Simon Lynch

"His name is Simon Lynch, he lives in Chicago, he is nine years old, and he has deciphered a message written in the most sophisticated code the world has ever known."

- Nicholas Kudrow

Simon James Lynch, also known by his nicknames of Sim/Sim-Jim (given by his brother Peter), Bud, or Champ and most commonly known by just his first name, Simon, is the son of Martin and Jenny Lynch, younger brother of Peter Lynch, and the main protagonist of  Mercury Rising and The Series. A native of Chicago, Illinois his whole life, he was foster son of the now-deceased Scott and Katharine Smith, who took him in from the foster system on June 26, 1998, nearly three weeks after his parents were killed by Peter Burrell, second in command to Lt. Colonel Nicholas Kudrow of the NSA's Division department. Simon had autism his whole life up until February 1999, and was also considered an autistic savant, as he could - and still can - read MERCURY code (as easily as others can read their native language), even though it was invalidated by Divison mere months after he first deciphered it. His brain capacity has been estimated to be as much as three to sixteen times that of a normal human. S

Background
Simon was born at 6:07 a.m. on March 12, 1989 at Concordia Hospital to Martin and Jenny Lynch. He was brought home about seven days later, a bit longer than usual, due to some unforseen, yet minor, health complications. For a time, he seemed like a normal child, that is, until Martin and Jenny noticed that Simon's development was proceding unsually slow - he had failed to develop any communications skills by his second birthday and instinctively shyed away from contact with anyone but his immediate family. Simon could speak though, but he only repeated everything he heard, never communicating.

In March of 1990, Simon, his parents, and Peter moved from 4948 North Natchez Avenue to 2144 West 23rd Street, where Simon's life would forever change. (S1 - The "L" Plan, Part 2).

Martin and Jenny took him to a specialist, Dr. Chas Ohlmeyer, in May 1991, who diagnosed Simon with autism immediately and recommended that they bring him in on a regular basis for therapy. Up until this time, they had never even heard of autism and had thought Simon was mentally retarded, because Peter had never showed any major mental issues or deficienies.

1992
Simon's older brother, Peter Lynch, under the influence of 'extreme childhood adventure' (and possible hallucinogens), nearly killed him in late August and ran from home, not to be seen by either their parents or Simon again until a brief meeting in June 1998. After this, Simon would not see Peter until February 1999. (S1 - Long Lost; Regrets)

1998
Main Article: Lynch-MERCURY Incident

Starting as merely another normal day in the life of an autistic, June 5 would end far from normal. Simon's teacher at his school, the Chicago Neuropsychiatric Learning Center, Dr. Samantha London, bought Simon something she knew he would like: a copy of the July 1998 edition of the World of Puzzles magazine. Later that afternoon, Simon arrived home at 2144 West 23rd Street, and in performing his usual routine of working on some type of puzzle, Simon discovered one like none he'd ever seen before - MERCURY - a top-secret communications code created by the NSA's Division department. Contained within this first sequence were instructions and a phone number (1-800-555-1398), a number set up so that whomever broke the code could inform Division of their success. It was certain that no one would ever call. Or so the code's creators, Leo Pedranski and Dean Crandell, had thought since the code's inception in 1989 - the year Simon was born. Pedranski was on duty in the 'Puzzle Center' - the only room with a phone line linked to the number in the puzzle book - that day when Simon called to inform them of what he had done: he had almost instantly deciphered MERCURY. It was at this point Simon's mother Jenny noticed her son's ongoing conversation and told him to hang up the phone. In a panic, Pedranski informed Crandell, who he replayed the recording of Simon's conversation for, after which Crandell could tell that Simon was only a child simply by listening to his voice. Pedranski tried to dismiss it as "...just some rugrat drooling over the phone, punching numbers..." But, Crandell also realized that they weren't so lucky fo such a thing to happen and made the decision to inform their boss and Division commander, the hardline Lt. Colonel Nicholas Kudrow, under significant protest from Pedranski, who wanted to simply forget the whole incident. However, Crandell knew that Kudrow would say they had tried to cover it up when he returned from a briefing on MERCURY that he was giving to US officials in Bangkok.

