Elaine Nalley

Loophole by E. E. Nalley

Elaine Ethel "Doc" Nalley was born on March 10, 1990. As she would turn 17 on March 10, 2007. During her time at Whateley Academy, she used the code name "Loophole," which was assigned by the administration for her habit of being a rules lawyer. After graduation, she used the code name "Wicked," at least for a while.

She started out in Whitman Cottage, before moving to Poe Cottage in 2007-2008.

General Description

In the "Lit Chix," Doc is the moderating influence between Bek’s exuberance, Maggie’s caution and the other members of the club’s foibles. She can get excited over an idea and infect it to the others or cautiously point out the problems all while fretting, probably needlessly, over what others think of her. Doc gets her name from her own hatred of her given names and her love of classic Sci-Fi.

She doesn't like spiders.

Stories

Main Character

• The Clue of the Unseen Switch
• The Case of the Poisonous Patent
• The Secret of the Forger's List
  • The Secret of the Forger's List: Part 4
• The Kodiak Conspiracy
  • The Kodiak Conspiracy: Chapter 2
  • The Kodiak Conspiracy: Chapter 3
• Even Murphy's Law has Loopholes
  • Even Murphy's Law has Loopholes: Chapter One
  • Even Murphy's Law has Loopholes: Chapter Five
  • Even Murphy's Law has Loopholes: Chapter Six
• North To Atlantis
• The Bear, The Bitch, And Everything - in four parts
• Laura and the Village
• The Sorrows of Red October
• The Haunting of Jennifer Kelly

Side Character

• Jade 6 - Dreams and Awakenings
• My Fair 'Shine
• All Hallows Ball

Mentions

History

Laneth

Laneth, Daughter of Joan, Lady mac Óengusa Bean Sith was a past life of Loophole. She was a Pict Banshee, born in the town of Morlock, on March 10th, in the late eighth century.

She appears in Elaine's dreams during the beginning of the Fall 2007 term, causing no end of distress. She reappears during the Jennifer Kelly arc.

Prior to Whateley

After reading an article in Popular Science, she wrote a paper completely redesigning a fusion rocket engine. This earned her a scholarship to Whateley Academy from the Ty West Foundation. She entered Whateley as the first of the few (but by no means the only) students without an active mutant trait.

At Whateley Academy

She was a member of both the Lit Chix and the Gearheads clubs. She was a major inventor in the Workshop, earning a membership and rapid advancement in the Order of the Worn Wrench. She earns enough from several major patents to pay her own way through Whateley, as well as her brother's way. Presumably, they give her a comfortable income after she graduates. She had major problems with Freya and the rest of the Alphas until Freya graduated and her chosen successor, The Don, was toppled.

When she was accused of murdering Snapshot, she had five witnesses, plus Mr. Donner putting her in the Devisor Lab as an alibi.

After that, she entered a love affair with Wyatt Cody and, a bit later, with Tansy Walcutt. That turned into a 3-way to the extent that both Elaine and Tansy would have married Wyatt as co-wives if the legal situation had permitted it. The two are similar enough that they enjoy pranking Wyatt by using an appearance change spell to swap. They say he doesn't know the difference. This is possible, but doubtful. Wyatt is nowhere near as unobservant as his appearance would suggest. He tends to let people dig themselves in deeper until it's time to pull the charade apart.

She participated in Lady Astarte's action to separate Maria Ricardo from Freya. As part of that, she went undercover with a fake MID created by Amelia Hartford under the name of Jennifer Kelly, code name Wicked. This ID was properly registered (i.e. hacked) in the DPA data bases, complete with a pre-history as a jewel thief who had served 8 months for breaking and entering.

Late in her sophomore year, Elaine acquires a bear spirit, named Grizzly. She also begins having dreams, nightmares or visions about a remote ancestress, a Pict warrior woman named Laneth. (needs references)

On 2007-09-09, Mrs. Horton, Lanie's house mother, performs a spell that causes Laneth to manifest in the real world, under the impression that this will help heal problems with Kayda Franks.

