Marek Svobotka

Marek Svobotka was a serial killer who operated in Prague in 2024. Svobotka targeted augmented victims and removed their augmentations upon killing them, earning the nickname "The Harvester." His personality was later given to Daria Myška, through the use of a neural chip, as part of her experimental neural therapy.

Biography
Over the course of seven months, Svobotka murdered 27 augmented people and removed their augmentations in the process, earning him his nickname "The Harvester." In each killing, he used EMP to stun or incapacitate the victim, then injected them with a homemade muscle relaxant, then removed their augmentations.

Motives
Svobotka saw augmentation as a threat, both to the individual and to the collective good. He believed the entire race was under attack, that mechanization would keep people's souls from migrating. He considered augmented people as the victims of mechanization, and although he claimed he did not hate them, he did not see them as individuals either. He removed people's augmentations to "save them" and "make them human again."

Tai Yong Medical experiment
Svobotka was eventually caught by police and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, Svobotka took part in an experiment conducted by Tai Yong Medical's Neural Division and led by Dr. Nicholas Cipra. Participants got perks like bigger cells or running water, which might have been why he agreed.

The scientists needed personality donors to create neural implants with personality imprints that could be infused into recipients. Svobotka became donor 698843. His personality package was implanted into Daria Myška in order to treat her for extreme social anxiety as his character traits were found to be a perfect complement to Daria's. The experiment was considered a success at first, but over time Svobotka's personality became more dominant, to the point that Daria began to perform almost identical murders herself.

After Svobotka's execution, he was buried in a cemetery in Prague. By the time of Angela Gunn's murder in 2028, Svobotka has been long dead. Nonetheless, Detective Karl Montag, not knowing that Daria had effectively become the Harvester, makes a point of verifying that Svobotka is in fact dead, given that the recent murder cases bear uncannily similarity to his methods.

Publications about Svobotka

 * In the Footsteps of the Harvester by Angela Gunn. (In a twisted turn of events, Angela herself was later killed by Svobotka's copycat Daria Myska.)