Xaliq was born in the city of Dubai in 2151. His father owned a shipping company that had been started by Xaliq’s great grandfather, and the family was wealthy, even by the lofty standards of the UAE. From an early age, Xaliq was fascinated by creating things. His favorite toys were blocks and legos and he excelled at drawing. But he also had hemophilia. Because of his condition, even a small cut could be an ordeal, and his parents were extremely overprotective. As a child, he frequently missed school and spent many days inside, watching the city from outside the window of his family’s high-rise apartment building. 

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The skyline of Dubai became a source of wonder for young Xaliq. The emirate had long been known for bushing the boundaries of architecture and design, and to Xaliq, the skyline was a living thing, growing and changing as new technologies made different kinds of buildings and attractions possible. By middle school, he began studying architecture and design in his free time. 

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His parents humored his burgeoning interests in architecture, but there was also a sense on their part that it was just a phase he was going through. Xaliq was their only son, and there was an assumption that as soon as he finished college, he would join the family business and, one day, take it over. When Xaliq decided to attend Cambridge for business school, his parents celebrated. It seemed like their plans for him were on track. 

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Xaliq thrived in Cambridge. He was intelligent, popular with both his professors and other students that he met. For the first time in his life, he was outside of the smothering overprotection of his mother and father, and his newfound sense of freedom energized him. It would also almost kill him.

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The day his life changed forever started off wonderfully. He and a group of friends had attended a football game and then gone out for dinner afterwards. Nobody knows exactly how the argument started, but a member of Xaliq’s group got into a shouting match with another patron. The man broke a bottle on the table and lunged toward Xaliq’s friend. When Xaliq stepped between them, trying to diffuse the conflict, the attacker sliced down Xaliq’s palm and wrist with the broken bottle. 

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Xaliq had never been injured so severely before – a consequence of living almost his whole life under his parents’ protective gaze – and the bleeding wouldn’t stop. By the time he finally got to a doctor, he was in and out of consciousness and required several blood transfusions to keep him alive.

This brush with death changed the course of his life. While recovering in the hospital, Xaliq decided that he did not want to spend his life chasing the dreams of his parents. He wanted to live for himself, and his dream was to make his mark on the skyline that had so fascinated him as a child. Without consulting his father, he changed his major from business to architecture. 

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Upon returning to Dubai, he took an internship at one of the city’s largest architectural firms. The hours were long and the environment was fiercely competitive, but Xaliq was finally doing what he had dreamed of since he was a child. But all was not well. His father, whose health was failing, needed to retire. He asked Xaliq if he would finally come back to help guide the business that had been in their family for generations into the future. It was a lucrative offer. The money was good, the business steady, and it was his family’s legacy. He was still only a junior associate at the architecture firm. Xaliq thought about the offer for a week.

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Then he turned his father down. It was an act his father would never forgive him for, and although they continued to talk until his father died two years later, their relationship was never the same again. 

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Xaliq toiled for years at the firm, quickly rising through the ranks until in November 2181, on the eve of his 30th birthday, he finally secured his dream assignment – being on a small team responsible for designing a new skyscraper that was to be the new crown jewel of Dubai’s skyline. His elation – not to mention the project – was buried just over a month later when the Collapse happened. 

Because Dubai had already established a vast underground network of passages and businesses all designed to keep people out of the desert heat, they were one of the earliest areas able to get a bunker up and running. Xaliq was spared much of the violence that plagued the rest of the world in the year between the Collapse and when the Ark became fully operational, but he was despondent. Forced underground, no skyline – no sky – to speak of, he felt like his dreams were dead. He was a man with no purpose. 

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All that changed when the Everreach came online. Although Dr. Taylor was a computer whiz, his design sense was utilitarian at best. To build a virtual world that could satiate people’s wildest imaginations, they needed artists, designers, and architects with grand visions to help create the world, and Xaliq came highly recommended. Although it was not his original dream, he quickly grew to love a world not constrained by the laws of physical reality – not only for the architectural applications it presented, but for the chance to experience a form of physical life free from the fear of his hemophilia.