Jake McKenzie

Jake, a character in the Endless Summer series, is a pilot. He is one of Your Character's love interests. He is first seen in Book 1, Chapter 1

Appearance
Jake has shaggy light brown hair, cerulean blue eyes, and fair skin with a scruffy beard. He normally wears a black T-shirt, a green jacket, blue jeans, and dog tags around his neck.

In Chapter 10 of Book 2, his hair is slicked back and he wears black trousers, and a black waistcoat with a white shirt at the New Year's Eve party.

He has a lean, muscular body, and wears blue board shorts if he's in deep water.

It may be presumed that Jake's height is close to an average American male height, ranging from 5'7 to 5'10 in contrast to Sean's 6'5 frame as depicted on the cover of Endless Summer, Book 2.

Personality
Jake is very sarcastic. It is the most noticeable quality about him and is show cased in almost every chapter. He is also very charming, honest, hot-headed, a little impulsive, and he gives nicknames to people.

Jake often acts or says things before thinking, and doesn't regret some things he says. In Book 2, Chapter 1, he assumes Diego, Raj and/or Grace are dead after being in the hands of The Watchers for six months, which is logical, but also depressing.

Jake is also very protective of his friends. In the first few chapters, he can save your character from venturing into the burning plane hangar. Jake also becomes more affectionate to your character if you pursue him as a love interest. Jake's jokey and cynical approach to life could be a cover for his dark past, as is hinted to in Chapter 1 of Book 2.

During his time in the Military, he earned the codename "Wolf". Ironically, this fits with his Hadean Zodiac sign, Lupus. He later reveals that "Wolf" was short for "Wolf Spider", as every elite member of Arachnid has a spider themed codename.

History
Jake was born in a rural town in Shreveport, Louisiana. Back then, during his military days on the naval academy as a fighter pilot, he met his bunkmate Mike. He was his only friend and loved him like a brother, and one of the best times of his life was when they were assigned on the same deployment.

It should've ended there, but when they were running recon missions off the coast of Kharzistan aiding a rebellion, they discovered their commander Rex Lundgren was selling military weapons illegally to tyrants they were supposed to be fighting.

Lundgren was one step ahead of them. Once a standard recon mission turned into an ambush, Mike got shot down while Jake ejected in time. Heading back to the base, Jake was to be arrested by the military police before he punched his commander and became a fugitive resulting to a bounty of $750,000 over his head. Jake currently resides in Costa Rica, and he was running ever since. Jake has been extremely reckless, most likely stemming from his past career as an Air Force pilot. He has trust issues and doesn't make friends easily after the incident with Mike. Seemingly to cover for this, Jake is also extremely sarcastic and witty from time to time, in a fruitless effort to diffuse the tension.

If you choose to follow Jake to the bar in Book 2, Chapter One, you can find out he had a whole plan to avoid people until 'you [Your Character] came along and blew that plan pretty much straight to hell', where you can choose to start dating him if you're friends with him.

Mike
Jake and Mike were very close friends and treated each other like brothers. In an ambush set by Lundgren, Mike was killed while Jake survived. From then, Jake never opened up to people and never made friends. In Book 2 Chapter 15, Jake was shocked that Mike is actually Mouse. The Act VI bonus scene reveals Mike lost his legs, had 87% of his body covered with third degree burns, and is apparently mind-controlled by a screw-filled helmet.

Your Character
Jake originally finds Your Character annoying and calls the college student "Boy Scout" or "Princess", depending on their gender. He will start to respect Your Character after he/she breaks up the fight between him and Sean. Your character has a chance to improve her/his relationship status with him after you chose him for every encounter. Jake seems to be sarcastic, satirical and acerbic at first but when your character chooses to get along with his banter, he'll open up more to you. Over the course of the game, he will show concern over your character, willing to protect you at all costs. He's an actions over words kind of person, he'll eventually care and be affectionate to your character. If you choose to start dating him, he even mentions that he's not scared when you go into the museum hole, but 'just wanted to find an excuse to hold your hand'. In Book 2 you can have romantic scenes with him once while exploring a waterfall, another time while exploring an underwater cave, again at Elysian Lodge and one more time in a tent. He admits he loves you in Chapter 12, if you spend diamonds and choose to sleep with him. Also, his love for MC and loyalty to your group made him to stay with and went to the portal to Hartfeld despite his bounty. At the end of the book 2, he said he can't risk Your character and make the reckless choice of telling the Arachnid his location in order to ride the helicopter and flee from the MASADA. He risk to save your character from falling from the Helicopter from the tragic fall.

