Chesterfield Act Registry of the Expressive Database
File #19 Feb 2018 01:39
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portrayed by Austin Robert Butler |
Previously, on String Theory…
Bad Things… Crying… Aaaa?! Murder Robots!
…Ohgod. Oh… No— Manny! …Why!??
In 2011, I left New York City behind. I left my friends — they’re more than friends, now, they’re family — in order to safeguard our collective futures while they traveled to other places to stop the madmen that wanted to destroy us and everyone like us. So I left, with a little help from Jaiden Mortlock, a boat ride across the river, a new identity should I ever need it, and the hope that I’ll never have to use the evidence so meticulously collected that would prove the atrocities of the government’s actions toward the evolved.
The year ended and I was living in Minnesota with Jaiden and the oft comings and goings of our former coterie. We saw familiar faces, who often brought news of what was happening beyond our patch of land. We shared stories of times before things turned crazy, of friends gone on adventures without us, and of those we lost. It was a bittersweet time for all those who came to the resort. The physical wounds were numerous, the emotional ones were deep. Those first couple of months at Lake Kabetogama were for recovery and regrouping. And that is what we did. From the safety and isolation of the resort in northern Minnesota, I began to get my feet under me again.
In 2012 I soon found a purpose, as reports of the civil war began reaching our quiet corner in the world. I was hesitant, at first, to venture out on my own again, but a few weeks into the new year, a month watching friends leave and return with the ebb and flow of battles, I decided to answer the calling. I can’t say that Jaiden was pleased with my decision. I can’t say he was disappointed with it either. I think on some level he understood what I was feeling because as soon as I made the decision to go, he began helping me get ready for real war. What I’d experienced before, the ridiculous events that defined New York City, that would be nothing like what I was preparing to go into.
I spent several months training. Mostly with Jaiden. Occasionally with others who came to the resort, but mostly with Jaiden. I guess he’d had been special forces at some point in his life, and it’s that knowledge that he worked to teach me. He helped me improve my hand to hand combat and firearms skills, taught me how to track, wilderness survival techniques, and first aid for when I’m in the field. There was a lot of running involved, with heavy packs, in the cold or the rain, working while physically exhausted, pushing through mental exhaustion. We practiced, not every day but nearly so. I know he did his best to prepare me for the worst. He showed me how to take the pictures that relay the most information, too.
Mid July, 2012 I left home again, this time to fight in the war. This time, knowing I had a home to return to. When I left, I made promises to come home when I could. I didn’t know how often that would be any more than I knew what I was really getting myself into.
I don’t care to get into all the details. I saw a lot of bad, but also a lot of good. I held the hands of the dying, took lives when I had to, pushed through and carried on when I wanted to lay down and let the war trample over me. When people tell you that war is hell, you should listen. I would say it’s more like a nightmare that you can’t wake up from. I spent a few weeks in different skirmishes, never staying in one place too long. Word of mouth and familiar names helped me find the next point of contact, the next pocket of fighting, sometimes the next safe bunker with a hot meal. My skills and experiences were put to the test regularly.
Few things of that time stand out as remarkable in my mind. Days generally blur together, and in a way I’m grateful for it. I never had time to feel homesick, though I missed my friends a lot. I especially missed the home cooked meals Jaiden would lay out regularly. But of those roughly two years of war, a few things stand out in my mind. I still laugh when I imagine the look on the faces of those people when they found their cars stacked like dominos. A little history: I’d gone with Ygraine FitzRoy and some others from Endgame to help liberate some captive Evos. We needed to ensure we wouldn’t be followed, so I used my own special ability and stacked the cars up while Ygraine led the cavalry and freed the prisoners.
Actually, most of my endeavors with Endgame — and there were quite a few — make me chuckle for some reason or another. Little bursts of familiarity when everything else is confusion and chaos. I maintained my ties with them throughout the war, assisting whenever I could and whenever paths crossed easily. I became known for thinking outside the box, causing distractions, like I mentioned before with the cars, and generating cover in various forms to ease escape. I know I chaffed with some of them, I do have a reputation for being reckless, but sometimes you have to take a chance to get things done. And even though I moved on, I still maintain my relationships to them to this day.
Probably a solid month after joining the campaign, I was pointed toward Hana Gitelman and her band of rebels. When I caught up to them I quickly fell in with the team, under Hana’s command. Though I still worked alongside my Endgame companions when time and chance allowed, I integrated more fully into Hana’s team and spent the majority of the war under Hana’s leadership. Looking back on it, it just seemed right for me to join with them. Each of us working as a functioning unit, the camaraderie that grew from it, bridged my way into the organization now known as Wolfhound.
I feel like I should mention one other event that’s kind of remarkable. In New York City, I had been interning for Brad Russo, host of The Advocate turned rebel as 2011 came to an end. In January, when our forces were preparing to take Raven Rock, I had the privilege of working with him once again. I won’t go into too much detail, because he doesn’t like when I bring it up, but during one particularly intense battle I saved his life. So of course I mention it every chance I get.
Over my nearly two years of battles, I made it home when I could. I wish I could say it was often, but more often than not it would be weeks if not months between visits. I wrote more frequently and usually managed to get bundles of letters carried by someone headed in the direction of Minnesota to be left for Jaiden in town. I’d thought, after the war, I would go back to Minnesota, return home. I didn’t. I stayed with Wolfhound, keeping close to the action and potential hot spots. Even with the war being over, I knew, somehow, that I was still needed for things.