1999
On February 1, Simon suffered his first chaos seizure while returning with his foster parents Scott and Katharine Smith from a business meeting of Scott's in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They took him to his former therapist Chas Ohlmeyer's office at the Miglin-Beitler Skyneedle, since they wanted an unconventional idea as to what happened to Simon and potentially how to treat him. It was at this time when Ohlmeyer discovered that Simon's already incredible calculation abilities had expanded. Six days later, on February 7, Simon was the focus of a raid on the Smith home at 2552 'J' Street, where an assault team sent by Colonel Donaldson of Zero Section were attempting to capture and kill him, much the same as Kudrow's goal seven months' previous. The timely intervention of an FBI SWAT team from the Chicago field office may have saved Simon's life, and provided the appropriate time for the reunion of Simon with Jeffries and that of his nearly one-month stay at Jeffries' apartment. Unable to reveal the classified information as to why Simon was being taken into protective custody, Tommy and Jeffries explained to Scott and Katharine that Simon had witnessed an incident perpetrated by the mob in April 1998, known only as the Carinson murder. (S1 - Simon is NOT Home).

On February 12, five days after the J Street Incident - which is what the February 7 event is now referred to as - Simon visited the city's FBI field office for the first time, in order to test his computer skills, a test that was provided by one of the Bureau's top computer experts, known only as Rukaski, who programmed a scenario of a breach in the city's metro computer system firewall. With mere seconds to spare, Simon averted the practice breach and passed the test, which, along with fighting off attacks by an insane Peter Lynch would result in his being 'hired' by the FBI as a special consultant three days later on February 15. With his new position, Simon was also afforded a highly unusual bonus of sorts - a government clearance level of Confidential - something usually afforded only to various low-ranking, yet trained personnel of the FBI and countless other government agencies. (S1 - Long Lost).

On March 4, John Burrell and Andrew Ridd abducted Simon while he was under the care of Stacey Siebring and made for Midway Airport, where a 727-233 cargo-variant jet, formerly belonging to the defunct Eastwind Airlines whom Kudrow and been dealing with, was waiting to depart along with Will Patterson and Zero Section's top pilot, Henry Jones. Jeffries and Tommy quickly raced to the scene of the abduction, where Stacey was still recovering but present, along with several CPD squad cars, and even Jack Nichols, a CPD detective. After Jeffries had Stacey recount her experience in detail, Nichols made calls to several well-placed sources and discovered the former deal between Eastwind and Zero Section, as well as that Burrell's 'crew' were planning to leave aboard the old 727 at Midway's Hangar A-17. Despite the FBI's best efforts, which included notifying the Midway control tower of a 'terrorist' threat and grounding all flights, the 727 still took off with Simon aboard, nearly colliding with a Delta Airlines 737 that was preparing to take off as well. Over the next several hours, a flight of three F-16s from Scott AFB tailed the 727, was tracked by ground radar, and Simon managed to free himself and amazingly overpower Burrell, Ridd, and Patterson, as well as forcing cooperation with the USAF when they made their presence known to the Zero Section team and forced the plane to set down at a predetermined location near the Indiana-Ohio border along a rural highway. Shortly after touchdown, Simon left the plane and was taken back to Chicago by the A-SAC of the Indianapolis office, Sam Findlay. (S1 - Terror in the Sky).

Personalities
Main Article: Personalities of Simon Lynch (from summary excerpt of computer transcript by MIT Professor Gerald Hackman, M.D. - November 13, 1999)

''Simon: 

''Alter-Simon:  intelligence and knowledge>

''Autistic/'Stranger' Simon: 

Alternate Universes

 * In the Alternity universe, Simon was born in March 1988 along with a younger twin named Benjamin, who died six months later, on September 17. Nine years later, on June 6, 1997, Simon himself was struck down and killed by the sniper's bullet of assassin Andrew Striker at 2144 West 23rd Street (He had lived there his whole life) after breaking what was cryptically referred to as simply 'the code' by NSA's Division and Nicholas Kudrow. Also of note was that his middle name was John and not James, as in Mercury Rising.
 * In the 'Coders' universe, after the events of June 1998, his foster parents were abusive, drug and alcohol addicted slummers, forcing Simon into a shell that was finally broken in July 2000, when his dominant personality took over for the autistic personality. By this time, Jeffries recontacted Simon and discovered the squallor he had been living in, resulting in the foster parents' arrest by the FBI and severe prosecution by Child Welfare Services in early September. To honor the tragedy he had suffered over the past two years, Simon started a band, which he called 'The Coders', in retrospect to what had placed him in that position.
 * In the Choice Made universe, Simon had his name changed to Myler upon his arrival at a Witness Protection safehouse in Cairo, Illinois after the successful and uninterrupted pickup at the GEX Building. He was adopted by Charles and Margaret Daniels after they had been properly briefed on his condition, specifically the needs required for his autism.
 * In the New Cold War universe, Simon's death is faked in a helicopter explosion over Lake Michigan, and he goes to live with Stacia Siebring's parents near Cabo San Lucas, in Mexico's Baja California Sur.