Garik Shayk, 17, lives with his aunt Irina and her boyfriend, Arik.

His Street Strider is a junkyard find that he has rebuilt into a credible if not a dependable machine. It breaks almost every outing, and he must ingeniously get it running again.

Garik's face reveals his Russian-Armenian ethnicity, with bronze skin, dark brown hair, and clear gray eyes speckled with gold. Garik is of medium height, slender but tight, with a muscular frame and oversized hands. He likes doing things, building, turning junk into treasure.

He left his homeland to escape ethnic hostility and dreams of his father and mother. He can become angry, although he regrets and apologizes when he does.

He is frustrated by the exclusivity of the Tower. He makes friends easily, winning him access to places he really shouldn’t be.

He wants inside Corona Tower. He feels crushed when he is hijacked into the human-hybrid project.

As Garik likes to say, "Anger gets me nothing. I must use my hands, my mind, my desire to achieve."

His friends call him Gari. He hopes Marisa Bruni will someday be his girlfriend, that is if he ever finds the courage to tell her so.

Garik's full name is Garik Valeri Shaykhlislamova, but he always uses the shortened, Americanized version of his last name, as does his aunt, Irina.

We first meet Garik in Book 1 of The Human-Hybrid Project, Shattered by Glass.