Ollie was the last of six boys born to Palmer and Solveig Anderson. Like with all of his other siblings, his mother gave birth at home in the presence of a midwife, who incidentally is the same woman that oversaw any complications when their cows were in labor. Their homestead was too far from any town with a hospital, in a remote area of the Kootenay/Cabinet region of Montana. Travel to town was a once a month experience, all of the children were schooled at home, and visitors (aside from the midwife and other relatives) were few and far between. The Andersons were proud and the history of their land far outweighed the luxuries of city life, so they stayed. You see, the land had been passed down from generation to generation since it had been settled by Ollie’s great great grandfather during the rush west in the 1860’s.
His life was simple and uncomplicated. When he came of age, Ollie stayed with the farm, helping his aging father and eldest brother with the crops and animals rather than seeking a place of his own in a more populated area. He was always quiet, with five older brothers it’s hard to get a word in edgewise, and the chaos of city living never suited him. The rest of them, they left as soon as they turned 18. Ollie was 26 when catastrophe hit Manhattan and the entire world changed. Within months meetings were being held all over rural Montana and an overwhelming majority of the population agreed; the people who tested positive for the SLC-E gene were dangerous. Small groups started forming in pockets around the state, hunting through their own populations for these perceived threats. As the years went on, suspicion and fear spread through Ollie’s immediate area to the point where natural occurrences were being blamed on the ‘evolved’.
By the time war erupted, the pockets of Humanis First sympathizers all over the region had become militarized. President Petrelli was dead and President Mitchell’s sympathizers in the region promised to bring the country back to its roots. Lines to receive the tests and volunteer for service within these militias were long, all those who had agreed about the threat in the beginning were anxious to get back to a semblance of a normal life. Ollie’s father, his older brother, and himself were all in that line and as accurate as those tests can be, sometimes well meaning folks fall through the cracks. Ollie tested negative.
As civil war raged through the United States, Humanis First groups loyal to President Mitchell roamed the area looking for citizens hiding from the army. When it came to hiking through the Rocky Mountains, Ollie was among the enlistees. He knew the hills like the back of his hand and that was a skill the militia desperately needed. For months, he led the men up and down the range looking for evolved running from the government. Being such a secluded area, attempts to cross the border into Canada were frequent. A man like Ollie was in high demand. If it came down to brass tacks, Ollie would say that he never felt one way or the other about the evolved. They, like the animals on the family farm, were just a way to get by. Food and supplies were getting harder and harder to come by, even for those who had in the past been able to provide for themselves. The countryside was war torn and there just wasn’t enough time in the day to get a good crop in the field while fighting was going on. So Ollie did the best he could for himself and his family. It was on one such patrol that his entire world came crashing down.
The patrol was leading two teenagers back from the Canadian border when they were ambushed by a small group of evolved. In the panic to survive, Ollie got into a fistfight with one of their ambushers. More than one person was witness to the claws that grew from his fingertips and saw the other man’s skin stripped from his face. Ollie was just as surprised as his companions and even more surprised when their guns turned on him. Gut shot, he was left for dead. Over the next few months, he drifted in and out of consciousness. There was pain, thirst, hunger, someone else there tending to his needs but it was all a blur. When he finally woke up for good, the war was over. His repayment to his host for the kindness and life saving was disappearing in the night without a thank you or goodbye. To this day, he doesn’t know their name and couldn’t describe a face, even if he wanted to. If pressed he would say the reasons for his actions were danger of discovery. In truth, he didn’t want to know if his angel of mercy was evolved or not. Despite the discovery of his ability, he still harbored some distrust of the evolved.
He couldn’t go back home, that way was blocked by numerous militia and prejudice from his family. He went forward, east, sometimes walking sometimes hopping railway cars until he found a small community called Providence. It took a long time and a lot of hard labor, but eventually, he became a member of the community. Moreover, he was content.
