been the fondest of those of Hispanic heritage. His mother had given him the name Charlie in hopes that the "whiteness" of the name would help for future job offers—she was more than aware of the prejudices against her heritage. Unfortunately, a name cannot stop ignorance.

Charlie takes this personally and begins to launch a viral campaign against the store for wrongful termination. He takes his savings and finds a lawyer who is willing to work with the funds he has available. His mother tried to talk him out of it as she was still with the company and didn't want to be brought up in connection as a conflict of interest. Charlie wasn't having the charges be dropped, however. He kept at it and eventually went to trial by 2024. Most online who read the article commented on the fact that he seemed to be raising hell over a minimum wage job and mocked the Winters family for trying to get easy money.

Charlie could see that the bad press was affecting his mother, but he didn't let it stop him, and finally made a break in the case three years into its development when his lawyer, long grayed from the stress of the overwhelming case had dug up evidence of the manager forging Charlie's time-clock punch-ins to corroborate the official record. The case was a breakthrough for minimum wage jobs across the country and Charlie and his mother received a large payout that helped put their life back on track.

That is, until Charlie's father came rolling around again, but there was no booze on his breath. He came with a simple demand written on a small card: "Pay the debt, keep the kid." He reveals that he'd been gone so long to keep the underground world from his son (he couldn't care any less about his supposed wife, as they had not officially divorced). He also reveals that he got mixed in with real bad groups of people whom he owed several hundreds of thousands of dollars to. The card that he handed Charlie was handed to him by one of the kingpins several years back when Charlie was still a kid, as proof that he left for altruistic reasons. At least, to Charlie, of course.

Charlie's mother gets into a fight with his father, and Charlie ends it after it evolves into a screaming match. Charlie says that he'll help his father out—as they have more than enough money after the payout to help his father out, and suggests that they can use the time after he's free from his debts to reconnect. That deal lasts for a very short time as by that night his father disappears with a lump sum of the payout money stolen directly from their account, teaching Charlie that sometimes people can in fact be irredeemable.

Jen is also born in Detroit, Michigan as a boy named Kurt Evans. Kurt embodies similar aspirations as Jen had back in Universe Prime. Ever since he was a small boy he was fascinated with the police. One difference is that he actually wanted to join the force as an officer as opposed to being a forensics specialist. This is simply a childhood desire, however, as he grows up he finds that he has a particular skill with soccer on his high school varsity team. He decides to take a scholarship that's offered to him straight to college.

Unfortunately, his soccer career is cut short due to an accident that had occurred on the field. This takes a major toll on Kurt's personal life as he has to rebuild his life from the ground up from the tragedy. These changes of course mean that Jake never meets Jen, or even Andrew by extension.

Since Jen is the original bridge that brings them together, his life changes significantly in the time that had been the Radical-9 Incident. Jake still struggles with his Vitiligo and C.O.P.D., but received regular treatment and the proper care, so it isn't something that progresses to the stages as it had in Universe Prime. He passes unfortunately in his early thirties due to his compounding sicknesses, but he considers his life well lived to have lasted that long.