After Whateley

She married Wyatt Cody either shortly before or after finishing high school, and started a family. She dropped the Loophole ID and took up the Wicked ID. As of 2016, it's marked Inactive in the DPA database, which leads to the question of what ID she is using when she has to take airplane trips, which require a MID.

Her first children were born approximately 5 months after graduation. The author has stated that there's a reason, which may be disclosed in future stories.

About a week after her third child was born, while at a party at the Nalley family residence, Tansy gets a call to action to get the cure for a plague that Night Death had been working on in his lair. Tansy, unfortunately, had a broken leg as the result of a Class X action which couldn't be healed magically without major, possibly disastrous, consequences.

Kayda Franks does a spell that allows Elaine and Tansy to swap appearances so Elaine can go in Tansy's place. For some reason, she carried the Wicked ID that had been created for Jennifer Kelly with her. Elaine managed to fulfill the mission and acquire the antidote for Night Death's bioplague, but was apparently killed in an explosion, with a carbonized corpse being buried in Tansy's grave. There are tasteful memorials to Solange in Central Park and in Whateley's Memorial Garden.

In order to protect Elaine's family from further grief, Tansy decided to take Elaine's place permanently, without Wyatt's knowledge. Only Kayda and her life-partner Cornflower are aware of the switch. Kayda creates a spell that makes the switch pretty much impenetrable, including transferring Elaine's bear sprit to Tansy. The spell has to be renewed once a year. They think that nobody knows about the swap, especially that Wyatt does not know. Wyatt knows - he is nowhere near as unobservant as they think.

Jennifer Kelly

The assault on Night Death's lair resulted in 200 deaths and six casualties so badly injured that they couldn't be identified. One of them had active brain activity while remaining in a coma. After a great deal of medical and forensic work, that one was identified as Jennifer Kelly, based on a badly damaged MID found near her. She remained in a coma for nearly a year.

After she regained consciousness, she proved to have total amnesia for everything before she woke up. Elaine is currently living as Jennifer Kelly with the doctor who cared for her and working as a jewel courier, which fits the Wicked (Villain) persona.

As of October 2016, the charade is beginning to come apart.

Taste in Literature

Sci-Fi in all of its many flavors and forms is a must. Beyond that, any kind of adventure story is a very close second; the time period is not a great factor. She’ll happily curl up with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, Heinlein or her name sake, E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith.

MID

MID as of 2006-12:

Mutant Identification Card
Code name	LOOPHOLE
Ratings	Homo sapiens, STUBBORN Further notations pending court trial.
Techniques	ASE Certified Mechanic
Weak vs	Normal Human Weakness
Backup / Team Affiliation	Gearheads, Literary Club The Law Firm of Mark Reed & Associates

Wicked (Villain) ID

Wicked by E. E. Nalley

As part of Lady Astarte's operation against Freya, Amelia Hartford created a fake ID for a villain named Jennifer Kelly, code named Wicked. This is properly entered in (read: hacked into) the DPA (and presumably the MCO) databases, where it has migrated to HeroWatch. Her MID lists her as an EX-3, although there are rumors that her MID is not complete.

Jennifer Kelly is 23 and has a degree in Communications from Kennesaw State University. She is also a Graduate Gemologist. She is an accomplished martial artist with a tendency to archaic weapons. She carries a bow with trick arrows and a pair of hand claws but has several high tech devices as well.

Wicked is introduced in Whilst Any Speaks, where she is shown assaulting the Emerald Tower, base of the Empire City Guard, presumably to establish her bona-fides so she can penetrate Freya's organization. Ms. Hartford's hacking is complemented by spells cast by Lady Astarte and Jadis Diabolik so Jennifer Kelly does not have the same appearance or accent as Elaine Nalley.

All of her current identification is in the possession of Elaine Nalley.

After graduation, Elaine Nalley changed her handle from Loophole to "Wicked", although she hardly ever used it. Because of this, there are two entries for "Wicked" in the DPA data base: one for "Wicked (Villain)" and one for "Wicked (Inactive)".

See the sub-topic Jennifer Kelly under the History topic for more information.