All our efforts came to a head in 2015-16 and we finally got to see the figurehead conspirators put on trial for their crimes. I participated in the initial trials as much as I was able. I testified and offered evidence. More often I was party to tracking down war criminals so they could stand trial, or I sat in attendance and solidarity for those who’d been persecuted. I knew the horrors ran far deeper than I had experienced, even before the war began. But to hear it, to see the evidence, there aren’t words to express my conviction that I’d throw myself against any forces that tried to bring us back to a life of being hunted.
The tracking and hunting never ends. It’s 2018, and still the cancer of the anti-evo movement is so far spread I don’t think I ever have to want for work. I haven’t sat in a trial in months, really not since the first trials began in Albany. Even now, every once in a while I’m party to bringing in someone to experience justice.
Often aloof upon first meeting people, but friendly once he's gotten to know someone. Tends toward optimism, but pretty grounded in reality.
Telekinesis is a catch-all term that encompasses an ability to remotely move objects with the power of one's mind. Sometimes the line between telekinesis and gravitokinesis (the manipulation of gravity) can cause these two distinct categorizations of Evolved power to blur, such is the case of the ability of one Devon Clendaniel.
In 2011, Devon came into possession of the ability to synchronize his mind with a singular object of solid matter and control it; regardless of mass or weight, the limit is about 10 cubic feet in size per side. Since then, he’s been able to synchronize and control objects up to 25 cubic feet. Devon must make physical contact with the object and can only control the object while it is within his line of sight. Small intermediaries such as clothing originally provided marginal impediment during the learning phase of his ability, however today they are no obstacle.
Synchronization
When he first manifested his ability, Devon needed to make physical contact with an object for 30 seconds to "synch" with it. Time and practice has cut this time by nearly half. Once synchronized, he may move it in any direction, regardless of its weight or mass as if it were weightless, as long as the object remains in an unobstructed line of sight. If Devon loses sight of the synched object, he immediately loses control of it and gravity/momentum will take their normal course. He will need to re-establish physical contact with the object to synchronize again.
Devon may only control one object in this manner at a time. If the object in question fractures while synchronized, such as a chunk of concrete breaking in half, Devon may choose which portion will remain under his control. Most of the time this is a reflexive and subconscious decision; if he uproots a 10-foot section of sidewalk, pieces of debris will rain down while the central mass remained elevated. This ability can be used on people and animals as well, but Devon cannot use the power on himself. The movement of the manipulated object itself is slow and bobbing, like a balloon drifting weightlessly through the air. The maximum speed that Devon can achieve for a moving object is 4 miles per hour, roughly the speed of a man of average height walking.
Moving an object for Devon requires focus and concentration. The object must stay in his immediate field of vision rather than in his periphery. If he looks away from the object, it is the same as having lost direct line of sight.
Devon cannot exert additional force on the object allowing it to lift other things barring some exceptions (noted below under "extreme force"). At the start, Devon's ability exerted five pounds of force on the object, allowing an object to carry roughly five pounds of weight before being "weighed down" and unable to move. If someone or something is able to exert more than five pounds upon the object, it will be pushed back down to the ground. As with weight training, Devon has been able to increase this threshold to 15 pounds.
An example would be Devon lifting up a car into the air to block gunfire. The kinetic force of the bullet's impact would cause the car to go hurtling away in the direction of the gunfire. To this same end, Devon can physically push and manipulate objects that normally would weigh too much to move in the same fashion, though while synchronized they have little apparent mass and weight, causing a propelled object to be less harmful than physics would normally allow. However, when Devon willingly severs his ability's synchronization on an object, gravity and momentum take effect, which could cause a particularly heavy object to free-fall dangerously.
Extreme Force
Devon is able to utilize brief moments of extreme force that allows additional utility for his power. He can abruptly terminate periods of synchronization with a "push" of extreme force.
With a sudden burst of kinetic energy, Devon can force the synched object to veer off at 20 to 30 miles per hour until gravity causes it to crash back down to earth. Using an ability in this manner, Devon could fling a ground-borne person (for example) he has synchronized with about 10 to 15 feet up in the air before gravity caused them to come tumbling back down. Or he could hurl them a little over 25 feet horizontally with an arc. Weight and mass is likewise not an issue, a car flies as far as a person does.
In spite of time and practice, using this extra force is more taxing. Devon will tire, finding it more difficult to concentrate when using his power with each successive use, and risking power burnout if he uses it more than four times in a 12-hour period.
Sustained Extreme Force
In times of dire circumstances, there is an extension of Devon’s extreme force aspect of his ability. This extension allows him to force his kinetic energy outward in every direction from his body. This energy isn’t a blast or a push but a sustained outward pressure that can withstand extreme weight and size; a building could fall down around Devon and, if activated, this sustained force would keep him from being crushed.
As stated before, and in line with the more basic limits of his ability, weight and size are no restriction for this sustained force. However, the range of this ability is narrow, no more than two or three inches away from his body, literally just space enough to keep from being crushed.
There is no synchronization needed to use this extension of his ability, as it is a forced expulsion of energy that’s already contained within him. Devon can only maintain the force for 60 seconds before losing consciousness. Not only will Devon lose consciousness if he uses this aspect, he will remain so for several days. He will also be unable to use his ability again for several months.