A "waster kid" who rose in prominence in the Light Bringer sect (a Satanic Cult) in the Edmonton arcology. He served the sect second only to a mysterious woman only know to us as "Banneth". He was responsible for attending to Banneth's "cargo of weird persona-sequestrator nanonics". The sect brought out an unmatched arrogance in Quinn. He received two high-quality nanonic clusters from the sect with biolectric pattern-minicing features (illegal technology that could have condemned him to a penal planet if detected). He killed seventeen people over a five month period before being deported as an Ivet to Lalonde. His offense was not murder, but rather running from the authorities when they attempted to inspect Banneth's nanonics package. He vows to return to Earth and use some command codes that he knows to harm Benneth with her own nanonics. Until then, he is to serve as forced labor for colonization Group Seven on Lalonde.
Quinn Dexter ultimately uses his powerful skills of persuasion to influence the local Aberdale officials into a policy of greater leniency towards them. This is strongly objected to by Powel Manani, but Aberdale officials see this as a threat to their authority and overrule him. The 18 Ivets (15 men, 3 women) begin to work only 13 at a time for the community, leaving five to constantly do something for the “betterment” of the Ivets in order to give themselves something of which to be “proud”. At first this is a superbly constructed A-frame, which becomes the envy of the citizens and actually has the positive effect of influencing others to improve their own quarters. After establishing this initial reputation, however, Quinn begins to form a cult within the A-frame while secretly and systematically acquiring various weapons through the use of his illegally attained fuseodollars from Jovian Bank credit disks. The other Ivets keep special note of who has such disks at Aberdale for future thievery and murder.
Quinn is aware that someone nearby is responsible for several families that have turned up missing recently in Schuster County. He keenly detects the presence and goes out of his way to declare that he is not afraid of it. In fact, he proclaims that he wants to talk to whoever or whatever it is.
The Aberdale Ivets, under Quinn’s leadership, systematically kill off many settlers who have Jovian Bank disks. All the while, Quinn uses his nanonic implant to increase his “treasury”. Some of this money is used by the group to acquire various items secretly that enhances their individual lives presently and will ultimately assist Quinn in escaping from Lalonde. The deaths are all suspicious, but no hard evidence is available. People die by drowning or they are killed by a laser fired in their eye sockets, then the bodies burned almost beyond recognition completely covering up the laser wounds. Overall, there are six deaths in five weeks. Ruth Hilton is on to them ,however. She tries to convince Father Horst, but the priest is too weak willed to allow such facts to complicate his fragile life.
Quinn solidifies his control over the Ivets with an official Satanic ceremony during one of the murders at a savanna homestead. He performs a dark mass during the crime. The powerful combination of group sexual intercourse, murder and blood ritual serves to bind the group to Quinn’s will.
Eventually, Quinn’s fearlessness and instinct bring him to a face to face encounter with Laton. Quinn wants to team up with Laton to assist in the lather’s escape from Lalonde. He offers to turn Aderdale completely over to Laton for “incorporation” as long as he let’s Quinn escape without any alarms being sounded to the authorities watching the suspicious happenings in Schuster County. Laton refuses because he doesn’t have a sufficient number of bitek regulators to sequester the entire settlement. He makes Quinn an offer to join him. Quinn is interested in Laton’s experiments and, without committing to anything, agrees with Laton that it would be an advantage to both of them to eliminate Powel Manani’s communicator block. Unbeknownst to Quinn, Laton plans to arrange to have the villagers eliminate the Ivets after Manani’s communication device is destroyed. This plan is foiled, however, when Quinn captures Manani and performs a demonic ritual on him. Quinn outsmarts Manani when the latter heads up an effort to kill all Ivets in Aberdale. He and six surviving Ivets sacrifice Manani in ritualistic fashion. As his victim dies, a huge flare of energy erupts out of the wounds in the body, light dancing over Quinn. In the center of this light, however, Quinn sees absolute darkness. He begins to hear a chorus of voices in his head. Quinn excitedly welcomes this experience, interpreting it as the coming of Satan himself. Then, lightning flashes out of Manani’s corpse, screams come from inside the bolts as they seek out the six Ivets and strike them, wrapping each of them in cloak of glowing light. The Ivets immediately seek out other humans in Aberdale in order to spread the dysfunctional process of possession. This happens, interestingly enough, in Chapter 13 of the first part of “The Reality Dysfunction.”
