Buck was born 30 YBR (Years Before Rapture) in Tucson, AZ. Highly intelligent and eager to escape his rural, uneducated roots, he attends Princeton University. Due to his exceptional journalism skills, he is employed by the Boston Globe while still in college. He is eventually hired by Global Weekly, a prestigious weekly news magazine and his dream job. Williams is promoted to senior writer at 29, the youngest in the magazine's history. During this time, Buck is perceived as a daring young journalist, always willing to rush into danger for a good story, and he acquires his nickname from his willingness to "buck" journalistic traditions.