Sean Gayle
To begin with, Jake and Sean are not very friendly with one another, which eventually boils over during the debate about whether the group should leave the resort or not, where they have a punch-up. However, their issues are eventually resolved and the tensions are greatly decreased.

Everett Rourke
Although they've never met, Jake thinks very lowly of Rourke. He is more than willing to believe the rumors that Rourke is a criminal involved in illegal experiments. He believes that the King Crab and the Sea Monster were biological weapons created by him.

Aleister
Jake calls Aleister by the nickname Malfoy. This is a reference of Draco Malfoy from the well-known novel series, Harry Potter. Jake initially thinks Aleister is a pompous nerd and disregards his remarks about the sabertooth in early chapters of Book 1. Towards the end of Book 1, when Aleister reveals he is Rourke's son, Jake believes he is a spy sent by his father to kidnap the group or gather information.

In Book 2, Chapter 14, Jake will start hating him for betraying the group, having already disliked him before.

Estela
Jake thinks Estela is weird in the beginning of the book, but if you bring him along with you to explore the La Huerta Observatory he starts respecting her after she defeats the crab (if you went with Estela to hunt down the crab). In the later chapters your character can spar with him and Estela, and he will respect her for being able to fight. They sometimes joke with each other about their sarcastic and cynical outlook on life.

Lundgren
He hates Lundgren and the other Arachnids. He detests him for selling weapons to the opposition forces while he was on duty, even more because Lundgren tried to kill him and successfully killed Mike (or so he thought). At the end of Book 2 he is heartbroken to see what Lundgren did to Mike (aka Mouse).

Trivia

 * Jake is one of the three main love interests, and as such is shown on the cover of "Endless Summer, Book 1" and "Endless Summer, Book 2"
 * His Hadean Zodiac sign is Lupus, the Wolf.
 * He is the oldest of the group, currently in his mid-twenties.
 * Jake is the only one of the twelve Catalysts who is not a student at Hartfeld.
 * He may have a cajun english accent, or cajun vernacular English, the dialect of English spoken by Cajuns living in Louisiana and, to some extent, in eastern Texas. This is backed up by his origin story and his dialogue, some of which is written in cajun dialect.
 * He can hold his breath for 9 minutes.
 * One of Jake's personality trademarks is giving nicknames to people in the group based on their appearance or personality traits. For example, he calls Michelle "Maybelline", Grace "Brain Trust", Aleister "Malfoy", Sean "Captain America", Your Character "Boy Scout" or "Princess", IRIS "Princess Leia" and Rourke "Phony Stark".
 * His Catalyst Idol flashback shows that he constantly gives people nicknames to honor Mike. It is revealed that Mike sacrificed himself for Jake in an ambush set by Lundgren; it was originally Mike and not Jake who liked giving everyone nicknames.
 * Although he makes fun of Diego for constantly making pop culture references, most of the nicknames he comes up with are such references.
 * Jake is shorter than Sean, but taller than Quinn according to the cover of Book 2, presuming he's at least 5'7 to 5'10.
 * As of Book 2, Chapter 8, the whole group is aware of his dark past and being framed for weapons dealing.
 * In Book 2, Chapter 15, it is revealed that Rebecca McKenzie (a character from Most Wanted, Book 1) is Jake's sister.
 * Rourke considers him the 3rd most dangerous individual of your group.
 * It is implied that he had some sort of relationship with Fiddler prior to the events of the series.
 * It is unknown if he managed to safely land the Arachnid helicopter after Tetra blew off the tail rotor or if he, Craig, Sean, and Estela were forced to parachute out. Either way, they are presumed still alive, as their Catalyst Idols would have been rendered inactive by their deaths.
 * Depending on who you ask, Jake looks somewhat actors Jared Leto or Ben Barnes.