Appearance

An extraordinarily tall young woman with bright scarlet hair worn to the bottom of the shoulder blades. Loophole is currently in the process of filling out a striking figure but is still somewhat unaware of it having come from a tall and awkward phase. She's of Scots-Irish descent.

Powers

Loophole is a rare kind of Gadgeteer. She is the perfect systems analyst, able to puzzle out even the most complicated systems in a few seconds, knowing intuitively either how to make the system work if it’s not or how to break it if it is. This ability extends to weapons, even simple things like swords, bows and arrows or even her hands. She can use anything she can touch as though a Master who’s dedicated most of their life becoming an expert with that item. Her initial ranking was DEV1 ESP 3G.

Loophole's Post Combat final rating is as follows (as per COTPP)

Esper 3(G), Devisor 1 and an Exemplar 3 Yerunkle-Corbin system

OR

Gadgeteer 6E Exemplar 3 under the Hewley-Aranis system.

As of January 2007, she has been rated as an Exemplar 3, Devisor 1 and Gadgeteer 6E under the Hewley-Aranis system.

The Hewley-Aranis system would have been expounded in their paper which Doc gained illicit access to; otherwise how would she know about it?

On 2007-05-29, Kayda performed a Native American Ritual that expanded Loophole's Hallow and helped the spirit Grizzly bond with her. Testing will determine her AV rating.

Skills

ASE Certified Mechanic. FAA license SLH001.

With the graduation of Gadget, Elaine was named President pro tempore of the Gearheads. She also was promoted to Junior as Honor Roll, Dean’s List, National Honor Society Initial Member, ASE Junior Achievement Award.

Equipment

Her costume includes a wide white hip belt decorated with what appear to be rhinestones. The stones have a wide range of holdouts. She also has her father's service automatic and an ASP expandable baton.

Carmen

Main article: Carmen

Carmen is an advanced AI that Loophole uses as an assistant. Her existence is a secret. The level of AI she uses is illegal.

Other

Elaine owns "Baby Girl," a vintage Mustang 1969 she rebuilt piece by piece from a hulk bought for fifty dollars in 2003 and parts obtained from various scrapyards. It is powered by a supercharged 427 V-8 engine with a special afterburner that increases its horsepower by about a third while doubling the engine’s fuel efficiency. It was originally a patchwork of colors from parts salvaged from different cars, but eventually Elaine painted it with a nano-paint coating she developed in conjunction with Compiler which allows the car to act like an LED billboard and have dozens of paint schemes, or even stream video or messages like an electronic sign. The default paint scheme is metallic light blue with wide white racing stripes over the hood and roof.

Her other prized property is "Picket's Revenge", a Catalina 27 sailboat she got as a gift from her father. It stays moored at the Nalley's residence in Lake Allatoona, Georgia, but Elaine has a virtual copy of it in the schools simulators. Since the original had two six-packs of beer when she scanned it, the sim computers obligingly include a supply of cold beer every time she uses the virtual copy.

Personality

Doc is probably the politest member of the Literary Club, always please, thank you, sir and ma’am. Being brought up a very traditional Southern young lady, her subconscious use of rather formal manners tends to put some people off and this causes her no amount worry. Though she’d never admit it, Elaine is very troubled over how she’s received and thought of. She hides her embarrassment over her enormous IQ behind a wit that is nearly glib.

Weaknesses

As far as her powers go, the more complicated the device or system is, the longer it takes her to puzzle it out. Simple items like swords or where to strike someone for best effect take only a few seconds. To completely overhaul the Space Shuttle may take her several years. Doc has a peculiar fondness of films and film making. She’ll get lost if discussing either subject for hours at a time. She’s been lectured more than once for her hobby of film making on campus.

Inventions & Projects

• Her suggested improvements upon NASA's next-generation engine system attracted the attention of Tywyswyr, resulting in her being seconded to Whateley on a Ty West Scholarship Foundation scholarship. Without regard to whether she was an active mutant or not.

