Florence Ironwood is, for lack of a better term, everybody’s grandma at Variant Labs, if their grandma chain-smoked, had prior military experience, was the biggest eavesdropper known to man, and could verbally put a grown ass man in the ground before he even finished complaining about the company. She runs the front-brunt side of the lab with passive aggressiveness she was practically born with, and once people meet her, they do not forget her. Between the constant cigarette smoke, her fairly deep and scraggly voice, and the look she gives people when they waste her time, Florence has become one of the most distinct personalities in the entire building.   

Before Variant Labs, Florence spent years working front-office and reception positions, but she also carries prior experience with the Zion Armada, a detail that explains a lot about her hardness, and absolute zero tolerance she brings into every interaction. No one is entirely sure how old Florence really is, and at this point, asking feels less like curiosity, and more like you'll be shot dead with the gun she keeps on her ankle. She moves with the confidence of someone who has seen far too much to be impressed by anyone, and she handles both in person visitors and phone calls like a border guard deciding who gets let in. If somebody calls Variant Labs sounding off putting, shady, or even slightly full of shit, Florence is fully capable of hanging up before they get past their initial question. If they show up in person with bad intentions, they are going to find out very quickly that she is not the kind of woman who gets talked over.

What makes Florence so important to Variant Labs is that beneath all the strict emotional regulations, she genuinely holds the place together. She is part gatekeeper, part enforcer, part comfort figure, depending on who needs what and whether they deserve it. Just don’t bother her on break when she’s on the phone with her friends. She’ll be halfway through dragging some old boyfriend by name, then suddenly describing bedroom habits, or how large her ex husband was, and nobody in the building wants to hear about that.