Meet the cast: Kira Tanaka

Kira Tanaka doesn't look like she belongs in a police building, and she'd be the first to agree. She's the youngest in the forensics division by a decade, and she's the reason a hard drive that's been damaged past what anyone else can read still gives up what's on it.

*Name* — Kira Tanaka

*Age* — 23

*Height* — 5'4"

*Role* — the lab's digital forensics examiner

The look is all hers: purple hair she dyes herself, tattoos up both arms, a septum ring, bright unconventional makeup, glasses she's forever pushing up her nose. And she's a lot of person — fast, restless, wired on caffeine and nervous energy, with no low setting. When she's deep in a problem, cross-legged in her chair, sneakers kicked off, chewing her lip at the screen, she's so absorbed the rest of the room stops existing — you could stand in the doorway a while before she notices anyone came in.

She's a Portland kid — engineer dad, teacher mom, grew up around code. Took the family printer apart at eleven to see how it worked, built her first PC at thirteen, blew through a computer-science degree in three years. Her brain runs faster than the room, and waiting for everyone else to catch up is the main frustration of her life.

The geek stuff is real, but it isn't all of her. Tell her the drive on her desk came off a double murder — real bodies, real blood — and the grin drops for a second. She takes it in, sets it aside, gets back to work. She feels the weight of what she handles; she just doesn't let it stop her.

Her boss is Thea Mercer, who she describes — fondly — as "scary but fair, like if a glacier had a PhD."

Kira's for the players who love the one who doesn't fit in — the brilliant, wired oddball who was never going to match the room. She'll have her people, and they'll love her for exactly what she is.

More of the cast soon. 🖤