Following the emergence of the reality dysfunction, he emerges in Durringham where he accidentally runs in to Marie Skibbow. She helps him to get a berth on the Lady MacBeth as a passenger in route to Norfolk. Initially, Joshua offers him zero-tau, but Quinn rejects this. This, however, was only a tactic by Joshua to drive-up the price of the berth which is finally agreed upon at 55,000 fuseodollars. The Lady MacBeth then experiences a series of mysterious technical problems during its journey to Norfolk.
After he is possessed Quinn realizes that the force released by his sacrifice of Powel Manani is not Satan (the “Light Brother”). He is in a unique position from other possessed personalities in that he can still function as his former self to some degree in spite of being possessed by another being (Edmund Rigby). Hamilton writes that Quinn is furious with this realization and he feels betrayed. In reference to not being the Light Brother, the possessing force within him, slowly gaining control of his mind, replies to Quinn: “Of course not, Quinn. I’m worse than that, worse than any mythical devil. All of us are.” Quinn then hears laughter in his head as he struggles to understand as his mind begins to fade. A prolonged struggle ensues where Quinn attempts to, at first, understand what is possessing him, and, by using all of his vast trickery and psychic abilities, ultimately overcome possession itself.
He retakes his body from Edmund Rigby on Norfolk, more confident and treacherous than ever. He immediately destroys all of Rigby’s closest followers and proclaims that he is “truly blessed” by the Light Bringer. “My belief in Him brought me back, me alone out of all the millions who are possessed. I am the one God’s Brother has chosen as His messiah.”
Eventually, he lands on Norfolk at Boston and takes on the appearance of a priest. Following the possession of Boston he briefly sets up an outpost for his growing cult at Cricklade manor. Quinn soon becomes disenchanted with Norfolk and its backwards society. He makes plans to get off the planet and return to Earth where he hopes to organize the various cults in the arcologies into an organization under his command. "We can gnaw at the Confederation from within," he says.
He makes it to Norwich where he tries to board a spaceplane to get off Norfolk. He accidentally runs into the Kavanagh sisters and Fletcher Christian and tries to steal their transport contract for the Far Realm. He is driven by this mad desire not spread possession or to organize a cult under his leadership, but to get back to Earth and find Banneth. He wants revenge for the way she treated him. "Now, I'm the one who's gonna do things right back to her," Quinn babbles. "God's brother understands, understands the need in me. I'm gonna let my serpent beast devour her and spew out the bits."
Before he can steal the contract, however, he succumbs to several bolts of fire launched at him from an unknown figure at the opposite end of the hangar. In the confusion that follows, Fletcher and the sisters escape. Quinn turns to face the mysterious person, demanding to know their name. He never finds out for by now there is fire erupting everywhere in the hangar. Quickly, accompanied by Lawrence Dillion, he makes his way to the Tantu's spaceplane, kills the guard and boards the plane disguised as a priest. When in orbit on the Tantu, he makes an unauthorized ZTT jump out of the system.
It takes Lawrence Dillion and himself only a few minutes to possess the Tantu’s 19 member crew. After a few technical and disciplinary problems, he orders the vessel to leave Norfolk’s orbit. He experiences some problems with the possessors of the ship’s captain. He has to replace them three times before he finds someone suitable, someone who knew something of starflight in their previous life. After that, Quinn orders the Tantu to make several ZTT jumps toward Earth, arriving there a few days later.
Earth is heavily defended with an elaborate SD platform. When the Tantu is unable to comply with Earth’s request for the ship’s “ASA code” the planetary defenses are quickly locked onto it. No one aboard knows what an ASA code is. Quinn makes the hasty decision to jump one-light year while the Tantu’s various sensor antennae are extended. The jump severs the sensors, causing four breaches in the ship’s hull and six areas to be severely weakened.
Quinn is furious because, until repairs are made, the Tantu cannot make another jump. The immediate object of his wrath is the possessor of the captain. Stating that he “should have known” about the ASA (Armed Ship Authorization) code, he sends him back to the beyond. Quinn then tortures the real captain, whose name is Mauer. Finally, he turns Mauer over to Lawrence Dillion for further debauchery.