• Kevra, developed her freshman year (patent WA200612481), is a sub-atomic combination of Kevlar with the body freedom of Lycra. Dow Chemicals bought the patent, or at least the rights to manufacture it.

• Pocolda, also developed in her freshman year (patent WA200612305), is a long chain semicrystalline polymer that is one sided. This locked side allows the chain’s crystalline lattice to distribute pressure across the entire frame in a ratio of five to the ninth to one -- but with a significant lower resistance to pressure on the other side. It is the basis for the CO₂ Grenade, licensed to Better Brands.

• Automotive Afterburner, developed in her sophomore year, pending patent WA200715477, to be marketed by AJG Consolidated after final approval by the school.

• NEMCPE or Nalley Electro-Magnetic Charged Particle Emitter (WA200715286), rated as a Category Three Restricted Use NFA Certified use by the ATF, unlicensed.

• TAPS, or Transdimensional Aranis-Hewley Power Station, an experimental prototype unit capable of generating 43.2 megawatts of electricity. The TAPS was developed using a copy of the unpublished paper, Theoretical Arguments for Extra-Dimensional Power Sources to Explain Paranormal Abilities, which Elaine found while investigating sections of the Whateley Mainframe. When informed of her unauthorized access, and her proof of concept, Drs. Richard Hewley and Jean-Michael Aranis had one response; when could she read more of their work? Elaine chose not to patent this in order to keep the design secret.

Finances

When initially admitted to Whateley, Loophole was on a scholarship from the Ty West Foundation. With the issuance of a patent upon Kevra, she became sufficiently solvent to pay her own way through Whateley. Actually, she's solvent enough that she's paying her brother's tuition as well. And she's not too happy about it, given what a pain he's been to her over the years.

She also has a deal with Phase, involving the marketing of some sort of alcoholic beverages she inherited from her great-grandfather.

Appearances

She teams up with Dredz to supply fliers with glow devices at the Emerson Cottage Dance.

Classes

2005/2006

• Basic Martial Arts
• Citizenship and Government
• Paranormal Law
• Powers Theory
• Powers Lab
• Rights and Responsibilities of Good Samaritan Law Enforcement

Fall 2005

• Flight I
• Costume Shop I She's ... grown ... since then; the costume fits snugger than it used to.
• DD100 Defensive Driving for Overland Vehicles
• Biology I Presuming her comment, "That Ah learned in biology," is for reals.

Spring 2006

• Flight II Took Freshman year, kinda locks in the terms, don't it?

Winter 2007

• Theoretical Concepts of Supraluminal Drives
• Non-linear Equations as Relating to Game Theory Calculus
• World Literature: Special Topics - The Prince TA
• Applied Defensive Technologies
• Principles of Spacecraft Engineering replaced by
• Applied Powered Combat Fifth Period
• Combat Pistol 203 Sixth Period

Spring 2007

• Motion Picture Directing

Associations

• Nalley family (home address is 2170 Kellogg Creek Rd, Kennesaw, GA, at the mouth of Kellogg Creek where it flowed into the Etowah River.
  • Liam Nalley - Great-Grandfather - moonshiner
  • Gene Nalley (Father)
  • JoAnn "Jody" Nalley (Mother)
  • Stephen William Nalley (Brother) Stronghold

• Whateley Academy:
  • Advisor: Melvin Donner
  • Whitman Cottage:
    • Shirley Godwin (roommate, for a few days in September 2005)
    • Maggie Vincent (roommate, Room 216) (until May 3rd, 2007)
    • Shelly Carson (roommate, Room 216, from May 4th, 2007)
  • Poe Cottage:
    • Room 210 Fall 2007 RA - Sophomore Girls

• Clubs
  • The Literature Club
  • The Alphas
  • The Gearheads Automobile Club

• Manipulated by:
  • Freya

• Suspected of murdering Snapshot by
  • Holdout

• Team Phoenix (Training Team)

• Wyatt Cody (Boyfriend)

• Order of the Worn Wrench -- Journeyman Engineer Fifth Rank by the end of her Sophomore year, elevated to Master Engineer Fifth Rank on April 18, 2007.