Samira Yazdi

Samira, a character in The Heist: Monaco book, is a notorious hacker known as Blackbird and is a potential member of your crew. She is first seen in Chapter 2.

Appearance
Samira has black hair covered in a dark pink hijab, brown eyes, and tan skin. In addition to the hijab, she also wears a pink coat over a white button-up shirt and a pair of beige pants.

Personality
As a Vigilante Hacktivist who toppled corrupt governments and corporations in the early 2000s, Samira is implied to have a strong sense of justice. Another proof of this is that according to Jones, she once exposed a drug cartel. She also has a fiery temper, such as shouting to Lulu to encourage her to play well during a soccer match.

In Chapter 6, you find she has a hard time bluffing, as her poker face doesn't fool anyone. In Chapter 13, she tells you that she wants to be there for her family and she was afraid that if she fell in love with another part of thievery (such as grifting), she would leave them for the game. If her Trust in you is high, she knows she can be both Blackbird and a mother and wife.

The Heist: Monaco

 * Chapter 2: Are We Really Doing This?
 * Chapter 3: Pros and Cons (Determinant)
 * Chapter 4: Go Directly to Jail (Determinant)
 * Chapter 5: Please Point That Somewhere Else (Determinant)
 * Chapter 6: You Think We Need One More? (Determinant)
 * Chapter 7: Who the Hell is Ulrich? (Determinant)
 * Chapter 8: Grift Happens (Determinant)
 * Chapter 9: Of Course It's A Masquerade (Determinant)
 * Chapter 10: Now's Probably A Bad Time (Determinant)
 * Chapter 11: Hit Me As Hard As You Can (Determinant)
 * Chapter 12: Not Furious Per Se (Determinant)
 * Chapter 13: I Love Hacks (Determinant)
 * Chapter 14: Hope We Didn't Get Dressed Up For Nothing (Determinant)
 * Chapter 15: Smash and Grab (And Run Like Hell) (Determinant)
 * Chapter 16: Did You Think We Were Done Here? (Determinant)

Halim Yazdi
Halim is Samira's husband. After retiring from being the hacker Blackbird, Samira has settled down with him and started a new life with their daughter Lulu.

Lula Yazdi
Lula is Samira's 9 year old daughter. If you recruit Samira, she stays in contact with Lula through video-chat and telephone calls. She takes AP (advanced placement) algebra and physics, and wants to prove the scientific inaccuracies of Santa's flying reindeer to her classmates (which upsets them and warrants a phone call from the principal to Samira).

Your Character
You can choose to either recruit Blackbird or Anton as your crew's hacker. If you recruit her, she will multitask, talking to her daughter on the phone (or headset) while typing on her (super)computer. Throughout the book you can build her trust in you. If you have gained enough trust, she will tell you that "The dark wings of justice will be your ally until the bitter end" and that she thinks everyone on the team is sweet.

Mervin Kailani
If Samira and Mervin "Jones" Kalani are both on your team, he will suggest doing yoga or tai chi to her. In Chapter 14, they work together to get her access the main security office. When he has to knock out one of the guards, he apologizes to her that she had to see that. Samira replies that it was "a very humane way to dispatch our enemy" and they discuss the alternative method of taking the guard out. She finds that would have put too much pressure on the guard's spine, so she concludes that Jones made the correct choice and he thanks her for saying it.

Niles Edison
If Samira and Niles Edison are both on your team, they bond over their respective children and the "trouble" they cause. In Niles’ case, when Anton was young, he cyber-stole Richard Branson’s money and bought an ice cream truck with it; Niles made Anton return it, but did buy his son an ice cream.

Sybil
If Sybil is your Thief, she compares her feelings for her cactus, Winston, to Samira's feelings for her daughter and how anxious she gets for leaving it unattended too long.

Tillie Marshall
If Tillie is your driver, she suggests to Samira to get Lula a pet. When Samira shoots all of Tillie's pet ideas down, Tillie threatens that she'll send Lulu a pony. They settle on a hypoallergenic pet.

The Rooks
During her Blackbird days, Samira crossed paths with the Rooks. If Niles is on your team, she runs across the Broker, who wants a copy of Ulrich's plans. Samira bakes them cinnamon rolls and gives them the box. She also knows the Broker's real name, Betsy. She tells you that she knows the chain of command changes as their work is dangerous and rarely does someone retire peacefully.

Trivia

 * Samira is the first Choices character to wear a hijab.
 * She regularly switches to her Blackbird voice. Every time she does that, her lines are written in red.
 * She once exposed a meth-smuggling ring in Oahu.
 * She has a tai chi group at home.
 * In Chapter 13, she mentions that she is trying to cut down on coffee: the last time she had too much caffeine, she toppled a corrupt investment firm. 50 people got arrested.
 * The name Samira is the female version of Samir, an Arabic name meaning "companion in evening conversation".
 * The last name Yazdi means "from Yazd", a city or province in Iran.
 * In her good ending, she and her husband, Halim, attend Lulu's baseball match. It is revealed that Halim already knows about her Blackbird alias. While he tends to her daughter, she confronts a businessman who she caught doing illegal acts on his business and threatens him before leaving.