He takes the Tantu to Nyvan where he locates Twelve-T in the ethnic-nation of New Georgia. Quinn offers to trade the Tantu to Twelve-T simply in exchange for a docking bay permit to one of Nyvan’s asteroids. Thanks to his manipulation of Twelve-T, the Tantu is allowed to dock at Jesup, a New Georgian asteroid in Nyvan orbit. Quickly, he overcomes Twelve-T stating that all he wants is a simple cargo starship that can get him to Earth (since the Tantu is now suspect – being combat capable - and impossible to land there) and to “bring the Night to this planet” in the name of the Light Brother.
It takes Quinn two days to fully take control of Jesup. The asteroid’s population put up the usual futile resistance to possession. He also takes over New Georgia’s SD Platform system. From this foothold, Quinn plans to use inter-orbiting craft to send the possessed down to Nyvan to take over the planet as well as to three other orbiting asteroids. He has to choose carefully which possessed to send down, as many of the asteroid’s population, while possessed, remain “unbelievers” to Quinn’s teaching of God’s Brother, the Light Bringer, and to Quinn’s central mission to “bring down the Night” upon Nyvan.
Constantly as he walks through the unfinished biosphere cavities upon Jesup he is overtaken by the sensation that someone or something is watching him. A flicker of motion in the dark. A faint sound of laughter. Ultimately, he tracks them down, discovering that they are a large group of hesitant, cowering creatures. They say they “can’t return” from the beyond. They seem to be trapped somewhere in between. They are ghosts.
Once more, Quinn is terrorized by the mysterious figure from the beyond that keeps appearing in his life from time to time. While on Jesup a figure approaches him that is his exact likeness. A brief skirmish ensues where the figure commands Twelve-T to attack Quinn. Lawrence intervenes but is killed when Twelve-T’s broken wrist joint rams through Lawrence’s throat. His body detonates in energistic fire as Twelve-T’s brain drops out of its half skull. The figure withdraws back to the beyond in laughter much to Quinn’s helpless rage. Quinn kicks Twelve-T’s exposed brain in disgust splattering gore all over his terrified disciples.
On Jesup, Quinn masters the ability to enter the “ghost realm”, a psychic capability that he perhaps picked up from the ghosts he encounters there. It is a highly useful skill, allowing him to make himself invisible for periods of time.
Quinn instigates full-scale warfare from Jesup when he orders its SD network to attack the networks of other nations on Nyvan and any wandering spaceplanes and starships. The battle quickly escalates as the possessed begin to take control of the surface of the planet and panic breaks out among the fragmented and suspicious nations. As the conflict begins to reach its height, Quinn leaves Jesup on the Mount’s Delta and travels to Earth.
He exits Jesup on the Mount’s Delta when he commands that the asteroid be blown to pieces by 97 fusion bombs. The resulting destruction sends the asteroid hurtling in pieces down to Nyvan’s surface, pulverizing the planet. Even though 70% of Jesup’s mass misses the planet, fragments continue to rain down on the surface for two days completely destroying the planet’s environment, technology and population. Quinn then heads toward Earth, confidant that he has done the Light Bringer’s bidding.
He returns to Earth on the Mount’s Delta with the intention of “corrupting” the planet from “within.” He hopes to accomplish this by organizing the planets numerous Satanic sects under his power as the Light Brother’s most favored disciple. Of course, Banneth is on Earth as well. His desire for revenge against her remains strong. As the ship docks at Supra-Brazil, Quinn destroys Dwyer, sending him back into the beyond.
Quinn bypasses the tight security at Supra-Brazil by entering the “ghost realm” temporarily and walking undetected, rematerializing in a nice leather chair of a life capsule’s royal class lounge. Authorities are mystified about the absence of passengers on the Mount’s Delta. DNA samples confirm that one body literally exploded on board but, though the flight computer records indicate there were two passengers, there is no sign of a second one. Given the Confederation-wide quarantine in effect, Earth’s news media quickly seizes upon “the ghost flight from Nyvan” as a major story.